Theresa Harvey interview recording, 1993 June 30
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Theresa Harvey | Up there. We had a peanut, it wasn't a factory, but what would you call it? | 0:01 |
Karen Ferguson | A mill, maybe? | 0:07 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, the mill, peanut mill. I was the lady who shelled the peanuts for the farmers to grade them. | 0:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 0:12 |
Theresa Harvey | They had the man from the agriculture department, I think that's what it is. And I would shell about 10 peanuts, maybe two handful, maybe. And they had this thing that you grade them in, you shake them up and the ones that fall out, I guess, weren't any good. And I was getting $35 a week for that time. That was in the fifties, my baby was born, that was around maybe '52 or three like that. | 0:13 |
Karen Ferguson | And where were you living down here then? | 0:45 |
Theresa Harvey | I was with my second husband, then. I had remarried then. | 0:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So you remarried down here and you lived here for a couple years and then moved back up there? | 0:51 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, because he got sick, he couldn't work on the railroad no more. | 0:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. I'm sorry, I can't keep everything straight. | 1:01 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, I know. | 1:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 1:05 |
Theresa Harvey | But my husband, well, he was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, he did work here most all of his—After he came out the Navy, he was a Navy man, he worked in North Carolina. So he did pay some taxes here for us. And my parents, they worked here so they paid some taxes for us too. | 1:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So you lived here when you got married for the second time? | 1:32 |
Theresa Harvey | The second time, yes. I moved there I think—Connie was two years old when I went to New York, she's born in '54. '54, '55, '56. We went there '56, back to New York, back to Brooklyn in 1956 because my sister had found an apartment for me and my cousin had got my husband a job. | 1:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So was that also something that happened that relatives found jobs for each other up North? | 2:06 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes, yes. Uh-huh. | 2:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you get all your jobs that way? | 2:13 |
Theresa Harvey | No, I went to employment offices and things like that. And the Second World War, all you have to do is just walk down the street and you see signs, help wanted. | 2:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you ever go up to New York without knowing that you could get a job? | 2:27 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. | 2:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 2:35 |
Theresa Harvey | But we were so sure we'd find something. Always restaurant work or domestic work or something, you could find something. Always could find a job in those days, but now it's real hard. I wouldn't go up there looking for nothing now. You wouldn't find anything. Yes, so nice. | 2:35 |
Karen Ferguson | You said your husband worked for the Atlantic Railroad. | 3:03 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. | 3:05 |
Karen Ferguson | And did you live in Tillery when he worked there? | 3:05 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes, right in Tillery. | 3:08 |
Karen Ferguson | And he was working for them then? | 3:10 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. | 3:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Was that unusual to have somebody who had a public job with them? Public work job? In that area? | 3:13 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh no. They had guys working for the county, dragging the people who took care of the roads and things. I know a fellow, Charles Cherry, he's Black, he just retired last year from the county roads. And a lot of people have worked on the county roads to pave them because most of those roads were dirt roads, so there's always been jobs down there for people. | 3:24 |
Karen Ferguson | So jobs other than farming? | 4:03 |
Theresa Harvey | Other than farming, yes. Most of the young people did, they left went to the city because a lot of people come down with the bad fine cars. "Hey, I'm going to city, get me a car." So that's what happened. | 4:05 |
Karen Ferguson | That's what Mrs. Crowell was saying as well, she said that when people would come back and you'd see their cars and you'd think, "I want that too." | 4:25 |
Theresa Harvey | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 4:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you do any of that? Did you strut your stuff when you got came down here? Did you show people [indistinct 00:04:43]? | 4:32 |
Theresa Harvey | I didn't. I never drove. | 4:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 4:43 |
Theresa Harvey | My first husband had a car, but that was after he and I had been divorced, he didn't have a car while we were together. And no, we didn't have cars. I didn't need a car in New York. But most of the kids got one though now. But we didn't need no cars, I'm just talking about the other people that wanted cars so bad, they would get cars. But I never cared about a car. Never. But now I do, I need one now. So my son says he's bringing one down for me, his old Lincoln, bringing it down in September for me. I'm have to learn how to drive that. | 4:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Well, it's hard around here to get around. | 5:28 |
Theresa Harvey | Hmm? | 5:30 |
Karen Ferguson | It's hard to get around without a car. | 5:30 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh yes it is. See Gary, Miss Maggie comes to pick me up every Tuesday to go to the center. Because, see, this is not my home. I live here because I couldn't find a place in Tillery, there is no place to live in Tillery. I moved out of a trailer, it was nice trailer. I was paying $200 a month, and the landlord, he lived in Baltimore. He harassed me because every time it rained, the septic tank would back up, it wasn't put in properly. He harassed me and harassed me, took me to court for nonpayment of rent, which wasn't my fault. It was the post mistress's fault, we call them post mistress. She was a substitute worker up in Tillery working with Mister—What is, oh God, what? Edwin Allen. | 5:32 |
Theresa Harvey | I go there to get a money order, so I asked her for what I was paying at that time, $188 per month. So I asked her for $188 money order, so she said she didn't hear me the first time so she rung up $88. I said, "I want $188." She not knowing, hadn't been trained, took an ink pen, wrote a one, in ink on the money order. I'm not knowing what's going on. So when he got to Baltimore and he takes it to the bank, the computer wouldn't pick up the one, it picked up the 88. So now, because I had never missed—See, I got the house when I was living in New York, I sent him money order every month on the place. I sent three months rent ahead. | 6:31 |
Theresa Harvey | I had gone to New York on some special business, so instead of him trying to contact me at my daughter's house in New York, knowing that I was coming back, he came all the way from Baltimore, took me to court to Halifax for non-payment of rent. Which I had paid the rent, it wasn't my fault. So then I goes up to the post office and I talked to Mr. Edwin Allen and he says, "Well, that's no problem now. And we know you paid the money." So he looks on the book, says, "Yes, you paid the money, but it's just that she wrote on the money order in ink one dollar, which she wasn't supposed to do. So then after he finds this out, he says, "Well, you don't have to go to court. Now we have a lawyer that comes over for the senior citizens. | 7:40 |
Theresa Harvey | She said, "Yes, if he wanted to do that, I'll meet you in court, Ms. Harvey." So she met me up there, but he didn't want to go after he found out that the money was there and I had the money already. She says, "No, let's go so he stop harassing you." So when we got to court, she says, "Go over there and hand him the money order, the hundred dollar money order." So I went and handed him the money order. He said, "Yeah, okay, thank you." And so Ms. Parker said, "You want Ms. Harvey out of trailer?" "Well, not as long she pay rent." "Well, why are you harassing her by moving? Why you don't fix the septic tank? Why?" So then I started looking, I says, "I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to Halifax, going to take my son." We went to the FHA and we started working on a house. | 8:31 |
Theresa Harvey | I could not find a piece of land that didn't perc. Perc means when they dig a hole and fill it full of water, if that water will be there an hour after they return, that land is no good for a septic tank. So the one I got, it was no good. So I gave up, I had to stay there and take this man's harassment for another six months. He's still harassing me, so the lawyer said, "Ms. Harvey, when the septic tank overflow and stink up your house, if you got the money, you take it out of his rent and you call somebody to get that," said "You don't have to live like that." | 9:20 |
Theresa Harvey | That's what I did, and he didn't like that at all. So finally she calls me, she said, "Well, Ms. Harvey, I have a house in Enfield." I said, "God, I don't want to go to Enfield. I want to stay around here so I can go to my center." So Gary said, "Don't worry about it, I'll get you here." I said, "I don't want to go up there where all that drugs and stuff is, it's a lot around here." But I didn't have any place else to go. So I moved anyway. So now I guess I like it up here now. But my home is in Tillery, I never lived in Enfield in my life. | 10:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Why did you move back to North Carolina? | 10:47 |
Theresa Harvey | Okay. | 10:48 |
Karen Ferguson | From New York City? | 10:50 |
Theresa Harvey | From New York? I just got tired of the purse snatching and the shooting, and just got tired of it. Because you're afraid to walk the street day or night, and I just wanted some peace. I was almost 65 years old, and I just wanted some peace and I just wanted to come down here in the country. So that's why I moved down here, I was sick of New York, I've been up there most all my life, and I just wanted to come down in the country to live. Because there was nothing to do, only thing you could do, you's afraid to go any place at night because you don't know when—I know that I have to die, but I don't want to go a violent death like that. People coming out of church get in the line of fire and get shot and it's terrible, it's real terrible. There's so much dope there, it's terrible. And I felt like I needed a peace of mind to get by myself sometime. Get away from my grandchildren. | 10:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Get away from them? | 12:10 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, and get away from one of my daughters. Whenever she gets put out, here she come. And I got tired of that. I said, I'm going to move so she wouldn't be coming to me with all them children, seven kids. And also one of my grandsons was shot. He was 14 years old, I'll show his picture up there on the wall. September of 1982, I had moved to Philadelphia. I'm getting ahead of my story. I lost a son, 1980, from cirrhosis of the liver. It seemed after that I didn't want to live in Brooklyn anymore, after I lost my child. So I moved to Philadelphia, I had a nice boyfriend, I moved there with him. And so I stayed down there with him until, let's see.—But I was coming back and forth to visit and in '84, I moved back. Uh-huh. | 12:11 |
Theresa Harvey | And so when did he get shot? '82. Okay, I was in Philadelphia. My daughter called me, they were supposed to come down to visit me for Labor Day. And she called me, said "Mama, Ray-Ray just got shot, I think he's dead." And the boy came and shot him in the back on their lunch hour because he had a summer job. And he was 14 years old, but he looked like he was 18, he was tall and handsome. I think it was jealousy, probably jealousy. And that's one reason why I just wanted to get away from there. And then my baby son that he just left here, he fell from a building up there and they had to put his face back together, and I brought him home to save his life from drugs. | 13:12 |
Theresa Harvey | Then a year ago in March, I went up there, one of my sons by my first husband, he was almost dying so I brought him back to North Carolina. So now he's doing fine, he lives in Roanoke Rapids. So I have saved two of my children's lives by doing that. But when I first moved down here, I was in New York every month. I could not stand it. So gradually then I said, "Sit down. What are you running to New York for every month? You going to stay here, or you going to stay there?" So then I decided to stop, then the kids came down to see me every two months when I first come down here, they were always down here. So Connie is on her way tonight, and my grandchild. | 14:08 |
Karen Ferguson | What do you think about this change in your life where before people went to the North to get away from the South and now they're— | 14:59 |
Theresa Harvey | Now they're coming back. See, often think about that. We ran away from the South to go to the North because we thought it was better, better jobs, which it was. It was better job, better opportunities for Blacks there, and it's segregation there, but it's not as much as it was down here. Because you know the places that are segregated so you don't really have to go there, in the city. But down here it was mostly everywhere, but in New York, it's not everywhere. It's still there, but they have to serve you anyway. And I went to school with Black, White, and Puerto Rican kids, and we played together, went to park together, went to visit each other's homes and everything, sat at each other's table and ate. It wasn't that bad. | 15:06 |
Theresa Harvey | So getting away from here, we had better jobs up there. The children, Black kids got tired of farming, getting nothing out of it. So they wanted something better for themselves so they went to New York. But now the dope is running them back home. But they can't get home and stay because they can't get a very good job down here that's paying as much as it is in the city. See what I'm saying? If people could get good jobs and good salaries, as much as they get in New York, there wouldn't be anybody that's from here in New York. That's right. The only thing, the upkeep, if they could just get a home down here, get a decent job, just enough to pay their mortgage and light bill and gas or whatever, and the car note, they'll be gone. That's right. | 15:59 |
