Ernestine Bynum interview recording, 1993 May 27
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Karen Ferguson | And where did you grow up? What house did you grow up in? | 0:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Across the street at 1406 Fayetteville Street. | 0:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And who did you live with when you were growing up? Or what members of your family? | 0:11 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My mother died when I was 11 years old. Only my brother and my father were left. I went in boarding school at 12 years old. I was home in the summer with my father and my brother. He married again about three years. I was junior high school when my father married, I still did the same thing. I came home in the summer, but I remained in boarding school and I had a stepmother that, I mean, was fine, but I just never really lived at home. I really brought up in boarding school. I was only home in the summer. | 0:18 |
Karen Ferguson | And what boarding schools were these? | 1:15 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I went to, my first year was at Hartshorn Memorial College. I was in the seventh grade in Richmond, Virginia. Then I came to Raleigh, North Carolina to St. Augustine's College and took my four years high school and one year college. I finished high school in St. Augustine's College and one year college there. Then I went to Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia. And I was there until I finished my junior year there and I married and I left and went to New York City to live with my husband. And we lived there until, I think I came back to Durham. Not that I'm in and out of home, but I came back here. As far as the funeral home was concerned, I think I got my diploma from Atlanta around 1950. And that's when I became, and then I took the bullet, but I went back to New York. | 1:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 2:39 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And I came back to Durham, and went into business with my daddy and my brother. I think it was around maybe 1951 or 52. And at that time I was the first Negro licensed woman, [indistinct 00:03:05] in the state. I was the first president of the State Association, first woman president of the State Association in North Carolina. And I've been here ever since. | 2:41 |
Karen Ferguson | We're also interested in knowing a little bit about your grandparents. Do you remember your grandparents? No. | 3:19 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | They were Hargetts. | 3:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 3:28 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My mother was a Hargett. Now this I think will give you more this thing that they're bringing down here. That was JC Hargett who was my grandfather. And of course my mother was Daisy E. Hargett And because she married my daddy and that's where the Hargett came from. My granddaddy and my daddy, he set my daddy up in business in 1888 in Kinston, North Carolina. | 3:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Was that where they were from? | 4:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | All of my folk from Kinston, but me, even to my brother. | 4:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. But you didn't know them. They had passed. | 4:06 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh no, they had passed. Yeah, when I was born. | 4:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your parents ever talk about them at all? Your grandparents? About experiences they had when they were growing up? What did your grandparents do? What did your grandfather— | 4:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I think my grandfather ran a business. He was in business in Kinston. | 4:29 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of business? | 4:34 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, I just read that history in Greensboro the other day. I have a cousin, Hargett Funeral Home and they have a history really of my granddaddy. And one thing, I know he was in business there and he was considered one of your first Black businessmen in Kinston, North Carolina. And if I had the family Bible down here, I could tell you when they die. Because I mean all of that is a history to me. But my mother always had, I always had this family Bible. So I mean as far as the background, as far as the history, he was considered one of your first, my grandfather. One of your first Negro businessmen. | 4:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. On the other side of your family? | 5:38 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My daddy. | 5:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Your daddy's side of family. | 5:39 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My daddy had his mother who lived in, he was born in Kinston, but his mother left and that's why he became my granddaddy's son, [indistinct 00:05:56] Hargett. My granddaddy really read it because his mother moved to Gainesville, Florida and that's where I knew her from. Now my mother and daddy used to take my brother and I out of school to carry us to Florida. And that's how I knew my grandmother in Gainesville, Florida. But I never was around her except on a visit. | 5:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Do you remember have any particular memories of her, what she was like or stories about her? | 6:22 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No, I mean, no, I don't have any. My daddy and mother both were business. I never had time I would to sit around and discuss. My mother was a businesswoman and she was out there and we were all close. My daddy with his meetings and all way back then he used to drag me around to his meetings and all that. But I mean as far as just sitting down, we went on vacations like to Atlantic City and that kind of thing in my growing up. But I mean as far as a whole lot of talk, we never sat around, did a whole lot of talk. Because my folks stayed busy. That's where I come from. Got to keep moving. | 6:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your mother, was she a businesswoman on her own? | 7:13 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Back then, no. She worked at the funeral home. She helped my dad at the funeral home. They owned quite a bit of property, so therefore she collected and she belonged to various clubs and organizations and that was her part to help my daddy. She was at the funeral home with him, seeing families and going to family houses and she had her own clubs and all that she attended. But the business, as far as I was concerned, was sort of between the two of them. | 7:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you tell me a little bit about the clubs and associations that your parents belonged to? I know that your father, well, both your parents were very prominent members of the Black community in Durham. | 8:06 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, my daddy was in everything, Chamber of Commerce. I said this Chamber of Commerce right up is from that. My daddy was all these organizations. I mean he used to travel. NAACP, everything as I can remember. And you see what happened to me, I left home. So this stuff and my mother died when I was 11 years old. So all this stuff with me not living with the two of them after that age, see a lot of this doesn't hold with me. | 8:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Do you remember also, I know that he was very nationally prominent businessman. Do you remember meeting any nationally prominent people who maybe came and stayed at your home? | 8:46 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | [bell rings] I'm going to have to—That was the bell that they are bringing me. | 9:01 |
Karen Ferguson | That's fine. I'll turn it off. All right. Yeah. I was asking you about whether you remembered any prominent people, famous people coming to visit your home or meeting them when you were growing up. | 9:04 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No, I went [indistinct 00:09:20] back at that age. I mean people didn't—It was the same. Just like if you thought I had a history of CC Spaulding or John Merrick, I came up really as that youngster too. Because papa was out there in that day. And naturally their wives and all were just like mamas to me, see. And after my mother died, that's the reason why they all just sort of looked after me and they were daddies to me. | 9:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did all of those other prominent families live in the same area as you? | 9:52 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Most of them lived right up Fayetteville Street. CC Spaulding and Dr. Moore, you've heard they were all on Fayetteville Street. They tore up. I can't believe Fayetteville Street is Fayetteville Street myself. | 10:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 10:14 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And John Merrick, who founded the Mutual, lived on right up there at Fayetteville Street, right on the corner White Rock Church that you—He about in Hayti where our business section, little girl when I was growing up and St. Joseph's Church, you come on down and there's Ed Merrick, who was John Merrick's son and CC Spaulding and [indistinct 00:10:50], all of them. This was just sort of suite of all older members then. | 10:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you talk a little bit about how this— | 10:55 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And coach Dr. Shephard, was right. | 10:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Could you talk a little bit about how both the neighborhood here, where you grew up and the business district of Hayti, how that's changed since you were a young girl? | 11:00 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | How much they've changed? So much I can't believe it. I'm telling you, I just shake my head at that because when I ride up this street now I just shake my head because I can't believe it. | 11:11 |
Karen Ferguson | What is the most striking thing to you that has changed? | 11:29 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Everything. I mean this was a business on up the street. See this was a business area. Theater, we had a theater on Fayetteville Street and all of that. And truth, I guess with me living away from here, I'm a poor person because I'd come back and see these changes and shake my head and say what is going on? Because see, I wasn't living here and I was in and out of here. So it has really been, see these changes, truly so many of them were made before I ever came back to Durham. And a lot of the folk that I grew up with that were dead when I came back, you older people, Mr. Merrick and Dr. Moore, those people were dead. See when I came back here to really live. So I really have missed of going through areas of things that happened here to make me just remember. | 11:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Well, before you went to boarding school, can you talk a little bit about, say on a Saturday afternoon you'd go down to the business park of Fayetteville Street and— | 12:44 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I'd have to go through that to get to the funeral home. | 12:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. And can you talk a little bit about what that was like with what it looked like then? | 12:55 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | As I said, the library was on the corner of Pedigree Street and Fayetteville Street across from it was Mr. John Merrick's house. Then you had another house next to that, then was the street where White Rock Baptist Church set on the corner. That was on the right-hand side of the street coming down on the other side of the street. Dr. Moore's home. And then you had businesses, drug store, Pearson's Drug Store. Ed Green's grocery store. Now that's his two-story house sitting right down there. Two-story, I mean grocery store. Then there was cafeteria. I'm saying what was on the right over there when I was growing up. A pine grocery store, bakery. The various things of that sort. Then on the corner was St. Joseph's Church and next to St. Joseph's church was the parsonage. | 13:05 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Next to that was WG Pearson. And you had your regular homes and Ed Merrick was on that side of the street then. But there were houses in between, which I can't remember all of that. CC Spaulding lived on that side. And another Pearson Brothers that brought you down to Umstead Street, where really that is where your homes are now. That's a street that's still up there where they have—Yeah, the first street that's up there, Umstead Street. And of course on the corner was Mr. John Merrick's son. In later years he had a son that married and he lived on that corner. And then you just had families living on down the street. Where it says College Inn, right there then, when I was growing up was Taylor's store. It was a grocery store and Paige's store. | 14:22 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And Mr. Waller had a market up there followed up. But they were homes. FK Watkins, who was your first Black movie house. And coming down on this side of the street from up there, [indistinct 00:15:52] library. Then there were homes until you got those section you called—That's what's what you call Hayti. When they talk about Hayti. And that in there was where you had a theater on this side the street, the Southern Fidelity started on that side the street and coming. Really most of them were homes on this side of the street until you got where you have this vacant, not this vacant lot right here next to me, but that one where the Lincoln Hospital was. This was nothing. When I was growing up, these were nothing but woods. | 15:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 16:36 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My mother bought these lots. I can hardly remember when she said to me one day, "Stine, I bought those lots across the street for you and Johnny. So when you get grown, if you all decide to live in Durham and we all live close together, you all can build your house across the street." I never will forget it because I said to her, I said, "Well why can't I live with you?" She said, "Because this is my home. When you get grown you have your own home." So all this was woods. There were two houses on this side of the street between here and the college when I was growing up. Nothing but woods. That's the reason why I throw up my hands and say I can't believe it. | 16:37 |
