Daisy Lowe (primary interviewee), Willie Lowe, and Orator Lynch interview recording, 1993 June 23

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Daisy Lowe	I was born right here in Halifax County. I was born in 1912, 7th of October.	0:03
Kara Miles	Keep going.	0:12
Daisy Lowe	And I've been here all my life. I haven't ever stayed away from here a week at a time. Yeah.	0:12
Orator Lynch	And me, Orator, I was a Qualls before I married. Then I got married, and I married a Lynch, and I was born right here in Enfield, North Carolina, Halifax County. I married in 1945, and I moved to Virginia. Portsmouth, Virginia. I stayed there for about almost two and a half years, and I moved back home, then I left and went to New York, and I stayed 39 years in New York.	0:24
Orator Lynch	Before leaving Virginia, I had two children. Well, may as well say, one was born one month after I came back here. And now they're married. They have two children each, like I had. I had two, they have two each. Two in college, two in elementary school. I have retired and I am back down here to live. And I am living happy.	0:52
Kara Miles	Good, good to hear that.	1:25
Willie Lowe	Well, this is for me? Well, I was born in Halifax County, and stayed and got married in '34, married that little girl (all laugh). Been together ever since. Raised 10 children, and ain't never thought about leaving. I never liked the city, been here ever since. Now, I reckon I'll be here until I'm dead. (laughs) I'm still aware of that. So, I reckon that's about it. Oh, you want to know when? Yeah, I was born in 1908. 7th of November. I lost my mother in '24. March of '24. Mother's, ever since, so I hung in there and still living.	1:32
Daisy Lowe	Your dad got married again.	2:26
Willie Lowe	Huh?	2:26
Daisy Lowe	Your dad got married again.	2:26
Willie Lowe	Who?	2:26
Daisy Lowe	Your dad.	2:26
Willie Lowe	Oh yeah. My father married again, married a lady—they always give a stepmother a hard way to go, you know, talk about them. As good a woman as ever tried to live with, never had a cross word with her. So, she was a very nice lady. So, a long time.	2:33
Kara Miles	Does your father have other children with her?	2:54
Willie Lowe	Yeah, he had four. Four children by her. It was a big family for us. So, some of them is living, and most of my great family is living. Sisters and brothers.	2:56
Kara Miles	How many sisters and brothers did you have?	3:16
Willie Lowe	By the first marriage, I had one, two, three, four, five sisters, and five brothers, I believe. By the second marriage, two girls and two boys.	3:23
Kara Miles	I'd like you all to tell me about your house, the house that you grew up in. Like how many rooms it had, and—	3:39
Willie Lowe	Yeah, she grew up right here.	3:45
Kara Miles	Just tell me about it.	3:45
Daisy Lowe	This is where I grew up.	3:45
Kara Miles	Here?	3:45
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	3:45
Kara Miles	Okay.	3:54
Daisy Lowe	One, two, three, four—we had four rooms.	4:14
Willie Lowe	Well, this one here for you growing up. One back here behind you. We'd be up there.	4:17
Speaker 1	Five. And you've got two upstairs.	4:17
Daisy Lowe	Upstairs, you have, I don't ever think about it.	4:17
Orator Lynch	You had, listen, one, I can't remember. One, two. Three, four. Do you count the hall as a room?	4:17
Daisy Lowe	No.	4:17
Orator Lynch	Okay. It had four rooms downstairs, and a hallway, and upstairs—	4:23
Speaker 1	Two rooms.	4:27
Orator Lynch	I don't remember two bedrooms upstairs.	4:27
Speaker 1	It is two rooms.	4:27
Daisy Lowe	Over in the kitchen, we didn't ever have them over there.	4:27
Orator Lynch	But I thought—	4:27
Speaker 1	It's one room, it just looks [indistinct 00:04:34].	4:27
Orator Lynch	It's just one bedroom upstairs, all the way across? Oh, okay. One bedroom upstairs.	4:33
Daisy Lowe	And I was from a big family, it was just 19 of us. It was only 19, and all of them dead except me, I'm the only one living.	4:51
Willie Lowe	She's the baby.	4:51
Daisy Lowe	Yeah, I've lived to be 80 years old. So I've beaten every one of my sisters, brothers, mother, father, or any of them. Yeah. (applause)	4:51
Kara Miles	19 brothers and sisters.	5:13
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	5:14
Kara Miles	How many people living here when you were growing up? Were they all still here?	5:16
Daisy Lowe	No, that's 11 of them they had get grown, I remember 11. 11 had get grown, yeah.	5:19
Willie Lowe	But you tell them, when you got up, the older ones was gone.	5:28
Daisy Lowe	Yeah. They were gone.	5:34
Willie Lowe	Still living over.	5:36
Daisy Lowe	Yeah. So I didn't know much about them, until I got grown, and they'd come back home, and then I learnt them. Yeah. [indistinct 00:05:50]. Well I say, grown, I was cooking up—	5:43
Kara Miles	Your house?	6:08
Orator Lynch	Hm? Oh, I'm next?	6:08
Kara Miles	Yeah.	6:08
Orator Lynch	Oh, let me see. Oh, well, I grew up in a, only a three room house with a hall for me. And of course, we all had a front porch. At that time, there was no back porch on our house, but as the years progressed, then I guess you could say that people progressed a little. Then the back porch was put on to the house, and of course a few years after that, my father passed away. And me, I think about 10 years after he passed away, my mother passed away.	6:08
Orator Lynch	And nobody came back home. All of us had left at that time, and was away in the city. And then my youngest sister, after the land and everything was divided, my youngest sister decided to have the house remodeled. And now, she had it remodeled, and now she had one, two, three, there's four rooms and a hall. One porch. And a bathroom. At that time we had no bathroom. It had progressed a little bit.	6:56
Orator Lynch	And of course me, my home is a doublewide now. I don't live in the house that I was born in. But both of my children were born in the same house that I was born in. At that time, I didn't go to the hospital. I had natural childbirth. And I don't think I would give anything in the world for having a natural childbirth, because I realized that the way these mothers are nowadays, I see on TV, I don't know if that really happen in the delivery room nowadays, but the way that they carry on on TV? I never heard of such a thing until you repeat things.	7:35
Orator Lynch	I thought I was rather calm. I said I was calm when I had my children. No doctor was there, either. And my last child, no midwife was there.	8:22
Kara Miles	What?	8:39
Orator Lynch	I had it all right by myself. Of course she came about 15 minutes after she was born.	8:40
Kara Miles	Wow. So who helped deliver?	8:45
Orator Lynch	Nobody. It just came natural. And my mother covered the baby up until the midwife got there, but nobody. I just had it all by myself.	8:50
Willie Lowe	That happened a whole lot of times, too, I remember.	8:55
Orator Lynch	Sometimes I would feel real proud of myself for doing it. And I didn't have to stay in labor long, I think one or two hours that I was in labor.	9:02
Kara Miles	Wow.	9:06
Orator Lynch	(laughs) You didn't ask for that much, but. (all laughs)	9:07
Kara Miles	No, it's all right. It's okay. That's one of us, just tell me everything you want to tell me.	9:21
Orator Lynch	That's all I can think of right now, maybe by the time you go around and come back here, I'll have something else to say.	9:24
Kara Miles	Okay. Well, Mrs. Lowe, when you had your kids, your kids?	9:34
Daisy Lowe	Yeah?	9:37
Kara Miles	When you had your kids, do you think that those women on TV are overreacting?	9:37
Daisy Lowe	I guess they are. (Miles laughs) Yeah, everyone was born right at home. Everyone didn't have no doctor.	9:42