Theresa Harvey | But you can't do that. And now I heard that if you overqualified here, you can't get hired. I don't know whether that's true or not. See, my daughter is, what is my daughter? She pays all the firm's bills, accountant. Really, she's accountant. And she knows her, what do you call these things? These machines and everything. But Doe said, "Mama, if I can just get a job driving the school bus, I want to leave New York." You see, now she wants to come and live with me next year. Doe is going to be 50 years old, my oldest daughter, August 8th. She's been a widow for five years, her husband died May 8th, 1988. I moved down here June 14th. | 16:58 |
Theresa Harvey | My second daughter is a widow. Connie never been married yet because she's a singer. So my daughter's not looking for a great lot of money here, she wants to enjoy her life. She wants peace and she's tired of hearing gunshot all night, and she wants to come down here and go to—She got her car, she bring her car. Maybe if she can drive a bus or something or either get in the fast food, she doesn't care. You don't need a lot of money here because the mortgage I pay is 125 a month, and that might be for you guys. And it doesn't take that much to live here. So she paid for her car already, so now she'll be able to come. It's for me? Okay. My daughter and my grandson's coming on Amtrak from New York today. | 18:06 |
Karen Ferguson | On the airplane? | 19:03 |
Theresa Harvey | Amtrak. | 19:03 |
Karen Ferguson | On a train. Train, okay. | 19:03 |
Theresa Harvey | And where were we at? | 19:10 |
Karen Ferguson | You were just telling me about your daughter wanting to— | 19:13 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh yeah. She want to move here now with me. And so next year if nothing happens, my oldest daughter will be here with me. Of course, they going to raise the rent a little bit, they always do. You got to let them know if two people move in. And right now I'm here alone, so they didn't raise the mortgage, but they'll probably raise about $5. It won't be too much, it's a low income house. And that'll be some company for me. Now we have a car, in fact we have two cars if I get this one that my son is going to bring, and we can go to church, have fun. What else to do? We can go to Rocky Mountain and go to movies. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. | 19:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Well I think I've asked about everything— | 20:03 |
Theresa Harvey | I think so. | 20:06 |
Karen Ferguson | [indistinct 00:20:09]. | 20:07 |
Theresa Harvey | Because I've said a lot of things she don't even know nothing about. | 20:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Some education for you there. | 20:12 |
Theresa Harvey | And I don't know what he come in here for. Get on my nerve. He could have left, he didn't have to get in my business. He all right, he's just some friend. He's from New York. He came down here to save his life, too. | 20:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Now I don't have a car either, so I've got to get someone to pick me up. I've got some biographical information to fill out, takes about 20 minutes or so. So maybe halfway through it, I'll call and get Chris to come pick me up. | 20:38 |
Theresa Harvey | So where did the other girl go? To interview someone else? | 20:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Well, there's five—Oh, the one who was right there? And she had to interview someone today. Oh, she was going to interview Ms. Cannon, but her grandmother died. | 20:55 |
Theresa Harvey | Did the grandmother die? | 21:09 |
Karen Ferguson | She died yesterday. | 21:11 |
Theresa Harvey | Last night? I talked to her last night. No, her mother's husband died. | 21:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Her mother's husband died, but then her grandmother died. | 21:18 |
Theresa Harvey | Cousin Hat died? Aw, cousin Hat died. Yeah. She was talking about it—Dorothy and I was on the phone 11 o'clock last night. Aw. | 21:21 |
Karen Ferguson | And she was so— | 21:33 |
Theresa Harvey | Listen, do you know what happened? Her mother's husband died yesterday. | 21:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. I know, I know. | 21:39 |
Theresa Harvey | And her grandmother, you see? Miss Hat, cousin Hat. | 21:40 |
Karen Ferguson | And she wanted so much for Chris to be able to at least see Miss Hattie too, because she said up to just recently she said her mind was still good. | 21:46 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, I wanted you to talk to her too. | 21:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 22:00 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh Lord. | 22:00 |
Karen Ferguson | So anyway, so she's not able to do that today. Of course. | 22:00 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh God. Oh man. She ain't thought to call me. Could I call her? | 22:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Sure, if you want to do that— | 22:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, Ms. Harvey, maybe we could begin by you telling me where you grew up or the community in which you were born and grew up before you went to New York City. And maybe talk a bit about the people with whom you grew up. | 0:01 |
Theresa Harvey | Okay. Let's see. I was born in Halifax County on December 4th, 1924. I was delivered by a midwife and her name was Elizabeth Tillery. | 0:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 0:39 |
Theresa Harvey | And I grew up on a farm. My grandfather was alive then I remember, but he died when I was eight years old. So before he died, I remember that they were sharecropping with Tillery. June Tillery. | 0:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 0:57 |
Theresa Harvey | My grandmother, her people were Tillery's, so my ancestors were Tillery's. | 0:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 1:10 |
Theresa Harvey | And she married a Rufus Suggs and from that union she had two girls and two boys. | 1:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 1:23 |
Theresa Harvey | Three boys. Three boys. And I stayed home with my grandmother. She raised me at home while the other ones was out in the fields. | 1:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 1:36 |
Theresa Harvey | I never worked in the fields because I was too little. And so the next thing I knew, after my grandfather passed, we were on our way to New York. That was about, I think it was '32 or '33. Somewhere along there. | 1:36 |
Karen Ferguson | So you said your grandmother raised you? | 1:56 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. Well, my mother was there. My mother was a widow. | 1:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 2:03 |
Theresa Harvey | No, I'm getting ahead of my story. My father was alive, but my mother and father was separated, so I didn't know. My mother got angry with my father and she left him before I was born. So she didn't let me even know my father. | 2:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 2:20 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh God. (coughs) Cold you get a drink of water please? Why am I getting this now? (coughs) [INTERRUPTION 00:02:34] | 2:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Sorry, you were talking about your— | 2:32 |
Theresa Harvey | My mother had left my father. | 2:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 2:41 |
Theresa Harvey | So when I was a baby, they said that he would come to see me but then I didn't remember. So the next thing I remember, I was in New York City. My mother, she had a sleep-in job. We used to call it sleep-in jobs. And she put me in school and she used to come and pick me up every day. But one day she didn't pick me up. Getting ahead of my story. | 2:42 |
Theresa Harvey | I went to school with Puerto Ricans kids, Jewish kids and Black kids. So one day my mother didn't pick me up, so I was standing out there crying. So my cousin came from work. She said, "What you stand out there crying, you know the way home." I said, "No, I don't." | 3:15 |
Theresa Harvey | So she took me home. So from then on I started going to school alone and coming back alone. That was in New York City. And then we lived there until I was around 10, I think. Am I ahead of my story? No, maybe I wasn't 10, maybe I was about six or seven. | 3:35 |
Theresa Harvey | And then my grandfather had a stroke. Then my mother, we came back down south and we stayed down here. My grandfather, he was able to walk, but his right arm was paralyzed. So between my grandmother, my sisters, I had three sisters. | 4:01 |
Theresa Harvey | One was married and she had three kids. And then the other two girls, they weren't married. Then my next oldest sister, she didn't get married till she went back to New York and then she got married there. And then the sister that I'm next to, she went to school in New York. She went to high school there. | 4:30 |
Theresa Harvey | And we stayed down there, I don't know how many years we stayed back down here. But then I found myself back in New York again. And so then, well my grandfather died that's one reason said everybody. My grandmother, everybody went back to New York. And we stayed there until my grandmother became ill then we moved back down south. That was in 1937. | 4:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 5:18 |
Theresa Harvey | Everybody moved back. My sister, she had left New York. She went to North Virginia with her husband and I left my two sisters in New York. So me and my mother came back down here. So my mother worked in the fields. My grandmother worked in the field and I went to school. | 5:21 |
Theresa Harvey | And I started going Tillery Chapel School, the old Tillery Chapel School. Then I went back to New York and lived with my sister for a year. And I tell you the reason why I was doing so much traveling is because my mother remarried in 1938. I didn't like my stepfather. He tried to abuse me, which I didn't know at the time was abuse me. But now I know. | 5:40 |
Theresa Harvey | After she remarried, I went to back to New York to live with my oldest sister. I went to school there. Still in grammar school and stayed there about a year. Then I didn't like it there because my cousin used to make us do all the work. | 6:11 |
Theresa Harvey | And her children, she made one of her daughters do a lot of work and myself. But the other two kids, she never made them do any the work. She had two homes. She had rooming houses. So every Saturday we had to go and clean the halls down and we would sell newspapers on Sunday mornings. | 6:37 |
Theresa Harvey | And so I came back to North Carolina with my mother, I would guess at around '39. At that time then, oh, the old Tillery Chapel School had burnt down. Then the new school had opened up. School called Shady Grove. | 6:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 7:17 |
Theresa Harvey | That was a little town right out of Tillery called New Town. So then I went there and I graduated from grammar school into high school. So I went to high school one year, then I became pregnant, left and went back to New York and got married to my husband at the age of 16. | 7:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So you went back. Now was he in New York City? | 7:44 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, my boyfriend? | 7:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 7:49 |
Theresa Harvey | Well I got pregnant here, then he left. | 7:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 7:52 |
Theresa Harvey | When I met him he was working with the WPA. | 7:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 7:54 |
Theresa Harvey | You heard of that, right? | 7:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, I have heard of that. | 7:58 |
Theresa Harvey | And my stepfather was also working with WPA. In meantime my mother was working in the fields to help support me. | 8:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 8:08 |
Theresa Harvey | Because I was the only child home at the time. And so then he left and went to the city. Then he sent for me and we got married and '41. And of course there was discrimination up there, but it wasn't as bad as it was down here. | 8:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 8:29 |
Theresa Harvey | So there was discrimination in some restaurants, child's restaurant, I'll never forget that. | 8:30 |
Karen Ferguson | You still up in New York? | 8:35 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. And the White Castle. | 8:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 8:40 |
Theresa Harvey | So as I said before, actually I did a lot of domestic work because I didn't have any training. So I did domestic work until I got a better job as a sales, oh no, I'm ahead of my story again. Then I got a job as an elevator operator in Macy's Department Store. Then I also was a solid girl in Gilmore's Department Store. Then I worked myself up to sales lady and that's what I've been doing most all my life, sales lady. | 8:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. And then when did you move back down here? | 9:18 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh, I moved back down here. Oh, okay. I got to tell you that too. I was a married twice. | 9:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 9:29 |
Theresa Harvey | So I got a book story tell to tell. And how old is my daughter Mae now? 44. Okay. My husband served in the Second World War. He spent two years in the war. In the meantime, I was having babies every year. I had three babies when he went in service. | 9:29 |
Theresa Harvey | My daughter, who will be 50 years old August, she was born while he was in service. When he came out of service, I let my mother keep the kids and I went to work. She kept the kids down in North Carolina and I worked in New York. | 9:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 10:17 |
Theresa Harvey | And so he used to run around a lot. So when I found him wrong one time, I left him in 1947 and I came back to North Carolina. Then I lived down with my mother and my stepfather and my husband was supporting me. He sent me money because we was still married. | 10:19 |
Theresa Harvey | So then I met my second husband when I was away from him. And then about a couple years my first husband was divorced. And then I stayed down here with my second husband from 1950, I think it was. I think it was '48 I met him. I hope I'm right. | 10:48 |
Theresa Harvey | And anyway, I had three kids for him and Tillery. And then when Connie was born, she's 36 now. I think we stayed down there. Anyway, I left here in '55 or '56. I think it was '56. | 11:24 |
