Lucille Williams interview recording, 1993 July 15
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Lucille Simon Williams | No, my mother was Indian brown. | 0:02 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Indian brown. | 0:05 |
Lucille Simon Williams | You'll see that hair on the picture on the wall in the living room. Her picture's there. You would call it Indian brown. She was dark brown with a lot of red in her skin, and she had hair that hung to her shoulders. | 0:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Was it naturally like that? | 0:29 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Mm-hmm. You'll see the picture on the wall up there. | 0:31 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I saw it when I came in. | 0:36 |
Lucille Simon Williams | In the living room, that's my mother. | 0:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | She was beautiful. I didn't notice her skin color so much. She's a beautiful lady. | 0:39 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes, yes. | 0:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Who took care of her hair when you were a little girl? | 0:46 |
Lucille Simon Williams | My hair? | 0:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Your hair and your mother's hair. | 0:51 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Oh, my mother's hair, she didn't straighten her hair because it was already straight. But my father, I inherited hair from him. The people two doors up said they knew every morning that seven o'clock came because they'd hear me over here screaming and carrying on while Mama was trying to comb my hair, and she wasn't used to combing what we call bad hair. So she'd just have to leave some of the hair uncombed, and put what they call knots up under there, and plat over. Yeah, I had hair like my father. But not that hair and really not the skin that Mama had because she had more Indian in her color than I do. I'm about the color of my mother but not that same Indian brown. | 0:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | She had the red. | 1:52 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes. | 1:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Were there Indians in her family? | 1:55 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Descendants of Indians up in Columbus County. Her mother, that was, but her father was up here from East Arcadia. | 1:58 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What was his name, ma'am? | 2:10 |
Lucille Simon Williams | David Blanks. He was a school master, and I think that's how Grandma met him because he was a school master up in Columbus County. Uncle Peacock, my aunt's husband, was a little boy and went to school to my grandfather, who was David Blanks from East Arcadia. When Aunt Lara, my aunt, would get angry and yell at Uncle Peacock, he'd tell her, "You're mean just like your old Black daddy," talking about Grandpa that has taught Aunt Lara. He said, "Yeah, you're mean just like your old Black daddy. He was the meanest Negro I ever saw in my life," talking about Grandpa. Yeah, I guess he got Uncle Peacock straightened out when he was a boy. | 2:13 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes, he taught school up in Columbus County. I just think that's how Grandma met him, because back then they didn't do any traveling. Very often they married cousins, and they were having a family reunion about five years ago of the Spaulding family. They met one time, one Sunday, at the Blockade Runner down on Wrightsville Beach. The young man that was spearheading, he lived up there in East Arcadia, and he was talking one Sunday at the meeting, talking about Mama. Mama was his mother's first cousin. He said, "Cousin Nuvenia didn't marry her cousin, she married old Black Charlie Simon because they had run out of cousins when Mama married. The only reason Mama didn't marry her cousin was because they had run out cousins by the time she got married." And she married, Bob [indistinct 00:04:07] said, "She married old Black Charlie Simon," talking about Father. | 3:02 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did they call him that? | 4:09 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Not to his face, but they just said that when he wasn't listening maybe. But Papa had never been up there until my grandmother died. Then he went up there to Grandma's funeral, and when he got to [indistinct 00:04:31]dale on the Seaboard Line, that's near Elkton, a heavyset, fat light man got on the train, and Papa said to himself, "Uh-huh. That's some of those Negroes that don't like Black people." After a while, the man got up and came over to where Papa was, and spoke to him, and asked him —People on the train used to ask, "How far are you going?" Papa said, "I'm going to Elkton to my mother-in-law's funeral, Madeline Spaulding Blanks's funeral." He said, "Well that's where I'm going. That's my sister." That was Uncle Bernard, Grandma's sister, Grandma's brother, rather. He was going to her funeral. | 4:11 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But I tell you, honey, after then, Papa went up there and they thought more of Papa than they did of me. Sometimes the children would be playing "Here we go 'round the mulberry bush," and Papa would be right in the middle. They loved Papa. Uncle Charles, they called him. When the boys would come to Wilmington, they'd make it for here, out here to Papa. My mother, any time him or the boys got in any trouble up there, somebody speak to Mama. They apparently thought maybe they were going to be arrested. They sent them down her to here to Mama. Then I slept on the crib because I was too young to sleep on a bed. They pushed the crib, I reckon, in the front bedroom, or they let me sleep up there with Mama and Papa. | 5:17 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Sometimes it'd be four or five of those old bad boys in this room that had done something and said they're going to be arrested. They sent them right down here to the Mama, like they heard Mama ran an underground railroad. | 6:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kind of things were they maybe going to be arrested for? | 6:16 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Mischievous. One time, my uncle and his first cousin, they thought they were going to be arrested. There was an old man riding in a buggy, and a mule pulling the buggy. They took something and threw it in front of the mule's face. It threw the old man out, and he got hurt. They thought they going have them arrested for that. Right down here to Mama, they sent them down here to Mama. | 6:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Was it a White man or a Black man in the buggy? | 6:51 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Oh, Negro. But right down here to Mama, like they thought Mama was running an underground railroad. One of them, my mama's brother who came here that time about putting something up front of that old man's mule's face. And the old man was thrown out and got hurt. His first cousin, George Newell, was one of the boys. He stayed and went back. He went back to Columbus County, and when he died he was one of the biggest property owners up there. Uncle John, the other devil, went to Atlantic City, and he worked for a lady, Mrs. Richards, who owned a hotel in Atlantic City and was there for years. | 6:54 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Then later on after years in Atlantic City, he went to Philadelphia. He worked for an old jeweler, fine jeweler in Philadelphia. When his wife and family died, he moved into a hotel. My uncle John took care of him, honey, until he died. When Uncle John would come down here to visit, he'd have on diamond cuff links that the old man had given him, diamond stick pin, diamond ring and all when he'd come here to visit. But he waited on this old man after his wife and all died. He moved in a hotel, and he was a rich jeweler. Uncle John looked after him until he died. | 7:44 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did they live, did your Uncle John live with this man? | 8:34 |
Lucille Simon Williams | No, I think sometime he lived with the old man, but he had a house. Uncle John had a three-story house in Philadelphia, and he had an apartment on the first floor and a cousin of mine married up there. She lived on the second floor, and the third floor, somebody else. But Uncle John was very thrifty. Uncle John was very stingy. But he'd come, Mama loved him so. All of them loved Uncle John, because he was of that [indistinct 00:09:11]. He was their only brother. He died when he was young, Uncle Mac. I didn't know him. | 8:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did your Uncle John marry? | 9:20 |
Lucille Simon Williams | No. He never married. No. But I have a cousin who was an undertaker up in Fayetteville, North Carolina. When Uncle John died, he went to Philadelphia in order to get the body and all. I told my cousin, my first cousin here, I said, "Now when Steve," that was his name, he was in Fayetteville, Steven Rogers. I said, "Now [indistinct 00:09:47], when Cousin Steve comes back, Uncle John is going to be a pauper, died a pauper." "Oh, I don't think so." I said, "Well, you'll see." When he came back, Uncle John he claimed didn't have anything. He had to even buy clothes to put on Uncle John. He got everything that Uncle John had. But that's all right. That's all right. I told her, I said, "I told you Uncle John was going to be a pauper." She's got to give the bedpan to [indistinct 00:10:15]. But don't go. You don't— | 9:23 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Now I think his sister's son is the president. But my mother's, I guess it's called a kind of distant cousin. Because my grandmother on my mother's side was a Spaulding, and my mother was a Blanks. | 10:20 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I was noticing out here on your wall, ma'am, you have a certificate that says you're a life member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. | 10:41 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes. We had our 62nd anniversary. | 10:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | [indistinct 00:10:54]. Thank you. | 10:56 |
Lucille Simon Williams | 62 years. My sorority has had a chapter in Wilmington and they celebrated the 62nd year of the chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha in Wilmington. And I went, a bus came and got me, van rather. They let the back down to meet my walkway, and they pushed the rolling chair right in the van. I went to the 62nd anniversary of the Kappa in this [indistinct 00:11:33]. But the sorority's about a hundred years old. Alpha Kappa Alpha. | 10:58 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When did you join the sorority, ma'am? | 11:36 |
Lucille Simon Williams | They didn't have a sorority on my campus at that time. No, I joined the chapter here in Wilmington in 1932. They made me —And the chapter here is Alpha Psi Omega, and our pins have the shape like an ivy leaf, our sorority pin. But all around that pin are little pearls. So if anybody join the sorority and get in there and they don't work, you say, "They just worked until they got those 20 pearls." Yeah, there's 20 pearls around that little ivy leaf, 20 little pearls. You can put a diamond in that top pin, and maybe a diamond on two of those leaves. But you can't put but so many diamonds in it. You have to keep it with the pearls. Yeah, they initiated me in the graduate chapter in Wilmington in 1932. | 11:38 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Why was it that you joined AKA, Mrs. Williams? | 12:41 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Do you know any [indistinct 00:12:45] but AKA? | 12:44 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I know Deltas, but you wouldn't want to join them. | 12:47 |
Lucille Simon Williams | There's not but one. | 12:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, I see. | 12:51 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Not but one. And even when the men join Omega Psi Phi, or a man joins Kappa Alpha Psi or Alpha Alpha, I tell them, "Now you know men can't join the sorority." I say good man in the wrong organization. But some girl joined some other sorority, I said, "Good woman in the wrong school, in the wrong sorority." Yes, I'm Alpha Kappa Alpha, and the last one of our soror passed just before we got our magazine. There was one living when we had the boule in Washington. Only one of the founders was living. She spoke just as clear voice as if she were a young woman. But she died before I got the ivy leaf, before this one. Ethel Hedgeman Lyle was the treasurer, and L. Pearl Mitchell, an old AKA, was a member. Yes, yes, of Alpha Kappa Alpha. | 12:55 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things did the sorority do? | 14:03 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Oh, we have, one thing that we do, we present the girl, have a presentation for a girl. | 14:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you? | 14:16 |
Lucille Simon Williams | No, they weren't doing that when I came along. | 14:19 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, I see. | 14:26 |
Lucille Simon Williams | One year we gave shoes to the poor children, and we make contributions to organizations here in Wilmington. That's kind of the work we do. But we've just built, oh, a fabulous building in Chicago. But those sorors that are out west in California and all, but some of us feel that that building should have been in Washington, D.C., where the sorority was born at Howard University. But our sorors from all out west and all, they've built a fine building in Chicago. | 14:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of qualities would you look for in a woman who wanted to become AKA? | 15:14 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Fine womanhood, paying their debt to society, and be of good character. Yes. Because our chapter is a graduate chapter. There's chapters on campuses like North Carolina College at Durham. My sorority had a chapter at Duke. | 15:20 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, yes. I've met some members. | 15:46 |
Lucille Simon Williams | We have a chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha on Duke's campus. We have a chapter on Howard University's campus, a chapter on Bennett College campus, a chapter on Shaw University's capital campus. Most of the Negro colleges have chapters of the sorority, Delta Sigma Theta and Alpha Kappa Alpha and Zeta Phi Beta. Those are the women's sororities. | 15:54 |
Lucille Simon Williams | A Duke girl, not this past year, was the, now what do they call the girl that's the —The queen, was the queen. And she even had the piano in the Macy parade. Had a piano on there, and she was playing the piano. But a Duke girl, not this time, the time before this time, Miss America contest was a Duke University girl. She was a brown skin. She looked like she was just a little lighter than I am. But she played the piano and they'd have to do other things to win, when they added up, well, a Negro girl was Miss America. | 16:17 |
