Nettie Thompson interview recording, 1994 July 20
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Transcript
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Charles Houston | So, if we could, I'd like to start by getting you to state your name, your birthday, or date, and where you were born, please. | 0:02 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. My name is Nettie, N-E-T-T-I-E, Nettie Holiday Thompson. I was born in Brunswick, Georgia, January the 24th, 1912. I'm the fourth of 12 children. I had seven girls, six sisters, and five brothers. Of those now, five girls and one boy is alive. All the rest have passed on. | 0:13 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Do you know whether your grandparents came from the area of Brunswick, Georgia? Is your family— | 1:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | My grandparents—Well, that's why we didn't have too much of a problem during segregation because we were so tied up and mixed up. My father came from Federal North Carolina in Robeson County. He's a Cherokee Indian. And my mother was from Darien, Georgia. Her background is kind of mixed too. Her father was Irish. Her mother was part Indian and part Black. | 1:16 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And you said that they were very mixed up and there were no racial problems. Were the people in the area generally pretty mixed up? I mean, in terms of heritage, ethnic heritage? | 1:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, the communities that we lived in, I didn't live in, but one community there, they were—Down in Brunswick, Georgia, to my estimation, everybody was congenial to everybody else. The Whites and Blacks all lived together in mixed neighborhoods. Of course, the extremely wealthy Whites had their little corner by themselves. But other than that, the Whites and the Blacks were all mixed together. | 2:15 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And my father, on his job, he was a cooper, and they worked in a large building making barrels. So each person had his own little station. They always stationed my father with the Whites. And he didn't say he was White or Black or anything. He was just a person. But wherever he went, he had no problems because the Whites always gave him the same respect as the Blacks. | 2:48 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Were there other mixed families in the area? It sounds like your parents were from that area and their parents may have been from that area, from Brunswick, I mean, did you have lots of relatives, aunts and uncles, cousins and so on around? | 3:24 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | We had only one. My father's uncle lived there because he owned a barrel factory. My father was a barrel maker, cooper, and his uncle owned a barrel factor there. | 3:48 |
Charles Houston | Your great uncle? | 4:00 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. That would be my great uncle. | 4:02 |
Charles Houston | Right. | 4:04 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | But there were no mixed families that I knew of. My father and his father and uncle came from North Carolina, and they were looking around, and they just established this business there. And my uncle took it over. My father wasn't in the business. He just worked. | 4:06 |
Charles Houston | He worked at the barrel factory? | 4:39 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Not at that factory. He worked at another factory in Brunswick. And just every once in a while he'd go and help my uncle out. But he worked at—Well, I forgot the name of it. I don't remember. | 4:40 |
Charles Houston | So this was your father or grandfather, who worked— | 4:55 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | This is my father I'm talking about. | 4:57 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Did your grandfather work with your uncle in his barrel factory? | 4:58 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know. I don't remember that, because he was dead by the time I was big enough to know anything about it. But my uncle still lived there. My father's uncle stayed there. My father's uncle was the only one that stayed in Brunswick, and my father. Those were the only members of the family. | 5:07 |
Charles Houston | I was in Georgia before coming here, and I talked to some people. Obviously, I interviewed people in Georgia. And one of the things I learned is that in those days, which is to say in the early 20th century, first half of the 20th century, I guess before the Depression, when agriculture was still practiced widely by a large number of people on small farms, that various towns had reputations for supplying various things for agricultural purposes. Some towns were known for selling mules and buggies. And some towns were noted for having a turpentine still. And some towns were noted for, I guess barrels. Was Brunswick, Georgia a barrel town? | 5:30 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, that's right. It was probably a barrel town. | 6:21 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 6:21 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know of anything else. | 6:21 |
Charles Houston | Now, what was the town like? Was it a big town? Well, I mean, from your recollection of it as a child, maybe an older child. | 6:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, I'd never been anywhere but Brunswick, until I came here to live. But it was a small town. I guess, it would be considered a small town. | 6:35 |
Charles Houston | So aside from the barrel factory, there was no other major employer? | 6:48 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, there was a crude oil company. | 6:52 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And— | 7:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I have forgotten the name now. It went by. But they had big oil tanks and all. | 7:03 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Storage tanks? | 7:13 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Storage tanks for the oil and stuff, crude oil. | 7:14 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And was there a railroad there in Brunswick at the time? Do you know if there was a railroad that came through? | 7:16 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, train came through there. | 7:27 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And what did most of the people do who lived around you? I mean, did you live in the town itself? | 7:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, we lived in the little town. What did the people do? Frankly, I left there when I was 17 years old, so I don't have any idea what they did. | 7:43 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And on the countryside, outside of Brunswick, were there farms? | 7:53 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, there was, I guess, not large farms. Not that I know of. Everybody in the town had their own little gardens. But so far as farms, I don't remember any farm land. | 8:02 |
Charles Houston | So your family had a garden? | 8:17 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Mama always had her garden that she liked to work, supplied all our vegetables, and she always had chickens. So she supplied the family with vegetables and eggs. | 8:19 |
Charles Houston | When you say supplied the family, you mean your immediate family, the household you lived in, or all the relatives? | 8:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, just the family. Those 12 kids were enough. | 8:43 |
Charles Houston | 12 kids? Christ. | 8:48 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 8:50 |
Charles Houston | That's right, you were the fourth of 12. And was anybody else in the house, or just your parents, your mother and father, and 12 kids? | 8:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. | 8:58 |
Charles Houston | Your uncle lived somewhere else? | 9:00 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 9:01 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And did the kids help out in the garden? Did you- | 9:01 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh, it was just this garden that mama worked by herself. No, we didn't do anything. We went to school every day. She just saw that we stayed in school. | 9:09 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Now, as the fourth of 12, were you the oldest girl? | 9:28 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, there was one girl. My brother was the oldest, and sister, and then another sister, and then me. I was the fourth— | 9:31 |
Charles Houston | Third girl, fourth child. | 9:43 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I was the third girl, fourth child. | 9:44 |
Charles Houston | My mother was the second-eldest child and the second girl, but she had responsibility for the family. I mean, she did a lot of the cooking and stuff in the household. Did any of the girls in the family take on— | 9:49 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Particularly, no. My mother said that she could take care of her own. We didn't have to mind the babies, even though there were a lot of babies. We didn't have to do anything. She just saw that we went to school and just led a pleasant child life. | 10:02 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So you— | 10:18 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And I loved to cook. I used to cook because I wanted to. I was the only daughter in the family that would cook. And I did it because I wanted to, not that mama wanted me to do it. I was just one of those—I remember my aunt said, "You follow me foot to foot." I was one of those kids that just followed behind whoever was in the house. My sisters and brothers would go out and ride across the way to the sand lot and climb trees and play and have fun. I'd stick home, around mama. I always wanted to hold mama's babies and all, but she wouldn't let me hold them. Every once in a while, she would. | 10:18 |
Charles Houston | Your parents placed a lot of emphasis on education. | 10:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, they did. | 11:03 |
Charles Houston | Do you have a sense of why that was, of why they—Because with a large family, obviously you kids could have been a lot of help to your mom. | 11:05 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, I guess, I don't know. Mama just wanted to see us up and able to take care of ourselves, she said. And we needed an education to do it, so she kept us in school. | 11:17 |
Charles Houston | Do you know if your parents were educated? | 11:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | They were educated not as we do now, but my father had beautiful handwriting, and he could tell you a little bit of anything about history and all, but it wasn't that he went to school that much. And I think mama went to about seventh or eighth grade. She didn't go very far in school. To me, they seemed as well as any well-educated person. I guess, they just had high hopes and high aims or something. I don't know. | 11:34 |
Charles Houston | Okay. What about your neighbors? In the neighborhood you lived in, were there both Blacks and Whites? | 12:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Blacks and Whites, that's right. | 12:27 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And did they live next door to one of them? | 12:31 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 12:33 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 12:33 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Visited around, as women do with each other, and children played together and all. | 12:35 |
Charles Houston | So they visited each other inside their house? | 12:42 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 12:45 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And did the children continue to play together after they got older? | 12:46 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, as I told you, I left there when I was 17 years old. | 13:01 |
Charles Houston | Okay. But up until you were 17, did the children that you know play together across racial lines, say after they reached puberty, after say the age of 12 or 13? | 13:06 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, we attended different schools, naturally. We had what we call—There were two schools there, Colored Memorial and White Memorial. And I remember the name across the school at the top was Colored Memorial spelled out. And White Memorial was a few blocks away. Just ordinary home life, we spent with each other, but we didn't go out socially or anything like that. | 13:17 |
Charles Houston | Okay. But in terms of playing in the neighborhood, you played— | 13:46 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Just neighborhood kids we played, yes. | 13:48 |
Charles Houston | Okay. But frequently, that people say they did, but often, it seems that once kids reach puberty, particularly once White girls reach 13 or so, they were no longer allowed to play with Black children and little Black kids had to start calling them master and— | 13:52 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, it was nothing like that. It's just that they just didn't mix. But nobody called anybody master or anything like that. We weren't— | 14:15 |
Charles Houston | Or miss? Or Miss Ann or— | 14:23 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. No, we didn't call them miss. | 14:24 |
Charles Houston | But nobody mixed. You mean they didn't date each other? | 14:28 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. | 14:31 |
Charles Houston | But they did play together at say 14, 15, 16, 17 years old? | 14:32 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, I guess so. | 14:36 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 14:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Maybe when they got up to about 16 or 17, as I told you. I married when I was 17 and I was attending a private school then. | 14:39 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So the Colored Memorial School was a public school? | 14:58 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, it was a public school. But after we got up in high school, there was a Reverend Mitchell, a Presbyterian minister that was president of Selden Industrial Institute, that was a Presbyterian school, and he would go around and recruit children to attend this Presbyterian school. | 15:01 |
Charles Houston | Selden, you said? | 15:28 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Selden, S-E-L-D-E-N. | 15:29 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 15:32 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Selden Normal and Industrial Institute. They call it Selden NII. | 15:32 |
Charles Houston | And where was that? | 15:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Brunswick, Georgia. | 15:41 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 15:43 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Now, Selden has closed, but it's now state park in Brunswick. | 15:44 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So the building's gone, but the grounds are still— | 15:52 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | The ground's still there and they built a—They have another—What they built was recreation building there. It's a state park for them. | 15:56 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And you went to the Colored Memorial School through what grade? | 16:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Through ninth grade. | 16:20 |
Charles Houston | Is that as far as it went? | 16:23 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, for a while. Well, by the time I left, they had extended to the 12th grade, but Reverend Mitchell had asked mama to allow us to attend there. So usually when my older brothers and sisters, when we finished ninth grade, we went to the Presbyterian school. I was the last one, there was just four of us, went to Presbyterian school. The others, when they came along, the school was extended onto to 12 grades. And so, they just stayed at public school. | 16:28 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And your parents had to pay for you to go to the Presbyterian school? | 17:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Well, we were supposed to pay, but Reverend Mitchell recruited us, and we were smart kids and sort of gave us scholarships. | 17:11 |
Charles Houston | Okay. What was the difference, as you remember it, between the two schools? Could you describe them? | 17:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Between the— | 17:28 |
Charles Houston | Between the Colored Memorial School and— | 17:28 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And White Memorial? | 17:30 |
Speaker 1 | And Selden? | 17:31 |
