Margaret White interview recording, 1993 July 21

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Chris Stewart	—and ask you, ma'am, if you could just tell me your name, so that I can get a voice level here on the—	0:03
Margaret Bishop White	My name is Margaret Bishop White.	0:09
Chris Stewart	Bishop White. I see. When we were talking before, ma'am, you said that—Were you born here in Wilmington?	0:13
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, I was born here.	0:21
Chris Stewart	You were. What part of Wilmington were you born in?	0:22
Margaret Bishop White	I was born—My mother and them traveled a lot. I finished race team Wilmington, but I—Virginia, but I say Wilmington.	0:36
Chris Stewart	Do you remember the house that you grew up in?	0:43
Margaret Bishop White	No. No.	0:45
Chris Stewart	You don't remember the house you grew up in at all?	0:47
Margaret Bishop White	No. No.	0:48
Chris Stewart	How long did you live in Wilmington before you moved to Chicago?	0:52
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, I stayed there over 35 years.	0:56
Chris Stewart	Oh, you did? You were here—You stayed Chicago over-	1:04
Margaret Bishop White	Yes.	1:06
Chris Stewart	—35 years?	1:06
Margaret Bishop White	Yes.	1:08
Chris Stewart	Were you a teenager when you left to go to—	1:08
Margaret Bishop White	When I got out of school and stayed around here in Wilmington with my mother while I left.	1:12
Chris Stewart	Then you left.	1:17
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	1:18
Chris Stewart	You mentioned that your grandmother used to—She would tell you things about your life.	1:19
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yes.	1:24
Chris Stewart	Do you remember any of the things that she used to tell you?	1:28
Margaret Bishop White	Well, in slavery time, how they would do people and all like that. How they—Womens had to cook and do different things and when they get back at them, they want to whip them and all like that. I was told that. Then she was telling me when they do wrong and they punish them, they put them across the bow and whip them and all like that.	1:30
Chris Stewart	Were her parents slaves here in North Carolina or where were they?	2:11
Margaret Bishop White	Virginia.	2:21
Chris Stewart	In Virginia. In Virginia? When did her people come down then?	2:22
Margaret Bishop White	Well, my great-grandfather and mother died when I was small and I don't remember them too good.	2:27
Chris Stewart	But your grandmother was living—	2:38
Margaret Bishop White	My grandmother was staying around with us.	2:40
Chris Stewart	Oh, she did?	2:44
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	2:44
Chris Stewart	She did? Wow. What kind of woman was she? Do you remember? What kinds of things do you remember about her?	2:48
Margaret Bishop White	Well, she was an Indian and she was very nice, sweet person and all like that. She would—My mother and her had ways just alike. When she'd speak to you, she mean for you to move. They don't play with you. Then I remember they used to carry the little children in the apron. They had a long white apron on, carried their children in their apron. That's the way they'd carry them. Way sometime now they'll carry them on the back.	2:52
Chris Stewart	Both your grandmother and your mother would carry children?	3:36
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	3:39
Chris Stewart	Wow. Did your grandmother live with you when you were growing up?	3:39
Margaret Bishop White	Some. She stayed with different ones of her daughters.	3:45
Chris Stewart	What kind of work did your mother and father do?	3:50
Margaret Bishop White	Well, my father was a railroad man.	3:54
Chris Stewart	Did he work with the Atlantic Coast Railroad?	3:56
Margaret Bishop White	Yes. My mother, she mostly stays home and not that they had a dairy a long time ago.	4:00
Chris Stewart	A dairy?	4:09
Margaret Bishop White	Dairy, milk dairy. She milked cows and carried the milk, scribbled the milk around at that time when they was doing that.	4:09
Chris Stewart	Really?	4:19
Margaret Bishop White	She used to drive.	4:21
Chris Stewart	Wow. Now, did she work for a milk dairy or—	4:26
Margaret Bishop White	No. No.	4:26
Chris Stewart	—did your family have the milk dairy?	4:26
Margaret Bishop White	Her father was the cause of the milk dairy. His name is Abram Bishop.	4:26
Chris Stewart	Abraham?	4:31
Margaret Bishop White	Abram Bishop.	4:31
Chris Stewart	Abram Bishop. Wow. Do you remember your grandfather?	4:34
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, I do.	4:38
Chris Stewart	What kind of man was he?	4:39
Margaret Bishop White	He was very nice.	4:41
Chris Stewart	He was?	4:41
Margaret Bishop White	He moved around fast and all like that. He was very active and all. My grandmother was too.	4:44
Chris Stewart	Did your grandmother and grandfather live close to you?	4:56
Margaret Bishop White	But yeah, they stayed—We all was staying over there before we sold that over there.	4:59
Chris Stewart	Do you remember any of your neighbors from over there?	5:08
Margaret Bishop White	Well, the most of it was family over there.	5:16
Chris Stewart	They were?	5:19
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, over there where the college at. All of my aunts now have passed. There's none living.	5:19
Chris Stewart	Now, are you talking about where the college is now?	5:27
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. Yeah.	5:29
Chris Stewart	Your house used to be where the college is built.	5:31
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, that's right.	5:33
Chris Stewart	Wow. Wow. Was that actually part of the city when you were growing up—	5:34
Margaret Bishop White	No.	5:39
Chris Stewart	—or was that considered—	5:39
Margaret Bishop White	No, that wasn't the city. That's what you call the outskirts of town. Now it's the city.	5:40
Chris Stewart	Now it is. Now it's the college.	5:48
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yes. I looks at that a lot now.	5:51
Chris Stewart	You do?	5:56
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah. When I was coming up, we had to walk to school. I went to Williston and when I was going to school, we didn't go any far into 11th grade.	5:56
Chris Stewart	Right. Right. Did you go to Williston Primary as well as Williston Senior High?	6:11
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. You went on up in the grades. That's right.	6:19
Chris Stewart	Right.	6:22
Margaret Bishop White	You know it burned too.	6:23
Chris Stewart	Were you at Williston Senior High when it burned?	6:27
Margaret Bishop White	I was out.	6:30
Chris Stewart	You were already out.	6:30
Margaret Bishop White	Or right after that. That's when they put the twelfth grade on.	6:35
Chris Stewart	When did you graduate from high school?	6:40
Margaret Bishop White	I think it was '39.	6:44
Chris Stewart	What kind of work did your father do with the railroad? Do you know?	6:52
Margaret Bishop White	Porter.	6:55
Chris Stewart	He was a Porter.	6:56
Margaret Bishop White	Right.	6:58
Chris Stewart	He was. Is that a good job for—	6:58
Margaret Bishop White	For them then. Oh, yes.	7:02
Chris Stewart	How many kids were there in your family? Just yourself.	7:05
Margaret Bishop White	I'm the only one.	7:10
Chris Stewart	Wow. How was it growing up as an only child?	7:11
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I was spoiled. I just to come on up and tell you, I'm spoiled, but I learned better. No mother, no father now, and you got to be on your own. You know what it's all about.	7:17
Chris Stewart	Right, right, right. Did you ever go with your mother when she would deliver milk?	7:34
Margaret Bishop White	I reckon I would be there and sometime when she had the buggy and the car, I'd be right with her when I wasn't in school. But we had a chores to do when we come in from school. All of us. That me and the grand. Oh, this girl here, she and I, we was raised up together and school. We went to school together and her brother and all of them passed.	7:43
Chris Stewart	You said you had a choice?	8:17
Margaret Bishop White	Choice is the work when you come in from school, take those school clothes off and go to work.	8:20
Chris Stewart	You had a choice as to which work, what work you'd be doing?	8:29
Margaret Bishop White	That's right. You had your choice every day.	8:30
Chris Stewart	What—	8:32
Margaret Bishop White	Then when it changed, you get in the—I washed the dishes for two weeks, someone else was—Right.	8:33
Chris Stewart	I see. You rotated.	8:42
Margaret Bishop White	That's right. Scrub and clean.	8:44
Chris Stewart	You had cousins that lived all around you.	8:47
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yes. That's right.	8:49
Chris Stewart	It was probably—There were children around you—	8:51
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah.	8:54
Chris Stewart	—it wasn't like you were all by yourself?	8:56
Margaret Bishop White	No, no.	8:56
Chris Stewart	Okay.	8:57
Margaret Bishop White	We called her sister.	8:58
Chris Stewart	You did?	9:00
Margaret Bishop White	She was in and out and that was my mother's heart string.	9:01
Chris Stewart	Would there be family gatherings? What would those be like when you had family holidays or birthdays?	9:08
Margaret Bishop White	Looked like a school let out.	9:15
Chris Stewart	What do you mean by that?	9:19
Margaret Bishop White	It'd be a lot of others. Now to a funeral, anything, the whole side of the church is nothing but family.	9:21
Chris Stewart	Really.	9:30
Margaret Bishop White	That's right. Grands and great-grands and great-great-grands.	9:31
Chris Stewart	What kinds of things would you do when you would get together for those family gatherings?	9:40
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, we would play games, horse shoe, the huly-huly round, all kinds of different games we would play. Some be playing checkers, different things. Hopscotch if you want to play.	9:43
Chris Stewart	Right.	10:02
Margaret Bishop White	All kind of different.	10:05
Chris Stewart	Did anybody in your family farm in that area?	10:07
Margaret Bishop White	My grandfather did.	10:10
Chris Stewart	He did?	10:11
Margaret Bishop White	Yes.	10:12
Chris Stewart	Did he own his land?	10:13
Margaret Bishop White	Yes. All that over there the college was our land.	10:13
Chris Stewart	What did he farm?	10:18
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, he had cotton and potatoes. He had corn, butter beans, field peas, all kind of vegetables. One time we had rice, I remember that. You had to beat it.	10:20
Chris Stewart	Did you work out in the fields?	10:41
Margaret Bishop White	Not much.	10:44
Chris Stewart	That what—You didn't choose to work out in the field.	10:46
Margaret Bishop White	No, no.	10:47
Chris Stewart	That's something you didn't want.	10:47
Margaret Bishop White	No, something I didn't like.	10:51
Chris Stewart	Rather go help deliver milk or do the dishes.	10:53
Margaret Bishop White	Dishes, clean or do something.	10:56
Chris Stewart	Did your grandfather have any livestock? Did he have any hogs or chickens?	11:01
Margaret Bishop White	Hogs and things like that. Chickens. I have some out there now.	11:07
Chris Stewart	You have chickens out there?	11:09
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	11:10
Chris Stewart	Do you?	11:10
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	11:10
Chris Stewart	What—Do you remember hog killing time?	11:12
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure.	11:14
Chris Stewart	What was that like?	11:15
Margaret Bishop White	Well, we didn't have anything to do with that.	11:17
Chris Stewart	Children didn't.	11:20
Margaret Bishop White	No, we didn't have anything to do with that. But my mother and all of them, like the chitlins and things like that. They worked on them and bring them in the house and all like that. They'd show us what to do with them and pull some of the fat off of them, one thing to the other. Then they would cut the hog up, all like that. But what parts of a hog? I do not know anything about. I know about the chitlins and things like that.	11:21
Chris Stewart	Is that the kind of—Would the children help the mothers with the chitlins and the cracklin?	11:52
Margaret Bishop White	Sometimes we would. They'd show us what to do, we'd do it. Then they'll take the meat sometime and grind it up for sausage and something. We'll grind. Take the grind and grind. That's all. Stick the meat in there and let it grind. One be grinding, the other be put the meat in, something like that.	11:58
Chris Stewart	Would you try to get out of the way when it was hog killing time?	12:17
Margaret Bishop White	Why certainly. I didn't want no parts of that.	12:17
Chris Stewart	It doesn't sound like you were too thrilled—	12:18
Margaret Bishop White	No, I didn't care anything about that.	12:18
Chris Stewart	Oh, what would you do to try and get away?	12:35
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, I'd do anything than do that. I'd rather go and cook, do something. I wasn't out there where they were. Anyway, the children wouldn't be out there.	12:36
Chris Stewart	Right.	12:49
Margaret Bishop White	The grown folks would be out.	12:50
Chris Stewart	Right. What time of year?	12:51
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, they mostly killed hogs in the winter time, near Christmastime.	12:54
Chris Stewart	Were there—Would—Well, you said that all your relatives really lived around you.	13:02
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure.	13:06
Chris Stewart	Would your relatives all come-	13:07
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure.	13:08
Chris Stewart	—and help out?	13:08
Margaret Bishop White	Were there any other times when relatives would come and help out with stuff or when you would go help them?	13:10
Margaret Bishop White	Well, most of us, we would always help each other. Just like if you go in pick beans or something like that. Garden peas or something, we'd shell them. Downtown there, it was a market. We would carry the butter beans and things like that down to the market to sell.	13:17
Chris Stewart	Like what we would call a farmer's market now?	13:47
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	13:49
Chris Stewart	Like an open air market?	13:49
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	13:50
Chris Stewart	I see. Do you remember what kind of prices you would get for—	13:57
Margaret Bishop White	No, I don't remember that now, but I know I used to help sell some of them down there.	14:02
Chris Stewart	Would people bargain for prices?	14:06
Margaret Bishop White	Sometimes, they would put an order in for a bushel of field peas, bushel of butter beans and bushel of garden peas, snap beans and things like that. Salad.	14:09
Chris Stewart	Who would buy? Where would people come to buy?	14:22
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, different ones come from different parts of Wilmington and other parts.	14:25
Chris Stewart	Throughout the county, maybe?	14:31
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	14:32
Chris Stewart	You would do this during the summertime in the early fall?	14:34
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. Now peanuts—My grandfather used to have a lot of peanuts. It have a picker to go and pull them up and put in there. What we had to do to have the picker to pick them off the bushes. Then the only thing you had to do is see if they're solid. You couldn't sell them if they pops but they wouldn't have anything in. Some of them would be that way. Those kinds, you move them.	14:36
Chris Stewart	Your grandfather was growing cotton and peanuts as well as all kinds of vegetable.	15:12
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	15:18
Chris Stewart	I see. Did your grandmother or your mother can any of the vegetables?	15:20
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, they did. Peaches, plums.	15:23
Chris Stewart	Did they have trees?	15:30
Margaret Bishop White	Pears. Pears all over there.	15:32
Chris Stewart	Oh, they did. They had trees.	15:33
