Rebecca Smith interview recording, 1993 July 13
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Chris Stewart | If I could ask you to just state your name and your address so I can get a voice level on the tape recorder? | 0:00 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Okay. My name is Rebecca Smith. And what else? | 0:06 |
Chris Stewart | Address. | 0:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, 1302 Little John Circle. | 0:17 |
Chris Stewart | Great. | 0:20 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Wilmington, North Carolina. | 0:20 |
Chris Stewart | By the way, your directions were absolutely wonderful. Piece of cake. Great directions. Because normally I'm like driving around going— But they were wonderful. Thank you. You've told me that you, before we started the interview ma'am, that you haven't always lived here— | 0:21 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. | 0:38 |
Chris Stewart | — in Wilmington. Were you born here in Wilmington? | 0:39 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. Attended school here until I was about 10 years old. Then my father moved his business, which was barbering, to Baltimore and we attended school there. I graduated from school in Baltimore, Frederick Douglass High School. | 0:43 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, yeah, that's a famous high school. | 1:05 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Then I attended Apex Beauty College, Cortez Peters Business College, and I took Practical Nursing at a program at Providence Hospital. | 1:08 |
Chris Stewart | My goodness, you did a lot of schooling. | 1:22 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And I ended up retiring from nursing. | 1:26 |
Chris Stewart | Oh. Do you remember much about Wilmington when you were a child here? | 1:30 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yes. If you went to the bus station, when I was a child, and you wanted something as common as a hot dog and a soda, you had to go to the back of the bus station. They had a little place on the back of the bus station at the refreshment stand that you would go and get your hot dog and your drink. And if you went into some of the stores they would have water fountains. Some stating White fountains and Black fountains, or Black restrooms, White restrooms. | 1:36 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And I didn't feel— It was just the way it was. And so I never really felt the blood of it. If you needed to go to the bathroom, well, if it said Black bathroom, well you knew that's where you're supposed to go. I didn't actually feel it too much because— And I was a child too, and seemed to have sort of got adjusted to your place and where you're supposed to be. | 2:25 |
Chris Stewart | Where did you live when you were a child here in Wilmington? | 2:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, I lived at 807 Anderson Street when I was a child, right across from the city stable. | 3:00 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 3:06 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | When trash was taken up with horse and wagons and they had an incinerator on the corner of Fanning and 10th Street. And I lived on Anderson, the lower part of Ninth Street, right in front of the city stable, where they kept all the city horses and wagons, and people would come out there, they had a public pump out there and people would come out there and get good pump water because they had spigots in the backyard or on the back porch, some of them in the house. But anyway, they'd come there and get that good pump water in front of the city stable, later in the cool of the evening. And that was amusing. | 3:06 |
Chris Stewart | You smile when you talk about living across from the city stable. | 3:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, city stable to see all the horses. Yeah, I have to smile about that because it was amusing to see paper card and old man Dixon, all those people getting their horses hooked up to the wagons, getting out and getting ready to get on the street to collect the trash. Yeah, that was a amusing sight to children. | 3:59 |
Chris Stewart | What did your house look like? Do you remember what your house looked like? | 4:22 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, the house I was born in was my grandmother's house and it is still sitting over there. 807 Anderson Street. | 4:25 |
Chris Stewart | I have to write this down and we can go look. | 4:34 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | 807 Anderson Street. | 4:38 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. What did it look like? | 4:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | A nice little bungalow style house. Yeah. Nice little house. And lived there until my father bought another house. He bought a house on the corner, right around the corner from 13th and Castle. Bob Roberts built two bungalows. My father bought one and a man named Jim Johnson bought the other one. Well, the Johnson house is torn down, but the one I lived, 514 or 513, whichever, 13th Street, South 13th Street, that house is still there. That's where I lived when I was a little girl. | 4:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And that was a good house to live in because we had plenty running water, bathtub, hot water heater. It wasn't the modern kind of hot water heaters because they were heated with the gas coils. And we had a refrigerator there with the motor on the top, and we had a gas stove with long legs and you turned each burner on with little handles for each burner, and the oven on the side at the top. We had all them modern conveniences there at that house, which was 513 or '14, 13th Street. | 5:22 |
Chris Stewart | And did you not have the conveniences at the other house on Anderson Street? | 6:04 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Anderson Street, we had bathroom on the back porch and had the commode with the water box up high, and you would pull a long chain and that would flush it. | 6:09 |
Chris Stewart | So it was a real treat to move into the house over on 13th Street? | 6:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, because you had a regular little modern looking commode. But over on Anderson Street, it was on old commode, but at least it was up off from the— Just come out the back door to the porch and it was a closed in porch. And that was a little better than some people because some people had to go in the backyard. And at that time, they had people that came around at late at night to clean those toilets. The yard toilets. I can remember that. But they didn't have to clean ours. Ours flushed. You pull that long chain. | 6:32 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 7:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I remember that. | 7:18 |
Chris Stewart | How long did you live in that Anderson house? How old were you? | 7:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, I lived there until I was about, I'll say about four or five, something like that. | 7:20 |
Chris Stewart | And then— | 7:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Then we went to 13th Street, when Mr. Roberts built those bungalows over there. | 7:31 |
Chris Stewart | Do you have pretty strong memories about the 13th Street house? | 7:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, that 13th Street house, I can remember it very well because it's still sitting there looking good. And the lady that live there now work at Zora's Fish Market. It was a nice house with stuccoed walls in the living room, we had a chandelier in the living room and that was a pretty house. | 7:39 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember your neighbors when you were living there? | 8:00 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Most of them are dead now. I don't remember too many of them. The Backeson's. Roger Backeson, Frankie Backeson, they lived across the street. But by me being a child, I didn't know too much about them people. | 8:04 |
Chris Stewart | Who did you play with? | 8:19 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, we didn't play with too many of the children around there. Not too many of them. | 8:21 |
Chris Stewart | Did you stay in the house or in your yard? | 8:30 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | We stayed in our yard. Minnie Phyllis. A girl named Minnie Phyllis Epps, Mr. Nips, a granddaughter, Minnie Phyllis and her brother Bubba, we would play with them, and the Bradley children. John Bradley, Paul Bradley, and some of the larger Bradley children we would play with. And let's see, Buddy Hatcher and Frank Web, the Web children. Some of the Web's off of 13th Street, we played with them. Yeah. | 8:30 |
Chris Stewart | Where was your father's barbershop? | 9:12 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | On Castle Street. | 9:14 |
Chris Stewart | So he had his own, it wasn't in the house, it was his own? | 9:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, he had it up on Castle Street. | 9:18 |
Chris Stewart | Did you ever go visit him? | 9:20 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yes. We'd go up there sometime and we had a telephone. It was a big oak telephone on the side of the wall and you would just get your receiver down and crank it up and the operator would say, "Number please." There wasn't too many places for us to call because didn't too many people have a phone. Oh, it was real nice. And he had always kept a good car. Hupmobile's, [indistinct 00:09:50], any kind old big car with the running board, and you'd have to jack it up almost to crack it. | 9:21 |
Chris Stewart | Did you like to go driving in the car? | 9:59 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | My daddy would take us for a ride every Sunday. We'd go out to the airport and I loved to go out there, and we'd go out to the airport, [indistinct 00:10:07] Airport, and watch the planes come up and go down. And I loved to see Mr. Amen. And there was another one, I can't think. Amen and Penning. Mr. Pennington and Amen. Those were the two pilots I remember. | 10:01 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, at the airport? | 10:27 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Amen and Pennington. And Mr. Pennington sometime would take my daddy up for a spin. | 10:30 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 10:36 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 10:37 |
Chris Stewart | Sounds like your dad was a— | 10:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He was a— | 10:39 |
Chris Stewart | Your father was a— | 10:39 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He was a businessman, really. | 10:41 |
Chris Stewart | And then he was a community leader. | 10:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh yeah, John McAllister. He was smart. And my father's father was a principal of the Long Creek-Grady School in Pender County. | 10:45 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, really? | 10:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Dr. Deans McAllister. That was my grandfather, my daddy's daddy. | 10:56 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember your grandparents? | 11:01 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I remember my granddaddy. My daddy's mother passed away when he was a young man. And my mother's mother was Nellie Shaw. She was a caterer in Brooklyn, New York. And she worked anywhere from Brooklyn to anywhere up that Boston Post Road. Anywhere from Brooklyn to New Rochelle, Mamaroneck, Larchmont, Pelham, Remsenburg, Far Rockaway. She did the catering work all upstate New York for the very Richie Rich people. Wall Street brokers and whatever. | 11:04 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 11:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | She didn't cater to no real poor people who weren't able to pay the price. | 11:50 |
Chris Stewart | Did you get to see her? Did you visit her while she was there? | 11:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh yes, yes, yes. Because she bought a house that's 174 Jefferson Avenue. Yeah, she owned a house up there. And when she passed, she did. She bought her house. | 11:55 |
Chris Stewart | So how come your father decided to move to Baltimore? | 12:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He said he wanted us to have a good education and wanted us to go to school up there. And that's why we went up there. | 12:14 |
Chris Stewart | Was there an incident that made him think that you couldn't get a good education here? | 12:25 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, but he knew they weren't going to teach those White children without Black children getting some of it too. And he wanted us to go because he believed firmly in education. He came out of an education minded family. All his daddy's sisters and all were teachers and educators. Yeah, that they were. Sue Andrews, Aunt Piercey, all of those old people, they taught something. | 12:29 |
Chris Stewart | What about your mother? | 13:03 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mama taught school at Virgo back there. Yes. When you come out of school, she went to the 10th grade, and then went up there to some institute and then started teaching. She taught up there around Virgo. | 13:05 |
Chris Stewart | So education was a big— | 13:21 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, it was a big deal in my family. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody was supposed to get some. | 13:23 |
Chris Stewart | How many kids were in your family? | 13:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Three. I had two brothers. One's living, one's passed on. And Paul was the poet. I got a picture of him, a clipping out of paper down there somewhere. He was the poet for Afro-American Newspaper. | 13:30 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 13:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Paul McAllister. And his name was in Who's Who in poetry in America. Paul D. McAllister. | 13:49 |
Chris Stewart | I'll have to go look in the Afro-American. | 13:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Afro-American Newspaper. | 14:01 |
Chris Stewart | Baltimore Afro-American. | 14:03 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. Yeah. He was a poet. He did a lot of poetry and wrote some songs. His music was stolen from him, but he wrote it. He wrote one song called "I Will Wait." (singing) "I will wait till eternity. I will wait oh so patiently. I will wait. Darling, please wait for me." He wrote that. But somebody else stole his music and became famous with it. But still he's the one that wrote it. | 14:05 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. What happened? Did somebody else copy [indistinct 00:14:45]? | 14:42 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, they worked real quick with it. And they stole his music. | 14:45 |
Chris Stewart | Did he know who did it? | 14:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Some group became popular by singing that song. I forgot who it was. The Ravens or somebody. I don't know exactly now. I wasn't worried about too much. | 14:53 |
Chris Stewart | That's the time. Yeah. But you're proud of it. | 15:04 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, and he used pick it out on the piano and sing it. And I'm telling you, it sounded so pretty. It was a pretty song. | 15:07 |
Chris Stewart | Also, so you mentioned your grandfather. Did you go visit him in Pender County at all? | 15:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. We'd go up there. Papa Docs. Go up there because he did a lot of farming, and that's where we got our vegetables. He had vegetables. And we didn't wait until Christmas to eat turkey, he had turkeys, guineas, chickens, hogs, grape arbors, strawberry farms, watermelons. They had just had a plenty of everything. | 15:22 |
Chris Stewart | Did your grandfather own his land? | 15:45 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh yeah. Yeah. The lands still up there. | 15:47 |
Chris Stewart | So it's still in your family? | 15:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 15:51 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, that's wonderful. | 15:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And we've sold some of it, but some of it is still there at Long Creek. And my mama's house is still there at Long Creek. | 15:53 |
Chris Stewart | At Long Creek? | 16:01 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. My brother rents it out. | 16:04 |
Chris Stewart | Is it Long Creek or Log Creek? | 16:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Long. L-O-N-G. | 16:09 |
Chris Stewart | Long Creek? | 16:12 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. | 16:12 |
Chris Stewart | Is that a Black community? | 16:16 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, basically down in that area where my mama lived was. | 16:16 |
Chris Stewart | Did she ever tell you when, and did you ever know, get any kind of history of Long Creek? | 16:21 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Long Creek? Years and years and years ago, Long Creek was like Burgaw, a Indian reservation. All of that up in that area was Indian reservation. I guess you've heard about it. Watha, Burgaw, Long Creek, Montague, all that area up in there, all that was Indian reservation. | 16:27 |
Chris Stewart | When did Black settlers come in? | 16:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Years and years ago when they had that American and the Indian War and all that. And back in years ago. | 16:51 |
Chris Stewart | So the area that you're talking about is mostly— Is it a Black community? Is there Whites living there? | 16:59 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. Long Creek. Yeah. They are Whites in it, but because a lot of the Blacks sold their land to Whites. So they moved in. | 17:05 |