Charles Houston | Well, and Selden. But also, maybe first, the difference between the Colored school and the White school. | 17:31 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | The White school was larger. They had a nice fence around it. I never went on the inside, but it was a much larger school. But from the outside, it looked the same. And we had the same education. Evidently, there was the same—I didn't know anything about curriculum then. But evidently, the curriculum was the same, because in order to graduate, we had to pass an exam, and the exam was given to the White and Colored kids. It seems like to me, all the way up, in order to pass from grade to grade, you had to pass the exam. And this exam that they gave us was given to the White and the Colored at the same time. And we were graded on that exam. | 17:38 |
Charles Houston | So both schools were public schools and were— | 18:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Public schools. | 18:37 |
Charles Houston | —paid for, I guess, by the city or by the state or something like that, maybe by the county. | 18:39 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 18:44 |
Charles Houston | But the teachers were segregated too, yes? | 18:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 18:50 |
Charles Houston | Black teachers, White teachers. | 18:50 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, that's right. The schools were segregated. | 18:53 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Now, inside the Colored Memorial School, at the time you were there, there were nine grades? | 18:55 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 19:05 |
Charles Houston | Was there a separate room for each grade? | 19:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh, yes. | 19:09 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So it was a big school? | 19:12 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It was a large school, I suppose so. | 19:12 |
Charles Houston | Well, more than one story? | 19:14 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Two stories. | 19:16 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 19:18 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | In fact, one of the buildings is still there. They've added more buildings, I noticed. But I was back there a few years ago, and the building that I attended and graduated from was still sitting there. | 19:22 |
Charles Houston | Is that right? | 19:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 19:39 |
Charles Houston | So was there more than one building when you were there? | 19:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Well, what happened was there was one building called Risley, and then they decided they needed a larger school. And on the same grounds, it took up an entire block, on the same grounds, they built this brick school. And that was the Colored Memorial, making it more like the White school. | 19:42 |
Charles Houston | Okay. I'm not sure I followed, but Risley was the name of the building, correct? | 20:06 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Risley was the name of the first little wooden school. | 20:10 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And it took up an entire block? | 20:16 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | The entire block was grounds for the school. I'm saying this now, because when I think about it, I guess they decided it was time to upgrade us. They built this large, well, it looked large then, brick school. And they named that building Colored Memorial. | 20:19 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And it was just like the White building? | 20:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It was just like the White building. But I realized, since I left there in later years, they called it all Risley. I guess, they had to take that Colored Memorial off of it, so it wouldn't— | 20:48 |
Charles Houston | But it used to be Colored Memorial? | 20:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It used to be Colored Memorial. | 21:00 |
Charles Houston | Right. And what grade were you in when they built the school, when they tore down the wooden building and built the all brick building? | 21:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | They didn't tear it down. They used it. They still used that. They just made another building. | 21:10 |
Charles Houston | I see. Okay. | 21:14 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And I was in fifth grade. | 21:18 |
Charles Houston | Okay. You were in fifth grade when they built the brick building? | 21:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. I guess, maybe they needed more room. I don't know. But when I think about it now, maybe they needed more room and all, because the children, they still used the old building. Let me see, I could tell you almost how many rooms they had. There were about eight, probably nine buildings. They went to ninth grade, so I suppose that's why there were nine rooms. Because the children attended in nine. But then, when they built the brick building, I don't know how they divided us, but they still used children in both buildings. | 21:27 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And at some point, then they expanded the grades too? | 22:13 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, could have. | 22:19 |
Charles Houston | The year you left, they expanded the grades to go up to grade 11 or 12. | 22:21 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, they did. | 22:26 |
Charles Houston | They added two or three grades. | 22:26 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I attended this new building in fifth, sixth, and seventh grade. | 22:31 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 22:36 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, it wasn't. Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. I think I was in ninth grade when I went to Selden. | 22:37 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So if the building was built when you were in the fifth grade and you were born in 1912, it was built around 1923? | 22:43 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, something like that. | 22:53 |
Charles Houston | Okay. I guess there was one teacher for each grade, is that correct? | 23:00 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, there was one teacher- | 23:03 |
Charles Houston | So there were eight or nine teachers and a principal? | 23:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | One teacher for each grade and we had a principal. And then, we had the home ec. That was a different building there on the campus too, the home ec building. | 23:06 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And I guess, in a town that big, sounds like it was—I mean, it had a big school. Actually, did any of the students come in from the countryside to go to school there? | 23:14 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. | 23:29 |
Charles Houston | So it was only town children? | 23:30 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Only town, yes. | 23:33 |
Charles Houston | And there were a lot of kids, right? | 23:33 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. | 23:33 |
Charles Houston | Were all the teachers from Brunswick? | 23:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, they weren't. Because I remember they'd be away during the summer and they'd come back to school during the winter. | 23:39 |
Charles Houston | So they may have come from other towns, other cities even? | 23:45 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Probably so. | 23:48 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And when they were there, I suppose they'd boarded with families. | 23:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, they lived with other teachers. Now, when I remembered, I remember it was a group of teachers that lived in one house. One of the teachers and her sister owned the house, and some more teachers boarded with them. And there were one or two teachers from Brunswick, and they had their own homes. And in fact, I was there about four or five years ago, and my first grade teacher there, she was in her nineties, and she was still living in the little house that she lived in when I was there. | 23:56 |
Charles Houston | What was it like to see her? That must have been something. | 24:32 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, it was. So they lived with each other and all. We had several teachers that lived in Brunswick, come to think about it, because there was Mrs. Wright, her husband was a taxi driver, and she had her own home. The Burris sisters, they lived together. They had their own home. And then, this other group of teachers. | 24:36 |
Charles Houston | Okay. What was it like switching to Selden? How was Selden different, other than the fact that it—How many grades did it have? Did it have 12 grades? | 25:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, it had—Let me see. It was just a high school. It didn't have any elementary grades. It was just high school. | 25:31 |
Charles Houston | Okay. If it was a normal industrial school, it must have had at least two years of college too. | 25:46 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Four years of high school and two years of college, that's what it was. | 25:52 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And if it had two years of college, I assume there were boarding students there, that were staying there, and lived there. | 26:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, they had boarding students. In fact, most of the students were boarding. When Reverend Mitchell came in, he gradually recruited students from the city. But until he came in, I think there were mostly students from out of town. | 26:16 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And it was a Presbyterian school? | 26:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 26:40 |
Charles Houston | Okay. What was it like going to school at Selden? Did you like that better? Did it seem different, somehow? Harder, better education, better teachers? | 26:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know. I guess, it's about the same. | 26:56 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 26:57 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Because as I see it now, we had very good teachers, both places. And Reverend Mitchell, we never had any problems, even though we passed through White neighborhoods, going out to Selden. And Selden was about two miles from the center of town. And so, we had quite a distance to walk, but we never had any problems with White kids along this road or anything because Reverend Mitchell was well respected among the Whites, as well as the Blacks. | 27:04 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Did Reverend Mitchell have a church? He was a Presbyterian minister? | 27:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, he didn't have a church. He had chapel services right on the campus, with the students there. And sometimes people from the city would come, but there weren't many Presbyterians there, because we didn't have a Presbyterian church in Brunswick. | 27:57 |
Charles Houston | Oh, is that right? | 28:15 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. | 28:15 |
Charles Houston | So where did you go to church? | 28:16 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | We were Episcopalians. | 28:18 |
Charles Houston | Oh, okay. Sorry. I just assumed you were Presbyterians. | 28:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, I'm a member of St. Luke's here in Columbia now. | 28:25 |
Charles Houston | Okay. But you grew up Episcopalian? | 28:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | In Episcopalian St. Athanasius. That was another school too. Like the private Presbyterian school, there was a private Episcopal school. But because we were Episcopalians, mama was criticized for sending us to Selden, to the Presbyterian school. But mama's point was, we belonged to the Episcopal Church. We were smart kids, we made good grades. And mama said she didn't want anybody to say they gave us good grades because we were Episcopalians, because they would do that. | 28:31 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And we behaved ourselves. We had to behave when we went to school. Because we were pretty smart academically, whatever programs they had or anything, and leading parts, we were always in the lead and so on. And mama knows we were criticized for that because people said they thought more of us because we were so fair and all those things. But that was kind of undercover. | 29:13 |
Charles Houston | So you got criticized no matter what? | 29:44 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, we got criticized no matter what. | 29:47 |
Charles Houston | But there was an Episcopalian school in Brunswick at last? | 29:48 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, St. Athanasius. | 29:53 |
Charles Houston | I'm sorry, what was it? | 29:56 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | St. Athanasius. Now, don't tell me to spell it. | 29:59 |
Charles Houston | That's okay. It's just not a name I know. | 30:00 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | We call it St. A. | 30:02 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And did it also have 12 grades? | 30:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. It started in the first grade. And it had 12 grades. It wasn't very large, because the students that came there, most of them came from out of town. They had a few boarding students and a few others. I don't have any idea about the size of it, but it wasn't very large. | 30:11 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Was it also a normal and industrial school? | 30:32 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. | 30:37 |
Charles Houston | So no two years of college? | 30:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. | 30:37 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And I guess, it would've had small grounds, the Presbyterian school, if it was an industrial school, probably had a farm attached to it. | 30:41 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, they did have a farm. They had a agricultural teacher there, Mr. Baldwin. | 30:54 |
Charles Houston | So, was there then one Black Episcopal church in town? | 30:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, that was the only one. | 31:05 |
Charles Houston | That was the church you went to? And what was its name? | 31:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | St. Athanasius. | 31:14 |
Charles Houston | Oh, it was the same name? | 31:15 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 31:16 |
Charles Houston | So, was the school attached to the church? | 31:17 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 31:19 |
Charles Houston | Same location? | 31:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 31:21 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 31:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | The church is still there, but the school of course is gone. But the church is still there. And I was so surprised when I went there about, I think it was about five or six years ago when I first went there, and went in the church. And it was the same church. Everything was the same, but it looked like, to me, it was a doll house. | 31:26 |
Charles Houston | Because it was so small? | 31:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | So small. I didn't remember it being that small. To me, it was a large church. | 31:50 |
Charles Houston | Right. Well, that's because you were smaller when you went there. | 31:54 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I guess so. But it's still there, just like it was when we were there. The only trouble was it had ivy covering it. Instead of the ivy, now they have the bricks painted w hite. They took all the ivy off of it. But the inside of the church is just like it was when we were there. | 31:56 |
Charles Houston | And how has the neighborhood around the church changed? How did it look then? | 32:13 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It hasn't changed at all. It's just like it was. I was very surprised to find that Brunswick hadn't expanded like we did here in Hermo and all. But of course, industry did that. But even the houses and all, that the people lived in, the houses that I thought were large houses, I discovered they weren't so large after all. | 32:17 |
Charles Houston | So if I went to Brunswick today, I would see it pretty much as you saw it when you were— | 32:42 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, that's right. Pretty much. | 32:45 |
Charles Houston | Okay. That's interesting. You can't say that of too many places. Now, what other denominations were there for Blacks in Brunswick at this time? Say in the '20s. | 32:48 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | There was a Baptist and a Methodist, and the Holy Rollers, I remember those. Because right around the corner from us was—I don't remember the—It probably was a Methodist church. | 33:01 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | We attended our church. Our Sunday school was in the morning. And around the corner from us was this Methodist church, I guess. And we belonged to that Sunday school just so we could have somewhere to go in the afternoons, because our church was out in the afternoon. And so, mama let us go to that church. And we pretty much ran the Sunday school. We ran it on the same scale as we did our Sunday school. We didn't run our Sunday school, but I mean, we had it set up like that. We weren't anything but kids, but we were secretary and president and—All of the Sunday school, we just— | 33:19 |