Margaret Bishop White	I guess now they're going down, but we had plums and peaches and the big large peaches. See, he used to sell [indistinct 00:15:48] things so he could make fruit like that.	15:35
Chris Stewart	Right.	15:50
Margaret Bishop White	And grapes, we used to pick grapes.	15:51
Chris Stewart	Wow. How many acres of land did your grandfather have?	15:56
Margaret Bishop White	I think it was around about over 60 acres over there.	15:59
Chris Stewart	Because he had a lot of different things going on.	16:03
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	16:07
Chris Stewart	You mentioned that you had relatives that lived all around you. Did they also help with the land or were they working like your father was working on the railroad?	16:12
Margaret Bishop White	Well, we all get us a job to work in. Because sometime farms—You can have farms just like you—Lettuce and things like that you cut in the afternoon, we'd go along in the afternoon when we work, get off in the afternoon and go cut the lettuce, cabbage and things like that. They put them in the crates to carry to sell.	16:22
Chris Stewart	Did you sell most of the vegetables that you—	16:54
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I wouldn't say I sell them most of them, but I had help because it was about others.	16:54
Chris Stewart	Did your family—Did your grandfather though sell most of his vegetables?	17:05
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. He goes early in the morning and carry them to market. That's what they call it, market.	17:08
Chris Stewart	There'd be market every morning.	17:16
Margaret Bishop White	The market down there.	17:19
Chris Stewart	Where was it again?	17:22
Margaret Bishop White	On Front Street between—What's that there? It used to be a fish market down there. Right beside the fish market. I can't think of it now. But everything now going down downtown. It has. It's going down. You have to look good to see where you used to go.	17:24
Chris Stewart	I've noticed that.	17:49
Margaret Bishop White	When I came back home, I looked around Wilmington. There was so many—[indistinct 00:18:01] and Penney's and Sears and all of them out there, they used to be right down on Front Street.	17:52
Chris Stewart	Oh, they did.	18:14
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	18:14
Chris Stewart	Now they're all on these strip malls. All on—	18:17
Margaret Bishop White	What you call it?	18:19
Speaker 1	Independence Mall.	18:23
Margaret Bishop White	Independence Mall. I'll tell you, it's something. Everything now, it's not the same, much different.	18:23
Chris Stewart	How is it different?	18:33
Margaret Bishop White	It's not building—It is the places that downtown, they don't have anyone in them.	18:38
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	18:45
Margaret Bishop White	It just looks like a ghost town. Now, the Social Services was there on 16th Street, then they moved out here on Market Street, then they went right back downtown.	18:49
Chris Stewart	Right.	19:04
Margaret Bishop White	It's just one of those things, if you come home, it looks like a different place altogether because you don't know the same place that you was first come in. You just don't know how to take it, you look all around, say, "Which way must I go?"	19:04
Chris Stewart	When did you come back, ma'am? How long you been back?	19:28
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, I've been back quite a while because my mother's—mm-hmm—my mother's sick and kept up coming in planes and the Coastline didn't have—The Coastline moved from here and you had to go to Fayetteville. Then I had to catch a bus from Fayetteville to come into Wilmington. There's no more Coastline here in North Carolina.	19:28
Chris Stewart	How did you travel around? It sounds like you were on the outskirts of town when you were living over by where the college was, back when you were growing up. How did you travel downtown? How did you get to the market or how did you—	20:00
Margaret Bishop White	We had to catch the bus. Some of us would carry each other.	20:11
Chris Stewart	Did your parents have—Or your grandparents have a car or a truck—	20:17
Margaret Bishop White	Sure.	20:21
Chris Stewart	—to take things? Do you remember them?	20:29
Margaret Bishop White	OT Model, Ford, don't even remember, them old-timey cars. Yes, indeed.	20:29
Chris Stewart	It was what kind? Was it a Model T?	20:35
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, that's right.	20:36
Chris Stewart	Wow.	20:38
Margaret Bishop White	You remember that?	20:38
Chris Stewart	Well, I'm not old enough to remember it, but I know what it looks like.	20:40
Margaret Bishop White	Like that.	20:44
Chris Stewart	That's how you used to get-	20:45
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	20:46
Chris Stewart	You'd get carried around in that.	20:47
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	20:48
Chris Stewart	Wow. Is that how your grandfather would also get the vegetables to the market?	20:49
Margaret Bishop White	He had a car big enough to carry it and not that, he'd go in horse and buggy.	21:00
Chris Stewart	You mentioned that your mother delivered when she was driving.	21:09
Margaret Bishop White	She had a pony.	21:11
Chris Stewart	She had a pony?	21:12
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, Dewdrop, I'll never forget her.	21:13
Chris Stewart	Why?	21:16
Margaret Bishop White	Because I used to get her on her and ride her back.	21:17
Chris Stewart	Yeah?	21:20
Margaret Bishop White	She throwed me one once or twice.	21:22
Chris Stewart	What was her name?	21:25
Margaret Bishop White	Dewdrop.	21:26
Chris Stewart	Dewdrop. She threw you once or twice?	21:28
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	21:30
Chris Stewart	Sounds like a feisty little pony.	21:32
Margaret Bishop White	She were.	21:33
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	21:35
Margaret Bishop White	But whenever they have parades or anything and music, she'd bucks around.	21:35
Chris Stewart	She was a dancing—	21:46
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah. Sometimes when you'd be riding her and somebody come by with a car and they would like to pick at the horses and things. They'd get there and when they get right there, they'd—Sound like a gun, bow, bow. She'd go up like that.	21:47
Chris Stewart	Oh.	22:06
Margaret Bishop White	Down, up like that. That's what we used to go through. We'd get on that horseback and go and we and honey, we used to enjoy that.	22:07
Chris Stewart	Sounds like it.	22:17
Margaret Bishop White	All down there to Seagate, be together.	22:19
Chris Stewart	Where?	22:22
Margaret Bishop White	Seagate.	22:23
Chris Stewart	Seagate?	22:24
Margaret Bishop White	Uh-huh.	22:24
Chris Stewart	Where is that? Now I've heard of Seabreeze, I haven't heard of Seagate.	22:26
Margaret Bishop White	That's going down to Wrightsville.	22:28
Chris Stewart	Okay. Was this a beach area or was it a park?	22:35
Margaret Bishop White	Seagate was a little development just like this is.	22:37
Chris Stewart	A little development.	22:43
Margaret Bishop White	Yes.	22:46
Chris Stewart	You'd ride?	22:46
Margaret Bishop White	We'd ride. Ride the horseback.	22:46
Chris Stewart	All the way to Seagate?	22:50
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	22:51
Chris Stewart	That's quite a ways away, isn't it?	22:52
Margaret Bishop White	Not from where I used to stay over there.	22:54
Chris Stewart	Oh, it's—See, I only know things by the map and it looks like it's quite a ways away. Did you have more than one horse then?	22:56
Margaret Bishop White	My grandfather had more than one.	23:05
Chris Stewart	Oh, he did?	23:08
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	23:08
Chris Stewart	You and your cousins would go ride horses?	23:10
Margaret Bishop White	Ride. We love it. Call us tomboy.	23:11
Chris Stewart	I bet.	23:22
Margaret Bishop White	We really loved to ride now. We'd get on the horse's back, hitch the horse up and buggy, go into [indistinct 00:23:32].	23:22
Chris Stewart	Off you'd go. Did you take care of any of the horses?	23:33
Margaret Bishop White	Who? No, ma'am. No, ma'am.	23:37
Chris Stewart	How come?	23:39
Margaret Bishop White	The men folks would do that.	23:43
Chris Stewart	Were there specific jobs that men did and that women did?	23:44
Margaret Bishop White	Yes.	23:48
Chris Stewart	What—Can you talk a little bit about who did what?	23:49
Margaret Bishop White	Well, just like on the farm, women didn't have anything to do with that. Because they had tractors. Then you used the horse to plow or something like that. We didn't have anything to do with that.	23:55
Chris Stewart	Did women pretty much rule the house then?	24:13
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, we mostly—The housework and getting things straight like that.	24:17
Chris Stewart	What about chickens?	24:22
Margaret Bishop White	Chickens that—We tend to the chickens, feed them. We had little calves. We had billy goats. They'd chew all your clothes up.	24:24
Chris Stewart	But women would tend to the billy goats and the chickens, and the calves?	24:34
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	24:41
Chris Stewart	But when the animals got bigger then—	24:41
Margaret Bishop White	But see, we had Billy goats. You couldn't milk them.	24:43
Chris Stewart	Right. How big was your grandfather's dairy farm? How many cows did he have?	24:48
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, I'll tell you, Pop had around—I'll say around about a hundred and something.	24:57
Chris Stewart	Wow. He had a really big dairy-	25:09
Margaret Bishop White	You see they had to carry them and dip them.	25:12
Chris Stewart	Carry—They had to what?	25:14
Margaret Bishop White	Carry them and dip them.	25:16
Chris Stewart	What's dipping?	25:16
Margaret Bishop White	Carry them to the water.	25:19
Chris Stewart	Cool them down.	25:21
Margaret Bishop White	Uh-huh.	25:22
Chris Stewart	Where would you carry them to? Where was the—	25:23
Margaret Bishop White	It's somewhere they used to carry them, but now that's not there now. But they had to do that because just like these here ticks and fleas and things would get on them. They had to do that.	25:26
Chris Stewart	They were dipping the cows.	25:43
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	25:44
Chris Stewart	What? Would they just lead them into the waters or what?	25:48
Margaret Bishop White	Right. Get on the horseback and carry them on.	25:50
Chris Stewart	Wow.	25:56
Margaret Bishop White	I remember all of that.	25:57
Chris Stewart	What—How many people did your mother deliver milk to?	25:58
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I couldn't tell you that. I know it was over 200.	26:04
Chris Stewart	Just like—	26:10
Margaret Bishop White	Just like the milk man, go by in the morning.	26:11
Chris Stewart	Right.	26:13
Margaret Bishop White	See, she used to go early in the morning, the milk route.	26:13
Chris Stewart	Right. She would be gone pretty much all day?	26:18
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. See, she had ice.	26:20
Chris Stewart	She had ice.	26:24
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	26:26
Chris Stewart	Where would they get ice?	26:28
Margaret Bishop White	The ice house.	26:30
Chris Stewart	Where was it?	26:31
Margaret Bishop White	On Market Street.	26:32
Chris Stewart	You'd have to pay for ice?	26:34
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. They come every day and bring ice. They'd have it in cubes, longer than this right here. That table there.	26:35
Chris Stewart	Wow.	26:45
Margaret Bishop White	Then they run it through that thing and chop it up. Not that—We'd get two or three of those long ones like that and whenever we want it, we'll take the ice pick and pick it up.	26:45
Chris Stewart	How—Would one block of ice—I mean, did she use one whole block of ice each day that she did her route?	27:04
Margaret Bishop White	More than one.	27:14
Chris Stewart	She used more than one.	27:15
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	27:16
Chris Stewart	Wow. Especially on hot days like this.	27:18
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure. Because the milk will go bad, get sour.	27:21
Chris Stewart	Right. Did she deliver to White families as well as Black families?	27:25
Margaret Bishop White	That's right. All in [indistinct 00:27:31], all down to Wrightsville Beach.	27:27
Chris Stewart	Were there any other milk, dairy businesses as well that they were—Your family was competing with?	27:32
Margaret Bishop White	Well, his was some, but so far, we had pretty good business.	27:40
Chris Stewart	Sounds like it.	27:50
Margaret Bishop White	Butter and stuff like that.	27:52
Chris Stewart	You sold butter, too?	27:55
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	27:56
Chris Stewart	Did you have—	27:57
Margaret Bishop White	Buttermilk.	27:57
Chris Stewart	Who would—Did you have machines to make butter and—	27:59
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure.	28:01
Chris Stewart	—all stuff?	28:01
Margaret Bishop White	Sure.	28:01
Chris Stewart	That was all stuff that your grandfather was running. Did he hire people to work for him or was it just family?	28:03
Margaret Bishop White	The family. Family.	28:08
Chris Stewart	Wow. You-	28:11
Margaret Bishop White	I come out a large family.	28:14
Chris Stewart	Okay. Let's figure this out here. How many aunts and uncles did you have living around you?	28:17
Margaret Bishop White	It was 14. I have two uncles and all of them passed.	28:28
Chris Stewart	Fourteen—	28:32
Margaret Bishop White	My mother made 14-	28:38
Chris Stewart	Children.	28:39
Margaret Bishop White	—children, girls.	28:40
Chris Stewart	Then two-	28:47
Margaret Bishop White	Two boys.	28:47
Chris Stewart	—boys.	28:47
Margaret Bishop White	There was two uncles.	28:47
Chris Stewart	They were all living around you?	28:47
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. The ones that wanted to live with you so long, they'd get out and go.	28:49
Chris Stewart	Right.	28:55
Margaret Bishop White	Just like—	28:55
Chris Stewart	How many did you figure were living around you?	28:55
Margaret Bishop White	Sometime it'd be—In aunts, it'd be four, something like that.	28:58
Chris Stewart	Then they would have kids and—	29:04
Margaret Bishop White	That's right. We'd get going.	29:05
Chris Stewart	I bet. I bet. Who made decisions in your house, say decisions about disciplining kids or decisions about disciplining you or money decisions, financial decisions?	29:08
Margaret Bishop White	When my father was living, he did it. My mother.	29:25
Chris Stewart	How old were you when your father died?	29:30
Margaret Bishop White	I was around about 14.	29:34
Chris Stewart	How did he die?	29:37
Margaret Bishop White	Know. All I know he was sick and he passed.	29:42
Chris Stewart	He was pretty young.	29:48
Margaret Bishop White	My father?	29:49
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	29:50
Margaret Bishop White	Well, yes. He was pretty good and young. Because I was still going to school when my father died.	29:52
Chris Stewart	Do you remember him when he was sick?	30:03
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. I remember my father.	30:05
Chris Stewart	Was he at home in bed?	30:06
Margaret Bishop White	Well, he worked a while, but he come in and after he came in and he came in for a while and wasn't long before he passed.	30:09
Chris Stewart	Were there any doctors around him that could tend to him?	30:22
Margaret Bishop White	Yes. A lot of doctors attend to him because some of the doctors that stayed in there.	30:28
Chris Stewart	But there were doctors who came out—	30:35
Margaret Bishop White	Sure.	30:35
Chris Stewart	—and talked. We actually talked to—I don't know if he was around here, but we talked to a Dr. Upperman? He was a doctor, I think around the '40s, somewhere.	30:40
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	30:46
Chris Stewart	He worked at Community Hospital for a while. We also heard about a Dr. Eaton.	30:46
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	30:53
Chris Stewart	And Rone.	30:57
Margaret Bishop White	Rone.	30:57
Chris Stewart	Dr. Rone. Dr. Eaton just passed recently.	31:01