Lucille Simon Williams | One year another Negro was Miss America. But before they crowned her, she made some pictures for a club in New York that were not creditable. I forgot what her name is. | 17:19 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I think that was Vanessa Williams. | 17:43 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yeah, that's right. She is married now and has one child. She's on the television, not long from now, and her husband's on there with her. You could tell she was pregnant with another child. Now do you ever look at the Cosby Show? | 17:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, ma'am. | 18:03 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I mean, that really tells people who don't know some sides of Negro family life. | 18:05 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You think so? | 18:11 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I know it. They train you. You see an ideal family on there. My friend here, Miss Fanny White, when she saw Bill Cosby the first time, she figures he's some old Negro like Stepin Fetchit. I said, "Oh, no, Fanny. He is highly educated, and he is one of the finest men we have." But he can really carry on some. I look at it every night it comes on. But they say they're not going to be on after the next year. One year more. | 18:11 |
Rhonda Mawhood | That's right. | 18:53 |
Lucille Simon Williams | And that little old girl on the, I call that little yellow gal, that child is something. I saw her picture in the Jet magazine last month, she's already got a job. She's already rich, you know she is, and she is something. And can run like a deer if she's doing something and hear them coming. One time she was getting a Thanksgiving turkey ready, went in the refrigerator, the turkey was in the roaster. Pulled the turkey out, bam on the floor, went in and then pulled the roaster with the turkey in it over to the table and had put some black, I reckon black pepper or something, getting the turkey ready, ready to bake the turkey. | 18:57 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Heard them coming. That thing can run like a deer, run as fast as a deer. Bill tried to, well, he can't tangle her up. He tried to tangle her up. She said she was going have, when she got married, she was going have five girls and they going to be named Naomi, all of them. He said, "Well, how will one child know when you're calling her from the other child's name?" "I'm going to name them Naomi One, Naomi Two, Naomi Three, Naomi Four, Naomi Five. If I want Naomi Four, I'll call Naomi Four." He can't [indistinct 00:20:15] her up. | 19:41 |
Lucille Simon Williams | He tried to tangle her up one time about where babies come from. He said, "I thought babies came from heaven." She said, "They do. The stork goes to heaven and gets the baby and bring it back down and give him to his mama." Bill said, "Well, why does the mama get so fat before the baby come?" "Well, that's gas. That's gas." Oh, my, my, my. She was supposed to sing for Bill Cosby's mother and father on there, I think it was their 25th wedding anniversary. But she got a cold and was hoarse and couldn't sing. But she sent off and got a record to play. She looked just like she was singing, and just getting all down and carrying on. You would have thought she was singing, but she was singing just like the person on the record. Smart little gal. | 20:15 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you ever sing when you were a little girl, Miss Williams? | 21:04 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes, I sang, believe it or not, with the Shaw University Glee Club. One Sunday we went over to Shaw, over to Duke, and they were just putting the stones around to put the shrubbery in. Hadn't quite finished the school. Our glee club went over there to sing for some group one Sunday. The next time I went to Duke, I went there for this arthritis, thinking they could do something. But the day I went there, the arthritis specialist was out of town and would be back the next day. | 21:04 |
Lucille Simon Williams | So I found a motel right near Duke and stayed there overnight. My friend, two of my friends, one friend and her friend took me up there, and the next day I went back down to the school. The arthritis doctor asked me, what medicine was I taking? But I had left the medicine, I carried it but I left it in the car. I said, "Now, doctor, the medicine I'm taking for arthritis is about as long as my ring finger and a half." And I described the color to him, and he said, "Oh, that's—" He called the name of it. He said, "That's the best remedy that we know for arthritis." | 22:00 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But I had left my medicine in the bag in the car, and I described this medicine that I was taking. Seemed like it was called Feldene. He said, "Oh, that's Feldene. That's the best remedy that we know for arthritis." I'm still taking Feldene, and it's still doing me no good. Yes, sir. But it's the Lord's will. I've done my work and sung my song. I've done some good, I've done some wrong. But the Lord lets me be in bed. I went to the eye specialist about a month ago, and I had gone about three years ago and I had an appointment to come to him this year. But when I got in there, I have never had a blackout in my life. I don't know why because I wasn't nervous or anything. I'd been to Dr. [indistinct 00:23:57] before. But this child went with me, Miss Green. | 22:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | [indistinct 00:24:02]. | 24:00 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Just all at once, I could hear her calling me, but I couldn't speak to her. I heard her calling and calling and calling. Then I had a spell of nausea, and they had a bucket [indistinct 00:24:25] holding the bucket. But I recovered, and I haven't had any more symptoms of nausea. | 24:04 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, that's good. | 24:39 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I could hear Eugenia calling me. "Miss Williams, Miss Williams." I could hear her, but I couldn't answer. I guess I must have had a blackout. I've never had one before nor since. Never. But I guess it's just one of those things. | 24:41 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Well, Miss Williams, I don't want to keep you but I wanted to ask you— | 24:54 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Now let me tell you, I'm enjoying having you. | 25:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, good. | 25:01 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But I hope you have asked me something that you're supposed to ask me. I hope I didn't talk you to death. | 25:04 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, ma'am, you've told me so much. It's wonderful. I was wondering if there's any advice that you would give to young people coming up these days because you have experience, you've lived. I'm wondering if you have any advice you'd want to tell people. | 25:08 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Well, I would tell them if they're in school to study, study, study. And if they are, now they're in integrated school. Remember that you have got to be about four times as good as a White student to get as far. You are going to tell me, "Miss Williams, that's wrong." I'm going to agree with you that that's wrong. But that's how it is. And you will have to remember when you go to an integrated college, you will have to be about four times as good to get as far. And that's not fair. you going to say, "[indistinct 00:26:13], that's not fair," and I'm going to agree with you. But that's how it is. Study, study, study. | 25:31 |
Lucille Simon Williams | If you're in high school, study, study, study. Because you going to have to be about four times as good as that White child to get as far. And you going to tell me, "[indistinct 00:26:33], that is wrong." And I'm going agree with you, that's wrong. But that's how it is. You going to have to realize that's how it is. Now one of my boys came to see me Sunday. He received a full scholarship to Yale when he finished high school. I told him, I opened my big mouth one time too many, I told him, "If Yale University is fool enough to graduate you," he had a brilliant mind, "but if Yale is fool enough to graduate you in four years, I'm coming to see the sight." About three weeks before graduation, here comes the invitation. I said, "Oh my god, I've opened my big mouth one time too many." | 26:24 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Because I wouldn't promise him I was going to do something and not do it. I had told him I was coming to his graduation to see the sight if Yale University was fool enough to graduate you. He sent his invitation. I went to his graduation. At that graduation, Duke Ellington, the great pianist, they conferred the Honorary Doctor of Music on Duke that morning. They had the graduation exercise out on the green. When that Yale class marched in, Duke was in the line of march. When Dr. Kingman Brewster, that was his first year as president of Yale —They told me the other day that Dr. Brewster died. He said that was his class, because he came to Yale the same year they graduated from Yale, and he asked the class to let him deliver the baccalaureate. And they did. Kingman Brewster. Since he was at Yale, he was United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James in England. But Dix told me the other day that he died. | 27:17 |
Lucille Simon Williams | He introduced Duke and used some of Duke's compositions in his introduction. He said, "I know you didn't come down here on the A train, and maybe this wasn't a sentimental journey, but it don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing." That Yale band struck a [indistinct 00:29:02]. When they finished, [indistinct 00:29:03], and he got up, "Tell you something. You boys back to New York and put you in my orchestra." Yeah. He said, "It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing." The band struck up on that, the Yale band. They had to have the exercise out on the campus. I have a boy, I have more than one that finished Duke as an engineer. My cousin's son, I have a distant cousin named Miss Karen L. Chestnut. Her younger son graduated from Yale, and now he graduated as an engineer. His first job was with an engineering company that's supposedly one of the oldest and best engineering firms in the country. | 28:38 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But they tried to get him to let them put him on an Army installation that they were building, and that would keep him from having to go to the Army, if he was working on something that the Army was having built. But do you know he wouldn't? He went into the war as a common foot soldier. Because he said if he would go on and be an officer every time the United States got in a war, they'd be sending for him to go train. So he went in as a common foot soldier. | 29:54 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Vietnam? | 30:35 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes ma'am. He went to Vietnam but came back all safe and graduated from Duke. There was so many people at the graduation, those of us that weren't parents, so they had seats for us out on the green at Duke. He graduated, and he is an engineer and is the head of a firm in Atlanta, Georgia, that's supposed to be one of the best and biggest engineering company owned by a Negro. | 30:36 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And what is his name? | 31:12 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Kenneth Chestnut. | 31:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Kenneth Chestnut. | 31:15 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Kenneth Chestnut. Yes. He went on into the army and he could have, that J.A. Johnson Construction Company put him on an Army installation. But he wouldn't, because he said he would be beholden to something. He might want to make a change someday, but he would feel like he owed them something for keeping him out of the war and he wouldn't do it. Went as a common foot soldier. | 31:17 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You told me earlier, Miss Williams, that you went to Columbia? | 31:44 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes. I got my Master's degree in English from Columbia University, '45, in 1945. | 31:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you like New York City, ma'am? | 31:56 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yeah. All right, but I loved Columbia, and I'm not able to do it. But every time they write me to send a contribution, I send something if it isn't but five or $10 because at Columbia they made you feel somebody that they want you. I finished Columbia summer after summer for my Master's degree. They had to have the graduation out in front of that building that you always see on a postcard of Columbia. They had to have the graduation. All the people that were graduating had to have the graduation out there. | 31:59 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Graduate didn't get but five tickets for five friends or the family. And I had five. My classmate, we'd been friends, we started at Peabody together. She lived in New York, and her husband, that made two, and my husband, that made three. And a girl named Miss Annie Moore was going to summer school that year. She got the fourth ticket. I gave fifth one to somebody. But you couldn't have but five tickets, even having it out there on the green because there was so many graduates. | 32:47 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I hadn't been but to one Duke graduation, and that was that Chestnut boy, Kenneth, graduated. And only the parents could go into the chapel where they were graduating, but they had seats out for all the others. They broadcasted it, and we heard everything that was going on. But he's an engineer. He graduated as an engineer from Duke University. My boy that finished Yale works for a big company in New York, and he has to travel quite a bit. He came to see me, and when he was here last year, he came to see me. The florist rang the bell, and he sent me a beautiful arrangement of flowers in that kind of low basket, like about that big. Sent me a beautiful arrangement of flowers. But he didn't stay here long this time. He was just here a few days. | 33:22 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Ernest Dix was his name. He's the one that got a full scholarship to Yale. I told him one day, I said, "Well, if Yale University is fool enough to graduate you, I'm coming to see the sight." But here comes the invitation [indistinct 00:34:37]. There was a boy, a White boy, very rich boy was his roommate. One night this boy was over in a corner trying to learn something by heart, and the man was cussing the teacher. Dix went over there and said, "What's the matter?" He said, "I'm trying to learn these first 14 lines of the Canterbury Tale. It was written in Middle English." Dix told him he had it in high school under me. So Dix helped him to learn the first 14 lines of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. But he was cussing up a storm, the boy was, so Dix said, "What's the matter with you?" He told him, "I'm trying to learn the first 14 lines of the Canterbury Tale. And it was written in Middle English." So Dix said, "I had that in high school. I'll help you." | 34:22 |