Willie Lowe	Never went to the hospital until a few years ago. First time she's ever went to the hospital, about two years ago. Never been to the hospital today.	9:49
Kara Miles	So a midwife came and helped you?	9:59
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	10:02
Willie Lowe	Yeah, yeah.	10:02
Kara Miles	Who was the midwife?	10:03
Daisy Lowe	It was Ms Bett [indistinct 00:10:05]. Yeah.	10:03
Willie Lowe	And her daughter.	10:03
Daisy Lowe	Her daughter would come along, and later after she got old, and then her daughter in law came. Then another lady who came one time, I forgot her name, she was an [indistinct 00:10:26].	10:14
Willie Lowe	Yes, I remember her. Could get them.	10:20
Daisy Lowe	It was another lady down the road, every time I needed a midwife, I had to sing to her house, to yell. And it was White folks and Colored folks too, the White people was to themselves and the Colored people was to themselves. But they were stranded-like. Yeah, they were stranded. My mother would go over to the White lady, and they would come to my mother. Yeah. It ain't like it is now. There's another time when Colored people couldn't get no water to drink, they had to have places for the Colored folk, for the Black, for the Whites to drink. And some places the Colored couldn't get nothing at all. If they had a restaurant, the Colored would have to go outside, and hand back to the women they let in that side for them. But that has changed, now.	10:31
Willie Lowe	Yes, they had a fountain in our time. The Blacks weren't allowed to use that fountain.	11:27
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	11:28
Willie Lowe	I would drink there.	11:28
Daisy Lowe	Going to school the same way, Black schools passed, and the White school there. Yeah.	11:44
Kara Miles	What did you all think of that when you all were coming up? What did you think of, that Whites had theirs, and that you had yours?	11:45
Daisy Lowe	I thought it was bad, because the Colored, Black people and why they couldn't get nothing like that. Yeah, I thought it was bad. It was awful.	11:50
Kara Miles	Did people—oh, go ahead.	11:50
Willie Lowe	Go. Would you like boys to take and put them in the army, Black and White. It was a trend some of the time, all mixed going. They want to stop to get something to eat, and the Blacks couldn't get a thing. Allowed in there, couldn't get none.	12:17
Daisy Lowe	They had to get there lopsided, to women.	12:19
Willie Lowe	If they got anything.	12:19
Daisy Lowe	They would serve it to them if they'd stay outside.	12:19
Willie Lowe	Not like the women. But, as time went on, things changed.	12:40
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	12:48
Willie Lowe	A fellow just died for you and me and others, some getting credit, and some don't get no credit, but peeled away for the Blacks, and for Whites. The only way. Martin Luther King.	12:48
Kara Miles	So did you all, did you yourselves, or did you know people, Black people, who would protest these things? Who might drink from a White water fountain instead of from the Colored one, or things like that?	13:04
Willie Lowe	Oh no, I didn't.	13:18
Daisy Lowe	I didn't, not in them days.	13:18
Willie Lowe	No, they didn't fool—	13:18
Daisy Lowe	Not in them days.	13:18
Willie Lowe	They would today, but not then.	13:18
Daisy Lowe	Not in them days.	13:22
Kara Miles	So what kind of contact did you all have with White people? Like when you were growing up as a child, or as a teenager? What kind of contact would you have with Whites?	13:33
Daisy Lowe	We didn't have no trouble with them, not at all.	13:43
Willie Lowe	Well, you see the way it was, a lot of them had to have contact with them. See, she was from [indistinct 00:13:51] rare. And they owned their farm—what is the right name? Where the majority didn't. And I raised my children here, 10. Never looked for a White person as long as they were here. So, they probably just went away, north, and probably see got a job, you know, someone that's White. But they never worked when I had them that way.	13:44
Willie Lowe	Plenty of them did, had to.	14:17
Kara Miles	How about your family? Did your family own their land?	14:17
Willie Lowe	Well, they did. My granddaddy had a farm. But my daddy found out that he was renting, just like it was his. And never sees the owner. And it was just like it was his own farm.	14:27
Kara Miles	Do you know how your parents got their land?	14:46
Daisy Lowe	Yeah, my dad bought it from his dad.	14:48
Speaker 1	How'd his daddy get it?	14:49
Daisy Lowe	He got it—	14:49
Kara Miles	That's a good question.	14:49
Willie Lowe	He did got it—	14:49
Daisy Lowe	He got it from White people. Yeah. 215 acres. Yeah.	14:57
Orator Lynch	Nobody didn't inherit land from him?	14:58
Daisy Lowe	No.	14:58
Kara Miles	Do you know how your grandfather got his land?	15:14
Willie Lowe	Well, I think that come to me by my grandmother, and it come to me by a White.	15:16
Kara Miles	So he bought it from Whites?	15:17
Willie Lowe	[indistinct 00:15:17], I tell you what it was, the way I understood it—just like a whole lot of that went on, people just bought one for their children. Black man. But she was married. And he had a farm, and he left her some, and his child. That's where he got it.	15:17
Kara Miles	So it's your grandfather's—	15:59
Willie Lowe	My grandmother's.	16:03
Kara Miles	Your grandmother's land, okay. It was her child, she was the one who had the child by the man, and he gave her the land.	16:03
Willie Lowe	Danny, couldn't help it. Gave him so much of the land, and her so much.	16:11
Daisy Lowe	Like all people along then, the Colored Black people had [indistinct 00:16:13]. Yeah, yeah. I think it was nice of him to leave her a home.	16:12
Willie Lowe	Yeah.	16:19
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	16:19
Kara Miles	Was there any of that in your family?	16:29
Daisy Lowe	No. No.	16:48
Kara Miles	What did you say? (others laugh) Something you want to say it on tape for me there?	16:49
Willie Lowe	It was in yours.	16:49
Orator Lynch	It was in mine, yes.	16:49
Willie Lowe	Uh huh, that's fine. That's right.	16:49
Orator Lynch	My great grandfather was White, and my grandfather, he left land for my grandfather. And actually, my father inherited from his father, and we inherited from my father. And the same thing on my mother's side, which is Daisy's sister. She inherited from their father, and we inherited from her. So, we have a little land here, and a little land there, and that's it. Enough to make a happy home.	16:54
Kara Miles	What kind of things did your parents farm on their land?	17:39
Daisy Lowe	Tobacco, corn, peanuts and cotton.	17:42
Willie Lowe	Cotton and corn.	17:46
Orator Lynch	Some kind of wheat.	17:46
Daisy Lowe	Yeah, used to raise wheat.	17:46
Willie Lowe	One you make flour out of.	17:46
Daisy Lowe	Cane, yeah, make cane, and make syrup in the fall.	17:46
Willie Lowe	Yeah, if you've got it—	17:50
Orator Lynch	That should be interesting, they should tell you about that. That was interesting. I can remember it, but I can't put it into detail. But they can. But this is really interesting to see how they went about doing that.	18:02
Kara Miles	So tell me about it.	18:29
Willie Lowe	You have, make barrels of syrup. You bring it just like they going to a cotton gin, pile it down, and just flatten it for days, people just frying.	18:29
Daisy Lowe	Have two, he sits around and he goes around, trying to mash it and make the juice so it can evaporate and cook it.	18:32
Willie Lowe	They'd evaporate with whole barrels, a couple of barrels. The mule—the thing, you might say a machine, where you put them, just like what she said. A long tongue from way out there, hook a mule to it, he'd go all the way around, just keep going. And they'd put it in there, that bash, that juice run out. And you'd have a barrel where they put in—	18:41