Charles Houston | Both St. Athanasius and the Methodist Church had service every Sunday? | 34:11 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 34:20 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And the Baptist church did too, I guess? | 34:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I guess so, yes. They all had services every Sunday. | 34:23 |
Charles Houston | Because a lot of churches didn't. A lot of churches had service. The ministers traveled and they had had churches. | 34:26 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, we had ministers right there. | 34:32 |
Charles Houston | I mean, did the leadership in town, did the better families in town tend to go to one church and the working class people to another? I mean, did the elites tend to—I guess what I'm asking is, did working class Blacks go to St. Athanasius? Did they tend to go to the Baptist or to the Methodist church? | 34:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mostly, they attended the Baptist and Methodist. Well, some of them attended the other churches too. But I remember now, as I remember our church, St. Athanasius had mostly professionals. | 35:09 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 35:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | You see, mama was brought up in a Episcopal church in the little town she came from, Darien, Georgia. And so, that's why we were all Episcopalians. I don't know what papa was, but I know he went to our church. | 35:34 |
Charles Houston | Yeah. Well, my understanding is that Episcopalians frequently were racially mixed people too. That frequently in the South, Black Episcopal churches were—That the congregations were made up of racially mixed people, rather than racially unmixed African Americans. | 35:56 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Ours wasn't mixed. We didn't have any racially mixed people right there. | 36:15 |
Charles Houston | Well, I mean, in the same sense that you're racially mixed. I mean, as your family is mixed. | 36:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh, I see what you mean. | 36:23 |
Charles Houston | I don't mean White people and Black people together. I mean— | 36:25 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh, I see. | 36:25 |
Charles Houston | —Black people who had White relatives, [indistinct 00:36:31]. | 36:25 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Because we carried some children to—We would go to their Sunday school, but they weren't particular about coming to ours. We'd take them to our Sunday school, they'd see nothing but White people in there. They didn't want to go— | 36:31 |
Charles Houston | You mean the Methodist kids? | 36:44 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. They weren't comfortable in our church because they said we were all too White. | 36:45 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Well, okay, let me ask you a question about that before we leave that. Although the Methodist kids didn't like to come to your church because they found the people there too White, did you socialize outside of church, outside of Sunday school? | 36:49 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 37:18 |
Charles Houston | So these were your regular playmates, they just didn't like being in church? | 37:18 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. | 37:21 |
Charles Houston | Okay. You mentioned that St. Athanasius had mostly professional people. Most of the professional people in town. What were some of the professions? I mean, who would you have included in that group? And it may not be the same professions that we consider professions today. | 37:25 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, I don't know. I know we had doctors, medical doctors and dentists. | 37:42 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 37:46 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Several of the men were barbers. | 37:54 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 37:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And of course, my father was a cooper. | 37:59 |
Charles Houston | Right. | 38:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't remember any other coopers belonging there, though. | 38:04 |
Charles Houston | Your uncle belong to a different church? | 38:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, they were—I don't know whether that was a Methodist or a Baptist church they attended. It was Baptist, I believe. | 38:09 |
Charles Houston | Okay. What about the funeral director? Did you have a funeral parlor? A Black funeral parlor? | 38:27 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, we had a Black funeral parlor. | 38:31 |
Charles Houston | Did he come to church with you at St. A's? | 38:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't remember. | 38:38 |
Charles Houston | Okay. What about the school teachers? | 38:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh, they attended—Come to think about it, I don't ever remember any of them attending St. A, but they did attend the Methodist and Baptist, I know. | 38:43 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Were there any Black stores in town? | 39:00 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. | 39:07 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So no grocery stores? No- | 39:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Not that I knew of. | 39:10 |
Charles Houston | Okay. I mean, was there a Black commercial section? Was there a place where—Well, I guess, if there were no Black business people, there probably wasn't a Black commercial section, right? | 39:28 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, there wasn't. It was Norwich Street and Newcastle Street, but they were all White stores. | 39:42 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 39:48 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I remember there was a Black drug store. | 39:55 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And it was in a White neighborhood, I guess? | 40:06 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, it was—I don't know whether you could call the street—There was a street, they nicknamed it. That's wasn't the name of it, but it was the two sections, two blocks of that street, they called it, the kids called it Wall Street, because that's where all the business was. But it was—Norwich? No. I don't know whether it was Norwich, Newcastle. I don't remember the name of it. | 40:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | But anyway, it wasn't Wall Street, but they called it Wall Street. And that's where the few Black business—They did have some Black businesses there, because that's where they had several barbershops. They had a cafe and the doctor's office was one block from there. But all the businesses were centered in those two block areas. And that was also the area that our church, Episcopal church was in. | 40:46 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | But remember, I was just 17 years old when I was there, and I didn't know too much about it. | 41:19 |
Charles Houston | All right, well, actually you know quite a bit. And I'm getting a real good idea of what it was like. Who did the leaders of the community seem to be? I mean, do you remember ever that the Black community as a group addressed the White community? Or was there somebody that White people came to talk to when there was an issue involving Black people? Or was there no such— | 41:24 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | There were no such issues, come to think about it, I know of. I never knew of any conflict or anything around there, between White and Black. | 41:59 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Was there evidence— | 42:09 |
Charles Houston | Let me just stop this for a second. | 42:09 |
Speaker 2 | Yeah. | 42:09 |
Charles Houston | What evidence was there when you were a girl in Brunswick of Jim Crow, of segregation? Were there signs up saying White only, Black only, or African, or Colored only? | 42:15 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, I remember in the dime stores, they had the fountains that said White and Colored fountains that you drink from. That was about all. I don't know of any other. | 42:29 |
Charles Houston | Was there an ice cream parlor in town, someplace you'd go for ice cream on Saturdays or Sundays? | 42:49 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, we had our own drug store. | 43:00 |
Charles Houston | Okay, so that's where you went for ice cream? | 43:00 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yeah, there was a Colored drug store there. | 43:01 |
Charles Houston | And what about when you went to buy clothes, could you try clothes on in the White stores? | 43:05 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, to tell you the truth, we didn't try on any clothes. My mother was a dressmaker. She made all of our clothes, so we didn't have to go to try them on. | 43:12 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | But I remember, our father would take us to buy our shoes, because he always wanted to be sure the shoes fitted, and it was just right. And I can see him now, kneeling down in front of us, feeling the shoes to see how they fit and everything. But I didn't see any differences made as to where we sat or what they did for us. We just went in there and bought shoes. | 43:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | But so far as trying on clothes and all, I never had to go in the store to try on any clothes. So we did have two large stores run by Jews, but I don't know what they did in there. But we'd go and buy some articles that you didn't try on. But I didn't have to try on anything. So I don't know what happened. | 43:41 |
Charles Houston | So the two large stores run by Jews were clothing stores? | 44:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. One was A.J. Gordon and the other one was Zel Menovich. Both Jews. | 44:06 |
Charles Houston | Now, the 1920s, as I understand it, was the heyday of the Klan in the South, Ku Klux Klan. Was there evidence in and around Brunswick of the Ku Klux Klan? Did they have a march in town or— | 44:16 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, we lived in a little ideal town, I think, because we had nothing like that. No racial incidents or anything, I remember happening around there at all, before, not since. | 44:34 |
Charles Houston | Okay. In your family, or did you know of families where Blacks were related to Whites? I mean, you obviously were related to some Whites, but were they local Whites? And was there a relationship between you? I mean, I know there wouldn't have been a legally recognized relationship, but was there any kind of family relationship, visiting back and forth, that kind of thing? | 44:49 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know of any. And of course, my family wasn't from Brunswick. And so, we wouldn't have had anybody around there that was related to us, but there was no—The family, the people that we were related to was— | 45:15 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | My mother was Darien, Georgia. That was about 20 or 30 miles away. Now, in that little town of Darien, Georgia, that was a smaller town. It was a little seaport town, where ships came in, boats came in, and brought fish and prawns and things like that. | 45:33 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I know there was one family there. This fine yacht would pull up there. And he had a lady friend, I guess, you call her. I don't know what she was. She was definitely Colored and she had two beautiful children. And he used to come in, pull his yacht in to see those kids. And he sent them off to school, and the boy was okay, but the girl was deaf and dumb, and he had to send her to a institution, a deaf and dumb institution. But she was a smart kid and she wanted to, I remember she wanted to marry a guy at the school, a Black guy. And her father came and took her on his yacht and he kept her off— | 45:56 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | —Grocery—What shall I say? His store was the most expensive store in Brunswick and he had his son that attended church and Sunday school and all and school with us. He was my classmate. | 0:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | In fact, I saw him when I went to Brunswick not so long go, to the reunion. He was several years older than I am. I think he's probably dead now. But when you look at him, you knew he had to be a Jew and Zelmanovic took care of him. And back in '26 and '27, you know nobody owned—Kids own cars, but his daddy bought him a car. He was the one student in town there that had a young boy that had a car his own, that his daddy bought for him. | 0:22 |
Charles Houston | So his relationship with Blacks was that he went to school with them? | 0:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. He went to—His mother was Black and he just associated with Blacks all the— | 1:03 |
Charles Houston | His mother was Black? | 1:06 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. He just associated with Blacks all around. But his father took care of him and it wasn't a hidden affair. Everybody knew it. | 1:09 |
Charles Houston | Oh, I see. His father and his mother were not married? | 1:18 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, they weren't married. Uh-uh. | 1:21 |
Charles Houston | Okay. It was just an open relationship. | 1:23 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Just open relationship. | 1:24 |
Charles Houston | He had a car? | 1:25 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. He was laughing about that not so long ago, several years ago when we met because he was bringing me home one day. We were just friends but he had picked me up and was bringing me home and a policeman stopped us. The policeman—You look at him and even though he was fair and all, you could tell he was Negro but you couldn't tell about me. | 1:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | The policeman stopped us and he was laughing about it. I didn't remember the incident until he told me. And then I remembered. I don't know what he said to him, but I know one thing. He couldn't do anything but tell us to go on because Leroy being Zelmanovic's son, he knew he better not bother. | 2:00 |
Charles Houston | So Leroy had the same name as his father? | 2:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, Leroy Harmon. But everybody knew he was Zelmanovic's son. But there was no incident. The policeman stopped us. I don't know what he said to Leroy, but he just said something insignificant just to look us over. But he didn't do anything. | 2:25 |
Charles Houston | Well, it sounds—Did you get up to Darien to visit your mother's relatives there? | 2:44 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | We went there once or twice. You had to have a car to get there to go. Darien was between Brunswick and Savannah. We went there once or twice. | 2:58 |
Charles Houston | So you didn't have a car when you were growing? | 3:05 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. My mother eventually moved there after I married and was living in South Carolina. My mother's mother had left her a piece of property there. And during the Depression. That would've been in early '30s, huh? | 3:06 |
Charles Houston | Yeah, the depression started '29. | 3:28 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, that was the time that Mama built her home over and moved over to Brunswick. | 3:30 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Her mother left her land? | 3:36 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Her mother left her land, yes. | 3:38 |
Charles Houston | Was your dad still living when she moved there? | 3:42 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Mom and dad were still together. Mama's mother died when she was six months old, but she left the property to Mama, through my grandmother's sister. | 3:44 |
Charles Houston | So she had a life estate? | 3:58 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. So she had that and she wasn't taking care of it. Mama didn't think much of it. She hadn't bothered about it. But Ma' Mary's, that was Mama's aunt that raised her, Ma' Mary's son wasn't paying the taxes. He was supposed to be paying. And it was up for sale. Some of the people there knew it was supposed to be for Mama. | 4:00 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And they came over to Brunswick and brought her a notice showing that the property was up for sale. Mama went and had it bought in and she took it over. And then she built—She kept it for several years. Then she built this house there, about '31 or '32. Mama built his house on the place and she moved over there. They stayed there until the war was over. And the war ended. Mama and papa moved. The kids were all grown. Then they moved to New York and that's where they stayed. | 4:27 |