Chris Stewart | Right. But when your grandpa— | 17:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Granddaddy was there? | 17:16 |
Chris Stewart | — and your grandfather were there. | 17:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | When my granddaddy was there, because my mom and my daddy never lived there until they came back from Baltimore and built up there. | 17:18 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, I see. When your grandfather was there, was it an all-Black community? | 17:24 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, pretty near all. Pretty near all of it. | 17:29 |
Chris Stewart | So tell me what the visits were like when you went up there to see him? | 17:33 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, they were nice. He always had something good going. We'd go up there and eat and get vegetables and eat watermelon and plums and peaches and go to the grape arbors. Go down to the hog pen. | 17:36 |
Chris Stewart | How much time would you spend up there when you went? | 17:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Sometime I would stay up there with my Aunt Mary. She lived up there too. I'd stay up there maybe a weekend, not very long. My mama and daddy didn't let us go around and stay nowhere too much. | 17:58 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 18:12 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Didn't want us mingling up with people too much. Wanted us to sort of stick together and stay out of things. | 18:12 |
Chris Stewart | Who made the decisions in your household? Decisions say about disciplining the kids or everyday decisions about money or finances? | 18:21 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I didn't never get into that. I didn't never hear nothing about that. | 18:33 |
Chris Stewart | So you don't know who made the decisions? | 18:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. Uh-huh. But I know one thing, my daddy gave us a good living. He gave us a good one. Yes ma'am. | 18:37 |
Chris Stewart | Well, what do you mean when you say that? | 18:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Good living, honey. We wore good clothes, lived in good houses, always lived nice. I'm not bragging, but we lived good. | 18:45 |
Chris Stewart | You sound really proud of your father. | 18:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yes ma'am. He gave us a good living. Yes sir. Sure enough did. | 18:57 |
Chris Stewart | So you moved to Baltimore when you were 10. What part of Baltimore did you move to? | 19:06 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | West Baltimore. | 19:11 |
Chris Stewart | What do you remember about that neighborhood? How was it different from— | 19:12 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Here? | 19:17 |
Chris Stewart | — life in Wilmington? Yeah. | 19:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well I liked it because it was a— I don't know, I just liked it there. It was quite lonely where we lived and close to the downtown area. And we'd go to the movie, had a movie house not too far from where I lived, around on Fremont Avenue. And we weren't too far from the church. And then we'd get on a bus and go to school because my daddy didn't take us. He took care of us after school most of the time. | 19:19 |
Chris Stewart | So you liked Baltimore better than Wilmington? | 19:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh yes, I did. | 19:57 |
Chris Stewart | Why? | 19:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I just liked the atmosphere in Baltimore. It was just nice. That's all. | 20:01 |
Chris Stewart | What do you remember about your neighborhood there? | 20:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, everybody seemed to go on about their business. Everybody tending to their own business. You didn't mix and mangle. I never did mix and mangle. I do more mixing and mingling since I've been grown and on my own than I did when I was coming up. | 20:11 |
Chris Stewart | So even with neighbors and things? | 20:30 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh, you didn't. In Baltimore, you may live next door, I may not never know your name and who you are and nothing told about you. | 20:32 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. And that was the same way when you were younger as well? | 20:41 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, we just didn't bother. | 20:43 |
Chris Stewart | Who did you play with? | 20:47 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | When I was young? | 20:49 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 20:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Go to church and if they had some church activities, have church activities and go home or see some of your friends at the school. And that was just about it. That was about it. | 20:52 |
Chris Stewart | What school did you go to there? | 21:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Frederick Douglas High School. | 21:11 |
Chris Stewart | What about your elementary school then? | 21:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Southwest Baltimore, down in South Baltimore. | 21:16 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. And did you have to ride the bus to that? | 21:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 21:23 |
Chris Stewart | How was the school transition from Wilmington to Baltimore? Was the school different? Your father said he wanted— | 21:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, well we learned a lot there. I was salutatorian of my class, I want you to know. | 21:36 |
Chris Stewart | My goodness. | 21:42 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And I won the DASA, a scholarship medal for the DASA award. | 21:43 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 21:46 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I do. I'm still holding onto my little medal in there. | 21:48 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, wow. Wonderful. | 21:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | DASA award. I was a salutatorian in the class. | 21:55 |
Chris Stewart | How was school different? You mentioned that it was better. How was better? | 21:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I don't know. Seemed like you could grasp and learn more. They had more to offer as far as teaching. | 22:05 |
Chris Stewart | Both of these schools were still all Black schools, right? | 22:16 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. | 22:18 |
Chris Stewart | No? | 22:19 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 22:19 |
Chris Stewart | Frederick Douglas wasn't? | 22:20 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It was mixed. | 22:21 |
Chris Stewart | Did you have White teachers and Black? | 22:22 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 22:23 |
Chris Stewart | What was the difference between White teachers and the Black teachers? Or was there? | 22:27 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Wasn't no difference in them. There weren't no difference, but just seemed like they had more to offer. | 22:30 |
Chris Stewart | What kinds of things did they offer you that was more than what— | 22:39 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, we had more library time. And the research and study about things. They didn't tell you, "Give me the history of that mirror," and then you try to figure out how they made the mirror, where did the mirror come from or how did it originate or anything like that. They would give you library time so you could go look up whatever you wanted to research. | 22:43 |
Chris Stewart | Better facilities? | 23:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. Yeah, yeah. | 23:10 |
Chris Stewart | Did you have favorite teachers? | 23:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. | 23:16 |
Chris Stewart | You didn't? | 23:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I liked them all. | 23:18 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of things that you liked most about your school and then what were the things that you disliked most? | 23:19 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I didn't have no lot of likes and dislikes. I'm still like that. I hang neutral yet. | 23:29 |
Chris Stewart | How come you do that? | 23:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's the way I've always trained myself. I'm 72 years old. A lot of people said, I don't look it. I don't frown at nothing. I don't worry about nothing. If you had a place over there and said, "I don't want you in there." All well and good, I'll go somewhere that I can go. And I always knew my place. That's the reason I never had no problems. | 23:38 |
Chris Stewart | Well, you certainly don't look like you're 72. | 24:03 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | August the 17th I'll be 72. | 24:05 |
Chris Stewart | Not at all. Not at all. Were there areas in your neighborhood or in Baltimore in general that your parents did not want you to go? Bad areas where maybe there were— | 24:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, because you know one thing, we went to playgrounds around there sometimes. We would go to playgrounds and swing and enjoy the activities of the playground sometime. My two brothers and myself, or either go to a movie. My daddy would— | 24:24 |
Chris Stewart | What theater? | 24:41 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Let's see. What's the name of it now? I can't even think. Wait a minute. Roosevelt was one. Roosevelt Theater. And then there was another one up on Druid Hill Avenue. I can't think of the name of it. They would have nice stage shows, give a good stage show and then a movie. | 24:42 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of stage show? | 25:07 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Somebody like Moms Mabley would come or Cab Calloway, some of those actors and singers. You see a show and then you'd see the picture. | 25:08 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. You got to see Moms Mabley. | 25:21 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh yeah. I knew where Moms lived, honey. | 25:23 |
Chris Stewart | Oh wow. | 25:25 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I knew exactly where Moms lived. She lived on the Boston Post Road going out out of New York, going out toward White Plains. And you couldn't get out of White Plains without passing Moms' house. Big two-story white house on the hill. | 25:25 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 25:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. | 25:44 |
Chris Stewart | Lucky. | 25:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. I've seen Moms. Pearl Bailey used to live with— You hear me talk about my Aunt Piercey, Pearl Bailey used to live with my Aunt Piercey. | 25:44 |
Chris Stewart | Really? How did they know each other? | 25:51 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Very well. | 25:52 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 25:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 25:52 |
Chris Stewart | How did they meet? | 25:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Aunt Piercey would rent apartments or rooms to show people. In fact— | 25:53 |
Chris Stewart | What's your aunt's name? | 26:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Piercey Whitehead. | 26:08 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 26:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That was my daddy's aunt. | 26:08 |
Chris Stewart | She would rent to show people? | 26:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | To people in the show business. | 26:16 |
Chris Stewart | What was the name of her— Was it just a room? | 26:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Just a private house. But those are the people she catered to. My folks had a way to cater to different groups of people. | 26:22 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 26:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | So her just catered to different groups. And that's who she would cater to. | 26:32 |
Chris Stewart | That's exciting. Did you ever get to meet anybody? Or did you— | 26:39 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh yeah. I met a lot of the people. Cab Calloway he lived, lived right around on Carey Street there in Baltimore. 312 Carey Street, right off of Lafayette Avenue in Baltimore. He and his sister lived there. Cab Calloway and his wife and sister. And when I was in New York before my grandma moved into the house in Brooklyn, they were doing work on it before she moved in. Billy Eckstine and Nipsey Russell lived over around St. Nicholas Street, over in the Sugar Hill area of New York. | 26:43 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 27:34 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Called it Sugar Hill around Edgecomb and— | 27:36 |
Chris Stewart | So it sounds like your family got to live or see a lot of celebrities. | 27:38 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, we did. We saw a lot of celebrities. A lot of my people were in the show business. My cousin Billie McAllister, she was in the show business. I'll show you her picture. No, she was— | 27:49 |
Chris Stewart | Here. | 27:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Which way? One was a magician. He was a magician. This is my daddy. | 27:58 |
Chris Stewart | Oh my goodness. What year is this? Do you know? | 27:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | '19— Wait a minute, I'll tell you a minute. 1945. | 28:22 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 28:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He's dead. | 28:29 |
Chris Stewart | That's a beautiful photograph. | 28:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. Now there's Billie's husband. The girl I told you was in the show business? He was a magician. He'd put you in the casket and lock up in there. He was a showman. | 28:30 |
Chris Stewart | So did they only travel with Silas Green or did they travel with any other— | 28:45 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh no, he was with the Florida Blossoms. | 28:49 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, he was? | 28:51 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. | 28:52 |
Chris Stewart | But she was with Silas Green? | 28:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Silas Green. | 28:53 |
Chris Stewart | So they traveled separately then? | 28:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Sometime. And then sometime he would go along with her. | 28:56 |
Chris Stewart | Did they have any kids? | 29:00 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. No. Them my little cousins. | 29:01 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 29:13 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And them children had some pretty hair. Lord have mercy. And it's red as foxfire. | 29:13 |
Chris Stewart | So she did a dancing act and what else did she do? | 29:19 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And then she did a singing act, and those dogs would run up the ladder and stand up there and run to the top of the ladder and stand up on their hind feet and make a bow. | 29:24 |
Chris Stewart | I take it you saw these? Huh? | 29:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. I seen it. | 29:34 |
Chris Stewart | Did you see the Silas Green Show come through? | 29:36 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, I seen it. | 29:38 |
Chris Stewart | When did it come through? Did it come through Baltimore? | 29:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, it came through here. Came to Wilmington. | 29:42 |
Chris Stewart | Where did it come when it came here? | 29:45 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, they'd pitch a tent out there around 10th Street or someplace. | 29:47 |
Chris Stewart | They'd pitch a tent on 10th Street? How big was the tent? | 29:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | A large tent. | 29:53 |
Chris Stewart | How many people do you think it held? | 29:55 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I don't know. I don't know how many people it held, but I know one thing, it was a big show. | 29:58 |
Chris Stewart | What other kinds of acts did they have? Do you remember? | 30:05 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. It was a dance routine. That's Billie, that same one. Billie, that's her. She was claimed at one place to be the most beautiful woman there. Ooh, that was a pretty woman. | 30:10 |
Chris Stewart | Where did you get the pictures? | 30:24 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I saved them. Got them when she died. I got them. And there she is again. There's her husband there. | 30:26 |
Chris Stewart | She ever talk to you about life on the road? | 30:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. She didn't talk too much about that? | 30:39 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. | 30:42 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. | 30:44 |
Chris Stewart | So you got to see her perform in a show. | 30:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh yes. Silas Green. And whenever they'd have a parade. They used to have a parade here in Wilmington called The Feast of the Pirates. | 30:46 |
Chris Stewart | The Feast of the Pirates. | 30:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 30:56 |
Chris Stewart | What was that? | 30:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | A big parade they used to have, just like we have Isaiah Festival now. Well this was called the Feast of the Pirates. They'd have a water show down on the waterfront, and then they would have a big show coming through the street and on the float, those dancers would be on a big flat up there, music playing, and they dancing. It was fun. | 30:57 |