Karen Ferguson | So your family really developed this part of Fayetteville Street? | 17:26 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh yeah. I grew up there. | 17:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have any other relations that lived around here that you had contact with when you were growing up? | 17:33 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No. No. My family was very small. I had, my father and mother really rid three of my mother's sisters. But you see they were all in boarding school when I was growing up. They were all in boarding school. Now there's a Hargettt Funeral Home in Greensboro, which was my mother's baby brother. Now they rid him. But they all left here really. Oh back because one of my aunts took nurse training at Lincoln Hospital in New York. And she lived in New York. Couple of my aunts taught, another one lived in New York and taught. And another one of my aunts really passed without really didn't know her too well. But they all, when they were home from school in, oh, they lived over to the house with us. They went out the house. That was in my mother's day. | 17:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Now maybe I'll ask you a little bit more specifically about, I know you weren't at home very much when you were growing up, but what kind of values did your parents, your father, instill in you growing up that you can remember? What was important to him that you— | 18:49 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I came up, I guess you would call it very important to them was respect. | 19:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Respect. | 19:19 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That is the word that bothers me. That has been taken out of the English language today. And I think that is where your problem comes in with these young folk. Having been a social worker, this is the first time I've ever had a chance to sit and look at television. And I've dropped my head and want to weep for these young folk out here. Because one thing, they aren't seeing what the Bible says. See, my daddy and my mother brought me up in the church. I was christened at six months old in the church and I just got my plaque the other day for my years and my anniversary at St. Joseph AME Church. My father and mother were highly Christian people. And ever since I can remember, if I was sick or something and could not go to Sunday school, then I couldn't sit on the front porch on Sundays if they thought I was putting on. | 19:20 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I mean, I came up in a religious family. My father went to church, we went to Sunday school. We were brought up in the Sunday school and church and christened the devil. And because my father was a night man going to church when they start having night service. But the Bible was read every morning at the breakfast table, the four of us. We had to be to the breakfast table when we were growing up with the Bible. Stayed on the table. My dad had read verse. And that ought to reach to help others. And that's just a reputation that I have today. My daddy helped everybody. When I come back here, people say to me today, as long as you live, your daddy will never die. My daddy gave and did unto others. And these young folk who walk in here now and throw their arms around me, they said, Ms. Ernestine, we didn't know you but your daddy. And so everything, my daddy still lives with them today because he helped and did it. | 20:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Maybe this would be a good time to turn to your father and talk a little bit about him more specifically. And let me think about how to phrase this. What made your family's funeral home the best or most prominent funeral home in Durham? Why were people, why was it so successful do you think? | 21:47 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My father and my mother, both. They gave, they did for others. That's what we were taught as youngsters growing up. You help others, you do for others. And people don't forget that. Until now, I'm having something that happen to me now that I can't believe at 81 years old. I can't believe it. Folk you have to go to school, that you done bent over backwards. That you do like you would for your own child. And how they turn around and as I say, take a knife and split you down the back and you don't know what in the world. Because I never even heard of this kind of stuff. My environment has been, because my friends have always said to me, "Stine, you have to be knocked down for you to believe anything about it." Nobody can come to me just like you. Now nobody could come to me. And we were all out here together and say, well so and so and so, as they say, I used to want to hear. | 22:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I never had time to sit down and gossip and talk about people. I did what I had to do. As I said, it's because my folk were business folk and they didn't have time to sit down with a whole lot of [indistinct 00:23:43], so I wasn't brought up around it. And I never, as I said, have been a person. I was a show person, loved to go to movies. I was a card player because I think in my day of being brought up in boarding school, you weren't out there. See when the sun went down, you were in that dormitory. You didn't go uptown shopping on weekends and all that junk you would, so you pick up most folk back in that day in boarding school early, I picked up a hobby. So my hobby was card playing. I picked up cards early and I now I belong to several bridge clubs and all of that. | 23:30 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But I just now, and of course sports, football, I thought no more of driving from here to Florida to see a good football game. Nothing, I mean, sports and that kind of thing has always been my outlet. (phone rings) Now I don't want that phone to drive me crazy. And I find out now with what I see and read in the paper, I sit up here at 81 years old and say, I don't believe it. I can't believe it. And yet I thought that I knew because I have been a traveler. I've done a lot of traveling and I thought I knew something about this world, but I didn't know people were out here like they were. And so I never called myself a loner because I love people and I've always had friends. | 24:35 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But I find that now I look like I'd rather be by myself, I don't want to be bothered because maybe age has done it and all that. And yet I love people, do anything in the world. My phone rings now from older people, Miss Ernestine, I hate to bother you, but I don't know anybody else to call on. And as I tell them, I can't get out there and do what I used to do. But I'll see that it's done for you. Because the people at the funeral home are very nice about doing for my friends when they call. | 25:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Now is this something you've been talking a lot about how you help other people. It sounds like this was what your parents did as well. | 26:11 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That's where I got it from, I guess. Yeah. | 26:19 |
Karen Ferguson | So a feeling, so you would say service was an important— | 26:23 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Barrier. | 26:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 26:28 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. | 26:28 |
Karen Ferguson | At the funeral home, was that the main place where your parents served other people or were there other ways in which they did it through the church or— | 26:31 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | All through the church and through organizations and all that. See my father belonged as I used to say to everything. | 26:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Did he belong to the NAACP? Did he? | 26:48 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh yes. Since I can ever remember. We still are a funeral home kids still. As an honorary, I remember through the NAACP. | 26:57 |
Karen Ferguson | And was he politically active? | 27:07 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. Back in his day. Yeah. He was out of town to all the meetings and going. | 27:10 |
Karen Ferguson | So what kind of national organizations did he belong to? The National Negro Business League or? | 27:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, the various organizations that I know when he used to pack up his things and go to these meetings and all. But I mean those things didn't rain with me and with me not staying home. I'm really lost on a lot. That's reason why I say it's written down. A history on him. But I don't know what they did. That's the reason why I said I'm a very poor person to give because not being really around him through the years that I would've paid attention. I wasn't. But he belonged to everything. | 27:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Back to the funeral home. When you were there or also when your father was there, did you serve all kinds of people or who was your clientele? | 28:08 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Everybody. | 28:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Everybody. | 28:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh yeah. It make no difference at all. | 28:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 28:21 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | You're there to serve. | 28:23 |
Karen Ferguson | How about the funeral business and how has that changed since you were there, since your fathers was there? | 28:27 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | It changes every minute. That's what I'm telling them. Now I got to come out of this because everything's changing. The funeral business is changing like everything else. And some of these various changes in my ages, I tell them, y'all got to wake up and get straight because my time is up now. But when you say change in what? | 28:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Well, I was thinking, I mean how the Scarborough, the Hargett and Scarborough. | 29:03 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Scarborough and Hargett. | 29:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Sorry. Scarborough and Hargett. How your business has changed the family business and how the undertaking business as a whole has changed. | 29:15 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well— | 29:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Maybe in terms of its role, the role of funeral director in the community or something along that line. | 29:27 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well it is the oldest around here. We do the most of the business around here and most of the funeral homes around here, we are very close. As I say, they're youngsters and they've always loved my daddy. And as people say in my coming back, since Papa and Johnny are gone and I'm here, they look to me, if anything comes up with these other young men that in there, they'll call me right then. When that young man called me and I said I'm in the meeting called back, he's connected with the funeral home and most of them call me mama and keep a check. Just call and see how you doing. If there's anything I can do and it's a close affiliation. | 29:34 |
Karen Ferguson | What do you think it takes? I'll just leave that there. Why don't we turn now to religion, to the church you belong to. You've always belonged to St. Joseph's. | 30:19 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yes. | 30:36 |
Karen Ferguson | You said you were born. | 30:36 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. My folk were all Methodist. | 30:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Who in the community belonged to St. Joseph's? Who were the members? The group of people who belonged to St. Joseph's mainly. | 30:41 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | You mean by name? | 30:58 |
Karen Ferguson | No, not by name. But was it mainly professional people or? | 31:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well I'm sure you have a mixture there. There are a lot of folk get my nephew brings me every Sunday, he brings me and some of the folk naturally, I don't know, but most of them, a lot of them work down to the college. A lot of them work at the Mutual and very so that I don't even know anymore. I mean I really don't even know. But you have a mixture there. You always have a mixture of. | 31:05 |
Karen Ferguson | What was your church's role in civic affairs and community affairs? | 31:37 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, in my knowing you have clubs and various organizations that do various things in your community and all to help others when you belong. Just like I'm treasurer of one of the stewards boards down there. When any of our members are sick, we send them a check and I mean always to help others and to call to see what I'm doing. They even have a club there where we done on wheels where sick people out there, they do for people and wait on people. | 31:45 |
Karen Ferguson | What specific organizations did you belong to? Church organizations did you belong to? Maybe not so much now, but when you came back to Durham after you were married and started helping out or working at the funeral home? | 32:31 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, as I said, I belonged to the latest auxiliary and stood as board number two. And because they just called on me for anything. Because I really tell my various organization, my sorority and everything, I cannot come to meetings and all like that, I'm done. And that's what they did. You've done yours. But I tell them if there's anything I can do, I'm no farther from you than the telephone. So some things that they need to call in my sorority, in my large and all of that, they call and say, we wonder if you will do this. Maybe sometime it's contributions, just whatever. So I just do whatever that has to be done or that they call and I'm very close to folks. See they have known me all through the years. So they just will call me to keep me intact with what is going on and ask me, what do you think about such and such thing? Even though I'm not there. | 32:45 |
Karen Ferguson | I guess we'll turn now to talk a little bit about your own life and your schooling and your experience in the funeral business. You talked a little bit about your schooling at the beginning of the interview. Could you talk a little bit about your experiences in school? What did you like and not in school. Were you— | 34:02 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I don't think especially see all that. You see children in my day, that's why I say I can't understand a whole lot thing. You had rules and regulations. I mean I never because the only thing matrons and the deans and all were more parents in my day and therefore you just didn't see any problems as far. You could go to the matron if something was wrong or something and sit down and talk to the matron. Just like I'm sitting down talking to you. And they were more like parents and that was good for children who did not have, especially a mother as I grew up without a mother. So I've always felt, I really call St. Augustine's College my mama. | 34:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have any particular role models there at the matron or a teacher who was particularly important to you when you were growing up? | 35:27 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, I always said the matron. Because I guess I may be a stream. I just always had. I'm just sort of an independent person. When I lost my mother, I felt as she had told me all through, my mother had a heart condition. That family died early. Most of the Hargetts died early and she used to say mother wishes she could live to see you and Johnny, get grown, but I can't. So she prepared me to hit that world so alone when she had me by the hand. | 35:40 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Where we'd go out there and get in the horse and buggy and she'd have bricks heated so my feet would stay warm while I was riding around in the horse and buggy with her. So I have never really had problems because I think that she prepared me even though I was young, because I never had any fear. I did what I had to do. I listened to people and if I didn't want to do what they said, I would say, I'm sorry, I wished I could. My expression is and has been, I don't play games with nobody. Either I am, I ain't. And I'm a realist. I cannot be on the left-hand side the street in the right-hand side of the street. | 36:26 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I got to either make up my mind and make a decision and do what I'm going to do. Now I've had the reputation for being mean because I'm like that. Because I just have never been a person. I think it's because as I say, I never had time. I had too much to do I felt. And my doings has been working and learning and trying to help others and do, I just never had time as I called it for a whole lot of foolishness. | 37:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Well I just want to get sort of a sense of your experience at school. Were children ever disciplined at school? | 37:49 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | We were told and it was even written down. See they had the merits in my day and you knew that when you went there, there were certain things you were not supposed to do. There were certain things you were supposed to do. Now if you broke that, I'll give you a good example. I never understood. When I first went to St. Aug, I was not a person that wanted to eat breakfast. I just never cared anything about eating food in the morning. Even though I had had to get up and come to the breakfast table in my day. After my mother passed, my father, brother and I were restaurant eaters. A family had a restaurant right up the street in Hayti. And when the three of us, when Johnny and I came home for the summer, see the three of us walked out that door together and went straight to the restaurant. | 38:07 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Therefore, my eating habits have never been the best. I want to eat when I want to eat around the time I want to eat. So consequently, I could not understand when I first went to school, why I had to get up at 6:30 in the morning. Go to breakfast at 7:30 when I didn't eat breakfast. Well, I've always been, as I say, some folk call it being mean. I ain't never called it being mean. I just called it being—It don't make sense to me. Now that's the only trouble that I've ever really gotten in at school because if you missed breakfast, you'd get a demerit. It was a must. But you see in me, I didn't want no breakfast, and why would I have to go to breakfast? So consequently, I wasn't in school, but the battle of a few weeks before I had my 10 demerits. | 39:09 |