Charles Houston | So in '31 and '32, when your mother built the house, your father left— | 5:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Brunswick. | 5:14 |
Charles Houston | Stopped being at Cooper and moved over to- | 5:15 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Brunswick. And moved over to Darien. | 5:17 |
Charles Houston | Moved over to Darien. | 5:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | He still went back and forth to the Cooper shop for a while, but then he stopped because they opened up a airport there somewhere. | 5:22 |
Charles Houston | You mean in Brunswick or in Darien? | 5:35 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Somewhere between Darien and Brunswick. I never knew— | 5:39 |
Charles Houston | He started working at the airport. | 5:43 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | He started working there. | 5:44 |
Charles Houston | And that this was in during the Depression then? | 5:45 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 5:47 |
Charles Houston | In the '30s? | 5:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. He stayed there until the war ended. | 5:49 |
Charles Houston | Was it a military airport or— | 5:58 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, it was military. | 6:08 |
Charles Houston | Do you know what he did at the airport? | 6:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know. Mm-hmm. | 6:08 |
Charles Houston | Was it like a military airfield? | 6:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, something like that. | 6:10 |
Charles Houston | Okay. You got married fairly early. I would guess you said you got married at age 17? | 6:21 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 6:27 |
Charles Houston | You had just finished at the Selden School? | 6:31 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, I was two or three months from finishing when I married. But of course, since I married the dean of the school, the president allowed me to stay there and graduate. | 6:34 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Would you care to talk a little bit about how you—Well, obviously I know how you met. I mean, he was the dean of the school. He was probably teaching there too. | 6:52 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. He was from Johnson C. He had just graduated from Johnson C. Smith. And he came to Brunswick to teach. And he declared that he saw me walk in the gate of the campus center side right then and there he was going to marry me. I teased him off. I teased him off about that time. If he had just told me that, I would've known better than to marry him. | 7:03 |
Charles Houston | So he bought it, his time. | 7:28 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | We stayed there two years. And then we moved. We married in '29, and we moved here in '31. | 7:30 |
Charles Houston | Where did you live when you first got married? | 7:45 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | On a campus. See, it was a boarding school. | 7:47 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So he had quarters on campus. | 7:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | He had quarters on the campus. In fact, Reverend Mitchell built quarters for us there. Built a two room apartment over the lab and his science lab and the school dining room and kitchen were all on one floor. He built an apartment over there for us to live in. | 7:52 |
Charles Houston | How was it being courted by your future husband when you were living at home with your parents? Did they— | 8:23 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I wasn't courted by him. He just decided he wanted to marry me and started begging me to marry him. | 8:32 |
Charles Houston | Is that right? So he didn't have to beg your parents? | 8:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, he eventually asked Mama and Mama said she didn't know what to do and said, "Evidently, you all have talked it over and know what you want to do." So she couldn't say anything but consent to it. | 8:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Both yet. And she said one thing, "She must finish high school." And he said, "Yes, she'll finish." I finished high school there and took two years of college that they had there. | 8:59 |
Charles Houston | Before you moved away? | 9:13 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Before we moved away. | 9:15 |
Charles Houston | Okay. How did your father react? | 9:17 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Anything Mama said was right. | 9:20 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 9:23 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | He would say, "Ask your Mama. Go to your Mama for that." | 9:23 |
Charles Houston | So was your mother really, as far as the kids were concerned, the head of the household, did she do all the disciplining and everything? | 9:27 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. My daddy would tell us, "You see these hands, I'll knock you down and it'll bust your head open." His hands were rough. And he'd say that real quiet. And we knew we better sit down. He never hit us anything. | 9:33 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, we said to Mama, saying to my sister, I have a sister that lives over here in Columbiana. And she said the same thing that Mama said, that she never had any trouble with us because we were all good kids. Well, our idea was Mama must have brought us upright for us to feed all be good kids. | 9:50 |
Charles Houston | That's right. That's right. She must have done an excellent job. She never had any trouble with you. | 10:13 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. If you want a racial incident, I was teaching when this happened. This was during the time they had all these sit-ins and things. I don't know which year it was. | 10:17 |
Charles Houston | Well, it would've been after 1960 probably. | 10:35 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. I was teaching in Columbia and a teacher, and I had to leave school to go to another school, to a meeting. There was a—Has John taken you nearby? You see where Benedict College is? | 10:37 |
Charles Houston | We talked about it. | 10:55 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Benedict and Allen. | 10:55 |
Charles Houston | I know it's here. | 10:55 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, there was a little shop there that Kathy like. You go in and get sandwiches and things. So this teacher and I went in, and we sat at the counter for sandwiches. Then I saw whispering behind the hands, and I heard one of them went in the back say, "Is she—What should we do?" And it occurred—what I said, "I'm supposed to be here." I said, "You can feed me. You can serve me." In other words, they was about to put me out because I was White. (laughs) | 10:55 |
Charles Houston | That's funny. Well, you're kind of betwixt in between because people wouldn't know unless you told them. | 11:31 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. Yeah. | 11:38 |
Charles Houston | You were in that middle ground. | 11:41 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And believe it or not, that's the way I took it on the middle ground. When my family moved to New York and I had to go up there to see them, they put me in a White car and I ordered a White car. | 11:42 |
Charles Houston | On the train? | 11:54 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yep. | 11:55 |
Charles Houston | Your family moved up there in right after the war, you said? | 11:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | So in '45. | 12:04 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So you would've been going up on the train to visit your family in the late '40s. | 12:06 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. | 12:12 |
Charles Houston | And of course there was still Jim Crow cars in those days. | 12:12 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. That's right. | 12:14 |
Charles Houston | Yeah. So tell me now, you said you married at age 17 in 1929. You continued, you finished high school and you did two years of college. And so you moved away in like 1931? | 12:17 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 12:35 |
Charles Houston | And you came here? | 12:36 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 12:37 |
Charles Houston | Okay. What brought you here in 1931? | 12:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | My husband came here to teach at Selden at Haralson. See, Haralson was a school just like Selden, a Presbyterian school. And he had attended Haralson. He was from Rocky, South Carolina, Fairview County. And he attended school at Haralson and kept in touch with him. And they asked him to come here to teach. That's why we moved here. | 12:43 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And so you moved actually onto this property? | 13:10 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, first we moved on the campus and we stayed there. We moved there in '31, and we stayed there. When were you born, Shirley? | 13:13 |
Shirley | I was born in '35. | 13:25 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | In '35. | 13:30 |
Shirley | Mm-hmm. | 13:30 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, it was about '37 or '38, I guess, that we moved in a house in Alamo and stayed there until my husband threw up the shack here for us to live in. And he left harvesting in the meantime and went to teach. He created a job. He wrote Governor Williams, I believe it was, of South Carolina, and told them that the boys reformed school out there needed a school. And they didn't have any school out there for— | 13:31 |
Shirley | John G. Richards. | 14:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Huh? | 14:08 |
Shirley | John G. Richards. | 14:10 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And so he created a school, so he'd have a position to go to, and he started working there. The reason we left Haralson campus, this is a long story. He was from Fairview County and just like Reverend Mitchell went out in Brunswick and recruited students to go to Haralson, to Selden. Dr. Young went out in the community and recruited students there to go to Haralson. And my husband was one of those. | 14:13 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | He was down in the lower grade summer. I don't know what grade he was in. But anyway, he came from the country in Fairfield County and moved. And he lived on the campus, summer and winter, going to school at Haralson. So naturally he was brought up with Dr. Young's children. He had daughters and sons and all. He stayed on the campus until he graduated from high school. And he was real smart. | 14:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I have his program where he graduated tops in his class at Haralson, and he went on to sell to Johnson C. Smith for four years. And then he left Smith and came down to Selden. And that's when he saw me and decided to marry me. So when he brought me here, his friends and all at Haralson decided he belonged to them. | 15:19 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | He hadn't been just coming, bringing a wife. They immediately put thumbs down on me. There were nothing, no parts of me wanted [indistinct 00:15:55] shape or form. | 15:46 |
Charles Houston | Because you were from someplace else? | 15:58 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Because I was from someplace else, and I was a little White girl with—I was platinum blonde. I was a little White girl with blonde hair almost down to my waist. And my husband loved the ground I walked on. He would go to school and teach and come straight back home and clean up and cook and help take care of the children. And they just couldn't take that. | 15:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | With them heading up to school, Dr. Young and those, they had upper hand on everything. Somehow I know that that's why he didn't stay there. He lost his job. I don't know what reason they had for not hiring him back one year. And that's how he created this job to live in. | 16:25 |
Charles Houston | Is it your feeling that it was pretty common for schools to have a geographic bias based on the home county of the head of that school? Because you said Selden was the same way, that Dr. Reverend Mitchell went back to his home county to kind of recruit people into his school. That here at Haralson that Dr. Young went back to his home count- | 16:49 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. In Fairfield County. | 17:22 |
Charles Houston | Was that typical? Was that common for the head masters of schools to go back to the areas that they came from? | 17:25 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I really don't know. | 17:30 |
Charles Houston | Okay. That's interesting. | 17:32 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. I had never thought about it. | 17:33 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 17:36 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | But yes. | 17:36 |
Charles Houston | That kind of loyalty to home county people must have been fairly strong? | 17:43 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 17:47 |
Charles Houston | Maybe they were rejecting you on the basis that you were from a different county, but they were also perhaps rejecting you because of your skin color. For racial reasons, or as we would say today, intra-racial reasons? | 17:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Well— | 18:01 |
Charles Houston | How did you feel about that? Did you, I mean— | 18:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Do you know I didn't know about it until after I grew up later and looked back and saw all these things. | 18:07 |
Charles Houston | You didn't- | 18:12 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It just didn't faze me. I guess I was too naive or something. | 18:17 |
Charles Houston | Well, you were very young. | 18:23 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, I was. | 18:24 |
Charles Houston | But did you have friends here? Did you and your husband have a circle of friends in Alamo or? | 18:28 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, actually when we moved over here, I had then started going back to school at Benedict. I met friends in school at Benedict at Columbia and all. All of my close friends were from Columbia because I started going to school there and then later I started teaching in the area there. | 18:34 |
Charles Houston | When did you start going to school at Benedict. You moved here now. And— | 18:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | When was Adele born? | 19:20 |
Shirley | Ade had to have been born summer of '41. | 19:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, it was about 39 or 40, I started going to school at Benedict. I took afternoon classes in summer school, and I continued that until I graduated from Benedict. | 19:20 |
Charles Houston | And what degree did you take? You took a BA? | 19:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I took a BA. And when I left be Benedict, then for a while I didn't go back and I started back to State and I got my masters at State. | 19:42 |
Charles Houston | So you moved to Orangeburg or you- | 19:48 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, no, I commuted. I was still teaching in Columbia, but I commuted. | 19:51 |
Charles Houston | At the time you were—I guess during the '30s when you were living in sort of three—Actually, during the '30s, you lived in three different places here. You lived on the campus, you lived in Alamo, and then you moved— | 20:05 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Here. | 20:16 |
Charles Houston | You moved here. You were on campus a couple of years, and then you moved to Alamo for how long? | 20:16 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | One year. | 20:22 |
Charles Houston | One year. And then you built the third year, so you built a place here and moved onto this property? | 20:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 20:29 |
Charles Houston | What was this area like? Could you describe it? Was this countryside, all farmland? | 20:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | All farmland? For instance, this place where my house is now, all this was farmland, this whole block. It belongs to me now, but then it was just a field, all across. They recently took the trees and things from across the Behan, all that was farmland. | 20:33 |
Charles Houston | Where the shopping centers are now, where those strip malls are? | 20:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, right in front of me. Right across the street from Behan. It eventually grew up in pine trees, but it was a cotton field. Have you been down around Allied and— | 21:01 |