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, he did.	31:03
Chris Stewart	Well, we did get to talk to Dr. Upperman.	31:05
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, you did?	31:05
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	31:05
Margaret Bishop White	He retired now.	31:08
Chris Stewart	Yeah. What kinds of things did you do for fun as a young person?	31:09
Margaret Bishop White	I loved to dance and I loved to sing.	31:19
Chris Stewart	Well, where would you get to dance and sing?	31:23
Margaret Bishop White	Well, we'd get out and go and had a place that we'd go to dance there in Wilmington.	31:26
Chris Stewart	What was that place?	31:36
Margaret Bishop White	The Ruth Hall.	31:38
Chris Stewart	The—	31:39
Margaret Bishop White	Ruth Hall.	31:40
Chris Stewart	Ruth Hall?	31:41
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	31:42
Chris Stewart	Who—What kind of music would they play?	31:44
Margaret Bishop White	Band.	31:48
Chris Stewart	Big band music?	31:51
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	31:52
Chris Stewart	What dances would you do?	31:53
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, we loved the Jitterbug. I love the dance now.	32:01
Chris Stewart	You do?	32:02
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure.	32:03
Chris Stewart	Can you still Jitterbug?	32:05
Margaret Bishop White	I can't hold up at it, but I'll try it.	32:10
Chris Stewart	It's a tough one, isn't it?	32:12
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, it is.	32:13
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	32:13
Margaret Bishop White	I love to dance and sing.	32:17
Chris Stewart	Would they have special dances at Ruth Hall or would there be—	32:20
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure.	32:24
Chris Stewart	—something happening every night?	32:25
Margaret Bishop White	Well, we'd have special dances at The Ruth Hall. They'd come in. And Fats Domino were living and different ones of them and all of them, they would come and have a band and singing and dancing and going on. We enjoyed it.	32:29
Chris Stewart	No, I bet. Would you be going with a group of girls or would you have a date?	32:59
Margaret Bishop White	Well, sometime we'd go by ourself.	33:03
Chris Stewart	You would.	33:06
Margaret Bishop White	Sometimes we'd go—Our friend would come and pick us up.	33:08
Chris Stewart	When did you start going out on dates?	33:13
Margaret Bishop White	(laughs) I was dating a long time before my mother knew it. (both laugh)	33:18
Chris Stewart	I was going to say, when you were allowed to, I imagine.	33:20
Margaret Bishop White	That's right. Oh, yeah. I loved to go though.	33:29
Chris Stewart	Well, how did you do it? How were you able to do it and not have your mother know?	33:30
Margaret Bishop White	Well, the work I does. Say after I come out of school, I worked a while. I have all the time to make my dates with my friends. What you don't know, don't hurt you, right? (laughs)	33:37
Chris Stewart	Mm-hmm. That's definitely true in my case, too.	33:56
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	33:58
Chris Stewart	Yes. That's definitely true. That is true. Well, were there other places that you'd go besides Ruth Hall? Where was Ruth Hall located?	34:02
Margaret Bishop White	It was on the—Is that south or north? Past Dawson Street light?	34:13
Speaker 1	South side.	34:18
Margaret Bishop White	South side. Then you had one right there on 7th Street, a dancing hall.	34:19
Chris Stewart	What was the name of that place? Do you remember?	34:25
Margaret Bishop White	No, I can't remember that. That was—Del Morocco, that's what it was.	34:31
Chris Stewart	El Morocco?	34:35
Margaret Bishop White	Del Morocco.	34:42
Chris Stewart	Del Morocco. Heard that Castle Street was a good place to go if you wanted to—	34:45
Margaret Bishop White	It used to have a place up there, but they have it every now and then up there for the young people to go and enjoy theirself. They're the 7th and Castle.	34:54
Chris Stewart	What about Seabreeze?	35:06
Margaret Bishop White	I used to go to Seabreeze.	35:08
Chris Stewart	What kinds of things did you do up there?	35:11
Margaret Bishop White	Dancing. Enjoy yourself.	35:15
Chris Stewart	Somebody told me that there was a guy—I'm not sure when he was out there, but there was a man out there that they called The Snake Man?	35:19
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	35:27
Chris Stewart	Do you remember him?	35:28
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, I know him.	35:29
Chris Stewart	He had a wife who was real short—	35:31
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	35:34
Chris Stewart	—and he used to—People used to pay to see her?	35:35
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah. You know who you talking about there?	35:39
Chris Stewart	What other kinds of attractions?	35:44
Margaret Bishop White	James' daddy. Huh?	35:46
Chris Stewart	What other kinds of attractions were there like that out there?	35:49
Margaret Bishop White	Well, little snakes, that was too much for me. Because I don't like nobody's snake, but he would take those snakes and they would do all kind of different carrying on all down the leg.	35:53
Chris Stewart	No.	36:08
Margaret Bishop White	No snake for me. No, sir.	36:11
Chris Stewart	Were there other things that you'd go see because you wanted to stay away from the snakes?	36:18
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. There'd be a lot that you wanted do. Then it was a place there, you had, take pictures and you see person with no head, all of that, different things. The parrot, they send talking birds and all like that. Monkeys, just like the zoo down there. They had it.	36:28
Chris Stewart	Was all this stuff along a boardwalk or something?	37:03
Margaret Bishop White	Yes.	37:03
Chris Stewart	How was it—	37:03
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, it was all around.	37:03
Chris Stewart	How did it look? How did Seabreeze look when you were going? When you would come—	37:03
Margaret Bishop White	It don't look like that now.	37:03
Chris Stewart	I know.	37:04
Margaret Bishop White	But when it was Seabreeze, it was very built up at the time, and you could go from one place to the other. You like, you go over here, then you go somewhere else, like that, and then you go around the bin and see different things and all like that.	37:06
Chris Stewart	Was there a beach there as well for people to—	37:24
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. You could—It was water there. Go out on the pier and dance and all.	37:25
Chris Stewart	Would they have special parties or festivals?	37:31
Margaret Bishop White	They'd have dances there and the best dancer would get a prize.	37:35
Chris Stewart	Did you ever win?	37:42
Margaret Bishop White	Sure.	37:44
Chris Stewart	Of course. What kind of prize would you get?	37:48
Margaret Bishop White	Sometimes we would get money or we would get a vase or we would get towel, or most anything. A little monkey or something like that. We'd win something.	37:49
Chris Stewart	Would you have special dance partners that were really—	38:10
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, indeed.	38:13
Chris Stewart	—good dance—How would you choose a dance partner?	38:14
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I had one, St. James, and then I had another one, Thomas. I remember him.	38:19
Chris Stewart	What do you remember about him?	38:35
Margaret Bishop White	He could dance and that would be my partner I'd dance with. If whenever they're having those special parties like that, we'd have our buddies that we'd dance with.	38:36
Chris Stewart	Well, why—What was it about him that made him the dance partner that you would use at these special—	38:51
Margaret Bishop White	Well, everybody don't do the same stunts.	39:02
Chris Stewart	What kind of stunts could he do?	39:05
Margaret Bishop White	He could do something that the rest of them didn't know anything about.	39:07
Chris Stewart	Like what?	39:09
Margaret Bishop White	Dancing.	39:09
Chris Stewart	What kind of things? What exactly kind of things could he do?	39:11
Margaret Bishop White	Well see, a lot of those girls didn't—Some boys would take them and throw them—	39:19
Chris Stewart	Right.	39:24
Margaret Bishop White	—and you catch on your feet.	39:25
Chris Stewart	Right.	39:27
Margaret Bishop White	Some of those girls didn't know anything about it. But see, we practiced those things.	39:27
Chris Stewart	I bet you were hot.	39:34
Margaret Bishop White	I love to dance now.	39:34
Chris Stewart	Oh, I bet.	39:34
Margaret Bishop White	She got a granddaughter love to dance. She goes all up the road.	39:38
Chris Stewart	Really? This Thomas guy, he could throw you and—	39:45
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah.	39:53
Chris Stewart	—heave up and flail you all around.	39:53
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	39:53
Chris Stewart	Wow. Were there any other partners who could do that as well?	39:57
Margaret Bishop White	Well, we wouldn't dance the same dance all the time. You'd dance with different partners.	40:02
Chris Stewart	How were the dances—What different dances would you do?	40:11
Margaret Bishop White	Well see, it's different dances. If I dance with this one one time, I'll dance Jitterbug.	40:15
Chris Stewart	Right.	40:23
Margaret Bishop White	Next one, I wouldn't dance Jitterbug.	40:24
Chris Stewart	What would you dance?	40:26
Margaret Bishop White	I would dance another dance.	40:28
Chris Stewart	What other dance?	40:29
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I can't call the name of it now, but I can do it. Then sometimes they would like to get the old-timey Charleston.	40:31
Chris Stewart	Charleston?	40:41
Margaret Bishop White	It comes back in—Like that.	40:42
Chris Stewart	What about Lindy hopping? Was there Lindy hopping going on?	40:46
Margaret Bishop White	I love that. I love that.	40:48
Chris Stewart	How is Lindy hopping different from Jitterbugging?	40:51
Margaret Bishop White	Well, there's so many different steps you put in Jitterbug.	40:56
Chris Stewart	There is?	40:59
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm. That's—	41:00
Chris Stewart	Lindy hopping doesn't have as many steps as Jitterbug?	41:05
Margaret Bishop White	No. No.	41:08
Chris Stewart	Do you think—Well, Jitterbug is more complicated?	41:09
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	41:12
Chris Stewart	What kind of music would you dance to?	41:13
Margaret Bishop White	We would dance by a band.	41:16
Chris Stewart	Do you remember any of the songs?	41:17
Margaret Bishop White	After Hours was one. Fats Domino used to sing one I used to love. I can't remember it now.	41:24
Chris Stewart	Do you ever listen to—Did you ever dance to any blues?	41:35
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, I've danced with blues.	41:38
Chris Stewart	What kind of dances would you do to the blues?	41:41
Margaret Bishop White	Kind of slow drag, but I'd have some of the steps of Jitterbug.	41:43
Chris Stewart	Were there different partners? Would you dance with different people besides like this [indistinct 00:41:57]?	41:51
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yes. I'd dance with different ones that come and ask for a dance.	41:56
Chris Stewart	Sounds like you were a popular woman.	42:01
Margaret Bishop White	I used to be, (laughs) but I'm not now. (laughs) I'm getting too old.	42:03
Chris Stewart	A really good dancer, too.	42:08
Margaret Bishop White	I love to dance now. Ballet, all of that.	42:10
Chris Stewart	Wow. You mentioned that you like to sing, too.	42:13
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	42:17
Chris Stewart	Where would you—Besides singing in the shower, where would you sing?	42:18
Margaret Bishop White	Sing in the choir.	42:32
Chris Stewart	In church?	42:32
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. The things I used to do when I was young, I don't do them anymore.	42:32
Chris Stewart	Did you ever used to sing in public in any places besides choir?	42:36
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	42:39
Chris Stewart	Where would you sing?	42:40
Margaret Bishop White	I used to sing in—What you call it? No, different places. I sang up north, different places. New York.	42:44
Chris Stewart	New York? What kinds of songs would you sing?	42:54
Margaret Bishop White	Sing the blues.	42:58
Chris Stewart	You would?	42:59
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	42:59
Chris Stewart	Do you remember any of the songs that you would sing?	43:05
Margaret Bishop White	Some of them, I don't remember. But I love to sing. Now, mostly—Sometimes I can think of—I have to book them over. I get my book sometimes, study them. Christian.	43:06
Chris Stewart	Do you have a book that you used to sing-	43:23
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, when we sing in the choir, we have a book.	43:23
Chris Stewart	Right. Did you have a band or a [indistinct 00:43:29]?	43:25
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, I used to sing in the band.	43:29
Chris Stewart	I mean, what instruments were in your band when you were—	43:33
Margaret Bishop White	Drum, horn, Cornet, all.	43:36
Chris Stewart	What places did you sing at in Chicago and New York? Do you remember the names of any of the places?	43:42
Margaret Bishop White	No. I don't know them all. But now they changed. The name's changed.	43:50
Chris Stewart	One or two of them, do you remember any of them?	43:52
Margaret Bishop White	No. I can't remember now. I can't remember like I used to remember, but I loved it. I love it though.	43:54
Chris Stewart	I noticed I was getting a little excited when you were talking about this, because I love it, too. This is some of my favorite kind of music in the world. Where would you learn your songs? Would you listen to records or would you make them up yourself? Write them yourself?	44:02
Margaret Bishop White	Well, whenever you go out to sing like that, you can put words to some of the songs that you know.	44:20
Chris Stewart	Sure. Some of the tunes that you know.	44:28
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	44:31
Chris Stewart	Put your own words to it. What kinds of things would you sing about when you were singing blues?	44:31
Margaret Bishop White	So many—I'm telling you now, I can't think about all those songs and things like that, dancing. You had to have some rhythm to them when you sing them and all.	44:36
Chris Stewart	Were you singing My Man Left Me?	45:02
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure.	45:04
Chris Stewart	Kind of blues?	45:04
Margaret Bishop White	That's blues. Yes, sir. Then let's see, all of those blues. I said to myself, "I ought to wrote some of them down," but I look them over now. I know them.	45:06
Chris Stewart	You do?	45:26
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah.	45:28
Chris Stewart	You know them to sing them?	45:32
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah.	45:32
Chris Stewart	Would you need accompaniment or could you sing them?	45:34
Margaret Bishop White	Sure.	45:37
Chris Stewart	When?	45:39
Margaret Bishop White	Whenever I studied them over.	45:41
Chris Stewart	Now you're talking about blues songs?	45:42
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, blues.	45:42
Chris Stewart	Did you write some of them down?	45:42
Margaret Bishop White	Some of them, I have wrote them down, but I couldn't tell you now where it's at?	45:53
Chris Stewart	You just study them in your mind and you do that?	45:57
Margaret Bishop White	That's right. Then we sing them and all. But those things, if you don't do that often, you'll forget it. It goes from you.	45:58
Chris Stewart	Right. How would the audience respond to you?	46:13
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, they'd clap. They'll clap.	46:18
Chris Stewart	Would they respond to you while you were singing?	46:21
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure.	46:22
Chris Stewart	How would they?	46:23
Margaret Bishop White	Clapping and telling you to come on with it, all like that. They do that.	46:24