Rhonda Mawhood | He learned it from you. | 35:40 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes, ma'am. They had a homecoming for Wilmington students, and they were here by the thousands. So big that they wanted to have their meeting and something else over at the Hilton. Hilton couldn't hold them. They weren't even asking for a room in the Hilton. But the Hilton couldn't accommodate them even to have their meetings there. So they had everything at the Atlantic Coastline building downtown. And I went. My cousin helped, the lady that was here, lady next door, Miss Atwood came over here and they helped me, got me dressed. Then these two boys, my godson was here, and another boy that I had taught, they helped me to get in the wheelchair. | 35:42 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Then they roll me out into the hall and down the ramp up to their bus and rolled me in. I went there in the wheelchair. But they were having a mock classroom way up at the other end. I couldn't hear what they was saying. I didn't hear what one girl said. She recited first 14 lines to the Canterbury Tale. But the teacher was teaching the Canterbury Tale. An old boy, he was dressed up, he was real kind of ragged, and he was [indistinct 00:37:19]. He wanted to go out, and you see, I couldn't hear what the girl told him. But I told him, they said, "I don't teach English in the bathroom." He was raring to go out [indistinct 00:37:31]. And those young 'uns had come, he along with them, they'd come by that chair where I was, and kissed with their tuxedos on and the girls with their dinner dresses on. But they went back there, and she had some, this girl that was a teacher had something hanging on her left arm. But I figured that was just something to put around. It was cool, got cool. | 36:39 |
Lucille Simon Williams | She was the teacher, and she gave me the Judas kiss when she passed me up there coming in, and then stooped down and kissed me and then went right up there and was me in the school, in this classroom. Yeah. That's what she was, playing that part of me in the classroom. I called her the next day. I said, "You Black big-eyed so-and-so. You came by there and gave me the Judas kiss, the kiss of Judas." He kissed Christ before he went out to prepare to kill him. I said, "You gave me the Judas kiss and you were me in that classroom you had up there." They have a mock classroom. And honey, we were so proud of them. Darling, you couldn't hear any loudness in all that crowd in there. They would meet each other and laugh, but they were so refined, you wouldn't have known. | 37:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Why did you tell her that she gave you the Judas kiss? | 38:59 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Because she was going right up there and be me, cutting the fool in the classroom. That's why I told her, "You gave me—" She hugged me and kissed me when she came in, but I didn't know what that was hanging on her left arm. But that was something to put on, a shirtwaist on a skirt, to be me in that classroom they have up there. But I was sitting way down. I couldn't hear all they said. But one old boy, George Junius, he'd been by in his tuxedo evening clothes, kissing and going on. But he went back and pulled them off and dressed like an old boy in high school. You see, he was asking me to teach it, to go out and say I told him, "I don't teach English in the bathroom." Yeah, but you didn't hear any loud talking. Then when they'd meet each other, they would all be happy to see each other. But you didn't hear any loudness. | 39:02 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When you were teaching? | 40:02 |
Lucille Simon Williams | No, I mean, down to the thing they had for the homecoming. | 40:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 40:09 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Weekend of the Fourth of July. Didn't hear any loudness and didn't hear any [indistinct 00:40:14] when they were eating. They were just so refined. Made us very proud of them. And one boy has a big church, he prayed, I mean he said the grace at every meal. Conrad Pridgen, he has a big church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Yeah, he has a big church in Charlotte, North Carolina. | 40:09 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Reverend Pridgen. | 40:39 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yeah, Reverend Pridgen. That's right. And the Glee Club, the old Glee Club, Mrs. Hodell, I believe she had almost 75, a hundred of the old Glee Club. They sang that song, "Amen," on Dr. Schuller's show, the man that wrote that. That play on, maybe you don't see it. It's called Amen, on the show. You do? Well, then that old man Wally, always when somebody says something good about somebody, Wally comes up with something bad. Well, he's an actor, and he led that congregation of Dr. Schuller that Sunday morning in Amen. Honey, he almost had those White people shouting in Dr. Schuller's sermon and Dr. Schuller's show. I look at it every Sunday morning, Dr. Schuller. | 40:39 |
Lucille Simon Williams | They said then they were going to have something big. That's when they had it, they were going to invite Wally. I call him Wally, because that's his name in the show Amen. Thelma is in love with the preacher in that show. She's in love with the preacher, but the preacher I heard on television about, I guess it's been five or six months ago, that he has a sister that lives in Jacksonville. On television, they said he was down in Jacksonville, North Carolina, visiting his sister. He is a Seventh Day Adventist, and he is a minister too. | 41:44 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What church did you go to when you were growing up, Miss Williams? | 42:26 |
Lucille Simon Williams | AME Methodist Church, Mount Zion Methodist Church. | 42:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mount Zion. | 42:31 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Mount Zion is on Fifth Street near the corner of Nixon. But I joined St. Stephen after I was grown and was teaching, I joined St. Stephen AME Church. It's right at the corner of Fifth and Red Cross, St. Stephen AME Church. I joined the church when the Reverend Cleveland was pastor, but when he changed places, he went to Durham, North Carolina. He had one son who is a doctor. He might be retired by now, but he was a doctor in Durham. Reverend Cleveland was a pastor when he left Wilmington of the AME church in Durham. But I joined under Dr. Cleveland. | 42:34 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you like going to church when you were growing up, Miss Williams? | 43:26 |
Lucille Simon Williams | You better like it. One Sunday morning, I was sick, too sick to go. I was too sick to go to church with Mama. I was always, children say, "Oh, I was bad off sick." But there's a hill you come down right up there, a slight hill, and time Mama got to church, I was too sick to go. I got on that bicycle, honey, I was riding up a storm, but one time I was coming down the hill, looked back, and Mama was coming home. And then I raced and I fell off the bicycle, but I took it and rolled it home. But she saw me. I was too sick to go to church. Too sick, too sick. But she didn't spank me that day. I don't think she did. But that fussing she could do. My cousin lived here, she came here to stay with us to help wait on Mama. Her name was called Cora Ann. Cora Ann said she thought, her mother was mama's sister, that she thought her mother could fuss. Said, "Well, Aunt [indistinct 00:44:42] could beat her mother fussing." Yes, sir. | 43:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What did your mother say to you that time? | 44:44 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Oh, my goodness. Everything you would think of, for being a storyteller for one thing, playing I was sick when it was time to go to church, but when Mama was way up the hill there and I was about down there riding that way. I looked and saw Mama. I turned around, but she saw me. I pushed the bicycle home. But I was too sick that Sunday morning to go to church. Too sick, always children used to say, "I was bad off." My very best college friend lives in Charlotte, and she calls me real often and we talk. | 44:47 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What's her name, ma'am? | 45:31 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Cecilia Jackson Wilson. She married a Wilson. | 45:31 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Wilson? | 45:36 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Wilson, W-I-L-S-O-N. But she was a Jackson. That was her maiden name. We are good friends. Every Christmas, she sent me a fruitcake about that size and was baked somewhere in Texas by a company. They have the copyright now on that fruitcake. But for the last Christmas and the Christmas before, I needed the money and was glad to have it. She and her sister went together and gave me a sum of money. But I wanted to send a fruitcake too. But I had the address. | 45:37 |
Lucille Simon Williams | —and address, and they made it out for that company in Texas. But I understand they have a copyright on it now. That means that nobody can make it by that—But I used to make fruitcake every Thanksgiving. After my mother died, my aunt was a fancy cook. Mom was a good, plain cook. But that Christmas, I had made this big fruitcake and had made—Mama taught me how to make a pineapple layer cake, and that's the other cake I had for Christmas. | 0:02 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Papa and company came and they just went, "Wow," about that layer cake. But papa liked the layer he didn't care for fruit cake. And my Lord, when those people left, he even [indistinct 00:00:58], finally give those Negroes some of that fruitcake. But they'd eat some the layer cake. And Papa would fuss at the people there, "Why didn't you offer those Negroes some of that fruitcake?" I said, "Papa, they didn't like that as well as they did." And he fussed up a storm because the people liked the cake he liked, pineapple layer cake. And I used to make pineapple layer cake, and make fruitcake too, but I haven't made a fruitcake in some years. | 0:38 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But I'd always make some, enough to make one for my friend in New York and one for my friend in Raleigh. And my friend in New York asked me when I went up to New York, she said, "Lucille, why didn't you send me a fruitcake this Christmas?" I said, "I haven't baked one since because I had those fruitcakes and wrapped them up in a soft cloth and poured a little line over the cloth. And instead of putting them in the freezer or in the ice box, my God, I put them in a tall tin can. And I'd been down to the beach, and when I drove into the garage, I opened the top to see how they were getting along. | 1:33 |
Lucille Simon Williams | My Lord, the alcoholic smell came in my nose. They had rotted with all that fruit and all those nuts and everything. I haven't made one since. And she was asking me why I didn't send a fruit cake. I said, "I don't think I'll make another," and I haven't. I haven't made another one since. I get them to buy me a little suitcase. My neighbor next the door, she's the fifth of 10 children. And her father, when he came out World War I, the government gave each soldier that had been to France and fought in the war a coming out sum of $850. A lot of neighbors bought silk shirts and they kind of all [indistinct 00:03:18]. But he took his $850 and paid the man, took that $850 and paid a man to build that house over there. And he didn't live in it, but a lovely couple, young people lived in it. | 2:23 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But he went down to the [indistinct 00:03:34], very, very expensive, lived down on Masonboro Sound. And he went to the [indistinct 00:03:40] as our chauffer. And his wife didn't have but three little children. They had two little boys and one little girl. And they went down there to live, and Mr. [indistinct 00:03:53] had a home right on the lot for the chauffeur's families to live in. And the woman, this girl is so good to me, she's going to Michigan to spend a week with her daughter. But she shops for me. And right now that I've gotten so stiff in my fingers, she writes my checks for me and puts a little reminder that haven't yet in the bank. She does all the little business for me. And even answers the letters. There's a stack of letters over there now on the left that have a lasting band around. They're bills that have been paid. | 3:32 |
Lucille Simon Williams | And then there's a loose set on top of them with that weight on. That's where the bills are. | 4:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It's nice to have nice neighbors. | 4:40 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes, isn't it though? And she worked for Central & Mills for years, and she had six children home. But for the seventh one, the grandmother never let her have her. They call her, she Jacquelin, Jackie. She teaches in Charlotte. She teaches kindergarten in Charlotte, North Carolina. But one of them worked in a bank. She lived in New Bern, North Carolina. And another girl is in the sheriff's department here in Wilmington. And her boy Tommy works for the government. He carry a load about three or four times a week to Raleigh. Picks them up all the way from here to Raleigh who are going to join the service, join the army or join the service. And he is just as fine to me as he can be. | 4:43 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But she took all the pictures of the things that went on at that fourth of July meeting of Williston students, and they were here about the hundreds, students that had graduated from Williston. And she was over there looking in the paper, and I could tell one night this child was looking in the want ads. I thought and I said what in the devil is this child looking in the want ads so long for? | 5:42 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But she was looking in there to find someone that wanted someone to keep their little children. And this lady called me, she called about the job. The lady called me. She gave me and her pastor and somebody else as a reference. And when she called me, I told the lady, "You will be fortunate if you can get her, because she is the fifth of 10 children. And all of them are right next door to me. And there's nothing between me and them but the driveway. But you never heard any loud talking and quarreling. And there were four or five boys over there," I said. "And very often old bad boys will hang around for those boys. Not a one you ever saw hang around over there. And there were 10 of them when she came back up from [indistinct 00:07:00]. But the child is the fifth. And when the lady called about her, I told her, "Lady, you will be fortunate." | 6:05 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I rang the lady who wanted to know [indistinct 00:07:10], she'd be fortunate, and she was. You would be fortunate if you can get her. And Charlotte went there when the youngest boy was just a baby, and she had an older boy that was in school. And he was a big boy now. They took him out to Wilmington College to learn how to swim. And Charlotte came out here one day because she was having some work done and couldn't leave the house. | 7:08 |
