Oral history interview with Jeannette Dean, 1990 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Jeannette Dean
INTERVIEWER: Anne R. Phillips
DATE: June 5, 1990
[Begin side A]
AP: I’m here in Curry Building with Jeannette Dean, and she’s going to tell me about her
growing up and coming here to Curry School [campus laboratory elementary/high school].
JD: I started I Curry School in the first grade. And the building doesn’t look a great deal
different. Well, it does in some sense than it looked then. You came in the front door, and
we were scared to death of the principal who was Mr. [Ralph] Brimley. Brimley [associate
professor of education], I think that’s right—he wouldn’t have hurt a soul. [interruption]
AP: —you said you were very scared of the principal—
JD: That’s right. Because if the principal took me to the office and fussed at me, then I
got fussed at, except when I got home I also got a whipping because I’d been bad. The
first grade was down where the drama department now uses the end part of the building,
and I thought that I was just the biggest thing in the world because I was over here in
school. The wing of the building that I’m working in now, which is 235, was the college
wing, and we were not allowed down here. We could not come in any further than what
is presently McDonnell Lounge; that was the library.
And if you’ll look in there now, you will—and look over your head, you will see
the beautiful ceiling; it was originally the original part of the building, which was the
Green Lantern Tea Room. This building was built around a tea room. There is currently
and presently a tin roof overhead that took an act of the legislature to enable them to put
another floor on this building. At that time it was the second floor; now it’s called the
third floor. Because when we—when they renovated this building, they put another
building beside it called Ferguson Building, and we’re ramped to that building, and they
knew they could not ramp the first floor of Curry to the second floor of Ferguson—
everybody would lose their mind. So they renumbered the floors, and I am on the main
floor of Curry Building which in my day was the first floor; it is now the second floor.
AP: Very interesting. So you were here from the ground floor up. What about your
birthplace?
JD: I was born and reared—I’m real odd; I was born and reared in Greensboro, North
Carolina, over on Westover Terrace. And we walked through Peabody Park coming to
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school, up over the bridge—and at that time the bridge went over Walker Avenue
because Walker Avenue stops there at the Stone Building and then resumes on the other
side of well right off of Forest [Street]. But at the time when I was a small child, that
bridge—we came over the bridge and came on over to school. And West Market
[Street]—I mean Walker Avenue—went under the bridge.
AP: Well, how was the decision for you to come here—who made the decision for you to
come to Curry?
JD: I was in the school district. Now at that time, Curry had districts. I was in the last house
on the district. The district stopped over at the same corner of—at that time it was
Madison Avenue. It’s now West Friendly Avenue so as not to confuse people. I lived on
the corner of, at that time, Madison Avenue and Westover Terrace. And I was in the
Curry School district. My brother, my sister and I came to school here. Now my brother
transferred many years before I ever came over here to Spring Street School. And my
sister graduated from Curry in 1941. I did not graduate from Curry; I went through the
eleventh grade at Curry. I was one of the first through the seventh grade. We skipped the
eighth grade because they put the twelfth grade in between the seventh and the old eighth
grade and made the seventh and the ninth.
AP: I see. So you came here because family members had come here and you were in the
district.
JD: That’s right, and it was considered the best school in Greensboro, but laughed at by the
public schools because we had those student teachers. And they always talked about the
terrible student teachers that we had. Well, they weren’t terrible—they were great. But
that’s the case.
AP: And were those teachers—what sort of things were those teachers doing with the students
and regular faculty?
JD: Well, it was just like the student teachers worked in the public schools today; they would
come in the schools and observe the classes. And the English teacher would observe for a
period of time, and then she would take one class at the time until she was teaching all of
the classes every day. And then just like they do at the present time.
AP: So you entered in first grade—
JD: First grade.
AP: And you went through—
JD: Eleventh grade.
AP: Which was the end of school?
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JD: No. No, there was still another grade. I transferred to Greensboro Senior High for my
final year in high school.
AP: Right. Well, so who was the principal here when you started?
JD: There was a principal here called, and I may have them in the wrong order: there was Mr.
Brimley and Mr. Ansel [?] (I think it’s A-N-S-E-L, but don’t hold me to that.) and then
they had an acting principal of [Herbert] Kimmel, who was actually one of the professors
here at the college. And then somewhere down the line, Mr. Vaughn, Herbert Vaughn,
came here, and he was next to the last principal. Then we had an acting principal—Mr.
Vaughn went over in to the administrative offices over across campus. When they closed
the school, we had Brice Perkins here, and then we had a Wiley Phillips here—acting
principals.
AP: So, you felt it was a good experience for you? You didn’t care what the public thought
about—
JD: It was a great school. We had things that the public schools did not have. We had music
every day. We had physical education, which was a real luxury back then because they
did not have physical education on a daily basis or two or three times a week at least in
the public schools.
AP: About what decade was that—about what time period?
JD: Well, I came to—I was born in ’28, so we’re six years, so we’re ’34. And I graduated
from Greensboro Senior High in ’45, so this would have been like ’34 through ’44.
AP: What was your feeling about Woman’s College [of the University of North Carolina]? I
mean, what did you think about the college?