Karen Ferguson | What happened to you? | 40:15 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And then I look up, there would be my daddy riding in on the campus over there with a letter in his hand. Stine, what is happening? I said, "Nothing. I don't know." And he said, "Well read this." And I'd read the letter. They would write him to let him know that you see, I done broke the rule of not going to breakfast, but there were instructors there and all that could understand where I was coming from. I wanted to know the president is sitting there and they're all sitting there. But I want to, why do I have to go to that dining room and sit up and look at people eat? Well I don't want nothing to eat. And I said right there with the president that it doesn't make sense to me. Now somebody can make it make sense to me. I said, that's a different thing, but this don't make sense to me that I got to go sit up and other people eat. | 40:19 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | See you had the matrons and several that said you cannot send a child home for not going to breakfast. Because getting sent home was a disgrace and thinking. So that is one of the rules they changed in St. Aug many, many years ago. Because I said, if anybody could and because my daddy was trying to hunch me to let me know, Stine, this is a rule. But it didn't make sense to me. That's what I said. If anybody can make me understand why I got to get up and go to breakfast. And I often laugh and sometime when we meet in together, some of those old classmates used to say, used to tease me and said, I never seen anybody as determined. But you broke. You had them change the law. That's a law they changed. But I mean, I don't know. I've always been, but I never had any trouble in school. I mean, it had not been hard for me to obey rules and regulations and to know right from wrong because my parents have taught me that. So it has never been any big deal. | 41:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you disciplined at home at all? | 42:34 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh, my mother was a disciplinarian. And she sort of put you on a schedule of doing things and all. Yes ma'am. Very much disciplined. That's the reason why I was so set, I guess in my way. Because my mother was a disciplinarian and I love my daddy. And now my father has never said to me, no Stine. You cannot do that. After I grew up, we talked, we communicated. And I used to say, listen, Pop, I want to talk to you about such and such a thing. I would talk to him. If that was something that I had said that he disapproved of. He never told me, no Stine, I wouldn't do that. I'd tell you sweetheart, give it some more thought. Let's talk about it some more. I had a very unusual father. He was not a person who pressured. But that was something, because everybody said it was because I was so much like him. My brother used to shake his head and said, I've never seen two folk say you him. | 42:37 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And you don't know whether they're enemies and all yet they come out with arms around each other. But we had a great inside understanding and therefore we've always been right there the whole time. Of my being in school after I married and went to New York, and this is what I preach today when I was doing so, children talking about discipline, I still say, parents take for granted that children ought to feel, I love you because I'm your mother. I love you because I'm your father. Children need to hear those words. And I think this is what has made me today like I am. I don't care where I lived. I was in New York or wherever I was living. After I got grown. My phone rang, and the whole time I was in boarding school, my phone would ring. My daddy, how are you feeling? How are you doing? I'm okay Papa, how are you? I'm okay. I was just thinking about you. I'm just calling to tell you I love you more than anything in this world. I'm the best friend you have in this world. | 43:54 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | If you should kill a man out there in the street, call your old dad because I'm your friend. I was brought up feeling, even though I was not with my daddy, that I always knew he was right there. And I think that is what really however I am, just like he was holding my hand when he took his last breath at 94 years old and his words were holding my hand. I don't worry about you, Stine. I know you can take care of yourself. Even with that understanding and awe for me, I never gave anybody any problems. I did what I had to do. I am a person who, my brother, that's what bothers me about this funeral home now. And my friends say, remember that was a family business. My brother, my daddy and I talked things over. I'd go to the national meetings and your various meetings around. I'd come back. I'd say, y'all sit down. I got something to tell you. | 45:13 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And I'd sit down and the changes and all that were going on then, you see I'd have it right at fingertips and come back and we would discuss it and talk about it. Where now you have employees, as I tell them, everybody going to do their thing the way they want to do it. And I just think you over courtesy of the person who's paying the bills and who's looking after the business. I think it's no more than courtesy that you would discuss things to be changed. And I don't know, I realize. | 46:23 |
Karen Ferguson | —didn't have a female in your life and that your father felt this is the way you are. | 0:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh, yeah. Yeah. He felt, and that's why he said, with my independence—Now, I married two of the nicest men you want to know. When in school, well, they used to tell me, "If I had had a little sister, I would have wanted her to be just like you." Either one of my husbands, I never had a cross word. | 0:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 0:26 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But my independence, I didn't feel that I was treating them fair. In my way, I loved both of them because I had come up with both of them. But I just thought wise, maybe I ought to be—have a little more time and all to be a wife. And it just wasn't in my ruckus. I had to do what I had to do. When I wanted to get ready to hit the highway, I just would get up and pack my things and, "Got to go." | 0:27 |
Karen Ferguson | So the marriages ended then? | 0:58 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well my husband, my last husband passed. | 1:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Passed. | 1:03 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah, and my father used to—I mean, it always felt that in a lot of that independence and all came—Because now that's what I said he said in the end. Talking to me, he said, "Tried very hard," he said, "But I feel like I overdid it." And he really felt that that is why. He insisted on my coming home even though I had a brother who was four and a half years older than I was. | 1:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 1:35 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But one of his things he said on his deathbed, "Promise me you will never leave your brother." My mother used to say, as young as we were, "Stine, if you're on the other side of the world and you get a message that your brother needs you, drop everything you are doing and get to your brother." And that's how close she knitted the three of us— | 1:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 2:00 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | —before she passed. And I think that's the reason why we were always like we were. My brother and I never had any difference, anything. We could discuss anything and talk about things. And my father. And as I said, I've gotten along but I never had any problems in getting along with people because I just sugared it all and go on about my business. | 2:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And in the meantime, I'm thoughtful of people. | 2:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 2:34 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I try to be understanding and I always have time to—Don't care where you come from or which way you're going. "Miss Ernestine, I want to talk with you." I've always had time. And with me being a social worker, a lot of these folk have. And as they tell me even today, "As long as you live, your daddy will never die." I get that today. | 2:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Just going back to school just a little bit more because I want to get on to your career and everything else, what kind of things did you learn in school? Were you taught any Negro history, for example? | 3:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh yeah. | 3:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 3:19 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Negro history was taught at St. Aug in my day. | 3:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 3:24 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And Bible— | 3:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 3:26 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | —was taught in school, because I was a sociology-psychology major. But I was a person that, when I was doing that and having—You see, when I wasn't working steady, I would go, maybe I wanted to take various courses. I was always in something. And I was a person who wanted. I was curious, I guess. | 3:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 3:53 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So I was a person that was in and out of school. | 3:53 |
Karen Ferguson | And you mentioned your sorority too. Which sorority did you belong to? | 3:57 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | It's the Rhode chapter, Iota by Lambda Sorority. It's a business sorority. And I also belonged to my fraternity. In mortuary science, they have—I was the first woman. They came in from Chicago and set this chapter up here in Durham. And I was your first woman president of my fraternity for mortuary. | 4:02 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you join the sorority? Was that in school? | 4:23 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No, I joined the sorority after I went in a business. | 4:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 4:24 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. | 4:24 |
Karen Ferguson | What do you think that the major differences in your education were to your parents and to your—Do you have children? | 4:27 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No, I don't have any children. | 4:49 |
Karen Ferguson | To your parents. | 4:50 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, my mother went to boarding school just like I did. Played a piano and everything else. She came from that, played for the church and all of that. So I don't know the education would be the difference where my mother was concerned. Because as I said, the Hargetts had from—They was my granddaddy that had, my mother's father. All of them went to boarding school way back then and played the piano and everything else that you do today. | 4:53 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now, my father was naturally just a—Now, he was the first Negro that finished embalming school in New York, back in 18—I think he finished around 1887. My granddaddy sent him to school. | 5:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 5:45 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But my dad, I think being around my granddaddy, that's where he picked up a lot of his business. He was strictly business. Because I'm sure, I don't even know whether my daddy really ever finished high school or not. | 5:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 6:05 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But he picked this up through business with my granddaddy. | 6:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Let me get something straight here. Your father became very close to your mother's family. Is that right? | 6:09 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That's what it is. It was really my Granddaddy Hargett— | 6:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 6:23 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | —that, what you going to say, almost read my daddy. Because his mother left him in Kingston. And the man that was really looking after my daddy got very sick and sent for my granddaddy. See, and I told you that my granddaddy's children were girls. | 6:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 6:50 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And since my granddaddy was in business— | 6:50 |
Karen Ferguson | He wanted a boy. Yeah. | 6:54 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So this gentleman sent for my daddy when he got so sick, sent for my granddaddy when he got so sick. And told him, "You ought to take this boy and educate him and have him—Because you got something here." | 6:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 7:10 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So he did. My granddaddy did that. That's where the—And they went, that's how the Hargett came and the Scarborough came together, was through my daddy and granddaddy. | 7:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, let's talk a little bit about your career. Your first job was as a social worker, is that right? | 7:20 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | In New York, yeah. | 7:30 |
Karen Ferguson | New York? | 7:31 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. | 7:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Why did you decide to do that? Why did you move up to New York City and why did you decide to be a— | 7:32 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, I married my junior year in college, as I said. And my husband had his master's in social science and he was doing social work. And I just liked to feel, because I loved people. See, I always loved people. And it was just something different. | 7:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 7:57 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So I just went up there and decided I'd go in social science and psychology and all. And I was very fortunate. I had a chance to of do what I wanted to do and find out what I wanted to find out and all of that. So after I did all of that, and I stayed up there, I just went on and finished to the point that I became a social worker too, and enjoyed it. | 7:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So then why did you come back to Durham and become, start, join the funeral business? | 8:28 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Because of my daddy. | 8:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh. | 8:40 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | What happened was I—You see, my husband had gotten his license and we had a funeral home in Winston-Salem. | 8:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, you were— | 8:50 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I was a Johnson then. | 8:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 8:53 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | He's the one with the master's. | 8:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 8:56 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And all. Well, my daddy, not having a—My brother did not have his license. | 8:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 9:02 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I didn't have sense enough to know then what it was all about. But you see, my first husband was a pill student. See, he was working and went to embalming school up there in New York. That to him was just like going to eat. But then after he came down here and took the board and did all that, he's still doing social work. | 9:03 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But I didn't realize that my daddy was trying to get me home, because I was on the way to California. That's the only place I ever wanted to live. I grew up saying I was going to have me a ranch one day out in California and have my horses out there. Because see, I came up in horse and buggy days. | 9:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 9:44 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So papa had this horse named Stine, and I was crazy about horses. But see, I guess that's really what—I never cared. Now, I'll tell you why. When we were small, right across that street, the bags would be in the back of the car. We're going to the beach. I'm born under the water signs so I was—"The beach, beach, beach." I hollered it all time. We would have the bags in the back of the car, going to the beach and the phone would ring. | 9:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 10:25 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My daddy would walk back out and he said, "I'm so sorry. We are not going to be able to go to the beach this time. So and so just passed and I won't be able to go." And because I'd jump up and scream and yell, because I could not understand how could a telephone ring and don't care what happened, we're on the way to the beach. | 10:27 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I think that's what made me pick up an attitude back when I was young that nobody would ever control me, because I felt like that people were controlling Papa when they were saying to him, and he come and say, "I can't go," because somebody said. And I always grew up saying, "Ain't nobody in the world going to tell me what to—" | 10:55 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So I grew up with that attitude. I listen to people, I respect people, but you ain't going to tell me this, that and the other. So therefore, I grew up with sort of a attitude towards a funeral home, because I felt like a funeral home controlled you. And I don't think I ever lost that. And I always said that I would never be in the parts of a funeral home—As I said, when I came home in the summer from school as a youngster, yes, I went to the funeral home and papa showed me. I laugh now, discounts and things you didn't even get in school. That's where I learned all that, down there with my daddy. | 11:19 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But I ain't never wanted nothing else when I grew up. So when my daddy interested my husband—His father died, so my daddy and my husband were crazy about each other. My husband didn't have a brother, he was crazy about my brother. It was more of a family—But I couldn't see it that way. All I knew is I don't want no parts of a funeral home. | 12:04 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So what happened, my daddy and my Uncle Hargett, in Greensboro, they got together on me. And they had this funeral home and everything in Winston-Salem. And when I looked up, here we come to Winston-Salem. And I thought I was on the way to California. | 12:31 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Ted loved it even though he had his master's in social work. | 12:57 |