Lucille Simon Williams | So Charlotte brought him out here and stayed out here in Charlotte all day. And they went to walk, and the daddy came out here to get him. But the lady next door evidently heard the neighbor that Charlotte worked for talking about how good she was. So she begged the lady to let her have Charlotte two days a week for a few hours. But that lady built, Charlotte said, a fabulous house and moved. But she still went out there. And then the day she was going to leave for the last time, the lady [indistinct 00:08:19] some money. And the little boy that the woman got pregnant for after she got her there, he just look up in your face and just smile, Charlotte said. | 7:38 |
Lucille Simon Williams | So I have a nickname for him. And she called him [indistinct 00:08:32], and now she won't tell him anything about how I called him Grinning Jenny. And Grinning Jenny's people moved and Charlotte gave that job up. And they gave a beautiful arrangement, she told me, for her dining room table. And they let Grinning Jenny present that to Charlotte. But Mrs., the other lady, had taught her before Charlotte went there not to call her Charlotte. Her name was Charlotte Atwood. She'd call her either Mrs. Atwood, we know that's hard for little children to pronounce, or call her Miss Charlotte. Don't call her Charlotte, because there's no [indistinct 00:09:12] to it. Call her Miss Charlotte. | 8:28 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But when Charlotte went there, the first lady, she had never potty-trained him. And so he'd do is little business in his diaper, but Charlotte had to potty-train him after she went there because his mama had never potty-trained him. But Charlotte had taught potty to six of them, because Ms. Pitman kept her first child. She never wouldn't let Jackie have, I mean Charlotte have her. But she's the mother of seven children. And I've told the lady, she's the fifth 10 children. | 9:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You've lived in Wilmington your whole life? | 0:01 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | I was born in 1907 on North 7th Street, and my father bought the first lot in what this is called Love Grove. Because in slavery, this land out here was a big plantation, but it was owned by the Loves and therefore this place here was called Love Grove. And I have lived here in Love Grove since I was two years old. I was born in 1907. So you can imagine how old I was and how long I've been sleeping in this room. | 0:04 |
Rhonda Mawhood | This was your room when you were a child here? | 0:53 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | My father had this house built when I was two years old and we moved into this house from North 7th Street and I was seven and I have lived here all these years since I came into Love Grove. It was in slavery, I'm told a large plantation owned by the Loves. But after slavery it was sold to Negroes and my father bought one of the first lots, 50 by 100 in Love Grove. And I was two years old when I started sleeping in this room because my father felt that if you could pay rent, you could buy a home. And he said he would hadn't—Planned to die with a bureau drawer full of rent receipts. So he bought the first lot in Love Grove and built the first house. And we moved in here in 1909. | 0:56 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And you were the first family to move here? | 2:15 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | The first family to live in this section of Wilmington, North Carolina. And my mother was born in Edenton, North Carolina. The home of the Spaldings, my grandmother was a Spalding before she was married and my mother was born in the section of Columbus County, but then she was just a girl. She came here to go to school and went school at Peabody until she had to come out and go to work. | 2:17 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How old was she then ma'am? | 2:54 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Beg your pardon? | 2:56 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How old was she then when she had to leave school? | 2:56 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | She had to leave school when she was about, I guess in her early teens. And she went to work at Dr. Bellamy who owned a drug store where Tom's Drugstore is now at Front and Market. She worked for them. And they lived, Ms. Bellamy that she worked with lived next door to the Bellamy Mansion at their store now on the corner of 5th and Market. And this Dr Bellamy owned the drug store at the corner of Front and Market. And they had one son, Hargrove, and my mother was made there and helped to nurse him. | 3:00 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | My father was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina, but my father wanted to go to some war, I don't know which it was, and my grandmother would have to sign for him. So my grandmother would not sign for him to go to war. So he ran away and landed down here in Edenton, North Carolina and came from Edenton, North Carolina to Wilmington and was in Wilmington just before the riot in 1898 in Wilmington, North Carolina. My father created the lumber, for a lumber mill owned by the Riders of Pennsylvania. They had a chain of lumber mills in North Carolina. And my father's first job in Wilmington was at the Angola Lumber Company. | 3:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Angola? | 4:56 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Angola Lumber Company at which he was a machinist and graded lumber. And he worked there until Angola closed. And after that he worked at the shipyard in Wilmington. And after that he worked at the basket factory here in a Love Grove, by the Colucci. And Mr. Colucci was from Italy. | 4:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Colucci? | 5:32 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Yes. And he owned a basket factory out here and my father worked there until he retired from there. | 5:34 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What was he doing at the basket factory, ma'am? | 5:45 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Running a machine and grading the lumber that they had to use in making the basket bottles? Yes, my father was a machinist and a grader of lumber, but when the first World War broke out, they built the shipyard here and numbers of men left their jobs and went to work for more salaries at the shipyard. And he stayed, and that shipyard stayed here longer than the shipyard stayed here in World War II, but he was a grader of lumber and he ran the machine in cutting the lumber. 'Cause every foot of the grade lumber in this house ran through my father's hands. | 5:48 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Now he maybe could have built this house out of lumber from there, but they had their eyes on him. So he paid this lumber but had to borrow some money from the foreman to build the house. The foreman was named Captain Tilly. | 6:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Captain Tilly? | 7:21 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Tilly. But he moved from Wilmington to Lumberton, which meant my father had to go there every November and pay him part of the money that he had borrowed to build this house. | 7:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mr. Tilly was a White man? | 7:36 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Yes, they called him Captain Tilly and he was the manager at the Angola Lumber Company at the time. My father borrowed some of the money to build this house and when Captain Tilly moved to London to Lumberton, my father had to go there every November and pay him part of the money that he had borrowed to build this house. And I have been sleeping in this room since I was two, in this same room since I was two years old. | 7:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What was your father's name, ma'am? | 8:15 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Charles Norval Simon, S-I-M-O-N. Yes, he was a Simon from Wadesboro, North Carolina, western part state. And my father used to always say when he would be driving back, he let me drive the Chevrolet. But when he got up around Laurinburg he'd take back from me, take that wheel from me and tell me I was in God's country then. When he got up in the western part of the state, he said that was God's country, but his home was in Wadesboro, North Carolina, but came to Wilmington six months before the riot of 1898, before the riot, and stayed here until he passed in 1939. | 8:17 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you know your father's parents, ma'am? | 9:17 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | I knew his mother, but his father had passed when he took me to Wadesboro. And I knew my grandmother on my father's side because I had visited—He had taken me there to visit my grandmother. My mother had been to Papa's home once and that was when I was three months old. She went to Wadesboro to visit my father's people and he called the western part of state God's country. | 9:20 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What do you remember about your grandmother, Ms. Williams? | 9:56 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | They said I am very much like my grandmother. My grandfather they said was very quiet, but grandma was the big boss and I knew her, because when I went to Wadesboro, Papa took me there, she was living and I met my grandmother and stayed some nights out in the country with her. Then I went to town in Wadesboro and stayed a while, visited a while with Dolgen. Mr. Dolgen was an undertaker in the city of Wadesboro. | 10:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Dolgen? | 10:41 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Dolgen, yes, was an undertaker and I stayed in his home when I went to town to spend some time in Wadesboro. | 10:41 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Were they friends of the family or relatives? | 10:52 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | They were friends of the family and one of my brothers and married a lady who was sister to Mrs. Dolgen. And that's why I had connections in Wadesboro. And one of my father's six brothers lived in the city of Wadesboro. But when the depression was coming on, he went to West Virginia, numbers of men, went to West Virginia and to Duquesne, Pennsylvania to work in their mines. And he had five children, but he was killed with a heavy, I guess, piece of coal in the mine and left my aunt with five little children. But she educated every one of them, five girls. They finished at A&T College in Greensboro and then when the girls finished school, she remodeled the little house. And the girls, some of them are living there now. | 10:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did your grandmother tell you stories when you were growing up? | 12:13 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | No. No. And my mother talked quite a bit about her home, but my mother's people, were what they call free issue, they were never slaves. My mother's people were never slaves. They were what they call free issue. And my grandmother, I imagine my Simon grandmother might have been a slave, but she never talked to me about it. | 12:15 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Your mother talked about the fact that her family were free issues? | 12:50 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Yes. She just told me they were free issues, but never told me why they would come to the free issue. I guess that was, and they were never slaves. The Spaldings were not. My grandmother on my mother's side was a Spalding and my grandfather on my mother's side was a school master and he taught school up in Columbus County. And I guess that's how he met my grandmother who was a Spalding. And my grandmother's first husband, I mean my grandmother was a Spalding and then she married a Simon. And that's how I came into the owning, or came into owning the word. The name Lucille Simon, S-I-M-O-N. My father came from Edenton here to Wilmington six months before the riot of 1898. | 12:54 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did your father talk to you about the riot of 1898, ma'am? | 14:02 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Not too much. But do you have questions you want to ask about it? | 14:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Well, I was just wondering really if he talked to you about it and if he did, what kinds of things he told you? What do you remember about it? | 14:13 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Well, my father didn't talk much about it to me, but I had some old friends who talked about it. | 14:22 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Who were these friends? Mrs. Williams, | 14:35 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Miss Carrie Garrison. She's passed now. Talked quite a bit about it to me. | 14:36 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And she was older than you were? | 14:44 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Well, she was an old woman. She was an adult when the riot occurred in 1898 and my father was here, but he never talk about it to me. | 14:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What did Ms. Garrison tell you about it, ma'am? | 14:56 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Well, there was a newspaper then that Negroes ran named the Manlys, and I understand some name was written about Colored man being friendly with White women, and the Manlys counseled them in their paper about White women that were courting Negro men. And of course the Manlys had to leave town because of what they said in that newspaper. And when the riot occurred, Negroes that had had some plan in the riot had to leave town and Judge Armond Scott of Washington DC, I'm told, that those Negro men that had had some part in starting the ride had to stay in the cemetery overnight to get out of town and Judge Scott never returned to Wilmington until I was teaching in the new school. He had never been back, but he was an outstanding judge of Washington DC and the assault that he and some other Negro had sort of planned the riot. | 15:01 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | And they went and Mr.