Margaret Bishop White	Well, my.	0:04
Chris Stewart	Did you have a costume?	0:06
Margaret Bishop White	Costumes.	0:07
Chris Stewart	Mm-hmm.	0:09
Margaret Bishop White	We didn't go out unless we had costumes on.	0:09
Chris Stewart	Right. Were they glittery?	0:11
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	0:15
Chris Stewart	Were they shiny?	0:15
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. Some of them glittery and some of them shiny, some of them wasn't. I liked it too.	0:18
Chris Stewart	What were the styles for, I mean, the styles that you used when you were performing, when you were singing?	0:24
Margaret Bishop White	Well, it'd be long.	0:33
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	0:36
Margaret Bishop White	Split up, something like that. All a little heavy in what I am now. There's some of mine, that picture and that in there, all a little heavier.	0:36
Chris Stewart	Do you have any pictures of yourself while you were performing?	0:52
Margaret Bishop White	Not too many. The children takes them from me, they won't let me have them.	0:55
Chris Stewart	They do?	1:01
Margaret Bishop White	No, that. Which one? Me? No, I don't know where that's at. Guess they got it when Isadora was sick. I had one that I had a dress on.	1:04
Chris Stewart	Would you—	1:22
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I got this one in that one.	1:22
Chris Stewart	Is this you?	1:28
Margaret Bishop White	That's me right there in the corner.	1:29
Chris Stewart	Not this one.	1:33
Margaret Bishop White	No.	1:34
Chris Stewart	This.	1:35
Margaret Bishop White	This.	1:35
Chris Stewart	Okay. But this is, how old are you? You're older here, aren't you?	1:36
Margaret Bishop White	I was in my forties.	1:41
Chris Stewart	When were you singing? How old were you when you were singing?	1:43
Margaret Bishop White	Young.	1:48
Chris Stewart	How old is young?	1:50
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, in twenties or thirties.	1:52
Chris Stewart	Would you ever sing in at people's houses, at house parties or some or?	1:52
Margaret Bishop White	Well, if they want me to.	2:05
Chris Stewart	How long were you in Chicago? You said 30?	2:10
Margaret Bishop White	30 some years.	2:14
Chris Stewart	Yeah. So you said you moved there after you graduated from Williston?	2:16
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. I come out of school and I stayed here quite a while.	2:22
Chris Stewart	How long did you stay here?	2:25
Margaret Bishop White	I don't know, but I used to work with Mr. Freeman. We used to have the Freeman Shoe Shop downtown there. I used to help him on Front Street.	2:29
Chris Stewart	On Front Street?	2:42
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	2:43
Chris Stewart	What kind of work would you do there?	2:44
Margaret Bishop White	Clean and sell shoes. When I was going to school I worked right alone. Then sometime I would volunteer there to the hospital.	2:46
Chris Stewart	At Community.	3:02
Margaret Bishop White	Community.	3:05
Chris Stewart	What kind of work would you do at Community?	3:05
Margaret Bishop White	Get flowers and take the people out in the yard and things like that.	3:06
Chris Stewart	Sounds like you were busy.	3:14
Margaret Bishop White	I'd rather be busy than not to be busy.	3:16
Chris Stewart	So you were going to school, volunteering at Community, and working at Freeman Shoe Shop?	3:19
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	3:24
Chris Stewart	Wow.	3:33
Margaret Bishop White	That wasn't bad.	3:34
Chris Stewart	Well.	3:34
Margaret Bishop White	It wasn't hard.	3:34
Chris Stewart	No, I don't imagine.	3:34
Margaret Bishop White	No. Anything was harder when you had those little stripes on, carrying those people out, and some of them felt like laid, carrying them out on in the rolling chair, and that was the only thing.	3:35
Chris Stewart	What area? Did you volunteer all over the hospital?	3:50
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. Just like they come in with flowers. The flowers, florist come in and bring flowers, you came to the different room.	3:53
Chris Stewart	Yeah. So you stayed here then for quite a while.	4:02
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	4:08
Chris Stewart	Why did you decide to move to Chicago?	4:10
Margaret Bishop White	I got sick of Wilmington. I got fed up off it.	4:13
Chris Stewart	What were you fed up of?	4:17
Margaret Bishop White	It wasn't nothing here, you couldn't get a decent job or nothing like that.	4:19
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	4:23
Margaret Bishop White	I went somewhere where I could get a decent job, come right back here and I still ain't hitting no nothing.	4:24
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	4:31
Margaret Bishop White	You know what I mean?	4:33
Chris Stewart	Yeah. There were no decent jobs for Blacks?	4:33
Margaret Bishop White	No.	4:36
Chris Stewart	What kinds of work could you have? I mean, what kinds of work was available to you?	4:39
Margaret Bishop White	Well, what I wanted to do, because it can be pick and choose. Nursing work is my thing. And then I took up that, see. I took that up. And then you go to school for that and take up different little things and all, you can use it, computer and all of those things. And sometime that you don't catch on, but you can soon catch on what to do, so that's what.	4:48
Chris Stewart	Did you say you went to nursing school?	5:29
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	5:31
Chris Stewart	Where did you go?	5:32
Margaret Bishop White	I went down in Cape Fear for a while after I came back. Then I went somewhere else.	5:34
Chris Stewart	After you came back from, in '70?	5:39
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	5:40
Chris Stewart	Okay. Well, why did you leave Wilmington? Said you were sick of it.	5:41
Margaret Bishop White	I certainly were.	5:48
Chris Stewart	What kinds of work did you want to do when you were here back then that you couldn't have done?	5:50
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I tell you, I didn't want no, I used to work in, I used to work the GE awhile.	5:55
Chris Stewart	Before you left?	6:04
Margaret Bishop White	No, since I've been back. GE wasn't even built when I left.	6:05
Chris Stewart	I see. The kinds of work that most people have told me they've had to do, most women, it's been service work.	6:09
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	6:18
Chris Stewart	Most of the women I've talked to have done service work were teaching.	6:20
Margaret Bishop White	Uh-huh, teaching.	6:23
Chris Stewart	So how did you get up to Chicago?	6:26
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I caught the plane and got going.	6:28
Chris Stewart	Flew?	6:34
Margaret Bishop White	Sure flew up there.	6:34
Chris Stewart	Oh, wow. You flew when? Around what time was this? In the '40s?	6:36
Margaret Bishop White	No, I think that was '30s. That was '30s.	6:39
Chris Stewart	Yeah?	6:39
Margaret Bishop White	I come back and forth to see my mother and all like that. I mean, I live with me. I went right on and got me a job.	6:58
Chris Stewart	Where'd you get a job?	7:05
Margaret Bishop White	I was lucky.	7:06
Chris Stewart	Where?	7:08
Margaret Bishop White	What I was doing is looking, had a great big light like this in looking at eggs.	7:09
Chris Stewart	Eggs.	7:15
Margaret Bishop White	Egg factory.	7:15
Chris Stewart	And what was the name of the place that you worked?	7:16
Margaret Bishop White	I can't remember. I didn't put it down.	7:17
Chris Stewart	So what were you looking at eggs for?	7:17
Margaret Bishop White	You could tell if they're solid. Some of them have biddies in them. Some of them is not firm like they should be and all like that.	7:30
Chris Stewart	I see. So was this to decide whether or not there were chickens in them or whether?	7:43
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	7:51
Chris Stewart	Okay.	7:51
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	7:52
Chris Stewart	Okay. And how long did you work there?	7:54
Margaret Bishop White	I didn't do that here. I worked there for around about three years.	7:56
Chris Stewart	Were you singing up there when you were working there at the church?	8:03
Margaret Bishop White	I do a little bit.	8:05
Chris Stewart	You did.	8:05
Margaret Bishop White	In the dance place.	8:09
Chris Stewart	Yeah. And now we're talking about Chicago, right?	8:11
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	8:13
Chris Stewart	Okay, this when you first got up to Chicago.	8:14
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, I did a little bit of that and a little bit of, my real job was looking at those chicken, them eggs.	8:15
Chris Stewart	Right, that beside you would use to sing. How much money could you make?	8:26
Margaret Bishop White	If you was able to make it, you could make all you want. Didn't have nothing to do with what you make.	8:32
Chris Stewart	How much money could you make singing?	8:38
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sometime in a night I could make 100.	8:41
Chris Stewart	Oh, wow.	8:47
Margaret Bishop White	I wouldn't go home until morning.	8:48
Chris Stewart	Yeah, you'd be out there a long time, huh?	8:51
Margaret Bishop White	Yes.	8:52
Chris Stewart	Would that be in tips as well as just getting paid? People tip you?	8:54
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure.	8:58
Chris Stewart	For singing?	8:59
Margaret Bishop White	Sometimes $50, $20.	9:01
Chris Stewart	Big spenders. Were you singing for mixed crowds, both White and Black or were they?	9:07
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, we all mixed together.	9:12
Chris Stewart	You were?	9:14
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	9:14
Chris Stewart	Where did you live? When or how did you find a place to live in Chicago when you moved?	9:19
Margaret Bishop White	I had people up there.	9:23
Chris Stewart	You did?	9:24
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	9:25
Chris Stewart	So did you live with them or did you?	9:26
Margaret Bishop White	I lived with them for while then I got my own apartment.	9:28
Chris Stewart	Did you live by yourself or?	9:33
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, I lived by myself afterwards. I got.	9:34
Chris Stewart	How was it?	9:34
Margaret Bishop White	And they say they'd get on your feet.	9:38
Chris Stewart	Yeah. How was it, living by yourself?	9:41
Margaret Bishop White	Just fine.	9:43
Chris Stewart	You liked it.	9:44
Margaret Bishop White	I liked it, much better.	9:45
Chris Stewart	How come?	9:46
Margaret Bishop White	Because my business my business (laughs) just like that.	9:47
Chris Stewart	You can come and go as you please?	9:55
Margaret Bishop White	As I please, that's what I was getting ready to say.	9:57
Chris Stewart	Do what you wanted to do?	10:00
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. But if you visit someone else, you can't do it. You got to come in a certain time, like that. And if you want to get out and go over 12 o'clock or one o'clock, that's your business, you go.	10:02
Chris Stewart	What kinds of stuff would you do for fun in Chicago?	10:18
Margaret Bishop White	Well, it's a lot of fun to do there. Going different places and all like that, holsters and all. You love things like that.	10:21
Chris Stewart	Was there a special street or a special area where the night hotspots were in Chicago?	10:31
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure.	10:40
Chris Stewart	Where?	10:41
Margaret Bishop White	It was a block from where y'all stayed at, all I had to do was go around the corner.	10:43
Chris Stewart	What was the name of the place?	10:47
Margaret Bishop White	I can't think of it.	10:48
Chris Stewart	What was the street?	10:49
Margaret Bishop White	I can't think of that. I'll tell you, I'm not the same I used to be. I can't think about these. You asking these things, I know where I was.	10:54
Chris Stewart	Sure, right around the corner.	11:04
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. But I couldn't tell you right now the street and nothing like that.	11:06
Chris Stewart	What kinds of places were on the street that you, where the hotspots were? Were they nightclubs?	11:11
Margaret Bishop White	Nightclubs.	11:20
Chris Stewart	Cafes was there?	11:24
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, you could eat there. You could eat, drink.	11:26
Chris Stewart	Were there any movie theaters?	11:31
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, you could see movie theaters and singing and dancing in the back there. One part is where you eat, another part like that.	11:33
Chris Stewart	I talked to a woman who lived in Baltimore for a while and her husband owned a.	11:45
Margaret Bishop White	Cafe?	11:50
Chris Stewart	Cafe and nightclub and she's got a picture of it. And on one side it's the cafe, and the other side it's blackened out.	11:54
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah.	12:00
Chris Stewart	The windows are all blackened out, so the other side is the nightclub.	12:01
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah.	12:04
Chris Stewart	It's a great picture. Great picture. But it's in Baltimore. Yeah, so they had those kinds of places in Chicago.	12:04
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah.	12:11
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Was it safe for a woman to go to those places alone?	12:13
Margaret Bishop White	Most of the time I get out and go wherever I wanted to. But you can't do it now they says.	12:21
Chris Stewart	No.	12:26
Margaret Bishop White	No.	12:26
Chris Stewart	Would there be any things that could happen to you?	12:27
Margaret Bishop White	Well, sure. A lot can happen.	12:30
Chris Stewart	What?	12:34
Margaret Bishop White	Because if it's a mean person, they can hide somewhere, grab you, kill you, choke you to death, cut your throat.	12:35
Chris Stewart	Did you ever hear of anything like that happening when you were up there?	12:44
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, sure. Yeah. Always. Any place you go at, you hear talk of things like that.	12:46
Chris Stewart	How did you protect yourself while you were up there?	12:53
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I was on it. I took karate a little bit.	12:57
Chris Stewart	You did?	13:04
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, protect myself. And I wasn't, I said, in any way I wasn't dumb when I went up there. I was on my Ps and Qs. It was a good while before I made a lot of friends.	13:05
Chris Stewart	It was a good while before you made a lot of friends?	13:22
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	13:24
Chris Stewart	How come?	13:25
Margaret Bishop White	Because I was new and I didn't know a lot of the people. Some of them I met, but I didn't know. I treat them right, but I wouldn't go so far.	13:26
Chris Stewart	Sounds like you were pretty careful.	13:39
Margaret Bishop White	I am. I'm that now. And I can't stand a person walk behind me. If I go out here there, I go out this way and go to the college and can catch the bus and somebody come behind me, I'll cross another way. I just don't like that. You don't know if they'll get up on you and knock in the head or nothing. It's so mean here and anywhere else.	13:45
Chris Stewart	Well, it's pretty mean here in North, in Wilmington. I've noticed that.	14:09
Margaret Bishop White	Yes. You better watch too. Well, let's pray. These people here now is something else. You used to hear it up the road, but up the road is bad in some spots, but Wilmington is getting rough.	14:13