Karen Ferguson | This is your husband? | 13:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | He loved it. He was brought up in a boarding school also. His daddy had died early and his mother had put him in boarding school. He was way down in the grades when he went to boarding school. | 13:03 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So I told him then, I said, "I want you sweetheart to always do what you want to do, but I'll never be married to a mortician." I said I couldn't help what my father did, but I'd never be married to one. "And I'll give you two years to make a decision." So I came, broke up how I keeping in New York, came to Winston-Salem. I worked in the school system. We'd come to the funeral home on weekends and help. I mean, we cooperated, anything I could do. But I knew I was not going to stay in no funeral home. | 13:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 13:50 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Because then it takes away your personal life. You are serving, as I said. You can't call yourself working in a funeral home. You are serving the people. And I can understand, when people are hurt and in trouble, they want someone that they feel close to and can depend. I know that, from my mother leaving me, early. And I know what it means. So I could not be selfish about that because I understood that. All I knew was I didn't want to be no parts of it. | 13:51 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So consequently, for two years, we had our home and funeral home in Winston-Salem. And about a couple of months in the two years, I told my husband, I said, "Love you, but I'm not going to stay in Winston any longer. I'm going back to New York." And of course he came and talked with Papa about it. And Papa said, "Stine's never been out there by herself. How is she going to get out there, really?" | 14:30 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Marrying in school, I'd always had someone. And I think they thought that I wouldn't take off by myself. But what happened was, I called up, got my bags packed, and I said, "I'll be in New York. We'll always keep in touch. I love you, but I'm gone." | 15:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So I went on back to New York, went on to work. And my friends always laughed and said, "I don't know how you have—Your daddy has a—He can trick you, Stine, and you don't even realize that the way he does it. | 15:20 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now, he did not bother me anymore when I went on back to New York. He's calling me and this, that and the other and going, but I realize now, he was maneuvering all the time about how he was going to get me back here. | 15:40 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Number one, just like this house right here. | 15:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 15:58 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | These were vacant lots my mama had bought. I don't know whether he was in New York or whether I came home or what, but just one day, I heard. I know he said to me, "Stine, since you look like you aren't going to ever live in Durham, don't you want me to build a house on your lot so you'll have some extra income?" And I said, "Yeah. Thank you." I had no more idea I'd ever live in this house no more than I thought I'd go flying. He built this house years ago and said it to me just that casual. "Look like you aren't going to ever live in Durham. Don't you want me to build a house on your lot?" So, "Mm-hmm, yeah. Thank you." I never thought nothing else about it. | 15:58 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That's why my friends and all always laughed and said they didn't know how Papa had a way of tricking me. But he always got me eventually around. But I've always said it's because I loved him. I realized I almost worshiped my father. And I couldn't feel in my heart that he wanted me to do something. I might buck him for a little while. But deep in me, I loved him to the extent that I couldn't stand to feel that he needed me and I wasn't there, because he had always been there when I needed him. | 16:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 17:20 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So what happened was he just kept saying he'd come to New York. And I was working, doing social work. As I said, I had my own apartment, minding my business, and he'd just come up there and he'd say, "Stine—" My brother didn't have his license. "I'm getting old. Your brother needs you." And you see, that's another thing. My mother had said, "Drop everything you're doing and get to your brother." | 17:21 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And you see, all that children that hear their parents and love their parents, they don't ever forget what their parents have really taught them. And it has hit them. So my daddy said, "Your brother needs you." Said, "I'm getting old. And something happened to me, who's going to be there to really take over the funeral home and help Johnny, because Johnny doesn't have his license." | 17:52 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, at that time I was thinking that you could hire somebody with a license to come in there. And tell you, I didn't know people were like they were. In other words, I'll be very frank with you, I thought people were straightforward and honest. If somebody came in there, they would realize, that would be my brother's—Wouldn't be any problem. But my daddy knew better. | 18:21 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So he just kept on until I finally said, "Okay, let me see if I can get a year's leave from my job. And I'll go to school. Where do you want me to go?" He said, "I don't care where you go to school as long as you bring me some license." I said, "Okay. All right." | 18:42 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So I ended up, started to go out to Cincinnati and all, and then I decided I'd go to Atlanta. And I got a year's leave from my job in New York, and came through here. I went on to Atlanta and got my diploma and everything. And I mean, enjoyed it. It was something new, a new experience for me. I've always enjoyed new experiences and learning. | 19:00 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So everything was fine. I came back here. It was time for the state board. I took it, passed it. I had my diploma. So after I took the state board, I took a license from there and my diploma, handed them both to Papa and said, "Here they are. See you later." I got on in my car and went on back to New York. | 19:29 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And he would not let that go, just in this way. "Stine, I'm growing old, Stine. Johnny needs you." And I'd say, "Oh, okay, I'll get there sometime." But my daddy was 94 years old. But he kept reminding me that he was getting old and he felt that I wasn't doing it. Then, when he got on the family, he said, "I don't think you're treating your family fair." | 19:51 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, you see, I couldn't stand that. So finally, I just threw up my hands and said, "What's the use? I just might as well pack up and going on home because Papa ain't going to leave me alone." So that's what I did. | 20:25 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And course, I ran into it here because I had called him and told him, the folk who lived in this house, to ask him to move. He couldn't understand that because that was my home and I was supposed to live over there. I said, "This is your home, baby." I said, "I'm right at you. All you got to do is to cross the street." I said, "But when I walked out of that house in 1934 and got married, that was you all's home. I ain't going back in it." | 20:41 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So that's why I've lived over here, across the street from where I was born. And I came back here and I have never really regretted it, because he always—And as I said, just like he told me on his deathbed, holding my hand, that he did not worry about me. "I know you can take care of yourself. Your health is my only concern. Promise me you will never leave your brother." | 21:13 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And of course my stepmother, he said, "Clyde is my wife. Look after her." Edith, I have a half sister. "Edith is my daughter. Look after her." Closed his eyes, just like that. I leaned over, kissed him, closed his eyes and called the funeral home. | 21:45 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And I just been up, moving ever since. If anything goes wrong, I sit right out there sometime in my chair and look up at his picture and say, "Papa, why did you do this to me with all this stuff?" | 22:04 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So to me, it has not been—It's been something that has made me happy within because I feel that I have done what my father and mother and my brother—And therefore, I think that's why God has blessed me at 81. I'll be 82 years old next month and still up. Because I told him, I've gotten a little lazy now. I've got a little spoiled staying home. Since I had back surgery, I've been home and I tell him I've gotten a little lazy, I think. | 22:15 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But I still get down to the funeral home and see just what's what, and do the best I can. And it makes me happy from within because I feel that if my daddy could speak, he would say, "Thank you, well done." | 22:51 |
Karen Ferguson | When you started working in the funeral business—You talked about what a difficult adjustment it was in a way. I mean, you didn't want to do it and you had to be sort of brought around to do it. What did you like best or least about it? | 23:15 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, let me tell you about me again. | 23:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Sorry. | 23:35 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | When I make a decision—The first place, I would not have come here unless I had made up my mind. | 23:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 23:45 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I did not want to do it and all that, but when I tell you yes, as my statement is the only person that's going to stop me is God. | 23:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 23:58 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I make a decision, I am not going to let you down. He will handle it. I put it in His hands. When I first came to Durham, though, I'd stay at that funeral home for a while, and I said, "I can't take it." At that time, Mr. Goodlow—As I say, being brought up here, Mr. Goodlow was president of North Carolina Mutual. And you see, all of them knew me. I came up and they knew how I was. | 24:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I called Joe, here, right down the street. I said, "Joe, I want to talk with you." He said, "Come on down." I went on down to his house and because I'd known his wife through all through year. Well, they knew I was trying. | 24:32 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | See, as I said, in my day I was sort of the baby of these business men, because Papa dragged me around with him. See, I went down there and I said, "I'm trying, Joe, doing the best I can, but I got to leave. I got to leave that funeral home. I can't stand it." I said, "Give me a job up in North Carolina Mutual for a while." "Come on up tomorrow morning, put your application in, Stine." Just like that. | 24:49 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I told Papa, I said, "I'm going up to North Carolina Mutual and put my application in." I said, "I'm with you but I may have to leave you for a little while. But I'm right here with you. I ain't going nowhere." | 25:28 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My father understood me. He knew I was trying to make an adjustment. I went up to North Carolina Mutual and took a test up there. Went in the auditing depart. And folk always made jokes about things, a lot about me. They used to laugh and say, "Be sure, don't be passing that house around 8:15 in the mornings. Do you in trouble, because Stine's backing out." See, I had to punch the clock up there at the North Carolina Mutual. But that was something new to me. I don't know, I always enjoyed new things. It was a challenge to me and I always was like that. | 25:40 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And see, I had to be up there on time to prove that, because a lot of people used to say I was spoiled. And that was because my daddy and I were like we were. But people did not know. In a way, I never thought he spoiled me, because he always made me know that I was supposed to be up and doing. | 26:24 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And therefore, I worked up to the North Carolina Mutual and I sort of got adjusted. I guess I might have been up to the North Carolina Mutual maybe about six months, eight months. And I went and I thanked them. "But I'm going back to the funeral home now." | 26:50 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So I left the Mutual and went back to the funeral home. Stayed there for a while. Because here is the thing, what I had to get to come to. Folk were crazy about my brother too, Papa and my brother. As I was not a public person, as I have said. Even though I love people, people don't get but so close to me. I can't let you get but so close to me. And I was aware of that, and my daddy used to make me aware by saying my tone of voice showed it. | 27:10 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I could be talking to people in that funeral home and my daddy would walk out and speak to the people, smiling, and put his arms on my shoulder. I knew then to hush. And when the people would leave and he'd get through talking to him and smiling and all, when they'd leave, he'd say, "Stine, your tone of voice. You are very impatient. What you must realize, you are fortunate. You had a father, a mother and all to talk with you. And these things you know, people out there have not had that. So when they come to you for information, do not get impatient. And your tone of voice let it be known that you just don't have any patience." He says, "Sweetheart, watch that." | 27:49 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | "Yes sir." But I didn't realize that about my—But people say I carry that now. I mean, folks say now that tone, but it is my tone of voice. And I mean, I don't know. But folks said, "Stine, you don't hear your tone of voice when