Marvis McCrimmon interview recording, 1993 July 20
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Chris Stewart | If I could, could you state your name and your address so I can get a voice level on the tape recorder? | 0:05 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I'm Marvis Waddell McCrimmon. I live at 1105 Ann Street, Wilmington, North Carolina. | 0:10 |
Chris Stewart | Wonderful. Very nice. And I'd like to start by asking you if you've always lived here in Wilmington? | 0:16 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Not really. I was born six miles away from here in Brunswick County, but I do call Wilmington my home because it was only six miles, right across the river, in a different county, but yes, all my life I've lived right in—directly in this area. | 0:24 |
Chris Stewart | When did you actually move into the city? | 0:40 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Well, as a child, I lived over here because I went to school here, but my husband and I and two children moved into this house in 1958. | 0:44 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, okay. | 0:53 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. | 0:55 |
Chris Stewart | What do you remember about your childhood home? | 0:55 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Fun, because it was somewhat rural at that time, but it's no longer rural as such now, but it was rural and we had lots of fun. There were 11 of us. | 1:01 |
Chris Stewart | Oh. | 1:16 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I had nine brothers and one sister, and my parents. And we just had just a good time growing up and there was no such thing as being poor. And I speak in terms of being poor with material things, because things didn't mean that much to us because we had our parents and we had each other. And so far as material things, we never knew we missed it because here again, we were creative and we created things to do aside from regular chores around the house, we created things to do. And then there was always the interaction and the fun things that we did together as a family. So it was just a good time, especially with the 11 of us. | 1:16 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And I think now all 11 of us were not at home at one time because I had older brothers who became adults and they left home. But I often think about summers when it would be hot, and we had this huge back porch and it was screened all the way around, and I think about when my mother prepared meals and we all sat in this big screened in porch and we ate our meals there because like I'm saying, this was during the summer and it was awfully hot, and we'd sit out on the porch. And it was just such a happy time, such a good time. And we did things, we teased each other. Say for example, if somebody went back into the kitchen to get another piece of meat or another piece of bread, we would take his or her plate and we'd hide it under something or stick it under something and they'd come back looking, "Who has my plate?" And everybody would still be eating just like nothing had happened, and it was just a good time. | 2:13 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | That's just one incident of things. And then we had a swimming hole. Yeah, we had a swimming hole, and amazingly, this swimming hole, my brother who lives in Maryland came down, we were talking about this two weeks ago, if we were in the swimming hole when the Whites came down to get in the same swimming hole, they just stood there. And even then, we were smart. We were real smart because when we went to the swimming hole, if there were Whites in the swimming hole, we were real smart. All one Black had to do was to jump in the swimming hole and everybody would scatter. So we did that to make them leave so we could have the swimming hole. So we've always been smart. | 3:15 |
Chris Stewart | "Get out of my swimming pool!" | 4:06 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | (laughs) Absolutely. Just one jumped in the water and I guess we polluted the water, so therefore they ran. But we had, I mean, just so many fun things that we did. I remember my father buying a mule and I had just the one brother who could handle this mule, and the mule's name was Mike. And he would hitch this mule up to a wagon, and I was always the tag along because I'm the baby in the family, and I was always tagging along and he and I would take this mule and this wagon, and we'd tag along. And he likes to fish, and he would go the same swimming hole that we had, went fishing in it as well, and he would fish in this little swimming hole. And I think about other things that we would do during the summer, but that's just a few of the highlights of some of the things that we did. | 4:08 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But one thing that my parents believed in, and that was education. And we've been quite fortunate in our family, quite a few family members were educated. My older brothers, and I say brothers because were the older ones, did not have the opportunity that some of the younger ones of us had. Because if my oldest brother, if he were alive today, he would be 80 years old, about maybe 88, he'd be about 82. Yeah, he'd be about 82 because my second-oldest brother, who still, he's living and he was going to be 80. | 5:06 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So they did not have the kind of opportunities that the younger ones in the family had. But however, they were very, very good people, hardworking people, well respected in the community. Married lovely women, they had lovely wives, and they did things with their lives. They did things with their lives, and they went on to achieve. Perhaps not as much so if they had been educated, but they still achieved. And when I say educated, I'm talking about perhaps beyond grade school, high school and college, because there is not any of us who had not had some formal education. But I'm saying I look or I think about their potential, and how it could have excelled had they gone on and had the opportunity to go, but I think we did quite well. | 5:51 |
Chris Stewart | Do you know if the older siblings helped to facilitate the younger siblings going on to school? | 7:01 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Of course, if not monetary, there were other things, "Oh, this one needs a jacket or coat", or, "This one needs shoes", or whatever, or, "Mom, I went grocery shopping and here's an extra box of groceries that I picked up", or something. It was done. But like I'm saying, not necessarily with the dollar signs, just giving money up per se, but there was always something, and this is a continuation today though. We are all grown. We all have homes of our own and we live in different places, but we think nothing of getting on the telephone and saying, "Hi, happy birthday", or, "Merry Christmas." This kind of thing. Or for example, I saw a picture in a magazine and there was a little girl in there and I think a little puppy. And the little puppy, they put overalls on the little puppy, and they were in a little plastic, what do you call this little, I don't want to say—Pool, little plastic pool. Little plastic pool. | 7:08 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And I cut it out and I sent it to my baby brother, and I said, "The little girl—" I said, "That's me." I said, "Now you decide who the little puppy is." And we still have that bond, we still have that bond. And it's the love that I think that sort of permeated our family. And that's why I'm saying we didn't miss very much because if you're speaking about material things, that really didn't matter, because in today's society, I look at the people and the kids with all the material things and everybody's gone awry. So— | 8:28 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of work did your father do? | 9:13 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | My father was a foreman at a fertilizer plant. Of course, now, I guess you would call it a chemical plant or whatever, but he was a foreman there. He was a foreman at a fertilizer plant, and my mother was a homemaker. | 9:14 |
Chris Stewart | Did you have any acres of land that your mother might have had a garden on? | 9:29 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Oh yeah, we had some land, and she always made a garden. She always made a garden with fresh vegetables, and she always had a flower garden. And today, that's a part of me. I just love a pretty yard. I love to see flowers bloom. And that's something that it's almost like that she passed on to me. Yeah, because she used to plant her flowers, and the amazing thing was how she kept the seeds from the flowers that would dry out and had seedlings that could be used next year in her flower garden, she did it. As opposed, I don't do that. I go back and buy fresh ones every—So that's the only difference, that's the difference there, but she used to recycle. But I don't recycle the flower plant, the flower seedlings. | 9:33 |
Chris Stewart | Can you talk a little bit about the community that you grew up in? Were there other relatives that lived around you or special friends, neighbors that lived in Wilmington? | 10:25 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes. I noticed that in the community where I grew up, there were lots of other people there, and there were some relatives who still lived in this same community. That's how we refer to it as, living in this community. There were some still there, and we still stay in touch with them. And the relatives, of course, we still stay in touch with them. | 10:35 |
Chris Stewart | Who lived around you in the—? | 11:02 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I had aunts, uncles, country cousins, and then there were other people who were not related at all. And most of them have grown. They've become adults and they've gone, and one or two still live in the general area. They still live in the old community, but most of them sort of left. | 11:05 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember family gatherings or holidays when people from your extended family would come and meet at a place, whether or not it was your house or somebody else's house? | 11:30 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Usually it was at our house, and the kicker for that was homemade ice cream and fresh lemonade, that was the kicker. And I even said when I grew up, that was one of the things that I aspired to, "When I become an adult and get me a job, I'm going to buy as much ice cream as I can buy and eat." Because it was homemade and it just tasted—The homemade ice cream was so good, and I just said, I must have been about four or five, but that was one thing that stuck in my mind, that I was going to just eat as much ice cream, buy as much ice cream as I wanted to. | 11:42 |
Chris Stewart | Who made the decisions in your family, let's say, about disciplining the children or financial decisions? | 12:26 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Financial decisions, you are referring to my parents? | 12:33 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. | 12:37 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Financial decisions, sometimes it was a joint effort, depending on the circumstances. You see, sometimes you had to make snap judgments on some things and there was not always the time involved. And you've got to go back and remember the lack of transportation, all of that, a lot of things that come into play. So sometimes it was a joint effort. Sometimes my mother made the decision on it, sometimes my father made the decision on that. And as I said, it just depended on the circumstance. | 12:37 |
Chris Stewart | What about disciplining children? | 13:18 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | My mother was the disciplinarian because she was at home and my mother never said to us, "Just wait until your dad comes home." I mean, she took care of it right there. And the thing that was so amazing about my mother, and she died in '65 and she was 74 years old. And the thing that was so amazing, she was so far ahead of her time. She was so far ahead of her time, and that being, I remember when we did something and she would call us to her, and we used to think that it was terrible, we used to call her a lecturer. But the reason we did it, she would always call us to her, and she would always reason with us, "You know that that was the wrong thing to do. You know that that's not acceptable. You know that if you had fallen from this, or if you had jumped from this, you could have hurt yourself, and that would entail going to the doctor and we don't have the money to pay for this. And look at what you would've caused—" | 13:20 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And she would lecture us, and this is what I have referenced to when I say she was ahead of her time. Aside from that, punishment would be, "Okay, there's the chair. Sit in that chair until I tell you, 'you can get up.'" But see, that was time out back in the '20s, '30s. But see, and now, time out? Ooh, gosh. The educational family now in the background, I mean, they just go crazy with this. All of these writers, these people and all these wide academic studies, they just say, "Oh, did you try timeout?" My mother knew about timeout, and I just think about that. And now when people talk about not talking, not interacting with children, not communicating with children, my mother did that. And the reason I'm saying my mother, my father did not have the time to do this because he worked. | 14:40 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | He had to walk an awful long way to go to work, going and coming, and he was tired. But I gained so much from him too. This has nothing to do with discipline, but I gained the knowledge of knowing, I guess I couldn't say knowledge, of knowing how important it is to keep up with current events. That's one thing that he tossed my way, that I just cannot get away from it even today. | 15:37 |