JD: I thought Woman’s College was great, and some of my friends, friends of my sisters,
went to Woman’s College and took the—at that time they had a one-year commercial and
a two-year commercial. And if you could get through that, you could get through
anything because that was a very, very difficult course. And I remember the college
students over here.
I remember back—and I can’t tell you when this was, but it was during WWII
[World War II]—Glenn Miller [jazz musician, arranger, composer, bandleader in the
swing era] serenaded the UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro]
campus. We lived on Westover Terrace—that is across the golf course, across Market
Street, and then on the corner of the next corner. And it was in the spring of the year, and
the windows were up in the house. We heard this roar from campus at home, and mother
says, “What is that!?” And then they said, “We’re serenading UNCG [The University of
North Carolina at Greensboro] campus.” or “Woman’s College.” Pardon me, it was
Woman’s College. And you just heard all the students just roar, and it was a really
deafening roar.
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I remember going to the movies downtown, and the UNCG campus—I keep
calling it UNCG because it is to me—but it was Woman’s College. The students that had
dates—if you went to the movies, they had to be in at eleven o’clock [pm]—so you
would have this mass exodus about, between 10:30 [pm] and twenty of eleven, so they
could catch the last bus to the campus because they had to sign in and out. That hasn’t
been that many years ago really.
AP: Even up until the ’50s, I’m guessing.
JD: Yes.
AP: Of course it was still just Woman’s College then—just all women. Where were these
dates from?
JD: I don’t know if they were local people, if they came in from other campuses, because I
think they used to come in from other campuses. I had a very good friend whose mother
was housemother in Mary Foust [Residence Hall], which is now Residential College.
And I used to spend the night with this girl—her name was Nancy Beam Funderburk
[Class of 1949]—we called her Beam. [Ed. Note: Nancy’s mother was the housemother,
Annie Beam Funderburk, Class of 1916]. And I can remember the girls would come into
the parlor, to Miss Funderburk’s parlor, and sign out. And they had to sign out, put where
they were going, who they were going to be with, what time they were going, who they
were going to be with, what time they were going to be back. And today—I mean it’s
almost incredible—you tell someone that and they say, “You have got to be kidding; no
one did that!” Well, they did do this. And also in the dining halls because I ate in the
dining hall a number of times in going to see Nancy Beam—we would sit there, and you
sat there and were served family style. Someone sat at the head of the table like the
mother and asked, “Would you like roast beef?” or whatever they were having, and they
served your plate. And you said the blessing. All of these things which now everybody
can’t believe that went on on this campus.
AP: That’s amazing. So about how many students would be at the dining hall? There were the
five dining halls, right?
JD: The main dining hall, the dining hall I always went to, was the one in Spencer Dorm—the
one downstairs—and I think it’s probably, if not THE oldest, it was one of the oldest. It
was down in the main part of the Spencer Dorm. And I assume that dining hall exists
today; I do not know. I know it existed until the renovation because a number of our
graduate students liked to go down there; they said it was much greater than the other
dining halls.
AP: So there were family style meals, and you’d come over and visit. What was your feeling
about the other students here on campus? What did you feel about the young women?
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JD: I thought that they were really—most of them were—I envied them because I thought,
“Oh, this would be such a nice place to go to school.” They seemed to have such a good
time. Now, they were pretty strict on them—that’s one thing that they really were.
AP: Who were the women in charge? I’m saying women because it was Dean [Katherine]
Taylor [Class of 1928, dean of women, dean of students, dean of student services,
director of Elliott Hall]—
JD: The one particular one that I knew was a widow. She had a child and this child—I went
to school with this child from about the second or third grade on up through high school.
And she lived in Mary Foust [Residence Hall], so I’m assuming—that’s what a lot of the
housemothers were. They were widows. There could have been some—most of them that
I knew were widows—and they would live in the dorm and they would have—. Well, in
Mary Foust as you came in the front door, you turned to the right and there was a parlor
and then this tremendous bedroom and a kitchen—not a kitchen, a bath, a private bath.
And they ate in the dining hall. I don’t know, I’m assuming—now Mrs. Funderburk
taught romance languages. I think she was a French teacher, but I know that French was
her specialty. She may have taught other things, but she was in the romance languages
department.
AP: And she was a housemother?
JD: She was a housemother as well as a professor on campus.
AP: So that was—well, her housing was provided?
JD: That’s right and probably the meals and then some sort of stipend.
AP: What about other faculty members who maybe were not house mothers? Were they
single or married people? Were they men or women?
JD: Some were single—a lot were single—because at that time it was very unusual to see a
man on this campus. I mean, most of them were single women, either widows, but I think
most of them had never married. Before I even came to work over here—and I’ve been
here now since 1968—there were the Patterson Apartments, which were over here beside
Curry [Building] in the area that is now Ferguson [Building]. And a lot faculty lived there
as well as the apartments—and don’t ask me the name of them, but the ones directly back
of Elliott [University Center], across the street, across Forest. Faculty lived there as well.
And those were some of the married faculty when they came in. And a lot of times,
people would come into Greensboro and move into those apartments, maybe live a year
until they found suitable housing. They just moved into campus housing, which at that
time was available.
AP: It was available?
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JD: It was available, I don’t know how it worked; I don’t know anything about that, but I do
know that faculty did live in those apartments. I don’t know that that’s all that lived there,
and I don’t know how long that went on, but I do know that faculty did live there.