Chris Stewart | Would it be people from Silas Green or— | 31:21 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, Silas Green. | 31:22 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 31:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Silas Green only. | 31:24 |
Chris Stewart | With the— | 31:25 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | They would come. | 31:27 |
Chris Stewart | Would the big festival where the parade happened right before and then they'd go pitch the tent? | 31:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. And then they'd go on back to the tent and put on their show out there. | 31:32 |
Chris Stewart | Do you think that that was a way that they tried to get people to come to the show? | 31:36 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, people went. They knew Silas Green was in Wilmington. You knew to go. | 31:39 |
Chris Stewart | Why? | 31:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Because, that was a good show, honey. Good show. And then people dancing. Oh, Lord. | 31:44 |
Chris Stewart | Why was it so good though? Tell me why it was so good? | 31:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, because them people knew how to dance. They knew how to dance. | 31:53 |
Chris Stewart | Did you know the names of the dances that they danced? | 31:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Nah-uh. They did routine dance. Showman dance. | 32:01 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah, like line dance. | 32:04 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Now you got it. Yep. Yeah. | 32:07 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. I've seen pictures of women in line dancing. | 32:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And they would do that line dancing. Then they'd come to a certain area in the music or something, and Billie, this same Billie, my cousin, she would come out there and she would start to be tap dancing or doing whatever and then come out there and slide out there and do the split. | 32:12 |
Chris Stewart | Oh. | 32:26 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. She could do it. | 32:27 |
Chris Stewart | She was the feature dancer? | 32:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yes, ma'am. With Silas Green. She was the feature dancer with Silas Green, Billie McAllister. | 32:29 |
Chris Stewart | Would she ever do any sort of specialty kind of dances, like Hawaiian dances? | 32:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I don't know. I don't think they did. I don't know what all that was they doing. By me being young, I didn't know. | 32:39 |
Chris Stewart | So how often did you go to Silas Green when it came? | 32:45 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, they would come in maybe once every two years or something like that. They wouldn't come too often. | 32:52 |
Chris Stewart | And other shows would come through too. Florida Blossom would come through. | 33:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's right. | 33:08 |
Chris Stewart | What were some of the other tour shows that came through? Do you remember? | 33:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I don't know. I don't remember. Because I didn't go to all those shows now. | 33:11 |
Chris Stewart | Did you just go to Silas Green? | 33:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Silas Green and Florida Blossom. I've seen them a couple of times. And that was all. | 33:15 |
Chris Stewart | Was that because you had relatives that were in them? | 33:20 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's it. | 33:24 |
Chris Stewart | And so did your parents not let you go to the other ones? | 33:24 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. Well, we didn't want to go. | 33:30 |
Chris Stewart | No? | 33:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. | 33:31 |
Chris Stewart | How come? | 33:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Just we wasn't interested in it. | 33:32 |
Chris Stewart | Not unless you knew somebody. | 33:34 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Wasn't interested. And the only reason we went to Silas Greens was because Billie was in it. | 33:38 |
Chris Stewart | Did she have— | 33:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And then there weren't too many shows coming through here either during that time either, that's another thing. | 33:44 |
Chris Stewart | What time are you talking about now? What time in your life? | 33:49 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, just before we left here. It was just before we left here. | 33:53 |
Chris Stewart | Maybe in the early thirties? | 33:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's right. The early thirties. That's exactly when it was. Because the year that Williston burned down, that's the year I left here. Williston burned down in about 1935 or '36 I think it was. | 33:59 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 34:13 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | '36, I think. | 34:14 |
Chris Stewart | So you left right— | 34:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | After Williston burned down. | 34:17 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, so that makes more sense now, because there was was some uncertainty where kids were going to get educated, wasn't there? | 34:21 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, they had them placed around in different other little schools. | 34:28 |
Chris Stewart | Churches? | 34:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Churches and places. They had them placed around very well in Little Williston. In the basement of Little Williston, different places. They had it sort of together. But my daddy just wanted to get away from here. He could make more money too. Another thing. | 34:32 |
Chris Stewart | Really? How come he could make more money? | 34:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | In Baltimore, larger city, more people. | 34:50 |
Chris Stewart | It sounds like your dad was a pretty successful man. | 34:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He was. | 34:59 |
Chris Stewart | Was there any kind of resentment amongst White people and their success? | 35:00 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. A White barber in Duquesne, Pennsylvania taught him how to cut hair when he was a boy, a White one. And he worked in a White barbershop. And he was one Black man that could cut Black or White hair. | 35:06 |
Chris Stewart | Did he take Black or White customers? | 35:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. | 35:25 |
Chris Stewart | He did? | 35:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | In Wilmington, he did. | 35:33 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. That's really amazing. | 35:33 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And in Baltimore too. | 35:33 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 35:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Because he could cut on any kind. | 35:36 |
Chris Stewart | Uh-huh. Did people— | 35:38 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | We weren't never resented, because I'll tell you something, we lived just about as good as anybody. White, Black. And so we didn't never feel no blood or nothing. | 35:44 |
Chris Stewart | I just wonder because he was catering to both Whites and Blacks, and having Whites and Blacks in the same space. | 36:01 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. | 36:06 |
Chris Stewart | What was that a problem? | 36:07 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | None. None. | 36:09 |
Chris Stewart | That must have been an amazing. | 36:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | None. None. And he used to run an old building up there on Castle Street there, it's still there, between Eighth and Ninth. Old big two-story building between Eighth and Ninth, in the middle of the block, not the one on the corner. And that was Murphy's Hotel. That was his. And he's— | 36:10 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, he owned that? | 36:25 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Owned it. | 36:26 |
Chris Stewart | What was the name of his barbershop? | 36:26 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | McCallister's barbershop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. | 36:37 |
Chris Stewart | And where was that located? | 36:41 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Right there in that same block between Eighth and Ninth on Castle. Then he had a hotel there and he had a pressing club. Most of all those buildings are torn down now. All except that Murphy's Hotel. | 36:42 |
Chris Stewart | Did he sell everything then when he went? | 36:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Sold everything. | 36:55 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. So then did he buy up real estate in Baltimore? | 36:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Baltimore. That's right. When he got ready to come back to North Carolina, he sold out in Baltimore. Come back to Long Creek, ready to retire. And he died in Long Creek. He didn't live long after he got back here. | 37:00 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. Was his barber shop named McAllister Barbershop in— | 37:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I got a picture down there somewhere. Oh my God. | 37:20 |
Chris Stewart | That's okay. | 37:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I keep doing that. | 37:28 |
Chris Stewart | I got it. | 37:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Wait a minute. Baltimore, there it is. | 37:30 |
Chris Stewart | Oh my goodness. | 37:34 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Right there. And that's his car in front of it. | 37:36 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of car is that? | 37:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oldsmobile. | 37:42 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. You said he had a Hupmobile, huh? | 37:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | In Wilmington. And there is my restaurant in Baltimore. My husband was in the restaurant business. | 37:46 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, he was? | 37:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Woods Restaurant. I was married to Charlie Woods, a restaurant man. And he had a restaurant on Saratoga Street. Fremont Avenue and Curtis Bay. Yeah, three. | 37:55 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. These are amazing photographs. | 38:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | They're old too. | 38:13 |
Chris Stewart | Oh my goodness. | 38:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | There's Papa Doc's old mule. | 38:16 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, look at that. | 38:16 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Papa Doc's old mule there. Let me see here. Oh, gosh. Wait a minute. There's my daddy. That's mine and Virginia's house. | 38:16 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, okay. | 38:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's my daddy's car. He came down to visit us from Baltimore, and that's his car sitting out there. Can you see him? | 38:36 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. | 38:41 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | There are some of the little children that lived next door to us in Baltimore. | 38:46 |
Chris Stewart | So did you live in a racially mixed neighborhood? | 38:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 38:54 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. How was that? What was that like? | 38:55 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It was good. | 38:57 |
Chris Stewart | Did you like that? | 38:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It was good. Didn't know no difference. | 38:59 |
Chris Stewart | So you were playing with White kids and Black kids? | 39:00 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's right. That's right. You see, I've always been an international person. Every now and again I go to London, England, and Paris, France right now. | 39:04 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 39:12 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I got my passport, I go. | 39:13 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 39:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Got pictures down there. | 39:15 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 39:16 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | So I never felt like I was Black nor White. I've always been an international person. I guess you say I'm a crazy old woman, but that's the way I think. | 39:18 |
Chris Stewart | No, I don't think so at all. | 39:25 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I'm international. | 39:25 |
Chris Stewart | I don't think so at all. | 39:25 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I am international. I get with the Greeks, the Jews, they all, and I'm treated the same. | 39:34 |
Chris Stewart | Where do you think that comes from? | 39:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Background. | 39:43 |
Chris Stewart | What background? | 39:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | My daddy. My daddy didn't never feel like he was nothing but a businessman. | 39:45 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah? | 39:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's my brother. That's one of my restaurants. And I had a nightclub there. And that's my brother Paul looking outside there. | 39:53 |
Chris Stewart | When was this? | 40:01 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | In Baltimore. | 40:02 |
Chris Stewart | When was it? Was it in '50's. | 40:03 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | 1946. | 40:07 |
Chris Stewart | So you came back though in '47, didn't you? | 40:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 40:16 |
Chris Stewart | So you finished high school— | 40:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. | 40:18 |
Chris Stewart | — in Baltimore. | 40:19 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. | 40:19 |
Chris Stewart | When did you get married? | 40:21 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I was married before I finished them business schools and things. | 40:25 |
Chris Stewart | Really? How did you meet your husband? | 40:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Met him at the hospital. I went down to the hospital, then he was down there sick and I carried him home. There he is. | 40:31 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. That's a handsome man. | 40:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, that's him. And I had one little boy and he died. | 40:45 |
Chris Stewart | Oh. | 40:49 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | All dead now. | 40:49 |
Chris Stewart | How old was your baby? | 40:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Little baby when he died? He was about six months old when he died. | 40:56 |
Chris Stewart | He's a beautiful little baby. | 40:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. He died when he was a baby, had pneumonia. | 40:57 |
Chris Stewart | So how long did you and your husband court before you got married? | 41:06 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Didn't do no whole lot of long court. I met him and that man was a businessman, had something to offer and told me if I married him, he would send me to business school, beauty school, or anywhere else I wanted to go. I didn't court, no do a whole lot of courting. I grabbed that man. | 41:09 |
Chris Stewart | Did you marry— | 41:24 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Because he had something to offer me. | 41:24 |
Chris Stewart | Were you in love with him? | 41:25 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Not especially. | 41:28 |
Chris Stewart | But he had something to offer you. | 41:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Had something to offer me. | 41:30 |
Chris Stewart | Did you grow to love him? | 41:32 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, I loved him all right. | 41:34 |
Chris Stewart | Did he put you through school? Did he pay for school? | 41:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. He said— | 41:40 |
Chris Stewart | Did you have to work and go to school? | 41:42 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, I never worked. I never worked in the restaurant he had. My mama worked in one of them and his brother worked in one and Ms. Annie worked at one, was head of another one. But I never worked at none of them. | 41:44 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of restaurants did he have? | 41:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Ooh, just first class home cooked food. | 41:58 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah? So what school did you go to first after you got out of high school? | 42:01 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Went to Beauty College. Apex. | 42:06 |
Chris Stewart | Apex? | 42:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Apex Beauty College. | 42:11 |
Chris Stewart | I've heard of that you know? | 42:12 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Under Sarah Spencer Washington. | 42:13 |
Chris Stewart | What— | 42:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Hold on, I'm going to hold this here. Sarah Spencer Washington. Let me see if I can find. Oh, Beauty School was good. | 42:23 |
Chris Stewart | Tell me about it? What kind of stuff did you learn in beauty school? | 42:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, we learned the anatomy and theory. | 42:31 |
Chris Stewart | Why did you learn— | 42:34 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Anatomy. Had to have anatomy. | 42:34 |