Chris Stewart | How did he do that? | 16:11 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | When he came in the afternoons and was cleaned up and he would sit back, it would almost be by the time we finished supper, it would be time for the news. And at that time, when I was a little girl growing up, at that time we didn't have electricity, and we had a battery radio. And with this battery radio, there was a news commentator that used to come on. | 16:14 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | His name was Gabriel Heatter. And my dad, I think this newscaster had about 15 minutes, and he would tell us during the day not to play the radio too much so that there'd be enough battery power for the afternoon. And he would sit us down, he would turn the radio on to Gabriel Heatter in the news, and we sat there and we listened. And I did that so far back until I can't remember when it first started. And we sat on the living room floor because that's where they put radios then. | 16:42 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 17:17 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. The younger ones of us, we sat on the living room floor and we listened to Gabriel Heatter for the 15 minutes, and the only thing we did when we sat there was we breathed. There was no talking, it was completely quiet, and we listened to Gabriel Heatter. And my dad and mom would find someway, somehow to always get magazines. And I don't where they got them from, but there would always be magazines. Old, but magazines, probably two or three months old. Yeah. The magazines, however, were outdated, but they were available to us. | 17:17 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And aside from the magazines, my father put forth an effort to make sure that we got a Sunday paper. And with this Sunday newspaper, we all shared that newspaper. And before you got the funnies, that's what we used to call the comic strip, the funnies. Before you got the funnies, you read something else in the newspaper, then that was your reward. And sometimes he would give us the funnies before we read something because there was also a lesson to be learned from that as well. You can learn lots from reading. Reading is reading. | 18:14 |
Chris Stewart | Did you ever see any Black newspapers around this area? | 18:55 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes. When I was a kid growing up, I remember the Journal and Guide. It came out of— | 19:01 |
Chris Stewart | Norfolk. | 19:06 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes. I was getting ready to say Virginia. Came out with the Journal and Guide. And then the Wilmington Journal used to be the Cape Fear Journal. Okay, and then there was the paper out of the Durham, Raleigh area, I think it's called The Carolinian. So we always had newspapers around us. And then later years, the Johnson Publishing Company, put out Ebony Magazine and we were able to get that. But see, I go way back with the magazines reading that. There was a magazine called the Saturday Evening Post. There was a magazine called Collier's, all those magazines. And like I said, they were outdated, but my parents made sure that we had something to read. We had something to read. And we just had those magazines. I don't even know where they got them, but they saw the need to get them from somewhere. | 19:06 |
Chris Stewart | How did you get back and forth to school? | 20:13 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Older brothers had a car. There were times when I actually lived here in Wilmington with a brother and his family. Caught the bus and caught rides, but that's how we did it. | 20:15 |
Chris Stewart | What was the primary school? Which primary? | 20:39 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I went to a primary school in Brunswick County, and that school was called Chapel Road School. It was just called Chapel Road School. | 20:41 |
Chris Stewart | Was it like a county school? | 20:51 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | It was. It was a public school, and that was the elementary school in the area where we lived. | 20:54 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember anything about the school? | 20:59 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I certainly do. The principal there, he was ahead of his time when it came to horticulture, because, the front of that school, oh, it was the most beautiful thing, he had trees and he had shrubbery, and it was landscape before I even knew what landscaping was all about. He was ahead of his time and he did those things. See, that was a part of teaching. That was a part of teaching. And the school had a hall and had four rooms, there were two rooms on each side. And then, I guess some more money was appropriated in later years, and they added some rooms on the back of it. They added some rooms on the back of it, and they took that big room to the right. | 21:03 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | They took that big room to the right, and they made something, like a little cafeteria out of it, but they called it the lunchroom. The thing that sticks out in my mind most, I don't remember there being a library in the school. The teachers had books in the room, but there were old torn up books. Never new books, because the books came from White schools. We had to have the leftovers. Never a new desk, and I really don't remember a library, but that's my recollection. I don't remember a room set aside as the library. Teachers had, as I said, books in the room on the shelves, but I don't really remember seeing a library. | 22:03 |
Chris Stewart | How far away was the school from your home? | 22:57 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | About four miles. One way. One way, and we walked. | 23:01 |
Chris Stewart | That one you walked? | 23:05 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah, we walked. We walked. And cold, rain, whatever the weather was, we walked. And it was a country road. It was a country road, and we walked about—It's about four or five miles one way, but we did it. Yeah, we did it. | 23:06 |
Chris Stewart | And then did you go to Williston here? | 23:28 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes, went to Williston here. Certainly did, certainly did. | 23:30 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember any of your teachers from Williston? | 23:32 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Oh my God, yes. Oh, I do. I remember them. | 23:35 |
Chris Stewart | This is always the favorite part of— | 23:39 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. Of course I remember them. | 23:40 |
Chris Stewart | What do you remember about the teachers, or is there anybody in particular that you remember? | 23:43 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Well, one thing, they had goals set for us, and they had high expectations. I mean, high to the limit, to the sky, to the moon, you're taking it to the sun. They had that. And this, aside from teaching the academics, we were taught how to sit. We were taught how to sit, we were taught how to dress, we were taught how to speak. We were taught everything. We were taught everything by those teachers over there, and that's why we respected them. And the reason they could do that, they had full cooperation from parents. And society didn't look down as at a teacher as though she was something to toss over a riverbank. They had the respect of the community. And not doing what was expected of you by the teacher, that was a heinous crime at that time, but they taught us everything. They taught us everything. | 23:50 |
Chris Stewart | How did teachers discipline students? | 25:06 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | During the days of Williston? | 25:09 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. | 25:10 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | There really wasn't a discipline problem. If somebody sort of cut up in the classroom, there was so many others, the students would actually disapprove of it, so when your peers disapprove of something, there really isn't—I mean, if your peers disapprove, that's it. But there really were not, I can't remember any discipline problems as such. There were no discipline problems. Kids did devilish things, but never anything bad, if you will, like kids today that bring things into the classroom and fighting teachers, shooting teachers, shooting themselves, cutting themselves, nothing like that. Nothing like that, nothing like that. Kid may make a strange noise in the classroom and everybody turns around to see who's who made the noise, and everybody's busy, but you know exactly who made the noise, but never anything terrible. | 25:11 |
Chris Stewart | Were there any extracurricular activities that you participated in high school? Given that you lived—? | 26:15 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | It wasn't easy. It wasn't easy. I remember one year I went out to play girls basketball and they practiced during the Christmas holidays, and that was just taking away too much for me. And I didn't follow through on that. I didn't follow through on that. But I remember in eighth grade, I was in the class play, and that was fun. The adventures of—Was it the adven—? I don't know whether they called it The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but it must have been the adventures of Tom Sawyer. | 26:22 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Because what happened, my very good friend who lives in California, I didn't even know she had it, she ran off a copy of this when I was in the eighth grade in the 40s, and she ran off this copy of this program. And there it is, with all of us listed, all of the characters listed. I've got it in there, the characters listed. And she just sent it to me about a couple of years ago. The characters listed and then have Mrs. Harper, Marvis Waddell. | 26:57 |
Chris Stewart | No. | 27:24 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. So I was in the class playing eighth grade. So that was fun, a lot of fun. | 27:26 |
Chris Stewart | Did people think that teachers played favorites with students? Was there that sense while you were at—? | 27:34 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | That—? | 27:40 |
Chris Stewart | That there were favorite students of teachers, yeah. | 27:42 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | That depended on circumstances, I think. Because I know one teacher in particular, if a kid needed something, she gave it to them regardless. But here again, I'm focusing my attention on just part of the teachers. I do know that all of them had the expectations and all of them taught, but I'm thinking of one teacher in particular. Her name was Ms. Hooper, Sadie B. Hooper, and she always wanted the kids to shine. She just always wanted the kids to shine, and she would spend her money. Yeah, she spent her money. She'd spend her money on things that kids needed. And if a kid needed something, they would find some way, somehow in the community to make sure they were resourceful enough to go find this thing or whatever. And that was something that was just sort of passed down that, "This is what you do, you help each other." | 27:50 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And I mean, there are lots and lots of things that they did. I can't say if there were favorites. Maybe if I was the kid that particular day who needed lunch and I was given money to buy lunch, in somebody's eyes, I could have been a favorite student. So here again, I think one would have to sort of be in the environment or just that kind of thing. But of course, however, children always find a teacher to be your favorite teacher, and it's for some reason. But I can't, I just can't pinpoint. I wouldn't try to pinpoint a particular teacher and say favorite, because it's like I'm saying whatever this particular teacher did for this kid today, maybe there was a need, and students would be interpreting it as being the favorite. And see, the teachers wouldn't tell, wouldn't say to you, "He's hungry, and I'm just giving one quarter to buy something to eat today." | 29:01 |
Chris Stewart | Right, right. | 30:08 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. | 30:08 |
Chris Stewart | What was it about Williston? You're talking a little bit specifically, I guess I'm thinking more generally. | 30:10 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. | 30:17 |
Chris Stewart | We've heard nothing but wonderful things about Williston. And if you could, could you reflect a little bit on what it was about Williston that was so special, so important, not just to the students, but to the community as a whole. | 30:17 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Because it was like the nucleus of the community. Everything sort of centered around the school, because good things came from the school. And when the good things came from the school into the community, that meant good things were in the community, then the community being made good, could recycle it and send the good stuff back to Williston. It was like the nucleus. The teachers took an undying interest to see that you were the best. They wanted you to be the best, and you had to be the best, because society had said we couldn't. Excuse me. And we were saying, "We can." Or, "We are going to." And so that's what makes it special. | 30:34 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Have you noticed, this is just a penny analogy, but a little child growing up and you said, don't touch that, and he's going to do it anyway. Well see, society has said they can't, "Oh, they're not going to learn or they're not going to do this." And they were saying, "But you can, you're going to, there is nothing wrong with your brain. You can use your brain, the only thing is to use it." So I think that's the good part. That is the good part. That is the good part, and they just dwelled on achievement and achieving. And I think that's the good thing about it, achieving. And we did. We did. And it's all because of what the teachers, what they offered us, and they gave us their all. They gave us their all, and you just couldn't ask for anything more. | 31:26 |