AP: So the faculty because they were so close, I’m guessing, were pretty dedicated to their
life here?
JD: Oh, yes.
AP: And even a lot of their social life, or free time—
JD: Their social life and their free time probably revolved around this university. And a lot of
them—and this was up until just a few years ago when the cafeteria in the Home
Economics Building, Stone Building, closed—you would go down there to eat lunch, and
there would be the retired faculty that lived on either Tate or McIver [Streets]. You would
see them in there eating. So a lot of their lifetime revolved around the campus because
they lived—a lot of them lived in this immediate area. Because, actually when I was a
small child and when I was a young child, cars weren’t that prevalent. Plus the fact, part
of the time I was here in school was during the war, and there was no gas, so people lived
relatively close so they could walk in—not as it is today.
AP: Tell me a little bit more about art and music and social activities for faculty and students.
JD: Well, now we had art. I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler in my hand, but we had art
classes three times a week. My sister is very artistic, and the poor professor that taught
us—I remember him, a very nice looking man with black hair—and he was trying to
think of something nice to say about this monstrosity I had drawn. And so this is what he
said—and I remember it to this day because on this campus if someone doesn’t know
what to say, they’ll say, “How interesting!”—so I remember him saying to me, “Oh,
Jeannette, this is very interesting.” And it was gosh awful; I mean it was terrible.
AP: What did you draw?
JD: It was a flower, but it didn’t look like anything on land, sea or air. It was just this blob on
this piece of paper. We were using watercolors, and we had an easel—his name was
[Robert] Skelton [art instructor], I believe, and he was backing off—and poor man, I
know now he was really trying to think of something to say without saying, “Child, can’t
you draw anything?” And that’s what he ended up saying.
AP: It sounds like a piece of modern art that one could sell at a museum now.
JD: Yes, I think it probably would have been, but then it was monstrosity, and to me still is.
AP: That sounds neat. And that was at the Curry School? And did you start the artwork right
away?
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JD: As I remember, we drew in class in first grade, and then we went to a place where we
couldn’t mess up the classroom because you know how children can mess up a
classroom. Seemed to me we had an art room. There was an art room upstairs; I
remember that, but that was after I got into high school. There was an art room
somewhere else in the building that we went to because if we spilled paint that was fine.
And we had a cafeteria downstairs, and that was quite a treat to go to the cafeteria, I
thought.
AP: Did most of the children eat here?
JD: Most of the children ate here. When I first came to school here, there was no cafeteria,
and we had an hour and a half for lunch, so I went home. And then after—I don’t even
know what year—maybe sixth, seventh grade—they put in that cafeteria downstairs, and
so most of us ate lunch over here.
AP: Well that meant—I suppose most of the mothers of these children were at home. Was it
unusual to have a working mother?
JD: Not very many of the mothers worked. My mother did not work; my mother was a
widow, but she did not work. She did not go to work until after—I guess I was up in high
school before she went back to work. The biggest part of the women did not work.
AP: Were professors’ children here?
JD: Primarily professors’ children were here. This was a drawing card because it was called
Curry Laboratory School, or demonstration school, and this was a drawing card for
faculty, so I have been told. And I went to school with an awful lot of professors’
children. A lot of the faculty came in here, and they wanted to be sure their children
would be in a school where they knew that they would get the advantages of art and
music and all the other things, the creative things. And Greensboro—the university
provided at that time—it was the college—provided music teachers for us, and we
performed in the music festival over here, which they still perform in. The music festival
was held Aycock Auditorium, and it was a city-wide festival. I can remember singing,
getting on the risers and singing down there. There’s quite a good music background over
here, and one of the students and I—I do not recall her name—her dissertation was on
three of the first music teachers here at the university. One of them I had was Grace Van
Dyke More. Two of them I had, and the other was Birdie Holloway. Now Miss More has
passed on, and Miss Holloway is living—she lives in Texas with someone in her family,
unless she’s passed away in recent months. And we had—we also had something else
that probably most people have never heard of because when I say anything about this,
they say, “I’ve never heard of it.” We had a six-man football.
AP: Okay, six-man football—
JD: Six-man football team. And our biggest rival was Allen Jay [school]. The football field
was where McNutt Center is now, and I can remember being the timekeeper and various
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and sundry things. We had a coach whose name was Herbert Park. I think it was Park, not
Parks; and Park Gym is named for him, and he coached our six-man football team. And
he also coached the boys’ basketball team, and we had a baseball team. And the girls
played something that they play on the UNCG campus now, but nobody else in
Greensboro plays—I played field hockey, and nobody had ever heard of it around here. I
think they still play at UNCG. The gym at that time was not where the gym is now. The
gym was in back of Curry, not attached to this building. It’s what’s now the Governor
Morehead School, right back of Curry. That was, we had to share that with the boys. The
lockers were for the girls, and the field house was underneath where I’m sitting; and the
little children, when I came to work over here, called it the “catacombs.” And they said it
was a spook hole. But that’s where we changed our clothes, and we ran through high
school, go to UNCG, get your undergrad, master’s and your doctorate, and never leave
the campus. You could do that. We’ve had several who went all the way through Curry
School from kindergarten, all the way through and have their bachelor’s from UNCG and
their master’s from UNCG. There are several of them that I happen to know. And Curry
closed in 1970; it was phased out on the basis of—the junior high was phased out first,
then the high school, then the elementary school.