—old man James Sprunt owned the cotton press where cotton was sent and baled, and placed into bales. And there was some of those Negroes who worked there that were fighting in the riot, were called red coat and they went down to the compress to maybe take these Negroes out and harm them, maybe killed them. But Mr. James Sprunt, Sr., who owned the cotton press, went to the door and met them at the door. But he kept those Negroes in the cotton press all during the riot so they wouldn't be harmed. | 16:47 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | And when he went to the door to meet, I understand the ones that were fighting in the riot were called red coat, maybe they might have shot Mr. Sprunt, but he was an Englishman and he went back in his office and got the flag and wrapped the English flag all around his body and then told them, "Now you shoot this." And you know what we've been in if they had shot flag of England. And Mr. Sprunt kept some of those Negroes in the compress during the riot, fed them, slept them and kept them until the riot was over, I'm told. | 17:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How old were you, Ms. Williams when Ms. Garrison was telling you these stories? | 18:32 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Oh, I was a teenager. | 18:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 18:35 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Yes. And she told me those things because she said when they get on you, you might be sitting there with nothing to say like a pussycat. So I'm telling you, she said so that you will know these things. And there was another lady after she died that took me over to tell me things that had happened in Wilmington. And her name was Mrs. Ethel Neil Johnson. She said, "I'm telling you now these things so when they get on you, you won't be standing there silent as a pussycat." | 18:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When who gets all you Ms. Williams? | 19:21 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | White people I think she meant. But I had no—I was born here. I mean when I was two years old, we moved here and my first experiences With white people were pleasant experiences because the Riders of Pennsylvania owned a chain of lumber mill in the south and young Mr. Rider was sent here by his father to run that mill back there called the Box Factory. And he came here and brought his bride, his 18-year-old wife and they built a mansion right back of us and they lived there, had a butler, a cook. And my pleasant first experiences as a child with White people was pleasant experiences because they lived just like—We lived just like neighbors. And they moved from here, they closed the Box Factory that had been here for years and that meant that Mrs. Rider would have to go back to Philadelphia, her home. | 19:25 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | But she sat right over there. There used to be a track running by here, right by our front fence. And there was a stake driven down in our front yard where they were going to run the train through our yard but hadn't said a word. And my father had to pay $50 to lawyer Herbert McClean to keep them from running that track, right, it would've been right in our front porch. They just took up the track I guess about six months ago. But my father had to pay lawyer Herbert McClean $50 to keep the Atlantic Coastline from building a track, would have been right there, maybe on our front porch. | 20:41 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | And that stake was driven there. And I wanted to plant some flowers there after I grew up, after I was gone. But my father said, "No, don't plant any flowers or pull that stake up, let it stay there until it rots down because it remarked the spot where White people tried to take advantage of Negroes and they had the senses to keep it from doing it." So the old stake in the yard rotted down and the train used to come right by. | 21:32 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | He had going up there to the factory and it was almost on the front porch as it was, but they took up the traffic. It's been about a month, about six months ago that they spurred off there and ran right by here. Now they could have spurred off down there by the new [indistinct 00:22:29], but they spurred off right up here. And that meant that anybody's car was parked on the railroad they had, and they wanted to go up to the mill, they had to move their cars first, but they planned to build the track some feet closer to our front porch than it is. | 22:07 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How did your parents teach you to behave towards White people? | 23:00 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Well, they never had to teach me how, because we lived right near the Riders of Pennsylvania and therefore my first experiences with White people were pleasant experiences. And that was a blessing because when they integrated the schools in 1968, but North Carolina had been on a court order for 10 years to integrate these schools and they hadn't done it. So when Dr. Hayward Bellman, bless his heart, became superintendent of the school in New Hanover County, he went by the law and integrated the school. But I understand New Hanover County had been under court order for 10 years to entry the schools, but they hadn't done it. But Dr. Bellman became, and not, he didn't belong to that family Bellman I was telling you about. | 23:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | He didn't? | 24:12 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | No, no, no. He belong. He was not. I think his fam, he was from South Carolina, but a fine man, a fine man. But as soon as he became superintendent of school, he integrated the school. And that meant that Williston, the Negro High School was closed in 1968 and six of us on the faculty were sent to Hoggard High School. | 24:15 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Hoggard? | 24:43 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Hoggard. And the rest of the students, as I imagine they were, oh, 20 or 30 of them, they were sent to New Hanover High School, to teach. But I was going to retire back next year anyway because I always said that I was going to retire when I reached 62 years old, I was 65. And I used to tell the children that if you have any little sisters and brothers home that I'm supposed to help them get where they're going, tell them to get there by 1968. | 24:44 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Why did you want to retire when you were 62 years old? | 25:29 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Well, the law was that you could retire at 62. But if I understood when—If the principal asked for you to remain, you could, but I hadn't planned to remain any longer than I was 62. Yes. And when I was moved to Hoggard High School, when they closed Williston for integration, they sent six of us into Hoggard High School to teach. I taught English to juniors and seniors and Ms. Olive Felfair taught United States history and a lady from Greensboro, North Carolina taught science. And the librarian, Ms. Todd, who works, in the Board of Education now was the librarian. And Coach Corbin was the coach that and Mr. Lowe, Mr. Lowe has passed now taught government and the Mr. Lowe had his students write a term paper every year and time came around for this class that he had to write the term paper and they went to the Negro Library on Red Cross Street, but the material they needed was not there. | 25:31 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | So they went to the White library that was next door to the corner of 5th and Market and the librarian asked them, "Who was their teacher?" And they showed him Mr. Lowe was that teacher and the librarian, I understand, reported that to the superintendent that these two Negro boys had been there looking for material. And I understand from a reliable source that the principal Wilson had to beg the superintendent not to fire Mr. Lowe because he taught these boys, was to write the paper and they went to the Negro library that was on Red Cross Street, but they couldn't find material there. So Russell Hewitt was one Negro's name and another boy and Mr. Lowe's class went to the library on Marley Street and asked for the material. | 26:54 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | And they were asked, they told me, who was their teacher, and they told them that Mr. Lowe was their government teacher. And I guess they can't fire me now, but the librarian told the present superintendent was a Mr. Roman at that time that these two Negro boys had been in there in the White library for material. And I understand from a reliable source that the talk was downtown, that there was fire Mr. Lowe because these two Negro boys had come for material and to Mr. Lowes' was a teacher of the government course. | 28:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to ask you about teaching some more, Ms. Williams. But I'd like to ask you a little bit about growing up before we get into that more. The Rider's, did they have children? | 28:58 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | One little boy went left when—One little boy and a newborn little girl. And when they were packing up to leave, they ran a box car right there on the track, used to be here to pack the furniture and I understand Ms. Rider did not want to leave Wilmington. And she sat there, they sat holding her little girl in her lap crying, because that box cover rolled out there for her to go back to Philadelphia. They were closing the box factory that her husband was sent here with his 18-year-old bride to run the mill. | 29:11 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you play with their little boy or? | 29:59 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | No Peter was just a little baby boy. Yes, he was just a little baby boy. And there was a Negro man that drove, didn't have automobile, drove a hack like the queen of England rides in that little, was drawn by a horse and it was Mr. Cotton that was the driver of the horse. And he would go through race cross street or downtown singing spirituals aloud and Peter, little boy, would be sitting up high on that, like you see the carriages in the park in New York. Peter was sitting up there with Mr. Cotton and Mr. Cotton would be yelling spiritual all around on Front Street and Peter would be up there at they trying to gather, trying to sing the spiritual that [indistinct 00:30:51] was singing. | 30:01 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | And I went to Philadelphia in 1929. First time I had worked away from home, but I had a cousin who waited tables in Asbury Park and my father let me go up there to wait tables. But before we went to Philadelphia, the hotel was not open and we spent some days in, I mean the hotel had not opened in Asbury Park, so we spent some days in Philadelphia until we went up there to Asbury Park. And that was the first time I had been away from home, correct. | 30:53 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | And of course when we in Philadelphia, Mrs. Rider was asking about all the people in there, but my mother didn't ever ask to be called Mrs. Simon, but they called my mother Mrs. Simon, and Mrs. Rider was asking me about the people in Wilmington and she asked me about a cook that she had. It wasn't so good. And when she asked me about that cook, I said, "Oh, Helen don't even ask about her in the same breath you ask about Ms. Simon in." Yeah, Ms. Rider asked her about her cook and Mr. Rider said, "Oh Helen, don't ask about that woman in the same breath that you talking about Ms. Simon with." | 31:38 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | And mama never had to ask them to call her Mrs. Simon, but they always referred to mama as Mrs. Simon and if mama cooked anything over here, good as the Rider's liked, and she found out, she'd come over to this little gate right by the fence there and this mansion was built right back there and she'd come over here and get some of it. And if they cooked anything over there, that she thought my mother would like, she sent her maid over here to bring mama some of it. But Mrs. Rider asked about this lady that cooked for them that wasn't so moral. And Mr. Rider told her, "Oh, Helen, don't talk about that woman in the same breath that you talk about Ms. Simon with." And mama never asked them to call her Mrs. But they always referred my mother as Mrs. Simon. | 32:28 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did your mother have to ask other people to call her Mrs., Ms. Williams? | 33:23 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Yeah, sure. Yes. But she didn't ever let herself get angry about it. | 33:26 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | And when they closed the school Williston for integration, they sent six of us into Hoggard. The coach, Coach Corbin, the lady who taught United States history, Ms. Felfair, the librarian, Mrs. Todd, Mr. Lowe, that taught government and Ms. Felfair, and sent me in there to teach English. And I taught English to juniors and seniors at Hoggard only one year, because when I got the letter telling me that I would be—That next year I was to be at Hoggard High School and I called Mr. Begins was the principal at that time. And I told him who I was and I told him I was calling, I calling to find out what my assignment would be so I could get my materials together. | 33:43 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | But if you have taught for years and years and years, you have your material together, you ought to, I was calling to find out what I would be assigned and what grade I would be assigned to teach. And he told me that I would have juniors and seniors. I had always taught juniors and seniors and sometimes I was given a class in Latin. They had Latin in the schools then they never should have taken it out, because there are so many words and construction in the Latin that are derived from English, I mean in English that are derived from Latin. | 34:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Where did you first go to school yourself, Ms. Williams? | 35:29 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Peabody School was at 6th and Red Cross, a very rich family in the north give that square property running from Fifth, I mean fifth year on the west and on the east of the property of land. That whole square was given for Negro education. And they named the school Peabody after a family, rich family of the north over the Peabody that gave that land. But they closed Peabody during our integration. And then the north side children went to a school named Dudley. | 35:31 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | It was first named Cornelius Harnett, for a White man. But when they moved out they gave that school for Negroes. And it was named then for a Mr. Dudley who was a Wilmington man and was the president of A&T College in Greensboro. But I went to Peabody and I was in what they call the primary room. We stayed in that they had three sides in this big room, with three teachers. And when you went to Peabody, you were in what they call the primary room and you stayed with one teacher about six months and then you were promoted to the next teacher, but you're still in the first grade. | 36:37 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | And then you went to first grade. It was taught by Ms. Cami Davis. But during the year she married and moved to Buffalo, New York, then Ms. Dorthy Hill, from around Goldsboro, came to teach us. And then was second grade. Ms. Carolanne taught my class. | 37:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Ms. Carol Hayne? | 37:53 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Carolanne, she was. And when we left Ms. Carolanne, we went to Ms. Molly Matthew. She was at that time we went to the third grade and we went to the fourth grade. We went to Ms. Blanch Leonards who had finished Morris Brown College. And I understand that Ms. Leonard was the first Negro woman that held a degree from a four year college. And she taught us in the fourth grade. But then when integration occurred, they moved Ms. Leonard to the high school, to Hoggard High School. And she talked there 10th grade until she retired, 10th grade students at Hoggard. | 37:56 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | Now that frame there, you see that little picture at the bottom? | 38:44 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, ma'am. | 38:49 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | You know him. That's Meadowlark Lemon, the Harlem Globetrotter. I taught him when he was a senior in high school and when you get a class, you went through the accumulated records for three years before they came to you. But when I came to Meadowlark records, I found that he had never passed 10th grade English. And the 11th grade teacher should have caught that if he had gone through the record. But when I came to Meadow's records, he had never passed 10th grade English. So I mentioned the principal, Mr. Washington, told Mr. Washington, "I have a problem." He said, "What is Ms. Williams?" I said, "Meadow has never passed 10th grade English." | 38:51 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | You had to have four courses in English to graduate. So Mr. Washington had always planned to tell Meadow what had happened, to tell him to go see Mr. Washington. But he died and I hadn't sent it. And he asked Ms. Leonard would she take him in one of her 10th grades and teach him 10th grade English? So by the hour he used to come to me, he could take the senior English, both your English and he did. | 39:36 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | But one different [indistinct 00:40:10] he came to English, Mother Leonard smell whiskey on his breath. And nobody, I don't think any lady teacher would go in the boy's bathroom, but me and Mother Leonard, she took him straight to the boy's bathroom and put his—He had written a book. I got a copy of the book back there. Stuck his head in the boys in the basin and ran cold water all over him and ran him off the campus. Now no teacher is supposed to expel a boy a child. But for one year, Mother Leonard expelled him and told him, "Don't you come back here until you are sober." 