Chris Stewart | Did you date in high school? | 32:32 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Not much. Not much. We were in groups. There were group things. There were group things. I remember I had a brother who lived in Taylor Homes, that's a housing project here, and that's been about—Oh, maybe he lived there about 50 years ago when he first moved over there, after they were first built, and there were block parties. The manager of the housing of Taylor Homes, the manager, used to block off a part of the street, and they played music and we danced, those kinds of things. And there was one fellow we used to go to the movies and football games with, but was nothing very serious or anything about that. But most of the time we did things. Now I did see kids in the serious dating stuff, but most of the time things that I did, it was group oriented. I guess it's maybe because I grew up in a family and we did the group oriented things together. | 32:36 |
Chris Stewart | Were there places in town that were sort of bad places that you should not go to? | 33:49 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | For some reason, the little resort place down on the Carolina Beach Road, that was called Sea Breeze. That was almost like a no-no, it was almost like a no-no. | 33:55 |
Chris Stewart | Why? | 34:10 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Because people drank. (laughs) | 34:12 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:34:16]. | 34:13 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | People didn't abide, do you know? And that was a no-no, and anything could happen if you're around people where they're drinking. Yeah. | 34:15 |
Chris Stewart | Were there any places here in the town proper? | 34:25 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I remember a long time ago there was a place on Dawson Street, they call it The Stardust. It was like a nightclub. | 34:30 |
Chris Stewart | Sure. | 34:36 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | It was like a nightclub, it's called The Stardust. Then the Stardust, it's name was changed from Stardust to The Casino, I think. But that was a place. It sort of depended how open-minded some people were. It was like if young ladies went there, it was okay for the guys, but if the young ladies went there, sort of kind of looked at you a little bit. So those were the only places that I can remember right offhand. | 34:36 |
Chris Stewart | At what point in your young adulthood or whatever, did you feel like people treated you as if you were an adult? As if you had become a woman? | 35:11 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Are you saying this from a society point of view or my family's point of view? | 35:24 |
Chris Stewart | Well, maybe you could talk a little bit about both because they're— | 35:29 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Well, I can tell you right now, Some of my brothers, they still think I'm 12 years old. | 35:32 |
Chris Stewart | You're the baby. | 35:36 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. Yeah. They still thinking I'm 12 years old. But I would think that I became full circle as an adult with my husband and my children, and doing the things that mommies do in the community, and being a part of the community, and the church, and those kinds of things. That sort of validates you when you have ties with the church and within the community and doing things and working on special civic things in the community. That sort of validates you as an all right adult. | 35:37 |
Chris Stewart | Speaking of the church, what church did you belong to as a child? | 36:19 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I grew up in a Methodist church, and it was Myrtle Grove AME Church. But when I became an adult, I chose to join the Baptist church, and I chose that because my father was Methodist and my mother was Baptist. And my mother was Missionary Baptist, and my mother went to Providence Missionary Baptist. And being the baby in the family, she always caught me by the hand. She took me by the hand, and she would take me to church while with her, because she was the Baptist. And I went to church with her, and for some reason, that part has sort of stayed with me. I have one brother who is Catholic, and we wonder where he came from. We really wonder where he came from. But his wife is Catholic, so I think that's why he converted to Catholicism. But the others of us are Baptist and Methodist. | 36:25 |
Chris Stewart | How come? Why was it that you chose to become— | 37:22 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | The Methodist? | 37:26 |
Chris Stewart | I have to rephrase this. What's the difference between, for you, the Methodist growing up in the AME church and then the Baptist church? | 37:28 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And then the Baptist Church? Well, in the Methodist Church, there is, let's see, how do I want to put this? There is a chain. I think a chain. I don't want to say a chain of command, but I guess it would be. | 37:36 |
Chris Stewart | Like a hierarchy? | 37:54 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. It's like that's there, that's the better word. Like the bishop and the whatever, and whatever and whatever. And the bishop decides. Okay, the bishop decides a lot in what's going on and what's happening. And as the Baptist church, the people speak. You decide what is best for your church. You decide what minister that you want in your church, as opposed to the bishop sending you a minister. To me, in my interpretation, I sort of found the Baptist church to be a bit more democratic. And being a bit more democratic, because like I said, the bishop would send them, the minister, to you. | 37:55 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of activities did the church offer for you as a child and then as an adult as well? | 38:41 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | In my childhood? | 38:49 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. | 38:50 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I remember during my childhood, on Sunday mornings, there's always Sunday school programs at the church, Easter programs at the church. But during the summer, we did not have Bible school because there were no funds for materials. So the White minister from the Presbyterian church in the community would come around and have two weeks of Bible school with us. Now he could come and do bible school with us, but we could not go to the Presbyterian church where everything was and sit up there and do that. But that's what happened. But the church offered that. It offered that. | 38:50 |
Chris Stewart | Right. When did you meet your husband? | 39:35 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Met my husband—Oh, about 43 years ago. | 39:38 |
Chris Stewart | Oh my goodness. | 39:45 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. | 39:47 |
Chris Stewart | Were you still in high school or were you out of high school? | 39:49 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Still in high school. | 39:51 |
Chris Stewart | How did you meet him? | 39:51 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I met him at his sister's house. He was visiting. He was visiting her and that's how I met him. He was visiting and I went there. His sister, she was a cosmetologist, and I went there to her rather than go to the shop. She said, "Oh, just come by the house and I'll do your hair." And I went there. I went there for her to do my hair, and that's how I met him. | 39:52 |
Chris Stewart | So is he not from Wilmington? | 40:17 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | No, he's from South Carolina. | 40:18 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, okay. Okay, and how long did you court? | 40:30 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I would say about a couple of years maybe. | 40:30 |
Chris Stewart | Did you marry here in Wilmington? | 40:35 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. | 40:36 |
Chris Stewart | Was there any advice that your mother gave you as to how to be a good wife? | 40:38 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes and no. There would be some things that she would verbalize to me, but I think I did some of the things, or I do some of the things, because of the example that she said. So it wasn't always verbalized or, "You must do this", or, "You must do that", but the example that she said. And that made all the difference in my life, and that's made me be able to deal with an awful lot of things, because I was married very, very young. Both of us were. Married very, very young, and pulling on some of the things from my mother has been able to help me to cope and been able to help me to do things that I think normally I wouldn't have been able to do, because I wouldn't advise anybody to get married very, very young until they were sure that they were mature enough to wear those shoes. | 40:46 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But here again, I'm saying, though I was married young, thinking back on my mother and the things that I had seen her do and the things that I had observed, helped me a great deal. Like when times were hard, how to plan a meal, those kinds of things. I've seen her do things, plan a meal, "Wowsers, what is she going to do here?" I just see a little of this, a little of that, but I'm able to do those kinds of things. Even today I'm able to do those kinds of things. | 41:55 |
Chris Stewart | Did you continue on to school then after you graduated? Where did you go? | 42:31 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. They had a college center set up here, and it was one time, a part of it, it was a subsidiary of Federal State University, and then it became part of Wilmington College, and they had the college set up in the high school here in the afternoons. You went in the evenings, you went in the evenings. After school was out for the day for the high school students, went in the evenings, afternoons and evenings, and I went. I went and I did that here, and then I had to go away, and I went to Federal State University. | 42:36 |
Chris Stewart | What degree did you pursuit? | 43:13 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I majored in elementary education with a focus on primary education. | 43:15 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah, I didn't know that. I mean, I didn't know that you were a teacher when I knocked on that door, but throughout this whole interview, I knew I was thinking, "This woman is definitely a teacher." | 43:19 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Oh, your perception. Your perception. Your perception. I was, I've retired. | 43:28 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you learn from your schooling that you took with you into your own teaching career? | 43:32 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | From my own schooling? | 43:42 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 43:43 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | From the teachers that, say, perhaps I've had? I love children. That's the main, I mean, that was foremost first. I love children, but I am a no nonsense person when it comes to that. And I'm no nonsense when it's in the classroom, on the playground, I'm the wackiest person you want to see because it's time to play. Okay? It's time to have funsies. But in the classroom, I'm no nonsense, and I'm no nonsense because you don't play with brain power. You utilize every drop of it, and that's why I'm no nonsense. And I think that perhaps is why Williston did the job that it had. Oh, we had fun things to do. We did fun things, and there were games and all of this, but everything that we did it, we went at it with a zeal. And so that's the thing with me, I've taken from them and I'm just really no nonsense, no nonsense. This also is from my college training at Fayetteville State. | 43:44 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | When we went there, we were taught, I mean, it was just a no nonsense thing. You did it, but it didn't make you an ogre, but it made you develop one self as, "Hey, I'm going to the top. There's nothing that can stop me." All the self-esteem, all this. And that's what I did when I worked in the classroom, was to be no nonsense and build a self-esteem. Build a self-esteem. If a child did something that was not acceptable, why accept it or why ignore it? Why not correct it? | 44:58 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 45:35 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. So there's just no nonsense. | 45:35 |