AP: Do you know about what years? Which was first phased out?
JD: The junior high was phased out in ’68. The last graduating at Curry was 1969, and in
1970, the elementary school was phased out. Now at that time, there were various and
sundry reasons for it. One was the extensive cost; the state supplied the school—I was the
school secretary—the reason I know this—with X number of teachers, and the state has a
formula. For every so many children, they supply a teacher. But the university had to pick
up the supplemental bill; they also had to pick up the bill for all the people that did what
they called unified arts, which was drama, music, art. I’m talking about drawing art,
sculpting, this kind of thing, and PE [physical education]—and that became pretty
expensive. Then we didn’t know how—at that time they were talking about the forced
busing—Curry at that time was a freedom of choice school, and then as you know we
went to forced busing for Greensboro.
AP: Tell me a little bit more about that—the forced busing in Greensboro in the year 19—
JD: Well, the forced busing—I’m not sure exactly what year—I came here to work in ’68,
and we were on freedom of choice then. But the forced bussing was going to be—we
knew was coming—it was coming up; it just had to be implemented. I’m really not
sure—[phone interruption]
AP: So um—
JD: All right, we were talking about forced busing. We knew forced busing was coming, and
so they weighed the pros and cons and closed the school with a lot of mixed emotion.
There were people that realized that it had become sort of like a dinosaur, but it still was
such a good school and offered so much to a lot of people. But the university needed the
space, so the total school was closed out in 1970.
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AP: Are you saying it might have been a result of the busing?
JD: I don’t think—I think it was all factors weighed. Because you see, the state only
allowed—it became very expensive to run Curry School—not only just for the physical
plant part of it, but when you consider the number of teachers that the university was
having to supply and supplement, it became quite expensive. Plus the fact Curry was
originally started because the public schools didn’t want student teachers—that’s what I
was told; I may be wrong, information may be misinformation, but I don’t think so—and
now the public schools really want student teachers and are glad to have them. And for
most of the student teachers, they said, even though we still have student teachers in
Curry, it wasn’t necessarily the same kind of set-up like you would have in the public
schools.
AP: So there was a difference right there in terms of administration or the set-up in the way
Curry was run and public schools were run. Could you talk a little bit more about busing
and how that worked in Greensboro?
JD: Well since I have no children, I really am not all that positive about how busing worked.
My step-grandchildren were bused. And they started out just busing—like if you had a
school two blocks down street, you definitely wouldn’t go there; you would go to a
school probably on the other side of town. Then you would start in this school and go on
for that year. Then they decided to do what they called clustering and pairing; so they
took all the children that were in the first, second, third grade from say Westridge Road
area—and I’m just using this for an example because I don’t know where they went—
out, say, to Bessemer School, which is a long way away. And the Bessemer children
would be bused—if they were in five, six and seven grades to the other side of town. So
they did the clustering and pairing. People were very vexed about the busing because it
seemed that if you had a school two blocks away, you should be able to go to that school.
And it didn’t work that way.
AP: How far away was Bessemer?
JD: Seven or eight miles. And it was difficult for a lot of people—be they black or white—if
you lived on one side of town and your child got sick, and you did not drive or you did
not have a car, how did you go get them? This was one of the real bones of contention.
Now the freedom of choice, which was prior to busing—you got this sheet of paper, and
it gave you the schools that your child could go to depending on what grade your child
was in, and you marked what school. [unclear] [They were seeking] racial balance—
because we were under federal mandate to seek a racial balance.
AP: About year would you guess?
JD: This was in—I don’t really know what year it was implemented—it had to have been
about the time that Curry closed, about ’70. We knew it was coming and—somewhere in
that ballpark.
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AP: When we think of William Chafe’s [author] Civilities and Civil Rights and the civil rights
struggle, what was going on downtown? What was the feeling about A&T [North
Carolina Agricultural & Technical University], of Bennett [College] or the
demonstrations? I'm wondering how much Woman’s College students were involved.
JD: I don’t think they were involved at all with the demonstrations. Now the demonstrations
started in ’60—I think I’m right, ’60. And I was working downtown in ’60. And I worked
in what is now—well, Gate City has since taken over the whole building and renovated it
or built another building. I was working in what was at that time was the Stafford
Building, Stafford Arcade, which abutted that Gate City Bank Building. And I used to eat
lunch in Woolworth’s. And the feeling downtown was you didn’t go in Woolworth’s
because it was—I will say for the people that did the demonstrations, for the people who
worked in Woolworth’s and the—for the people who worked in Woolworth’s and the—
for the people downtown. They kept a good tab and a good head on the powder keg.
Because downtown—there was a hum that went through downtown. And I can tell you
there are only three things that make the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and that’s
one of them. One of them’s the janitor that used to work over here and stole six hundred
items, and one of them’s the janitor that used to work in the building that I worked in—
and that’s the only thing that made my hair stand up, but my hair stood straight up.
AP: You mean downtown—the demonstrations themselves?
JD: The demonstrations. When you were in Woolworth’s, there was this hum. And when they
were marching downtown, there was this hum—not when they were singing. They were
singing a lot of times, but when they were marching and not singing, there was a hum.