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	18:58
Willie Lowe	That syrup.	18:58
Kara Miles	And people used to bring their containers for him to fill it up?	19:10
Willie Lowe	Put it in, and he would grind and take tolls, you know.	19:15
Kara Miles	So how about for other crops? Did people come to your farm to buy things?	19:23
Daisy Lowe	No, we had some cows and carry them out to the market and sell. Yeah. You pick cotton, you grade tobacco, and you shake peanuts. Go out there and shake peanuts and put them on the stack and stack them, and when you get drive in, a thrasher with corn, and thrash them. Put them in a bag, put them in bags, and then have to cart them until tomorrow.	19:27
Orator Lynch	You would have to sew those bags up with a big needle, heavy thread. A pine, I guess they would call it. And boy would you get dusty doing that. There was people who could throw dust, and you would really get dusty.	19:52
Willie Lowe	He'd take, the hay would go back to the mules and the cows to eat.	20:49
Kara Miles	Where was the market?	20:49
Daisy Lowe	Enfield, there was one, and then Rocky Mount, there was another one. There was a town that was supposed to have a market in the summertime. Yeah.	20:50
Orator Lynch	The tobacco was mostly in Warrenton—	20:50
Daisy Lowe	And they had a market in Enfield.	20:50
Orator Lynch	They got a tobacco market in Enfield?	20:50
Willie Lowe	Yes, they had a tobacco warehouse, one or two, it's still there. Still there.	20:50
Orator Lynch	Where was that?	20:50
Willie Lowe	Just like you go out to the fields around through town, and turn like you going to Halifax, right along in there.	20:50
Speaker 1	That was in Rocky Mount, wasn't it?	20:54
Daisy Lowe	When was that Enfield one?	20:54
Willie Lowe	No, [indistinct 00:21:06]. Rocky Mount. Some of us [indistinct 00:21:11].	20:54
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	20:54
Willie Lowe	And we came forward on that, with [indistinct 00:21:15].	21:14
Kara Miles	How did you get to the market?	21:18
Daisy Lowe	On a mule and wagon. You go out anywhere, they'll all be there.	21:20
Willie Lowe	So in later years, they'd have a pickup truck, or a big truck with a cab, bike rack mount. But some, before that happened, they would drive through the Rocky Mount on a wagon, or go on there.	21:29
Daisy Lowe	Stay all night and come back the next day.	21:40
Orator Lynch	You took the words right out of my mouth. They would have to stay all night, to keep other people from stealing their tobacco.	21:47
Willie Lowe	Can't see to feed the mule.	21:53
Daisy Lowe	We would be so glad to see dad come home, we'd see that he would be gone forever, just staying overnight.	21:54
Willie Lowe	But it was rough, and then people didn't know no better then, and this first the parts of people being together than most folks, they are today. People just ain't together otday.	22:13
Daisy Lowe	Much more.	22:23
Willie Lowe	But the Whites, the old poor Whites, wanted to hang the juke just like they was Black. They were just as poor as they could be. They didn't know no other, and there's just—	22:36
Orator Lynch	More love along then than now.	22:51
Willie Lowe	More love, more love. Along then.	22:51
Orator Lynch	And truthfully, I think those were the happiest days of my life. I really do.	22:51
Willie Lowe	Exactly, exactly.	22:53
Orator Lynch	It was hard work, and it was hard getting paid. But I still, I believe it was the happiest days of my life.	22:57
Willie Lowe	Mm-hmm, exactly. Exactly.	23:05
Orator Lynch	Because now it's too much bustling and hustling, and dog eat dog—	23:05
Daisy Lowe	Everything moving too fast.	23:05
Willie Lowe	And you take more money, and a little bit to get a little something. And you know I know back there [indistinct 00:23:28]. I know back there, it feels good, and you know how fish is high, paying the fish, about two something a pound, or three. And I know and since we've been married, you could get any kind of fish you want, just as pretty as you want, five cent a pound. Five cent a pound. So—	23:27
Orator Lynch	Bread used to be five cents a loaf.	23:41
Willie Lowe	Yeah, yeah.	23:41
Daisy Lowe	Sugar wise, it's the pine.	23:41
Willie Lowe	And I tell you something else—	23:41
Orator Lynch	You could buy a block for 25 cents. Whoo whoo!	23:41
Willie Lowe	Before I was married, around 18, 19, or 20, didn't have a dollar. She'd get a few pennies, an old White man be around to help, big farm, and more of us to party, you have that corn, grow up and they'd pull the blades on it, tie them together and hang them on the stove to dry. Put them in the house for the mules to eat. He'd hire a gang of folks. Married men out there with families, but we was called boys. 35 cent a day, not an hour, 35 cent a day from sun-up to sun. And he was watching, see that you won't stop. 35 cents a day. (laughs) And them married men, was feeding their families. They weren't feeding them all steak and all that, but they was eating. (laughs) They certainly was eating, and that's the truth. 35 cent a day.	23:42
Kara Miles	You weren't married then, when you used to do that?	25:12
Willie Lowe	Oh no, no.	25:14
Kara Miles	What did you used to do with your money? If you're 35 cents a day, doing it.	25:15
Willie Lowe	Oh, Lord (laughs).	25:16
Daisy Lowe	Probably smoking the pipe.	25:16
Willie Lowe	I was smoking the pipe, someimes these boys get together, buy a little—	25:16
Orator Lynch	A bottle.	25:16
Willie Lowe	Yeah, something like that [indistinct 00:25:32] and make liquor out of it. (all laugh) Yeah, that was just cheap and dirty.	25:16
Orator Lynch	Bottle in a brown bag.	25:16
Willie Lowe	Yeah, yeah. It's good. Well, you know, it's something. You know, when you was young, real young, you don't think about your pace. Until you get old enough to settle down and think. Then you might go back to the pace, think about all these things. And it's something to think about. Something to think about.	25:50
Daisy Lowe	[indistinct 00:26:18].	26:06
Willie Lowe	I know when you could buy, because oh, I just remember the company, it was right there in Enfield, seven, full cost. You could buy brand new car about $350. Armstrong had to crank it, now look what you pay for them.	26:17
Kara Miles	When was that?	26:40
Willie Lowe	Huh?	26:41
Kara Miles	About what year was that?	26:41
Willie Lowe	Oh, a long time.	26:42
Daisy Lowe	1919.	26:42
Willie Lowe	Yeah, probably somewhere around that.	26:42
Kara Miles	When did you all get your first car?	26:55
Willie Lowe	That was in '28, I believe. Before I got a new one.	26:58
Daisy Lowe	She wasn't talking about you all, she was talking about us.	27:17
Willie Lowe	Oh, you're talking about my family.	27:17
Daisy Lowe	She was.	27:17
Kara Miles	Any.	27:17
Daisy Lowe	His age.	27:17
Willie Lowe	No, I wouldn't buy it then, I wasn't grown. But about eight, yeah. Or several years, brand years. And we was married, let's see, Velma was a girl.	27:25
Daisy Lowe	Hal—	27:31
Willie Lowe	Hm?	27:31
Daisy Lowe	Hal was born, Hal was a little baby.	27:31
Willie Lowe	Think about six, eight years.	27:31
Daisy Lowe	1941. When did Grandma die?	27:31
Willie Lowe	Was that she died.	27:31
Daisy Lowe	No, it wasn't.	27:31
Willie Lowe	Huh?	27:31
Daisy Lowe	More like mama died. Yeah, she was born, mama died 1942. We got our first in 1943.	27:31
Kara Miles	You were talking about the poor Whites earlier. Were you friends with any of them?	27:31
Willie Lowe	Hm?	28:18
Kara Miles	Were you friends with any poor Whites? You said there were—	28:18
Willie Lowe	Yeah, if you saw one close around, yeah, they're good friends. And they're very nice, very nice.	28:23
Kara Miles	Would y'all visit each other?	28:29