Chris Stewart | Well, were you teaching when the schools were integrating? Can you talk a little bit about that from your own experience and how it happened? | 45:39 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Sure. Oh, sure, sure. What happened to me was I was hoping that I could stay right across the street and teach, because I lived here and I could walk across the street. And there were papers, we were given a choice as to why you wanted to stay to a certain school and give your reason. And my reason was, the reason I wanted to stay here was, we had one car. My husband needed that car to get to work. I could walk across the street to school. We had a daughter to go to college, to leave for college, and the extra finances would be in to our advantage. So I was granted permission to stay. This was in '69. This was in '69, but prior to that, they had been moving. They would move a White teacher or— | 45:46 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Anyway, this started maybe around '67, somewhere that they were doing this. Now, that may not be an accurate date, okay? But anyway, this was '69— | 0:01 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. Mm-hmm. | 0:17 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | As I said, around '67 may not be an accurate timeframe, but anyway, this was 1969, when our daughter Deborah left for college. And I stayed out of school that particular day so we could take her to Hampton, Hampton University. And when I came back, I saw one of my coworkers, and she said, "Somebody's going to have to leave Gregory." And I said, "Somebody's going to have to leave Gregory?" I said, "Who is it?" And she said, "I'm not going to say." I said, "Well, did somebody say I had to leave?" This is pulling me out to go to a White school. And she said, "I'm not going to say." | 0:21 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So when I walked in the building the next morning, I saw the Black supervisor in the building, and she was standing in front of my door, and she told me that I was going to have to be transferred, I was going to be transferred, and I was going to be transferred to Pine Valley Elementary School. And I was. I went. I packed up everything, and the school board sent out a truck and moved all of my stuff over to Pine Valley. And this was in 1969. | 1:07 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And when I went to Pine Valley School to teach, let's see, Karen L. Chestnut was there. Katie Good was there. Mary Moore and I were there, okay? And of course we appeared to be strange looking to everybody, but that didn't bother, because the training that I had from my home, my parents, the training that I had had in my formal education college, all my college training and everything, had prepared me for this. I didn't have to have a course in human relations. I had been prepared all my life, so I didn't have to have that. And I went to Pine Valley and I did my job. | 1:33 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | There were times when I was questioned. There were times when rank was pulled. There was authority, would let me know that this is authority, but I did my job, and I worked there just fine, and I stayed there from '69 until '78. And the reason I wanted to transfer was my own reason, and that was to get back nearer my house. I thought about the fact that if need be, I could walk to school, because gas was very, very—Yeah. There was a gas shortage. And so I transferred so that if I needed to walk to school, I could walk to school. And I transferred to Mary Washington Howe, which is down 11th Street. It's on Meares Street. But I did my job at Pine Valley, and I was well received, because I did my job, and I did not cave in to any pressure. | 2:22 |
Chris Stewart | How did the White parents receive you? | 3:35 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | They wanted to question everything, but I gave them the answers. I never will forget, when I first went over there, I taught second grade, and it was report card day, and this mother came back with her little boy's report card, and she held it up at me and she said, "This is John." And this kid's name is John Whitehead. She came in and she said, "This is John's report card." And I said, "Yes." "I see here you gave him a C in reading," I think it was. And I said, "I'm very sorry," I said, "but I didn't give John a C in reading. John made the C in reading." And I said, "How can I help you? Is there some kind of a problem?" "Well, he's never gotten a C in reading before." I said, "Well, he made the C in here." "But he can read." And I said, "Yes, but reading is not calling words." I said, "Do you know how well your son can comprehend what he's read?" I said, "Do you know how well his critical thinking skills are?" | 3:42 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And I ran the gamut with her, and she stood there with her mouth open, and her mouth was open, because it looked like she says, "Well, this woman is saying something to me that I've never heard, and I thought I could come in here from my bully pulpit, and I could make her change my child's grade, that I'm going to intimidate her. But she did not." Okay. That was just a for instance. | 5:00 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | There was a little boy in my classroom. His name was Charles Snow. And one day at break time, he hurt his chin on the cement. He fell and hurt his chin. And his mother at that time was working for a doctor, as his secretary, who was on the Board of Education. And this doctor's name, god, I should never forget it. Okay. This kid hurt himself under the chin, and his mother worked for Dr. Coddington. And Dr. Coddington was a board member at that time. | 5:22 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So the kid did require a stitch, I think, right under his chin, and the mother really did not like me at all. She really, she just really did not like me. This was first grade I had now, and she didn't like me because I was always so upfront with her, and she wanted me to treat her child differently than the other kids in the classroom, and I refused to do it. I refused to do it, and she wanted that. She wanted me to actually make her kid the pet of the classroom, and I could not allow myself to do that. I loved all those children on the same level. | 6:07 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But anyway, when she took the kid, what happened was, she said she went to the principal at one time, and she came to me and she said the child cried. He didn't want to come to school, and all of that. And we tried to work with him, said perhaps he had school phobia, and the whole nine yards. This was first grade, and sometimes they tended to cry. | 6:47 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So one day, I looked at her and I said, "Do you think he's possibly afraid of me?" "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, this child does not, has not had any other Blacks to relate to. And here he is, he sees a Black adult." I said, "He's been watching TV. He sees Blacks burning and rioting over the nation." I said, "Wilmington has been in an uproar." I said, "And I'm wondering, in this child's eye, how does he perceive me? Why is he not wanting to come to school?" He was the only one in the class that was behaving that way. | 7:05 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So anyway, I don't know how she took that. But anyway, she took him. Back to the child having hurt his chin at school. So she took the child, had the stitch there, and back. And the fact that Dr. Coddington was on the school board, evidently she talked to him about me, and Dr. Coddington called the principal and told the principal, "Get that little boy out of my room." | 7:42 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So the principal said that he was not going to take him out, and my principal's White. But wait, there was this follow through thing, then Coddington called the central office, and called back to the principal again. The principal's name was Merritt Fourchine. Called back to the principal again and said to get the kid out. This was like the assistant superintendent. And I looked at the principal and I said to him, I said, "Am I causing you this grief? Because if I'm causing you this grief, I want to transfer right now. I don't like to cause people grief." And he said, "Over my dead body." He said, "You're not going to transfer. You're not going anywhere. I'm keeping you right here." He said, "But I'll get the kid out. Let him go." Because that's what the mother wanted. The mother really didn't want me to teach the little boy. That's what it was. | 8:10 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But out of that same class, listen to this, there was a kid in the class, his name is Charles Widener. But at that time, when he was six years old, we called him Chucky. So now it's graduated to Chuck. And Chuck was a very, very special student to me, and he was special to me because his parents transferred here. His dad worked at GE. And Chuck, you could see the brilliance, the intelligence in that kid's eyes. And had I not been the no-nonsense person that I was, he would have fallen between the cracks. | 9:09 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But I saw this because I could go to Chucky and I would say, "Chucky, let's get your work. Let's get started." And he'd look up at me, I'm walking to his desk, and I'm bending over him and saying, "Chucky, it's time to work. Let's get work. Let's get to work." He'd look up at me and say, "I'm not going to do it." And I would look back him and say, "You are going to do it." "No, I'm not." "Yes, you are, Chucky. You are going to do it." "I'm not." "You are, Chucky. You don't want me to call your parents, do you?" "No." "Well, then let's get started." Then when he completed his work, he would do it any kind of way. "Okay. I'll do it. If that's what she want, I'll just do it. Okay." | 9:48 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So what happened? Chuck did his work, and this went on, and his mother and I had this beautiful relationship. I would call Sherry and I'd say, "Sherry, come. I need to talk to you about Chuck. Chuck is so smart, and this is what's happening. This is what's happening." But I didn't find out what had happened until, oh, he's almost an adult, before I found out what happened. But what happened, I continued, and when Chuck would go to lunch, he'd sit up and say maybe he wanted flip food. I would look at him, and this was our little thing. It was, I would do this at him, and then burst out in a smile. And he would go like this, and then he would try to give me the wink back, and he would go, and he couldn't do it. | 10:31 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And anytime he became mischievous, I would look at him and go, and smile and he would, and that was something that the two of us had, none of the other kids had. None of the other kids ever saw this. But I had to get him. I had to get him, because I saw the brilliance. Chucky came through first grade, and went on to second, went on through, went on through. Chucky and I stayed in touch through middle school, through high school, through college, through everything. Chucky would even come over to the school where I was teaching, and would walk in the room, and we'd just hug, and I'd take him around and we'd introduce him. | 11:17 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So when he graduated from high school, was it high school, college, I went over to visit them. By this time, I had moved away from Pine Valley. I transferred back out, and I told him, I went over to his parents' home and he was there, because he sent me an invitation, I think, when he graduated high school, but he also sent me one when he graduated college. So when I went out to his parents' home after he graduated college, I bought him a money clip, and I took the money clip, and I said to him, "Okay, this is for your first million. And don't forget, I helped you to get there." And everybody, we all laughed. We all laughed. We all laughed. And I said, "Now, the next thing on the agenda, you finished college." I said, "I expect an invitation to the wedding." | 11:57 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Now, listen, this is the parallel between the little boy whose mother was so nasty to me, and this is another kid. Now, I had all other kids, but this was this one boy that I was determined, with all this brilliance that he had, was not going between the cracks, okay? Or to push him aside and say, "Oh, he's just a terror. I'm not even going to try on him." And he graduated from North Carolina State with a degree in engineering. But anyway, so when he finished, yes, yes, he graduated North Carolina State with a degree in engineering. So when he finished college, this is when I took the money clip, and I told him, I said, "Okay, the next thing on the agenda," I said, "an invitation to your wedding." He laughed, like it was a long way away. | 12:46 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So I retired December of '91. And December, we were doing the Christmas holidays, and the mail came. I opened this envelope, and it was, this postmark said "Pittsburgh." And I said, "I don't think I know anybody in Pittsburgh." So when I opened it, it was an invitation to Chuck's—He found a girl in Pittsburgh, and he was getting married, January of '92, to this beautiful young lady in Pittsburgh. And I called my son who lives in Maryland. My husband was still working. He's just recently retired. And I said, "Ricardo," I said, "Guess who's getting married?" He said, "Who?" I said, "Chucky Widener." | 13:30 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And see, my kids knew him. He was one of my students. My kids knew all of my students. They would come visit my classroom. My biological children, they would come out and visit my classroom. And I would say to them, "This is my daughter, and this is my son. And see, remember when I would tell you in here you can't get away with anything? Because I had a little girl just like you one time, I had a little boy just like you one time, and I know all the little funny things you try to pull." So consequently, through the years, as I taught, my children knew all of the children in my classroom. They would come and pay a visit to my children. | 14:14 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So what happened, I told my son, I said, "Chucky Widener is getting married." He said, "When?" I said, "January." It was about the 20-something. He said, "Where is he getting married?" I said, "In Pittsburgh," I said, "and I want to go, and I can't." He said, "Why not?" I said, "You know I don't fly. I don't enjoy flying." He said, "Mommy, come to Maryland." He said, "It's just a few hours' drive. I'll drive you to Pittsburgh." Okay? | 14:48 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So I left, and I called Chucky's mom and dad, and I said, "I'm going to Chucky's wedding." They said, "We can't believe it. We can't believe it." They were so happy. I said, "Yes, I am." I said, "I've retired," I said, "and I'll be able to go." They said, "Fine. Now, this is what you're going to have to do for us. You go on and make your reservations, but we're going to take care of everything, because at last, this will give us a thank you for you what you've done for our son." Okay? | 15:14 |