Chris Stewart	We've actually noticed it more from White people. White people are not very nice here at Wilmington. We spend a lot of time.	14:31
Margaret Bishop White	I tell you, Wilmington is not the best, no way. I'm going to tell you right up and down. These laws here, I ain't never seen nothing like it.	14:43
Chris Stewart	What do you mean?	14:58
Margaret Bishop White	They don't have no law here.	14:59
Chris Stewart	Yes?	15:00
Margaret Bishop White	Because sometimes that they can do something, it'll stop being so nutty. They think they knows it all. See, they don't know it all. You can call can say somebody's around your house and call the police there. He going to put the sirens on. If he come, he could catch somebody if he wouldn't put the sirens on. There's a lady right in the back of me and she's fighting. She died and they all, somebody want to start to break in her house and call the cops. You ought to hear them, all those sirens, you can't catch nobody like that. That giving people the way to get away and look right at you. Some of them come right back to the crowd.	15:03
Chris Stewart	Yeah, and watch.	15:48
Margaret Bishop White	And watch. How dumb can you get? That's dumb. And they be talking to this and dumb, and the eyes going around and they still ain't knowing what's happening. They'd still dumb to the facts. So yeah, because right here, right side of me, since this road come through here, it was a car. Somebody stole it, we didn't know it until after. And the car burned up right over there.	15:48
Chris Stewart	Wow.	16:17
Margaret Bishop White	Yes sir.	16:18
Chris Stewart	It burned out? Somebody burned it up?	16:18
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, they caught it. Yeah, it burned up and the man got away.	16:23
Chris Stewart	Wow. How close to the house was it?	16:28
Margaret Bishop White	Right there to the road.	16:30
Chris Stewart	It's pretty close.	16:32
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, it is. In the woods around there, burnt. He could have come right onto the house close to where we did. We put the holes there so he could, but the side of the house.	16:33
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	16:44
Margaret Bishop White	But I tell you right up and down, there's something here. And it's worse since that road got through there. In the nighttime, you hear.	16:47
Chris Stewart	Since the road came through that connects with the animals.	16:55
Margaret Bishop White	It's awful. It's no easy street. Every time you hear vroom.	16:58
Chris Stewart	Sirens?	17:04
Margaret Bishop White	Sirens. Didn't catch nobody.	17:04
Chris Stewart	What did your grandparents or parents ever talk to you about the Wilmington Riot?	17:09
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah, I knew about the Wilmington Riot, I was here.	17:13
Chris Stewart	Will you tell me about it?	17:17
Margaret Bishop White	I was around. Well, your—	17:19
Chris Stewart	You talk about the riots that happened right as soon as you got back? Yeah, okay.	17:23
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, some of it I didn't see, but I know about some of it. So they had to have guns and walking up and down. Couldn't even walk the street. You had to be in a certain time.	17:31
Chris Stewart	Curfews?	17:49
Margaret Bishop White	Curfew. No, you couldn't be out in the street. At certain time, you better be in your house.	17:49
Chris Stewart	What would happen if you weren't?	17:55
Margaret Bishop White	Anything that happened to you, they didn't have anything to do with it, that's what they tell you. You don't know what it happened. Somebody could shoot you, cut your throat, beat you up, leave you on the street.	17:59
Chris Stewart	Then the police wouldn't have anything to do with it?	18:13
Margaret Bishop White	Ain't got nothing to do with it.	18:14
Chris Stewart	What about the riot that took place a long time ago? Did your grandparents or parents ever tell you about that one?	18:17
Margaret Bishop White	That's been a very long time.	18:26
Chris Stewart	Did they ever tell you what they?	18:30
Margaret Bishop White	Well, they said some things about it, but that went away from us after us. But I'll tell you right here now, the right, they're always doing something. I was there on the bus about two weeks ago. And that man jumped out the car and had the shotgun. And we was on the bus. And bus driver, now they got the phone on the bus, he called the man, and when they come they got to have the heavy sirens on and it was right out there in a car lot.	18:32
Chris Stewart	This just happened recently?	19:18
Margaret Bishop White	Two weeks ago.	19:19
Chris Stewart	Wow.	19:20
Margaret Bishop White	Right out there.	19:24
Chris Stewart	Doesn't seem like a very safe place to live, huh?	19:25
Margaret Bishop White	Well I tell you, if I didn't have, was getting younger now, I wouldn't stay here. And after my mother health failed her and she was here and she didn't want to go with me so I made the best of it I could. And stayed and tend to her until she passed. But I've never been here in Wilmington long ago.	19:29
Chris Stewart	Did those kinds of things, the things that you're just talking about right now, did that influence your decision to leave originally too, in addition to your job?	20:01
Margaret Bishop White	No. I'll tell you, I'm retired now. I don't do no whole work or nothing like that unless they called me in to do something.	20:10
Chris Stewart	But when you left back when you were younger? I mean, were you upset about your safety or anything else while you were here? Or was it just that you wanted to get better work or?	20:20
Margaret Bishop White	I wanted to get some work to do, because see, when I was coming up, I always had a little something to do to help me along with my schooling. And what my mother did for me and my father, that helped, you know what I mean? I didn't have to go to them all the time for something.	20:36
Chris Stewart	Right.	20:59
Margaret Bishop White	And that mean a lot. That's the way we was raised.	21:00
Chris Stewart	Right.	21:01
Margaret Bishop White	Mother may have and father may have, God bless the child that got his own.	21:03
Chris Stewart	Right.	21:07
Margaret Bishop White	So I'm still that way. And you work here and it takes so much now to live. And I'm not going to burn up. My light billing thing is high, but I just paid. If they elect you and they're getting so now because so many people ain't doing, ain't one bad sheet make it bad for them. You know that? Well, you pay your bills, somebody else will. And it make it hard for you. But they'll make you pay for what they haven't paid.	21:07
Chris Stewart	Yeah, that's true. Especially electric.	21:53
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, that's what it's all about.	21:56
Chris Stewart	Did you ever marry?	21:57
Margaret Bishop White	Yes.	22:00
Chris Stewart	How'd you meet your husband?	22:01
Margaret Bishop White	I met my husband one night dancing and singing. And I'm sorry I ever met him.	22:05
Chris Stewart	You are?	22:09
Margaret Bishop White	Yes.	22:09
Chris Stewart	How come?	22:09
Margaret Bishop White	Me and him couldn't make it.	22:13
Chris Stewart	Yeah? How come?	22:15
Margaret Bishop White	His way and my way wasn't just annoying.	22:18
Chris Stewart	How were you different?	22:21
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I just couldn't be bothered with him. See, the things I like, he didn't like, and things he liked, I didn't like.	22:25
Chris Stewart	What were the things that you liked that he didn't like?	22:32
Margaret Bishop White	See, I loved to dance and go and enjoy myself like that. I'd work now.	22:35
Chris Stewart	Oh yeah, I know.	22:41
Margaret Bishop White	But he didn't like that.	22:42
Chris Stewart	Really?	22:45
Margaret Bishop White	And I'm not a person that going to sit right down or nothing like that. I got to feel bad. Or it's hot out there like it is now, I ain't going up there.	22:47
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	22:55
Margaret Bishop White	But he didn't like that and couldn't get along. And everybody look at you, you going with that person you're making a date at, and anybody look at you and talking to you and seeing this man making an eye. I don't want nothing like that, I can't be bothered.	22:57
Chris Stewart	How long did you marry? Did you stay married?	23:13
Margaret Bishop White	I stayed married to a good little while and I left him, sure did. That's my baby right there. Yeah.	23:15
Chris Stewart	Where did you go live when you left him?	23:31
Margaret Bishop White	I come and stayed by my mother.	23:34
Chris Stewart	That's when you came down here?	23:37
Margaret Bishop White	Stayed in my mother for a while.	23:38
Chris Stewart	Oh, you did?	23:40
Margaret Bishop White	Uh-huh. And I went on, attended my business.	23:41
Chris Stewart	When did you go to New York?	23:46
Margaret Bishop White	That was.	23:51
Chris Stewart	So why did you go to New York? Let's put it that way.	23:52
Margaret Bishop White	To see how the New York is because I heard so much about.	23:53
Chris Stewart	Yeah?	23:58
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	23:59
Chris Stewart	How was New York different from Chicago?	23:59
Margaret Bishop White	Well, if I was going to stay anywhere, Chicago, I would stay. Now New York, I don't care too much about New York for staying there.	24:03
Chris Stewart	Okay.	24:10
Margaret Bishop White	Visiting is all right for a while, but staying there for all way, I don't want it.	24:10
Chris Stewart	How come?	24:18
Margaret Bishop White	I just don't like the setup there.	24:21
Chris Stewart	What's the setup?	24:24
Margaret Bishop White	Well, the setup is, it's so many that you see walking the street and when you drive ride those subways, they so slick to, it's pitiful. They'll cut your pocket right off your clothes and you'd be standing there and you don't feel it.	24:26
Chris Stewart	Wow.	24:47
Margaret Bishop White	And when you get on the subways, you got to do one of your numbers going like this in hand. And they got a chance to cut you, because when I went up there, I didn't never had my little change in my pocketbook or nothing like that. I would always have it somewhere else.	24:49
Chris Stewart	Where would you keep it?	25:05
Margaret Bishop White	I'd keep it on me. (laughs)	25:07
Chris Stewart	Exactly where on you would you keep it?	25:09
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm! (laughs)	25:10
Chris Stewart	Uh-huh, okay. (both laugh)	25:10
Margaret Bishop White	So they wouldn't, I didn't like that. And they would be upside of you, doing like this hand. And next thing you know, you look for your bag. If you had a bag that hang on in you, that bag be gone. You don't know where it back.	25:17
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Were you working there in New York as well or were you just visiting?	25:34
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I worked there for a while and I got tired of that. I went a little further. I wanted to see some of the world in my getting around. That's what I love. I went to Remington, Delaware. Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia.	25:40
Chris Stewart	Did you live in these places or did you visit?	25:56
Margaret Bishop White	I go and stay there for a while.	25:58
Chris Stewart	Is it—	25:59
Margaret Bishop White	If I didn't like it, I'd go somewhere else, get further.	26:03
Chris Stewart	Was this when you were married or is this after you were married?	26:05
Margaret Bishop White	Since I've been married, I'd go like that. But what I like, I like, and what I don't like, I just don't like it.	26:08
Chris Stewart	Which places did you like?	26:13
Margaret Bishop White	No. Some parts of Philadelphia on the outskirts of town. Not right in the town part, on the outskirts of town, I liked that.	26:19
Chris Stewart	What'd you like about it?	26:33
Margaret Bishop White	Well, it's quiet out there and you could just enjoy yourself and the people were more friendly, and the ones way up in the city park.	26:34
Chris Stewart	Right.	26:43
Margaret Bishop White	And then the ones where in Washington and different places, it was all right. But at certain places you stay, it wasn't so nice to stay. They're rough.	26:47
Chris Stewart	So this was still during segregation?	27:02
Margaret Bishop White	Uh-huh. And see, I didn't like that, so I just kept, go a little further.	27:04
Chris Stewart	Were you doing any singing while you were doing that?	27:10
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, I sing a little bit in the nightclubs.	27:12
Chris Stewart	Would you be working in those places before you were?	27:16
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah, in the night, and I'd go to any night and I'd have to have someone to escort me out. I would walk out there, there was a lot of cutting my throat or anything, see it was rough.	27:19
Chris Stewart	Did you have kids then?	27:30
Margaret Bishop White	He wasn't born then. I had another one, he died. But see, the way I was doing here, if I didn't have a regular job, I'd sing for mine, I still was making something. And when you go places like that and they seen you somewhere else and they come another town or something like that. "Oh, I've seen her," she can't sing. No, like that. You can't go nowhere. If you go in the powder room or something like that, because you don't know what's going to happen.	27:37
Chris Stewart	How would you find out places to sing when you would get into a new place? Into a new?	28:21
Margaret Bishop White	Well, at that time, the different bands would go from place to place.	28:26
Chris Stewart	So you'd find out?	28:33
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, busy bands I would work with.	28:34
Chris Stewart	Okay, so you were really almost on tour.	28:38
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	28:39
Chris Stewart	You tour from place to place?	28:41
Margaret Bishop White	I enjoyed it.	28:43
Chris Stewart	Do you remember the name of your band?	28:44
Margaret Bishop White	Well, let's see. Fats Domino was going and then, what's this other one name? I can't think of his name now. I'd go along with them, different ones. Then it was a Johnson Band and they come to Wilmington several times. See, I kept up along with them too.	28:46
Chris Stewart	Would you sing with the Johnson Band?	29:18
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	29:20
Chris Stewart	So you'd come back to Wilmington occasionally?	29:21
Margaret Bishop White	Come back to Wilmington occasional.	29:22
Chris Stewart	Did you say you sang with Fats Domino?	29:28
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	29:28
Chris Stewart	You sang with Fats Domino?	29:28
Margaret Bishop White	Domino sometimes in the band.	29:37
Chris Stewart	The real?	29:38
Margaret Bishop White	Fats Domino.	29:38
Chris Stewart	The Blueberry Hill, what?	29:41
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	29:42
Chris Stewart	Well, I'll be. I'm in the presence of a real celebrity. (White laughs) Would you be singing backup?	29:44
Margaret Bishop White	Sometimes.	29:52
Chris Stewart	What other kinds of things would you do with that band?	29:53
Margaret Bishop White	Well.	29:56
Chris Stewart	Did you play any instruments?	30:00
Margaret Bishop White	I don't play nothing now. I used to.	30:05
Chris Stewart	Band?	30:06
Margaret Bishop White	I used to.	30:07
Chris Stewart	What did you play?	30:08
Margaret Bishop White	Horn. Blow a horn.	30:13
Chris Stewart	You would? What horn would you blow? Would you blow a trumpet?	30:14
Margaret Bishop White	Trumpet? I loved that.	30:15