Willie Lowe	Well no, I would never go to no ones home. Because something, used to babysit, when she was growing up, grown older people would come over here. But [indistinct 00:28:44] nobody would send them over, the man.	28:31
Daisy Lowe	Yeah, he would be over here and helping her every Sunday morning, being traveled with them. [indistinct 00:28:54] and they would be, my mother, she would be in it. [indistinct 00:29:01].	28:46
Willie Lowe	Books.	28:57
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	28:57
Kara Miles	Did White families live close to you all?	29:10
Daisy Lowe	Well yeah, yeah, about a quarter of a mile each way.	29:12
Orator Lynch	You said he used to be right over that way. That was right out of there, along on that.	29:26
Daisy Lowe	No, that was where Raymond lived.	29:26
Orator Lynch	Oh, where Raymond lived. But didn't a White family used to live up there by [indistinct 00:29:34]?	29:26
Daisy Lowe	Yeah. He was me and Willie's neighbor.	29:26
Willie Lowe	[indistinct 00:29:39].	29:26
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	29:26
Kara Miles	Did your families ever have any problems with White people?	29:43
Daisy Lowe	No, they didn't have no problems.	29:46
Kara Miles	Were there any problems that you knew of? Did any Black people that you knew have any problems?	29:55
Daisy Lowe	No, I don't think so.	30:02
Willie Lowe	Well, people that back there, just living on the White's farm, and farming for them, it went on and on until it just—you know, the government got in there and changed things. You know, ain't nobody just pig farmers now. And they would work that Black family, and get rich or take everything. That's what went on. Just keep living, crop to crop, they would take everything, keep meeting through the winter, put them to work on the farm again. And that's where they got rich off their backs, working from that.	30:06
Daisy Lowe	Blacks would cook for them.	30:46
Willie Lowe	Huh?	30:46
Daisy Lowe	I said some Blacks would cook for the White people.	30:46
Willie Lowe	Yeah, yeah, they had to. Well, they had to do something.	30:46
Daisy Lowe	Do the wash, too.	30:46
Willie Lowe	Scrub the floors, get on their knees and scrub, too.	30:46
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	30:46
Kara Miles	Do you all remember the Depression?	31:17
Willie Lowe	Oh yeah.	31:18
Kara Miles	Tell me about that.	31:18
Daisy Lowe	The last one, came out in 1930, like that?	31:18
Willie Lowe	'30.	31:18
Daisy Lowe	That's when he came out there and was working the 35 there.	31:18
Willie Lowe	Yeah, that was during the Depression. 35 cents a day.	31:18
Daisy Lowe	He had 25 cents a hundred, a hundred pounds.	31:18
Willie Lowe	That was the Depression.	31:18
Orator Lynch	I would have starved to death.	31:45
Willie Lowe	That's when fish was five cents a pound. People would want more money.	31:50
Kara Miles	How did the Depression affect your families?	31:55
Willie Lowe	Well, it didn't, because just like I said, they had never been rich, and wasn't used to much no way, and so they cope with it.	32:04
Daisy Lowe	Raised our meat, and so did they. Chicken, cows and pork. We had all the stuff like that.	32:05
Willie Lowe	Chickens, eggs, all that. One year, was telling someone not long ago. I had my family one year, I had some pork, and I killed them six, and they dressed how they dress them. 1800 pounds. Talking about some meat in the boy, hanging up that great big ham. Smoking me a [indistinct 00:32:45].	32:17
Orator Lynch	Tell them how you cured your ham, your meat at that time.	32:42
Willie Lowe	Yeah, we would sit and rock it from it, and they were at prime. He would cook it—	32:46
Orator Lynch	Good eatings.	32:48
Willie Lowe	She would put it, cook it right in, and eating it. If he way over yonder, you could smell it. But now you can cook all you want, but you can't smell it. You'd reckon you didn't have it. I don't understand that.	32:57
Daisy Lowe	Smell that, and people making coffee, and it would be the best smell I would ever smell.	33:03
Willie Lowe	Yeah, it couldn't hurt folks, have a chance to raise this stuff at home. All of them had a chance, like I said, it was on White man's place, and he wouldn't allow them to have all this stuff. Well, you could raise your stuff up. You can pinch it by eating, you could eat. And eat some of the best.	33:15
Kara Miles	You all had sisters and brothers. Did your sisters and brothers leave this area?	33:45
Daisy Lowe	Yeah, all of them left.	33:52
Willie Lowe	All of mine left.	33:53
Kara Miles	Where did they go?	33:53
Daisy Lowe	New York and Newport News, and different places.	33:56
Orator Lynch	Mine went right over there.	34:00
Daisy Lowe	I had a sister, yeah, I had two sisters and a brother there, they stayed, and they [indistinct 00:34:10]. Another one of my sisters over there, and my brother lived by them. They stayed at home, yeah.	34:03
Willie Lowe	Mine, I think I had about five brothers out in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And two sisters in Newton, New Jersey, which is still there. Then I've got a sister, one in Rocky Mount.	34:19
Kara Miles	Would they all leave like when they got a certain age they would leave?	34:36
Daisy Lowe	Most likely.	34:45
Willie Lowe	Yeah. Just like I had children, when they finished school, like they do. Or nothing had to do, or they go to school and go out there in the field. And they had to go on, and get something to do that eventually paid them.	34:46
Kara Miles	So how old would your brothers and sisters have been when they left?	34:57
Daisy Lowe	19. I had an older son, he went to the army when he was 18. Well, both our boys went away from them.	34:59
Orator Lynch	You said brothers and sisters.	35:10
Daisy Lowe	Yes, yeah, I was telling about my son. He went into the army when he was 18, then my next boy, he went to New York when he was 18. My oldest son had come back from the army, he was in New York, and my other son went to New York with him, and he stayed up there, because he was like 23 or 24, and he came back to Washington. And he's in Maryland now.	35:12
Willie Lowe	And the other son, are you talking about [indistinct 00:35:49]. Out there, what you said daughter, well grandchild, our only daughter, we raised her.	35:41
Kara Miles	So your brothers and sisters, why did they leave?	35:56
Daisy Lowe	Well, there wasn't nothing out here for them to do but guess farm work, like they'd done all their lives, and they didn't want to do that.	36:02
Kara Miles	Well why did you all stay?	36:20
Daisy Lowe	Well, I don't know if it's because it was home already. Just because it was home already. Yeah.	36:20
Willie Lowe	And then her mother was afflicted too, and she didn't want to leave her.	36:20
Kara Miles	So you all liked farming?	36:20
Daisy Lowe	No.	36:20
Kara Miles	You didn't like farming?	36:20
Daisy Lowe	No.	36:20
Willie Lowe	Until the government came down and messed things up. I wouldn't do it now, if somebody offered me all grays and money now to go back and farm again, if I could go back, I would do it. But the government got a mess, now.	36:32
Kara Miles	When did the government start doing that?	36:44
Willie Lowe	Oh, a good while back. I think I want to say about, oh about 20 years ago.	36:47
Daisy Lowe	Over 20.	36:51
Willie Lowe	Over 20.	36:51
Daisy Lowe	About 19—	36:51
Willie Lowe	But see that just messed the farm up. It just messed—	36:51
Orator Lynch	That was back in late 30s or early 40s, back in the 30s.	36:51
Willie Lowe	What? Before they got in and messed it up, and plant your stuff, and just like I said. Shake your peanuts, pick your cotton by hand, the government got in there and got the machines to do all that. Took the full factory fields, that turned it more for the money. So, shake out peanuts and pick cotton and all that, it went pretty good. I liked it. I go back, out there.	37:18