something crosses you," that I am like that. Well, one thing, I know I don't have much patience. | 28:44 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So I had to go through that. Then I'd get sick of that. I left that funeral home three times, trying to get adjusted. The next time, I went and worked in the business office out to one of your high schools here, Merrick Moore School. | 29:11 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I believe that's my full barrel. | 29:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Pause here for a second. | 29:35 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I worked at the Merrick Moore School for a while. And of course I was very unhappy, because when funerals would come up, Papa would call the—See, things were—And everybody knew I was trying to make an adjustment, working in the office. He'd call the principal and say, "I need Stine." And I just used to have—I'd say, "Papa, you can't do that. I mean, I'm working. You can't do that." But they didn't even mind. The principal didn't even mind it. Mr. Gilliard knew that I was trying to make an adjustment. And knowing Papa and all being—I mean, it didn't bother them. | 29:38 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I did that for a while, and after I worked out there a while, I enjoyed it. But I knew that I was trying to make the adjustment. So I worked up there for a while. And I left from out there, went back to see if I had made the adjustment. | 30:18 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And the last thing I did, and I been pretty straight ever since about it, I had a friend who worked in the record room over the Lincoln Hospital. That's when it was right there, that needed to go to Tennessee to take a course, a eight-weeks course. So she said, "Stine, your medical terms and all, you've had them." She said, "Why don't you come over here and work in my place and let me—" I said, "I can't work in no hospital, the first thing being connected to the funeral home. I could not work in the hospital." She said, "Don't nobody even think about it. Now, you just Stine, and ain't nobody thinking about the funeral home and all that." I said, "I don't see it being the hospital." | 30:36 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But the superintendent in the hospital sent for me, and he said—Now, I had not met him. He had come since I left. And he said to me, he said, "Everybody just thinks of you, Stine, you just the child of Durham. It don't make any difference about you. So Miss Bruce can go to school." | 31:22 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So I went over there and worked in the record room in a hospital, for her to go to—But see, that was different, I could get— | 31:44 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now, the next thing I knew, the clinic had not been set up over to Lincoln Hospital. And after I had been over there and worked over there, they decided they wanted me to set up the clinic over there. I said, "I don't know about no clinic." | 31:51 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now, that's one thing. I wish I could think of the lady, maybe. "That was your first clinic, at Duke Hospital." She taught me. She knew my daddy well and all, working through the thing. I used to go out to Duke when the clinic was first set up out to Duke. And she taught me how to set up a clinic. And I set up the clinic at Lincoln Hospital. | 32:03 |
Karen Ferguson | So the clinic there at— | 32:32 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | At Lincoln—No, not this clinic. | 32:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 32:36 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Uh-uh. That's when the hospital— | 32:36 |
Karen Ferguson | With the hospital, okay. | 32:37 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | —was there. Burnett. | 32:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 32:39 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And so, when I did that—I've been back and I think my encouragement came because maybe if—I imagine the folk knew that I needed this. I would go on funerals out in the country and all. And I'd look up, when I would come down out of church and on the way back to car, I'd see a group of people standing up. And I'd say, "Oh Lord, what have I done wrong now?" | 32:44 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And several times, and I guess this is what used to make me feel so good, number one, they thought my brother was an only child. See, with me being in and out of here, they did not know he had a sister. So by me being a Bynum, people would say to me, "Miss Bynum, you remind me so much of Mr. Johnny. What relation are you to Mr. Johnny?" I said, "He's my brother." "I thought Mr. Johnny was an only child." I said, "No. I just been away." And then they did this, and I guess they felt that with a woman coming into it, that they would have to sort of encourage me. | 33:12 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So as I said, I'd see this group standing up and I said, "Oh Lord, what have I done wrong now?" And they would say, "Ms. Bynum, we want you to take Mr. Johnny a message." And I said, "Yes." "Tell Mr. Johnny we love him and we miss him. But as long as he sends you, tell him everything is fine." | 34:00 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And I think that's really what helped break me into it, that people accepted a woman. But what my father taught me to do then—See, most of the time, I drove family cars, see. And if it were where women were involved, I may leave 30, 40 minutes early to go to help the members of the family dress. Women do—It was a personal thing, see? So it became a very close thing to the public. I've even had death calls to come in, they called me here at the house instead of calling the funeral home. | 34:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 35:02 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And all of that. So it made me feel that people were getting sort of dependent on me. So it made me know. And then naturally, when my father passed, he just dropped a load on me and I knew I had to do it. | 35:03 |
Karen Ferguson | You've talked about how you have to be very discreet when you're—You've talked about how you had to always be friendly to the people. Were there any other limitations, for example, on the family of an undertaker or on people who work in the funeral business? In terms of say, would you have people from all denominations come to the funeral home? And did you have to play that carefully at all or—You see what I mean? | 35:26 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh, we have your various churches and people. It's the matter of learning when you're out there with people. That word, I say, that has gone out the back, respect takes care of it all. | 35:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 36:12 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Respect. You have respect. Regardless of what you are, you respect. | 36:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 36:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That means that you give. If you don't understand something, you ask questions and you talk with them. You are trying to please. You are trying to give to that person what they need and what they want. | 36:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. The other thing I was wondering about, you were talking—Your first husband, how did you meet him? | 36:33 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | At St. Augustine's College. | 36:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 36:43 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | We came there. He came there in the grades, and when I got there, he was there. And we were really classmates, and we came and he used to always say to me, "If I had ever had a little sister, I would have wanted her to be just like you." | 36:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 37:00 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So we really grew up together. | 37:00 |
Karen Ferguson | But he was also from a family that owned a funeral business too? Oh, okay, he got in with your father? | 37:03 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No. Through my daddy. | 37:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. | 37:10 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. | 37:15 |
Karen Ferguson | When you come back to Durham, what kind of associations or clubs did you belong to? You've mentioned a couple of them, the sorority and fraternity. The fraternity was of morticians? | 37:15 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. | 37:28 |
Karen Ferguson | You said? | 37:28 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Mortuary. Morticians' fraternity. | 37:33 |
Karen Ferguson | What other kinds of organizations did you belong to? | 37:34 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, I belong to all to them. I belong to so many of them. Truthfully, I just belong to—What? Sorority, fraternity, your various church, NAACP. I belong to all your organizations and I—And my bridge clubs. I don't belong to all clubs. I tell you, I just never felt like I had time. | 37:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 38:13 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | What the things I did, at church, I went to my meetings when I was out here going. I couldn't overcrowd myself because I never knew when. | 38:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. When you'd be called in. | 38:23 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. | 38:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Let me think here. All right. Now, I know you didn't want to talk about this at the beginning, but I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about race relations in Durham when you were living here. You talked a lot about travel and living in New York City and Durham. Did you notice a lot of differences between living in those two places at all? | 38:31 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, I grew up here knowing. I guess, then, because it was me living in my section, and born here. I never thought nothing, because wherever I, wherever—As I say, if I went to the stores up on Main, I really, I don't think I ever, really. And my number out at the Duke Hospital is 350. See, that was a thrill. So I mean, I've been out there in Duke all these years where I never seen—I've never had any problems, seeing over there my doctors have been White and all. I mean, I don't know. I just never had any problems, really. | 39:04 |
Karen Ferguson | But you didn't have much association with White people when you were growing up? Or did you? | 39:54 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No, no more than sales, going in stores and those kind of things. No, I mean I just didn't have— | 39:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 40:06 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | You knew the older citizens and around, but I mean, as far—And go to some meetings that my father belonged to, various organizations, were integrated. And I'd go, but it would be the matter of speaking. I mean, but as far as very close to, no. | 40:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you taught to treat White people in a certain way when you were— | 40:27 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I never heard my daddy say nothing about White or—That's what disgusts me today. | 40:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 40:38 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I never heard those words. You respect people. And my mother always said, "Respect yourself, first. If you respect yourself, you will always be respected." | 40:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 40:51 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I've never had anything said to me in any way about—That I think of them lawyers, I mean, White lawyers, White doctors. And I mean, I just don't—I never had any problem. | 40:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. How about when you were traveling? Did you have to go on Jim Crow cars when you were going up to New York City and that kind of thing? | 41:11 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, at the time—Truthfully, I really had my own car. I've been driving since I was 11 years old. | 41:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 41:37 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That's when cars came in, when I was 11 years old. And what threw me out there so early was the doctor took my mother from under the steering wheel because of her heart. And I could remember, I was probably just 11. And I remember her saying to my father, "John, I can't—" Her patience was something like mine, because she'd been used to doing for herself. And she said, "John, I cannot sit around and wait for you to be able to send somebody to carry me where I want to go. Let Stine drive me." | 41:38 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well, I'd been sitting between my daddy's legs with him pushing the clutch in and I'm looking under here at that, and changing gears for him ever since cars came out. But my feet would hit the floor. | 42:14 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now, about that time, if I sat on the edge of the seat right here and looked through here, I could change gears, because I'd been changing gears all these years, sitting in Papa's lap. | 42:31 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So when he said that to her, I remembered well. When she said that, she said, "But the only thing, Stine can't back up. I mean, she can't do any backing because she can't see." And I remember mama say, "I'll tell her when to back up. I'll tell her how far to back up." | 42:45 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now, you didn't have driver's license in that day, but you had to go through—Your parents had to be responsible for you. | 43:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 43:12 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | So right after that happened, this particular Sunday, we had been to church. Parked in front of the door. My brother got out of the car, my mother got out the car. I was getting ready to get out of the car. My daddy said, "Stine, your mother wants you to drive her. See, stay in the car and drive down," he told me. Mr. Vicars had a farm down there, where Beechwood Cemetery is right now. "Drive down to Vicars' farm. Turn in. If you find you cannot turn around, do not get upset." And he pulled his watch out. He said, "I will beep for you in so many minutes. So don't panic. Don't turn around. Don't be bothered if you cannot judge or think how to turn around." | 43:13 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And these words, my friends always made a joke out of this. But I always said, "Papa, I don't even think it's funny." Well, I saw Mama and Papa and my brother walking up that walk. I leaned over and I yelled and I said, "Well, who's going with me?" My daddy turned around and said, "Ain't no need of everybody getting killed." He knew I'd have driven that car in honey or toned the world up. That's what I say. Whatever I got in me, he put in there, because he challenged me. My father challenged me. | 44:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And, as he said, I drove on down the street, turned up in there. Now, I ain't never backed up. So I got to sit there and figure how. But his word was this. "Think what you got your mind for." Now those were his words. "Think what you got your mind for." | 44:54 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I drove up there and I sat. Then something said, "Okay, back up a little bit. Then get out the car and see how much farther you can back back." Now, that's the way. I sat there and had to reason out how to back that car back out to get back up the street. | 45:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And that's why I look and say my daddy challenged me about things, knowing my makeup, see. He knew, when he challenged me, I'd do it then, in spite of anything. So that is, I guess, what I say in my doing things and my challenging of things, the reason why I've always been like that, that I can't let—I can't let things get me. I got to do what I got to do. | 45:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Do you remember any Jim Crow signs in Durham? | 46:05 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh yeah. | 46:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 46:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | They had over—Let me show you how bessie I was. I remember when Sears and Roebucks built the building where the—Down there across from the old bus station. | 46:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 46:37 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | They had the water fountains right there together. White, Colored. And to show you what a devil I was, I used to go in there. They were right together. I had made up my mind that I won't— | 46:38 |