Chris Stewart	How was it, a woman blowing a trumpet?	30:17
Margaret Bishop White	I'm not bad. I play a piano.	30:19
Chris Stewart	You would play piano too. Would you be doing any of this with Fats Domino?	30:22
Margaret Bishop White	Sometimes. Most of the times.	30:27
Chris Stewart	Did you ever record with him?	30:30
Margaret Bishop White	Sometime.	30:33
Chris Stewart	When?	30:33
Margaret Bishop White	It'll be sometime six months or something like that, that he didn't have someone to go with him or do with him.	30:36
Chris Stewart	Where would you record? When you go into the studio, would you record in the studio?	30:46
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, we have a place that we'd meet.	30:51
Chris Stewart	Where was that? Was that in New York or?	30:54
Margaret Bishop White	In New York or wherever he'd be at, because he didn't never stay no one place. You couldn't never count on going one place, not with him.	30:56
Chris Stewart	Really? What songs did you sing play with him? Sing or play?	31:06
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, we would, After Hours. And what is that? White Lightning. What is that other one? Good many of them. I can't think of them now, but it's a good many of them. But many of you like that you just can't think about.	31:14
Chris Stewart	Did you play in any auditoriums?	31:40
Margaret Bishop White	Well, sometime we would go there, but we wouldn't go as much to the auditorium room as we would to other places.	31:49
Chris Stewart	Other places like?	31:58
Margaret Bishop White	Tap rooms.	32:01
Chris Stewart	Like what? I'm sorry.	32:02
Margaret Bishop White	Tap rooms. We have the cafe drinking places and all like that.	32:03
Chris Stewart	Was this before Fats Domino got really big? Or was this when he was really big?	32:10
Margaret Bishop White	No. He was young.	32:16
Chris Stewart	We're talking about the same Fats Domino.	32:18
Margaret Bishop White	I guess we are.	32:20
Chris Stewart	This is the guy who became a rock and roll star?	32:21
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, rock and roll.	32:25
Chris Stewart	But you were playing with him before he got really big. Do you have any?	32:27
Margaret Bishop White	No, I don't have any of the records now. I have some, but I don't have as many because I loaned them out.	32:34
Chris Stewart	Sure. But what about any memorabilia? Do you have anything that you took to help you remember what it was like?	32:45
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I never can remember what it was like because now, those days is over. The ones that I've been anywhere around west, that most of them is dead.	32:52
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Is there anybody who's still alive that used to play with?	33:11
Margaret Bishop White	No.	33:14
Chris Stewart	No? Not that you know? What did you think when he got real big?	33:14
Margaret Bishop White	He was just bloated.	33:23
Chris Stewart	Huh?	33:24
Margaret Bishop White	He was just bloated.	33:24
Chris Stewart	So what were you doing when he started getting real famous?	33:29
Margaret Bishop White	He really went to getting famous, my mother was sick all that time. I would go back and forth. I didn't ever stay, so I thought I'd come on home, come this way.	33:42
Chris Stewart	When did you stop singing?	34:00
Margaret Bishop White	I stopped singing when I was operated on my throat.	34:02
Chris Stewart	When you, I'm sorry.	34:06
Margaret Bishop White	I had goiter.	34:06
Chris Stewart	Oh.	34:06
Margaret Bishop White	But I still be in the choir a little.	34:13
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Are you in senior choir over at AME? Is it at St. Stephens?	34:16
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	34:23
Chris Stewart	Are you in the senior choir over there?	34:23
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	34:24
Chris Stewart	Were you singing in the senior choir this last time?	34:24
Margaret Bishop White	Last.	34:28
Chris Stewart	Last Sunday?	34:29
Margaret Bishop White	I ushered last Sunday.	34:31
Chris Stewart	I wish I could remember.	34:32
Margaret Bishop White	It was two there to the door. The middle door, your flat back.	34:41
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Well, I mean I saw ushers going up and down, but I just don't remember seeing you. And I was one of two White girls that were in that church Sunday.	34:44
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah.	34:54
Chris Stewart	We'd be hard to miss.	34:55
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah.	34:56
Chris Stewart	At what point in your life, ma'am, did you feel like you had become an adult woman?	35:01
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I'll tell you, adult is this way. It's so many people is not my age or younger than I am look older than I am because that's the way they carry their self. You don't know if they're adult or what they are, but if you carry yourself in the right way, you don't have any trouble. You see what I mean? But if you going to stay up all night long, don't get a bit of rest and just run, run, run, run, run, don't eat, don't sleep or nothing like that, you ain't looking to look no kind of way. And that's wrong with a lot of them. These actors, they stay woke all night long, then they snuff that mess and all like that. It's okay to take a drink, and sometime you need a drink to get up there all night long. But you got to know how far to go and it's a lot of people don't know how.	35:11
Chris Stewart	Right.	36:19
Margaret Bishop White	They don't know.	36:19
Chris Stewart	How did you keep your looks up? Sounds like you were a busy woman. How did you stay looking good?	36:20
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, I take my rest and I take me a drink and all like that. But I wouldn't take that. I wouldn't take too much. I know how far to go.	36:28
Chris Stewart	Right.	36:43
Margaret Bishop White	You see what I mean?	36:44
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	36:45
Margaret Bishop White	You take one drink, that's enough. That's when they make those high balls, honey, you don't know what they put in it in there.	36:46
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	36:51
Margaret Bishop White	They really don't.	36:53
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	36:54
Margaret Bishop White	I take one of them and that's it with me.	36:54
Chris Stewart	Were you going to church during the time you were singing blues?	36:56
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, I'll go to church.	36:57
Chris Stewart	The church-going women in your church, did they know you were singing blues?	36:57
Margaret Bishop White	Some of them did.	37:08
Chris Stewart	What'd they think of that?	37:09
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I know they had something to say about it, but I figured that I'm the one that had to live that life, and they didn't have to live it, but I didn't show them that I thought more of the blues than I did the Christian. And that's the way you have to carry yourself. Whatever you do, you got to be calm with it. And if you don't, they can put their hands on you.	37:13
Chris Stewart	And did you say you thought more of the blues than of the Christian life?	37:45
Margaret Bishop White	Well.	37:45
Chris Stewart	What do you mean?	37:45
Margaret Bishop White	Whatever I did, I had my mind on what I was doing.	37:55
Chris Stewart	Right.	37:58
Margaret Bishop White	You understand me?	37:58
Chris Stewart	Yeah, I do now.	37:59
Margaret Bishop White	That's what I'm talking about.	38:01
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	38:01
Margaret Bishop White	If I'm dancing, I got my mind on what I'm doing, dancing. And if I'm going to church, I have my mind on church and what I'm doing there in church. And when I get out of church, what I do, that's my business.	38:03
Chris Stewart	Right.	38:19
Margaret Bishop White	You see what I mean?	38:20
Chris Stewart	Oh, I agree with you completely.	38:21
Margaret Bishop White	That's right. I'm not going to stay in church all the time.	38:22
Chris Stewart	Okay. Were there people in your church that disapproved of what you were doing and you knew that they disapproved?	38:31
Margaret Bishop White	Well, you're always going to be old sitting here or something, always missing. I didn't worry about it.	38:35
Chris Stewart	Okay, and they didn't do anything to try and try and stop you or try to make you change?	38:46
Margaret Bishop White	No.	38:53
Chris Stewart	Good.	38:53
Margaret Bishop White	No, they didn't try to make me stop because if I want to do it, that was my business. I figured that right now I want to get out and dance and sing the blues and get up there and have my fun, that's my business. But now it is now time for me to come in with that. You see what I mean? So that's what I'm doing. I'm coming gradually along. That's what I'm doing.	38:53
Chris Stewart	You're spending more time with the church now than?	39:20
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, that's what I'm doing. It's time now to come in.	39:22
Chris Stewart	Time to come in?	39:26
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	39:29
Chris Stewart	Is that what you said?	39:29
Margaret Bishop White	And live for God.	39:29
Chris Stewart	Is it hard for you to remember those? When I say hard, I mean painful. Is it painful for you to remember that? Or do you think about that time when you were singing blues fondly, do you think of it?	39:34
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I think about it, but now it don't bad with me that much. Now I'm working in the church and all like that, and I'm going for that now. So I enjoy it. Sometime I go out on the cruises with somebody else, something like that. And if I want to do so that I'll do it. You see what I mean?	39:48
Chris Stewart	Are there any local people that you would sing with or play with occasionally just for fun?	40:09
Margaret Bishop White	Well, it used to be, but no, I don't. Yeah, because it's just too hot to have on the more robes.	40:16
Chris Stewart	Oh.	40:25
Margaret Bishop White	It's hot to have on robes now.	40:26
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	40:28
Margaret Bishop White	Those robes and things bring you up. Yeah.	40:30
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	40:34
Margaret Bishop White	See, you got your clothes underneath there.	40:34
Chris Stewart	I know.	40:36
Margaret Bishop White	And it's just too hot.	40:36
Chris Stewart	I still don't know how people can do that. Yeah, it is, real hot.	40:38
Margaret Bishop White	Knock you out.	40:44
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Can you recall during the time when you were performing or when you were living here in Wilmington, in your early days, do you remember anybody treating you like they thought you were a second class citizen?	40:45
Margaret Bishop White	Well, yes. Some of them does and some you ain't even never. You have one or two nice ones. Let's go for Black and divide, but you don't pay that any attention, you go on because it always going to be someone and want to put you down. You'd pay that no attention. That's the way you do. If you want to get anywhere or do anything, you go head on, hold your head up and go on tender your business. That doesn't do the running of the mountain, you tender your business.	41:02
Chris Stewart	Is that something you've always done?	41:46
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, that's all I always done. The more you talk about me or that make me hold my head up and gone, you don't hurt me, but don't hit me. You step on my blue suede shoes, I'm going to get you off.	41:49
Chris Stewart	Have you ever been hit?	42:01
Margaret Bishop White	No. Well, I hit on wood. I hope I don't. Oh, my age now I'll get rid you. But I don't try to carry myself like that. Sometimes people say things snapping, I don't pay no attention.	42:03
Chris Stewart	Do you remember Jim Crow signs? The signs?	42:20
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. Well, I tell you sometime you have to know and don't know, because some of these young people is not what they cracked up to be.	42:26
Chris Stewart	What do you mean?	42:43
Margaret Bishop White	They have a face for the day and one for tomorrow, and I don't bother with them. I'll feed you with a longhand spoon that's short. I don't bother. I'll speak to and you speak to me. I speak, and if you don't speak to me, it doesn't make me no different. So I just don't bother with you. It's a lot of them. I don't bother.	42:46
Chris Stewart	You talking about White folks?	43:13
Margaret Bishop White	White and Colored, I do not because I figure that I'm just as good as any of them. That's right.	43:14
Chris Stewart	At least.	43:23
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	43:23
Chris Stewart	You're a blues singer.	43:24
Margaret Bishop White	Right. So that's the way I take it. And any of them be nice to me. I'm nice to them and I go on and speak and I'm gone. That's the way I carry myself. So I tell all of them, it is the way you carry yourself in this world for people to love you and like you and have something good to say about you. And when it's people in the world that they can't say a good word about them, don't bother them. You don't bother that.	43:26
Chris Stewart	Right. What's the point?	43:58
Margaret Bishop White	What's the point?	44:02
Chris Stewart	Did you ever have any heroes? People that you looked up to, maybe other singers or dancers?	44:03
Margaret Bishop White	Well, you always does. You always does.	44:08
Chris Stewart	Who?	44:12
Margaret Bishop White	Some of them, they dance and all like that. We used to dance and they'll say, "Well, you're much younger than I am." You walking in my footstep or something like that. It make you feel good.	44:12
Chris Stewart	Any famous people that you remember that you really looked up to?	44:25
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, but I can't call their name right now. That's right, good name. I looked up to because they was in the world before doing what they stunts before I was. When people like that, you have to look up to them. It's a lot of things that you can learn from them.	44:33
Chris Stewart	What kinds of things did you learn?	44:56
Margaret Bishop White	Well, it's things that they tell you and all like that, these singers and band players ain't going to never tell you just what is what. They'll give you a hint. You got put it together and do what you want to do, that's right.	45:04
Chris Stewart	I interviewed a woman in Winston-Salem who used to travel with the tent shows. She said she used to listen to the blues singers who traveled with the tent shows and she'd stand in the wings and listen to the blues. They would never teach her the songs. They stand there and listen to them and try to memorize them so that when she got her chance she could get out there and sing their songs. She got her chance and she did.	45:21
Margaret Bishop White	Well, they say a lot of people does that. They do those kind of things. That's why they don't tell you. They don't want you to know what they do. They'll talk to you, but they're not going to tell you or nothing like that. If you can't catch it, it's shame on you.	45:49
Chris Stewart	Did you ever go to any of the tent shows? Silas Green or the Florida Blossom?	46:07
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, yeah. You couldn't catch up with it unless you know the song. If you know the song yourself, you could sing.	46:10
Chris Stewart	Yeah?	46:18
Margaret Bishop White	But you never would, and it.	46:19