Chris Stewart | Oh! | 15:46 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So I told them I was coming, and this is something else. The paper that Chucky didn't do too well on, I told him, I said, "This is our little secret. I will not tell your parents about this paper that you didn't do well on today. If you want to tell them about it, fine. If you don't, it'll be our secret." But I kept the paper, and I presented that paper to Chucky at the rehearsal dinner at his wedding. | 15:47 |
Chris Stewart | Oh my god. | 16:18 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I did. I had it framed, and I presented it to him, and I told the little story. I said, "Even tonight, Chucky darling," I said, "You don't have to tell your parents what went on between the two of us." I said, "It's still our secret." | 16:19 |
Chris Stewart | Talk about coming full circle. | 16:32 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Full circle. Full circle. And they came down from Raleigh. They came down, they were married that January, and they were here in Wilmington that spring. And there's a picture of his wife right there. That's a picture of the two of them. He and Susan. You see the two of them? | 16:34 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. | 16:54 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | That's a picture. And he was in the same class with the little boy whose mom called, pulled her strength because she worked for the doctor, pulled her authority, and used her authority to try to knock me down and also to have her kid removed from my class. And I said to them the night of his rehearsal, at the rehearsal dinner, I said, "There's just one more thing now that I will be expecting." I said, "2000 and something," I said, "I expect to see you in the White House." I said, "And when you're being sworn in as president," I said, "I'm going to be sitting right there watching it all." And I said, "Maybe the camera will pan on me and said, 'This is President Widener's first grade teacher.'" I said, "And I'll be sitting there," I said, "in all of my glory, just looking at you." | 16:55 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But those were the kinds of things, I'm saying I did my job, and it was my job to give him everything that I had so that he wouldn't fall between the cracks. And his mother told me since then what the problem was. Chucky had a kindergarten teacher, and when they got ready to move, it was around Valentine's Day, and they had made Valentines. And Chucky, here's a five-year-old asking if he could take his Valentines that she made, and Sherry told me the teacher said, "No. It's not Valentine's Day yet. So you don't get to take your Valentines." I said, "How could a teacher do that to a kid?" | 17:43 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 18:23 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes. But Sherry told me that's what happened. And this teacher was just like that. And she said that's why Chucky was so distrusting. But you see, he even told his mom, he went, he told his mom, he said, "I've got a Black friend." This is a six-year-old kid who told his mom that he had a Black friend, and it has not died. I am still Chuck's friend, and he's a grown man. | 18:25 |
Chris Stewart | Yes. That's really interesting that he said Black friend, not Black teacher. | 18:49 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes. That's right. He said he had a Black friend, and I have been that friend for him. And at his wedding, my son and I were the only two Blacks at the wedding. And I mean, with no reservations, Chuck just grabbed me, kissed me in front of everybody. I mean, that's just the connection. That's the bond that he and I had. That's the bond that he and I had. | 18:51 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But let me tell you what is so funny. I taught his baby brother Jimmy, but Jimmy and I don't have that bond, because Jimmy was the kid that wasn't—I didn't see that was going to fall between the crack. So I could just go on with Jimmy like I did the other kids. | 19:19 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 19:33 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I could just go on with him. But this child would have fallen between the cracks if I had written him off and said, "Oh, his temper. His behavior. Forget it. I'm not going to fool—" But all you had to do was look in that kid's eyes. All you had to do was look in his eyes. | 19:34 |
Chris Stewart | As a teacher. | 19:49 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I mean, I just looked in his eyes. And when he would look at me, and he was left-handed, and I was teaching him how to hold the pencil this way, because that's the correct way for a lefty, and as soon as I'd walk away, he would do this, and look at me and grin, and I would wink my eye, and he would hide his hand over his mouth, and I would say, "Chucky." And very slowly, he would turn it around sort of disapprovingly. But still, I was getting done what I wanted to do. And we still had that bond. And he told at the rehearsal dinner, he said, "And I still can't wink my eye." He said, "I still can't do it." He said, "I still go like that." | 19:50 |
Chris Stewart | That's great. | 20:31 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But that was the thing. That was the bond. I had to come up with something for that child to know that I loved him. He could trust me. And he never told anybody that, "The teacher winks at me." That was something he never shared. And nobody knew this until I told it at the rehearsal dinner. But it was amazing, with this. And the funny thing about this paper, it had mistakes on it, and I framed it, and I had it glass framed, so the front could show and the back could show. | 20:32 |
Chris Stewart | Oh my gosh. | 21:06 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And so you could see the mistakes. And he came up real apologetic. He said, "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't do better than that on that paper." I said, "But you were a baby. You were six years old. What do you expect?" I said, "And I just kept it." But I do. I love him dearly, and he loves me. He loves me dearly. And I guarantee you, if he would become President of the United States, I would be a part of it. That's just the bond that he and I have. | 21:07 |
Chris Stewart | Were there other Black children in the class, or— | 21:35 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Not at that time. The Black children didn't come over until about the middle '70s. Maybe around '73, '74 they started coming, but they were busing the Black children into the schools. | 21:38 |
Chris Stewart | How did you feel when all the violence was going on starting in the early '70s? | 21:52 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | It was upsetting, but I am of, I guess, the school, I should say, that I believe in people dialoguing, talking about things. Ask me why my skin won't rub off on you. Let me tell you that my blood is red under this brown skin. Let me talk to you and tell you that all of us don't steal, all of us aren't lazy and shiftless. That George Washington Carver did more with the peanut than anybody. The blood plasma guy whose name alludes me right now, that people are surviving today because he came up with the blood plasma, and he died because he wasn't able to get it himself. Talk about Matthew Henson, and being an explorer, and all of that. Dialogue. | 22:03 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Because what has happened through the years is that Whites only knew a little bit about us because they still saw us in a subservient-type environment. But we had to learn about Whites. So therefore we were always one up, two up, three up, four up, because we had to learn. Your history books you gave us was talking about you. Everything else was talking about you. So we knew you. And I'm speaking collectively when I say, "We knew you." But there was nothing. There was very little that you knew about us other than in some kind of subservient-type environment. | 23:22 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So I hated that that happened. I hated that Wilmington got such a terrible name for that having happened. I hate it even today, that as soon as something comes up, the Wilmington Ten is pushed up from the surface, rioting is pushed up from the surface, this kind of thing. Excuse me. I feel like that there is a way to talk. I feel like there is a way to talk. | 24:09 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And it goes back to even when I go back to Pine Valley. That mother wasn't open enough to talk to me. She was closed-minded, because her child would have had the same bond with me that Chuck had, because most of the children do. I see these kids today, and the fact that they've grown up and become adults, I've lost that little child face, childlike face that they had, but I haven't changed. And they still walk up to me. Yeah. They walk up to me, and I have to say, "You've got to tell me who you are." And I said, "It's not that I have just totally forgotten that you existed," I said, "but you don't have that childlike face anymore. You've become an adult." I said, "So you tell me who you are." | 24:47 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And that's the good part that comes out of that. And see, these children were my friends, and I don't see that generation of children fighting or going at each other. I don't see that. Perhaps it happens, and I don't know. I'm not aware of it. But I don't see that generation saying that, "We've got to fight to straighten this out." I feel like that there should be dialogue, talking, and working things out. | 25:33 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And an example would be, you're in my home today, and I hope that you feel welcome, and I didn't meet you at the door and say, "I can only give you two minutes." Or, "I can only give you three minutes." That's why I called back to postpone this, so you could have as much time as you'd like to have. And I think it's getting to know people. And I'm wondering, did all of this happen because people didn't want to find out anything about each other? | 26:04 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And the riots didn't make me feel good. Or the riot, it didn't make me feel good. I felt like integration was the proper thing to happen. They tried going this thing, separate but equal, but it didn't work. And can you imagine what it feels like to a child to go from first grade all through the 12th grade, and maybe in their lifetime, from first grade through 12th grade, maybe, maybe they had one new book in a classroom to use? All the books were used, and pages torn out, and we just had to do the best we could do with that. | 26:37 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So some people feel like the rioting was the answer to that, but I still say I think that could have been another way, and I didn't like that. But here again, I do believe that integration was what all of us should have had. And even so, when Hoggard High School was built, and our daughter decided that she wanted to go to Hoggard, and I had some folk to say to me, "You're going to let her go to Hoggard?" I said, "Yes, I am going to let her go to Hoggard." I said, "She's going to Hoggard." I said, "Because her dad and I are taxpayers." | 27:26 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | See, that's the route that we chose to talk about, as opposed to saying, "She's Black, and they're White, and I'm going to see that she bull walks her way in." But I said, "No, but her dad and I are taxpayers." I said, "Hoggard's library is carpeted." I said, "She'll be able to study in quietness." I said, "The school is air-conditioned." I said, "She'll be able to participate in things, and it's nice and cool in there." I said, "And we're taxpayers," I said, "and we helped to build the school." | 28:08 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I said, "So therefore, she should be a part of that school if she wants to." Now, see, that's the attitude that her dad and I took with her integrating that school. Because when Deborah went over there in '68, and out of an enrollment of about, I would think, 1,000 or more students, maybe it could have been about 1,200, there were just 40 Black students over there. But she was one of the ones. Deborah was the first in the choral group over there, and she was the only Black in the choral group, because she sings. | 28:47 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But here again, the following year, they closed Williston. And when the Blacks, other Blacks had to go over there, they were very upset, and upset because it was like they couldn't cope. But then that wouldn't have mattered. Had they closed, she would have been able to cope, because of the background and because of the way that our two children grew up. This is the way they grew up. | 29:27 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And there are little fun things that—Am I going on a tangent here? | 29:54 |