Theresa Harvey | Went to Brooklyn. See I didn't go back to Manhattan. Went to Brooklyn. And then the second husband was a Navy man and he was a veteran. So then he got a job in New York. I was working, he was working and we tried to raise the children. | 11:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, when you first went to New York City, how old were you? | 12:18 |
Theresa Harvey | As I said, I don't remember. I was about maybe three years old. | 12:25 |
Karen Ferguson | And why do you think your mother went up there? Was just your mother and her children or? | 12:27 |
Theresa Harvey | After my grandfather died, well, there was nobody to work on the farm. | 12:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 12:42 |
Theresa Harvey | See I had one brother and he had gone to New York because we had cousins that had left after depression that went to New York. So we had places to go then because they sent for us to get away from the south and that's how we got to New York. | 12:42 |
Karen Ferguson | You said when your mother went up there, she did sleep-in work. What does that mean? | 13:09 |
Theresa Harvey | That's sleep on the job. | 13:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 13:15 |
Theresa Harvey | Come home once a week. | 13:16 |
Karen Ferguson | So where did you stay? | 13:18 |
Theresa Harvey | I was with my grandmother and my sisters and my uncle. | 13:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And your grandfather, the grandmother was that your— | 13:28 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. | 13:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Who was here that's his wife? | 13:28 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. | 13:28 |
Karen Ferguson | They had to separate. Did he go up to New York City with you? | 13:28 |
Theresa Harvey | Who my grandfather? | 13:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 13:35 |
Theresa Harvey | No, he died before we left. | 13:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 13:38 |
Theresa Harvey | He died when I was eight years old. But in the meantime, I started to go to New York when I was about three. | 13:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 13:43 |
Theresa Harvey | My grandmother was taking trips up there. Her sons would send for her. | 13:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. I see. | 13:47 |
Theresa Harvey | And she would take me with her, because see everybody else was working in the field. | 13:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 13:53 |
Theresa Harvey | See she and I was the only one home. | 13:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 13:55 |
Theresa Harvey | So I was her baby. And so she taught me how to sew and sing and pray and everything because she would do the cooking. | 13:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 14:07 |
Theresa Harvey | Because everybody else was in the fields. | 14:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now you said when you were growing up that your family was sharecropping for June Tillery? | 14:11 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. | 14:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Was he a White man or? | 14:18 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, White man. | 14:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And what was he like as a landowner? | 14:23 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, as far as I know, I don't know, he was all right. I don't know. It was a reason why that they had to leave because he wasn't making nothing. | 14:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 14:46 |
Theresa Harvey | And so, as I said, I don't know too much. I lived in New York most of the time. | 14:49 |
Karen Ferguson | When you moved to Manhattan, where were you living? | 14:57 |
Theresa Harvey | You want the address? | 15:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Well, just what part were you living? | 15:05 |
Theresa Harvey | I was living in Harlem. | 15:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. It sounds like your whole family moved up there. | 15:11 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. | 15:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Back together. Was that common? | 15:14 |
Theresa Harvey | No, the whole family didn't. My mother and I came because my grandmother became ill. | 15:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, okay. | 15:21 |
Theresa Harvey | And when we moved back that's when my mother met this man and married him. | 15:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 15:26 |
Theresa Harvey | That was in 1938. | 15:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 15:28 |
Theresa Harvey | But my sisters remained in New York. | 15:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 15:33 |
Theresa Harvey | Then I had the two sisters in New York. Then my older sister, she was in North Virginia with her husband. She was working over there. | 15:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Did people keep good contact with their families in the south when they moved up to New York City? | 15:48 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. | 15:51 |
Karen Ferguson | And did you ever consider New York City your home as opposed to here? | 15:51 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. | 15:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 16:00 |
Theresa Harvey | Because I went there so much and first school I ever went to was there. | 16:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 16:06 |
Theresa Harvey | But I moved back here and I liked it down here. I met my second husband here and he came down, he worked, he came from Goldsboro in North Carolina with the Carter Lumber Company. And that's how I met him. And then after my husband and I got divorced, then I married him. And then he died in '62 in New York. So I've been a widow that long but the first husband is still alive. | 16:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. And he was from New York City originally? | 16:47 |
Theresa Harvey | No, he was from Spring Hill, North Carolina. That's out of Tillery. | 16:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 16:55 |
Theresa Harvey | Going towards Scotland Neck. | 16:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you meet him? Did you meet him here or? | 16:57 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, the first husband? | 16:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 17:00 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. I met him here when I was going to school. | 17:01 |
Karen Ferguson | And you met your second husband here too? | 17:04 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. | 17:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about your grandparents? Did they grow up in Halifax County as well. | 17:13 |
Theresa Harvey | They told me my grandfather came from Brownsboro North Carolina. Because there's a lot of services over there. I was trying to find the people. When I get my car, I'm going to find my relatives up in Brownsboro, North Carolina. He was a Suggs. His name was Rufus Suggs. And that's where his people are from. Brownsboro North Carolina. And my grandmother's mother was a slave. | 17:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 17:50 |
Theresa Harvey | That's what she used to tell me. | 17:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you know where she was a slave. Whose slave she was? | 17:53 |
Theresa Harvey | With the Tillerys. | 17:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So you were working on the Tillery's— | 18:01 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. | 18:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Farm as well. | 18:02 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. | 18:04 |
Karen Ferguson | So was there a connection you think, between the White people like the Tillerys, the White Tillerys and the Black Tillerys? Because they used to be their slaves? What I'm trying to get at is your family had always worked for Tillerys. Do you think that's the reason they were on that farm? | 18:07 |
Theresa Harvey | I don't really know, but you could assume that. | 18:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 18:31 |
Theresa Harvey | Actually he was the biggest farmer down there. He had a lot of people working for him. | 18:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 18:37 |
Theresa Harvey | June Tillery was a big thing. That Tillery is named after him. | 18:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Okay. | 18:41 |
Theresa Harvey | So yeah, you could assume that's what happened. Because my grandfather died on his farm. | 18:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 18:52 |
Theresa Harvey | So after he died there then we couldn't farm anymore because there was nobody to work, so that's when everybody moved. | 18:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Now did your grandfather always work on his farm? | 18:59 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, when I came to know myself that's what he was doing. | 19:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. When you came back from New York City, was that a big change for you after you were there from three until about eight years old and then you came back down here. Can you remember it being a change? | 19:12 |
Theresa Harvey | No, there was no change. | 19:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 19:25 |
Theresa Harvey | No change at all. | 19:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 19:26 |
Theresa Harvey | Because you see at that time, Tillery, Mr. Jones, Jack Jones, Mr. Martin, J.E Martin and Edward Parks and Luther Parks. Say I think Mr. Luther Parks was the mayor magistrate or something. | 19:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 19:50 |
Theresa Harvey | Which one was it? Could you help me know that? You heard about that, right? Luther Parks was the man who married people, right? Well one was the mayor or the magistrate. No, magistrate of Tillery. | 19:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 20:03 |
Theresa Harvey | They were two brothers. They had two stores up there. And so he was the one you go to if you were arrested or whatever. Or I had even heard that he performed a ceremony, marriage ceremony. | 20:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 20:24 |
Theresa Harvey | And Jack Jones and Mr. Martin, they were the head of Tillery. They wanted to carry Tillery on. And so we never went to Scotland Neck. We stayed in Tillery. We stayed in Tillery because we had A&P store there, we had a dry goods store. They had the farm equipment there, post office, liquor store. And they had a gas station on every corner then. | 20:25 |
Theresa Harvey | So we had no reason to go any place else shopping. So actually, okay. Gary said not to make it sound good, but if you don't know anything about segregation, if there wasn't any around you, so what are you going to say? How can you make it bad? | 21:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 21:18 |
Theresa Harvey | Understand what I'm saying? | 21:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 21:20 |
Theresa Harvey | I'm just saying Tillery was Tillery and there was segregation. We knew that if we walked in the store and Mr. Parks were waiting on a White person, we knew that we have to stand back until he got finished with him. We knew that. So we didn't violate anything. | 21:21 |
Theresa Harvey | And if you go to the post office, if a White person is ahead of you, you'll wait until Ms. Jenny, Ms. Jenny White was our post mistress, wait until the White person left then you go. | 21:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 21:54 |
Theresa Harvey | That's the way it was. We knew our place. See what I'm saying? | 21:55 |
Karen Ferguson | But you lived in New York City. | 22:00 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. | 22:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Was it ever hard for you to come back here? Did you ever get into trouble when you were a girl coming back here because you were used to the ways of New York City? | 22:03 |
Theresa Harvey | No, I didn't because I knew my place when I came here. I knew exactly what to do when I came here. | 22:11 |
Karen Ferguson | How did you know? | 22:19 |
Theresa Harvey | Because see I was raised here. I went to school here and I knew the Lord and I knew where the Black people were supposed to be. I knew if we happen to have to go to Scotland Neck, go to the drug store for anything, you have to go down at the back of the other counter. They weren't allowed you to be waited on up in the front. You have to stand back until they waited on you. That's it. | 22:21 |
Theresa Harvey | So that didn't happen often because we had something like a little pharmacy in Tillery. And most of the Black people, they didn't go to the doctor that often. They would have the turpentine, their castor oil and everything right here in Tillery. | 22:48 |
Theresa Harvey | And we didn't have too many Andersons or BCs for headaches or something like that. If we did happen to get a headache, we'd take a BC, you can get that right over the counter in the grocery store. | 23:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 23:21 |
Theresa Harvey | And our shoes, we had a supply of shoes there. Clothing there. They had everything there in Tillery. | 23:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 23:29 |
Theresa Harvey | So actually we didn't have to go down to Scotland Neck to be bothered with telling you can't come in here. | 23:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 23:35 |
Theresa Harvey | You see what I'm saying? | 23:36 |
Karen Ferguson | So it was worse in Scotland Neck? | 23:36 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. | 23:38 |
Karen Ferguson | For Black people. | 23:38 |
Theresa Harvey | And then in Tillery. | 23:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, were there other ways in which it was worse? Did people get into trouble in Scotland Neck more often from the police or from other— | 23:39 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, see I didn't know what was going on in Scotland Neck because we didn't have radios a lot of time because the electricity. So a lot of us didn't have electricity. We had battery radios and we didn't buy newspapers. | 23:55 |
Theresa Harvey | The Black people would stand around listening to what the White people said. The older Blacks would listen to what the Whites were saying. That's the only news they would really get. | 24:12 |