AP: You mean blacks?
JD: It was primarily blacks. It was a hum. I can’t tell you what it is, but if I hear it I’d know
it.
AP: But some whites in town did participate.
JD: Most of the whites that participated participated in the beginning probably—they were
not visible. They participated—like Ralph Johns [downtown clothing store owner] was
one, and he participated behind the scenes in essence. And then later on, they had—I
don’t know if it was the Mayor’s Commission on Civil Rights—then the whites were
involved in that. There were whites that were involved I’m sure, but most of them
participated sort of in the background.
AP: Do you think Woman’s College students were aware of what was going on? Were a lot of
the young women from North Carolina from Greensboro?
JD: A lot of them were from Greensboro; a lot of them were from out of state. I really don’t
know because primarily I don’t know how strict they were on UNCG campus at the time
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of the demonstrations. I don’t know. They might have forewarned them not to go
downtown or might have advised them not to go downtown because I really don’t know
when the signing in and signing out stopped. I really don’t know.
AP: Yeah, I was going to ask you when—say in the ’40s, ’50s, and into the early ’60s, did the
young women walk back and forth to town?
JD: No, they rode the bus or the trolley. The trolley stopped out here, and it ran until eleven
o’clock [pm]. The last one came in I think about eleven o’clock at night; and they rode
the trolley or they could ride the Walker Avenue bus and get over here on campus. Some
of them walked, but probably at least part of them rode the trolley and then the bus. The
trolley when I came to school over here was a nickel.
AP: And the trolley went from where to where?
JD: Well, the trolley went from Pomona. It was the Pomona trolley, and it came here in front
of Curry and then went down here to Tate [Street], turned down Tate, and then went
down Market Street, and then went on out to the Bessemer area—and went around in
Bessemer. Now I think out here wherever it stopped at Pomona, they may have had to
reverse because it was the trackless trolley, you know, the kind with the wires
overhead—and they probably reversed it out here. I think at Bessemer it went around a
block. I think it was about a block circled. And it’s real interesting—I was down on Tate
Street—it’s been some years ago, maybe five, eight years ago—and they were tearing up
down there in front of the Bi-Rite [Grocery], Little’s store, Mr. Little’s store, and the kids
were standing out there, and they said, “What’s that?” I said, “That’s the trolley tracks.”
“Jeannette, what’s the trolley tracks?” I said, “Well, we used to have trolleys that ran
here.” They were intrigued that they were ripping the trolley tracks out of the street.
AP: Oh my goodness. That was a good way to get around. You mentioned in the war,
speaking of transportation, that people just didn’t have cars or they didn’t have gas, and
did that make an impact on the college community? What happened in WWII [World
War II] here?
JD: Well, most people either rode the bus, and the buses were about ready to fall down. I
mean, there was one that I rode that would shake you to death. Yeah, it had an impact.
And then, another thing that had a big impact on the college community here was the
basic training camp and ORD. ORD came first; (Overseas Replacement Depot #10),
which was out in the Bessemer area back of the Summit Shopping Center. And that land,
I’m sure you know this, was leased to the government by the Cones [family in
Greensboro that founded Cone Mills, textile manufacturer] for a dollar. And the Cones
put in the water and the sewer and built the barracks, and the [U.S.] Army camp was
formed. That was initially an overseas replacement depot—no, it was basic training,
excuse me.
AP: What year?
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JD: Somewhere right after WWII was declared—somewhere, say that first part of the ’40s—
’41, ’42, maybe ’42. I don’t believe it was built before we declared war on Japan. I
believe it was about in ’42. And Greensboro was just mushroomed with army personnel.
They appealed to the people in Greensboro to take these service men into their homes.
Well, my mother took them in her home, and she’d go up and say, “Would you like to
come to Sunday dinner?” and these men would run. I think they thought she was trying to
marry off her daughters; I really do. My brother was in the service and my mother was a
widow and there were two of us—my sister who is four years older than I. And I think
they thought, “This woman is nuts.” I mean, you don’t come up to total strangers. But we
met some of the most marvelous people, and as long as my mother lived, she kept up
with their parents. And the parents would come to see us and this kind of thing.
And several of the men, then, when the camp became a basic training, then it
became an overseas replacement depot, and they asked the people of Greensboro, to open
their homes to the wives of these servicemen, so that they could come and visit their
husbands before they went overseas. Well, we did this, and I can remember one fellow—
bought an old jalopy car, an old Buick, and he cut the top off it; he made a convertible.
His wife came down, and she stayed with us. Then he was supposed to go overseas, but
something happened to his orders and he kept expecting his orders every day or so he
expected his orders. So he came over one day, and he said, “Ms. Mack”—my maiden
name is McKenzie; he called my mother Miss Mack—he said, “I’m so bored; I don’t
have anything to do because they’re waiting for my orders.” Said, “Would you mind if I
cleaned your gutters?” She said, “Well, I’d be delighted.” So he gets on the ladder and he
cleans her gutters. Then he comes back about two days later: “They haven’t sent me off
yet, may I trim your shrubs?” So he trims the shrubs, and this went on for about a
month—they apparently lost his total packet of orders. And then finally he called and
said, “I can’t clean your gutters; I can’t trim your shrubs—I’m going overseas.”