Charles Houston | I went down to today just down across the tracks and then up and down that little strip there where parallel to the railroad. But that's the only place I've been, I didn't see the Allied. | 21:14 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, Allied Chemicals is a little further down in all the high school and junior high school and everything. All that was all farm land. | 21:28 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Who owned the farm? Were they big farms, small farms, Black or White? | 21:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | They were White. They were all owned by White. | 21:41 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Were they like family farms? These were farms that the families owned and operated. | 21:45 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I just knew they were farmland. | 21:49 |
Charles Houston | Okay. I guess you like me as a city person. Farm is a farm is a farm, unless it's really huge. | 21:54 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It wasn't sharecroppers though. | 22:01 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Were there Blacks living in the area off campus? Was there a Black community here? | 22:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 22:13 |
Charles Houston | What was that? Would you describe that? | 22:14 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | They just kept it themselves. | 22:15 |
Charles Houston | Now, were they college people? Were they people [indistinct 00:22:21] Haralson? | 22:18 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. Uh-uh. | 22:19 |
Charles Houston | What did they do? Do you know what they did? | 22:19 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Farmed. | 22:19 |
Charles Houston | Now, did they farm on their own land? | 22:26 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Most of them had their own land. Most of the people around here owned their own places. | 22:27 |
Charles Houston | And the Black families that farmed here, did they kind of live together or did they live interspersed among Whites? | 22:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mostly together. They had some Whites. In fact, they had some—If you check the names, you'll find they all had the same names, Black and Whites, they intermarriage and everything. | 22:44 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Some of them went so far as to say, "Well [indistinct 00:23:02]." The Blacks would say, the Whites, Blacks never said, the Whites looked like they were the ones who would say, "Did you know so-and-so-and-so. Well, that's my cousin." | 22:59 |
Charles Houston | That's interesting. This— | 23:15 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | They were Geigers and I can't recall the other name. I can't recall the names now, but they're all Black and White, all mixed. | 23:17 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 23:30 |
Shirley | What about the Richardsons? | 23:30 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | The Richardsons, yes. | 23:30 |
Charles Houston | Now, when you moved here in the early 1930s from Brunswick, it probably was like you were moving from the city to the country. | 23:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, it was. | 23:47 |
Charles Houston | How did that seem in terms of your social life, in terms of contacts, in terms of- | 23:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, you see, you must remember I married out of my age class. | 23:57 |
Charles Houston | How old? | 24:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I married from a student to a teacher, see. And so I was just considered a child when I was in Brunswick. The teachers on the campus, I had my friends on the campus who attended school and all. They were my friends. When I moved here, then these people, I wasn't used to having a whole lot of friends. So it just didn't bother me. They were friendly with me, but I wasn't like close women friends and all. I wasn't like that because they considered me a child. | 24:04 |
Charles Houston | Yeah. I hadn't thought of that. Not only was there the outsider aspect and the skin color aspect— | 24:36 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It was child. | 24:44 |
Charles Houston | There was also the age aspect. Did most people at Haralson live on the campus? | 24:44 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | They all lived on campus. All the teachers. During the time that we came here, the teachers had cottages. They had what they call a campus road. They had Dr. Jones's campus, a home, and then they had three cottages over there. The single teachers who came in lived in the dormitories. | 25:07 |
Charles Houston | Okay. With the students? | 25:27 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 25:27 |
Charles Houston | So when you moved to Alamo, your husband was still working on at the campus, but you moved off. He continued to work at the campus? | 25:32 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, when he moved off the campus, we moved off because- | 25:39 |
Charles Houston | Because you weren't working there? | 25:44 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. And that's when he started working at Richards Industrial School, John G. Richards. | 25:45 |
Charles Houston | He started working at John G. Was that the school that the governor formed? Reformatory— | 25:58 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, that's right. It was a reformatory. They called it John G. Richards, but it was a boys reformatory. | 26:04 |
Charles Houston | And where was it located? | 26:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It's right down on—Shirley, where is it? | 26:11 |
Shirley | Right down Broad River Road, about maybe— | 26:17 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Five miles. | 26:22 |
Shirley | I think five miles down the road. | 26:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Okay. It's five miles, I remember gauging it on the car. | 26:25 |
Shirley | Okay. | 26:27 |
Charles Houston | 1930s, was there more evidence in this area? By this area, I mean Columbia generally. You were living—I suppose Alamo, did you consider yourself when you moved here in 1931, say during the 1930s, did you consider yourself to live in Columbia or in Alamo? | 26:45 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | In Alamo. | 27:08 |
Charles Houston | So they were really very different places? | 27:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 27:11 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And was there more evidence of discrimination in Alamo than there had been in Brunswick? Was there more, or was it about the same in terms of race relations. It sounds like—Well, I don't know. How did it seem? | 27:12 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I imagine it was about the same. | 27:36 |
Charles Houston | What about Alamo compared to Columbia? | 27:39 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know, because I don't know anything about life in Alamo except where I live in, I go to Colombian back in. | 27:44 |
Charles Houston | Right. But did Columbia seem about the same as Alamo or was there more segregation? Did Black people tend to live among themselves and with less contact with Whites than Black people in Alamo and Brunswick had. It sounds like Black people in Alamo and Brunswick had fairly extensive interaction with Whites and very amicable. Well, was that also true in Columbia? | 27:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. Columbia, seemed like to me like they have a definitely White area and a Black area. Because Blacks lived out in the Waverly section out around where Benedict and Allen is now. | 28:25 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | But at one time, Whites were out there too. I don't know too much about it except what I heard him say. | 28:43 |
Charles Houston | I know that in the late 1930s about the time you were teaching and began to commute over to Orangeburg, I guess you began to commute over to Orangeburg during the war to work on your masters degree? | 28:54 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, I didn't work on my masters degree until after 1950. In fact, it was 1950 when I graduated from Benedict as a college student because I just had children and I just took a class nine then. | 29:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Finally I started teaching. I started teaching as a rule when Catherine was a baby. That was when Shirley? | 29:26 |
Shirley | Well, Catherine was born in January of 43. | 29:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, it was around about that time that I started taking a class here and there, and I had been teaching. Oh, yes. I had been teaching in a two-teachers school for four or five years. And when Catherine was born, I stopped teaching altogether and I worked at Fort Jackson during the first two years of the war. | 29:50 |
Charles Houston | What did you do there? | 30:15 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I worked in the issuing clothing for the soldiers overseas. It was a base, but it was like a store. We would fill the orders for the different organizations as groups or what do you call them? Units as they were going overseas. | 30:17 |
Charles Houston | So you did that in 1942, 1943? | 30:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, I guess so. Yeah. | 30:43 |
Charles Houston | Because the war started very late in '41. | 30:44 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | All of a sudden I discovered that they were given the teacher's exam, and if you pass the exam, you got a decent salary for it. So I quit the job in the middle of the summer and went to Benedict to brush up on my education so I could pass the teacher's exam and start teaching. | 30:50 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And that's when I started working on my education. I put more time on. That's when I really started working for a degree. I worked a regular then and I got my degree in '50. And then later, I went to teach in Columbia in the Columbia City system and that's when I started on my masters sometimes there. | 31:14 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I probably started on my masters in about '61 or '62 because I studied regularly and I finished in 67. I got my masters in May of '67. Yes, because my husband died in June, a month after I had my masters. | 31:45 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Yeah. It's generally recognized that World War II was kind of turning point for African Americans in many ways. Actually, things started happening in the '30s, but the war itself was a turning point for lots of reasons. | 32:16 |
Charles Houston | But did it seem to you that the war was changing things? What changes did the war bring to your life during that time? And not necessarily racially, but maybe you could just talk a little bit about how things were different for you and your family during the war. | 32:32 |
Charles Houston | There was, for example, the job at Fort Jackson, which I assume in and of itself was unusual. But I don't know. Were there African-Americans working at Fort Jackson? | 32:55 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 33:18 |
Charles Houston | Before the war? | 33:19 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know. I don't whether they worked there before the war or not, | 33:19 |
Charles Houston | But they certainly did work there during the war. | 33:24 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh, yes. All during the war, there was—Yes. | 33:26 |
Charles Houston | And were they getting jobs at the Fort that Blacks customarily were denied prior to the war? | 33:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, the jobs that they did at the Fort, I don't know whether they had them before the war. | 33:36 |
Charles Houston | Right, okay. They were new jobs. | 33:42 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 33:42 |
Charles Houston | They didn't exist before. | 33:43 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. | 33:45 |
Charles Houston | Were there other ways. Do you remember what some of those jobs were? | 33:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | They had the large laundry there and they had the sewing area where they sewed and took care of uniforms. That's what it was, a matter of taking care of uniforms and things like that. It was taking care of the soldiers in general. | 33:54 |
Charles Houston | I know that during the war, things like gasoline and butter were in short supply. People told me about getting this White stuff that you had to— | 34:11 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Margarine. | 34:27 |
Charles Houston | Yeah. You had to put coloring— | 34:27 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Coloring in. Yes. | 34:28 |
Charles Houston | To make it palatable. | 34:30 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 34:32 |
Charles Houston | Were there other changes, other things that were rationed. I know that Black men were being drafted into the military and were volunteering. Were there other changes that just as you think back about what it was like during the wartime? Even little things like did you ride public accommodation here? Did you ride streetcars here during that period, during the war? | 34:32 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I think. | 35:08 |
Charles Houston | Were they segregated, like they had been before the war. | 35:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I think they were. I didn't ever have to have public transportation because I always had my own car. But the buses, I know in Columbia were segregated. Blacks had to ride in the back and the Whites in the front. Of course they had the Black taxi companies and the White taxi companies. | 35:11 |
Charles Houston | Okay. What about the business community? Did you have any contact with the Black business community in this area in Columbia? Did you know people who had their own businesses or their own— | 35:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Let me see. There were people, because they were all around Assembly Street and Washington Street, they had businesses up and down Washington Street. They had tailor shops and drug store. What is it? | 36:02 |
Charles Houston | No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. You were describing what Assembly Street was like. Tailor shops and drug stores. | 36:25 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That was on Washington Street, the tailor's shops and the drugstores, all the businesses, all the Black businesses were on—A cafe and the lawyer's offices and Dennis's offices and all were on—They were in about a two block area from Main Street to Assembly and Assembly to Park. That's where most of the Black businesses were. | 36:33 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Did you shop there or was it too far away? | 37:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, it wasn't anything to go that far, except they didn't have anything like department stores and things. They just had the shoe shop, barbershop, drug store. We went to those areas. But for the main, main shopping, you had to shop at the White stores. I never had any problems with them. | 37:09 |
Charles Houston | I guess you got credit at the White stores? | 37:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Got what? | 37:37 |
Charles Houston | Credit. | 37:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, we didn't have credit. Yeah, they did. I remember the teachers had credits at Barry's and Belks and yes, they could have gotten credit there. I didn't bother with credit though. I wasn't much of a person for charging stuff. I got that from my Mama. | 37:39 |
Charles Houston | Okay. The 1940s too was the time at which the NAACP became more active. Do you recall hearing anything or being involved in any way in any of those issues, which included the school teacher's salary, equalization issue? [indistinct 00:38:27]. | 38:05 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I think there was a question somewhere on some blank or another that you had to declare whether or not you were a member of subversity organizations or something like that. | 38:31 |
Charles Houston | '40s. | 38:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. And we knew about the NAACP. But you didn't talk about it too much, not if you wanted to keep your job. People didn't bother about it. | 38:41 |
Charles Houston | Do you remember where you were working at the time that you had to be clandestine in your membership in the NAACP? | 38:57 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. I was teaching in Columbia. | 39:07 |
Charles Houston | So this was actually after 1950 because you took your degree in '50. | 39:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Yes. It was soon after 1950. | 39:13 |