Theresa Harvey | And if something went wrong or something, if a Black person really got in trouble, then you would really hear about it. So we heard about Black guy did something and he was executed for it. I think he raped a White girl. | 24:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 24:39 |
Theresa Harvey | Now I don't know what year that was or anything. So therefore we had no reason to go down there and talking about going into a restaurant, that was out of the question. | 24:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 24:51 |
Theresa Harvey | Because we also had our Black restaurant right in Tillery. | 24:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Now were there very many White people living around Tillery? | 24:53 |
Theresa Harvey | Were there many? | 25:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 25:03 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, Tillery was mostly Blacks. | 25:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:08 |
Theresa Harvey | You could count the White people on one hand really. | 25:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:12 |
Theresa Harvey | Their families. | 25:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:14 |
Theresa Harvey | But as you go into Tillery, starting from the Mansion Hill down on the side there, that used to be a White school there. So right on the main highway, there were White people living there. And a little bit further back, that was the White people's area. And most of the Black people would live out of town on the farm places. | 25:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Now you talked about Jack Jones and then there was the other man. | 25:43 |
Theresa Harvey | J.E Martin. | 25:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What would happened if you fell out with them? How much control did they have over people's lives? | 25:47 |
Theresa Harvey | Well they had the credit with them. You borrowed money from them. And if you needed to go to a doctor, if you didn't have any money, they would stand for it. That's the word they used to say. You'd go to the doctor and I'll say, "You're going to pay him." That's what he used to do. | 26:01 |
Theresa Harvey | And they had control because it had to be that way at that time. Because the Black people didn't have anything. But it wasn't bad. They weren't mean to us. | 26:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 26:42 |
Theresa Harvey | I don't care what Gary says—is he going to say—please don't let—is he going to hear this? | 26:43 |
Karen Ferguson | He won't if you don't want him to. | 26:48 |
Theresa Harvey | You take this out. | 26:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 26:51 |
Theresa Harvey | I'm just telling you, please take this out. Because I love Gary. But see, I'm telling like it is. But he told us, "Don't make it pretty." But I'm not making it pretty. I'm just telling the facts like I saw it. | 26:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 27:03 |
Theresa Harvey | See what I'm saying? It wasn't bad. It wasn't a bad place to live. | 27:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 27:08 |
Theresa Harvey | People love to come back home. Everybody would leave home will always come back to Tillery because they loved it. The White people, they were great to us. Very nice to us. We knew our place. We stayed in our place. | 27:09 |
Karen Ferguson | How— | 27:23 |
Theresa Harvey | We never had a hanging there. | 27:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 27:26 |
Theresa Harvey | Not in Tillery. | 27:27 |
Karen Ferguson | But there were places. I've heard that places like Roanoke Rapids, people have been telling me that they were harder to get along. | 27:28 |
Theresa Harvey | Well I heard these things. | 27:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 27:38 |
Theresa Harvey | I had never been to Roanoke Rapids. See the train always stopped in Weldon. | 27:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 27:44 |
Theresa Harvey | And we got off the train from the city, took the local train into the small Halifax, Tillery. We would go on out all the way out to Hop Goods or Oak City, wherever it stopped at, that little local train. And we never went to Roanoke Rapids. I didn't even know anything about Roanoke Rapids. All I know was Weldon. | 27:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 28:05 |
Theresa Harvey | Fact I used to think that there wasn't no place but Weldon. | 28:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 28:08 |
Theresa Harvey | Am I right sweetie? Because they said it was terrible up there with you. So that's all. | 28:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Now were closest to your grandmother? | 28:26 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes, I was. | 28:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 28:29 |
Theresa Harvey | Because my mother was a hardworking woman. | 28:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 28:31 |
Theresa Harvey | She would pick 300 pounds of cotton every day. | 28:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 28:34 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes, she did. But see, grandmother, she was a seamstress. | 28:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 28:38 |
Theresa Harvey | So grandmother was sew and sing and we'd pray and she taught me how to sew. And when she got ready to go to New York to visit the boys, her sons would send for her. So wasn't nobody there to stay with me. So she took me with her. So that's why I was up and down the road, up and down the road. | 28:40 |
Theresa Harvey | And I do remember when me and my mother came down when my grandfather had the stroke. Vaguely we stopped and had to change in Washington. And my mother, she wanted something to eat. So they had a restaurant there, but they had Colored and White. So we were in the Colored part. That I do remember. | 29:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 29:24 |
Theresa Harvey | But that was okay with us because we were used to it. Until Martin Luther King came along to change everything. If it hadn't been for him, it'd still going on. | 29:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 29:37 |
Theresa Harvey | Actually it wouldn't be because the kids now, they're not going to take it. They won't take what we went through. They're not going to do it. There'd be a lot of people dead. That's it. | 29:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Could you tell me a little bit about your grandmother? What kind of woman she was? | 29:50 |
Theresa Harvey | She was the most beautiful person I've ever met. I never met anyone as kindhearted. I never heard her say hell. I never said it. If she hear you say a lie, she would say, "Don't you say that." She say, "You say a story." | 29:54 |
Theresa Harvey | She was the most kindhearted person. She'd go to New York, people give her clothes, she go to New York to beg to come back and distribute out to the people down in Tillery. | 30:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 30:25 |
Theresa Harvey | Clothing, boxes of clothing, she would give away. Anything. She would sew for you. If you couldn't pay her, you would bring her some vegetables. She was satisfied. I loved her really more than I did my mama. | 30:26 |
Theresa Harvey | Because I could go to her when I can go to my mother. Well, especially when I started courting, I had to come and talk to her about it. She would tell me what to do. But I don't know, seemed like my mother, I don't remember my mother kissing me. | 30:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 30:54 |
Theresa Harvey | See but grandmother hugged me and petted me up. But my mother loved me, but she just didn't show her affection like my grandmother did. And as the years went by, then you begin to think about that. | 30:54 |
Theresa Harvey | That's why right now, when I started having my children, I always showed them how much I cared for them. I kissed them when they went to school in the morning. And when they came from school, I kissed them. They got the habit running to mommy, hugging mommy. And the morning and afternoon to show them that they need affection. That's' right. | 31:07 |
Karen Ferguson | As you think about it now, can you think of reasons why she didn't show much affection to you, your mother? | 31:30 |
Theresa Harvey | I figured she just worked so hard. That's what I thought later on, that she worked so hard. When she came home, she was so tired and all she wanted to do was take a wash off and eat dinner and sit on the porch and take a dip of snuff and we'd go and sit out of the yard. | 31:38 |
Theresa Harvey | If it was summertime, sit out of the yard and make a big smoke in the yard, keep the mosquitoes away and then we'd go to bed. But I'm sure that she love me though. But she would tear me up though. | 31:55 |
Karen Ferguson | She would? | 32:09 |
Theresa Harvey | Because I was spoiled. I was very spoiled. Think my grandmother said, "Spoil me," but then I want to have had my way. So maybe that's why that she spoiled me too. I think my mother did too. | 32:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Why was that? How so? | 32:29 |
Theresa Harvey | Because why was I so headstrong? Why I want to have my way? She must have been beating me as much as she's supposed to beat me and my grandmother would take up from me. She said, "Leave your baby alone now." | 32:29 |
Theresa Harvey | That's wrong with her now. Something like that. But she loved me though. But she just a hardworking woman all her life. My mother was widowed. In fact, we went to Halifax, this lady took me to Halifax about six months ago and I got my mother's first marriage certificate and her marriage certificate to my daddy. | 32:41 |
Theresa Harvey | So my mother was widowed at very age of, I think it was 20, 29 or something like that. 1918. Her first husband died in the flu epidemic. | 33:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 33:26 |
Theresa Harvey | So my baby sister, sister that I'm next to, she was the baby from that union. Then seven years later, she married my father. Then I was the only child by him. | 33:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 33:41 |
Theresa Harvey | So if I have sisters and brothers, I don't know where they are. I would like to try to find them. I've been trying to find my father's death certificate, but it's not in Halifax. So I don't know. Figure if I could find his death certificate, I could find his mother's name. But on the marriage certificate, they didn't have his mother name. It is unknown. So yeah. | 33:42 |
Karen Ferguson | So your mother never talked about your father? | 34:07 |
Theresa Harvey | No, but she said that he beat her and she left him. That was it. | 34:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 34:12 |
Theresa Harvey | She didn't like that. | 34:13 |
Karen Ferguson | No, no. | 34:14 |
Theresa Harvey | No, she never talked about too much about my father. | 34:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 34:20 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. Only thing that he took her to Pennsylvania and he slapped her and then she was her father's baby. | 34:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 34:30 |
Theresa Harvey | See and he didn't want nobody to touch mama. So then she wrote her daddy and said "He hit me," and granddaddy said, "Come on home." So she came home and had me there. | 34:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 34:44 |
Theresa Harvey | So that's why I was spoiled. So my other sister was seven years older than I was. When I came I was the only baby and everybody just spoiled me. | 34:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So you never did field work? | 34:53 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, yeah. I did but I didn't have to. You're curious, "Mama, can I go with you in the field?" That's like when I was going to school down here and I said, "Mama, can I go in the field with you today?" She said, "Theresa, now you know you're not going to do nothing. You know you're not going to stay out there all day in that field and work." | 35:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 35:19 |
Theresa Harvey | "Or you want to go after you eat lunch, you know you want to go to sleep." And that's what I did. I tried to get 100 pound of cotton. I tried so hard and I got 75 and my mothers still helping me putting cotton in the bag. And I tell you, always had trouble with my back from a little girl. And so then my mother said, "You can't do it." So I never had to do it. | 35:20 |
Karen Ferguson | How about your sisters and brothers? | 35:47 |
Theresa Harvey | I only had one brother. They left early. They went to New York. | 35:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So you don't know whether they had to do work? | 35:53 |
Theresa Harvey | They did it when my grandfather was alive. | 35:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 35:59 |
Theresa Harvey | But after he died then everybody left because there was no head of the family there. | 36:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 36:04 |
Theresa Harvey | See, he was the head of the family. See, after he died, there was no head of the family. Grandmother, she was older then and she couldn't work too much in the field. She'd pick a little cotton in slowly, but there wasn't much she could do. | 36:05 |
Theresa Harvey | And then they had a farm someplace one time. And I've shook the peanuts but not had to do it. Just did it because I was there. But we didn't do that long either because shared cropping, you didn't get too much out of it. | 36:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Why do you think your mother wanted to go to New York City? | 36:42 |
Theresa Harvey | To have a better life. Better life after granddaddy died. | 36:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 36:58 |
Theresa Harvey | See, as I said, when the head of the house is gone, there's no one to guide you. And so the brother said, "Well come on up to New York." There's plenty of housework up there. | 36:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 37:11 |
Theresa Harvey | So she went up there and my uncles, they were working hauling coal for the winter and some of my cousins went to the meat market. They were cutters, beef cutters or whatever they did there. They were working there. Two of my cousins retired from what did they used to call that? The New York Butcher. | 37:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 37:40 |
Theresa Harvey | They retired. Two of my cousins retired from that place. In fact, he lives in New Town now. He moved down here from New York. | 37:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, can you remember your neighbors when you were living down here? | 37:48 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. Well my auntie was a midwife. Her name's was Daisy Jackson. | 37:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 38:00 |