AP: Do you know where he was going?
JD: I don’t know where he was going. I know he was going to the European Theater [of
Operations]. That’s all I do know.
AP: That would have been sort of in the thick of it.
JD: Yes, it was. It would have been probably 1943, somewhere in there.
AP: So the Cones simply leased this land.
JD: Leased the land for a dollar—I think it was a dollar—and other considerations. The other
considerations were that the Army would pipe the water and the sewer from Greensboro
out there, and then put in the electrical wiring—this kind of thing. And when the Army
left, pulled out—and I don’t even know when that was. I’m going to say to you it was
right after the war, sometime in ’45 or maybe early ’46 by the time they closed it down—
this land reverted back to the Cones, and that’s where the first business part of
Greensboro—you’ll hear people say, “Oh, I’m over in the old ORD section.” And the
years before people had materials to build with, they would take those old barracks and
13
they served well as warehouses and places like that, and manufacturing plants even went
in.
AP: When you said that was a business area, did the Cones set up businesses there or did they
own—?
JD: From my understanding—I don’t know because this is all hearsay to me, and I wasn’t all
that interested at the time because I was a young girl then and that kind of thing didn’t
interest me—they rented the land to people because this was a place that with a little bit
of work or even a lot of work—there was already water; there was already a building
there; there were train tracks in there and what do you call them—spurs, train spurs
where you could bring in things for heavy manufacturing. I’m sure that it has been over
the years sold for various and sundry things.
There was one place where Wachovia Bank is now on Bessemer—I think it’s
Wachovia—that was called GI 1200. They used to sell army surplus, and that was the old
army dance [hall]. That’s where everybody went to dance. I didn’t because I wasn’t old
enough, but my sister did because she loved to dance. GI 1200 started out by selling just
things that were Army or [United States] Navy surplus and eventually evolved into sort
of a general store, sort of like K-Mart but not as upscale as K-Mart, but a lower scale than
K-Mart. They didn’t have clothes too much; they had men’s pants, shirts, and
occasionally shorts and this kind of thing. And I can remember this, and I will tell you
because I think people will get a kick out of it—they always say there’s nothing new
under the sun. My husband used to sell manufacturing merchandise, mainly hardware,
and he used to sell to GI 1200 which were G.D. Redding Company. We went in there one
day and said, “We’re going to have this big whopper sale day.” And he said, “What are
you going to sell?” And they said, “All the stuff over here on these tables.” And I said,
“Are you saying you’re going to sell all of these pots and pans?” And they said, “Yeah;”
they said, “Go on over there Jeannette and pick out what you want.” Well, I found a
square tube pan. That’s the only square tube pan I’ve ever seen. So I bought it, and it’s
Mirro aluminum. This has been eons ago, probably twenty-five years ago, maybe longer
than that. I bought it for a quarter. Well, every time I bring a cake over here, everybody
says, “WHERE did you get that weird pan; it’s got to be an antique.” So I’m looking in
one of these catalogs, like Spencer Gifts about a year ago, and I said, “Oh my goodness,
here is my antique;” it says “Brand new, new pan, you will love it—square tube pan.”
Hey fella, I got one, and it cost me a quarter. That was twenty some years ago.
AP: That’s amazing. So that was an early-time experience. When they had the dances in that
area or in town, were Woman’s College students allowed to go?
JD: They were. They were bused there. I don’t know, but I’d assume the army bused them.
But like if twenty-five went, twenty-five had to come back on this bus. It wasn’t like they
were bused out there and left to fend for themselves. Whatever time they signed out to
go—now this is what my sister told me, and you understand this is hearsay because I was
not old enough to go. My sister said that they would bus the WC [Woman’s College]
students out there, and if twenty-five were on the bus, they’d go out there and they’d
dance, and then the twenty-five would be loaded back on the bus and then they’d be
14
brought back to campus. And a lot of people that you find here in Greensboro today will
tell you that they were stationed at either BTC #10 or ORD. BTC was Basic Training
Center #10; and ORD was Overseas Replacement Depot. And they married local girls. A
lot of them came back; they didn’t marry anybody locally then—they just liked it here.
They were so enthralled with: one, the weather; two, the people—they really liked the
people because they said they couldn’t believe how kind the people were to them.
AP: Do you think that’s characteristic of a lot of towns in North Carolina?
JD: I think it’s very characteristic of the South.
AP: Does Greensboro have a special edge on that?
JD: I think that you’ll find that in North Carolina—I think the further south you go—like you
get in Alabama, and I hope you’re not from Alabama, they’re real wary of you down
there. You’ve got to prove your worth before they’ll hardly give you the time of day—
they might give you the time of day—they might give you the directions to get
somewhere. But at that time and I think pretty much at this time in Greensboro, people
are very friendly and very open. I’ve always noticed that in Greensboro. People have
always said to me, “People in North Carolina are extremely friendly and very helpful.”
AP: Well, when we think about North Carolina and this area—Greensboro, and teachers,
faculty here. Why did teachers come here? Why did students come here to school?