Karen Ferguson | All right. So you said— | 0:05 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That, because you see my mother was this way. If you've got to go to the bathroom, go before you go downtown because over all doors in public place, they had White and Colored. She ain't made no issue out of it. I just really never had to go to the bathroom if I was downtown. I wasn't out that much. I did not ride the buses because we always had transportation so I never rode a bus. | 0:10 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | The only real experience that I ever had was, I was in Virginia Union in college. I was coming home. You see, they used to have to come to Raleigh and pick me up because I'd have to come home on the train. The trains did not run into Durham. So I decided to start catching the bus so they wouldn't have to bother about coming into Raleigh to pick me up. I wouldn't think anything about it because the places up there, now in Virginia. And I was careful to this point. If I rode a bus coming home, I rode that same bus all the time, so that bus driver would know me. | 0:40 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now, this particular Easter I was coming home, I didn't know anything had changed. When we got in this place in Virginia, where we had been getting off all the time, and usually I was the only Negro usually on there [phone rings]—Answer that please. She'll answer it. | 1:28 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | When I got out this particular Easter coming home, I didn't know anything had changed. I knew I couldn't sit down in there, but I'd always gone to the counter, ordered a cold drink and stood up at the counter and drank it. Then I'd go on back out to the bus. Well, this Easter I didn't know things had changed, so I went in there as I always did. This young lady came, I ordered this cold drink and I laid my money down there. | 1:58 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | When she brought me my cold drink, she pointed and told me to go back there and drink it. Well, when I looked, I thought maybe at first, I thought maybe they had put some particular place up for Negros. But when I looked, all I saw was the kitchen. So I picked up my nickel. I say, "You go back there and drink it," and walked on out. | 2:36 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Just as I walked on out of the restaurant, the bus driver was coming in. I said, "I'm going out here." To tell you, I didn't think nothing about it. I looked up in the miniature. He was right behind me. He said, "What happened in there?" I said, "What happened like what?" She didn't phase me. He said, "The folks seem to be upset in there." I said, "I don't know." | 2:58 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Then it dawned on me and I told him what I'd done, but I ain't thought nothing about it. So about that time, here comes another bus going to south Boston. It was in that area. He hailed that bus and he said, "Listen, get on this bus and I'll pick you up." He was really upset about it. I ain't even upset. I just said, "You go back there and drink it," and went on about my business, walked on out the door. | 3:27 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Of course, he came through south Boston and picked me up. I really hadn't thought too much about it until I came home and I was telling Papa what had happened. He dropped his head. He said, "That's what worries me to death about you still." He said, "You cannot. Do you know they are hanging Negros up there?" Wherever this place was in Virginia? He said, "You cannot do that." That's when he said to me, "Promise me you will never get on another bus because you don't know how to keep your mouth shut." | 3:59 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | He had to talk with me that way. I just said what I had to say. But that is really the only thing. I think that is the first time that he had really talked with me. Because not having run in all this, I ain't thought nothing about it. Him knowing that whatever I thought was going to fall out of my mouth. That's really the only problem I've ever run into because, as I said, I was a road driver. I used to do most of my driving; California, Florida. Everywhere I went, I just hit the highway. | 4:38 |
Karen Ferguson | When you went to these places and you drove there, where did you stay? I know that people weren't allowed to stay in hotels, Black people. | 5:16 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | You know what? Just like we had, but I've never had any problems in any hotels. I never have and I've been in hotels everywhere. I have been trying. I don't know whether it was because, I guess they must have had, and yet, except around here in Raleigh and places like that, I've usually stayed in mixed hotels, just like we do now. I've never had any problem about hotels back then because usually there are meetings and that sort of thing. I just really have never run in on any problem about them. You put in your application. | 5:24 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I like going to the islands. I don't know if they don't, I think they're a little more. I think more of that comes up now in a way that used to come up. If you're a member of organizations and that sort of thing, I don't even think that was hit on like it is now. That's why I'm saying, I don't understand the world today. I say that. Things are more, this Black and White issue is more today than it was when I was out there traveling, moving. | 6:23 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now, your bus was your bigger issue back in my day. That's the reason why my father asked me not to ride. And as I say, I drove most of my time, so I never had any trouble, other than that one time. Of course, on planes and things, I usually travel first class on planes and things. I just have never run into any obstacles about things. | 6:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Why don't we come back to the Durham of your adult life? When you came back to the funeral business, what was Durham like then? What were some of the neighborhood gathering places? | 7:37 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | As I say clubs, sometimes I'd even have my club at hotels and things, my club meetings. I don't know. My living has been pretty free. I just have not, and we had a Negro hotel on Pettigrew Street. Of course, we had things there, sorority meetings, things we wanted to have at the hotel there. | 8:04 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | After they tore up Pettigrew Street and took that hotel down, I used to really have my meetings, fraternity meetings and all my meetings, and even my club meetings, up to Duke. Now you know Duke Hotel is torn down uptown. I just haven't had any problems. I know there are problems out there. I don't mean that I'm that stupid. I don't know. Maybe it's certain things I didn't do. I was not a person that hung out and did. | 8:32 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | As I say, strictly being business is one thing and hanging out is another. I never really hung out. That was the thing. I never really hung out. | 9:07 |
Karen Ferguson | You did have some hobbies. You say you played bridge. | 9:18 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh, yeah. | 9:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Who were your friends in that period? Were they the children of the parents of the people that you grew up with? | 9:25 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh, yeah. A lot of them were. Then a lot of teachers had come to Durham. A lot of people who had moved to Durham that I had met the wives. It's just a matter of Durham. It's been round and about the same circle. | 9:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Did men and women do things differently? I mean do things separately socially and in their organizations that they worked in? | 9:53 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. They had the fraternities and the men had their things of doing, but we all got together and it was the same thing. Usually husbands and wives were friends. As I say relationship. I had friends who's husbands were just like brothers to me. That's why I guess it's hard for me to understand these issues because I don't understand them. There's never been any problems. Yet, I know now that there've been problems all the time. My whole thing is, I just wasn't out there. I didn't go out there. | 10:02 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Maybe I have been sort of a loner. I don't go into groups. I love people, but it's a business thing with me, not out there hanging out. As I said, in sports is another thing. I've been going to Duke University games, football games, all these years. I ain't never thought about it because I went for the game. I didn't go for no foolishness. I went to see a football game because I love football. | 10:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. How about, when did you first vote? Can you remember when you first voted? | 11:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No. I can't say when I first voted. Ever since I've been at the age, I've been very conscious of that. That came through my parent, too, my father, of this voting situation. I don't even remember when I first voted, truthfully. After I lived in New York so long, I used to vote up there. I just always, ever since I've been around here, I've never missed my voting. | 11:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 12:08 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | It's just a part of— | 12:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember when you came back to Durham? I would imagine that your family would be part of this group, who the most important people were in the Black community were in Durham, the leaders when you came back? | 12:15 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | It was the people, as I said. You had the North Carolina Mutual. That's something I'm a little strange about on that. Because when you say leaders, you're speaking in terms of people who are out there doing things, where I'm concerned. As far as picking somebody and saying he, because they were all out there working together to try to do things. That's what astounds me now, to see how you've got these young folks out there pulling against each other. | 12:31 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I think about when I came up. People were out there to be out there working together to try to get things done. That's the reason why nothing's done now. | 13:07 |
Karen Ferguson | What were some of the biggest campaigns to get things done? Can you remember that, to build a clinic or a school? Do you remember there being campaigns, even political campaigns to get the vote? Do you remember that at all? | 13:20 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No. I guess I was not that much political. I voted on things, but they never really meant that much to me, except certain things just like now. I get all these letters. I belong to organizations all coming out of Washington, and things that I read and all that. I do it now, but I just do. Read it, do. If I want to send my contribution and be a member. I have to say to you what I tell them at the funeral home. Honey, with all this mess I carry on my mind, those things just don't, I just do them as they come along and I have to do them. | 13:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember there ever being a bad part of town that you couldn't go into, that was, I don't know? | 14:32 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Not until right now. | 14:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Really? Okay. | 14:44 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Because I shake my head in shock of the things I read in the paper today. | 14:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 14:51 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I can't believe it. Now, when I was growing up, I just didn't know of anyplace you couldn't go. That's what really shocks me now when I read all this stuff that goes on in these various, I say projects. I don't know. Yet, the streets, which I don't even know the names of so many of these streets now. These streets are new to me. Durham has, as I said, grown so with all of this. | 14:52 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But what you read in the paper, there are little certain sections. I look at it now. I don't know that Durham has a certain section now. I shake my head about Federal Street. I'd be scared to walk up Federal Street after dark. | 15:26 |
Karen Ferguson | So there was no, can you think of a section that wasn't as respectable maybe? | 15:39 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | People think about things differently from the way I think. A lot of people think in the terms of folk not being respected because their homes are maybe—But you see, an individual is an individual to me. I don't go by the house you live in or the car you drive. I've never gone by those kind of things. An individual is to me what I go by. To me, it makes no difference where you live. It's you as a person. | 15:58 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | As I say, I've always, when I was young here, family would call for chairs and things at the funeral home. I might be getting the call at 9:00 at night. It might be this alley or that alley. So much so until I've had the cops to say to me, "You ought to get a permit to carry a gun. You go up in these alleys at night carrying chairs." | 16:33 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But I might would walk in the house at 9:00 at night with a door badge and a chair and walk in there with one chair. The family or some of the folk would be sitting there, "Miss Ernestine, you got anybody to help you bring those chairs in?" I said, "No, I bring them in." "Oh, no. Sweetheart, sit down. We'll get them." My life has just, I just haven't been through any of that. | 17:05 |
Karen Ferguson | So you really had association with a whole cross section of the community. | 17:27 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That's right. I never had any sort of problems. | 17:31 |
Karen Ferguson | I can imagine that some people wouldn't be able to afford a funeral at your funeral home. Would you be able to accommodate everybody? | 17:41 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | We've always been, thus far, able to help people and to do it. | 17:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 17:55 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yup. We still work hard on that because it looks like things are tougher out there today than they have really. Because today, people reach and want all of that when they know they cannot afford it, but they think they ought to, "I want the moon," and yet they know. That's what makes business harder today. People used to accept that, "I can't ride around in a Cadillac when I've got Ford money." I'm just thinking of the difference. | 17:57 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | People today do not accept. They just think the world owes them everything and they're supposed to have it. My expression is, seems like they think they supposed to have it because they were born, so you're supposed to take care of me. But people that I knew in my day didn't think like that. If you couldn't afford something, you couldn't afford it. I was taught that. | 18:40 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now I'm going to give you an example that I'll never forget. I must have been maybe around 14. I was home one summer from school, at the funeral home. I'd been uptown just looking in the windows. I'd always come back messing with Papa. I'd say, "Papa, I saw a pair of shoes uptown I want." "Okay, sweetheart." He'd go on about his business. I'm going on about mine. I just was messing with him. | 19:06 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | A few minutes after I said those words to him once when I was here in the summer, this lady walked in with this little boy. He didn't have any shoes or anything on. "Mr. Scarborough, my little boy is barefooted, and he doesn't have any shoes, and he needs help." That was my daddy. Reached in his pocket and handed this lady to buy her little boy shoes. So when the lady went out, I went to him, "Didn't you hear me tell you that I saw a pair of shoes downtown I wanted?" I said, "That lady walked in there and you give her the money to buy a pair of shoes and I told you I wanted a pair of shoes." | 19:42 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | As he always did, he turned around and put his hand on my shoulders. He said, "Sweetheart, listen and don't ever forget. It's a big difference in the word want and need." He said, "You want a pair of shoes with a closet full down there at the house. That little boy needed shoes. He didn't have any. Don't ever forget the difference in those two words; want and need." | 20:28 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I guess that's the reason why I am like I am. My daddy stopped me right there. | 21:07 |