Chris Stewart | No. I actually was going to ask you how she coped [indistinct 00:30:03]. | 29:58 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. Yeah. I mean, this was a fantastic thing, because they were able to cope, and being the only Black in the choir, and they traveled. And it was so funny, when they would go to motels to stay, the girls had to share the two beds in the room, and somebody had to sleep with somebody. | 30:02 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So Deborah said, "I wasn't concerned, Mommy." She said, "I went to bed, and I know somebody—" She said, "It didn't matter whether they flipped a coin, or how," she said, "but when I woke up the next morning, there was always somebody beside me." And she said, and they would say little things like, "I've got to get some sun so I can get my tan." She said, "And I would look at them and say, 'Huh, I can't believe this. You wanted to go get in the sun to get a tan.'" She said, "I was born with one big brown freckle, and it just spread over my whole body. Look at me. I don't have to. Now you go there and burn. I don't have to." And that was the attitude. | 30:23 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And then the music director, Bob Alexander. Oh god, is he a fine man. | 31:03 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. | 31:10 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | He's such a fine man. And he pushed Deborah. He was just a hustler. He just pushed her, and he told her one day, he said, "I want you to try out for the Governor's School." She said, "Oh, I'm not that good." He said, "Yes, you are." He said, "Come on, try for Governor's School. Here, this is what I want you to do. Take this to audition." She came home one day and she said, "Mr. A wants me to audition for Governor's School. That means I'll have to go to Winston." I said, "Okay, we'll take you to Winston." We took her to Winston, she auditioned, and then every day she looked for the mail. She said they told her it would be a big brown envelope, and every day she'd look at the mail. She said, "If I don't see a big brown envelope," she said, "I'm just going to hide my face." "If I don't see a big brown envelope, I'm just going to hide my face." "If I don't—" | 31:10 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And this went on day, after day, after day, after day. And then I started saying, "Well, get ready to hide your face. Get ready to hide your face." She said, "Mommy, I don't care where you are. When I get that big brown envelope in the mailbox, I'm going to call you. I don't care where you are." I said, "That's fine with me." | 31:51 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And believe it or not, do you know I was in the podiatrist's office, sitting in the chair with my feet propped up, and his nurse came in and told me that my daughter was on the phone. And she just screamed and said, "I got it! I got the big brown envelope!" So she went for voice. She went to Governor's School, but she enjoyed it. And Deborah set the stage for herself when she went there. She was very open, very friendly, very kind. | 32:09 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And that was, I guess, a bit unusual. And she said she never will forget the day she was sitting in her advanced biology class, and she was the only kid in that class, because they used to homogeneously group children because of your—That's called ability grouping. They grouped you according to your ability. And so she was in the fast track. She was in the top group of students through this particular track. And this was in the sixties. They just stopped tracking students, maybe within the past 20 years or so, or a little bit more. Yeah. Students were tracked. | 32:40 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So what happened, she was sitting in her advanced biology class, and she was sitting in the middle, and the teacher was giving a test, and the students sitting on either side of her pulled out a sheet of paper to cover their sheet as they were doing their answers. They thought this little Black girl was going to copy, so they covered their papers. They're sitting on—So she didn't cover hers. She just kept on, and she didn't look to her right, nor to her left. But guess what? When the papers were passed back, the person on the left got about a 40 or 60, and the person to her right got something like about a 60 or a 50. And then sitting in the middle here, it was about 97. And then the two of them exchanged words by saying, "Oh, we have a genius sitting in the middle of us." | 33:20 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:34:13]. | 34:11 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And she looked and she said, "I think you do." | 34:13 |
Chris Stewart | (laughs) Oh gosh, that's wonderful. | 34:16 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And they became fast friends. They loved her. They adored her. And I never will forget, I can't think of this guy's name now, but he would drive all the way up here from Pine Valley to get her notes, to study her notes. You see what I'm saying? To study her notes. | 34:19 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And then our son decided he wanted to do this in junior high. They called it junior high then, as opposed to middle school. And he left and went to Chestnut Street School in the seventh grade, I think it was. Yeah. Seventh grade. He was the only Black kid in his class, because they were tracking students. And when Deborah graduated from Hoggard in '69, because Hoggard had just opened for the '67-'68 school year, and she went there two years, her junior year and her senior year, when she graduated from Hoggard in '69, out of a class of 460, 400 plus, she was number five. | 34:45 |
Chris Stewart | Oh my goodness. | 35:30 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And when Ricardo graduated from Hoggard in '72, out of a class of 600 plus, maybe 640, 600 more, give or take a few, he was number two. | 35:31 |
Chris Stewart | Oh my goodness. There's a real tradition of education in your family, it sounds like you've passed on. | 35:47 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But it was never anything that you sat children down and said, "This is what you got—" Uh-huh. Deborah and I were talking about this Saturday when she and I talked, and she said, "You know what, Mom?" She said, "Just like at work," she said, "I talk at work," and we were saying, she said, "When we were growing up, it was never anything like saying, 'Do you want to go to college?' 'I think you ought to be thinking about if you going to college.' Or, 'Do you want to go to college?'" She said, "That was just another phase of my life." She said, "I never had to think about, 'What's the next phase after high school?'" She said it was automatic. | 35:54 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Deborah was saying that she never had to think about this being another phase in her life that, "What should I do?" She said that was just automatic. She said, "It was just as automatic as when you get up in the morning, and you go to the bathroom, and you grab the toothbrush and the toothpaste." It was just that automatic that she knew that college was the next step, the next phase of her life to go. | 36:43 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And there were always things that I did for them when they were growing up. And I did this purposely to test them, to see if they were reading. And what I did when they go in the bathroom, I threw some magazines on the clothes hamper. And I remember one day she said, "Mom, I wish you would change the magazines in the bathroom." I said, "Oh, you go in the bathroom and you read? You do? Okay." I said, "Well, then this is the next thing." | 37:05 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So what I did, when I realized that they would go in the bathroom and read, I took all the magazines out and I put a dictionary on the clothes hamper, and they picked the dictionary up. | 37:29 |
Chris Stewart | What a good idea. | 37:45 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | They picked the dictionary up, and they read the dictionary just like they read a book. That's what I did. | 37:45 |
Chris Stewart | What a good idea. | 37:50 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. That's what I did when they were growing up. | 37:51 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. It sounds like you taught your children by example. | 37:53 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So did my mother. | 38:00 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 38:00 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay? Yeah. So did my mother. So did my mother. And as I said, during my mother's and father's days, my dad did not have the time, I guess, nor the energy, to do the kinds of things that fathers do with their children today. I eventually go back to say my husband didn't take the time with our two children like fathers today. And I guess it's because that was just hanging a fringe on the edge of fathers not doing everything with the children like they do today. And it was just a little fringe on the edge. And fathers would always say, "Go ask your mother." That was just something. "Go ask your mother." Yeah. They said those things. "Go ask your mother." But now it's like, "Go ask your dad." "Go ask your mother." | 38:02 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And something else Deborah and I were talking about, and she was talking about her peers, and talking about growing up and everything. And it was that there was always a father. She said, "Mama, I don't know any of my friends that didn't have a daddy at home." I said, "I know." She said, "But I'm just looking at what has happened since then." And we were just comparing how these one-parent homes are about. And I have a strong philosophy about life, and living, and doing things. And these are the things that we try to impart in our children, whether it has to do with integration, segregation, or the whole nine yards. | 38:53 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | When we moved here, in this house, we could not go beyond, see, this is between 11th and 12th. We could not go beyond—There were no people, no Black people living on Ann Street beyond 15th Street. If it was 15th Street, they were on the west side of 15th Street, and there were all Blacks right around in this area. But there were Whites living from 15th Street on the east side all the way back. I mean, just all the way back to Forest Hills, from Forest Hills all the way over. That's where they lived. So when we moved here, this house had four rooms. | 39:35 |
Chris Stewart | Oh my goodness. | 40:21 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. This house had four rooms. | 40:21 |
Chris Stewart | When did you move here? | 40:24 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | In '58. But Whites were all the way down there, and we moved here in '58. But what happened was this. And then working and whatever, there were a lot of people, a lot of my friends who lived right around in this area, but they chose to move out in the suburbs, if you will. But that was fine. Okay? I had no problem with that. And I think the thing that stuck in my mind was that from reading, sociologist, psychologist, the whole nine yards would always say, "A child is always the victim of his environment." Or they used the environment as to whether a child succeeded or didn't succeed, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm saying to myself, "That is a cop out. Somebody goes to school, gets smart enough to write this down in a book, sell it and get rich." And I said, "That isn't so." | 40:25 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And to the point where I had friends to say, "Well, I'm going to move, because I want my child to grow up in a different environment, and I want my child to do this, and I want my child to do that." And I'm saying to myself, "What difference does a house somewhere else have over the house that you have? What? I mean, are your values going down the pot? It's your values. So what difference does this make where this house is? What about your values?" But I did not say that. I let them say what they wanted to say, because I knew what I was going to do. And my point has always been that it is not where one lives. It is how one lives. And that's the philosophy that we did. So we chose to stay here, and we stayed here by choice. This is why we live here. We live here by choice. Our children turned out just fine. | 41:27 |
Chris Stewart | Really fine. | 42:33 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | They turned out just fine. Ricardo graduated from Carolina. He's a math major and he works for the Department of Defense. He's a physical scientist for the Department of Defense. And I'm saying environment, that's your values. Has nothing to do with the environment. Has nothing to do with the environment. | 42:34 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But I'm saying, I let people say this, and I look at the people who made the move, and I sort of let it run through my mind. "How did their children turn out?" And I feel blessed, because in most instances, we are the winner. I feel very blessed. But like I said, I have no problem with where people live and what people do. It's just that we chose to stay here, and we're comfortable here, and we're happy here. And that's just what we chose to do, is to stay right here. And it's fine with us, and it's fine with the children. | 42:59 |
Chris Stewart | Amazing that you said this was a four-room— | 43:36 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | This was a four-room house. | 43:39 |
Chris Stewart | This huge house. | 43:40 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. | 43:40 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. So did you just keep on adding on? | 43:43 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | We just kept on until we got it just like we wanted it. | 43:45 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. I mean, that's really nice too, to be here for so long, and to be able to do that. | 43:47 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And I remember the kids one day said, "What are you going to do when you retire? Are you going to have a big mortgage payment?" And you don't want that. | 43:53 |