Chris Stewart | Why? | 42:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Because you got to have it and you got to know it. Something about the anatomy of the nerves and facial muscles and the nerves, and you got to learn something about the hair, the textures of the hair and how to deal with it with heat and whatnot. We did permanence. | 42:37 |
Chris Stewart | You said anatomy and theory. | 42:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Theory was all the bookwork and everything. | 43:00 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 43:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And then they had anatomy and theory. See, because we had to study those books before you ever touched anybody's head. We had to practice on something, a imitate of hair, false hair, like a weft. And we had to curl it and work with that a long time before you ever touched anybody's head. | 43:09 |
Chris Stewart | How long was were you in school? | 43:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, I went two years because I wanted to be a shop owner. | 43:31 |
Chris Stewart | But not everybody went two years? | 43:36 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Not everybody. | 43:39 |
Chris Stewart | What did other people do? | 43:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Some of them would go a year, some would go two years. Some them would go longer than that. | 43:42 |
Chris Stewart | So did they give you business training then as a shop owner too? | 43:47 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh yeah. You got all of that. | 43:50 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of training did they give you? | 43:51 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Taught you how to operator a shop and what they do. | 43:53 |
Chris Stewart | What did it require? | 43:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | How to handle a business and take care of the business of operating a shop. | 43:59 |
Chris Stewart | Like the books? The accounting? | 44:06 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, yeah. And all that. | 44:06 |
Chris Stewart | So did you open a shop? | 44:07 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, I always rented a booth. | 44:11 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, you did? | 44:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Because after I did that, then I went to Cortez Peters. I wanted to take business, so I went to Cortez Peters. | 44:17 |
Chris Stewart | Why did you decide that you wanted to take business? | 44:26 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | My husband told me he wanted me to take courses in anything I thought of taking that would help take care of me because if he passed on with that heart, he wanted me to be capable of taking care of myself. And I left there and I wanted some nurse training. I said I wasn't going four years for no nursing. I would take a practical nursing course. So I ended up being a LPN2. I took all those subjects and workshops from Duke Medical Center. I attended workshops from 19— I got the certificates right in that top drawer in there. I'll show them to you. From 1952 up until 1974, the year I stopped working. | 44:29 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. So you did continuing education classes? | 45:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's right. That's right. | 45:08 |
Chris Stewart | I see. | 45:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's right. | 45:08 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. So when did you get your nurse's degree? | 45:16 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | What'd you say? | 45:18 |
Chris Stewart | When did you get your practical nurse's degree? | 45:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I went to the state board and got my license. I had to go to the state board in Raleigh. | 45:22 |
Chris Stewart | When did you get it? | 45:27 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, in 1952. | 45:28 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. So did you do go to nursing school in Baltimore? | 45:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | In Baltimore. | 45:33 |
Chris Stewart | I see. | 45:33 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | But I took the state board in North Carolina. | 45:34 |
Chris Stewart | Did you take any boards in Maryland as well? | 45:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I didn't take it. I left there. | 45:39 |
Chris Stewart | You didn't work at all as a nurse? | 45:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Not there. | 45:40 |
Chris Stewart | So why did you leave Baltimore? | 45:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Because I decided to sell out businesses and come down here. | 45:45 |
Chris Stewart | Was your husband with you? | 45:51 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, he was dead. | 45:52 |
Chris Stewart | When did he die? | 45:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He died in '47. | 45:54 |
Chris Stewart | So you weren't married for very long. | 45:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-mm. | 45:57 |
Chris Stewart | How many years were you married? | 45:59 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I married him in 1939 and he died in '46, and I came home in '47. Yeah, there's some— | 46:01 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Australia, Anchorage, Alaska, all of the islands. Island-hopping over in the Bahamas and the Caribbeans. I told you I went to Sydney, Australia; Anchorage, Alaska. | 0:02 |
Chris Stewart | You said you went to Paris? | 0:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yes, I went there and— | 0:18 |
Chris Stewart | And England? | 0:19 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | — I was going to show you, I've been to London, England. I was showing you, there's Margaret Thatcher. | 0:22 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, my. | 0:24 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Coming out from Number 10 Downing Street out there where they're getting ready for the horse parade. See her? | 0:28 |
Chris Stewart | Uh-huh. | 0:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | There she is. | 0:38 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 0:38 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Took a picture. There's me on top of Stone Mountain in Atlanta. | 0:39 |
Chris Stewart | You traveled by yourself or did you travel with people? | 0:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | One more person went. I don't go with no group. I don't like traveling with a group. I'd rather go by myself. | 0:45 |
Chris Stewart | So, did you just travel with friends? | 0:51 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-mm. One person went on this trip when I said I was going. The girl that lived right over there, one of the neighbors over here, she went. But there's the hotel I stayed in London. | 0:53 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, wow. [indistinct 00:01:08]. | 1:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And there's Big Ben. | 1:08 |
Chris Stewart | Yep. You're right. | 1:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Big Ben. | 1:11 |
Chris Stewart | So, you moved down here in 1947. You have to take care of all your husband's estate and— | 1:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I had to take care of all of that. The man that helped me take care of it, I gave him my husband's car. There's me in Knoxville, Tennessee, sitting around the whiskey still at the World's Fair. | 1:21 |
Chris Stewart | A whiskey still. | 1:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | At the World's Fair. | 1:35 |
Chris Stewart | What is this? This a while ago. | 1:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. Right there, in 19— What? '72 something. | 1:36 |
Chris Stewart | Did you ever remarry? | 1:41 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I married a man at Southport, a shrimp boat captain. He was the only Black man that owned a shrimp boat fleet. | 1:43 |
Chris Stewart | Really? When did you marry him? | 1:49 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Captain Romia Smith. In 19— What? Wait a minute. Let me get my dates together now. Oh, he died in '62. So, I married him in 1960. | 1:50 |
Chris Stewart | Well, you were only married for two years. | 2:03 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's all. Two years and some months. | 2:04 |
Chris Stewart | Well, which do you prefer? Married life or single life? | 2:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, any of it's all right with me, honey. | 2:10 |
Chris Stewart | But you've been single for a lot of your life. | 2:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. There's a Cherokee in this. I went up to the mountains up in Cherokee on that bus. I've married twice, but I wasn't married long at a time. | 2:17 |
Chris Stewart | No. | 2:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-mm. | 2:29 |
Chris Stewart | No. | 2:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. I went up in mountains up there. I love Cherokee and Gatlinburg Pigeon Forge. | 2:31 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, yeah, Gatlinburg. | 2:39 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Gatlinburg Pigeon Forge. | 2:40 |
Chris Stewart | So, when you were back here working, where did you work as a nurse? | 2:41 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | New Hanover Hospital out here and Community Hospital. | 2:44 |
Chris Stewart | Community Hospital. | 2:46 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 2:46 |
Chris Stewart | We've heard a little bit about Community Hospital. | 2:47 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. It's torn down now. | 2:49 |
Chris Stewart | It was a Black hospital, though, right? | 2:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. Mm-hmm. | 2:55 |
Chris Stewart | How big was it? | 2:55 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It was right nice-sized hospital. Nice hospital. | 2:55 |
Chris Stewart | How many beds? Do you remember? | 2:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I don't even remember. Uh-uh. | 3:00 |
Chris Stewart | What floor did you work on or what department did you work? | 3:03 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | We worked in any of them. Any of them, honey. | 3:06 |
Chris Stewart | So, you just floated around? | 3:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Floated around. | 3:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Then me and the captain on the Emerald Seas over in the Bahamas. I had a ball on that ship. My god, if we didn't have time. Then, there is the Eiffel Tower. | 3:12 |
Chris Stewart | Eiffel Tower. Nice. | 3:30 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. In France. In France. | 3:32 |
Chris Stewart | In France. | 3:36 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I went on my river tours down the River Thames, and I would get the motor coach over to Dover and— | 3:37 |
Chris Stewart | My goodness! You just had a wonderful time. | 3:47 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Over to Dover. I went to Stratford-on-the-Avon and went over there at Shakespeare's home and over at Anne Hathaway's cottage. And I visited Oxford University. | 3:49 |
Chris Stewart | Boy, you've got the accent down. | 4:01 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, boy. I had a time. | 4:05 |
Chris Stewart | When was that? | 4:07 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, that was in '90. | 4:07 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. So that was just recently? | 4:07 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yes. '90 or '91. One of them. | 4:12 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 4:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I love to go. | 4:16 |
Chris Stewart | In England, did you go with somebody? Did you go with this woman across the— | 4:20 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I went with the TWA getaway and she happened to be on it. I went from the travel agency. | 4:22 |
Chris Stewart | So, you don't arrange to travel with anybody. | 4:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-uh. | 4:31 |
Chris Stewart | You're fine traveling alone? | 4:32 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-uh. Yeah. I had a good time. | 4:35 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 4:38 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. Yeah. I traveled. There I am in my room there in France. In Paris. | 4:38 |
Chris Stewart | How did you— | 4:51 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And there— | 4:52 |
Chris Stewart | Do you know French? Do you speak French? | 4:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, I can understand from— | 4:55 |
Chris Stewart | Can you? | 4:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | — just speaking a little bit of it. Not too much. There I am. | 4:57 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:05:01]. | 4:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That was the year of the turtle and I had on my turtle necklace. Oh, boy. | 5:04 |
Chris Stewart | The Chinese year of the turtle. | 5:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I had all that. The Chinese jacket. | 5:14 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 5:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That, that's the Houses of Parliament. You've been over there? | 5:18 |
Chris Stewart | I have been to London. That's the only place I've been. | 5:22 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. You've been there. | 5:24 |
Chris Stewart | I was very young, though. | 5:27 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | London. | 5:28 |
Chris Stewart | You need to travel some more. you're the traveling kind of— | 5:34 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, I love to go. And Hawaii. I love Hawaii. | 5:36 |
Chris Stewart | Did you go to Hawaii? | 5:42 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yes. Lord. I got a picture down there in that album. Me and my lei around my neck. Oh, boy. (singing) | 5:42 |
Chris Stewart | That sounds like something that you're able to do. | 5:49 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | (singing) | 5:51 |
Chris Stewart | Do you think you'd be able to travel if you were married? | 5:55 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. No. That was in another couple's suite. They had kitchen and everything in it. | 5:57 |
Chris Stewart | This is very elegant. | 6:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's me. | 6:10 |
Chris Stewart | You look good. | 6:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I was in their suite. They had a suite. I had a room. But these rich people out of somewhere in Texas or someplace, they had kitchen, the bedroom and the living room combination and this kitchen here. I was over there. They said, "Stand there. We want you to pose so we can take your picture." | 6:13 |
Chris Stewart | That's a beautiful outfit. | 6:32 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Isn't it? (singing) | 6:33 |
Chris Stewart | That was in Hawaii? | 6:36 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, this was in London. Mm-hmm. Yeah, honey, I had myself a fun— I went over down. Then went to— | 6:37 |
Chris Stewart | Where did you live, then, when you came back to Wilmington? | 6:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | When's that? | 6:52 |
Chris Stewart | In '47? | 6:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | In '47. Oh, let me see. On Castle Street. 1005. | 6:54 |
Chris Stewart | Did you have your own house? Did you buy your own house? | 6:59 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-uh. It was a house that belonged to my cousin. I hadn't bought no house yet. After then, I bought a house up 421, up Highway— | 7:03 |
Chris Stewart | On Castlestill— | 7:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-mm. | 7:09 |
Chris Stewart | — Street? | 7:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-uh. Up Highway 4— | 7:10 |
Chris Stewart | On Highway 421. | 7:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. I sold that to some blueberry people because they wanted that land. And I sold that | 7:12 |
Chris Stewart | Oh. You had some land out there? | 7:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. It was land and a house. I bought that. | 7:20 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | This was a good place to go, Hilden. | 7:22 |
Chris Stewart | I could talk to you a little bit about Community Hospital. We don't know too much about it. If you could share some of your memories about Community Hospital. | 7:24 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, Community was just a nice, Black— | 7:33 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Now what we talking— oh, Community. | 7:38 |
Chris Stewart | We were talking about Community Hospital. | 7:38 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Community hospital was just a family-like hospital. | 7:42 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. What kind of services did they provide? | 7:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Just regular. They provided regular hospital service just like any other. They had their own drug room, their emergency room, labor and delivery, private hall and mail hall, pediatrics center and everything. | 7:47 |
Chris Stewart | Were there White and Black employees or was it just— | 8:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, it was just a Black hospital. | 8:14 |
Chris Stewart | So, they were Black doctors. | 8:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. | 8:16 |
Chris Stewart | What were— | 8:16 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Dr. Upperman, Dr. Eaton. | 8:17 |
Chris Stewart | We've heard a lot about Dr. Eaton. | 8:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And Dr. Roane. | 8:25 |