Daisy Lowe	I don't know.	37:30
Willie Lowe	Hm?	37:30
Daisy Lowe	I told them, I don't know why I did it.	37:30
Willie Lowe	I said I liked it.	37:30
Kara Miles	So after you got grown did you still farm?	37:30
Daisy Lowe	Yes, yes.	37:48
Willie Lowe	Yeah, up until she got—	37:58
Daisy Lowe	I farmed all my life, then had to start new to Black farming, [indistinct 00:37:59].	37:58
Willie Lowe	And then raising all the children after you got out then, and we retiring, we went [indistinct 00:38:02]. And the farmer.	37:59
Kara Miles	So, you had stopped farming by the time the government started getting into it?	38:10
Willie Lowe	Well, they was into it then, but yeah, getting into it big. Because at that time when I started, just before it started, it started shaking peanuts. Because I lost my peanuts two years. Got so ripped and put it in there to get them, and they're using those machines. And the average little farm wasn't able to buy those machines. If you did, you just went in debt, so you'd never get out of it. And so that's about the trouble today. You have all the farming, all these machines, same thing. Nothing to it. You'll never accomplish what they is trying to do. Too much debt.	38:15
Kara Miles	Do you all remember the wheat settlement with the tillery? There was a wheat settlement?	39:07
Willie Lowe	Mm-hmm, I remember.	39:17
Kara Miles	Tell me about that.	39:17
Willie Lowe	Well I don't know too much about it, I didn't do it. I don't know much about that. But I know they had them, and the one over there, like I remember what he said? Resettlement farm. [indistinct 00:39:25].	39:23
Daisy Lowe	I don't know what they know.	39:24
Willie Lowe	[indistinct 00:39:25]. But I knew what you're talking about, yeah. But that was a good ways from us, and I didn't have deals with them.	39:24
Kara Miles	Okay, well tell me about school. What school did you go to, and what was it like?	39:24
Willie Lowe	Well, I went to Hayward School, down in [indistinct 00:40:00] 301 in Halifax. She went to school up here. Then the children, these went to the high school, and nowadays, after that, they put up the elementary school and they called it primary school.	40:03
Daisy Lowe	I wasn't schooled as a little one, schooled all my life, one teacher. Went there every day of my life. After I finished over there, I went to Eastsmith about 20 days, I reckon. I haven't been to school since.	40:20
Speaker 1	[indistinct 00:40:22].	40:22
Daisy Lowe	No, I didn't go to college.	40:22
Kara Miles	Why did you only go to Eastsmith for 20 days?	40:26
Daisy Lowe	Well, there wasn't nobody here, you see my mother, wasn't nobody to cook and wash but me, and I had to take that over.	40:45
Kara Miles	So what was the name of—	40:54
Speaker 1	[indistinct 00:40:55].	40:55
Kara Miles	What was the name of the school you went to, the one room school?	40:57
Daisy Lowe	Hardee school.	40:59
Kara Miles	Hardee school?	40:59
Daisy Lowe	H-A-R-D-E-E, Hardee School.	41:01
Kara Miles	And you said you had one teacher?	41:07
Daisy Lowe	One teacher, and sometimes he would have 100 scholars.	41:08
Willie Lowe	That's the way it was around there.	41:08
Kara Miles	How many grades was that?	41:08
Daisy Lowe	Seven.	41:08
Kara Miles	Seven.	41:08
Daisy Lowe	Seven.	41:08
Speaker 1	How would a teacher teach seven grades?	41:20
Daisy Lowe	She would do it, have to. She didn't do it like seven teachers would have done it.	41:22
Speaker 1	Might teach for 10 minutes, and then teach all ...	41:36
Kara Miles	What do you remember about your teacher? Did you like your teacher?	41:37
Daisy Lowe	Yeah, I liked her fine.	41:59
Kara Miles	What was her name?	41:59
Daisy Lowe	Memory Davis. Memory Davis.	41:59
Willie Lowe	That was one.	41:59
Daisy Lowe	Huh?	41:59
Willie Lowe	One of them.	41:59
Daisy Lowe	Johnson, over there, the last two years. Mr. Johnson. [indistinct 00:42:01]. She wasn't dead, but she had gone away [indistinct 00:42:06]. She had left from over there.	41:59
Kara Miles	And you Mr. Love? What school did you go to?	41:59
Willie Lowe	Hayward School.	41:59
Daisy Lowe	Mr. Johnson was one of his teachers, same teacher.	41:59
Willie Lowe	The same teacher, my teacher.	41:59
Daisy Lowe	And then he came over there.	41:59
Willie Lowe	And one was before her, was so bad, called [indistinct 00:42:26]. He was a rough [indistinct 00:42:28]. And then I had several different others, [indistinct 00:42:39].	42:34
Kara Miles	Was your school a one room school, too?	42:39
Willie Lowe	Well it was, until they built a room for it.	42:40
Kara Miles	Until they built what?	42:40
Willie Lowe	[indistinct 00:42:46].	42:40
Kara Miles	Oh, okay.	42:46
Willie Lowe	They put them in there, most of the time in later years. I think that was two classrooms and a lunch room. What was it?	42:49
Daisy Lowe	I don't know, I didn't ever go to your school.	42:57
Willie Lowe	Yeah, two classrooms. Yeah, two classrooms.	43:02
Kara Miles	When did you start going to the Rosenwald school?	43:08
Willie Lowe	Oh, I don't know what year that was. But I was about 12 or 13 years old.	43:10
Kara Miles	Then did you go to high school?	43:14
Willie Lowe	No.	43:14
Kara Miles	Why did you stop at, did you stop at seventh grade?	43:31
Willie Lowe	Well, if you [indistinct 00:43:37] on the farm.	43:33
Daisy Lowe	Cotton in the field, and after Christmas, she would have to work all the time, school didn't happen six months no way. You're starting a fresh day, [indistinct 00:43:49] the first day of May.	43:42
Willie Lowe	And then they didn't go half of that.	43:45
Daisy Lowe	No.	43:45
Willie Lowe	On the farm.	43:45
Kara Miles	So when you all were going to school, did you have to not go to school some days to work on the farm?	44:17
Willie Lowe	Oh sure, sure.	44:17
Daisy Lowe	Yes.	44:17
Willie Lowe	That's right. If I say, go on a rainy day, it's a bad day, because you couldn't work on the farm.	44:17
Kara Miles	And what about you? We're talking about schools.	44:17
Willie Lowe	[indistinct 00:44:21].	44:18
Kara Miles	What school did you go to? Like what elementary and high school did you go to?	44:23
Orator Lynch	I went to Waymond Elementary School, and I went to Eastsmith High School. I had to walk to Waymond School, but I rode the bus to Eastsmith. And I guess I was a little more fortunate than they were.	44:26
Willie Lowe	Yeah?	44:42
Orator Lynch	I didn't have to spend too many days out of school to work on the farm. But in the afternoon when I get home from school, like time picking cotton and shaking peanuts, I would have to go to the field and do it. Maybe go to the house and cook dinner, or we would call it supper.	44:43
Willie Lowe	Right.	45:02
Orator Lynch	And it wasn't an easy life, but then I don't think that I saw it as hard as some other people did.	45:07
Willie Lowe	Oh no, you didn't?	45:15
Orator Lynch	Because like he was saying a few minutes ago, we were on our own. My father rented from his father, and we were on our own, and we didn't have to do some of the things that other people had to do.	45:18
Willie Lowe	That's right.	45:34
Orator Lynch	But we didn't have to stay out of school for much, very few days I spent home working on the farm.	45:37
Kara Miles	How many months was school open by the time you were going?	45:50
Orator Lynch	[indistinct 00:45:57].	45:56
Kara Miles	When were you in school? I'm trying to get my years.	45:56
Orator Lynch	When was I in school? Okay, hm. I was born in—what age? [indistinct 00:46:15].	45:56
Kara Miles	That would be helpful.	45:56
Orator Lynch	I was born March 3, 1925.	46:20
Kara Miles	Okay.	46:22
Orator Lynch	And I graduated from high school in May of—no, April. In April in 1943. That is—	46:23