Speaker 3 | Excuse me. | 21:13 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah? | 21:20 |
Speaker 3 | Conrad want to know when would be the best time to call you back. | 21:20 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Caldwell? | 21:20 |
Speaker 3 | Conrad. Said he's still planning on coming Saturday. Said he would like to know when's the best time to call you back this evening. | 21:20 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Tell him I'll be here for the rest of the evening. He can call me back at least within an hour. | 21:26 |
Speaker 3 | Okay. | 21:30 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Thank you. | 21:31 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I think really, my dealings of living is because emphasis were put on things with me, want and need. You see, I use those words today with young folk. Because that has always, I've never forgotten those words. To want something and to need are two different things. But that's the reason why I say children are not taught now. It's a matter of, "I just want this and I want this." Maybe they do need it, but the way they say it, you don't have no way of knowing. | 21:36 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But just like my mother, I'm going back to that. I have had a bank account since I was seven years old. A lady always lived with us to keep that house over there because my mama worked. But when it came to ironing, my mother had this little ironing board that she put in the bottom seat of the chairs. She said, "Sweetheart, go get your daddy's socks and iron your daddy's socks." | 22:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | How in the world could I understand there's a lady standing up there ironing? Now, why would my mama be telling me, when I'm seven years old, six years old, why would I be ironing? I said, "Mama, Mama, why?" She said, "I tell you what. You are undoubtedly the laziest little girl I have ever seen." She said, "I hope you will marry a man one day that can have all that done for you, but you are going to know when it's done right. Now, pick up your daddy's socks." | 22:55 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | She'd always use papa with me because she knew I loved him to death. It's a matter of parents emphasizing emphasis on things when you are growing up. That hits me. I preach that right now up there at that funeral home. Need and want are two individual things altogether. I realize that I'm a lot like I am because I had two parents that were like that. Just like she used to say when I was seven years old, my mother called me one day and said, "Stine, look here a minute. Your father and I want to talk with you." | 23:32 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I went in the room. My mother said, "Your father and I have talked it over, Stine. If you will see that these bath," now the ceilings over there are even taller than these, and tile walls and tile floor. With the lady there, "Your daddy and I have talked it over. If you will see that these two bathrooms stay, I'll pay you 50 cents a week." My daddy said, "I'll pay you $1 a week." | 24:14 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now, I was making $1.50 a week at seven years old. Those things I didn't ever quite understand, but you see then, my mother's speech was, mother may have, because I never heard the word money ever mentioned between my father and my mother. When my mother went to the grocery store, all I ever saw her do was pick up her checkbook. I see now, that is what she was doing to me, making me independent. | 24:47 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | They used to laugh at the bank. I used to hear them say, because they couldn't even see me in the bank. When I'd go in, they'd say, "That must be our baby getting ready." Because if I have $1, I'd go to the bank and deposit $1. Maybe I'd spend the 50 cents for ice cream, but I'm going to put money in the bank. | 25:20 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That's why people don't quite understand me as I am. That was the training I had when I was younger, because my mother was accustomed. She could have had everything. I've even just sold the home she was born in, in Kinston. I just sold that house about two years ago. My mother had. But she trained me. You worked for what you got. You were independent. | 25:40 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My daddy even used to say to me, "Stine, is this your car?" I'd say, "Mm-hmm, yeah." "Well, why don't you talk with me sometime when you get ready to get a car. Maybe I could help you." I said, "Help me do what? You going to give it to me?" He said, "No." I said, "Don't need no help." I'm just an independent person. I'm like I am. I always felt that if you did for me, you could tell me what to do. That picked up from going to the beach over there when I was young. Wasn't nobody going to tell me what to do, so I did for myself. | 26:09 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Another thing that made me conscious of it. My father gave my brother a car when he graduated from high school. My brother got this car. My brother went to Morehouse the next year. I remember that I stood up and couldn't figure what he was talking about. He said, "Johnny, you may jack your car up in the garage if you want to, but you cannot take the car to school. Nobody won't touch it. Now, football season, you may come home and get your car so you and your friends can enjoy football season, but you do not need a car in school." | 26:47 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I remember, I said, "Lord, he gave him that car and then tell him he can't take it to school." See, I didn't understand that, either. I said, "One thing. Ain't nobody ever going to give me nothing and tell me when to use it." That was just an attitude I had. | 27:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 27:50 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Consequently, when I started buying cars, because I always would say, in the middle of the night sometime, I'd come home. I said, "Shoot, I believe I want to run to New York." I did put things in my bag. Next morning, I'd go down to the funeral home with my bag in the back of my car. I said, "Come here, Johnny." That's my brother. I put my arms around both of them. I said, "I love you both, but I got to leave you." | 27:51 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My daddy used to call me Miss Gypsy. "Where to now, Miss Gypsy?" I'd say, "Call you when I get there, sweetheart." That has been my life with them. I have had an enjoyable, because nobody tried to pin me down, but I have always tried to be there when they needed me, and have always been there. Like I tell my nephew, I done closed eyes until I ain't closing no more, so you better take good care of yourself because I ain't going to close yours. I done closed all the eyes I'm going to close. | 28:27 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But it makes me feel within myself, I haven't got to wonder. I wonder if I had been there, if this could have been, if that could have been. I know those that I loved, I was there. I closed their eyes and was right with them when they took that last breath. I ain't got to wonder. That is what lets me keep moving on. | 29:04 |
Karen Ferguson | That maybe is a good place to end the interview. Thank you very much for helping me. Could I just take a couple more minutes of your time? We want to get some biographical information on every interviewee so that we can get the names straight when we're listening to the tapes and so on. Could I just take down a few things? | 29:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Your name is Ernestine Scarborough Bynum? That's your full name? | 29:58 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Ernestine Hargett. | 30:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Hargett. | 30:02 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Since you're going to use that, my name is Ernestine Hargett Scarborough Bynum, my married name. By really, my name is Ernestine Hargett Scarborough. | 30:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Your zip code right now? | 30:29 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My zip code, post office box is 1075, 27702. | 30:31 |
Karen Ferguson | 27702, okay. | 30:36 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. Now if you wanted to use my house number, that would be 1407 Federal Street, 27707. | 30:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Could you tell me how precisely you'd like your name to appear in any written materials that come out of this? | 31:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Those [indistinct 00:31:19] call me 'Stine, but I guess Ernestine would be. | 31:15 |
Karen Ferguson | You like to be known as Ernestine Bynum or Ernestine Scarborough Bynum? | 31:21 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No, Ernestine Bynum. | 31:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 31:30 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | My checks are Ernestine S. Bynum. I usually use my middle initial. | 31:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Your date of birth again? | 31:37 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | June 27, 1911. | 31:40 |
Karen Ferguson | 1911. And that was in Durham, right? | 31:40 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yes. | 31:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. What's your first husband's name? | 31:41 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | What? | 31:55 |
Karen Ferguson | What was your first husband's name? | 31:56 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Johnson, Theodore H. Johnson. | 31:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Johnson, Theodore H. Johnson. | 32:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Theodore H. Johnson. | 32:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, Theodore, sorry. | 32:06 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Theodore H. Johnson. | 32:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And your second husband's name? | 32:10 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Wilfred, W-I-L-F-R-E-D. Wilfred L. Bynum, B-Y-N-U-M. | 32:12 |
Karen Ferguson | And your second husband's date of birth? Do you know that? | 32:25 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Mm-hmm, March 16. | 32:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 32:31 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | 1910. There was about a year's difference in our ages. | 32:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And his date of death? | 32:38 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Hmm? | 32:40 |
Karen Ferguson | When did he pass on? | 32:42 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | What is this one? Lord, have mercy. Went to it. Wilfred, I got his what you call. He passed, it was in the fall. It must have been somewhere around October and he passed how many years ago? Lord, all this. He's been dead about seven years. | 32:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. I'll put an approximate date. That's fine. Where was he born? | 33:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | He was born in Kinston, North Carolina. | 33:25 |
Karen Ferguson | What was his occupation? | 33:31 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | He was a teacher. | 33:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Teacher. | 33:35 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Mm-hmm. | 33:36 |
Karen Ferguson | What was your mother's name? | 33:41 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Daisy, D-A-I-S-Y, Elizabeth. We always said Daisy E, Hargett Scarborough. | 33:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. What was her birth date? | 34:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | April 10. Now when she was born, she died in 1934 and she was 33 years old. | 34:03 |
Karen Ferguson | So 1901 then? | 34:14 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Roundabout 1901, 1902. | 34:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. She was born in Kinston? | 34:16 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yes. | 34:23 |
Karen Ferguson | What was her occupation? She would be funeral home? | 34:26 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No, not in Kinston. She taught. | 34:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Then when she came to Durham? | 34:35 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Then that's when she started working with— | 34:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Funeral business. | 34:40 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. | 34:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Your father's full name? | 34:46 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | John Clarence. | 34:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 34:50 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Scarborough, Senior. | 34:52 |
Karen Ferguson | His date of birth? | 35:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | June 17. | 35:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm? | 35:07 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh, boy. Papa was about— | 35:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Would it say on this? On this, would it say? | 35:13 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | On what? | 35:14 |
Karen Ferguson | On the plaque, do you think? | 35:14 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | It may be. Now, they set up this business in 1888. Papa must have been then every bit around 17 years old. | 35:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So let's see. 1888 minus 17. That'd be one, so about 1871 or so? | 35:45 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That would just about it. 1971, 1972, somewhere along there, 18. | 35:48 |
Karen Ferguson | When did he die? | 35:54 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Wait a minute. Let me get my bearings. Mama died February. You know I'm crazy now. I'm going to have to think. I guess talking about Papa throws me completely off balance. You know I'm crazy. | 35:58 |
Karen Ferguson | If you can't remember, I can find out because we have some information about your father. | 36:33 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. It will tell. | 36:37 |
Karen Ferguson | And he was born in Kinston? | 36:39 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. He was born in Kinston, too. | 36:41 |
Karen Ferguson | All right. Now could I get your sister's, I guess your brother's name? | 36:46 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. He was a junior. John Clarence Scarborough, Junior. | 36:49 |
Karen Ferguson | His date of birth? | 37:04 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That was four and a half years different. Mine was 1911, so his would have had to have been 10, nine, eight, seven, around 1907. | 37:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. His death, do you remember that? | 37:21 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I guess I've been so busy trying to forget some of this stuff. | 37:28 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Papa died in 1972. Johnny passed in 1977. | 37:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. How about, you don't have children. | 38:10 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No. | 38:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Could you give me, tell me the places that you've lived in your life? | 38:13 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | You want to put the third down there, my brother's son. | 38:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay, your brother's son. | 38:24 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. He's with us now. That's J.C. Scarborough, III. | 38:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. He was born here in Durham? | 38:30 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yes. | 38:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Could you tell me the places in your life where you've lived, maybe starting at the beginning? That would be Durham. | 38:41 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Durham. | 38:54 |