Chris Stewart | Dr. Eaton just died recently, didn't he? | 8:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, that's right. And Dr. Roane's dead. | 8:30 |
Chris Stewart | Doctor who? | 8:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Roane. R-O-A-N-E. Roane. | 8:31 |
Chris Stewart | Is Dr. Upperman still alive? | 8:38 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He's still alive. | 8:38 |
Chris Stewart | Where does he live? | 8:39 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He lives on the corner of— Wait a minute. I'll tell you a minute now. 14th and Queen. He's still alive. | 8:40 |
Chris Stewart | What's his first name? | 8:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I can't even think [indistinct 00:08:55]. | 8:51 |
Chris Stewart | It's U-P-P-E-R-M-A-N? | 8:55 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Upperman. Just Dr. Upperman. | 8:58 |
Chris Stewart | So, there were three doctors on staff? | 8:59 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. Upperman, Roane. And then from time to time there would be interns there, but I can't remember their names. | 9:00 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. But these were the three doctors who were mainly— | 9:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. Mm-hmm. | 9:10 |
Chris Stewart | — involved? | 9:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 9:10 |
Chris Stewart | What— | 9:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And then we would have some White doctors, pediatricians, Dr. Crouch, Arley Crouch, and his brother. I can't think all— | 9:16 |
Chris Stewart | Why pediatricians? | 9:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | For the children on pediatrics. | 9:25 |
Chris Stewart | Right. Why would there be White doctors for the pediatricians? | 9:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Because we didn't have a Black pediatrician. | 9:31 |
Chris Stewart | What special— were any of these— | 9:32 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Those were in the other things, orthopedics or labor delivery or internal medicine or something. But they weren't pediatricians. Mm-hmm. | 9:34 |
Chris Stewart | We've heard people talk about blood supply problems for people who had to have transfusions and trying to get pints of blood for African Americans who needed to have transfusions, that White people would not— that only Black people could give blood to Black people. | 9:47 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, that's a lie. A lot of Whites has used many a Black blood. | 10:11 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 10:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. | 10:18 |
Chris Stewart | Can you tell me about that? | 10:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, I don't know nothing about it. But I know that the type of blood is what really counts. The type. It's not who it come from. | 10:19 |
Chris Stewart | Right. Right. But during segregation, was there some sort of— | 10:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, some sort of myth about that. But it's never been a fact. Blood is blood. If a Black person has the same type as a White person or a White person has the same type as a Black, they can use that blood. | 10:33 |
Chris Stewart | Would Black people have a hard time getting blood transfusions because of that myth? | 10:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I imagine they would. I imagine so. But I've never known it. I've never known them to have no problem. | 11:00 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. Do you remember any kinds of, I don't know, events or incidences when the hospital had to respond really quickly when there was a lot of people sick, maybe floods or fires or something, when that occurred in a Black community or a Black neighborhood where you were having to take care of a lot of people at once? | 11:06 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-mm. | 11:31 |
Chris Stewart | How long did you work there, ma'am? | 11:32 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | From 1952 up until '67. | 11:35 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. Was '67— | 11:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And then we moved over to that new hospital, New Hanover Memorial. | 11:46 |
Chris Stewart | And '67, then, is when they integrated the hospital? | 11:49 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. That's when we moved over to New Hanover. | 11:52 |
Chris Stewart | So, you moved and you integrated? | 11:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. It was integrated there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. For sure. | 12:00 |
Chris Stewart | Do they have their own ambulances and things like that as well? | 12:05 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. I think we always used the city ambulance or something. Mm-hmm. Or some city ambulance service. Just like if we call 919, an ambulance come through here now. They didn't never segregate that bad. Mm-mm. | 12:10 |
Chris Stewart | Well, do you remember moving to the New Hanover County Hospital? What was that like? | 12:30 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh. | 12:35 |
Chris Stewart | How was that different from Community Hospital? | 12:36 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, that was really nice. You made more money, and you were really given a choice of what department you wanted to work in. I love labor and delivery. So, that's where I worked. I've got my letter in there from Mr. Grubbs telling me that he was glad to hear from me and to receive my application. I got that letter right there in the second drawer, right in the corner. | 12:38 |
Chris Stewart | You save everything, don't you, ma'am? | 13:05 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 13:08 |
Chris Stewart | Smart. Very smart. What were the facilities like at Community Hospital? Do you think that they had the same kinds of facilities as maybe the White hospitals had or— | 13:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | We had as good as you could expect for what we had. We had everything to take care of. We had a laboratory, a lab, and a dining room. Good cooks, first class cooks. Oh, and their best food, ooh, Lord. Oh. And the operating room had good anethetists. So, we had just about the best of what— It was a good hospital. Community was a good hospital. | 13:21 |
Chris Stewart | Sounds like it. | 13:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. | 13:54 |
Chris Stewart | Sounds like it. | 13:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And then it was a school. That's another thing. You never stop learning. You did things there that those girls over there at New Hanover will never do. If you came into Community Hospital 11:00 to 7:00 at night and didn't have a private doctor, and we didn't have a house doctor on call, I delivered your baby. Rebecca Woods Smith delivered. | 13:56 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 14:20 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's right. Mm-hmm. | 14:22 |
Chris Stewart | Did you deliver many babies? | 14:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's right. That's right. If you came in and didn't have a private doctor and we didn't have an intern in the house, I did the delivery, whether it was law or not, I did it. Mm-hmm. | 14:23 |
Chris Stewart | Did you do many deliveries? | 14:34 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, I've done a-many of them. Mm-hmm. | 14:35 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. That's got to be a wonderful feeling to bring a new life into the world. | 14:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. Well, I did a lot. I did a lot of them. Whether you were allowed to do it or what, you did some. Anything come to hand over there. | 14:40 |
Chris Stewart | Sounds like you learned a lot. | 14:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It was a school. Mm-hmm. | 14:50 |
Chris Stewart | What was the area that Community Hospital serviced? Did it service all of New Hanover [indistinct 00:14:59] county or other? | 14:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. Uh-uh. Anybody. | 14:58 |
Chris Stewart | — county or other— | 15:02 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-uh. Anybody that came. Anybody that came there, they would serve you. Mm-hmm. And before we moved over there, some Whites even came to Community. | 15:04 |
Chris Stewart | Which Whites? What Whites would come to Community? | 15:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Some White folk would come there as a patient. As a patient. Yeah. Wilmington hasn't been that hard and bad about segregation. | 15:13 |
Chris Stewart | It hasn't? | 15:24 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. Then you don't feel segregation when you get out here on and try to accumulate and have something of your own. You don't feel the brunt of segregation. I don't care how segregated. If I can go to the bus station and get a ticket and go halfway around the world on the bus and you can go there, it don't make no difference what the segregating. If I have to go to the back of the place and get a hotdog, I either go back there or just do without the hotdog. Wait till I get up the road and let them serve me. Stop someplace where we can stop and eat. Mm-hmm. | 15:24 |
Chris Stewart | Did you ever feel at any time throughout your life, Mrs. Smith, that people treated you like you were a second-class citizen? | 16:05 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-uh. No, ma'am. I've always been treated good. | 16:12 |
Chris Stewart | You think so? | 16:13 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I have. | 16:13 |
Chris Stewart | Well, if you've got good people around you. | 16:13 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I have. Just like I— Yes. All my neighbors, most of them are White and they treat me so good. Mm-hmm. | 16:19 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember seeing the Jim Crow signs? You mentioned the— | 16:26 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yes. But when I was real small, real small. But in later years, those signs started disappearing. You hear me? Because these different groups, NAACP and whatnot, started coming in talking about those kind of things. | 16:29 |
Chris Stewart | Were they disappearing when you came back here? | 16:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. | 16:55 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:16:56]. | 16:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | They were disappearing. | 16:56 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 16:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 16:56 |
Chris Stewart | As early as the '40s? | 16:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. I took some Chinaman's nerve downtown, though. There was a Chinese restaurant downtown and most of the people go and get the little box of yakameal or shrimp fried rice from the back of this Chinese restaurant. And I took the nerve one day. I said, "I'm going to see what they're going to see." And I went into this restaurant and the waitress came. She said, "Good evening." I said, "Good evening. How you doing?" "Can I serve you?" I said, "You most certainly can." I said, "Bring me an order of shrimp fried rice," and something else I order, and iced tea. "All right." She went on back there in the back. Then she came back and brought it. | 17:00 |
Chris Stewart | When was this? | 17:45 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That was back then, what? In the early '50s about. No, it was in the late '49s. It was around '48 or '49. | 17:45 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. And you still remember it. | 17:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | In '48 or '49. Mm-hmm. People going all back up in this little alleyway going to the back of that restaurant. Mm-hmm. I don't know whether it's the same family or not, but they got a place right out on Leander Drive out there. | 17:59 |
Chris Stewart | I've seen. | 18:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 18:08 |
Chris Stewart | So, you just marched right inside? | 18:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And sat down. Yes, ma'am. Sat right down. I took the nerve. I don't know whether it's the same family or what. | 18:12 |
Chris Stewart | Do you think that nerve came from? | 18:19 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I said I just wanted to go in there and see how they were going to react because I saw the other other Black folk going around back [indistinct 00:18:29]. "I'm not going back there." I said, "These people has a front door." I said, "I'm going right in it." | 18:21 |
Chris Stewart | Trying that front door out. Right? | 18:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I went in it. | 18:36 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. Do you belong to a church here in Wilmington? | 18:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. I belong to Shiloh Baptist Church. I'm going to choir rehearsal— | 18:40 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, that's right. | 18:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | — this evening. I sing in the choir. I'm a president of some of the clubs in the church. | 18:44 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember your baptism? | 18:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. | 18:54 |
Chris Stewart | How old were you? | 18:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, I was good and grown when I was baptized. | 18:57 |
Chris Stewart | You were? | 18:59 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 19:00 |
Chris Stewart | How come? How come you were— | 19:00 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. I didn't join the church until I was grown. When I came back from Baltimore, then I joined church. | 19:03 |
Chris Stewart | Why didn't you join the church before then? | 19:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-mm. I didn't want to. | 19:09 |
Chris Stewart | How come? | 19:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Just didn't want to join no church up there. Didn't want to. | 19:12 |
Chris Stewart | So, did you join Shiloh Baptist, then, when you came down here? | 19:16 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Joined Shiloh. | 19:17 |
Chris Stewart | Where were you baptized? | 19:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I joined the church up there at Long Creek, though, first, when I first came home. St. John. And then, I was baptized up there at St. John. Then I came and joined Shiloh here in Wilmington. | 19:17 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. Do you remember the baptism? Your baptism? | 19:36 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. That was nice. Getting into that good cool water, oh, Lord. | 19:39 |
Chris Stewart | What do you remember about that? | 19:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Nothing. Just realized that I was baptized. | 19:45 |
Chris Stewart | What was the feeling like? | 19:47 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Just felt like I had carried out one of God's ordinances. Mm-hmm. | 19:51 |
Chris Stewart | Were there lots of people there? Were there other people [indistinct 00:20:00]? | 19:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. There was a lot of us up there at Long Creek. | 20:00 |
Chris Stewart | Congregation? | 20:03 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. All of us. We were baptized down at Long Creek in the river. In the creek. | 20:04 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, how wonderful. Was there singing? | 20:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yes, singing and having a good time down there. | 20:13 |
Chris Stewart | And what would people sing? | 20:13 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | They were singing, Take Me to the Water (singing). You remember that song? | 20:18 |
Chris Stewart | I've heard that song. | 20:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | (Singing). Oh, yes. | 20:29 |
Chris Stewart | You still remember that? | 20:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. | 20:41 |
Chris Stewart | Were there lots of people watching? | 20:45 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. We had a lot of people down there. Anytime they had a baptism at Long Creek, down at the creek, there was always a crowd because all the people from the church would go down to the creek. But now they don't go to the creek. They baptize up at the church now. | 20:46 |
Chris Stewart | They do? | 20:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yes. Because that's one thing my mama did before she passed, see to it that they had a baptismal pool in the church. | 20:58 |
Chris Stewart | Really? Where is it located? Is it— | 21:07 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It's right behind the pulpit in the church, like at Shiloh. In Shiloh, we have a velvet curtain across the back of the pulpit where the preachers are, and over behind that curtain is the pool. | 21:09 |
Chris Stewart | Why did your mom want to make sure that— | 21:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | They'd gone without one so long and she wanted to do that, just like Andrew Simpson when they built the new church up there, he paid for the wiring of it. And Aubrey Lockons paid for different things to be done around the church. It's a community church. When they built that church, it was paid for. They weren't in no debt. | 21:30 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 21:49 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | They paid as they went. | 21:50 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. That's great, | 21:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. So, that's why. | 21:53 |