Orator Lynch	I do believe they said it was because most of the time the fellows had to stay out of school. I believe they gave that reason. I'm not sure. But that is the only year that I have ever known school to close and they could close around, and that's the reason they used. I felt cheated. I felt cheated out of that month of school.	0:03
Kara Miles	So you liked school?	0:29
Orator Lynch	Yes, I did. I liked school. I graduated from high school. Dad wouldn't let me go to college.	0:54
Kara Miles	Why not?	0:54
Orator Lynch	I was a very sheltered child. I was the only one out of my sisters and brothers that had a sheltered life as much as I did. All the rest of them had a little more breathing room. It was kind of hard on me. Even after I got married and separated from my husband and went back home, he still tried to keep me down and did a pretty good job of it, anyway.	0:54
Kara Miles	Were you the youngest or the oldest?	1:19
Orator Lynch	The oldest.	1:20
Kara Miles	Okay.	1:20
Daisy Lowe	That's why.	1:20
Orator Lynch	The oldest one of us died when she was six. I was five when she died. But then to raise up to get grown, I was the oldest one.	1:21
Kara Miles	What did the oldest one die of?	1:36
Orator Lynch	Diptheria.	1:36
Speaker 2	Who is this? Huh? You got the wrong number.	1:36
Kara Miles	Mr. Lowe, you were talking about one of your teachers who was so rough. He was rough as—	1:49
Willie Lowe	Yeah. He was a man, old fellow. I called him a slavery time teacher.	1:51
Daisy Lowe	That's a good one.	1:51
Willie Lowe	He was rough. He'd tell you all to "Listen!" Along then, they'd take a switch. They hit you with a switch, just like a hunk of meat. See, when night came, I saw him tackle a young man. Young man. Whip over him. And the boy was scared for another few months he was going to whoop him. He called one night and beat him like on a wooden pole, pull him out, before it went into him. He didn't let that old man get him down, like choke him to death. You'll hear them big girls calling and crying [indistinct 00:02:38].	2:05
Kara Miles	Did you ever get punished in school?	2:38
Willie Lowe	Oh, yeah. They'd make me stay in or something like that. [indistinct 00:02:57]	2:38
Kara Miles	What kind of things would the teacher punish you for?	2:59
Willie Lowe	Well, at the time, of course, I would take—I forget what those little chokes and make a mustache with them. All that kind of stuff.	3:01
Daisy Lowe	[indistinct 00:03:29]	3:29
Willie Lowe	In the school I did those spit balls. You know, paper, throw it on another one. All that kind of mess like that. But them old teachers didn't have that stuff. Oh, they'd tear off a piece of you.	3:31
Kara Miles	What about you two? Were you bad in school? Punished in school?	3:32
Orator Lynch	I was never punished in school. I was always a good girl. But Mother told me, if you get a whipping in school, when you get home you'll get another one.	3:32
Willie Lowe	Yeah, that was—	3:32
Orator Lynch	So I was always a good girl.	3:32
Willie Lowe	They would sure tell you that.	3:32
Orator Lynch	Yep. And she would have done it, too. But I think all the rest of us sisters and my brothers, I think they got spankings in school but I never got not one lick.	3:32
Willie Lowe	But now the average family has children and they can't—tell them "teacher better not do nothing to you," and all that. And if she do, they might wind up with a gun and kill her. See, that's why the children is so rough now.	3:32
Daisy Lowe	I never had a licking in school in my life. I never had to stay in, either. I was never punished.	3:32
Willie Lowe	But boys are a little different than girls.	3:32
Daisy Lowe	Much different.	3:32
Orator Lynch	Yeah.	3:32
Willie Lowe	Yeah. Like this little fellow right here, right here.	3:32
Speaker 1	I got a letter home for fighting.	3:32
Orator Lynch	Ooh! (All laugh)	3:32
Speaker 1	On the bus home a little boy pushed me against the wall and I took my fist and I punched him right in his chest.	3:32
Kara Miles	What?	3:32
Speaker 1	Then when we were playing football and I got another and I tapped that little boy. He got mad and came over there and pushed me. And I pushed him like that and I got a letter for that.	5:01
Willie Lowe	You got to let her talk about it, because she's got to talk in time.	5:04
Daisy Lowe	Yeah, he can talk all day.	5:15
Kara Miles	Who used to do the punishing at home? Did your mother and father punish you or just your mother?	5:20
Daisy Lowe	My mother would punish me. My dad never hit me a lick in my life. My mother would do it here.	5:31
Orator Lynch	Wish I could say that about my dad, because he hit on me and he'd never stop.	5:35
Kara Miles	What kind of things would you be punished for at home?	5:48
Daisy Lowe	Just any little thing. I reckon, I don't know, I never remember she whooped me but once or twice. But I don't even remember what that was for. (laughs)	5:48
Willie Lowe	And children along then, big factor was, you know, get the children together, sisters and brothers would fight.	5:49
Orator Lynch	That's why I got punished mostly at home, for fighting. I remember one time Mother whooped Max, Sweet and I because we cried when she whooped Sophie. Sophie was the baby and she whooped Sophie. And we cried and then she got real mad. (laughs) Wasn't that mean? (all laughs)	5:49
Daisy Lowe	The baby girl whipped.	6:36
Kara Miles	Tell me about church when you were growing up.	6:47
Daisy Lowe	Well, we had to go to Sunday School in the church. I remember Wayman, when she read my name. We had to go church. I didn't like my church too good but I had to go. Because it was run, managed by educated people. And I said I didn't have much education, and they wouldn't manage it, and I didn't like the way they managed it. So I just didn't like to go to Wayman. I'd go to the sanctified church right down the place, and we went there much more than we went to Wayman. And then we'd go to the other churches, Baptist churches, about more than with our own church. But we made it. (laughs)	7:01
Willie Lowe	Hers was Methodist, she's Methodist.	7:30
Kara Miles	Did church meet every Sunday?	7:37
Daisy Lowe	No, just once a month.	7:39
Orator Lynch	Oh.	7:39
Daisy Lowe	Just once a month.	7:42
Speaker 2	Wish our church was like that.	7:44
Daisy Lowe	Now they're most every Sunday.	7:45
Orator Lynch	Wayman was every Sunday.	7:50
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	7:50
Speaker 2	Would they go if Christmas was on a Sunday? If Christmas was on a Sunday?	7:50
Daisy Lowe	Yes.	8:01
Kara Miles	How long did church last? Did you stay at church all day? How long?	8:06
Daisy Lowe	Then we still had two sermons. Two services. They wouldn't start early like they do now. They'd take you in about 12:00 and get out, and then have another one that evening. And have served dinner, and go back and have evening service.	8:09
Willie Lowe	Keep you at church all day. That's the fact.	8:29
Daisy Lowe	Yeah. All day.	8:29
Willie Lowe	Wear you out.	8:29
Orator Lynch	Well, you enjoyed the day, too. Yes.	8:29
Daisy Lowe	—people weren't like that than they do now.	8:29
Orator Lynch	Yes.	8:29
Willie Lowe	Yeah. You couldn't stand it, now.	8:29
Orator Lynch	Because the people were more friendly. They were more lovable.	8:29
Willie Lowe	Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because I remember along about that time we was staying all day, people were walking to church. Walk.	8:54
Orator Lynch	Yeah.	8:57
Willie Lowe	Don't you know, since we've been right here, they'd talk to the girls over there, and all come by going to Pleasant Hill, with the shoes under the arm, after they put them on when they get to the church, and walk back.	8:57
Daisy Lowe	I walked to church many times.	8:57
Willie Lowe	Yeah.	8:57
Kara Miles	Did both of your parents go to church with you all?	9:05
Daisy Lowe	No, wouldn't go with us. They would go to church. We would have to go out before they did. And then they would come on out. There was some unfinished business they had to finish around the house before they left. But they would come, yeah.	9:23
Kara Miles	Tell me what you all used to do for fun growing up.	9:44
Daisy Lowe	I didn't have much fun. I didn't have much fun, I didn't do nothing much but the boys would always make little wagons and go in the woods and ride bushes. That was their fun. That man's children over there would come, and these little kids would go over there and they'd get together and go in the woods and make a tom walkers and things. And be up high, and they'd walk in them. And they would have a good time.	9:46
Willie Lowe	Yeah, a crowd would get together.	10:34
Daisy Lowe	Yeah. Make a merry-go-round. Play with that.	10:34
Willie Lowe	Make tree houses.	10:34
Daisy Lowe	Mm-hmm. They would have a good time.	10:34
Orator Lynch	We used to play ball, ride the bikes. I didn't have a bike, my brother had one. I could ride it. But playing ball, they called it baseball then because we would either make our ball from tobacco twine.	10:34
Willie Lowe	Yeah. That's right.	10:55
Orator Lynch	Or have a tennis ball when I could get a tennis ball. But we played ball, baseball we called it. And at that time there was a White family near, up on the hill. On the opposite side of the road from us. And they had two boys, and those boys would come and play ball with us. Most likely we would play on a Sunday afternoon. And every Sunday that we'd play ball those boys would come up.	10:57
Daisy Lowe	You talking about Regar?	11:23
Orator Lynch	Huh?	11:23
Daisy Lowe	Talking about Regar?	11:23
Orator Lynch	Uh-uh. Patty and Russell, Calvin and Ray—	11:23
Willie Lowe	Oh, yeah.	11:23
Orator Lynch	Would always come and play ball with us. And they would ride their bikes with us too. Most of the time.	11:33
Kara Miles	Was there a certain time when those White children stopped playing with you all? Or did you all always—	11:40