Theresa Harvey | She delivered babies. This is in New Town. | 38:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 38:03 |
Theresa Harvey | Where the Shady Grove School was. | 38:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 38:06 |
Theresa Harvey | Then right next to her, a little further, about from here across the street, there was Ms. Elizabeth Tillery. | 38:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 38:15 |
Theresa Harvey | That was who delivered me. | 38:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 38:20 |
Theresa Harvey | They were like competition. | 38:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 38:24 |
Theresa Harvey | You hear a lot of things when you're growing up. You hear the old people say, "Look, there Lizzie, she must be going out on the case." You're jealous of the lady going out. | 38:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right, right. | 38:35 |
Theresa Harvey | Then Elizabeth was the same way with Daisy. Yeah. She getting there. Yeah. Daisy going out on the case. If they see you're pregnant, who going to be your midwife? That's the stuff they would do. Competition. | 38:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you think, were there other things women could do to be in business for themselves in that way? | 38:53 |
Theresa Harvey | At that time business for themselves. Well, they had young ladies that were beauticians. | 39:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 39:08 |
Theresa Harvey | We had a beauty parlor in Tillery too. | 39:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 39:09 |
Theresa Harvey | Barbershop. Let's see what else? Well, most in that area, it was farming. | 39:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 39:23 |
Theresa Harvey | And what year did the, what you would call that? The government put up those houses? Resettlement. | 39:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 39:35 |
Theresa Harvey | See the resettlement, we could have had one but we didn't have a head of the house. | 39:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 39:41 |
Theresa Harvey | My grandmother had no husband, so that's actually why we really went to New York. | 39:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Now it wasn't so much that she felt, it was because the government wouldn't let you have it unless you had a male head of household? | 39:47 |
Theresa Harvey | That's right. | 39:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 39:58 |
Theresa Harvey | That's it. It was so many people and children. | 40:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 40:05 |
Theresa Harvey | From all different parts of the country and the whole farm over there was just all just houses here, just everything. And Tillery was a boom in town. | 40:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 40:19 |
Theresa Harvey | It was. | 40:19 |
Karen Ferguson | So did the boom come with the resettlement? | 40:21 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes it did. | 40:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So the population rose or what? | 40:24 |
Theresa Harvey | No, actually, now before I was born, Tillery was a sawmill town. | 40:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 40:33 |
Theresa Harvey | They had sawmill there, they had banks there, they had a restaurant there, big restaurant. I know the lady who lives in that house now, there used to be a restaurant for the workers and everything. They said Tillery used to be a booming town. | 40:34 |
Theresa Harvey | So what happened is, I don't know, when I left to go to New York the last time with my husband, everybody died. The White guys died. They were taking care of Tillery and then the young ones didn't want to be bothered. | 40:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, | 41:07 |
Theresa Harvey | Right. So I don't know. It was torn down or burnt down. I don't know. But when I did come back, I said, "What happened here? Where the stores?" There was a couple of stores there. | 41:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 41:22 |
Theresa Harvey | Then the two brothers died. Then what happened? Do you remember what happened? Did Tillery burn down or did it storm down? You don't remember either? She don't remember. She's in her early 30s, she don't know. | 41:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 41:35 |
Theresa Harvey | So I don't know what happened. I don't even think Gary knows. | 41:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 41:39 |
Theresa Harvey | But Gary was here. He should know. | 41:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Well, can you think of any other reason why a little town like that might decline? | 41:42 |
Theresa Harvey | Because the big bosses died. | 41:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 41:52 |
Theresa Harvey | Jack Jones and Mr. J.E Martin. Don't you think so? That's right. Because the young people didn't care. | 41:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 42:04 |
Theresa Harvey | He's got a son living in Tillery now, he don't try to fix up nothing. | 42:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 42:07 |
Theresa Harvey | He's letting that big building just fall down. That belongs to him. Jim Martin. | 42:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 42:11 |
Theresa Harvey | That belonged to him. He's letting it come to anything. Well, what are they keeping up there for? | 42:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now you said people from all over the country came to live at the resettlement farm? | 42:19 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. From Rich Square. | 42:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 42:29 |
Theresa Harvey | Jackson. How far? I don't know. Ahoskie. | 42:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Was there a difference between the people who had always been living in Tillery and these newcomers? | 42:43 |
Theresa Harvey | No, they were nice people. We all got acquainted. We got along well. But they had a couple of fights on Saturday night in Tillery. We had a sheriff, we had a good sheriff. One I remember was Mr. Draper. | 42:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 43:03 |
Theresa Harvey | Had a good sheriff. People could get drunk and staggered in Tillery but they didn't bother. | 43:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 43:10 |
Theresa Harvey | People get cut up there and everything and take it to the hospital and then everything. They had bad people there too, like fighting and everything, but no murder so far. Until later on in the years. I wasn't here then. | 43:13 |
Karen Ferguson | So this fighting happened between the newcomers and the people who'd been here for a long time? | 43:28 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, yeah. | 43:33 |
Karen Ferguson | So there was a little conflict. | 43:34 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, sure. | 43:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Why do you think that was? Why do think they didn't like each other those two groups? | 43:37 |
Theresa Harvey | Drinking. Alcohol make you do crazy things. | 43:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. So you don't think there was any underlying tension between the two groups? | 43:44 |
Theresa Harvey | No. Maybe a woman was involved or something. No, it wasn't nothing. It just maybe a woman. Had to be a woman or either they were too drunk. | 43:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So you said the sheriff wouldn't bother you if he got— | 43:59 |
Theresa Harvey | No, he wouldn't. | 44:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Would the sheriff bother you in other places? Like, not that sheriff but the— | 44:04 |
Theresa Harvey | In Scotland Neck? | 44:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 44:09 |
Theresa Harvey | I don't think you could stagger down the street now in Scotland Neck. I don't think so. | 44:10 |
Karen Ferguson | What would happen to you? | 44:14 |
Theresa Harvey | I think they would lock you up, I think. Or either tell you to go home. Scotland Neck. | 44:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Did the police protect people? For example, say a person stabbed another Black person, would there be any arrests? | 44:24 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh sure. You would have to go to prison or a court or whatever. Go to jail. | 44:38 |
Karen Ferguson | So the police did provide protection? | 44:42 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. Yes, they did. | 44:45 |
Karen Ferguson | How about the other way? Did the police harass? | 44:46 |
Theresa Harvey | No, no, no, no, no. They never harassed you. Nope. That's right. We had pretty good people around that time. | 44:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Now you said you lived in New Town? | 45:04 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. New Town. | 45:07 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you come there? | 45:08 |
Theresa Harvey | Okay. After we all came back from New York, my aunt has a lot there. She had a house there, a four room house there. I told you she and the other lady midwife was living right close to each other. | 45:11 |
Karen Ferguson | And when was this that you moved there? | 45:29 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh. | 45:30 |
Karen Ferguson | How old were you? | 45:30 |
Theresa Harvey | I think maybe I was 10 or 11. | 45:35 |
Karen Ferguson | 10 or 11. | 45:40 |
Theresa Harvey | Maybe 12. I don't know. Something like that. | 45:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Now where is New Town? | 45:42 |
Theresa Harvey | Okay. 561 out of Tillery going towards Scotland Neck. There's a church on the right. And in fact, now the school that I used to go to is there, but it's the Royal Light. The same one that Maggie goes to. That's our church. | 45:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 46:00 |
Theresa Harvey | That's the school that I went to. | 46:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 46:02 |
Theresa Harvey | They made it into a church. | 46:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 46:04 |
Theresa Harvey | That's what you call New Town. | 46:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now you said you went to the Tillery Chapel School? | 46:06 |
Theresa Harvey | The old Tillery Chapel School, yeah. | 46:12 |
Karen Ferguson | So that was the Rosenwald School? | 46:15 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes, that's it. Rosenwald. | 46:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Now what was school like down here? | 46:18 |
Theresa Harvey | School down here was, oh, to me it wasn't too good. Not for me. I like New York better. | 46:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Why? | 46:35 |
Theresa Harvey | Because we had lunches in New York. We get our cookies and our milk in the afternoon. And we didn't get breakfast in New York, but we got our free lunch right. Now that was in the 30s. | 46:35 |
Theresa Harvey | The commodity food is the food that you get from Halifax now, Weldon now, bean flour and stuff like that. And surplus food, we used to call it. Surplus. And the teacher would choose two girls each day to cook some beans and make some biscuits for our lunch. We had to bring a bowl and a spoon from home, so we have a bowl and beans. I don't think we had no meat. We probably had to have put some lard in it. | 0:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 0:43 |
Theresa Harvey | So we had to make the biscuits, and we would have that for lunch. And until that was it. That's when they started. Before we had to take our lunch. We didn't have anything before that. So I think that started around 30—Let's see now, around '38 and '39. I remember that. That was going on then. | 0:43 |
Karen Ferguson | How about other things about school down here? Did you have enough books and supplies and things? | 1:17 |
Theresa Harvey | No, we didn't have too many books. Everybody was the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, everybody was in one room. | 1:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you more advanced than other kids your age, because you'd gone to school in New York? | 1:34 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes, I was. And the teacher she didn't like it because the way I would do an example and she couldn't stand that. She said, "It don't go like that." So I had a problem with her. | 1:39 |
Karen Ferguson | The way you were doing what? Sorry. | 1:52 |
Theresa Harvey | Like my arithmetic. I would say two and two are three and something like that. But they didn't do it that. They did a different way. I can't remember now what the problem was, but there was a problem between me and this teacher. She didn't like me because I was smart. I wasn't too smart in arithmetic, but in geography, and then because I had been to the aquarium, what do you call that, we was talking about it the other night? Are you asleep, Carl? You can answer this question. He's sleeping. | 1:54 |
Theresa Harvey | The planetarium in New York that you can lay back and see the sky and everything, see I had done all that and when it came down I knew all this, so I wasn't too much favor in her eyesight. She didn't like me too well. | 2:28 |
Karen Ferguson | That's an interesting thing about you having been exposed to all this stuff. A lot of the people that I've talked to here who grew up on the farm, talk about how little they really knew about the world. | 2:44 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh, is that so? | 2:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you notice you had a different, you were maybe more sophisticated in terms of— | 2:56 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes, I was a dancer and I was a singer, because I sung in New York. And I was a good dancer, very good dancer. Because we used to dance all Fat Wallace records in New York, because my cousin had this six room apartment and she had a Piccolo in one room. | 3:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 3:23 |
Theresa Harvey | We called it Piccolo at that time. And on the side she have Saturday night, rent parties, Saturday night parties. And we girls would dance, we children would dance for money. We would dance. We'd get down, boy on Saturday, we get down for money. And that's why I learned how to dance. So when I came down here, I was the best dancer in until—And I taught a lot of my friends how to dance. And then I was a singer, some of the vaudeville shows would come around, and one time the lady chose me to travel with them as far as I could go, because I was only 12. I went as far as Ahoskie and I couldn't go any farther cause I was only 12 years old. | 3:23 |