Chris Stewart | This is the Long Creek Church? | 21:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. Right next door to my mama's house. | 21:55 |
Chris Stewart | Is your mom's house still— | 21:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Still right there. My brother rents it out. Mm-hmm. | 22:00 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. Wow. Did you do any beauty shop work when you came back down here? | 22:06 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-mm. | 22:11 |
Chris Stewart | Did you ever do it in your home? | 22:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-mm. Every now and again, I'd do a little bit for somebody, but I don't bother. I did a girl's hair the other week. She wanted some extension put in her hair. You know those layers of hair extension? | 22:12 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. | 22:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I did that a few weeks ago. | 22:23 |
Chris Stewart | Uh-huh. So, you still do a little bit of it? | 22:26 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, every now and again. That's the first I've done it years. | 22:28 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 22:30 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. She said, "Do you know how to do it? They weren't teaching that when you was going to school." I said, "But I know how to do it." | 22:31 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. What were they teaching? | 22:38 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, we— | 22:39 |
Chris Stewart | About hair? What were they teaching? | 22:39 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Shampooing, comb pressing, hard pressing, marcel curling, waving; finger waving with lotion and the comb, them little small waves you do with that. See them little waves laying right close to people's [indistinct 00:23:00] finger wave. Well, we did that. Then, if they didn't have real long hair— If they had long hair, then we'd make a big ball back here. Big bun on the back. If they didn't have a lot of hair, we'd take and pin a bun back there after you've done finger waved it all the way down. | 22:42 |
Chris Stewart | How long would a finger wave take? | 23:16 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Take a right good little while because the hairs got to be real, real straight, real straight. | 23:20 |
Chris Stewart | To do it? | 23:25 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. | 23:25 |
Chris Stewart | First you got a hot comb and really good— | 23:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Yeah. | 23:29 |
Chris Stewart | Like, you perm it. | 23:30 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-uh. Some people have some perms. Some has a good hard press with— | 23:32 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:23:38]. | 23:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | — the comb. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. | 23:37 |
Chris Stewart | What were the styles when you were doing [indistinct 00:23:44]? | 23:41 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | About the same. About the same as now, wavy. But people don't get too many waves and whatnot now. | 23:44 |
Chris Stewart | The styles now are pretty ornate. Young people do pretty ornate things with their hair. Were young women doing the same thing? | 23:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. I imagine they were. But a good marcel wave and croquignole curls was the thing then. | 23:57 |
Chris Stewart | What is that? Can you explain to me? White girl. I don't know what— | 24:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, croquignole curl? | 24:12 |
Chris Stewart | Uh-huh. | 24:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It's a curl. You hold your curling iron, your marcel iron at an angle, and once you turn it and pull the piece of hair up between the middle of it and keep working it until it stop, then front of it's combed out, you can set it in waves, and then you can take and set it and put those clips on it and clamp it in place. | 24:15 |
Chris Stewart | I see. Are you talking about making those, the finger waves out of it? | 24:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-uh. Uh-uh. That's not finger waves. | 24:46 |
Chris Stewart | It's a different wave. | 24:47 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No. That's croquignole curl and wave setting. | 24:49 |
Chris Stewart | Uh-huh. What kinds of things— You said you always rented— | 24:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Rented— | 24:58 |
Chris Stewart | — a chair. | 24:59 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Rented a booth. | 24:59 |
Chris Stewart | Uh-huh. Who were your customers? Did you have regular customers? | 25:00 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I had my regular customers that would come to me, and they would wait until time to come into my booth. | 25:06 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of women were the women who— | 25:12 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, just— | 25:14 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of work did they do, or? | 25:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I don't know. Uh-uh. They were just able to pay for their hair-doing. That's all I was interested in. I didn't care where they worked. Mm-mm. | 25:16 |
Chris Stewart | When women came into the beauty shop was, did they talk to each other? Would people sort of hang around and talk? | 25:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Sometimes they talked and then you'd have some in there that didn't have something too much to say to nobody. | 25:38 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. What kinds of things would people talk about? | 25:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I don't know. I was so busy doing hair; I wasn't listening to them people. | 25:45 |
Chris Stewart | I just talked to a man right before I came here. We were talking about barbershops. He told me that men in barbershops talk about men things, like baseball and those kinds of things and stuff that it means to talk about what it means to be a man. And I said, "Boy, I don't think that women have the same kind of thing." And he said, "Oh, no. Those women—" | 25:49 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | There's some of them. If they've got something to gossip about, they gossip. But you're taking a big city like Baltimore, now. Those people don't know each other a lot of times that well to pick up a conversation and start talking about nothing. Mm-mm. In a little small community like around here, maybe a group will get over there on Red Cross Street or some place where they know everybody, know what's happening in Wilmington. They have something in common. They have something to talk about. But you're taking a big city. People coming from different areas of Maryland and Baltimore, South Baltimore, West Baltimore, East, and coming to that beauty shop, they don't know each other and they don't hardly ever get into a real deep conversation, really. Mm-mm. | 26:16 |
Chris Stewart | What kinds of things would you and your husband do for fun when you were— your first husband? | 27:02 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, shucks, me and Chef we'd go to big nightclubs. We loved clubs because a lot of his friends were in business, too. Yudy Leggum, he run the Washington Hotel down in Annapolis, Maryland. | 27:08 |
Chris Stewart | What was his name? | 27:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yudy Leggum. | 27:18 |
Chris Stewart | Leggum. | 27:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. He was a Jew fella. He was a good friend of ours. We'd go down there to the Washington Hotel down in Annapolis, Maryland to his place. Sometimes when we— You'd dress real— Oh, you dressed up, now, for that, now. You dressed real fine and fantastic going to them big things. One over here, when you go down to those big clubs. When I would walk in, sometimes Judi say, "Oh," said, "I want the band to strike up a hot number. Here come Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Woods." They'd play, and they would escort to us to the table, pull the chair out and I'd sit in there, roll it back up under the table. I said, "Look out for the lady." | 27:21 |
Chris Stewart | That sounds fun. | 28:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It was fun. We had good times. We'd go on moonlight cruises down the river, and especially down the Eastern Shore, Maryland. Go on moonlight cruises, come back, go to someplace, maybe some hotel or some big place and have a big breakfast or dinner after the cruise, down the river, eating and dancing and drinking and having a ball on the boat. Well, that was fun. | 28:14 |
Chris Stewart | I bet. What about when you came back to Wilmington? You're a single woman now. So, what did you do? | 28:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, I'd go down to Carolina Beach on these different moonlight cruises from where the boats are parked down to Carolina Beach. And I'd go on cruises from there. | 28:48 |
Chris Stewart | And you'd just go by yourself? | 28:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Go with groups. | 28:59 |
Chris Stewart | You'd go with groups? | 28:59 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Go with the Alpha Psi Alphas, or— | 29:00 |
Chris Stewart | Was your— Alpha Psi Alphas? | 29:04 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. That's a male group. | 29:07 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 29:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Okay. They sponsors of moonlight cruise— | 29:10 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, they would. | 29:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | — down the river. They do now. | 29:15 |
Chris Stewart | I just interviewed a guy who's the president of the Alpha Psi Alphas in North Carolina. | 29:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. What's his name? | 29:21 |
Chris Stewart | Charlie Henry. | 29:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Where does he live? | 29:24 |
Chris Stewart | He's young. Well, he's in his 50s. He lives over on Devonshire. | 29:25 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, Charlie Henry. | 29:30 |
Chris Stewart | Charlie. | 29:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I know him. And his wife is a schoolteacher. | 29:31 |
Chris Stewart | Uh-huh. | 29:34 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. I know him. | 29:34 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah, that's him. | 29:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, I know Charlie. I sure do. Let me see. Mm-hmm. Let's see. | 29:37 |
Chris Stewart | So, you'd go on cruises down— What other kinds of things would you do? Would there be any places to go dancing in town or anything? | 29:47 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. On those cruises, we would dance, have music and dance on the boat. | 29:55 |
Chris Stewart | Uh-huh. And you'd go with a group of people? | 29:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. Maybe go with the Alpha Psi Alphas. | 30:03 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | So, you've met Charlie Henry? | 30:10 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. | 30:12 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. He's in the computer-selling business. And his wife teaches school. | 30:12 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 30:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Good friends. | 30:17 |
Chris Stewart | They're very nice. | 30:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | They're nice— | 30:17 |
Chris Stewart | Very nice. | 30:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | — nice, nice. Where'd you meet him at? | 30:22 |
Chris Stewart | Well, I interviewed him. | 30:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, you did. | 30:23 |
Chris Stewart | I interviewed him. | 30:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | You went over to the house? | 30:25 |
Chris Stewart | Yes. We started about 10:00, and I didn't finish till right before I got here. | 30:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Yeah. | 30:29 |
Chris Stewart | And he was [indistinct 00:30:32]. | 30:30 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I know Charlie [indistinct 00:30:34]. | 30:31 |
Chris Stewart | He's from Tallahassee and he came up from Jacksonville, Florida, so he was telling me a lot about Jacksonville. | 30:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. Yeah. | 30:40 |
Chris Stewart | So, what other things would you do for fun in Wilmington besides go on the cruises? | 30:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | We'd go on the cruises and I'd go. Every now and again, they have a dance or party up the Sportsman's Club. I'd go up there on Castle Street. | 30:45 |
Chris Stewart | The Sportsman's Club? | 30:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Up on Castle Street. | 30:53 |
Chris Stewart | Was that an all-Black club? | 30:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It's a clubhouse bought and built by a group of Black men. | 30:55 |
Chris Stewart | Was it a private club? | 31:03 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. | 31:04 |
Chris Stewart | It was. | 31:05 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It is. | 31:06 |
Chris Stewart | And it's still there? | 31:07 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Still is a nice building right there on Castle Street. | 31:09 |
Chris Stewart | When you were going, who ran it? | 31:13 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Huh? | 31:18 |
Chris Stewart | Who ran it? | 31:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Who ran it? Ran it? | 31:19 |
Chris Stewart | Who ran the club? | 31:19 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh. Oh, the Sportsmans still run their club. It belongs to the Sportsmans. | 31:20 |
Chris Stewart | Do you know what the names of the men are who— | 31:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It's a big group of them. I got a book in there with all the men, the Sportsman in there. It's a big group of them. | 31:34 |
Chris Stewart | And you don't know any, I mean, just one or two, any of them? | 31:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I know— | 31:39 |
Chris Stewart | Maybe we can look at that another time. So, what kinds of things— Would they sponsor things? | 31:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, like dances and get good bands in. And it's a private club. They got a place back there for the men to play pool. They've got a big kitchen back there and a bar. | 31:45 |
Chris Stewart | When [indistinct 00:31:59]— | 31:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And a dance floor. | 31:56 |
Chris Stewart | Oh. When was it open? Do you know? | 32:01 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, Lord, I'd have to go in there and get that book. I don't know. | 32:04 |
Chris Stewart | Was it open when you first moved back? | 32:07 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Mm-mm. It may have had a Sportsman's Club, but not that one. That's one that they bought that land and built that place themself, them men did. | 32:10 |
Chris Stewart | Is it pretty recently, then? | 32:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Yes. Oh, about six or seven years ago, I guess. I don't know. I don't know. I don't keep up with things like that. | 32:20 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. What about in the '40s? When you came back '40s and '50s, what were some of the things that you would do besides going on [indistinct 00:32:38]— | 32:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, I would still go on moonlight cruises and go to different parties and whatnot. | 32:37 |
Chris Stewart | At people's houses? | 32:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 32:45 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. Were there any kind of dance places that you could go to in town? | 32:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. There was a place called The Barn when I first came back. The Barn. Owned by a man named Mr. Whitty. | 32:52 |
Chris Stewart | Whitty? | 32:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Whitty. Mm-hmm. | 32:58 |
Chris Stewart | W-H-I-T-T-E-Y? | 33:02 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | T-T-Y. Mm-hmm. Whitty. | 33:04 |
Chris Stewart | What's his first name? Do you know? | 33:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I forgot— Charlie. Charlie Whitty. Uh-huh. | 33:08 |
Chris Stewart | Do you know if he's still alive? | 33:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-uh. He's dead now. He's dead. His wife's dead and his daughter's in a nursing home. | 33:11 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, my. | 33:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 33:18 |
Chris Stewart | Right. Well, ma'am, can you think of anything that I haven't asked you that you would like me to ask you about? You know your life better than I know your life. | 33:21 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, well, I've had a good life so far. So good. And I don't know nothing else to tell you about it other than I've stayed busy with church clubs and church affairs. | 33:29 |
Chris Stewart | Activities. | 33:42 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. Mm-hmm. | 33:42 |
Chris Stewart | Well, I've got one more thing that I would like to do, and that's to ask you some questions, basically biographical information to accompany the tape. I didn't ask you so much about dates during the interview. I'm going to ask you about it now. But if you don't remember, that's fine. But what we like to do is do biographical and family history to accompany the tape so that people have that to look at as well, if that's all right. | 33:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 34:15 |