Margaret Bishop White	They're not going to let you know but so much about their business. If you don't know it yourself and you don't have the knowledge, shame on you.	0:02
Chris Stewart	What's it take to be a good blues singer?	0:12
Margaret Bishop White	Well, you go to singing the blues and then if people like it, you's a good blues singer.	0:16
Chris Stewart	There are some blue singers who are, "Eh," and some who can really sing.	0:21
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	0:27
Chris Stewart	So what does it take?	0:28
Margaret Bishop White	Well, it take one that can sing. If you can sing, you can sing the blues and get the song together. Then that's what you call a good singer.	0:31
Chris Stewart	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. People have told me you've had to live the blues in order to sing them. You think that's true?	0:51
Margaret Bishop White	Some of them does. Some of them does. Yes, sometimes you go thinking about different things and all like that, and sometimes old songs come back to you. You might not think of of it now. You'll be sitting around and you go to thinking and those old songs come, you enjoy that. You try and you sing it.	0:52
Chris Stewart	How does it make you feel?	1:24
Margaret Bishop White	It make you feel good. It really make you feel good. You enjoy things like that. But see, a lot of people, they don't believe in nothing like that. They don't believe in singing. And when you sing, you've got to have some energy to it. A little pep to it. You don't sing it slow and like you're half dead or something like that. You've got to put a little pep. I mean, you put a little pep to it, you feel more better. The more you sing, the better you feel.	1:25
Chris Stewart	So you weren't singing the moaning songs? You were singing the songs with a little pep to them.	2:03
Margaret Bishop White	That's right. I love them. I don't like them drag songs.	2:09
Chris Stewart	Those drag? No.	2:15
Margaret Bishop White	They're too slow for me.	2:16
Chris Stewart	They are. I tell you, you can do some interesting dancing to those songs, though, can't you?	2:19
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, you can. Yeah, you can. You love to dance?	2:22
Chris Stewart	I do.	2:25
Margaret Bishop White	That's good.	2:25
Chris Stewart	I love to dance and I love the blues. I love the blues. Especially love the blues that women sing.	2:29
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah.	2:33
Chris Stewart	That's my favorite.	2:34
Margaret Bishop White	Well, some of them can sing.	2:36
Chris Stewart	I know that. I know that. That's why I'm so honored to have met you. It's very exciting to actually meet somebody who was singing.	2:40
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah. I have a little cousin, and she sings and she goes on. Miss Runyon from New York. And she travels a lot, and she carries her, and then go around with her, all different parts up north. She have a daughter named Miss Susan Runyon. I think she finished school over here into the college. She took something over there to the college.	2:56
Chris Stewart	Who taught you how sing?	3:33
Margaret Bishop White	I used to sing in the school. Glee Club.	3:36
Chris Stewart	In Glee Club. And that's where you learned how?	3:39
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	3:39
Chris Stewart	Yeah. You didn't sing the blues in the Glee Club, though.	3:40
Margaret Bishop White	No, no. (laughs) No, you know you don't sing that, mm-mm.	3:48
Chris Stewart	Well, how'd you learn to sing the blues?	3:56
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I got with someone else and we sung.	3:57
Chris Stewart	Another woman, or a man?	4:06
Margaret Bishop White	A man.	4:07
Chris Stewart	Yeah?	4:08
Margaret Bishop White	I always liked the way he sang. That's the way he always sung. The singing quartets and things. I liked it.	4:12
Chris Stewart	And that's how you learned?	4:21
Margaret Bishop White	I took it up. If you like to do something, you can easily get the swing of it.	4:25
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Yeah. Well, tell you what, is there anything that I should have asked you that I didn't ask you about that you'd like to—	4:35
Margaret Bishop White	No. I like to dance and I love to sing, and there's nothing else. Nothing else you'd ask me, because I'll tell you right up and down. Now you've just got to sit and wait until the mailman comes and get the little bit and take that and hit it here and there. Ain't long until you get rid of that and be to the next one. But see, I ain't used to that. I'm used to getting out and moving. I'd told myself I'd try and make my little garden this year. I ain't had no good luck on the garden.	4:45
Chris Stewart	Oh really? It's too hot.	5:23
Margaret Bishop White	Too hot.	5:25
Chris Stewart	Didn't get enough rain.	5:26
Margaret Bishop White	And that water, that city water is not good.	5:28
Chris Stewart	Oh no.	5:31
Margaret Bishop White	Do you drink—	5:33
Chris Stewart	Have you tried to water with the city—	5:34
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	5:35
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Yeah, city water. You need rain.	5:39
Margaret Bishop White	Rain.	5:41
Chris Stewart	We're not getting nearly enough rain. I have some other questions to ask you, but they're biographical information. Just specific information. If you know the answers, you can go ahead and give them to me. If you don't, we'll just go on to the next.	5:42
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	5:57
Chris Stewart	Okay?	5:57
Margaret Bishop White	I reckon I know.	5:59
Chris Stewart	Full name. What's your full name?	6:02
Margaret Bishop White	Margaret. M-A-R-G-A-R-E-T.	6:04
Chris Stewart	M-A-R-G-A-R?	6:08
Margaret Bishop White	E-T.	6:08
Chris Stewart	Okay.	6:11
Margaret Bishop White	Margaret. B-Y—	6:12
Chris Stewart	Bishop is your maiden name?	6:22
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	6:24
Chris Stewart	I've been calling you by your maiden name. I didn't know what your married name was. When Dorothy gave me your name, she gave me your—	6:25
Margaret Bishop White	Bishop.	6:34
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	6:35
Margaret Bishop White	I goes in that. It's in the book, Bishop.	6:36
Chris Stewart	It is.	6:38
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. It's in the phone book.	6:40
Chris Stewart	4623—	6:42
Margaret Bishop White	Patrick.	6:42
Chris Stewart	Patrick. And what's your phone number, ma'am?	6:43
Margaret Bishop White	791-4712.	6:54
Chris Stewart	And when's your birthdate?	7:12
Margaret Bishop White	February 13th, 1922 or '23. What year did I—	7:15
Chris Stewart	How old did you say you were?	7:31
Margaret Bishop White	73.	7:33
Chris Stewart	73? 1920.	7:33
Margaret Bishop White	'20.	7:33
Chris Stewart	And you were born here in Wilmington?	7:39
Margaret Bishop White	That's what they say.	7:42
Chris Stewart	You can only believe what they say.	7:44
Margaret Bishop White	Right, right, right.	7:46
Chris Stewart	And are you widowed or divorced or married still?	7:49
Margaret Bishop White	No, ma'am. I'm married, but I'm not together. I don't know where he's at. We divorced.	7:57
Chris Stewart	Now, is this your first husband or your second husband?	8:06
Margaret Bishop White	Second?	8:08
Chris Stewart	Okay.	8:08
Margaret Bishop White	Second husband? Uh-uh! The one—(laughs) First. First one is enough.	8:12
Chris Stewart	One is all you need.	8:17
Margaret Bishop White	That's right. (laughs) Mm-mm! I don't want near another one. (Stewart laughs) That one give me enough.	8:18
Chris Stewart	Okay! Okay, I understand. What's your mother's name?	8:31
Margaret Bishop White	Elizabeth Hayes Bishop.	8:33
Chris Stewart	Elizabeth what Bishop?	8:38
Margaret Bishop White	Hayes.	8:39
Chris Stewart	Hayes. Hayes is her maiden name?	8:40
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	8:48
Chris Stewart	Do you know when she was born?	8:51
Margaret Bishop White	Let's see.	8:55
Chris Stewart	She died in 1970, right?	9:05
Margaret Bishop White	1990.	9:05
Chris Stewart	Did you say she died in 1990?	9:05
Margaret Bishop White	Uh-huh.	9:05
Chris Stewart	How old was she when she died?	9:05
Margaret Bishop White	110.	9:05
Chris Stewart	110?	9:05
Larry White	[indistinct 00:09:06].	9:05
Margaret Bishop White	What was that?	9:05
Larry White	[indistinct 00:09:06].	9:05
Margaret Bishop White	What?	9:05
Larry White	She was 110.	9:05
Margaret Bishop White	110.	9:05
Chris Stewart	So she was born in 1880?	9:05
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, that's right. 1880.	9:06
Chris Stewart	Wow.	9:07
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	9:07
Chris Stewart	Was she born here in Wilmington?	9:18
Margaret Bishop White	I think she were.	9:29
Chris Stewart	And what would you say her occupation was when you were growing up?	9:38
Margaret Bishop White	Well, she worked. She carried milk.	9:47
Chris Stewart	Delivered milk?	9:53
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	9:54
Chris Stewart	And your father's name?	9:59
Margaret Bishop White	Hayes. That's it.	10:04
Chris Stewart	What's his first name? Do you know?	10:13
Margaret Bishop White	Howard.	10:13
Chris Stewart	Howard?	10:13
Margaret Bishop White	Howard.	10:13
Chris Stewart	And his date of birth?	10:24
Margaret Bishop White	Nah, I don't know that now.	10:27
Chris Stewart	You were 14 when he died?	10:29
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, but I can't keep up with that.	10:31
Chris Stewart	Do you know how old he was when he died?	10:33
Margaret Bishop White	Not exactly. I didn't know exactly what age he was.	10:40
Chris Stewart	Was he born in Wilmington too?	10:46
Margaret Bishop White	No. He wasn't born here in Wilmington.	10:48
Chris Stewart	Where was he born?	10:51
Margaret Bishop White	He's up there now past Virginia line there.	10:56
Chris Stewart	Okay. Northampton County, maybe?	11:05
Margaret Bishop White	Somewhere up in there. Hard to keep up—	11:06
Chris Stewart	And he worked for the railroad, right?	11:14
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	11:15
Chris Stewart	He was a porter for the railroad?	11:16
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	11:17
Chris Stewart	You were an only child.	11:25
Margaret Bishop White	Yep. I'm known as the onliest baby.	11:27
Chris Stewart	Okay. What about the names of your children? You might need some help. Did you say you had just two children?	11:32
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. His name is Larry.	11:40
Chris Stewart	Larry. Hi. I'm Chris.	11:43
Margaret Bishop White	The other one—	11:49
Chris Stewart	Bishop or White?	11:50
Margaret Bishop White	White. He's White.	11:52
Chris Stewart	When's your birthday?	11:54
Larry White	2/22/55.	11:54
Chris Stewart	Born one day after me. Born in Chicago? Wilmington?	12:01
Larry White	No, I was born here.	12:02
Margaret Bishop White	He was born here in Wilmington.	12:13
Chris Stewart	What about your other son? The son that died.	12:19
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I didn't name him.	12:21
Chris Stewart	Oh, so he was—	12:22
Margaret Bishop White	He was lost. Mm-hmm.	12:24
Chris Stewart	Okay. Now the places that you've lived. You lived in Wilmington?	12:31
Margaret Bishop White	Yep.	12:39
Chris Stewart	And you went to Chicago?	12:39
Margaret Bishop White	New York. That's enough when they're all up in there. You don't have to —oh, he's started to get up. You don't have to put all where I've been at, because I've went around. But some places I remember and some places I don't.	12:48
Chris Stewart	I'm going to put traveled throughout the east.	13:08
Margaret Bishop White	Right.	13:09
Chris Stewart	Is that okay?	13:09
Margaret Bishop White	That's okay.	13:11
Chris Stewart	When were you doing this? During what time? Was this during the '50s or during the '60s? You said this was before your son was born?	13:16
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. Yeah. Because Larry is near about —how old are you there? Tell mama how old you were.	13:29
Chris Stewart	Well, you were born in '55, right?	13:38
Larry White	38.	13:38
Chris Stewart	So you were traveling throughout east before you were born.	13:41
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm. You look back, and you have to count back to find out.	13:48
Chris Stewart	Yeah. That's what I'm trying to figure out. And you were in Chicago and New York before you were traveling around, right?	13:56
Margaret Bishop White	Beg your pardon?	14:12
Chris Stewart	Were you in Chicago and New York before you were doing all the traveling throughout the east?	14:12
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I traveled some afterwards.	14:18
Chris Stewart	Okay. Yeah. And then you came back to Wilmington.	14:20
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	14:22
Chris Stewart	Did you stay in Wilmington after you were born?	14:28
Margaret Bishop White	He stayed here for a while. He'd go back with my mother.	14:33
Chris Stewart	But you were traveling—	14:38
Margaret Bishop White	That's right. He'd stay with mom. That was my mother's baby.	14:39
Chris Stewart	Okay. Now about the names of your schools. You went to Williston Primary?	14:47
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. I went to Cape Fear.	14:53
Chris Stewart	You went to Cape Fear?	14:57
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, down here.	14:59
Chris Stewart	Oh, that's when you came back.	15:01
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	15:02
Chris Stewart	Okay. You went to Williston Primary, Williston High School. What year did you graduate from Williston High School?	15:03
Margaret Bishop White	I think that was—	15:16
Chris Stewart	'37, maybe? '36?	15:18
Margaret Bishop White	'38.	15:23
Chris Stewart	'38?	15:23
Margaret Bishop White	I believe it was. The sister was in '39. Could have been the same.	15:24
Chris Stewart	Okay. And then when you came back and you went to Cape Fear for nursing, did you finish there? Did you get a nursing degree?	15:37
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. I got it. But you've got to go back if you feel to go again.	15:46
Chris Stewart	Huh?	15:50
Margaret Bishop White	You still can get some more. Yeah.	15:53
Chris Stewart	Did you nurse at all?	15:56
Margaret Bishop White	New Hanover.	15:59
Chris Stewart	Oh, you did? You worked in New Hanover for how long?	16:00
Margaret Bishop White	A good while. Yes, sir.	16:02
Chris Stewart	Do you know what year you graduated from Cape Fear?	16:08
Margaret Bishop White	In '70-something. I think it was '76 or '77 or something like that.	16:13
Chris Stewart	With a nursing degree.	16:21
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. I can't keep up with it. I don't do any of that now, though, unless they want. They'll call me in if they don't have any. They'll call me in, because whenever you get social security and stuff, you have to be mighty careful.	16:23
Chris Stewart	You've got to be very careful, yeah.	16:44
Margaret Bishop White	And anyway, I'm tired of looking at them people, sick people, and you can't do nothing for them.	16:45
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Yeah.	16:50
Margaret Bishop White	That gets on your nerve. When I looked at that child that—I got tired. Got on my nerve.	16:51