Karen Ferguson | How do you think the other kids first looked at you being a city girl? What did they think of you? | 4:13 |
Theresa Harvey | They didn't like me. | 4:19 |
Karen Ferguson | They didn't? Why not? | 4:19 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, I'm going to tell you right now, when you come from the city, a lot of these people don't like you. No. They don't like you, because if you look good, they going to talk about you. Right now they don't like me. They put up with me because when I go out, I mean I wear what I got, I don't save it for Sunday. So I had a problem when I first come down here, "Where you going all dressed up?" I says, "I'm coming here." I says, "I wear my clothes. Tomorrow's not promised to me." So you have a problem. | 4:22 |
Theresa Harvey | When I was growing up down here, people were friendly. They would come by and get you to go to church. They would share with you what they got, but when I moved down here five years ago, five years ago this month, I was shocked how people changed. The Black people have changed towards you. I went back to my old church, Tillery Chapel, and so they said, "What you want to do?" I said, well, because I was singing in my church for 30 years in New York. So they said I would like to sing in the choir. Nobody came to me and said, "Choir night is Wednesday night. You need to get a robe." | 5:01 |
Theresa Harvey | Just ignored me. They ignored me for one solid year. Am I lying, sweetie? I mean that. Would not come and pick you up to take you to church. I had to get to church the best way you could get to church. That's right. And so I took it for a year, and the Lord spoke to me. He said, "You're not going to let nobody stop to you from doing what you want to do." So I went to Galilee Baptist Church, they accepted me there, because through my church experience and they don't have a great choir like Tillery Chapel do. Because Tillery Chapel got a great piano player. I have a piano player is old. She won't step down and let nobody else do it, so therefore the choir's going be blah. Forever, you understand what I'm saying? | 5:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 6:44 |
Theresa Harvey | Until she decide—See, they don't want to hurt her feeling. She been there so long, so therefore we are something nobody wants to really sing. But I go anyway. Because she leads us all the way she wanted to lead them. And before you could get your part out, she's on another thing and sometime I get that same choking I had a while ago, that cough, because you're straining. There's a way to sing, you don't have to strain your voice. But with her you strain. But I'm not going to get up there and say nothing. I'm not running the church. I'm going to let her stay just where she is because that's what they want. | 6:45 |
Theresa Harvey | I'm going to serve the Lord the way I know how to serve him, in my way. I'm not going to try to boss anybody because they was there before I was, I'm a newcomer. And so that's the way it is. But the people have changed. They're not friendly like they used to be, when we were growing up. Everybody, if I did something wrong, you could tell me where I was wrong. You could tell my mother, but you better not tell nobody's kid what to do now. But that's all over the world. I mean, that's all over the United States and which is right. Because most of the time you tell someone what to do, your kids aren't right either. | 7:27 |
Theresa Harvey | But I'm just talking about how they, "You look good." You know, I mean, you could look good too. I mean there's clothes out here for everybody. Everybody's getting food stamps now. I used to send boxes and boxes of clothes down here. But now Super 10 is here, Dollar Store. I mean the little money that the welfare give you, you can buy a whole outfit and look good, because I have something. Look, my children send me things from New York and I look good. Why get angry with me because I look good? I don't want your husband. My husband, I've been a widow almost 32 years now, so I still got a husband living. So I want to serve the Lord and I want to sing. I don't want your husband. So this is the way they are down here, and you think you're coming back to what you left, but you're not. | 8:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Why do you think it's changed down here? | 8:57 |
Theresa Harvey | Ah, someone told me, why has it changed down here? Most of the time people they don't want to change. Just like Tillery, they won't try to build it up. And now we have people, children that's going to college, engineers and air pilots, I have a cousin there that the son's a pilot. They got money. But do you think they come and put a laundromat in Tillery? No. Why? They don't want to built anything. But they will show off when they come down, "Oh, my son is this and that." You got money, put something in Tillery where you were born. Give something back that gave you when you were growing up. That's what I would do, if I could hit the lottery, I would show them something. I would. But it's that's the way they are. And don't want to see you get ahead, they'll talk about you so bad. | 9:01 |
Theresa Harvey | And people say, "Well, talking doesn't hurt you." But it does sometimes, it will make you feel bad. And so that's the way it's changed. They don't want to—And because now a lot of the Black people don't want to come to the community center. A lot of seniors, well, they would rather stay home than to join us. But they don't want to change. See. | 10:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Now you said you went to Tillery Chapel Church, Tillery Chapel, when you were growing up, can you remember your baptism? Were you baptized? | 10:27 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. I remember the creek, coming across the— | 10:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Mill run. | 10:39 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. I was baptized right there when I was eight years old. I got my, as they say, I got my religion right there in the old Tillery Chapel Church. Right behind the casket factory. That's it. | 10:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you tell me a little bit about that day, or? | 10:54 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. I remember that day. They had pinned the sheet around me. And first mama had this beautiful dress she had made for me. My grandmother had made for me. I had a brand new pair of shoes, new socks, mama had did my hair good and everything. But we didn't put on socks and shoes till we probably had to walk to church, barefooted. We walked to church with bare feet. Then we go to the pump, mama and them bring the wash cloth with us. We wash our feet, dry our feet, then put our shoes on. I remember that day very good. Then everybody would have on sheets and the white thing around your head, then we would sing this song, Wade In The Water Children, and everybody would be in the line going down to the water. And the preacher be standing there with the boots up here and the thing on waiting for you. | 10:56 |
Theresa Harvey | Always my mother said, my grandma said, I had always been a spunky child. I was never afraid of anything. And I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid. Because grandmother said, "You're too young to get baptized." I said, "No, I'm not." I just cried and so she let me get baptized. So I told you I was a headstrong kid, I always wanted to have my way. So he baptized me and I got up and I was thanked to God, because I was trained. I always watched my grandmother did, and they always said I was a fresh kid. Because I had a lot of knowledge, a lot of get up and go about myself, but they called it fresh. But that was the knowledge that the Lord had given me too, and I was singing in church, Chapel Church at the age of six with Ms. Sally Mason, she was the organist there. | 12:04 |
Theresa Harvey | They had one of these pedal organs. And it was some kind of recital that night. I don't remember what it was, but I know I sung this song, I Come To The Garden Alone, and that's my favorite song. So they had put a white sheet down, I was wondering what they putting this white sheet down on the pulpit for? Right. So then when I started singing, people started throwing money up there, so then I stopped singing was picking up the money. So my mother said, "Don't pick the money up, baby. I'll pick the money up. You keep singing." I'll never forget that. I remember that. And so that's why I've always loved to work in the church and sing in the choir. I don't have a great voice, but I do know how to put over a song. | 12:57 |
Karen Ferguson | What were other times of celebration at church during the year? Did you have a homecoming? | 13:45 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh yeah. Yeah. Homecoming on August, third week in August. Yeah. We had tables outside and people would bring food from home. We had fried chicken, we had all kind of vegetables and nothing got spoiled. See how good the Lord was to us. And fresh vegetables from the garden, cake, and sometimes people would have the guy up sometime up at the school, the old school, he'd be up there taking pictures and up there they would have the ice cream. They'd be making the ice cream, old fashioned ice cream, and they'd be kids would go up there and get a 5 cent cone ice cream up there. But it was beautiful time, everybody would come home the third week in August. | 13:50 |
Karen Ferguson | And did you come home from New York to homecoming? | 14:36 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. I come. | 14:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Every year? | 14:40 |
Theresa Harvey | Almost every year I would come. Because my mother was taking care of my kids, and I was in New York working. That was with my first husband. Well, with the second husband they had stopped all that. Then they had stopped having revival meeting in the daytime, because they started to work in the daytime and have the meetings at night. | 14:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, so is this when people started doing public work, or? | 15:03 |
Theresa Harvey | Public work and a lot of field work. Especially when the kids was on the farm trying to help their parents. So they wouldn't have church at night then, and most of the funds just stopped then. | 15:05 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were talking about school, when you were going to school were there children who didn't come to school because they had to work in the— | 15:20 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. There was a lot of children that couldn't come to school. Maybe they come twice a week or something like that. | 15:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you go every day? | 15:32 |
Theresa Harvey | Every day. Because I was right around the corner from the school. I was in New Town, the same school. | 15:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you an unusual student because you could go every day, or? | 15:40 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, because see, my mother worked in the fields for me in order that I would go. See my mother worked, and I think my grandmother was getting something and I don't know what they were getting. I think she was getting something like an old age pension, and so my mother worked and after she married this man, but she had to work to take care of me, because I wasn't his child. So that's what she said she worked for. | 15:44 |
Karen Ferguson | So he wouldn't help support you when they got married, he wouldn't help? | 16:10 |
Theresa Harvey | No. I told you he didn't, he wanted to abuse me because he wanted—If I had of did what he wanted me to do, he wouldn't have minded me, he didn't even want me to eat. Said I eat too much. That's why my mother worked to take care of me. | 16:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 16:32 |
Theresa Harvey | I remember many times, "She eats too much." And my mother said, "Well, I bought the food." So therefore I couldn't stay there. So when I got became, what? 12? I went to New York with my sister and then I came back and I stayed with her again, and I was bigger then, I could take care of him, I used to hit him, fight him. | 16:33 |
Karen Ferguson | So he hit you? | 16:55 |
Theresa Harvey | No, he wouldn't hit me. He'd crawl around, try to get in the bed with me. | 16:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh. Okay. I understand. | 16:58 |
Theresa Harvey | And I used to have to sleep with wood under my bed. And because my mother was a drinker and he was a drinker. Just on the weekend, she'd be sleeping in the room, he'd be crawling around trying to abuse me. So I just— | 16:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you mother know about this? | 17:13 |
Theresa Harvey | She didn't know until my other sister came home and then he tried her. So then my sisters got together and they told her, and then eventually then, well I went back to New York with her to stay. Next time I came back I was larger, bigger then. | 17:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 17:34 |
Theresa Harvey | I was married then. He didn't bother me no more. | 17:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Now was—What was going to say? So when you moved back to New York City, after your mother got remarried, was your grandmother still living? | 17:38 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, she was. | 17:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Was that hard for you to leave her? | 17:51 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. It was hard for me. But she was with her other daughter, so she was Okay. | 17:54 |
Karen Ferguson | So she wasn't living with you then after your mother got married? | 18:01 |
Theresa Harvey | No. They were living close together though. One house there, another house there. Yeah. Yeah. Help yourself. | 18:06 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were at school, did the teachers play favorites? | 18:18 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, the last teacher, Ms. Shields, she didn't. I'm talking about the first teacher that didn't understand the way I was doing my examples. But the second teacher, we had second, my last teacher when I graduated from grammar school, she was a beautiful teacher. She had no favorites, she treated everybody the same way. She was a lovely woman. | 18:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Did the teacher who didn't treat you very well, did she treat light skinned and dark skin, Black students differently? | 18:44 |