Chris Stewart | Just will take a few minutes. | 34:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Okay. | 34:17 |
Chris Stewart | I need your full name. | 34:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Rebecca McAlister Smith. | 34:19 |
Chris Stewart | And McAlister is spelled M-C capital C? | 34:27 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Little C. Little C. | 34:30 |
Chris Stewart | M-C— | 34:32 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | A-L-I-S-T-E-R. A-L-I-S-T-E-R, Smith. Mm-hmm. | 34:33 |
Chris Stewart | And your current address is 1302— | 34:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | 1302 Little John Circle. | 34:49 |
Chris Stewart | Little John Circle. | 34:51 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | All of this is Little John Circle back here. | 34:55 |
Chris Stewart | And your— | 34:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | You like it back here? | 34:59 |
Chris Stewart | I think it's kind of nice. Don't you? | 35:01 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 35:02 |
Chris Stewart | The people have got plants and everything all around. | 35:05 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. | 35:08 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:35:08]. | 35:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | We have our own little flowers. Mm-hmm. | 35:08 |
Chris Stewart | Your phone number? | 35:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | 763-8876. | 35:11 |
Chris Stewart | And how would you like your name to appear in any kind of written material that comes out of this? | 35:16 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Rebecca McAlister Smith. | 35:22 |
Chris Stewart | Smith. | 35:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Because there's so many Rebecca Smiths in this town. | 35:32 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. What's your date of birth, ma'am? | 35:34 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | August the 17th, 1921. | 35:37 |
Chris Stewart | And you were born here in Wilmington? | 35:42 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | 807 Anderson Street, Wilmington, North Carolina. | 35:44 |
Chris Stewart | And you're currently widowed, right? | 35:51 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. | 35:52 |
Chris Stewart | What was your first husband's name? | 35:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Charles Woods. He's deceased. And the second— | 35:59 |
Chris Stewart | When did he die? | 36:07 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He died in '46. | 36:09 |
Chris Stewart | And he was a restaurateur, right? | 36:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's right. And the last one was Captain Romia Smith of Southport. | 36:16 |
Chris Stewart | How do you spell his first name? | 36:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | R-O-M-I-A. Romia. | 36:30 |
Chris Stewart | He was from Southport? | 36:36 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Southport. | 36:36 |
Chris Stewart | When did he die? | 36:39 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | 1962. Mm-hmm. He was a shrimp boat captain. | 36:40 |
Chris Stewart | Ooh, I should write that down. | 36:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | A shrimp boat owner and captain. Shrimp boat owner. | 36:50 |
Chris Stewart | How did you meet him? | 36:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, I met him at the hospital. | 36:56 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, that's right. You took him home? | 36:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 37:01 |
Chris Stewart | No. You met both of your husbands at— | 37:01 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Both of them at hospitals. | 37:03 |
Chris Stewart | Well, now, isn't that amazing? | 37:03 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. He was a patient at Community. | 37:03 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 37:03 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 37:03 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. Your mother's name? | 37:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Bertha McAlister. | 37:20 |
Chris Stewart | What's her maiden name? | 37:25 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Bertha Murphy. | 37:26 |
Chris Stewart | And her date of birth? Do you know? | 37:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | 1904. 1903 or '04. 1904. Just before [indistinct 00:37:39] | 37:35 |
Chris Stewart | What year did she die? | 37:38 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | She died in 1987. | 37:39 |
Chris Stewart | And where was she born? | 37:45 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Burgaw. Mm-hmm. | 37:45 |
Chris Stewart | And her occupation? | 37:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | She was a storekeeper. She had a store. | 37:57 |
Chris Stewart | Really? What kind of store did she— | 37:59 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Just a little community store. Uh-huh. Just a little store where you could go and get everything out there in the country. Mostly anything. Keep people from having to go to Wilmington or someplace to try to get it. | 38:00 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 38:13 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Just [indistinct 00:38:15]— | 38:13 |
Chris Stewart | That was when they moved back to— | 38:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. They had a store there. | 38:17 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. What about when your mother and father were married? I mean, when you were younger, what did she— | 38:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, she was housekeeper. She didn't work for nobody. | 38:25 |
Chris Stewart | Your father's name? | 38:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | John McAlister, Sr. because my brother's named John McAlister, too. John McAlister. And you can put S-R behind his name. | 38:30 |
Chris Stewart | And his date of birth? | 38:39 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, wow. What year? I really don't know. But I know one thing in 1947, when he died, he would have been 50 years old if he'd have made it to till that August. I don't know exactly what yet. | 38:42 |
Chris Stewart | He would've been 50 years old? So maybe 1897? | 39:02 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Something like that. Put that on there. That'd be all right. Uh-huh. | 39:06 |
Chris Stewart | Boy, that must have been hard for you. You lost your husband and your father. | 39:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh— | 39:13 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:39:14]. | 39:13 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | — and my grandma died in 1945. Mm-hmm. | 39:14 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, that must have been very— | 39:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Everybody died right along about the same time. | 39:15 |
Chris Stewart | How did you manage? | 39:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, all right. I don't take nothing seriously. They just had to go. That's all. | 39:22 |
Chris Stewart | You seem like a very smart woman. | 39:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | They just had to go. Their time was out. | 39:33 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. Where was your father born? | 39:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He was born in Watha. | 39:38 |
Chris Stewart | In— | 39:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Watha. | 39:44 |
Chris Stewart | W— | 39:45 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | W-A-T-H-A. Watha. | 39:45 |
Chris Stewart | Is that a town? | 39:49 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. It was an Indian reservation. | 39:50 |
Chris Stewart | In which county? | 39:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Pendle. | 39:55 |
Chris Stewart | Were your parents were they part Native American and part Black? | 39:55 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | They were part Indian, too. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 40:04 |
Chris Stewart | What group were they? | 40:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | My daddy's mother was what they call a Blackhawk Indian. She was Rebecca Whitehead, daughter of Chief Whitehead of Watha. | 40:12 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:40:23]. | 40:22 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. And that woman had long hair. You can tell from some of those children. They were ancestors. Did you see that kind of hair they had, honey? Only their hair's red, but Indian's mostly has jet black hair. But her hair was so long until she could have it braided and down in her lap in her hand from pictures of her. | 40:22 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, wow. What about on your mother's side? Was there Indian [indistinct 00:40:58] | 40:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, her mother was a West Indian. My mother's mother was a West Indian, came from— | 40:58 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 41:02 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | — Kingston, Jamaica. | 41:02 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 41:04 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. Where my sister-in-law come from. My brother's wife came same place. | 41:05 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 41:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 41:10 |
Chris Stewart | Your mother's mother came from West Indians? | 41:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. | 41:13 |
Chris Stewart | How come she came here? Do you know? | 41:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | She, well, like all the rest of them, just wanted to come to North Carolina or someplace over here. | 41:16 |
Chris Stewart | Find work? | 41:21 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, I reckon so. She came in and got settled. And she stayed here. | 41:22 |
Chris Stewart | You said you didn't know her, though, did you? | 41:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. I knew my mother's mother. | 41:30 |
Chris Stewart | You did? | 41:31 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, that's the one I told you had the place in New York. | 41:33 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, that's right. | 41:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. I didn't know my daddy's mother. | 41:40 |
Chris Stewart | She was the caterer. | 41:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. She was the caterer. That's right. | 41:41 |
Chris Stewart | She sounds like a sharp businesswoman. | 41:41 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. You ever seen a West Indian that was stupid? | 41:43 |
Chris Stewart | Not a sharp business woman. I know. I should— | 41:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's the reason Charlie Woods was Charlie Woods. That first husband I showed you, he's a West Indian. | 41:49 |
Chris Stewart | Is he really? | 41:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. He's a good-looking man, too. Good-looking. | 41:54 |
Chris Stewart | Well, in that picture. I bet you in real life he was a lot better looking [indistinct 00:42:03]. | 41:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Better looking than that. And that was all good-looking man. And he was a West Indian. And my brother Junior, the one at Long Creek, his wife is a West Indian. | 42:03 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 42:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. She came from Kingston, Jamaica. | 42:16 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 42:19 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. And he married her over there. | 42:20 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, he did? | 42:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He went over there and married her. | 42:23 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. So, your family's got a lot of— You've married a lot of West Indians. | 42:25 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. There's a lot of Indian in the house. | 42:29 |
Chris Stewart | What do you think that attraction is? | 42:33 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I don't know. I got a little bit of it. See them high cheekbones? | 42:36 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. You do. | 42:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And them slanted eyes. Got a little bit of it. | 42:44 |
Chris Stewart | Very attractive. | 42:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, I'm not. I'm not— | 42:45 |
Chris Stewart | Very attractive. | 42:46 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Can't be attracted. I'm too old. | 42:46 |
Chris Stewart | Hey! You still can. Okay. What about the names of your brothers and sisters? | 42:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | My brother's named John E. McAlister. He was named after my daddy. John E. McAlister. | 42:54 |
Chris Stewart | When was he born? | 43:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I was born in 1921. He was born in 1922. I'm a year and some months older than him. | 43:14 |
Chris Stewart | And was he born in Wilmington as well? | 43:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 43:14 |
Chris Stewart | Is it just you and he, or? | 43:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, I had another brother. He's dead now. He was born 1920— What? '06 or sometime like that. 1926 or something. | 43:14 |
Chris Stewart | What was his name? | 43:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Paul. Paul D. McAlister. | 43:26 |
Chris Stewart | So, you were the only girl? | 43:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 43:30 |
Chris Stewart | He was also born in Wilmington? | 43:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, all three. | 43:36 |
Chris Stewart | When did he die? | 43:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He died 1969 or '70. '70. I would just say '70. 1970. | 43:38 |
Chris Stewart | And you were the oldest? | 43:45 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 43:46 |
Chris Stewart | And you had one child? | 43:46 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | One child. And he died when he was a baby. | 43:49 |
Chris Stewart | What was his name? | 43:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Whatever— Lewis. | 43:54 |
Chris Stewart | Lewis Woods. | 43:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. | 43:58 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember the year he was born? | 43:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | He lived to be about six months old. He was born in 19— What? '45? No. He died in '46. He was born in the latter part of 1945. I forgot the date of that. | 44:07 |
Chris Stewart | That's okay. And he died in '46? | 44:21 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. Died in '46. He lived— | 44:27 |
Chris Stewart | Was he born in Baltimore? | 44:27 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, yeah. | 44:27 |
Chris Stewart | This was a very rough time for you. | 44:27 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Lord, I know it. I said, "Well, looks like all of y'all is getting ready to die and leave me." | 44:37 |
Chris Stewart | You're a strong woman. | 44:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. When my mama died, I didn't shed a tear. She had a oxygen tank in that bedroom, her concentrating machine over there to inhale her oxygen whenever she needed it. She stayed in that room. I went out and bought me a folding cot. I put it out here at night or either sleep over here and let her stay right there until she started getting weak one day, and I called the rescue squad to take her back to the hospital. She had problem breathing only because she'd had pneumonia so many times. So, I carried her back out there and she stayed in intensive care and lived about 14 days. | 44:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | When the doctor called me and said, "Ms. Smith," said, "I regret calling you this time of morning," said, "But your mother just passed. You and I were talking this afternoon and I told you I didn't believe she'll make it till morning." Said, "Well, she's done passed." I said, "Well, thanks for all you did. Tell the nurses," I said, "Thank you." I said, "Is there anything you want me to come out there and do?" He said, "No." Said, "I'll call French Davis and I'll send her belongings over to the funeral home in a bag with the body." I said, "Thank you." And that's what I did. I hung up that receiver, went in the bathroom, wiped, washed my face and hands, came in here, made me a pot of coffee, sat right there on the end of that table and— | 45:22 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I said, "Try to not worry yourself." I said, "I could never ask the Lord to give her more time." I said, "Mama was 85." I said, "She had the best attention the whole time she's been sick." She's been in and out of the hospital in intensive care, and had very good attention. And when she was here with me, I didn't let nobody talk me into sending her to a nursing home. I kept her here, let her walk over here and sit at the end of that table, and I prepared her meals and let her eat what she could eat, and whatever she said she wanted to eat. That's what she got. | 0:02 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Kept her clean, had comprehensive — Didn't try to nurse her myself. Had comprehensive nurses coming in here to take care of her. Well, comprehensive nurses, see there? I had them coming in here to take care of her, bathe her, shampoo hair, and look out for her. And I said, "Now, I don't have anything to cry about." | 0:42 |