Chris Stewart	So you said you worked for—	17:07
Margaret Bishop White	GE.	17:09
Chris Stewart	When you came back. When you were traveling, you worked for Western Union, did you say?	17:13
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. That was up the road. Western Union.	17:16
Chris Stewart	That was back here in Wilmington, or was that in Chicago?	17:21
Margaret Bishop White	That was away from here. I come back and I'm meant to work in-	17:27
Chris Stewart	What was your job at Western Union?	17:30
Margaret Bishop White	It was using the computer and sending telegrams.	17:34
Chris Stewart	You were a telegram operator?	17:40
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm. They said Mr. Cofield dead.	17:42
Larry White	Hm?	17:54
Margaret Bishop White	Last time I heard from the other girlfriend of mine, she said Mr. Cofield has died. Dropped dead right in his place. He never wanted to go nowhere or nothing.	17:54
Chris Stewart	So you were a nurse at New Hanover hospital?	18:07
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	18:09
Chris Stewart	And that was starting in the '70s sometime?	18:10
Margaret Bishop White	Mm-hmm.	18:13
Chris Stewart	Did you ever receive any awards or honors? And are you a Methodist right now?	18:20
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	18:29
Chris Stewart	And you belong to St. Stephens?	18:29
Margaret Bishop White	St. Stephens.	18:30
Chris Stewart	Have you belonged to any other churches in the past?	18:33
Margaret Bishop White	No. I've went to several ones, but I belongs to St. Stephen. I was coming up in St. Stephen, and I'm still there.	18:49
Chris Stewart	When you were growing up, you came up in St. Stephen?	18:59
Margaret Bishop White	St. Stephen's, mm-hmm.	19:01
Chris Stewart	Oh wow. Wow. Are there any organizations that you belong to? Social clubs or—	19:04
Margaret Bishop White	I drop down too much.	19:12
Chris Stewart	Did you used to?	19:15
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah.	19:17
Chris Stewart	What ones?	19:17
Margaret Bishop White	A Daughter—	19:20
Chris Stewart	Daughters of what?	19:22
Margaret Bishop White	What is it, Larry? Eastern Star.	19:22
Chris Stewart	Oh, Eastern Star. Were you active in the Eastern Star?	19:36
Margaret Bishop White	Huh?	19:43
Chris Stewart	Were you active in the Eastern Star?	19:43
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, for a while. Yeah. As my mother [indistinct 00:19:49], I kind of slowed down on that.	19:46
Chris Stewart	What kinds of stuff did you do? Did the Eastern Stars do?	19:51
Margaret Bishop White	Can't tell you.	20:00
Chris Stewart	I'm going to keep on asking. Okay, here's a question that maybe you can answer. What kinds of women would the Eastern Star organization look for? What were the qualities in women that Eastern Star—	20:03
Margaret Bishop White	Nice Christian members in the Eastern Star.	20:20
Chris Stewart	Was Eastern Star the women's organization to the [indistinct 00:20:36]? What can I ask you about the Eastern Star that you'd be willing to tell me?	20:30
Margaret Bishop White	That's what I told.	20:39
Chris Stewart	I know. Okay, I'm not going to ask you. Any other organizations? Daughters of Isis? Tents?	20:46
Margaret Bishop White	The tent?	20:54
Chris Stewart	There's a Court of [indistinct 00:20:58]. Any of those organizations? Were you involved in the Tents?	20:55
Margaret Bishop White	I was. I'm not now.	21:02
Chris Stewart	Okay. How come you're not still involved?	21:07
Margaret Bishop White	Well, when my mother got sick, I just let that drop.	21:11
Chris Stewart	Okay.	21:14
Margaret Bishop White	When she got sicker, I let a lot of them, the clubs and things I was in, drop, because I couldn't keep up with them, and I wanted to know what's happening myself. Nobody else to tell me. I'm just that type. I got three—	21:14
Chris Stewart	What about social clubs? Did you participate in any social clubs with other women?	21:33
Margaret Bishop White	Well, every now and then, but sometimes they wouldn't come to a meeting, and Lord knows I didn't go to meetings.	21:37
Chris Stewart	What social clubs would you participate in?	21:46
Margaret Bishop White	I don't know none of those now.	21:52
Chris Stewart	There's one that I've heard of called the Social Thrifty Club.	21:55
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	21:59
Chris Stewart	Have you heard of that?	22:00
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	22:00
Chris Stewart	Did you participate in that one?	22:00
Margaret Bishop White	I didn't.	22:02
Chris Stewart	Okay. Are there any other hobbies or things that you have that you'd like to have on this?	22:02
Margaret Bishop White	No. There's no hobby that I do now, because it's hot, and when you don't have the transportation, it's hard for you to get around.	22:11
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Yeah. You used to like to sing and dance, though, didn't you?	22:28
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah.	22:32
Chris Stewart	You still do, but it's kind of hot.	22:32
Margaret Bishop White	It certainly is. But you got to drop out of something sometimes. Because I know they all know me, but that's just like [indistinct 00:22:48]. It's a lot things that she was in when she—	22:34
Chris Stewart	How did she die, ma'am? Was she sick?	22:53
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, she died in hospital. New Hanover Medical Center. It was New Hanover, and they changed it to New Hanover Medical Center. Mm-hmm.	22:54
Chris Stewart	Right. What was wrong?	23:07
Margaret Bishop White	Well, she was sick quite a while.	23:09
Chris Stewart	Did she have cancer?	23:09
Margaret Bishop White	Something like that.	23:09
Chris Stewart	Okay. Well, I have one last thing that I need to do, and that's to ask you permission to put this tape in the collection. Did I just hear you say no?	23:16
Margaret Bishop White	No.	23:26
Chris Stewart	What we do is we need to have actually written permission from you to use the tape in the collection so that people can use it. And we have a couple options that you can choose. This is what we call an interview agreement, and what you can do is you can sign the agreement that allows anybody to come and listen to your tape and to use it in the classroom or in their writing about Wilmington, about Chicago, about blues singers. Or you can place restrictions on your tape if you'd like to. And what you can do there is restrict it in any way that you want, basically. You can have people get permission from you. If they want to use it, they have to get permission from you. You can close it completely so that nobody can listen to it. What else can you do? You can close it for a while, and then open it at some later date for people to listen to. What other things can you do? You can put whatever kinds of restrictions on it that you'd like to.	23:32
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah.	24:53
Chris Stewart	So those are the two options that you have. Which do you think you would want to do?	24:53
Margaret Bishop White	They don't want to hear all that stuff there.	25:03
Chris Stewart	Oh no. No, they do.	25:06
Margaret Bishop White	No, they don't.	25:09
Chris Stewart	You saw how excited I was getting.	25:10
Margaret Bishop White	Some of it, I remember. Some of it, I didn't.	25:14
Chris Stewart	Well, that's how everybody —some people remember some things and don't remember others. But what we do is we put this as a part of a whole collection. And together, we can piece together a picture of what people's lives were like. The stuff that you remember from your childhood, you remember that very vividly.	25:20
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah.	25:44
Chris Stewart	That's the kind of stuff that we haven't heard anything about. We haven't heard anything about a milk dairy. We haven't heard anything about the horses, and the dancing horse.	25:44
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah.	25:57
Chris Stewart	I mean, we haven't heard anything about that kind of stuff. And like I said before, we're really trying to really paint a picture of people's everyday lives, about what regular people were doing every day. And you have some very vivid memories of that that will be incredibly useful to our collection.	25:57
Margaret Bishop White	Well, yeah, but my mother could tell you more. There's my mother right there too.	26:22
Chris Stewart	I know.	26:29
Margaret Bishop White	That's my mother. Uh-oh. I can carry it.	26:30
Chris Stewart	That's a beautiful, beautiful —is that a painting or a photograph?	26:35
Margaret Bishop White	She had that picture—	26:43
Chris Stewart	Maybe it's a painting of a photograph.	26:43
Margaret Bishop White	It's a painting photograph. There's my aunt right there.	26:44
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	26:50
Margaret Bishop White	That's my aunt.	26:50
Chris Stewart	Did she live close by you?	26:51
Margaret Bishop White	She stayed in that house right there.	26:52
Chris Stewart	Oh, she did?	26:54
Margaret Bishop White	Uh-huh.	26:54
Chris Stewart	That's just beautiful. And that's a great frame too. Where did you find the frame? Was it always in that?	26:57
Margaret Bishop White	We got that frame —I don't know. Some [indistinct 00:27:09] had that frame fixed like that.	27:04
Chris Stewart	Because it's real nice. It looks real pretty with the—	27:12
Margaret Bishop White	I see there is something happening to it now, and I might have to get another one sometime.	27:17
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Right on the side there.	27:23
Margaret Bishop White	On the side there. It looks like something's eating it.	27:25
Chris Stewart	But from the front, it looks just gorgeous.	27:25
Margaret Bishop White	I'm going to try to get it fixed.	27:30
Chris Stewart	So what do you think? Would you like to donate this to the collection without restrictions? Or do you want to put some restrictions on it? What do you think?	27:33
Larry White	[indistinct 00:27:52].	27:46
Chris Stewart	Without restrictions?	27:54
Larry White	Yeah.	27:55
Margaret Bishop White	Well, I'll let it go like it is. Okay?	27:57
Chris Stewart	Are there things on there that you're uncomfortable with, that you don't want people to know about?	27:59
Margaret Bishop White	Well, it don't matter to me. You know what I mean? (laughs) But it's been through that like that. And I was just thinking, I said, "Well, they think that I don't know anything about those kind of things," or something like that.	28:03
Chris Stewart	Oh. Well, like I said, the stuff that you had to say today is unlike almost anything we've ever heard.	28:23
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah.	28:40
Chris Stewart	And your life will be a real —I mean, the way that you related your life to me today will be a real contribution, a really important contribution in fact, to this collection. I don't know how I can assure you that the way in which you told it was very —I mean, you remembered things. Some things you didn't remember, but most of the things you did remember. That's how we all are.	28:42
Margaret Bishop White	That's right.	29:14
Chris Stewart	I'm being like that now. I couldn't remember the person I interviewed yesterday, for Pete's Sake.	29:18
Margaret Bishop White	Oh, it'll be that way.	29:21
Chris Stewart	Kind of embarrassing. I mean, we're interviewing a lot of people.	29:23
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah.	29:26
Chris Stewart	Two and three people a day. So it does get sort of confusing sometimes.	29:26
Margaret Bishop White	Well, you all can put it out there now. Let them know that I know the time and the horses and all like that.	29:33
Chris Stewart	Well, and your memories of singing too, of blues singing, that's something we don't hear about very much, and we're really, really happy to have the opportunity to hear about it and to hear you talk about it.	29:43
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah. But there's so many that have been singing the blues and things like that that's gone.	30:02
Chris Stewart	I know. I know.	30:08
Margaret Bishop White	And the voice has done left them and all. It's a certain time, you don't have the voice that you did. Your voice go from you.	30:10
Chris Stewart	I talked to a man a couple of months ago who lives in Durham, and he still sings and plays, and he's getting up there in age. He's probably real close to your age. And he still plays, but he plays with a guy from South Carolina. And they just get together every once in a while and just travel around for people at parties. But his voice is starting to—	30:20
Margaret Bishop White	Come down?	30:47
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	30:48
Margaret Bishop White	Yeah, it does.	30:48
Chris Stewart	But he can still pick. Boy, he can still pick. He played for us and everything. He can really still pick.	30:49
Margaret Bishop White	I'm telling you.	30:57
Chris Stewart	But he's one of the few people that I've seen who can really still do that. But you're right. A lot of people are just dying.	31:01
Margaret Bishop White	Yes, they are. They really is. And what is the girl that sang? What is her name there? I can't think of her name. There's so many of them, I can't think of their name. Different ones.	31:11
Chris Stewart	Well, I listen to the real old women blues singers, like Ida Cox and Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and Victoria Spivey. Those are women that are even probably before —well, they were recording in the '20s, so you were just a little girl when they were recording.	31:30
Margaret Bishop White	Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. That's the way that is. You can meet a lot of people, getting around and going different places.	31:55
Chris Stewart	Did you meet a lot of people while you were singing?	32:04
Margaret Bishop White	Certainly. Some of them I know, and some of them, I don't know. Oh, I guess I'll wait till it gets cooler.	32:18
Chris Stewart	Oh yeah. Wait till the sun goes down at least.	32:20
Margaret Bishop White	Ugh.	32:24
Chris Stewart	Huh?	32:25
Margaret Bishop White	Everyone take me—	32:26

Item Info

Title:

Margaret White interview recording, 1993 July 21

Date:

July 21, 1993

Creator:

White, Margaret Bishop

Contributor:

Stewart, Chris M.

Description:

Name: Margaret Bishop White; Date of Birth: 1907-01-01; Place of Birth: Wilmington, NC; Occupation(s): musician; nursing; health services; Residence: Wilmington, NC
Informant ID: 228; Interviewed by: Chris Stewart.

Occupation:

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-1999

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

Interview number: 1232
ce95ce70-5977-417a-9622-07e423d80d6d
behindtheveil
btvnc07051
ark:/87924/r44x58x3c
93ebc4bb-eec0-41dd-9e74-c53aab6a852b

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r44x58x3c

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Margaret White interview recording, 1993 July 21

Transcript

Item Info

1. Margaret White administrative file, 1993

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Margaret White interview recording, 1993 July 21

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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