Karen Ferguson | And you lived in Durham until you were 11. | 38:55 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yes and I went in boarding school. | 38:59 |
Karen Ferguson | So 1922, you went to boarding school. | 39:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Mm-hmm. | 39:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Then you were in boarding school— | 39:04 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No, not 1922 because my mother died in 1934. | 39:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 39:11 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | How'd you hit 1922? | 39:16 |
Karen Ferguson | You said you were born in 1911 and you went to boarding school when you were 11 years old. | 39:18 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh, mama died in 1924. I'm going off now. I'm going make her die in 1930, 1924. I'm sorry. | 39:25 |
Karen Ferguson | That's all right. | 39:34 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | You're right. | 39:34 |
Karen Ferguson | So that makes her born in 1891 then. Okay. | 39:38 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. Now when you was asking me, I went to Hartshorn. I was born in 1911. I went to Hartshorn at 12 years old. | 39:41 |
Karen Ferguson | How do you spell that? | 40:03 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | HARTS HORN, Hartshorn Memorial College in Richmond, Virginia. | 40:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. How long were you there for? | 40:17 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Just a year. | 40:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So that would be 1924 to 1925? | 40:21 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yes. | 40:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Then where did you go from there? | 40:29 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Saint Augustine’s College in Raleigh. | 40:32 |
Karen Ferguson | How long were you there for? | 40:37 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | For five years. | 40:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Five years. | 40:41 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Mm-hmm. | 40:45 |
Karen Ferguson | All right. Then where'd you go from there? To New York City? | 40:47 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. | 40:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 40:54 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Married in New York City. | 40:54 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you leave there? | 40:59 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | To come to Winston-Salem. Honey, you got me when you got these dates and things. | 41:06 |
Karen Ferguson | It can be approximate. How long were you in New York City? | 41:12 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now, I'm trying to think when we opened up the business in Winston-Salem. You see, I got New York on me two ways. I went back to New York and lived. See, I went to New York. I'll do it this way. Maybe I can get it. I married in 1934. I went to New York City and we came to Winston-Salem. I believe we opened up the funeral home in Winston-Salem around 1942, Winston-Salem. | 41:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 41:52 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Then I went back to New York. Of course, as I say, that's when I went back and went to school, and I came back here and went down to the college for a year. I came back home and stayed up a year and went down to the college and got my degree. I got a degree from down there. | 41:58 |
Karen Ferguson | That was in 1949 or '50? | 42:23 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | It might have been because I had been getting a letter. I ought to know when it said that I got that. That was around that time because I just came here and stayed a year. | 42:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Then after that, you were basically in Durham then? | 42:42 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No. | 42:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 42:46 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No. I went back to New York. | 42:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. How long were you there for? Do you remember? | 42:48 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That's when I left. When I left New York again, that's when I came down here to live, except the year that I went to Atlanta to school. | 42:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So you were just there for a year? | 43:02 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | New York? | 43:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 43:08 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Honey, I'll tell you the truth. Yeah, because I didn't come. I went to school, I think. I think I got my diploma from Atlanta in 1950, from Mortuary school. | 43:12 |
Karen Ferguson | And then you went to New York City after that, for a while longer? | 43:35 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh, just for a little while longer. | 43:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So maybe for 1950 and then you came back to Durham? | 43:39 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. In about a year, I came on back here to live. | 43:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Could you tell me your jobs, the jobs that you've had? I guess the social worker is the first one. Is that right? | 43:49 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah, in New York. I did social work. | 43:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you employed by the city? | 44:02 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Bronx House in Bronx, New York. | 44:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. That would be, I guess that would correspond, that was from when you were married until you moved back? | 44:15 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. I was a Johnson back then. That's when I left Winston Salem and went back to New York. | 44:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So that was when you went back to New York. Okay. | 44:28 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah. That's when I did social work. In other words, I was doing social work when I got that year's leave to go to embalming school. | 44:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. You worked at North Carolina Mutual in the auditing department. Is that right? | 44:42 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah, mm-hmm. | 44:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember approximately when you did that? That was when you came back to Durham? | 45:05 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That's when I came back here trying to make an adjustment in here. Which would have had to be in the '50s, yeah. | 45:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. You said as well, you worked in schools as well. | 45:18 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | When I stayed there, I went out to Merrick Moore School. | 45:26 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do there? Were you teaching? | 45:26 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | No, working in the office. | 45:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Office, okay. Which school was that? | 45:29 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Merrick Moore School. | 45:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Would that also be in the '50s, do you think? | 45:41 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yeah, all that would be. That was in that routine of time that I was trying to get adjusted. All that was in the '50s. | 45:43 |
Karen Ferguson | So you were an embalmer? I want to get this right here. | 45:57 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I had my license then. During that time, I was a licensed embalmer, a licensed funeral driver. See, I had taken the board when I came back. When I went back to New York, I was licensed because I finished school and took the board, and went on back to New York. | 46:01 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you retire? Are you still working in the funeral home? | 46:25 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That's a joke. I got the call last week and they honored me in some. I had to call the other day because I didn't even know about it, as a retiree. See, I just belonged to so much. That was an honorary thing. Just last week, I called this friend and thanked them so much. I said, "Now, I'm going to put this up on my office door at the funeral home so they will recognize and realize." They won't retire me and won't let me retire, but I'm going to put this sign up on my door so they'll know. I'm retired. | 46:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 47:06 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | But no. I don't call myself retired, but I am. | 47:06 |
Karen Ferguson | So I've got social worker, worked in the auditing— | 47:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Ever receive any awards or honors? | 0:01 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Mm-hmm. My wall's full of them up there. | 0:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Are there ones that are particularly important to you that you'd like me to mention here? | 0:06 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well really, I have my PhD. | 0:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 0:16 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | In mortuary science and [indistinct 00:00:19] Lord, I wish my memory was good enough. All that stuff is hanging up in my office at the funeral home and all of these honorary degrees from the YWCA. I'm telling you the truth. I wouldn't like for one to be used, 'cause you see my office wall is full of them. | 0:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 0:46 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now if there's any way, 'cause it'll take time. I'd have to call my sister. She's the only one that has the key to my office. | 0:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Well if you wanted to, you could write me a letter. | 0:58 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I was fixing to ask you when it comes to things like that. | 1:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. I'll just get this down now. So we at least have this much and then if you want to give me some more. | 1:05 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh okay. That'll be fine. | 1:11 |
Karen Ferguson | I would like to get the name of the sorority and fraternity that you belong to. What was that again? | 1:13 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Iota. | 1:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 1:23 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Phi Lambda. | 1:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 1:26 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Sorority. My fraternity is—See I sit down here, now my mind's gone. I'd started to say Kappa Alpha. You know I'm crazy. Let me write that. I don't want to mess it up by giving you the wrong thing. | 1:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 2:00 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | I need to make a notation of what information I need to—Okay. Now what was that number one that I was supposed to get? | 2:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Your awards. | 2:39 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Uh-huh. Number one. | 2:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Your honors. I'd also like to know the organizations to which you've belonged and if you could give me the dates to those, or approximately. Okay. And I think that's about all. | 2:46 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That'll do it. Okay. | 3:05 |
Karen Ferguson | And also what offices you've held as well in these organizations. | 3:05 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh, mm-hmm. See, knowing this is what you want, I might have some of my papers where I've got really some of this information already down. | 3:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. That's fine. And I think that's about it. We have a sort of a final question asking about your hobbies and interests. You said bridge is one, or has been in the past? | 3:26 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh, I used to play tennis. | 3:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Tennis. And you said you rode horses too? | 3:47 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Oh, when I was a little girl, 'cause I rode horseback. Horseshoes. You see I came up with boys. Shot marbles, everything. I wasn't anything but a tomboy with a brother that I hung around with. Rode bicycles, did everything. I mean that was my lifestyle, I mean, when I was growing up. | 3:52 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And I guess, 'cause see my daddy used to play with us horseshoe and all that kind of stuff when we were growing up and, of course, playing tennis was in later years and all. And of course, I took dancing lessons. I mean, all this dancing stuff. I took that dancing lesson. We used to dance at auditorium around here like you see these youngsters do, back in my growing up days when we were kindergarten. | 4:12 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | See I went to kindergarten, White Rock, Baptist Church. Dr. Moore's two daughters taught kindergarten. Mrs. Mattie McDougal was my kindergarten teacher. And Mrs. Lida Merritt, which was his other daughter, was my brother's kindergarten teacher. And that's why I say I guess our lives were just—That's I guess the reason why it's so much I can't understand now because we just stayed busy and they were things we just did and this was a part of our life, you know? I mean I can't understand a lot of this junk that goes on now. | 4:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. One of the other people who's working on this project is doing a project on Black beauticians and hairdressers. And she was wondering if you had any names of people who worked for you at the funeral parlor dressing people's hair that you might know that she could get in touch with. | 5:38 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | The young lady who does most of our hair at the funeral home is the young lady who's DeShea. She came here from New York to work with her aunt, which she had the beauty school here. DeShea's a beauty school. | 6:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 6:27 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | And she does, she's a beautician at the funeral home. We've always called her Sunny. She came here like that now. But I can't even think of her name 'cause I just always called her Sunny. | 6:28 |
Karen Ferguson | That's all right. Okay. | 6:50 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now I could get it for you 'cause I could call the funeral home. 'Cause I mean all these kids, whatever, you nickname them. You just always call them that. | 6:50 |
Karen Ferguson | I was thinking, do you know of anybody of your own generation or maybe the one after you, anybody that that's still alive? Because she wants to talk to people who were doing it in the fifties and sixties, that kind of thing. | 6:58 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Now I'll tell you who my beautician is. | 7:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 7:19 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Shirley Caple, C-A-P-L-E. Shirley. Now, the strangest thing now in the last year or so, she comes and picks me up and carries me to her house to do my hair. And I'm trying to think of this. She works in the White beauty parlor. There's this White beauty parlor out on the highway. | 7:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 7:46 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Shirley Caple, C-A-P-L-E. But I'm trying to think of the name of that beauty parlor. | 7:47 |
Karen Ferguson | You think her name would be in the phone book? | 7:55 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Yes, it would be. | 7:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Would you mind if we used you as a reference to speak to her? | 7:59 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | That's right. You can tell her that, uh-huh. | 8:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Sounds good. Okay. Well I think that's all that I need. Thank you for spending all this time with me. I really— | 8:09 |
Ernestine Scarborough Bynum | Well I just hope I've been able to give you with my— | 8:14 |
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