Chris Stewart | I interviewed a woman in Halifax County— | 1:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And so I wasn't crying. People said, "Ooh, Lord." When they went to the funeral, said "Becky — " They said, "I was surprised. You didn't shed a tear." I said, "I shedded my tears the whole time she was around there sick, and I was wanting her to eat and she's sometimes not eating anything." I said, "I'm all right." I said, "I'm all right." | 1:09 |
Chris Stewart | You did what you could. | 1:28 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And put her away beautifully. I had a pale pink steel casket, a Bates casket, one of those real good ones, waterproof things. I put her in that, pale pink, embossed with the gold, and the cake-satin lining, and then had a deeper pink gown on her. It come up right around the neck with little fine pleats, and little fine pleats around the cuffs, and then little pleats all up in here. That was a pretty thing. It was a hundred— | 1:30 |
Chris Stewart | And you did her hair. | 2:04 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | — a hundred and some dollars. I had a wig. I went and bought a new wig from the wig shop to put on her head. | 2:04 |
Chris Stewart | Did you do it? | 2:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. The wig was already done. Put that on her. And I mean, that lady looked some more good laying up in that casket. And then I had the florist to do a big casket spray of flowers about this long. Carnations, pale pink and dark pink, and then a deep pink, velvet ribbons all over in between, all over that, and that was a pretty sight to see. | 2:10 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | When I went there and looked at mama, I just had to smile. I said, "Well, old girl, I sure fixed you up like I wanted." I said, "Old girl, you're looking just like I want you to look." And she was looking so good, everybody said, "Oh my God, Becky, your mama — You look just like your mama laying up there in that casket." They said, "You all sure do favor." I said, "Yeah, only thing, she's going on and I'm still here looking at her." | 2:45 |
Chris Stewart | You favor your mother? | 3:12 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm, yeah. | 3:15 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. That sounds wonderful. | 3:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah. I look between she and my daddy, because them two people favored. They looked alike. My daddy had so much Indian in him, you could see it. You could see that Indian all over in that man. You could see it. | 3:20 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah, in the features. | 3:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Honey, yes sir. | 3:35 |
Chris Stewart | What about your education history? What are the names of the schools you went to again? What school did you go to here? | 3:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Here in Wilmington? | 3:44 |
Chris Stewart | Uh-huh. | 3:45 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, I went to Little Williston and Williston School, and Peabody, too. And Peabody. | 3:46 |
Chris Stewart | What did you go to Peabody for? | 3:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That was down in the grades, like second and third grade. There's my mom— | 3:59 |
Chris Stewart | And then you went to Frederick Douglass School? | 4:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Frederick Douglass High School. I went to South Baltimore school, too, this year. | 4:09 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. Who are all these pictures of? | 4:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | My cousins. | 4:19 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 4:19 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Kin folks. Yeah. | 4:26 |
Chris Stewart | What grades did you go to Frederick Douglass High School? | 4:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, I went to 12th there. I went all the way to the 12th there. | 4:44 |
Chris Stewart | From what to 12th? | 4:49 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Ninth to 12th. | 4:50 |
Chris Stewart | And you also went to — What were the names of the other schools that you went to? What was the name of the beauty school again? | 4:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Apex Beauty College. Cortez Peters Business. | 4:59 |
Chris Stewart | Cortez Peters? | 5:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. One of the fastest typists in the world. Cortez Peters. | 5:10 |
Chris Stewart | Business? | 5:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. And then I went to — | 5:16 |
Chris Stewart | How long did you go to Cortez Peters? | 5:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Two years. | 5:20 |
Chris Stewart | And then you went to — | 5:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Went to Practical Nursing School up to up at Providence Hospital. | 5:26 |
Chris Stewart | How many years did you go there? | 5:45 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I went two, and then — But the reason I didn't take the state board when I came home, I was given the opportunity, Ms. Moncrief, a West India Director of Nurses allowed me to go to school with the students in their classes to be registered nurses. I went two years with them. | 5:48 |
Chris Stewart | Oh. Where was that? | 6:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | At Community Hospital. Two years of nursing with the students at Community Hospital. And then I went to the state board. So, that was good. That was a break that nobody else had been given. Nobody else was given that. | 6:15 |
Chris Stewart | So you got to go two years — | 6:36 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Two years at Community Hospital, and I had my two years up there. | 6:39 |
Chris Stewart | What's this? | 6:43 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, that's me in Hawaii. You see me, that little skinny lady? | 6:44 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah, with great hair, too. | 6:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's me. You see me? | 6:55 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. You're looking good. Looking real good. | 6:59 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Do I? Oh, oh — | 7:05 |
Chris Stewart | With that little lei on you. | 7:07 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a good time there. That was a nurse's convention. | 7:08 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. Now, what about work history? What jobs? | 7:13 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, I was billing and filing clerk at Montgomery Ward. | 7:17 |
Chris Stewart | When was that? | 7:24 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's after I came out of business school. I was billing and filing clerk. | 7:26 |
Chris Stewart | Was that in the early '40s, you figure? | 7:53 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, had to be. Yeah, so — | 7:56 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. What else? | 8:00 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And that's all I did as far as business. | 8:04 |
Chris Stewart | What other work did you do? | 8:07 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Then I went on up there to — Took the nursing course. I wasn't into working so much. I was into getting some schooling. I was— | 8:09 |
Chris Stewart | You were a nurse, though, at Community Hospital, right? | 8:19 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's right, that's right. I wasn't into no whole lot of job hunting. I was trying to take these courses at those schools, and get some foundation for taking care of myself. That's what he wanted me to do. The man had hard asthma when I met him, and he wanted me to get educated so that if he died before I did, I wouldn't have to go into that old restaurant business. He didn't want me to be burdened down with nothing like that. | 8:21 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 8:49 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-mm. No. | 8:49 |
Chris Stewart | So you worked there until 1968, and then you went to New Hanover County? | 8:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Went over to New Hanover Memorial Hospital. And then I come from Community to New Hanover. | 8:56 |
Chris Stewart | And you worked there from 1968 to nineteen seventy — | 9:08 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Four. | 9:11 |
Chris Stewart | And that's when you retired? | 9:12 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's when the doctor stopped me on account of bad pressure. | 9:13 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, you've got high blood pressure? | 9:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. I was put on disability in '74. | 9:19 |
Chris Stewart | Have you received any awards or honors through your church or through any kind of community — | 9:22 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, not really. No, preach — Uh-uh. | 9:29 |
Chris Stewart | Is your current religious denomination Baptist? | 9:40 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Baptist. | 9:42 |
Chris Stewart | And you belong to — | 9:42 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Shiloh Baptist Church. Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church. | 9:44 |
Chris Stewart | You used to belong — What was the church you belonged to— | 9:54 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | St. John Missionary Baptist at Long Creek. I was there first, when I first came home. | 9:56 |
Chris Stewart | Do you belong to any community, or educational, or civic, or political organizations? | 10:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I used to work at work at the polls during the election time. | 10:29 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, you did? | 10:33 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. I used to— | 10:38 |
Chris Stewart | Do you belong to any political party? | 10:39 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | No, no. Democratic. I'm a Democrat. | 10:41 |
Chris Stewart | Any other organizations? | 10:51 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I belong to different clubs. | 10:55 |
Chris Stewart | What Club? | 10:58 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Juphenia Civic Club. | 10:59 |
Chris Stewart | What? | 11:00 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | J-U-P-H-E-N-I-A. Juphenia Civic Club. | 11:02 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of stuff does the Juphenia Civic— | 11:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, well, we give to different things like sickle cell and whatnot. Sickle cell. | 11:12 |
Chris Stewart | What other clubs? | 11:18 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And I belong to the floral club that furnishes flowers at the church. Floral club at the church. W.H. Moore Foreign Mission Club. I belong to that. | 11:19 |
Chris Stewart | Foreign mission? | 11:32 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. Foreign mission. My club gives to foreign mission every year. Each member gives a hundred dollars, and more, and more, and I'm the secretary for that. | 11:33 |
Chris Stewart | Any other clubs? | 11:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, the Friendship Unlimited Club. We had a meeting here Saturday night. | 11:52 |
Chris Stewart | What is the Friendship Unlimited Club? | 11:56 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | A Sportsman's Club. We entertain, and party, have cookouts. | 11:59 |
Chris Stewart | Okay, [indistinct 00:12:07]— | 12:06 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Cookouts, boat rides. | 12:06 |
Chris Stewart | Is it all women, or is it— | 12:09 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Uh-huh. It's mixed, men and women. Just a good club to be in. | 12:10 |
Chris Stewart | How often do you meet? | 12:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Once a month. Second Saturday and every month. | 12:18 |
Chris Stewart | So you go on barbecues, and boat rides, and — | 12:20 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Boat rides, uh-huh. | 12:22 |
Chris Stewart | How about in the wintertime? | 12:24 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | In the wintertime, same thing. Last winter we rented a condominium down on Myrtle Beach, two condos, and we just had a ball, and we did all the entertaining in one of the condos. And then when the time would come to go to sleep, then we would all split. Most everybody in there was married anyway, but I always had— | 12:24 |
Chris Stewart | Except for you. | 12:48 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Except for me, and I'd always pull out the big bed in the living room and have me a great big bed out there in the front, right to myself. Right to myself. | 12:48 |
Chris Stewart | That sounds good. | 12:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | It was. That was delicious. | 13:00 |
Chris Stewart | What other clubs do you belong to? | 13:01 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, floral club, I said that, and the Juphenia Civic Club. W.H. Moore Foreign Club. And what else — Friendship Unlimited. Did I say that? Yeah. | 13:03 |
Chris Stewart | What about any activities or hobbies? | 13:15 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I love the water. I love going to the beach. I was down at the beach on 4th of July, in the water, honey. The sun done cooked me and burnt me so — | 13:18 |
Chris Stewart | What beach do you go to? | 13:30 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I go to Myrtle. | 13:32 |
Chris Stewart | You go down to Myrtle? | 13:32 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm, Myrtle Beach and Wrightsville Beach. | 13:34 |
Chris Stewart | I also put down traveling. | 13:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, I was down there at Myrtle Beach. I had one more good time, but I don't know where them pictures is. I wanted to show you something. I took some good pictures. We were down there at these people's house. They live at Myrtle Beach. They're retired. She was a principal of Mary Washington Howe School, and her husband, he's retired from something or another, and we went down to their home on Myrtle Beach. They live 36 South on — | 13:44 |
Chris Stewart | How far away is Myrtle Beach from here? | 14:14 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, about 68 miles. | 14:15 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, so it's only about an hour drive? That's not bad. | 14:17 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | And we went down there — Lord, if them people don't have some fabulous, fantastic house. | 14:20 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, it is, huh? | 14:32 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Ooh, Lordy have mercy. And I've got plenty of records. I play, I love — | 14:32 |
Chris Stewart | You've got some old records there, don't you? | 14:34 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, yeah. | 14:34 |
Chris Stewart | Do you — | 14:34 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I love old records. | 14:34 |
Chris Stewart | I try to collect old blues records. | 14:44 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I got me some good blues. I got good blues by Fats — | 14:47 |
Chris Stewart | Waller? | 14:50 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Domino. | 14:51 |
Chris Stewart | Fats Domino, huh? | 14:52 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Mm-hmm. | 14:53 |
Chris Stewart | I listen to some of the old women blue singers. Like, well, Bessie Smith. | 14:57 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Oh, I don't have no Bessie Smith. | 15:10 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah, those are old — | 15:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | That's an old — | 15:11 |
Chris Stewart | That's an old — | 15:11 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | My mama had some of them at Long Creek, and I think they stayed out there in that little outhouse back of her house, and they sort of warped and mildewed and went to the bath. | 15:11 |
Chris Stewart | That's what'll happen. It's hard to find them because they're the old 78s. | 15:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Well, I've got some 78s here. | 15:27 |
Chris Stewart | Do you really? | 15:29 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | Yeah, I've got some. Some right there in that bedroom, right down over in that corner there, where that fan is there. | 15:29 |
Chris Stewart | Do you know what I wanted to talk to you about, ma'am? These photographs that you have. We have a machine that can take pictures of pictures, that actually can take pictures of photographs. And part of what we're trying to do — It's not the 12th, it's the 13th today. Part of what we're trying to do with this project is make reproductions of family photographs. And I was wondering if you would be willing to let us make some reproductions of some of the photographs in those albums that you have. | 15:37 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | What, like my cousin Billy? | 16:21 |
Chris Stewart | Like your cousin Billy. Like maybe some of the pictures of your father's barbershop. You've just got a lot of old photographs in there that — | 16:23 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | You can look at them and see they're old, can't you? | 16:33 |
Chris Stewart | They're beautiful photographs. They're absolutely beautiful photographs. | 16:35 |
Rebecca McAlister Smith | I've got some antiques, too. Look up there on that shelf there. Most of everything up there except one or two things is from 19— | 16:40 |
Item Info
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