JD: The students came here because this was considered—this was Woman’s College of the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. [Ed. note: Not “at Chapel Hill.”] It was
considered the best, if not the best—one of the best teachers’ colleges around. It also had
a great reputation for its commercial course—I don’t know what they gave; I think they
gave a certificate. Now it would be an AA [associate of arts degree] though, but it was a
certificate at that time, though I don’t think the term AA had been coined then. You had
really managed to do something because they would work you to death. I’m talking about
the really bright students—if they got through the two year course without either having
to quit because it was so exhausting or flunking out, they had really managed quite a feat.
AP: So it was very good training—
JD: It was a well-known school; it was considered an outstanding school, and people really
vied for our graduates. Now I can say the same thing for our graduates when I worked in
teacher ed[ucation], right after Curry closed which was in the ’70s. And I did not work
directly in teacher ed, but in a sense I did—the person that did the certification and this
kind of thing was only a nine-month employee. So at that time we were not on early
semester—the semester wasn’t over until June, so I did the summer certification—the
people that finished in June. And people would call and really be looking for someone to
teach English, French, whatever it might be. And our graduates were very much in
demand; I think they still are. But I’m not dealing with that area, so I can’t answer that
question.
15
AP: So it did have a good reputation. What about—the war and then what about the coming
of coed? How do you feel about it or how did the faculty feel about it?
JD: I think the faculty felt good about it. I think it was something that needed to come about
because I think it made a more balanced curriculum. The first coeds didn’t live on
campus. They lived in what was a converted firehouse. Are you familiar with that?
AP: No.
JD: Up from the corner of Walker Avenue and Mendenhall [Street], there is a house now, but
it was an old fire station. A lot of them lived there; that was where the first ones lived,
and I think there was something like six or eight the first year or some such thing as that.
And the, of course, later on it evolved to dorms being turned over to the men students.
The last dorm was being finished up when I came to work here—that’s almost twenty-three
years ago. Think about it—there’s not been a new dorm [since then]. There’ve been
some new rooms by the fact that they’ve taken—maybe some study rooms or something
like that and split them up and made them into rooms because they had a real room
shortage on campus. But as far as a new dormitory, there has not been one built. There’s
a new one proposed.
AP: What did the women think? What did they think about women’s—?
JD: They thought that was the greatest thing since sliced bread. They thought it was
marvelous.
AP: What about the men who came here? They were pioneers.
JD: Oh, the first ones, I think probably thought “Uh, where have I landed?”
AP: Scared to death?
JD: They probably were. But you had a lot of town students. A lot of the first men were town
students who lived here or got a room in town or something like this. Today if you stop
and think, when I came to work here twenty-three years ago, we had less than five
thousand students. Now we have eleven thousand and some students. And we’re a
suitcase college. I mean, go look in the parking lot now at five o’clock [pm] and see what
it looks like; it’s empty. And so you have to realize that, with the fact that there’d been no
new dorm rooms put on this campus, the biggest part of the students that come here or a
big part of the students that come here—at least sixty percent—either live off campus or
commute in. We have them commuting as far away as Danville [Virginia], Rockingham
[North Carolina], places like that. Particularly students in the doctoral program because
they will establish their residency, which takes a year. They will come up here and
possibly live, and then they will go back home or wherever their job is that they’ve gotten
leave from—if they were fortunate to get leave—and then commute in for maybe one or
two classes a week. There are a lot of them that commute from Winston [-Salem, North
16
Carolina], and we’ve had several that commute from Rockingham, Danville, but I don’t
personally happen to know the students. And then a lot that commute from way the other
side of Winston.
[End of Side A—Begin Side B]
JD: —I know last year there were a couple of students in what I call Joe Price’s [?] marathon
class, which is a six-hour class [that] meets on Tuesday from three [pm] until ten [pm].
You hike out at ten o’clock at night and drive home from here to Rockingham or beyond,
points beyond. You’re not getting home until twelve or one o’clock [am]. I’ve known a
number of them to come back for a class that are finishing up—they’ve gotten a job
somewhere like Boone [North Carolina]—that’s a long way. Then some of them come
down here, and their schedules are such that they have a class on Wednesday night and a
class on Thursday night or something, so they’ll just spend one night in Greensboro.
AP: Are these teachers or maybe doctoral students?
JD: Most of them were doctoral students that do this, and some of them are teachers, some of
them are in other areas, some of them are not necessarily teachers but in educational
administration—curriculum specialists, this kind of thing. They have been at some time
in their life teachers. Some of them were principals, superintendents, this kind of thing;
and they’re usually coming back for advanced degree—those that travel in that far.
Usually they’re at the tag end of their advanced degree.
AP: Tell me about the campus when you did come here. How was it different in the ’60s,
form the ’50s or the ’40s? Or how is it different from the ’80s?
JD: Well, let’s see. One thing, Yum-Yum’s moved. [laughs] I understand they’re going to
close, and that breaks my heart. The campus was much smaller and much more compact.
When I first came to school here, the campus just comprised the immediate area. Curry
was considered outside the campus really because it stopped at—other than a couple of
dorms, it stopped at Forest [Street]. It did not go across Forest except down there where
the gymnasium is on Walker Avenue. It went down there [to] the old log cabin is. And
the dorms—there were not any dorms past Mary Foust down this way. Peabody Park was
Peabody Park—that’s all it was; there were no dorms down in the park. There were little
roads and little paths and lots of trees and little nooks and crannies in Peabody Park, but
there was no building in that area.