Charles Houston | I know over in Orangeburg, I'm not sure of the year, I think maybe '57, that after the Brown decision in '55 in Orangeburg, after the Brown decision, Black signed a petition to integrate the schools over there and that led to protests and boycotts and student demonstrations. In the wake of the Brown decision, were there things going on here in Columbia? | 39:24 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. They had some. They had, what was it, the lunch counter sit-ins and things like that? Yes. They had several of those. I wasn't involved in it in any way, and I didn't know anybody. | 39:58 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, I lived out in Alamo and as I said, I had a few friends that were teachers and all in Columbia, but I don't know any—I couldn't give any example of any of them. But we knew that they were, because at that time, Adele, I think, was going to school in Columbia. | 40:14 |
Charles Houston | That may be a little bit later than '55. | 40:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, it was. | 40:40 |
Charles Houston | Because the sit-ins really began after 1960. | 40:42 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh, yes. | 40:45 |
Charles Houston | Went off by the— | 40:45 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's when I knew about the sit-ins. That's right. But before that, I don't know too much. As I said, being out here, I guess we weren't involved that much. | 40:46 |
Charles Houston | Right, right. I guess one last question. What was there during this time in Colombia that you can recall, either in Alamo or in Columbia, do you recall any racial conflict or racial incidents or any problems at all? Let's say before 1960, during the '50s. And this would be, say, around the time of the Emmett Till case or Montgomery Bus Boycott or the Little Rock School desegregation issue? | 40:56 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, I don't remember any incidents at all. There may have been some that I didn't know about, but I don't remember. I can't recall any incidents. | 41:40 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Police brutality, any? | 41:49 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-mm. | 41:50 |
Charles Houston | I may not have asked all the things that you want to talk about. Is there anything else you can think of that, that perhaps should be commented on? | 41:56 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, I don't guess so. I think I've about taken up everything. | 42:04 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Well this has been very, very interesting and very useful for me. Very helpful. | 42:12 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, I hope I did tell you something. It was helpful. | 42:19 |
Charles Houston | Well, you did. It was all very useful and I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. I would like though, to take a bit more of your time to ask you questions so that I can fill out the family biography form, if you don't mind. | 42:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Okay. | 42:34 |
Charles Houston | I'll just leave the recorder running. [indistinct 00:42:45]. Some of this is going to be fairly tedious, but— | 42:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | This is my daughter. | 42:50 |
Charles Houston | Hi, how are you? I'm Charles. | 42:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Shirley. | 42:52 |
Charles Houston | Nice to meet you. Shirley. I don't remember your middle name. It's the first is N-E-T-T-I-E? | 42:53 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Holliday is my maiden name. | 43:06 |
Charles Houston | Holliday. | 43:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | H-O-L-L-I-D-A-Y. | 43:09 |
Charles Houston | Do you have a middle name? | 43:14 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. C. Nettie C. | 43:16 |
Charles Houston | You don't use the whole thing? | 43:18 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Calethea. No. When they told us to use just three names on documents, they always wanted my maiden name so I used my maiden name. | 43:22 |
Charles Houston | You just use the initial for your middle name? | 43:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. I just—Nettie H. Thompson is where I write my name. The H for Holliday. | 43:31 |
Charles Houston | Okay. What's the street address here? | 43:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | 1030, Newberry Avenue. | 43:49 |
Charles Houston | Okay. N-E-W-B-E-R-R-Y? | 43:55 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. Alamo. 29063. | 43:59 |
Charles Houston | Your date of birth is 1912. I've got it right here. It's January 24th? | 44:14 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. | 44:20 |
Charles Houston | Your place of birth is Brunswick. Do you know what county that is? | 44:25 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Glynn. G-L-Y-N-N. | 44:29 |
Charles Houston | Georgia. Your principal occupations would begin with school teacher? | 44:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. I taught for 35 years. Yes. | 44:45 |
Charles Houston | Okay. I suppose otherwise is housewife? | 44:58 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 45:00 |
Charles Houston | Homemaker. Your phone number please? It's (803)— | 45:01 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | 781. | 45:14 |
Charles Houston | 781. | 45:14 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | 2825. | 45:17 |
Charles Houston | 2825. Thank you. [indistinct 00:45:27] You're widowed. Your husband's first and middle names? | 45:19 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Roy W. Walker. Roy Walker Thompson Senior. Because I have a junior up there on the hill. | 45:36 |
Charles Houston | Okay. When was he born? The year and the month and day, if you remember. | 45:49 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | June 21st, 1898. | 45:55 |
Charles Houston | Okay. When did he die, please? | 45:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | June 8th, 1967. | 46:08 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And he was born in Fairfield County, South Carolina? | 46:10 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 46:18 |
Charles Houston | Was he born in the county or in the city? | 46:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | In the county. | 46:22 |
Charles Houston | And his occupation was educator, right? | 46:30 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 46:32 |
Charles Houston | Your mother's first, middle, last and spouse names. | 46:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | My mother, Catherine. She spelled it with a C. Catherine Barnwell. | 46:40 |
Charles Houston | This is her maiden name? | 46:50 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 46:52 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 46:52 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Her name, she says that was her family name and Barnwell, South Carolina was named for her family. | 0:01 |
Charles Houston | Is that right? | 0:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. | 0:08 |
Charles Houston | Huh. Well, there's probably an interesting story there. | 0:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, it is. | 0:13 |
Charles Houston | Do you know it? | 0:13 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Her mother was part Indian and part Negro, and her father was this Irishman from somewhere anyway. He never married. The only wife he ever had was my mother's mother, I guess. I don't know whether they were married or not. But, anyway, he had one, two, three, four children by her, and then when my mother's mother died, he married again and had two other children. But he owned a plantation in Darien, Georgia and that's where my mother was born. Her mother died when she was six months old, and her two older sisters took her away from my grandfather and brought her to Brunswick, Georgia. He told them he'd take care of them as long as they stayed with him, but they decided they didn't want to stay with him because then it was a difference between the White and Black. | 0:19 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | In order to get spending change, Mama said they used to dress up in boys' clothes and go out in the field and work and get in line and get a paycheck from him. Then when they got old enough, they took her and came to Brunswick. As he said, he didn't take care of him. They just went to Brunswick, and they just left and forgot about him. I remember when he died and his estate was up for settlement or something, my mother's half brother lived in Ohio at the time, I think, and he told Mama they needed to go together and claim the estate, but Mama said no. She wasn't going to drag her kids through any coats, and she wouldn't bother about it. So I don't know what happened to his fortune. | 1:30 |
Charles Houston | So you actually knew your grandfather? | 2:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I didn't know him. | 2:22 |
Charles Houston | You just knew of him? | 2:23 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Just knew of him. Mama told us this. | 2:24 |
Charles Houston | But Barnwell was very close to Brunswick? | 2:27 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Barnwell, South Carolina. | 2:30 |
Charles Houston | Oh, okay. So it wasn't close. | 2:32 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know. | 2:34 |
Charles Houston | Oh, okay. But your aunts, your mother's older sisters, took her from Barnwell, South— | 2:36 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | From Darien. They were living in Darien. That's where he owned the plantation, in Darien. | 2:44 |
Charles Houston | Oh, I thought—I'm sorry. | 2:49 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, he owned an island there in Darien, this whole island. What did he raise, rice and something else on that island. | 2:50 |
Charles Houston | This was the Irishman? | 3:01 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Uh-huh. | 3:01 |
Charles Houston | Okay. This was the man who had four children with— | 3:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | One wife. | 3:11 |
Charles Houston | —your grandmother and then she died and then he married another woman and had two more children? | 3:12 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 3:17 |
Charles Houston | And then your mother's older sisters—She must have been the last of the four. | 3:18 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | She was the last of the four. It was- | 3:26 |
Charles Houston | And then her mother died when she was a baby. | 3:28 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. | 3:29 |
Charles Houston | And then her father was looking after her, but then the sisters wanted to move out of the father's house. | 3:30 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. | 3:39 |
Charles Houston | And then they moved— | 3:39 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | To Brunswick. | 3:40 |
Charles Houston | They took the baby. How old was your mother when they took her away? | 3:41 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know. I don't know. | 3:43 |
Charles Houston | She must no longer have been an infant. She must have been a little girl. | 3:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, she was. | 3:50 |
Charles Houston | Maybe six or seven or eight or something like that. | 3:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | They came over to Brunswick to live and went back and got her. | 3:53 |
Charles Houston | Okay. But how are they connected with—And Brunswick, we know, is about 30 miles from Darien. | 3:56 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yeah, something like that. | 4:03 |
Charles Houston | But where's the connection with Barnwell, South Carolina. I thought you said Barnwell was named— | 4:04 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh, that was her father's name. That was a White man. | 4:10 |
Charles Houston | The Irishman. | 4:13 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | The Irishman. | 4:14 |
Charles Houston | So— | 4:16 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | His name was Barnwell. | 4:17 |
Charles Houston | Okay. But his property was in Darien? | 4:19 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know how it happened, but he had—His name is George Barnwell. His family was from up in that area. | 4:24 |
Charles Houston | Ah, okay. He may have been born in Barnwell- | 4:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, probably so. | 4:32 |
Charles Houston | —and Barnwell wasn't named after him but after one of his forefathers. | 4:33 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | His family. Yes. | 4:35 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Okay. Okay. So you've got deep roots in this area and even all around the area, Georgia and South Carolina. Let's see. Oh, your mother's date of birth, do you know that? | 4:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. Well, let me see. | 4:57 |
Charles Houston | Do you know when she died and how old? | 5:00 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | What year did she die? | 5:01 |
Shirley | '72. February of '72. | 5:04 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And she was 83 years old. | 5:04 |
Charles Houston | 1972 and she was 83, so that means she was born in 1891. She was born in '72, you said? Sorry? | 5:07 |
Shirley | She died in '72. | 5:26 |
Charles Houston | '72 and she was 83, so, yeah, she was born in 1891. And she was born in Darien? | 5:26 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 5:29 |
Charles Houston | And what county is Darien in? | 5:30 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know. McIntosh County. | 5:31 |
Charles Houston | McIntosh, thank you. And what was her occupation? She was a teacher? | 5:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, no, she was just a housewife. Twelve kids, that's all she could do, take care of us. My daddy declared that every time he saw her she was washing, washing clothes. | 5:49 |
Charles Houston | And your dad was a cooper? | 6:00 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 6:06 |
Charles Houston | And what were his first and middle names? | 6:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Edward Desero Holiday. | 6:11 |
Charles Houston | Desero? | 6:17 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | D-E-S-E-R-O. Desero. | 6:17 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And do you know when he was born? | 6:25 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, I don't. I— | 6:25 |
Charles Houston | Or when he died and how old he was? | 6:30 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I tell you, he was nine years older than Mama. | 6:31 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So he was born in 1882? | 6:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I guess so. | 6:36 |
Charles Houston | And when did he die? | 6:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | 1950. | 6:40 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And where was he born? | 6:41 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Fayetteville, Robeson County. | 6:48 |
Charles Houston | Fedville? F-E-D-V-I-L-L-E? | 6:50 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. F-A-Y. | 6:55 |
Charles Houston | Oh. | 6:57 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Fayetteville. | 6:57 |
Shirley | Fayetteville, North Carolina. | 7:00 |
Charles Houston | Oh, Fayetteville, I'm sorry. | 7:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Fayetteville, North Carolina. | 7:07 |
Charles Houston | Fayetteville. And, I'm sorry, what county was that? | 7:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Robeson. | 7:09 |
Charles Houston | Robeson. R-O-B-E-S-O-N? | 7:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, something like that. | 7:12 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Okay. | 7:13 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | R-O-B-E-R-S-O-N. Robeson. I've seen it. | 7:18 |
Charles Houston | Robeson. | 7:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. | 7:23 |
Charles Houston | R-O-B-E-R. Okay. And if you could, I'd like to have the names of your brothers and sisters, all 11 of them, in order of birth. | 7:24 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Okay. There was Albert. | 7:48 |
Charles Houston | Albert, okay. | 7:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Albert Taylor Holiday. Della Minerva Holiday. Mary Barnwell Holiday. Then comes Nettie Carlethia, C-A-R-L-E-T-H-I-A, Holiday. Katherine— | 7:54 |
Charles Houston | With a C? | 8:25 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yeah. No. | 8:26 |
Charles Houston | With a K? | 8:27 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | She spells hers with a K now. | 8:27 |
Charles Houston | That's right. | 8:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Katherine—What's her middle name? Rayette, R-A-Y-E-T-T-E. Holiday. Then Edward Desero Jr. Edward Desero Holiday Jr. | 8:30 |
Charles Houston | D-E-S-A-R-O? | 8:50 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | D-E-S-E-R-O. | 8:51 |
Charles Houston | D-E-S-E-R-O. Okay. | 8:53 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Eugene Augustus Holiday. Rhoderick, R-H-O-D-E-R-I-C-K. I don't know his middle name. | 8:57 |