'Cause Mother Leonard smelled whiskey his on breath. Mother Leonard took me straight to the boys' bathroom. | 40:09 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | I went in there one time. I was going downstairs, on the porch part of the building, the boys was out there and I saw smoke rolling out from the bottom of the door and I knocked on the door. They thought I was some of their classmates playing with them. And so they said, "Come in." They said, "Nose is clean." Mine was clean. And I banged that door open and they were not using a single stool for what they were made for. They took the top down, made a seat and as many seats were in there, they were sitting in and others were standing up smoking. | 40:54 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | And Williston, the new school was built in 1930, my first year of teaching, they built the new school and all of us were transferred to the new school in 1930. And Mother Leonard went to the boy's bathroom to carry that thing and to drowned him in cold water and sent him home. And I opened that door, they told me to come in if my nose was clean and it was. And I banged that door and went in. And then no stool was being used for what was made for, the top had been let down and they [indistinct 00:42:25] had a seat, was smoking. | 41:41 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What happened when you went in, Ms. Williams? | 42:27 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | There's no telling, but I said, "Every one of you go straight to the office, to Mr. Washington, and tell him I sent you." I don't know whether went or not I scared them to death. I know one boy went, because he got [indistinct 00:42:45] when he got down there and Mr. Booker was so patient with him. He must have almost beat Mr. Washington. 'Cause Mr. Washington sent him home. He lived the Wrightville Sound, that boy did. But I said, "You go to that office and tell him I sent you." They were having a good time smoking and smoke coming from—And Williston, the new school was built in 1946. | 42:32 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | No, it was built in 1930-31. And it burned in 1946, burned to the ground, all the children's robes and the caps and gowns had come, all the invitations were downstairs in the wall, but they had to have the commencement exercise, that's what they call Thalian Hall now. We used to call it the Opera House. So that class graduated at the Opera House, Thalian Hall, it's called now. And the girls wore white dresses and the boys wore dark suits and white shirts and dark ties. | 43:14 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | But the school was rebuilt. And there was a Wilmington man and Dr. George Davis who lived in Charlotte, North Carolina. But he was a national representative for Citizen [indistinct 00:44:07]. And I understand that there was not any plan to build an auditorium or gymnasium as you would call, but Dr. George Davis having so much influence with Sears and Roebuck Company, when he got back to Chicago, he asked them if they wouldn't send enough money down here to put an auditorium and gym onto that school, and they did. And I imagine numbers of people on the public education don't know that it happened. Because it happened in, when they built the new school on the corner, we had been teaching in what is now Wilson Primary until they built the new school. | 43:55 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | And I just taught in Wilson Primary from that school year until time for Christmas. And we were told to pack up all of our books and supplies and they were going to send a box to put them in because we were go in the building. The high school was in the building that is now called Wilson Primary. But after Christmas we were going into the new building and they hadn't been in there too many years before that building burned. But not a child got a scratch, not a child got hurt because I understand, they're so obedient and understand they very sassy and have a bad attitude to teachers now. | 44:56 |
Lucille Simon WIlliams | But it was one girl that, all she wanted to go back in the fire and get the coat, we called her Mutt Heron, she was a Heron but they called her Mutt. And she was trying to break loose from Ms. Fannie White, the librarian was Ms. Fannie was tall and buxom, and she was trying to hold Mutt. She keep going back in there and get burned up, because she had stole her sister's Easter coat and went to school that morning and she was just ranting and pitching to get back into burning school. And Ms. White tried to hold her and she was just struggling to get back. And so Ms. White knocked her out, knocked her out. She had to, because she was going back in that burning building to get that coat— | 45:40 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yeah. Her father worked for the Standard Oil here in Wilmington, but he was transferred to Charlotte, North Carolina after his children had finished school here. I don't know whether Mr. Herring is still living or not. The Standard Oil Company transferred him to Charlotte and that's where he moved. He was Mr. Herring. | 0:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You mentioned Ms. Leonard who was a teacher, and you called her Mother Leonard? | 0:24 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yeah. They called Mother Leonard. All of us called her Mother Leonard. Ms. Leonard taught me when I was in the fourth grade. I was in her fourth grade when World War I was declared in 1917, but then the war didn't last long after that, because I was in Williston in the fifth grade when World War I closed. I understand that Lafayette brought help over here when the United States was fighting for their freedom from England, and Daniel Pershing was the man who was head of the United States Army in World War I. | 0:29 |
Lucille Simon Williams | When he got to France with the soldiers, I understand he said, "Lafayette, we are here," and that war didn't last long after the United States went into it. My father just reared to go to war when the first call was made for men who was 21 years old to 31, 21 to 31, though Papa didn't fall into that group. But meanwhile, the Germans were called the Kaiser, like Hitler was the leader in the war recently. But Papa reared to go to war when they weren't calling his age. | 1:16 |
Lucille Simon Williams | And when they—Oh, it got so bad over there that they called all men from 18 to 45, and my father fell in that age group. So by then, he didn't say a word about going to war. And Mama asked him, "Charlie, I don't ever hear you say anything else about going to war." Papa said, "I don't want to talk about it any war." He didn't want to even talk about the war. But really, the United States didn't stay in it but about one year. We went in there to help Europe against the Germans that were under, the leader then was called the Kaiser. I had gone from fourth grade to fifth grade when it closed. It closed when I was in the fifth grade, and all the schools and everything closed, celebrating the close of World War I. | 2:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember the celebration with the war ending? | 2:52 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Because they were yelling and—Yes, I remember, because I was fifth grade then. I was old enough. I guess I was happy to hear, when they—during the school that day, for children to go home when World War I closed. The United States didn't stay in that but one year. | 2:55 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you have brothers and sisters, Mrs. Williams? | 3:20 |
Lucille Simon Williams | No. No children. | 3:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | No? | 3:25 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I imagine I had about five or 6,000 children, but no children of my own. | 3:28 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Of your own. I see. | 3:30 |
Lucille Simon Williams | My husband worked for the Atlantic Coastline Railroad, and it was in the spring of 1929, and that was the year that he would go to college, would be a senior. But he had to come out of school and go to work because Depression was coming on. He went to work with the Pullman Company, and his father had a first cousin that was an old pullman for it, so he got my husband a job as a puller on the Pullman for the company that owned the Pennsylvania Railroad. He worked at that job until we were married. | 3:36 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Then he came to Wilmington after about a year and got the job as a pullman on the Presidential Atlanta Coastline Railroad's private car, and he was there until he retired. The Atlantic Coastline was the biggest industry in Wilmington, and they thought Wilmington would die when the Atlanta Coastline moved from Wilmington, but it didn't. The headquarters for Atlantic Coastline is still Jacksonville, Florida. The private car that my husband was on, Mr. George Elliot at that time was president of Atlanta Coastline Railroad. I could have gone. I have a pass there now. I've never used it. I could have gone anywhere the Coastline ran. They didn't run north of Richmond. I could have gone as far as Richmond, could have gone anywhere in Florida, and I've never used the pass. It's in my pocketbook now. | 4:30 |
Rhonda Mawhood | In case you need it sometime. | 5:37 |
Lucille Simon Williams | No, I guess I just haven't thrown it away. Yes. | 5:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How did you meet your husband, Mrs. Williams? | 5:40 |
Lucille Simon Williams | In college. | 5:47 |
Rhonda Mawhood | In college? | 5:48 |
Lucille Simon Williams | He was a sophomore when I went to college a freshman. In those days, my dear child, you didn't go out on that campus and talk to the boys. They had to stand over there on that side and we on our side. The freshman girls had come in for school, so the boys that had been in college before, were picking out the girls. And I understand my husband told them, "I'm going to go with that one that's got those pretty legs and pretty hips, and wears bangs." | 5:48 |
Lucille Simon Williams | We went together while we were in college, and then after I married, he came here. Down here. He was working for the Pullman Company, and he knew Mr. Rogers, the principal, because my husband's account reared him and he had gone to Shaw University from the time he was being raised, because they didn't go here. Negro schools, the colleges had a high school department too, so he had graduated from the high school of Shaw University because he had an aunt that lived in Raleigh. Then when I came there, of course, I was a freshman and he was a sophomore. | 6:30 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But those boys, honey, had to stand on their side under a tree and look over there at us in those days, and had to ask the young women, when they wanted to call on a girl. In the living room is where the girls would have company. In this lively room, and it had about 50 straight back chairs on the wall, and that's where you had to do—Well, they were courting you then, and that would be just sufficient. But the boy had to get permission from the dean of women when he wanted to call on a girl. | 7:14 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I understand that Shaw University has some beautiful buildings now, but the buildings that we stayed in were Estey. | 7:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Estey? | 8:03 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Estey Hall. The trustees had planned to tear Estey down because they have, I understand, all these lovely buildings on Shaw's campus now. But the Historical Society of North Carolina would not permit them to tear Estey down. The historical society said there was too much history connected with Estey, so Estey's still standing. I guess they painted a—I think all the girls that went to Shaw, they stayed in Estey, and the boys went to Shaw and stayed in the building. They went and stayed in Shaw Hall. | 8:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | There's a lot of courting history in that building. | 8:40 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes. You had to get permission from the dean, the boys did, when he wanted to call on a girl. | 8:42 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did anybody ever try to meet a boy outside of that? | 8:54 |
Lucille Simon Williams | You know the state fair is in Raleigh, and some of the girls used to sip from a shop, because we weren't far from downtown, and the fellow would meet her at the state—I think it was the state fair. The Negroes sat all the way up on the fourth floor, and sometimes the boys would go up there, and a girl would run away from Estey and go up there and meet her boyfriend, and they would go upstairs. Mine was up there waiting for me. Bill was up there waiting for me one day. | 9:01 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But my mother died with cancer, but she gave me the last talk before I went to Shaw, telling me to behave myself. She said, "Because if you do something, you're sent home. Men don't have," she said, "the patience with a girl that a woman has. And if you get sent home, you'll be at Sixth and Market." | 9:38 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You'll be what? I'm sorry. | 10:02 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Sixth and Market, where the—I think the Lutheran church is at the corner of Sixth and Market, and it was some since. And the nurses of the various people's children would be up there in these fine baby carriages like the rich people had, but the nurses had come up on Sixteenth and Market. That's why my Mama said if I didn't get behave and got sent home, I'd be at Sixteenth and Market, sitting on a stone fence where all the beautiful baby carriages were. That was the nurses that nursed rich people's children, but when they met up there, the nurses would sit on the wall of the Lutheran church. Mama said if I got sent home, that's where I'd be, "Because your daddy don't have the patience for you that I have." | 10:02 |