Orator Lynch	As long as it was children, they would come and play with us. We didn't ever go there because it was more Blacks than White. There were only a few Whites on that road at that time, and the rest of them lived up not much farther. But just this particular family, it was two boys. And I had a brother and they would most likely be with him. And we'd get up there and start playing ball, and after the Black kids would come. My aunts would come up there and sometimes my cousins, and we'd all be out in the field and play baseball. Sometimes in the front yard. Mother would say, "Don't you break these windows."	11:49
Orator Lynch	And of course as time went on and grew up, she said her children then, they all went away.	12:30
Willie Lowe	That's right.	12:42
Orator Lynch	And those two fellows, boys, now they're men. If I would see them I wouldn't even—	12:45
Kara Miles	So how about as teenagers? What did you do for fun?	12:55
Orator Lynch	Same thing.	12:58
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	12:58
Kara Miles	How old were you when you could start courting?	13:04
Daisy Lowe	I don't think I ever started. (all laugh) I don't think my ma would never let me start. When I got married, she'd let me court. (laughs)	13:05
Willie Lowe	Most tight, that arm.	13:05
Orator Lynch	My first date I believe, the date I'd say was when I was 15 years old, was fancied with me. And this fellow took his first cousin, which was my girlfriend, he took us to the movie. Then he came back, took me home, then they went home. Then he came back down. He got another one of my cousins to bring him back. (all laugh) That was my first legal date. (laughs) But we couldn't get married, unfortunately. (laughs)	13:32
Kara Miles	Well how did you two meet?	14:19
Daisy Lowe	I don't know. I don't even remember when I met him. I don't remember when I met Willie.	14:20
Willie Lowe	She was buying church's place, you know, fire's insurance, and got acquainted and kept my eye on her.	14:20
Daisy Lowe	And then we started talking. Boys, you know they start talking—But I was grown when we got married. I was 21, he was 25.	14:20
Kara Miles	How long had you had your eye on her?	14:20
Willie Lowe	Oh, couple years. Had to move them other boyfriend out of play to get in there.	14:20
Kara Miles	Well, you said your mother didn't allow you to court, so how did you all decide you all liked each other enough to get married?	15:41
Daisy Lowe	Oh, he would come get me. I just would [indistinct 00:15:49] back there.	15:48
Kara Miles	Okay.	15:48
Orator Lynch	And they got married right in this room.	15:54
Kara Miles	Really?	15:56
Willie Lowe	Sure did.	15:56
Daisy Lowe	There was a fireplace there then that had a chimney, had a tray on it. And that fireplace is just false there. Chimney's outside.	16:08
Kara Miles	Were there any times back in this period, before 1960, any time that people, that anybody, Black or White, tried to make you feel like they were better than you? That you felt mistreated?	16:11
Daisy Lowe	Us, no. No, not at all. Nobody never did that.	16:40
Orator Lynch	I had that all the time. All through my school years.	16:55
Daisy Lowe	You did?	16:57
Orator Lynch	Seemed like to me everybody thought they were better than me.	16:57
Kara Miles	Is this Black? Other Blacks?	17:05
Orator Lynch	Blacks.	17:07
Kara Miles	What would they do? How would they—	17:10
Orator Lynch	They'd call me gray-eyes. And I couldn't stand that. And when people nowadays look at me and say, "You know, you have some beautiful eyes." I can't believe it because when I was in school kids used to tease me about the color of my eyes, calling me cat-eye. And I never liked the color of my eyes.	17:10
Willie Lowe	Your eyes ain't gray.	17:14
Orator Lynch	Hazel brown.	17:14
Willie Lowe	Oh, brown. Well, you know, we got one grandchild, Adam's our oldest child's got gray eyes. I think [indistinct 00:17:57].	17:14
Daisy Lowe	Yeah. And Kimberly's eyes, they are light brown.	17:14
Orator Lynch	[indistinct 00:18:07] always, "I wish I had eyes like that." I told her, "I wish I had eyes like you."	17:14
Speaker 1	Why can't y'all just trade?	17:14
Daisy Lowe	(laughs) That would be so easy, Sugar.	17:14
Kara Miles	How about you, Mr. Lowe? We were talking about times you felt people mistreated you.	18:31
Willie Lowe	Well, boys, they going to fight at school. Call you things you don't like, you going to fight them. But fight today, and tomorrow good friends. And I would fight them. Yeah, most of the times I'd, "See you tomorrow."	18:33
Kara Miles	How about White people? Were there ever times you felt White people mistreated you?	18:56
Willie Lowe	Oh, no. I never had no issues. Never until I got up, til I was about to grown, never run into no White people.	19:11
Kara Miles	So how about when you were grown? Were there any?	19:11
Willie Lowe	Well, I never had no trouble. Never had.	19:21
Kara Miles	Anybody else?	19:21
Daisy Lowe	I reckon that's about all we know.	19:21
Orator Lynch	An incident I had with White people was when Wilson [indistinct 00:19:40] was driving the bus when we were walking to school. Every time it rained, he would make it his business to catch us by a mud hole and—	19:21
Daisy Lowe	Splash water on you?	19:49
Orator Lynch	Splash water on us. That's the only trouble that I had.	20:01
Daisy Lowe	Who did their father [indistinct 00:20:02]?	20:01
Orator Lynch	And after Dad went and talked with [indistinct 00:20:05]. I think they threatened to take him off the bus.	20:01
Willie Lowe	At that the time the White would ride buses, the Blacks would walk.	20:17
Kara Miles	How did you used to feel about that when you were walking to school and the White children were riding the bus to school?	20:21
Orator Lynch	Well I, to tell you the truth, I didn't resent that. Because at the same time that I was walking to elementary school, the Blacks had school buses to go to high school. And they were riding and we were still walking. So I guess that turn into resentment there as far as that was concerned. The only resentment I had was what this particular bus driver would do when it rained. At that time the roads weren't paved like they are now, they was dirt and there would be mud holes in it. And it seems like every time it rained, at the time that we would be walking past a mud hole he would make it his business. If he was going straight and there was a mud hole, he would run, you know, turn out to go through that mud hole. To splash water on us.	20:28
Willie Lowe	Yeah.	21:33
Orator Lynch	That was the only resentment that I had. I couldn't understand the why. I couldn't understand why the high school children could have a bus and the elementary-ers couldn't. And we were smaller. Even though the high school was further away. But if I'm not mistaken, some of the kids our age would ride that bus to school because that was a high school and a elementary school also. So some of the elementary school would ride that bus to school. I mean, some of the elementary children would ride that bus to school. That's the sort of resentment I had.	21:34
Kara Miles	And you were talking about children teasing you because of the color of your eyes. Did children get teased because of the color of their skin, too?	22:21
Orator Lynch	I don't think so, I don't recall that. I don't recall that. I don't recall anyone calling me White or anything. It just seemed like to me that I was the only one. And I guess I was. My brother and I, we were about the only ones that went to school that had eyes a different color. Mine hazel brown, my brother has green eyes. And green eyes aren't pretty. Blue eyes look prettier than green eyes. (Willie laughs) Huh?	22:32
Speaker 1	Did they glow in the dark?	23:23
Orator Lynch	Huh?	23:23
Speaker 1	Did they glow in the dark?	23:23
Orator Lynch	No. But the pupil in my eyes and in my brother's eyes too, when it get dark, they show up a larger than a person with dark eyes.	23:26
Kara Miles	When you all were younger, did you all vote?	23:39
Orator Lynch	No.	23:43
Daisy Lowe	No.	23:44
Willie Lowe	No.	23:44
Kara Miles	Could you vote?	23:45
Orator Lynch	No.	23:46
Daisy Lowe	No.	23:46
Willie Lowe	No, no.	23:46
Kara Miles	What would have happened if you had tried to vote?	23:49
Willie Lowe	I don't know.	23:50
Kara Miles	Nobody ever tried it?	23:50
Willie Lowe	Got put in jail, I reckon. No one ever tried it.	23:50
Daisy Lowe	You could vote, couldn't you?	23:50
Willie Lowe	Huh?	23:50
Daisy Lowe	You could vote, couldn't you?	23:50
Willie Lowe	Not way back, no.	23:50
Daisy Lowe	I remember Daddy used to vote.	23:50
Willie Lowe	You sure he did?	23:50
Daisy Lowe	He'd go to the polls. I thought Daddy could vote. Maybe pay his poll tax.	23:50
Orator Lynch	Yeah, I guess so. Okay.	23:50
Willie Lowe	But back then he couldn't vote.	23:50
Orator Lynch	No.	23:50
Kara Miles	When could Blacks start voting?	23:50
Willie Lowe	I don't hardly know, do you?	23:50
Daisy Lowe	No.	23:50
Willie Lowe	No.	23:50
Daisy Lowe	I don't.	23:50
Orator Lynch	I think that was in the 40s, wasn't it?	23:50
Willie Lowe	Hmm?	23:50
Orator Lynch	I think that was in the 40s when Blacks started.	23:50
Willie Lowe	I reckon so.	23:50
Orator Lynch	Before that time, they were all, Martin Luther King and—	23:52
Daisy Lowe	I just thought of something. Y'all talking about Martin Luther King [indistinct 00:24:47]?	24:42
Orator Lynch	I think so.	24:42
Willie Lowe	Yeah, yeah.	24:42
Orator Lynch	Because I remember [indistinct 00:24:53] was in college, and it was during the time that they were protesting a lot. And they'd protest before that, I think. And Jesse Jackson, now listen, he's a boy, but he almost called me to get sent home from school for protesting against—Up there. And it was also during that time that this girl from [indistinct 00:25:23] got locked up for protesting over the lunch counter. They went and set in the lunch counter. And that was in the 40s. I remember. I'm wrong, that was in the 50s. That was just before the 60s. Probably in the 60s. But I know the first time I voted, I think it was 1952. The first time that I voted. But I was in New York at the time. But you all could vote, couldn't you? At that time you could?	25:02
Daisy Lowe	Oh, we could vote up North.	25:55
Orator Lynch	Okay. I know the first time I voted was 1952.	26:03
Kara Miles	Did you know anyone who ever tried to vote before that?	26:04
Willie Lowe	Well, no. No Blacks, no. Could have been some tried, but not as far as I know.	26:04