Charles Houston | There probably weren't very many R-H-O-D-E-R-I-C-Ks. | 9:15 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Rhoderick Holiday. | 9:21 |
Charles Houston | Yeah, I like the name, Rhoderick. Okay, that's fine. | 9:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | After Roderick? Nellie. | 9:30 |
Charles Houston | Nellie, okay. | 9:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I don't know her middle name either. | 9:40 |
Shirley | Wasn't her middle name Rayette? | 9:42 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Ah, yes. I gave Katherine that name, didn't I? | 9:44 |
Shirley | Yeah. | 9:45 |
Charles Houston | Nellie Rayette? | 9:45 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I gave you the wrong name. Nellie Rayette, R-A-Y-E-T-T-E. | 9:45 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So it was the same as Katherine's or Katherine had a different middle name? | 9:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Katherine had a different one. I gave her the wrong name. I don't— | 10:00 |
Charles Houston | Don't worry about it. The first names are most important anyway. | 10:02 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Okay. Then who did you have last in now? | 10:05 |
Charles Houston | Well, now I've got Albert, Della— | 10:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Nellie was the last. | 10:11 |
Charles Houston | Yeah. | 10:11 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Okay. After Nellie was Wyona, W-Y-O-N-A. Wyona. | 10:12 |
Shirley | Cynthia. | 10:23 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Cynthia, C-Y-N-T-H-I-A. Then Carmen, C-A-R-M-E-N. Carmen ReNard, R-E, capital N-A-R-D. | 10:24 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 10:43 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's all. Oh, Velma. | 10:49 |
Shirley | Velma. | 10:49 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Velma Venvernard. Mama gave her a fancy name since she was the last one. | 10:52 |
Charles Houston | It's Venvernard? | 10:57 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | V-E-L-M-A, Velma. Then Venvernard, V-E-N-V-E-R-N-A-R-D. | 10:59 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 11:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That should be 12. | 11:15 |
Charles Houston | I think it is. Let's see. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. And birth dates or birth years. Were they all two years apart? | 11:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Albert—I'm 82 now, so— | 11:30 |
Charles Houston | So counting backwards. | 11:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Counting backwards— | 11:40 |
Charles Houston | Let's see. Now, we know you were born in 1912, so let's see. Let me put that down here. | 11:41 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I'm 82. | 11:47 |
Charles Houston | So if you were born in 1912, that means that Mary would've been born in 1910, Della in 1908, and Albert in 1906. | 11:48 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 11:56 |
Charles Houston | Does that sound right? | 11:56 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I like that. That'll do. | 11:57 |
Charles Houston | Okay. 1906, 1908, 1910. And then on the other side, Katherine would've been born 1914. | 11:58 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 12:08 |
Charles Houston | Edward, '16. Eugene, '18. Rhoderick, '20. Nellie, '22. Wyona- | 12:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Wyona is three years behind Nellie. That was a gap there. | 12:17 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So that would be '25. | 12:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Uh-huh. Then— | 12:24 |
Charles Houston | And then Carmen? | 12:26 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Same thing, two years. | 12:28 |
Charles Houston | '27. | 12:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 12:29 |
Charles Houston | And Velma, '29. | 12:31 |
Shirley | Velma was '30. | 12:31 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Velma was '30 because she was born the same year Roy, Jr. was born. | 12:37 |
Charles Houston | Okay, good. That was easy. 1914, 1916 for Edward, 1918 for Eugene, 1920 for Rhoderick, 1922 for Nellie. Now, are they all still living or do— | 12:39 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. | 13:00 |
Charles Houston | Can we put in the years that they deceased, or do you not know those? | 13:01 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Della, the first one, is still living. No, Albert was the first one, huh? | 13:14 |
Charles Houston | Yes. | 13:16 |
Shirley | Yeah. | 13:17 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | What year did Albert die? | 13:17 |
Shirley | Mom, I don't remember. I don't even remember if I was still in New York. | 13:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | When did you say Mama—Yeah, you were— | 13:24 |
Shirley | Mama died in '72. | 13:27 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And they started dying right after Mama died. Well, B— | 13:31 |
Shirley | B died earlier. | 13:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | The first one is— | 13:38 |
Shirley | Mary? | 13:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Do you have a—Yeah, you had Mary Barnwell, haven't you? | 13:41 |
Shirley | Mary B just before Nettie. | 13:42 |
Charles Houston | Yeah. | 13:42 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 13:45 |
Charles Houston | Born in 1910. She died in 1973? | 13:48 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, she died earlier than that. | 13:54 |
Charles Houston | Before your mother? | 13:56 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | 1910. Yes, she was just about 22 years old when she died. | 13:57 |
Charles Houston | Oh, is that right? So she died around 1932? | 14:01 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yeah, something like— | 14:04 |
Charles Houston | Right after you got married? Well— | 14:04 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Right after I moved to South Carolina. That's right. About 1932. That's right. | 14:07 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Okay. And Della's still living? | 14:21 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Della's still living, yes. | 14:22 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 14:23 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I'm still living. Katherine's still living. Did we get Albert's date? | 14:26 |
Shirley | Uh-uh. We didn't figure that out. | 14:34 |
Charles Houston | Oh, he died right after your mom? | 14:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. He died two, three years after Mama. | 14:39 |
Charles Houston | So that would be '73, '74. | 14:41 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Something like that. | 14:41 |
Charles Houston | We'll say '74. Okay. | 14:41 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And everybody else is living until you get down to Edward. | 14:50 |
Charles Houston | Right. | 14:57 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Edward— | 15:01 |
Shirley | He died back in the '40s, didn't he? | 15:01 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, he died early. He died about '46, soon after the war ended. Mama had just moved to New York. | 15:03 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Eugene still living? | 15:13 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, he died after Mama, after Albert. What did you have Albert for? | 15:14 |
Charles Houston | '74. | 15:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | '74? Well, Gene must have died in about '75 or '76, something like that. | 15:22 |
Charles Houston | Okay. I'll say- | 15:35 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And Rhoderick about a year later. | 15:35 |
Charles Houston | I'll say Gene, '75. And then Rhoderick, '76? | 15:43 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, about like that. | 16:05 |
Charles Houston | And is Nellie still living? | 16:05 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Nellie and Wyona and—Velma's the only one that's dead. | 16:05 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 16:05 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And when did she die? Two years ago. | 16:05 |
Shirley | About two years ago. | 16:07 |
Charles Houston | So 1992? | 16:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yep. | 16:07 |
Shirley | About that. | 16:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | All the rest of us are still here. That should leave about six. | 16:13 |
Charles Houston | Well, yeah, let's see. One, two, three, four—Exactly. | 16:18 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yep. | 16:27 |
Shirley | Five [indistinct 00:16:27]. | 16:27 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Most of them stayed around until Mama left and say when Mama died, Mama came back and got all her boys because she loved her boys to death. | 16:27 |
Charles Houston | It's really hard as a parent, I think, to have children predecease you. | 16:35 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I tell mine that all the time. I have one living in Charlotte now, and he's just in an automobile accident the other day, and I told him that he must remember that he's not supposed to go before me. | 16:43 |
Charles Houston | Right. That's got to be very hard. All of your children were born here? | 17:00 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, Roy, Jr. was born in Brunswick. | 17:01 |
Charles Houston | Oh, I'm sorry. These are your brothers and sisters. | 17:05 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. All those brothers and sisters were born in Brunswick, Georgia. Brunswick, Georgia, Glynn County. | 17:08 |
Charles Houston | Yeah. Your children's next, in birth order. | 17:21 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Roy, Jr. He's born in August the 30th, 1930. | 17:27 |
Charles Houston | August 30th, 1930? | 17:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. He was Roy W. Thompson, Jr. The next one was Fred Albert Thompson, and he was born in August 16th, 1932. Then Shirley—What's your birthdate? Don't make me guess it. | 17:42 |
Shirley | June 13th. | 18:07 |
Charles Houston | June 13th. | 18:08 |
Shirley | '35. | 18:09 |
Charles Houston | It's my son's birthday. | 18:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh? | 18:13 |
Shirley | That's the day to be born. My middle name is Louise. | 18:13 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 18:15 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And Katherine. | 18:22 |
Shirley | No, Adell is next. | 18:23 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh, Adell. Adell Carlethia. | 18:30 |
Charles Houston | And she spells that with one L? | 18:30 |
Shirley | Two Ls. | 18:32 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | A-D-E-L-L. | 18:32 |
Charles Houston | So she got your middle name? | 18:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 18:38 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And her birthdate? | 18:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | July. | 18:44 |
Shirley | 29th. | 18:44 |
Charles Houston | Oh, so she's got a birthday coming up. | 18:46 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yeah. | 18:47 |
Charles Houston | 7/29. | 18:52 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | What's the date? | 18:52 |
Charles Houston | Today is the 20th. | 18:53 |
Shirley | '41. | 18:55 |
Charles Houston | Oh, 1941. More kids? | 18:55 |
Shirley | Katheryne Rayette. | 18:55 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Katheryne with a K? | 19:08 |
Shirley | With a K. K-A-T-H-E-R-Y-N-E. | 19:09 |
Charles Houston | So she almost is a junior—No, the other one is not Katheryne Rayette. And her birthdate? | 19:13 |
Shirley | January 15th, 1943. | 19:26 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Is that it? Is there another one? | 19:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Edward. | 19:39 |
Charles Houston | Edward? | 19:39 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Edward Desero Holiday Thompson. He has it all. | 19:40 |
Charles Houston | D-E-S-E-R-O, Holiday. | 19:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | D-E-S-E-R-O, mm-hmm. | 19:47 |
Charles Houston | Right. And his birthdate? | 19:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | October 14th. What year? | 19:47 |
Shirley | I do not know, Mama. '32? | 19:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | He's older than '32. | 19:47 |
Charles Houston | Well, is he in his 40s? | 19:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, he's not 40 yet. | 19:47 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 19:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | He's about 35. | 19:47 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Well, if he's 35, then you would take—'60, '64. '59? | 19:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | '58. | 19:47 |
Charles Houston | '58? | 19:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. | 19:47 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So he was a late child. | 19:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yeah. | 19:47 |
Charles Houston | And the last? | 19:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's the end. | 19:47 |
Charles Houston | Now, you said they were all born here except Roy, Jr.— | 20:55 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Except Roy, Jr., mm-hmm. | 20:57 |
Charles Houston | —who was born in Brunswick. | 21:06 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. Now, you can just put down 16 grandchildren and 14 great-grands. I'm not going to name them. | 21:06 |
Charles Houston | Well, actually, numbers is all that's asked for. Pardon me. The other kids were born in Irmo. 16 grands and— | 21:11 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, we can say they were all born in Richland County because some of them were born in the hospital in Columbia and some— | 21:32 |
Charles Houston | Well, yeah, but Irma was your residence. | 21:40 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, that's right. | 21:42 |
Shirley | Well, no, because Katheryne and I were born in Lexington County. | 21:42 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Where were you born? | 21:47 |
Shirley | Over on [indistinct 00:21:49] campus. | 21:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That was Richland County. | 21:50 |
Shirley | I don't want to be born in Richland County. And Katheryne was born right here. | 21:51 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | And this was Richland County at the time. | 21:57 |
Shirley | Really? | 21:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yeah. | 22:00 |
Charles Houston | Is Richland County a bad county? | 22:03 |
Shirley | [indistinct 00:22:06]. | 22:05 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, she doesn't know. | 22:06 |
Shirley | No. | 22:06 |
Charles Houston | Okay. It's just not where you thought you were born? | 22:09 |
Shirley | No. | 22:10 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | They just had these lines all crooked and twisted and turned around. | 22:11 |
Charles Houston | This next question, I think, is an easy one. It says, "List the places where the interviewee has lived and the dates." So I think you lived in Brunswick from 1912 until 1931. | 22:17 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. | 22:31 |
Charles Houston | And let's see. That was Glynn County, right, G-L-Y-N-N. | 22:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. | 22:38 |
Charles Houston | 1912 to 1931. And then from 1931 until the present, you lived in Irmo, Richland, South Carolina. | 22:58 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. | 23:09 |
Charles Houston | Present. | 23:10 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | They consider this Lexington now. | 23:22 |
Charles Houston | Oh, is that right? | 23:26 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 23:27 |
Charles Houston | This is Lexington County? | 23:27 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. They consider all of Irmo Lexington County. | 23:27 |
Charles Houston | Thank you. Let's see. Okay. And the next one says, "List schools." So you graduated from the Selden High School and Selden Junior College. S-E-L-D-E-N H-S. And that was in Brunswick? | 23:43 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Then Benedict. | 24:01 |
Charles Houston | Wait a minute. You graduated from there in 19—Wait a minute. Let me think. 1912. 17, two more years, 19. So you graduated from there in 1931. | 24:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | From where? | 24:21 |
Charles Houston | From high school. | 24:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, I graduated from high school in '29. | 24:25 |
Charles Houston | Oh, sorry. 1929. | 24:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | In '30 and '31, I went to the Normal Industrial School. I was living on campus, and I was married. | 24:31 |
Charles Houston | That was Selden? | 24:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Selden Normal Industrial Institute. | 24:38 |