Lucille Simon Williams | And she was suffering with cancer, and it was very, very sick when I went. But held back a lot of it that she could, so that I would be willing to go. And I hadn't been there but one semester, school opened in October, and they sent for me to come home. I came home the sixth of February, and my mother died the 17th of March. | 10:55 |
Rhonda Mawhood | 1925? | 11:36 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes. Mm-hmm. My father educated me, and I knew better. My Mama had told me that men don't have the patience with me, that a woman would have, so I finished college at Shaw University in 1930. I went there in 1926, but you had to take a year of Latin at Shaw. Then if you were working for the AD degree—And there was a lady teaching Latin. She was Ms. Flossie Lewis, and the girls from Wilmington, older girls, went to Charlotte. She had married the birth star of the university then, and she was Mrs. Putnam, and I was taking Latin with Mrs. Putnam. I had done one semester before I had to come home. | 11:39 |
Lucille Simon Williams | When I went back, I went to the dean's office to make my schedule out and he suggested that I drop Latin for that semester because I'd already passed the first semester. And when the next year came and time came to take the second semester, then I would take that second semester, which I did. But he gave me a course in sociology so I wouldn't lose any grade points, and I passed that under a Dr. Thompson, who was a little lady, a White lady from New England. She taught me sociology, and I got that half unit under her. So the next year, when the second semester came up, it was my time then to go to Ms. Flossie Putnam, to finish my second year of Latin. | 12:26 |
Lucille Simon Williams | When we went to Charlotte, the freshman, they got a room big as—It's about four of us girls. But the next day, something that—She gave us a test every day, before it was time to take our Latin. And the next day, some of the girls would be gone and I wondered where had they gone. The next day, when they got down to a place where it was just a few girls still in there, I asked her. I said, "Where did the girls go that were in here?" They said, "Lucille, you don't know?" I said, "No, I don't know that." They said, "Ms. Putnam, she gave us a test, and those that didn't pass that test, she put a note in your box that you couldn't take Latin." So numbers of my classmates changed over to the BS degree, because you had to—If you got the AB degree, you had to take that one year of Latin under Ms. Flossie Putnam. | 13:26 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But I think when the older girls from Wilmington went to Shaw, she was Ms. Lewis. And my friend Ms. Holmes lived in Raleigh. She was a Ligon, and the high school in Raleigh is named for Mr. Ligon. | 14:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Ligon. | 14:41 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Ligon High School. They've changed it now to an elementary school, but it was called Ligon High School. Her cousins that she was living with, had finished—Her cousin had finished Shaw University, the older one, and taught Latin at Washington High School in Raleigh until she retired. But the younger girl was my classmate at Shaw, and they told her the reason she was. "Now you study Ms. Putnam's Latin," said, "Because all those girls that came up here from Wilmington—" talking about me and Fannie Ellen Story, and Mildred Story, and Carrie Bailey, and my—That's all. That's all at that time. They, "All those children from Wilmington have passed that Latin, and you study that Latin because all the girls that came up here to Shaw from Wilmington, all studied that Latin." | 14:42 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But I had an English teacher at Shaw, and he was known all over the country as a fine English teacher. He was Dr. Benjamin Brawley. He finished Morehouse College, but when—That's the college that Martin Luther King finished from. And he went back. After he finished Morehouse College, he taught at Morehouse. Then Howard University stole him from Morehouse, and he taught at Howard University a while, but then Shaw stole him from Howard. | 15:45 |
Lucille Simon Williams | When I went to Shaw, he was teaching English. But before I went to Shaw, he taught such men in high school and college, as Mordecai Johnson, who was the president of Howard University, and John W. Davis, when he was in high school. He was president of West Virginia State. Mr. Brawley and Mordecai Johnson wrote an article for The Afro-American every week. That was a Negro newspaper out of Baltimore, Maryland. | 16:25 |
Lucille Simon Williams | One time, he had an article in there titled, 'And I Cussed My Teacher.' That was Mr. Brawley. That was Mr. Brawley, and he went on to talk about him, what a fine teacher he was. He started off by saying, "There was a man named Brawley." And Mr. Mordecai Johnson said that when you write anything for him and make mistakes, he'd correct it in ink. Mordecai says he wrote a paper for him one time, and when he got it back, it looked like he had spilled a whole bottle of red ink on his paper. He had made so many corrections on it. Yes, sir. But he was a fine teacher of English. | 16:57 |
Lucille Simon Williams | After I graduated, Howard stole him from Shaw. He had double pneumonia, but was on doctor's orders to stay in bed, but he got up and went over to the school to review his students for the midterm exam. He had came back, got in bed, and soon after that, he died. And wasn't but 52 years when he died. We used to call him Shakespeare. You know Shakespeare was 52, and Mr. Brawley was just 52 years old. | 17:41 |
Lucille Simon Williams | He wore a dark blue suit and black shoes shined to perfection, and wore what people used to call a plug on his head, that— | 18:18 |
Rhonda Mawhood | A plug? | 18:28 |
Lucille Simon Williams | They used to call the hat that men wore, plugs, and he wore a black plug and black shoes. When you went to Shaw, they had hired—When my class went there, they had hired a young man who graduated from Morehouse College, to teach freshmen, which meant Mr. Brawley didn't teach us our first year. But whether he was going to teach you or not, every freshman had to go before him one by one, for him to decide whether you were ready for college English. One by one, you had to go before him and let him test you, to find out if you were ready. | 18:29 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I went in. I was a Simon before I married. He said—He spoke beside me and I spoke to him. First thing he asked me, "Now what have you studied intensively in high school?" I told him I had studied The Tragedy of Macbeth intensively in high school. He said, "Can you quote some lines from Macbeth for me?" I said, "Yes, sir." And I quoted Banquo's soliloquy on Macbeth, "Thou hast did now, King Cawdor promised all, as the weird women promised, and I fear Thou play'dst most foully for it. Yet it was said, 'It should not stand in thy posterity, but that myself should be the root and father of many kings. If there comes truth from them, Macbeth, as upon thee, their speeches shine. By the verities on thee made good, may they not be my oracles as well, and set me up in hope? But hush, no more." He said, "You may take freshman English." | 19:15 |
Lucille Simon Williams | When I got out, all that long line, just waiting to come in. They would ask me what did he ask, and I told them. And poor little things couldn't imagine. "Well can't you teach us some of them?" I said, "I'll teach them some lines from Macbeth in the lines, waiting for them to come in." But naturally they would ask you what they'd asked you when you went in there, and I told them he asked me what I have I studied intensively. | 20:17 |
Lucille Simon Williams | We had a teacher at Wilkerson, a Mr. Ferris MacFarland, and he was of Virgin Islands. He was on the West Indies scene as one of them Colin Powell-like Negro gentlemen, because he was from the Virgin Islands. Now, he might have had parents from the Virgin Islands, but Mr. McFarland—And the Virgin Islands was owned by—I can't think now, but the United States bought the Virgin Islands. But McFarland was educated on the European system, but I would put him up against any teacher that I ever had. | 20:48 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Mr. McFarland was like Mr. Brawley. If you study something intensively, you had to know some lines from it. So the children asked me, "Can't you teach us?" Now how am I going to teach them something intensively, before they went in there before him? And he never sent for a girl to come to his office by herself, because sometimes girls would get in love with the professor. But who was going to have the nerve to get in love with Mr. MacFarland? But he'd always, when he sent for a girl, have to send for the girl to come to his office for something that—I mean, a lesson or something. | 21:31 |
Lucille Simon Williams | He knew who your good friends were, and he told the dean when—Ms. Rivers was the dean at this time. "I was telling Ms. Simon to come to my office," such and such said, "Oh, and Ms. Boisson will come with her." So all three of us went in the [indistinct 00:22:49] to him. I said, "If he told you to come, but you're going." He told Ms. Rivers, who was the dean, to tell me to come to his office at a certain hour. He wanted to have a conference with me to ask me some questions, and he said, "And Ms. Boisson will come with her." Got all the way over there, that woman never told him I was coming. I said, "He told you to come, and you're going. You know you're going." | 22:10 |
Lucille Simon Williams | When I got in there—He used to give a Shakespearean play every spring. He'd give that, and at the same time, he'd give us some plays that were humorous. But this year, he was going to give 'The Comedy of Errors,' by Shakespeare, and then that drama. There are two women who look so much alike that you couldn't tell them apart, because it would be hard. And that year, he was going to give 'The Comedy of Errors,' but he sent for me to ask me. He said, "Ms. Simon, you have never come to the chapel to try out for one of my plays, and I sent for you to ask you why." | 22:56 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Because by that time, Mr. Brawley had taught all the students all the English, after the freshman class. And he asked me why did I never come to the chapel to read for one of his plays, but my mother always taught me, "If you know the truth, tell it. If you don't know the truth, keep your mouth shut." But I knew why I didn't go. I had never been to read. I said, "Mr. Brawley, it is a consensus of opinion on this campus that you don't star young women of my complexion in your plays." I told him the truth. | 23:47 |
Lucille Simon Williams | He said, "Well, the next time the call is made for students to come to the chapel to read for one of my plays, you come. And I assure you, you'll have a part." But I told him the truth, I'd been told by some of the children that Mr. Brawley didn't star dark young girls in his plays. And I don't think anybody would have had the nerve to tell Mr. Brawley that but me. When we were getting ready to graduate, we had to go to him for the last time. Then he would quote a few lines from something we had learned and you were to finish it. | 24:31 |
Lucille Simon Williams | We had a dean. Dean Turner walked silly and looked silly, but Dean Turner was a minister, and he very often read the scriptures in chapel. Had to go to chapel every day, you know? It looked like he read this passage so much, that it seemed like he didn't know anything else to read. It was a Psalm that start off, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." And when he'd get that far, it has, "Who is the King of glory?" And Dean Turner would say, "Who is the King of glory?" | 25:10 |
Lucille Simon Williams | One day, Lana Mae Smith from Smithfield was a freshman. She was way in the back of chapel. Lane Mae was laughing out loud in chapel. Dean Turner said, "Who is the King of—" and Mr. Brawley quoted part of that Psalm to see if we all knew some lines from it, because—And Mr. Brawley quoted, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof," and we were to finish our lines. | 25:50 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I said—Now nobody would have cut the fool in Mr. Brawley's class but me. I said, "Who is the King of glory?" And the children just laughed. I looked to the corner of my eye, and Mr. Brawley was even smiling. I said, "Who is the King of glory?" Yes, sir. But Mordecai Johnson, who was President of Howard University and such a man as John W. Davis, who was the President of the West Virginia College had been under him when they were freshman and when they were seniors. But Mordecai used to write an article every week for The Afro-American. This particular week, Dr. Auburn had the paper, and he gave it to me. He wrote on Mr. Brawley, and he started out, "There was a man named Brawley," and then went on to talk about corrections he would make on his paper. | 26:16 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Mordecai said when he got to his paper one time, it looked like he had spilled a bottle of red ink on it because—And I wrote him a piece of prose one time, and I was describing the beautiful Altan Plantation. Plantation at Altan. I misspelled one word, "dining," D-I-N-N-I-N-G. Well, that's dinning. There's no such word in the dictionary. I misspelled one word in the whole piece of prose, and—But there is a word in the dictionary, D-I-N. That's a loud, loud noise. But there's no such word as dinning, and that's the one word I misspelled. | 27:16 |
Lucille Simon Williams | He wrote me a note, "My dear Ms. Simon, this must have been a noisy room." And to teach children that would understand certain corrections, he wrote them in their language. But he wrote me, "My dear Ms. Simon, this must have been a noisy room," and marked it off that I misspelled one word. Another time, he told us we could write a short piece of poetry. A couplet of poetry, or we could write a longer piece of poetry. I decided I wasn't going to write any short piece of poetry, I was going to write him a sonnet, 14 lines. And you have a character, and the character, you'd get in a certain place and you don't have but six lines to bring him back. | 27:57 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I wrote on there a little different, [indistinct 00:28:47], Raleigh and Jake and all of them. And when I got the characters up in the sonnet, I didn't have six lines to bring them back, so I just wrote something. He wrote me a note, "My dear Ms. Simon, prose is your field. Stay in it." "My dear—" that meant, you see, with a cussing man, don't write him another damn piece of poetry. "My dear Ms. Simon, prose is your field. Stay in it." And I never wrote another piece of poetry in my life. Yes, sir. | 28:43 |