Chris Stewart | No. | 44:01 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. You don't want that. And I said, "No, we don't. I guess we don't want that." So then we in turn started listening to the children. | 44:01 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, yeah. | 44:09 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | We started listening to the children. But my children did just great in the school system. They did just great. And both of them were well-liked. They fit in. Well, I hate to use the word "fit in." That sounds, I don't know, like a piece of something, and you got to fit. But my children did not have a problem with any kind of adjustment. I guess that's the best word to use. And I think it's only because of their environment. Their environment. And just had never had any problems. | 44:10 |
Chris Stewart | It sounds like you instilled a very strong sense of their own self in them. | 44:48 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | They do have high self-esteem. They have very high self-esteem. And like I'm saying, it's amazing what Duke did with her, and that's why it was so difficult for her to grasp that people could be this way. Because I'd always taught my children that all people aren't good, all people aren't bad. And it doesn't have a thing to do with the color of your skin, as to what makes you good and what makes you bad. There are members in the Black race that if they would ring my doorbell, I wouldn't open the door. And the same thing among all races, they're that way. So we did not teach the children the color of your skin made the difference. It's what's inside. It's what's inside. That's what makes the difference. | 44:54 |
Chris Stewart | Is there anything that I haven't asked you that I should have asked you about? | 45:50 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I can't think of anything. I hope when you play this tape back, it doesn't sound like a whole lot of gibberish. | 45:55 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, no. This has been a really remarkable interview. | 46:00 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. I just hope it's not a lot of gibberish. I really, really do. And I hope it doesn't sound like I've gone off on tangents. But I've had an interesting—Oh, I'm having, I should say. I'm having an interesting life. It's been very, very interesting. And when you think about how you get over your hurdles, and how you continue to keep going, this makes all the difference in the world. It really makes all the difference in the world. And we've tried to do that. We've tried to do that. We've tried to jump over our hurdles, jump over our— | 46:04 |
Chris Stewart | Together. | 46:45 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes. | 46:45 |
Chris Stewart | As a family. | 46:45 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes. | 46:45 |
Chris Stewart | And we'll just start with your full name. | 0:02 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. It's Marvis Waddell McCrimmon. The first name is M-A-R-V-I-S and Waddell is my maiden name. That's two D's. | 0:04 |
Chris Stewart | Two L's as well? | 0:14 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. | 0:15 |
Chris Stewart | And is it—? | 0:18 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | M-C-C-R-I-M-M-O-N. | 0:18 |
Chris Stewart | And your current address is 1105—? | 0:27 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | 1105 Ann. | 0:40 |
Chris Stewart | And your current phone number? Seven six two. Area code 919-762-6315. | 0:41 |
Chris Stewart | How would you like your name to appear in any written material? | 0:48 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Marvis W. | 0:50 |
Chris Stewart | And your birthdate? | 1:04 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | 03/06/34. | 1:04 |
Chris Stewart | And your place of birth? | 1:14 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Brunswick County. | 1:16 |
Chris Stewart | And you're currently married? | 1:22 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes. | 1:23 |
Chris Stewart | Your husband's name? | 1:24 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | His name is McIver, M-C-I-V-E-R. That's his mother's maiden name. Middle name, Grant, McCrimmon. | 1:25 |
Chris Stewart | And his date of birth? | 1:40 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | God, I think today's his birthday. | 1:42 |
Chris Stewart | And his place of birth? | 1:50 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Marlboro County. Like Marlboro cigarettes, you spell it that way. Marlboro County, South Carolina. | 1:53 |
Chris Stewart | Marlboro? | 2:00 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. It's M-A-R-L-B-O-R-O. | 2:01 |
Chris Stewart | M-A-R-L? | 2:05 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. B-A-R-O. B-O-R-O. Yeah. Okay. Marlboro County. Marlboro County. | 2:05 |
Chris Stewart | And his occupation? | 2:18 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | He's retired now. | 2:19 |
Chris Stewart | What was he? | 2:21 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | He worked at DuPont. So he was in industry. | 2:21 |
Chris Stewart | And your mother's name? | 2:28 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | My mother's full name was Cora Alethia Hankins. That's her maiden name. | 2:30 |
Chris Stewart | Hankins. I interviewed a Audrey Sessions, whose maiden name was— | 2:39 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Hankins. | 2:48 |
Chris Stewart | Hankins. | 2:48 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I know Audrey. I know Audrey. | 2:49 |
Chris Stewart | Is there any connection? | 2:50 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | No. No connection there. | 2:53 |
Chris Stewart | How do you spell your mother's middle name? | 2:54 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | A-L-E-T-H-I-A. But she's spelled it A-L-E-T-H-A. So I guess I better let it go at that. | 2:56 |
Chris Stewart | A-L. | 3:00 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | E-T-H-A. Aletha, as opposed to Alethia. | 3:01 |
Chris Stewart | And her maiden name? | 3:05 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Hankins. My mother's name. You want her married name? See her married name would be Waddell. See, Waddell is my maiden name. | 3:06 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 3:19 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Right. So she would be Waddell. And her maiden name is Hankins. I guess, I misled you. | 3:20 |
Chris Stewart | I figured this out. I'm a little slow. | 3:24 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | That's okay. That's okay. | 3:28 |
Chris Stewart | And her date of birth? | 3:30 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | My mother was born 7/19/91. That's 1891 now. | 3:32 |
Chris Stewart | And when did she die? | 3:42 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | She died October. That's 10/8/65. | 3:43 |
Chris Stewart | And her place of birth? | 3:52 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Brunswick County. | 3:54 |
Chris Stewart | And her occupation? She was a house— | 4:01 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | She was, yes. | 4:02 |
Chris Stewart | And your father's name? | 4:05 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | James Edward Waddell. | 4:07 |
Chris Stewart | His date of birth? | 4:16 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | His date of birth was 9/15/85. That's 1885 now. | 4:17 |
Chris Stewart | And when did he die? | 4:28 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | He died 10/16/78. | 4:30 |
Chris Stewart | And his place of birth? | 4:35 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Brunswick County. | 4:36 |
Chris Stewart | And his occupation? | 4:42 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | He was a foreman. He was a foreman at Royster Fertilizer Company. He was a foreman. | 4:43 |
Chris Stewart | Brothers and sisters? | 4:58 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes. Yes. I have two deceased brothers. Do you need their names as well? Okay, well, I'll go down the line. My oldest brother was Willard Edward. And the last name is Waddell for all of them. Willard Edward. | 5:00 |
Chris Stewart | Do you know when he was born? | 5:16 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. He was born January, I think it was January the 11th. I'm trying to get the date. | 5:18 |
Chris Stewart | If you can just remember the year. | 5:30 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Oh, okay. He was born in 1912. | 5:36 |
Chris Stewart | And when did he die? | 5:39 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | He died January, I think it was, was it, it was '79 or '80. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. It was '80. It was '80. He died in '80. | 5:42 |
Chris Stewart | And was he born in Brunswick County as well? | 6:02 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | All of us were. | 6:06 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 6:06 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | All of us were. | 6:06 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 6:10 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. Walter Maceo. | 6:10 |
Chris Stewart | How do you spell the middle name? | 6:13 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | M-A-C-E-O. His birthday is October and just go two years difference. | 6:15 |
Chris Stewart | And is he still alive? | 6:25 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Mm-hmm. | 6:26 |
Chris Stewart | All right. | 6:28 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. There was Alonzo Martin, A-L-O-N-Z-O. He was born in October. He was born. Was he born in October? When is Jack's birthday? Darn. Wait a minute. What month was his birthday? Jack told me. He was born in October. | 6:29 |
Chris Stewart | You're figuring out through the year. | 6:58 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. Yeah. | 7:01 |
Chris Stewart | And is he still alive? | 7:01 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | No, he's dead. He died '77. '79. He died like '79 or '80. But I can't, I can't, I can't. Whoa. Let's see. Oh, died. Papa died—wait a minute, let me tell you— I'mma tell you when Papa died October of '78 and Jack died the following August, I think it was. | 7:02 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | It must have been '79. Must have been. That's an estimate you can put '79 or '80, but I think it's '79. | 7:41 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 7:47 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I think it's '79. | 7:49 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 7:50 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. All right. Then there is John Lewis. | 7:52 |
Chris Stewart | L-E-W | 7:59 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | L-E-W-I-S. And his birthday is in October as well. | 8:01 |
Chris Stewart | Boy, you had a busy month in October. | 8:06 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | End of October, uh-huh. | 8:09 |
Chris Stewart | Is that two years as well? | 8:10 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah, two years as well. Just come down two years. | 8:10 |
Chris Stewart | And is he still alive? | 8:14 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. | 8:15 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 8:15 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. Then there is Cornelius. Cornelius Julius. His birthday is January, his birthday is January 5th, I think. Fifth or sixth. Two, uh, huh. | 8:16 |
Chris Stewart | Got lots of family. | 8:34 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. Then there's my sister. Her name is Edna, middle name Mae, M-A-E. Okay. She's born January. | 8:38 |
Chris Stewart | Was she married? | 8:48 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes. | 8:49 |
Chris Stewart | What's her married name? | 8:50 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Her married name is Mosley. Then there's Floyd Henry. See you running out of space. | 8:51 |
Chris Stewart | I am. I might have to go to the back side. | 9:10 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | See, there are 11 of us. Okay. February. February 2nd. We always teased him. We call him a groundhog. Is it February 2nd or February 4th. February 4th. February 4th. We still call him a groundhog though. Two years down. Okay. Then there's Ralph Leonard. Two years down. Okay. He's still living. Okay. Then there's James Rudolph. Oh, I left a brother out. Come back. Let me show you where to put him. | 9:15 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 10:05 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Before Edna put, right under him, put Charles, Charlie Roy. I'm sorry. God, I'm skipping him. | 10:07 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, no. | 10:16 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes, I am. I'm sorry. He comes right after my sister. | 10:16 |
Chris Stewart | Oh after your sister? | 10:23 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | After my sister. Right after my sister. Right after my sister. | 10:25 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 10:31 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. Now he's two years under her. | 10:36 |
Chris Stewart | He's the 1924. | 10:38 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Right? He's the '24. Uh-huh, absolutely. | 10:41 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 10:45 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. | 10:50 |
Chris Stewart | And then James Rudolph, did you say? | 10:52 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | James Rudolph. | 10:53 |
Chris Stewart | F or P-H? | 10:57 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | It's P-H and he's '31. There's a little difference. There's a little break there. | 10:58 |