Theresa Harvey | I really didn't pay that too much attention. But I'll tell you the one reason why she didn't, her name was Mrs. Smith. | 18:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 18:57 |
Theresa Harvey | I'll tell you one reason why Ms. Smith didn't like me. My sister at the time was working up with Mrs. Jones, Jack Jones' wife, cooking for her. So in the evenings I would walk uptown and walk back with my sister. So in the meantime, they had a dance hall over here. Right? So I would go over in the dance hall and hang around there until my sister come out, she would be in there. | 18:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh right. | 19:23 |
Theresa Harvey | She didn't have no right to be in there. She was a teacher. | 19:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 19:26 |
Theresa Harvey | So she didn't like me because she knew I had seen her in the dance hall the night before. So that's why she didn't like me. And when she stood over you in the morning to show you something, her breath smelled terrible. Now I know what it was, cigarettes and I guess anything else she wanted to do. She didn't like me because of that. She thought I might tell someone. But I didn't pay no attention. I would just say hello to her and I'll be in there doing my little dance and waiting for my sister to get off work. | 19:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Now why wasn't the teacher supposed to go into the dance hall? | 20:01 |
Theresa Harvey | At that time? You a teacher? Oh no. You aren't—You supposed to be Miss Goody Goody. because you are a teacher. You weren't supposed to be caught in no place, they got rid of her too. See, to this day long, they got rid of her. | 20:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there other people in the community who had to be to be goody goodies that? | 20:24 |
Theresa Harvey | Preacher's children. | 20:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 20:32 |
Theresa Harvey | The preacher's children. Yes, that's right. They had to be, and they had to sneak out to do what they want to do. That's right. And then I wasn't allowed in dance hall, but I'd go up there when my mother wasn't up there. My mother used to come, "Get out of that dance hall there." But that's all the pleasure we had. | 20:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Was the dance hall the same as the Piccolo? | 21:00 |
Theresa Harvey | The Piccolo was the machine, we called it. It was in the dance hall. | 21:03 |
Karen Ferguson | So like a jukebox? | 21:06 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, the jukebox you called it. | 21:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 21:09 |
Theresa Harvey | But at that time it was a Piccolo there. I don't know where they get that name from, the Piccolo. | 21:10 |
Karen Ferguson | How about jaint or a joint, was that the same thing? Other people had been calling them joints, or— | 21:17 |
Theresa Harvey | Joints? | 21:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 21:21 |
Theresa Harvey | No, it wasn't a joint, because there wasn't no drunks laying around or anything. | 21:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, so a joint has sold the alcohol, liquor. | 21:26 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, he sold that way in the back. But nowhere where the kids could see it. | 21:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 21:37 |
Theresa Harvey | Because they had a pool table on that side and a dancing place over to the side. And the back there was a barbershop and a restaurant. Old Tillery was jumping. | 21:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 21:48 |
Theresa Harvey | She don't remember that, she weren't even born. | 21:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Tillery City? | 21:52 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, actually, I'm going to tell you something I had a better time in Tillery than I did in New York. | 21:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Why was that? | 22:00 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, because I didn't even have a boyfriend in New York. I didn't think about a boyfriend in New York till I came down here. We used to go to Central Park and everything and get lay under the bushes and play. Didn't think about nothing. But when I moved down here, the girls taught me. (both laugh) | 22:03 |
Karen Ferguson | What did they teach you? | 22:22 |
Theresa Harvey | They taught you what was going, what was happening. Yeah. On the Monday morning they get in the toilet, didn't have a bathroom, had a toilet, so they said, "So, what did you do on the weekend?" I said, "Went to church." "You mean you didn't—" | 22:22 |
Theresa Harvey | This is not going on the tape now. I don't want this on the tape. | 22:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, I'll turn it off. Say it again, then I turned it off. You go to the bathroom. | 22:40 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. We going into the toilet. Well, they didn't have a bathroom. So the girl said, "So, what you do over the weekend, Theresa?" I said, "I went to church." "Did you see Willie last night?" I said, "No, I didn't see Willie last night." Said, "You mean to tell me you didn't get none." I said, "None of what?" I didn't know what she talking about. She said, "You didn't let the boy get none." "Get none of what girl? What are you talking about?" She said, "Oh girl, you stupid. You been to New York, you don't know nothing." So she kept on that. But believe me, when I met Willie, Willie showed me what getting some was. | 22:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Hey, you said before that your grandmother, you went to your grandmother. | 23:30 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. | 23:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Now what did she [indistinct 00:23:36]? | 23:33 |
Theresa Harvey | But I didn't tell grandmother that. | 23:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. No, but you said you spoke to her, what did she tell you, what kind of advice? | 23:37 |
Theresa Harvey | Okay. So when I was having problems, after I started going with this guy, so we used to go to the school programs at night. So this other girl was at my boyfriend. So I saw him walk down the road with her, she wouldn't turn him loose. He didn't want to go, but he couldn't get loose from the girl. So I spent the night with my cousins, which was closer to the school that night. So I came home, I was crying, so grandma said, "What's the matter, baby?" I says, "That girl took my man last night. Then she wouldn't turn him loose." She said, "Sit down here and write him a note right now." I wrote him a note. I says, "If you ever tell me to come to the program party, and you let me go home alone, I'll never speak to you again." | 23:41 |
Theresa Harvey | That's what my grandmother told me to tell him. And then he said, "Well, I couldn't get loose from her. She just held me." And so he had to go that way, because she was holding onto him. But I never had no problem with him anymore. Anything that happened I would cry to my grandmother, then she would just tell me what to do. It was wonderful. | 24:24 |
Theresa Harvey | And even when I got married and my second son was born, she had to be the midwife before the midwife got there, she had to cut the cord and she loved him to death. She loved him until she died. And he still think about grandma right now, he's 51 years old now. | 24:46 |
Karen Ferguson | What did she teach you about being a wife? Did she have to tell you anything about being a good wife? | 25:12 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. My grandmother told me to always—But I read a lot of books. See, I read a lot of true stories. And I didn't actually want to have anything to do with the guy, because I read this book said you not supposed to have intercourse until you were married. So I told him this. He said, "Well, I'll marry you." Little fool you know. But I said, "I'm not supposed to get in the bed with you until I'm married." So I said, "Grandma," I said, "I don't know what to do." I said, "This guy keep asking me to have—" She said, "Now, Theresa, now you can't do that. You might get pregnant, don't do that." But the girls with they was, it's just like now dope. "Just like try it, you'll like it." You understand what I'm saying? You want to do right, but then you want to be with that in crowd. You see what I'm saying? You know better, but you just go ahead because the other girls are doing it. You see, that's what happened to me. Hard head. I knew better. | 25:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, was there anything you could do in those days to keep from having a baby or to keep— | 26:31 |
Theresa Harvey | Your parents didn't tell you anything, honey. | 26:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 26:41 |
Theresa Harvey | They didn't tell. That's what my grandmother told me that, but my mother didn't tell me that. When I became a young lady all she said was, they wouldn't say dress, they would say coat, "Keep your coat down." Now what is that telling anybody anything? She should have—And my sisters didn't even tell me. I didn't even know when I became pregnant. My cousin had to tell me. And then everybody got up and, "Ooh, ooh, ooh. Now." They want to tell me something then. But parents did not tell young ladies anything. I know my parents didn't. You didn't know. And the boys, their fathers probably didn't tell them nothing either, because otherwise they wouldn't have did what they did, because my husband was, I was 14 and he was 19, and he knew he should have known better, but I didn't know no better. | 26:41 |
Theresa Harvey | And it was very hard and long then because nobody would tell you nothing, and they wouldn't talk about sex at all. Wouldn't discuss it at all. And it was hard for a lot of kids. And it was so hard then because once you became pregnant, if you didn't get married right away, you are a outcast. The girls you played with couldn't play with you anymore because the mother's afraid you going to tell him what you done. And most of the time, those same girls were doing what you were doing, they just hadn't got caught yet. So then that's when my husband went to New York with his family, his sister's up there and he sent for me and we got married in New York, because I didn't have no friends after I became pregnant. After them told me what to do, then I didn't have no friends. | 27:33 |
Karen Ferguson | What about at church? What happened at church? Could you go to church? | 28:23 |
Theresa Harvey | I wouldn't go anyplace. I got to stay home. I'd cry, cry, cry all day long. My mother said, "I got to send you away from here. That boy better hurry up and get a job and send for you." So he finally got a job and he sent for me. | 28:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Was there any birth control at all available to people? | 28:40 |
Theresa Harvey | Not that I know of. Nothing. And I guess there was some condoms around, I wouldn't know. Yeah, so it was hard. The parents didn't tell girls anything at that time. Nothing. You was lucky if you could stay in school and not get pregnant, you were a lucky person. Now, I'm not saying the mothers didn't tell other girls, but I know my mother didn't tell me anything. And most of my girls that I went to school with, they found these things out by themselves. In the woods, that's where they went. That's where they went. | 28:43 |
Karen Ferguson | You got married when you were 16? | 29:36 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. | 29:38 |
Karen Ferguson | And you got married in New York City? | 29:40 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. | 29:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you think of the point in which you felt when people started treating you like a grownup? Like a grown woman? | 29:43 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh, after I had the baby. After I had the baby, I was grown up then. You got to get out here and go to work to help my husband. In fact, I didn't know how to take care of the baby. My mother came from—She and her husband had moved to Baltimore at that time, so my mother said, she came up when I had the baby. And so the baby was crying so much I said, "Mama, please get up and take care of the baby. I don't know what to do with this baby. I don't want no baby no way." Mama took the baby back to Baltimore, and then I stayed in New York. In fact, I took the baby to Baltimore to her, and she raised my oldest son. He was six months old when I took him to her, and she wouldn't turn him loose too either. She wouldn't turn him loose. In fact, that's my picture up there with him, my first baby. | 29:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 30:41 |
Theresa Harvey | I was 16. | 30:41 |
Karen Ferguson | I'll take a look at that when I— | 30:41 |
Theresa Harvey | Okay. | 30:44 |
Karen Ferguson | —finished here, I'd like to see it. Now, what did you do when you, you said you went to work? What did you do in New York when you got up there— | 30:52 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, my first job was domestic work. My sister had to teach me. | 30:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 30:58 |
Theresa Harvey | Because I didn't know how to clean a bathroom, and I didn't know how to use a vacuum cleaner. I didn't know how to wash windows. She took me on her job, she taught me how to do that. And then I did that until I learned—Then I got a factory job and then the Second World War came and then I got plenty of jobs then, I worked on the assembly line and factories. I worked in Newark, New Jersey. And I did a lot of work. | 30:59 |
Karen Ferguson | So it was a good time during Second World War? | 31:41 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. It was a good time. Yeah. It was a good time. We had plenty of money. Plenty of money. | 31:46 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do then? You worked? | 31:48 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, but when my husband—Yeah. I worked a month at a time. Because I was getting a check, and I worked a month and I'd come down to North Carolina and I'd stay a month, I'd go to North Virginia to my sister a month. I had money, $125 a month, so that was good money. I got a lot of money at that time. Then I would come back to New York and I would work about another six months, get me a lot of clothes and sending kids clothes. I had a good time, until my husband came home. | 31:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Now you said your husband, your first husband working on at the WPA? | 32:29 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. In his teenage years. | 32:33 |
Karen Ferguson | And what did he do there? | 32:35 |