Kara Miles	Did you all ever hear of the Ku Klux Klan or anything being around you?	26:21
Willie Lowe	Well, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But they wasn't too bad around here.	26:23
Kara Miles	When did you hear about them?	26:32
Willie Lowe	Oh, well, we'd been hearing about them.	26:37
Daisy Lowe	A long time.	26:37
Willie Lowe	Long time. Yeah.	26:37
Kara Miles	What kind of things would you hear?	26:41
Willie Lowe	Well, just they'd be into it and tell about a Black person they'd carry out, cooked to death. They would be the ones to get it. But they was pretty rough. But I'd run around and get it, but as I said, you can't tell a [indistinct 00:27:17] beating in there about to death. But they said [indistinct 00:27:23]	27:16
Kara Miles	Where did that happen? You said that didn't happen right around here?	27:24
Willie Lowe	No, just you'd hear about it in other places. And then there's some things that you see, Blacks in them days couldn't do around here. Now years ago, back before I was married, Doctor [indistinct 00:27:50] come in here. He was the Indian's doctor. And they said he was our doctor too. He was a good doctor. And he built a hospital down there kind of close to the nursing home. And he was getting all the patients, and he would operate and everything.	27:27
Willie Lowe	You know what the Ku Klux Klan, would put crosses in the yard there and burn 'em and all. He knowed he had to go leave the town. He had to leave. And so then, the Jews there in town thought the world of him. Because one of them, Doctor had [indistinct 00:28:41] his wife up. So he went to ask him if he'd come into the south. He told him he would if you'd be right there. He knew he had to be particular. [indistinct 00:28:47] he come to the south. Told him to [indistinct 00:28:50] and got on her feet. And they thought the world of him.	28:06
Willie Lowe	But they got him [indistinct 00:28:55] in Enfield.	28:35
Kara Miles	When was this? Do you remember when that was?	28:35
Willie Lowe	That was along—Back before we was married. We got married in '34. [indistinct 00:29:15] —This place one night. I hit under the car.	28:35
Orator Lynch	Where were y'all living?	28:35
Willie Lowe	I hit, side of the road. And I was coming home. The truck was in town and sent me home to get supper. Just when I hit her. And the car put her off and [indistinct 00:29:45]. And I saw him. I was coming on. [indistinct 00:29:48] and I begin to blow my horn. And I thought she being grown, that child she'd stop right there in the road. When she hit the road she [indistinct 00:29:57] Well along then, cars didn't have brakes at that time. Mechanical brakes. And she just kept coming, and I'm there in front of her. When I hit her I was in [indistinct 00:30:10]. And I hit her. [indistinct 00:30:21] —Bring her down to the doctor. And I come to pick right to pick her up she's standing up there in the house. She was just skinned up a little. The doctor said he just patched her up. But he was a good doctor.	29:44
Willie Lowe	But in them days, I don't care what you, the Black person, what he knew. They couldn't do so much. Just wouldn't let him do so much.	30:34
Daisy Lowe	[indistinct 00:30:50]	30:45
Willie Lowe	You know Raymond? Down at David Clark's. You see us there.	30:51
Orator Lynch	Mm-hmm.	30:54
Willie Lowe	And then this way Dr. Brown was there.	30:56
Orator Lynch	Dr. Brown?	30:56
Willie Lowe	Another Dr. Brown. Big, tall guy. Doctor. That's what what you call them—He got it. What was his name? [indistinct 00:31:13] And he had it fixed so that Doc would be up there.	30:56
Kara Miles	Was that a hospital also?	31:15
Willie Lowe	No. Just a doc. They set up that [indistinct 00:31:21] Long step to go up. And they wouldn't let him set up a [indistinct 00:31:26]. See, I think we're changing. And now, Dr. Adamson come right there on Main Street right side the other doc. He Black. It takes time, but it'll change. It'll change.	31:24
Orator Lynch	Yeah. Black people living right there and everything.	31:45
Willie Lowe	Oh, yes sir. The Whites moved out and they moved right up in there.	31:45
Orator Lynch	Yep. They moved right in.	31:46
Willie Lowe	Right up in there.	31:46
Kara Miles	So Blacks didn't used to live in [indistinct 00:31:53]?	31:51
Orator Lynch	Not right there in town.	31:53
Willie Lowe	Way out.	31:57
Orator Lynch	They lived out.	31:57
Willie Lowe	Called it Black Bottom and New Town.	31:57
Orator Lynch	Not right there in town.	31:57
Willie Lowe	Not in town.	31:57
Kara Miles	Do you know any other examples of that? Like what you were saying about [indistinct 00:32:11] said about being run out of town, or any conflicts like that?	32:07
Willie Lowe	That was probably the worst, I reckon. Because he was a doctor that was needed there, and he was a good doctor. And the White, most of them knew he was a good doctor. But then, he wasn't White, they just couldn't stand that. But he was there. And my wife's uncle [indistinct 00:32:44] a White man sitting out at his [indistinct 00:32:46]. Says to him something about his hip or something. And her uncle [indistinct 00:32:58]. He told him his trouble, could not get along. "So I'll tell you what to do. You go yon that nigger doctor. He'll cure you. But just want to count a bag of money when you go." See? That's what they called him, "That nigger doctor. He'll cure you. He bleeds you but cures."	32:20
Orator Lynch	It was expensive?	33:13
Daisy Lowe	Yeah, yeah.	33:13
Kara Miles	He was expensive?	33:13
Daisy Lowe	Yes. Charging right and left.	33:13
Willie Lowe	Yeah, but he give good medicine. That medicine was sealed. You had a little bottle come up, you know, closed all together, had to break off the end. Yes. He'd give sure enough medicine.	33:13
Kara Miles	Did he have a hospital?	33:43
Willie Lowe	Oh, yeah. He had a little hospital there. He'd operate. Sure. Certainly.	33:44
Kara Miles	And Whites? Whites would go to him too?	33:54
Willie Lowe	I don't know as any Whites went there. I don't know nothing about that. But this particular Jew wanted him to come to his house. Other doctors had give up.	33:56
Kara Miles	Were there lots of Jews in [indistinct 00:34:15]?	34:10
Willie Lowe	There was back then, yeah. Lot of them died. People retired and run on to the beach or somewhere else.	34:14
Daisy Lowe	[indistinct 00:34:26]	34:18
Kara Miles	Do you have the name of that hospital? Of Doctor [indistinct 00:34:36] hospital?	34:18
Willie Lowe	No, it's been so long. If it had a name, I can't recall now. That's the truth. But his name was DuBissette. Dr. DuBissette.	34:18
Daisy Lowe	Mm-hmm.	34:18
Kara Miles	Was there a White hospital in town?	34:18
Willie Lowe	No, no.	34:18
Kara Miles	So before Dr. DuBissette came there was nowhere to get treatment?	34:59
Willie Lowe	No, you could go to Dr. Mike's hospital. He was a good doctor.	35:02
Daisy Lowe	[indistinct 00:35:07]	35:02
Willie Lowe	There were other doctors in town you could go to. And along then doctors visited your home.	35:02
Orator Lynch	They were all White.	35:02
Daisy Lowe	Mm-hmm, all White. [indistinct 00:35:25] And why did they take them so far? I don't know why they do that. [indistinct 00:35:47]	35:02
Kara Miles	Would the White doctors see Black patients?	35:56
Daisy Lowe	Yeah, they would.	36:01
Orator Lynch	Mm-hmm.	36:03
Willie Lowe	Yeah. I reckon that's where they got their money.	36:03
Orator Lynch	Yeah. But they had to be in different waiting rooms though.	36:07
Willie Lowe	Huh?	36:08
Orator Lynch	They had to be in different waiting rooms then.	36:08
Willie Lowe	Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, different waiting rooms. Yeah.	36:08
Daisy Lowe	Yeah.	36:14
Orator Lynch	But now, what about when we—	36:14
Willie Lowe	Blacks had a place you had to come in and wait. And the White's over there, nicer, bigger.	36:15
Daisy Lowe	Mm-hmm.	36:15
Orator Lynch	There was different examining rooms, also?	36:23
Kara Miles	They had different examining rooms, you said?	36:29
Orator Lynch	Mm-hmm. That's what I was asking her. I can't remember. I remember, I knew we had to be in different waiting rooms but I didn't know about the examining rooms.	36:29
Kara Miles	Well, does anyone have anything else they want to tell me?	36:38
Willie Lowe	[indistinct 00:36:46] —In a hurry.	36:40
Kara Miles	Did I miss anything important?	36:48
Willie Lowe	No, I don't think you did. You live around here?	36:49
Kara Miles	No, I'm from Virginia.	36:57
Willie Lowe	Virginia? Well.	36:58
Orator Lynch	What part of Virginia?	37:01
Kara Miles	Richmond.	37:01
Orator Lynch	Richmond?	37:01
Kara Miles	Mm-hmm. Yep. But I lived—	37:01

Item Info

Title:

Daisy Lowe (primary interviewee), Willie Lowe, and Orator Lynch interview recording, 1993 June 23

Date:

June 23, 1993

Creator:

Contributor:

Miles, Kara Giselle

Description:

Name: Daisy Lowe; Date of birth: unknown; Place of birth: unknown; Occupation: unknown; Residence: Enfield, NC. Name: Willie Lowe; Date of birth: unknown; Place of birth: unknown; Occupation: unknown; Residence: Enfield, NC. Name: Orator Lynch; Date of birth: unknown; Place of birth: unknown; Occupation: unknown; Residence: Enfield, NC
Informant ID: 107; Informant ID: 108; Informant ID: 109; Interviewed by: Kara Miles.

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Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

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Provenance:

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

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

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Interview number: 398
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Daisy Lowe (primary interviewee), Willie Lowe, and Orator Lynch interview recording, 1993 June 23

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1. Daisy Lowe, Willie Lowe, and Orator Lynch administrative file, 1993

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Daisy Lowe (primary interviewee), Willie Lowe, and Orator Lynch interview recording, 1993 June 23

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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