Chris Stewart | He was born in '32. | 11:07 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | '31. | 11:07 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, '31. | 11:07 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | He was born in '31. Okay. | 11:09 |
Chris Stewart | And then you. | 11:12 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | That's me. The 11th one. I was born '34. Right here. There's a three years difference here between the knee baby and me right here. Two years, stopped right in here. And James is three years younger than Ralph. And then I'm three years younger than James. | 11:14 |
Chris Stewart | They were three apart then. | 11:35 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Was three down there. Yeah. So he's '31 and I'm '34. | 11:37 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. And we already have your birthday. | 11:41 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. Right. | 11:42 |
Chris Stewart | Your children's names? Full names. | 11:43 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. Deborah. Deborah Anne. And that's spelled D-E-B-O-R-A-H. And Anne is a A-N-N-E McCrimmon. | 11:45 |
Chris Stewart | And her birthdate? | 11:58 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | 1/7/51. | 12:00 |
Chris Stewart | And she was born here in Wilmington? | 12:05 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | McIver Ricardo McCrimmon. He has his dad's first name. I-V-E-R R-I-C-A-R-D-O. | 12:06 |
Chris Stewart | R-I-C-A-R | 12:21 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | D-O. | 12:22 |
Chris Stewart | D-O. | 12:25 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. He was born 12/18. I have to think about when this child was born. '51. '52, '53? He was born in '53. | 12:33 |
Chris Stewart | Again in Wilmington? | 12:47 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. | 12:47 |
Chris Stewart | Do you have any grandchildren? | 12:48 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | No. I wish. | 12:49 |
Chris Stewart | You're waiting. | 12:50 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah, I wish. | 12:51 |
Chris Stewart | Have you always lived then in this—well, you lived in Brunswick County while you were growing up and then— | 12:52 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | As a child. But it was like I was over here as much as there, but our home was there. | 13:00 |
Chris Stewart | Until you were how old? | 13:12 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Would you consider leaving for high school? Because see, what happens, like I'm saying, I had siblings who were grown, who were adult, and I came and lived with them. So as a teenager, As a teenager. | 13:21 |
Chris Stewart | So until, what, about 14? | 13:35 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes. Somewhere around there. Around 13. So a teenager. | 13:36 |
Chris Stewart | And then you lived in Wilmington. | 13:41 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. | 13:42 |
Chris Stewart | Now, we're to your education history. Starting from the beginning. | 13:53 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Oh, boy. You wanted to know the schools? Yeah. Okay. Grades one through seven, Chapel Road. Eight through 12, Williston. And let's see, was this called Wilmington College or Fayetteville was it? I think they had changed the name to Wilmington College. And grades 12 through 16, Wilmington College and Fayetteville State University. They used to call it Wilmington College a long time ago, not UNC. | 13:57 |
Chris Stewart | And what degree did you receive? | 15:12 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | A BS? | 15:15 |
Chris Stewart | In elementary education? | 15:17 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | In elementary education with a focus on primary education. Well, they call it early childhood now. | 15:19 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 15:24 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | So you can put early childhood if you like, but it was not called early childhood at that time. | 15:25 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. Your work history. | 15:30 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | My work history. That's amazing. Do you want to go as far back as when you're a kid and you make change, you don't want to do that? Some sort of teenager on up. | 15:40 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah, right. | 15:57 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Believe it or not, I never worked as a teenager. Never worked. | 15:59 |
Chris Stewart | You had a good family. They were taking care of you. | 16:07 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh, uh-huh. Had a very good family. Maybe there were things that I did as a kid. Maybe I kept somebody's kid and they might, and it wasn't like doing it for money. Maybe it was a person who sewed and if I kept their kid, maybe they made me a dress. That kind of thing. I can't ever remember. I never had a job working for money until I became an adult. I never had a job. And come to think of it, I never even thought about it. I never really had a job as a teen. I never had a job as a teenager. That's amazing. | 16:08 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 16:45 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah. I never had a job. | 16:47 |
Chris Stewart | Especially given that you grew up in such a large family. | 16:49 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yeah, but I really never had a job as a teenager. And I think it's partially too because I think maybe my mother sheltered me and didn't do that. Because I remember during World War II, walking to school and we had to walk through woods, had to walk through, well you call it the woods, I don't know anything else to call it but that. But it wasn't inhabited by people, so it had to be through the woods. | 16:52 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And during World War II, the soldiers used to come on maneuvers and they would be sort of interspersed all through the woods. And my mother didn't allow me. She let my brothers go to school, but she didn't allow me to go to school during that time. And I used to wonder, and she was just always so far ahead of her time. I used to cry because I wanted to go to school. And she used to tell me, she said, you can't go to school now. When the soldiers are no longer on maneuver, then you can go back to school. And I used to just wonder why was I being punished and couldn't go to school because of the soldiers there. | 17:29 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And when I grew up, I asked her, and these were White soldiers that were in the woods. And she told me later on, she said, "I was afraid that they could have raped you. And I would've had no recourse." See, my mother was always so far ahead of her time, so far ahead of her time. And I was a kid going elementary school. And it was so amazing. I wanted to go to school. | 18:10 |
Chris Stewart | Of course, she couldn't tell you the reason. | 18:37 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | She didn't tell me. She never told me as a child. I couldn't have comprehended. I wouldn't have known what she was talking about. But she told me when I was able to understand, when I had grown up enough to understand, when I was a teenager or a pre-teen or whatever. I said, "Mom, why didn't you let me go to school?" I said, "The boys used to go, used to let the boys go." I said, "But you never let me go." She said, "Because I was afraid you could have gotten raped." She was always so far ahead of her time. | 18:40 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | And I did go one time. She let me go, but she told my brothers, one to get on either side of me and to hold my hands and don't stop. If they wanted to talk to me, just keep walking and don't say anything. And I remember seeing them one time, the soldiers one time on maneuvers. I never saw them but that one time. And I think she let me go so I could see it. But the time that the soldiers, what does my husband say that's called [indistinct 00:19:39], or whatever it is. When they go, I called it maneuvers, when they were in the woods in tents and all this kind of thing. My mother never let me go to school. She never, because I was walking right through the woods and she never. | 19:08 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | It was a cart path. It's a cart path down the road. It was a cart path. But she never let me go to school then, and that was the reason. I just had no idea why until she told me later years. But she was always so far ahead of her time. | 19:50 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. Yeah. She sounds like an incredible— | 20:05 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | She was. She was an incredible woman. And can you imagine now, sometimes I sit and I reflect and I think about things she has said, things she has done. And now, in the 20th century here, you hear about all of the incestuous type things. You hear about child abuse, you hear about all of that. And back there she was ahead of her time. | 20:08 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 20:32 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I mean she was just so aware. So aware. And nobody would stop to believe that or think it. | 20:33 |
Chris Stewart | She took care of her kids. | 20:38 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes, she did. | 20:38 |
Chris Stewart | She make sure— | 20:41 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Yes, she did. Yes, she did. | 20:41 |
Chris Stewart | You ever heard, I'm interested in that. You talk about these maneuvers. Did you hear when you were growing up about a German POW camp? | 20:45 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. My daddy worked German POWs at the plant. My daddy worked them, my daddy worked them. And they'd get mad at him and they would use a profanity. But they did it in German. And my dad was of the Black race, but my dad was almost as fair as you. And I think that was some of the things or maybe part the reason that was just so maybe unacceptable to those German POWs because they didn't know what my dad was race-wise. And that was confusing to them. And then when they found out that my dad was Black and he was in charge—And see how far spread this had gotten about, Blacks are not in charge of doing anything. See, they came all the way from Germany and they knew that no Black man was supposed to be in charge of anybody. Blacks, you in some form of subservient type situation. | 20:54 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | But anyway, and my dad used to come home and we used to laugh about it. He used to say, oh, they really did. They gave me a good cussing out today. But they did it in German. Yeah, they did it in German. So I'm aware of the POWs. German POWs. Yeah. | 22:03 |
Chris Stewart | We've had some people talking to us about them. | 22:18 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. | 22:21 |
Chris Stewart | The camps, when people were little children walking by the camp on the way to school. | 22:21 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. But I never walked by the camp. Now, they did have, but that's when they had Camp Davis over here and that was a spill out over here. But I never walked by a camp. I just walked by the maneuvers when the soldiers would be on maneuvers and they would do that. My mother would keep me home from school. | 22:27 |
Chris Stewart | So we got off the track here. | 22:49 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. | 22:50 |
Chris Stewart | We were trying to talk about your work history. | 22:50 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Nope, I haven't worked. The only job that I ever had, I just never worked. | 22:53 |
Chris Stewart | Did you always work for the New Hanover County Schools? | 23:01 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | That's the only full-time job that I've had. | 23:04 |
Chris Stewart | You've always been employed with the schools? | 23:08 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Except when I was in college. | 23:11 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 23:13 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | I worked before I finished college. Did you want to know about that? Was that important? I worked while I was going to college. During the time I was going to college, I worked as a teacher's assistant during the time I was going to college. And I worked as a secretary in the educational office at the university. But those were the only two jobs that I've ever had other than working for the new Hanover County Board of Education. | 23:14 |
Chris Stewart | So you've always been involved in education. | 23:44 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Uh-huh. Uh-huh. | 23:46 |
Chris Stewart | How many years have you worked with the New Hanover County Schools? | 23:48 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | 30 years and six months. | 23:54 |
Chris Stewart | Sometimes it's just quite overwhelming to meet people who have dedicated their lives to— | 24:03 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Absolutely. | 24:09 |
Chris Stewart | It's an honor for us. | 24:09 |
Chris Stewart | Have you ever received any awards or honors or held any offices? | 24:11 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | In what area, in the area of education? | 24:18 |
Chris Stewart | In basically any area, community work. | 24:21 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Well, would you like to look in the family room and take a gander for yourself? | 24:25 |
Chris Stewart | That would probably be easier for you. | 24:32 |
Marvis Waddell McCrimmon | Okay. It would be. Do we disconnect here? Do we walk with it? | 24:32 |
Chris Stewart | We should— | 24:36 |
Item Info
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