Theresa Harvey | I don't know, I guess they blew up stumps and clear land, Old Ms. Vera told me they were clearing land for the farmers. That's what she told me. Ms. Vera plumber. Because she was working for the school board at the time. She's in her seventies now. | 32:37 |
Karen Ferguson | So did he remember that as a good job? | 32:56 |
Theresa Harvey | No, he wanted to get away from it, it was too hot in that sun for him. | 33:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Was it a bad time during the depression down here? Is that the reason he was working on— | 33:05 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. Yeah. That's it, but I never seen a hungry day. If there was a depression, I don't know anything about it because we always had something to eat, even in New York. Because my mother was on call home relief and I would get a book of stamps, every morning I would go downstairs and get my quart of milk myself. Only me. Nobody couldn't get it with me. I have a quart of milk every day. Every day. Even on Sunday mornings I would have my—No, on Saturday they give you two quarts because at that time they didn't open on Sunday morning. Yes, I did. I had a quart of milk every morning for myself. | 33:12 |
Theresa Harvey | And they would come around and give mama the check every two weeks, pay the rent. Which was probably about, what, $10 a month? Yeah. So I never really had a hard—I never saw a hungry day in my life. Never did. I didn't have to struggle up here in New York. It was all right. But I had seen some hard days when I started raising mine though. | 33:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 34:23 |
Theresa Harvey | But they didn't go hungry either. I never seen a hungry day with them either. | 34:25 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were doing so well during the war, you helped out the people here? You sent them money and clothes? | 34:32 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, yeah, I sent my mother, I gave my mother money every month. Because her husband wasn't working, sometimes it would rain two weeks. He was working in the log wood as they call it. He couldn't work, so I was supporting him. I ended up helping him even though he tried to abuse me as a child, and I was paying rent for them to live and we had electricity then, I bought a battery radio, electric—First it was a battery radio. Then when the electric came, I got an electric radio for them. So it was a good life. Life was nice to my mother. Yeah. | 34:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Was that an expected thing for people who went North, or— | 35:15 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. | 35:18 |
Karen Ferguson | To send money home. So most of your friends did the same thing? | 35:19 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. Yeah. They send- | 35:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, sorry. When you were up in New York City, when the friends that you had up there, were they from around here? | 35:25 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, yeah, the ones that I went to when I left and I went to my sister and my cousins and everything, well they had been up here ever since About 1929 or '28. Some of them had been up there when I was born. Yeah, I had an aunt that was over—Oh boy. She had been up there since 1919. | 35:34 |
Karen Ferguson | And were they the people that you were closest to when you were up there? | 35:57 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. Yeah. We all belonged to the same church. | 36:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. What church was that? | 36:03 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh Lord. Let me see. Can I hear the name of this church now? Oh my God. The Walker, W-A-L-K-E-R, Memorial Baptist, Walker Memorial Baptist. | 36:06 |
Karen Ferguson | And why did you belong to that church? | 36:18 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, because my people belonged there. I used to go to Sunday school every morning, every Sunday morning we used to walk from 115th Street, we would walk about 10 blocks. I had to go to Sunday school, not because I wanted to, because if I didn't go to Sunday school I couldn't go to movie in the afternoon. | 36:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 36:36 |
Theresa Harvey | So we must go to Sunday school because mama said, "No Sunday school, no movie." So after we came back from Sunday school, we had our dinner, then we went to the movie, that's it. | 36:36 |
Karen Ferguson | So did you enjoy, was that your favorite thing to do for fun? | 36:49 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. In the park, Central Park. | 36:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 36:55 |
Theresa Harvey | But we lived very close to Central Park. They had the lake there and everything, and the swing, the playground. In fact, they had a museum over there on Fifth Avenue, across from Central Park, so I could visualize all these things now as you talk about them. Yeah. I had a great childhood in New York. | 36:56 |
Karen Ferguson | What connection do you have with the people you knew in New York now? Do you have connection? Do you have a connection with them? With the church you went to when you were in New York City and that kind of— | 37:19 |
Theresa Harvey | No, see, my uncle died and most everybody left that church now, people. Because my cousin, she moved down here. In fact, she had left the church before she moved. She belonged to a Methodist Church in Manhattan. She moved to New York, a lot of people moved to New York from—I mean, moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan. And then a lot of people died, most of all my people are dead. A lot of people dead. A lot of cousins died, and so we don't have no connection with that church anymore, but I joined another church in Brooklyn. | 37:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And why did you join that church? | 38:12 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh, well see, because there was another church—I had had the thyroid operations in 1957 and I saw so much dying in King's County Hospital I said, "Lord." See, I belonged to the church down here. Said, "If you let me survive this operation, I'm going to join the church when I get out of here." So that same week when I went home, [indistinct 00:38:38], they came around. My pastor came around looking for people to join his church here, he'd open up a storefront. See Brooklyn has a lot of storefront churches, and we started out as a storefront church on Hensdale Street in East New York, and we went, the whole family joined the church. And we went there for, we still belong there, but we don't live there no more. | 38:12 |
Theresa Harvey | And I joined the church and then we rented another bigger storefront, because our people were getting bigger. Congregation was getting bigger. Then we bought a Jewish synagogue | 38:58 |
Karen Ferguson | For your church. | 39:14 |
Theresa Harvey | The Jewish people were selling out, moving out from the Black people, because the Jews they're very funny people. We bought a synagogue and then that area was zoned to be torn down, so we had to move from Strauss Street, then we bought another synagogue on Logan Street. That's all in Brooklyn. This synagogue much bigger, so that's where we are now. | 39:14 |
Karen Ferguson | So you still have connection with that church, then you still belong there? | 39:42 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, I still belong there. | 39:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 39:49 |
Theresa Harvey | If I go to New York, I go there. | 39:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. And where did the preacher come from who opened up the church? | 39:50 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh, he's from South Carolina. | 39:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 39:58 |
Theresa Harvey | And he was a bus driver for the city. The city of New York. He was a transit driver. That's how he got his church, he was a transit driver then he was going to school to be a preacher. | 39:58 |
Karen Ferguson | And most of the people who went to the church, were they from the south originally? | 40:15 |
Theresa Harvey | No. No. A lot of them were—Well, a lot of them from different places, but actually we didn't ask people where they were from or anything. We just took them as, because we were in Brooklyn and we were at home, so we didn't say where we were from. | 40:20 |
Karen Ferguson | So when you met people, you didn't ask them where they were from? | 40:38 |
Theresa Harvey | No, we didn't even say where we were from or anything. I don't know. I'm wondering about that. Wonder why we didn't do that. Because we was in Brooklyn so long, we figured Brooklyn was our home. | 40:43 |
Karen Ferguson | When you first got to New York though, were you bit more concerned about that? Did you ask ask people where they were from, try to find people from North Carolina? | 40:54 |
Theresa Harvey | No. No, we didn't. Because in your conversation with a person, it will come out anyway. They would say you, "Well hey, I'm from North Carolina." Then you say, "Oh you're from North Carolina?" Then you start talking. But you don't actually say, "Hey, where you are from?" Or whatever. It might come into the conversation then. | 41:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. You were talking about when you left your stepfather there and you came up here, you had to work in the boarding house, so the work for your cousin? | 41:27 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. Well, she made us clean up the boarding house every—Clean up down the stairs. | 41:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Why did she make you two work and not the other two children? | 41:46 |
Theresa Harvey | Well, she loved them better than she did, one of her two children, she had three, two boys and a girl. Well she treated—Okay, see ya. | 41:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Bye. | 41:58 |
Theresa Harvey | So she—I don't know. Oh, I think—I don't know why she didn't like Mary Francis so good. So, since I wasn't her child, she made me go along with Mary Francis and help her do the work. I don't know why she mistreated us that. And she used to beat me with the ironing cord too. And I didn't like that. I said, "I'm going back home to my mommy." | 42:00 |
Karen Ferguson | So she beat you with what? | 42:27 |
Theresa Harvey | Ironing cord. Take the ironing cord out of the iron, at that time you could take them out of the iron. They had this thing on it too, the hounds, yeah the [indistinct 00:42:31], it'll get you. | 42:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you whipped at home by your grandmother and your mother, did they whip you? | 42:36 |
Theresa Harvey | Oh, only when I was bad or something, but not bruise me. | 42:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 42:44 |
Theresa Harvey | They never bruised me up. No. But see, she was just about a 300 pound woman. She was just a mean woman. I didn't like her. My sister was there, she liked her. And that summer came, my sister sent me back home and I didn't go back again. And she died from cancer that lady did. First time I ever seen anybody go from 300 pounds to about a 100 pounds. She was a sick woman, and they couldn't help her so she died at home. She died after I had my first baby. | 42:45 |
Karen Ferguson | So you said that your parents, when you married again, you left your children down here. Is that right? | 43:26 |
Theresa Harvey | No. When I remarried, I took all the kids. | 43:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 43:38 |
Theresa Harvey | Everybody to New York with me. | 43:39 |
Karen Ferguson | But there was a time when you had to leave your children down here for a while. I thought you said, to work in New York City. | 43:41 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah, that was with my first husband. | 43:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 43:51 |
Theresa Harvey | Yeah. My mother took care of the children for me. And so I had had to work because I didn't have anyone to take care of them up in New York, and that's when he started acting up. And so I caught him wrong, so I just didn't want to live with him anymore. And I didn't have to take him anymore, so I left him and came down here and that's when I met my second husband. | 43:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Was it hard to leave your children back with your mother? | 44:19 |
Theresa Harvey | Yes. Once you come to see them, you hate to go back. You hate to leave them. Yeah, it was. But I knew I had to do it because this husband, I had to work. See my second husband, I didn't have to work. See, he was a good man to me. The other one, he pretty good, but he was money, money, money. He was a money grabber. He loved money very well. | 44:22 |
Theresa Harvey | My second husband worked for the Atlantic Coastline Railroad, after he left Carrier Lumber Company, he went to railroad and he worked there for about, say about almost six years. Then he became ill, I think my husband was sick then. And my husband died from cirrhosis of the liver, because he was a drinker. But he was a worker, but he was drink—He wasn't an abusing man. But I think he drank, he wouldn't eat. That's what killed my husband. And so then he couldn't work on the railroad anymore, that's why we went to Brooklyn. And then he worked up there until he got sick and couldn't work anymore, and he just died of a weekend one weekend. It's just cirrhosis of the liver left me a widow, my baby was seven years old. Connor was seven years old. | 44:43 |
Karen Ferguson | So what did you do then? Did you come back down here? | 45:44 |
Theresa Harvey | No. I stayed in New York and I've been receiving a widow's pension check from him ever since he passed away. The kids got their checks until they became 18, and I would come to visit down here, but then my mother moved up to New York and she lived in Long Island with my sister. So then my aunt was—She died up here. And actually we didn't have anyone to come home to, just cousins, because we didn't have anyone down here. So I didn't come home as often. That's why I don't know what happened to Tillery, because at that time I wasn't coming home. Because everybody was in New York at the time. Everybody, my mother, and then my mother died '82 in Long Island. So I didn't have any reason to come back down here then. | 45:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Now when you did come down here before that, before your mother moved to Long Island, you came down for a year at a time, or six months at a time? | 46:34 |
Theresa Harvey | No, just— | 46:43 |
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