Charles Houston | Selden Normal Industrial Institute in Brunswick, Georgia. And you went there 1929 to 1932? | 24:42 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | 19— | 25:05 |
Charles Houston | Was it 1931? | 25:05 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 25:10 |
Charles Houston | 1929 to 1931. And you finished with a teaching—You graduated in 1931 with what degree? | 25:10 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | They just gave us some little certificate saying teachers or something. | 25:19 |
Charles Houston | A teaching certificate? | 25:24 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It was a teaching certificate. | 25:26 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And you went to Benedict? | 25:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Benedict, uh-huh. | 25:38 |
Charles Houston | Benedict. Benedict College. And you graduated, you said, in 1950? | 25:48 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 25:50 |
Charles Houston | And that was in Columbia? | 25:53 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. | 25:55 |
Charles Houston | You said you started taking courses. I'm trying to think of the years you were there. | 26:00 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | At Benedict? | 26:04 |
Charles Houston | Yeah. You started taking courses right after the war. No, you heard it during the war. That's right. You said you worked at Fort Jackson and you heard about the teacher's application, so you started taking courses. That would've been 1944. | 26:05 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I guess so. Somewhere in there. | 26:23 |
Charles Houston | Around 1944, and you graduated 1950. What was your degree? | 26:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Education. | 26:40 |
Charles Houston | So it was a BA? | 26:41 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | BA, uh-huh. | 26:42 |
Charles Houston | Okay. And then you were at State from 1950 to '57? | 26:49 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 26:52 |
Charles Houston | That was still State College, wasn't it? | 26:58 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, at State College. I got a ME there, a Master of Education. | 26:59 |
Charles Houston | 1950 to 1957. | 27:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I didn't go to State College all that time. | 27:16 |
Charles Houston | Oh, no, no, no. It's just the years you were there. | 27:20 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yeah. I got my degree— | 27:21 |
Charles Houston | Oh, I think you were going part-time too. | 27:21 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I got my degree in '67 from State College. About the last two years, I went there in earnest, diligently, two summers and one winter. | 27:24 |
Charles Houston | Okay. I had actually put down '67. It was '57? '67? | 27:39 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | '67, uh-huh, when I got my master's. | 27:42 |
Charles Houston | And where are you at? Where are you at? Okay. It says your most important previous jobs. You taught with how many years, 38 years? | 27:49 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Just about because I formally retired in '75 but after I retired I still taught six years. I called myself a sub teacher, but they kept me in the classroom all the time. So I gave that up because they were working me too hard. | 28:05 |
Charles Houston | Were you getting benefits? | 28:31 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh, yes, I was getting paid for it, but I just intended to go—I was on the sub list just to help them out now and then. But every year they had a place there that they couldn't find anybody to fill and called me at the beginning of the year and I was there the rest of the year. I was paid for it all right, but I wanted to retire. I was retired. | 28:35 |
Charles Houston | Your employer was the Columbia, South Carolina School Board? | 28:56 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. City of Columbia. | 28:59 |
Charles Houston | School Board? | 29:04 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 29:05 |
Charles Houston | And what year did you start? You started in 1950? | 29:19 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Started what? | 29:22 |
Charles Houston | Teaching. | 29:24 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, wait a minute now. I started teaching in Columbia in 1950, but I had already taught 10 years out here in this area. I taught in the one and two-teacher schools up the road, I'd commute, in the county of Lexington. | 29:27 |
Charles Houston | So you were a teacher, county of Lexington? | 29:52 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | School Board? | 29:53 |
Charles Houston | Yes. Yes. For 10 years. | 29:53 |
Charles Houston | From 1940 to 1950? | 29:53 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, something like that. | 30:01 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 30:07 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | 1950, I went in Columbia City Schools, and that's where I stayed. | 30:08 |
Charles Houston | And would you say that was in Irmo, or would you just say that was in Lexington County? | 30:12 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That was Lexington County. | 30:15 |
Charles Houston | Were there any significant jobs before that? I guess not. You were a housewife before that, right? | 30:32 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, that's all. | 30:36 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Almost at the end. There's a place to list here awards and/or honors or offices that you've held. | 30:45 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, I have a certificate in there saying that I worked with the Red Cross when I was in Columbia City Schools. | 30:54 |
Charles Houston | Okay. So Certificate of Merit, Red Cross Volunteer? | 31:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. That's about all. The other thing I have is just a certificate from the city of Columbia for teaching 25 years, after my first 25 years. | 31:08 |
Charles Houston | 25-year service award? | 31:39 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 31:44 |
Charles Houston | City of Columbia? | 31:50 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 31:51 |
Charles Houston | School Board. And that would've been 1975. Do you know when the Red Cross Volunteer Award would be approximately? | 31:57 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I started teaching in Columbia in '50, so I guess I was a representative for my school there until I left school. So— | 32:10 |
Charles Houston | That would've been '75 also? | 32:24 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Somewhere in there. | 32:24 |
Charles Houston | And your current religious denomination is Episcopalian? | 32:30 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | That's right. | 32:33 |
Charles Houston | And your current church? | 32:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | St. Louis Episcopal. | 32:36 |
Charles Houston | My family was Baptist, but when I was old enough to—Well, my family wasn't anything, really, but when my mother went to church, she went to a Baptist church. Then I made myself Episcopalian and started going to church with my friends. | 32:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Oh? | 32:59 |
Charles Houston | Yeah. Your church is in Irmo, or is it in Columbia? | 32:59 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It's in Columbia. Well, my children naturally were brought up in the Presbyterian church because we lived on Presbyterian campus. In fact, I attended the Presbyterian church all the while with them because the Episcopal church was in Columbia. But I used to talk to them all the time about my church and the services and everything. | 33:04 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | So when we came over here, my baby daughter went in nurse's training at Columbia Hospital, and she came in contact with Father O'Neil, the principal minister, and he was very friendly and was always recruiting people for his church. She said, "Mother, it's time for you to go back to your own church now." So she'd get on the telephone every Sunday morning and beg me to come on and pick her up and let's go to church. So that's how—They all gradually followed me. I didn't take them. They followed me to the Episcopal church. Adell said—You met Adell. | 33:24 |
Charles Houston | Yes, I did. | 34:03 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Adell was the last one, and she said to me, "They can go where they want to, but I'm a Presbyterian." I said, "Nobody said anything different." Next thing I knew Father O'Neil had her in church. | 34:04 |
Charles Houston | Going up too, huh? Must be pretty persuasive. | 34:16 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | He was real nice, and his wife murdered him. | 34:18 |
Charles Houston | Is that right? | 34:22 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. Married a little street girl. I don't know how he got tied up with her | 34:23 |
Charles Houston | And she killed him? | 34:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | She killed him, mm-hmm. She's out of prison now. She served her time and out. | 34:30 |
Charles Houston | Well, that's unfortunate. | 34:37 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It was. It was horrible. | 34:38 |
Charles Houston | Wow. Next to last question is to list civic, community, educational, and political organizations to which you belong, things like, I guess, teachers' associations or sororities or clubs or civil rights organizations. | 34:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, I'm not like my daughter. I don't have all those affiliations that she had. | 35:03 |
Charles Houston | She didn't make you take out a golden membership or something? | 35:09 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No. | 35:10 |
Shirley | You're a member of NAACP, aren't you? Didn't you pay for it? | 35:12 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, but it's not a golden membership. | 35:16 |
Charles Houston | No, no, no. It doesn't have to be golden. [indistinct 00:35:24]. | 35:24 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | It's just a membership. Yes. | 35:24 |
Charles Houston | So you are a member of the NAACP? | 35:24 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, I'm a member of the NAACP and Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority. | 35:24 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Now, you may have to spell that for me. Sigma? | 35:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | S-I-G— | 35:32 |
Charles Houston | G-M-A, yeah. Gamma, G-A-M-M-A. | 35:32 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. R-H-O. | 35:32 |
Charles Houston | Okay. I needed help with that one. Okay. Sorority. S-O-R-O-R-I-T-Y. Okay. What about national or state teaching associations? | 35:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes, I belong to both of the national and the state teachers. What am I trying to—Lifetime membership in the NEA. | 35:55 |
Charles Houston | National Education Association? | 36:08 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. And what's our other teaching organization there, [indistinct 00:36:15]? | 36:09 |
Shirley | South Carolina Education Association, that one that you're talking about, or you talking about the other national one? | 36:16 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Mm-hmm. | 36:28 |
Shirley | American Federation of Teachers? | 36:30 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, no, not that. We don't belong to that. | 36:31 |
Charles Houston | But you belong to a state or regional— | 36:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. | 36:37 |
Shirley | South Carolina Education Association. | 36:40 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 36:42 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Episcopal Church Women. ECW. | 36:51 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Anything else? | 37:02 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | You don't want to know [indistinct 00:37:14] bridge clubs. I don't- | 37:13 |
Charles Houston | Yeah. I'm sorry. General what? | 37:16 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Huh? | 37:18 |
Charles Houston | I'm sorry. What did you call it? | 37:18 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | You don't want any bridge clubs. | 37:19 |
Charles Houston | Sure, I do. | 37:19 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | At one time, it was the Mr. And Mrs. Bridge Club, but so many of our members died, we finally dissolved it. SEBS, Saturday Evening Bridge Society. | 37:27 |
Charles Houston | Okay. | 37:45 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | I can't think of anything else. | 37:45 |
Charles Houston | That's plenty. The very last question is whether you—Well, I'll read it to you. It says, "Please list below any other activities or affiliations like the military, labor unions, hobbies or interests, and publications, and/or include any comment that you would like to make, such as a favorite saying, a phrase or a quotation, or a motto or an aphorism, any words to live by, words of wisdom, that kind of thing." | 37:47 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | No, I don't think I have anything to add. | 38:30 |
Charles Houston | Okay. Well, this has been very, very useful, very helpful to me. I really appreciate your time and sharing the story with me. Thank you very much. | 38:34 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Well, I'm happy I could help you out. I hope it does do you some good. | 38:43 |
Charles Houston | Well, it did me a lot of good, and I wish I'd been listening a lot longer, but thank you very much. | 38:54 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | You're welcome, very. | 38:57 |
Charles Houston | I'm going to fill out—The very last thing is an interview agreement, and I'd like to read to you what it says and then ask you to sign it, and I have to sign it too. This is an agreement which allows this tape-recorded interview to be collected at the Duke University Archives and for Duke to control it for research purposes, and I'll read it to you. "The purpose of the Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South project is to gather and preserve historical documents by means of tape-recorded interviews. The tape recordings and transcripts resulting from such interviews become a part of the archives of the Behind the Veil collection of Duke University. This material will be made available for historical and other academic research and public dissemination, regulated according to the restrictions placed on its use by the interviewee." | 39:02 |
Charles Houston | "Duke University is assigned rights, title, and interest to the interviews unless otherwise specified. Participation in Center for Documentary Studies projects is entirely voluntary. We have read the above, and we voluntarily offer the information contained in these oral history research interviews. In view of the scholarly value of this research material, we hereby permit Duke University to retain it without any restrictions." | 40:00 |
Charles Houston | Then, in bold type, just above your signature, it says, "We, the undersigned have read the above and voluntarily offer Duke University full use of the information contained on tapes and transcripts of these oral history research interviews. In view of the scholarly value of this research, we hereby assign rights, title, and interest pertaining to it to Duke University." Then there's a place here, it says interview—I'll print in your name, and there's also a line here for address and for the date. I'll put in the date and then ask you to sign it. | 40:36 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Okay. | 41:12 |
Charles Houston | Okay. I'd like to get you to sign it right here. I put a little tick mark there. | 42:06 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Okay. | 42:10 |
Charles Houston | Thank you. | 42:29 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | [indistinct 00:42:30] sometimes my writing goes to nothing. [indistinct 00:42:33] it wasn't long enough. I have Parkinson's, and my hand won't do what I want it to do all the time. | 42:31 |
Charles Houston | Right. No, it looks very steady to me. Now, I put your initial down here as Nettie C., but I should have said Nettie H., I guess. | 42:38 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Yes. Because that's what I use all the time. | 42:46 |
Charles Houston | Right. I'll just change this. You did tell me that. I'm sorry. Okay. Well, again, thank you. | 42:48 |
Nettie Holliday Thompson | Welcome. | 43:02 |
Charles Houston | Really enjoyed it. I didn't realize the connection between you and Mr. Adams. I met your daughter. At the time I met them, there were several other people in the room and I just didn't make the connection. I met everybody on Saturday for the first time. So I'm getting a family history here. | 43:03 |
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