Lucille Simon Williams | And he'd sign his name, and he'd always correct with a fountain pen full of ink. Mordecai Johnson, who had him in high school at Morehouse and in college, write about him. He wrote for The Afro-American. Every week he'd write an article, and he'd start it out, "There was a man named Brawley." He said he told him one time, "These lines look like you poured buttermilk from one end of the paper to the other." Yes, he taught such men as the president of West Virginia College, at Morehouse College, and he taught such men as the president of West Virginia State College. | 29:27 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Now these fellows were in high school and college, because in those days, the Negro colleges had a high school a part of it. Because my classmates at Shaw, as freshmen, they had went to Shaw and finished high school. Because most of the Negro colleges then had a high school department and a college department. I had a classmate, a young man. Oh, we were the best of friends. Not boyfriend and girlfriend. And his mother was a MacDonald before she married. Of course, she was married to a Williams, so they called her Charlie, Charlie Mac. Everybody liked Charlie Mac. | 30:07 |
Lucille Simon Williams | We were going to a dance one night from his house, but you had to go through Shaw's campus to get over to the auditorium. When we got—Dot Jackson was spending some time there at the time. You know—No, you weren't in Wilmington. Dorothy Jackson was on the Board of Education and that new elementary school over there on 8th and Swan is named for her, for Dorothy Johnson. But they should have put Bailey in there, because her second husband was a Johnson, but everybody would have known who Bailey is. | 30:48 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Mr. Brawley was one English teacher. Yes, yes, yes. But gave his life, you might say, for us students. Got up out of the bed against doctors awards, with the double pneumonia, and walked over to the campus and reviewed his students because a midterm exam was coming up and he didn't feel like anybody could properly exam his children but him. But he sent for me. I was a senior then, and he had taught me all three years. He didn't teach me in the freshman class. He wanted to know why had I never come—"You've never come to the chapel to read for one of my plays, and I'm calling you to ask you why." I said, "Mr. Brawley, it is consensus of opinion on this campus that you don't star young women of my complexion in your plays." | 31:31 |
Lucille Simon Williams | He said, "Well, the next time the call is given, you come. And I assure you, you will have a part." So that year, he was going to give 'The Comedy of Errors,' and the twin sisters were in that, and he couldn't tell one twin from the other. You know? And my twin sister was from Winston, North Carolina, and all of those Negroes up there in Winston are White. But Mary Tyler looked just like a White girl, and I—But the boys in the show were struck that year, and Mr. Brawley quoted it in every one of his books. He said he would not give a play using strikers, so that's the reason we didn't have the play that year. | 32:32 |
Rhonda Mawhood | They struck? Why did they strike? | 33:10 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I don't know why they struck, some foolishness. But the boys in the schools struck about something. | 33:11 |
Rhonda Mawhood | But not the girls? | 33:18 |
Lucille Simon Williams | No. No, but he would have to use boys in the play. So Mr. Brawley called all the books in and said he would not have a play with strikers. But he should have been back to Howard University. Then at the end of his time, he went back to Howard because the Negroes locked the dean up in his office in a strike at Howard. Locked the dean up in his office when they struck. Yes, sir. | 33:20 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But a Shaw man got to be the president of Howard University, and you—Dr. Cheek, and you didn't hear anymore carrying on at Howard since. I always tell people who went outside of our city, I say, "You see, Shaw had to get Howard straightened out." Dr. Cheek was his name, and he was a graduate of Shaw University. When the children were going to college and I asked them where they're going, they said, "I'm not going to Shaw." I said, "A good man in the wrong school. A good woman in the wrong school." | 33:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kind of qualities would you say make a Shaw man or a Shaw woman? | 34:25 |
Lucille Simon Williams | In those days, know-how in the field, and being a lady or a gentleman. Yeah, he was a man. And Mordecai Johnson was the President of Howard University, and John W. Davis, he was President of West Virginia State College. They were his boys at Morehouse, and at that time, Negro colleges had high school and college. They had finished Morehouse in high school and college. He's the president of West Virginia State College, and Mordecai Johnson, who was the President of Howard University. | 34:31 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Mordecai wrote an article one time about it. He went to the University of Chicago for his Master's, and when they went to class, they were told to write a piece of prose, I think. When his professor bought the papers back, he had corrected them, Mordecai said he had a big pile of papers on one side, but had just a few on the other side. The side with just a few students in it were the ones who had passed the test. Mordecai said he knew he was over there in that high pile, but then he read the names of those students in the big pile of papers. Said the professor told them, "Get this paper and you leave this room, and never show up in here again." | 35:24 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But Mordecai feared he was going to have his name, but no. He was in the—He went to University of Chicago. Chicago for his Master's degree. | 36:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So his paper was in the little pile? | 36:20 |
Lucille Simon Williams | He was in the little pile. But Mordecai said you couldn't have told him that his paper wasn't over there in that big pile. But the professor told them in the big pile of papers, "Everybody, you may be excused. Don't show your face in this class again." | 36:22 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When did you decide to be a teacher, Mrs. Williams? | 36:36 |
Lucille Simon Williams | All my life. When we played jack rocks, throw up the ball and pick up the little piece of metal, I always wanted to be the teacher. Well some of the children out there wanted to be the teacher, but then we'd get to arguing. Oh, I would argue, because I don't remember getting any whippings from my mother except "talking back", they used to call it. I'd talk back or die, and my principal, Mr. Washington, Mr. Booker Washington said, "Just give her the questions." That's me. "Just give her the questions, she'll have the answer. It might not be the answer you want, but just give her the questions." | 36:39 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes, I don't ever remember getting any whippings or anything from Mama, but I would answer back. They called it "talking back". And one day, I talked back in here—And Mamas, they didn't run after you. You know some parents run after the children to catch them to whip them, Mama didn't run after me because she knew I had to come back in here someday. But when I got about two blocks up, I looked back to see how close she was advancing on me. Didn't see a soul. Mama ain't going to run after me, so then I finally had to come back. And when I came back, she grabbed me and took me in the dining room over there. On the wall, I have a buffet, but there was a couch on the wall then. There was a— | 37:18 |
Lucille Simon Williams | And sat herself down and put my legs between her knees. Old people used to put your hands between—Then they could work on your backside, be tearing—And almost tore me up. Yeah, for talking back. The principal met—That's when he said, "Just give her the questions, she'll have the answer. Might not be the answer you want, but just give her the questions." Yes, sir. | 38:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Why do you think you talked back so much, Mrs. Williams? | 38:29 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I reckon I felt like I was independent. Yeah, independent. Yes, sir. I talked back, as they call it. Say something back, if it was under your breath. Mama never ran to catch me. No, no. Uh-uh. But in those days, people would run. Mama would run to try to catch the young ones to whip them, and I looked back to see how close Mama was advancing on me. When I got up there, I looked back, didn't see a thing but air. I knew she knew I had to come back someday, so I came on back. And then soon as I hit the door—And I been sleeping in this room since I was two. | 38:32 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Were you your parents' only child, Mrs. Williams? You were. | 39:20 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Only child. My mother had a boy, and she was partial to boys, and my father was too. But she lost the boy. Old people used to have a long table in the middle of the kitchen and the spices and all were on the back of it, and they saw Mama reaching over there to get the pepper or the salt. They said that was what caused the little boy's navel to wrap around his neck. Papa loved boys and Mama did too. She was partial to boys. Loved the boy better than she did me, the little boy she reared up. Her sister's boy. | 39:24 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Now my father was so big, he had to midwife and a doctor. Now you know in those days, people weren't having any doctors. They had a midwife to help the mother deliver, but he had old Dr. Bellamy as the doctor and then Hagar as the midwife. But she came out of the room first, and left Dr. Bellamy in the room to fix Mama up. But Papa had bought up all of his cigars and his wine, and his liquor and everything, and tied a red bow on his horse's tail. And polished his boots. He was going to ride and yell about his boy. And sat back there with his eyes right on that room. | 40:07 |
Lucille Simon Williams | But when Dr. Bellamy came out, he didn't believe what that Hagar told him. Now which midwife doesn't know a boy from a girl? But Dr. Bellamy told him. He said, "Charlie, you've got a fine little girl." And when Papa said, "Oh." He said, "My heart fell in my stomach." But he jumped on my horse and yelled and hollered, and gave out the cigars and all, to the boys, celebrating me. But honey, Papa was partial to boys, and my mother was too. She reared her sister's child. | 40:55 |
Rhonda Mawhood | In the house with you? | 41:28 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Huh? | 41:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | In the house with you? | 41:29 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yeah. Yeah, her sister's child lived with Mama. They lived up in the country there, near Parker. And Mama reared—His name was David Holloway Peacock, but nobody ever knew the name Peacock. Now you can't write the—I mean, [indistinct 00:41:50]. But he didn't ever give the name "Peacock." All the boys in Wilmington knew him as David Holloway. All the teachers had taught him, in their records, he was David Holloway. Never gave his name as David Holloway Peacock. | 41:31 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Was Peacock his father's name? | 42:13 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yeah. Dr. Peacock, that married my aunt, was named Plummer Lance Peacock. He was a minister and Holloway was a Peacock. But he never gave the name to the teachers, and the boys and girls never knew his name. He'd just tell his teachers his name was David Holloway. | 42:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Why was it that your mother raised him then? | 42:36 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Say what? | 42:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Why was it that your mother raised her sister's boy? | 42:37 |
Lucille Simon Williams | He wanted to go to school down here. It had better schools. Now his brother was sent her too, at the same time. His older brother next to him, but Booker wanted to go back home. He didn't want to stay, so he went back home and went to school. Went to Federal State School for high school, but Booker got homesick and didn't want to stay. But Holloway hung. Yes, Mama raised him from the time he was a little boy at Peabody, in the primary room, until he died. He was in the 10th grade, and then his death— | 42:40 |
Lucille Simon Williams | The first shipyard was here, and the boys worked out at the shipyard and made good money. I saw a paper out there in that top drawer the other day where they had written his name and how much they paid him for that week. I think it was about 35, $45, when World War I was here. And he didn't ever give the name Peacock. | 43:20 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You say that he died when he was in 10th grade? | 43:50 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes. Yeah, with typhoid fever. They think he got hold of some bad drinking water at the shipyard, because they tested it. This water, you know they would. But they think he got that typhoid fever down there, and he died when he was just in 10th grade. And Mama loved him better than she loved herself. She took him up to [indistinct 00:44:22] and his home, which is near Clarkton, to be buried in the cemetery up there called Mitchellfield. And all these Spaulding's and more, Dr. C.C. Spaulding and all of them from up there, they are buried in the Mitchellfield. And so she took him. His body up there to be buried in the Mitchellfield. | 43:51 |
Lucille Simon Williams | I was standing close, right next to her, and she was sitting in her chair. And oh, when they let his little body down into the grave, Mama, "Oh, I love you better than I love my own." That was me here. I knew that all the time. | 44:44 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Really? | 44:58 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Yes, she admitted it at the grave. She loved Holloway better than she loved me, because as a little girl, I'd talk back. But Holloway was just as humble, and then mama would have to pick him about staying somewhere too long. He never cried. He just turned—He was light-skinned child, like his daddy. Just turned red and his tears would roll down. But his brother came down here, just before he fell ill with the typhoid fever. His brother that got homesick and didn't stay, he came down here to visit, and he went to Sunday school with Booker. With his brother, but came right home after Sunday school. | 45:00 |
Lucille Simon Williams | Mama asked him—He was sitting right there by where the icebox is now. Mama asked him, "Holloway, why don't you take your brother up there to see some Red Cross, and introduce him to some of your friends? I'm afraid he will get inferior," because he was living in town. He said, "Aunt Vivian, I'm sick." Mama said she felt his head, and it was just as red, and head was just as hot, coming down with typhoid fever. He died with the fever. But Mama thought he was getting town struck, by not taking his brother up to assist in Red Cross, where the boys were. But he didn't go. | 45:42 |
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