And the campus stopped where old Curry—you want to know about Old Curry?
Old Curry was about where the parking lot is now at Stone Building—was right beside
the bridge—I don’t guess you would call it a bridge now, but the bridge that went over
Walker Avenue. And as a small child, I can remember going to Old Curry on the
anniversary—I don’t even remember if it was for the burning of Old Curry or the
building of Old Curry. And we went there to that site, and we stood on the steps because
the steps remained and the columns, and we sang the Curry School song. I can remember
17
doing that as a small child. And then this new Curry Building was being built at the time
Old Curry burned—which you may or may not know.
AP: What year?
JD: This building was built and Curry came into this building in ’26. And Old Curry
burned—I’m going to say, I’m just giving you a guess—’24 or ’25 [Ed. note: Old Curry
burned in 1926]. What they did with the students that were in Curry School, they moved
them somewhere into Spencer Dorm and made facilities for them until this building was
finished. And then this building was finished and, of course, they moved over here. And
if you’ll look, you can see the renovations of Curry, if you look at old pictures of Curry
because the front door of Curry—what is upstairs as classrooms now and the dean’s suite
did not exist—it was one classroom that stuck over the front of the building that was it.
AP: Curry was a big part of the school, of Woman’s College, not just a physical part but an
important idea.
JD: That’s right. And it was initially—if you look on the front of Curry—it says School of
Education—Curry Building—and part of it housed classes for the School of Education;
then part of it had the Curry School in it. Now when I came to work here in ’68, I was the
only—I was the Curry School secretary. There was one full-time secretary for the School
of Education; her name was Betsy Sellers. We had some nine-month secretaries that
worked like from September—because you must remember back then we were on what I
call old semester which didn’t start ’til like the fifteenth of September and ran until
June—we had some secretaries that came to work full time for nine months. Then they
were off in the summer. And then after McNutt Building was built, which was in 1970-
71, somewhere along in that ball field, then the dean’s suite moved over to McNutt, and
Betsy Sellers moved over there with them. I was the only full-time secretary in this
building in the summertime because we would have some part-time people that would
come in and fill in, but no one worked full time, and it has evolved from that.
AP: What about changes in student body?
JD: Well, changes in the student body, okay. In the late ’60s, early ’70s, you could smell pot
on the campus. I haven’t seen anybody stoned. I can tell you truthfully, and they may be
stoned at night, I haven’t seen a student stoned in years. I will tell you that one of the
faculty came in about six months ago and said, “Jeannette, I saw something that I haven’t
seen in years.” And I said, “What is it?” Said, “I saw a stoned student.” I said, “You’re
kidding me.” Said, “No, his girlfriend was leading him around, and he was out of his
gourd.” I said, “Well, I can’t think of the last time I saw one.”
AP: Did you see a lot of students stoned?
JD: We saw some, but not a lot. We saw more down on Tate Street. They sat down there and
fed their dogs their ice cream and threw up on the street, and they’d just be out of their
tree. They used to sit on the grounds of the Music Building, Brown Music Building, and
18
play their guitars and smoke their pot and act silly—and that’s the reason for the thorn
bushes. You knew that, of course. Mr. [Charles] Bell [superintendent of grounds] decided
that they were either going to have to shoot them or put thorn bushes down there. So he
planted the thorn bushes, and they’re so close together, no one could sit between them. I
mean, seriously, they would be gouged to death [laughs]. And that sort of stopped that.
Between that and Chancellor [James] Ferguson and the merchants on Tate Street who
were rapidly going broke in a bucket because no one wanted to go on Tate Street—the
unwashed students were down there, the panhandling students were down there—the
panhandlers, some of them weren’t students. So the community got together as a whole
and decided that if the university—if there was some problem down there, the city police
would be called, and the campus police would be called to try to resolve the problem.
And they did.
And I will tell you that I have two nephews that are graduates of VMI [Virginia
Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia], and when they came to see us—they were in
college—and they said to my husband—my last name is Dean, but they still call my
husband Dean, they said, “Dean, would you take us to Tate Street?” And he said, “My
goodness, what do you want to see on Tate Street? Tate Street is famous world over for
drugs.” And he said, “Well, I’ll take you down there, but I don’t think you want to see
that unwashed, motley-looking crew.” And they said, “Well, we’ve got to see that; if
we’re coming to Greensboro, we’ve got to see Tate Street.”
AP: So this was the ’60s?
JD: No, this was in the early ’70s because this was after I came to work over here, and I came
to work here in ’68. So this was probably either the last of the ’60s either ’69 or ’70.
AP: At some point in there, the first blacks came to the university. How were they received,
and who were the black students who came?
JD: We were supposed to—the problem was some of them didn’t feel comfortable being one
or two in a class. And some of them then transferred then to A&T, and, of course, I don’t
know exactly, the consortium between A&T, UNCG, Bennett, Greensboro College and
Guilford [College]—somewhere in that era or a little bit later on it evolved because we
still have a lot of consortium students taking courses here because there’s no point in our
offering something that is offered at A&T or vice versa. So a number of students—I don’t
even know the percentage of black students we have now—I would say we’re probably
up to fifteen percent, and maybe even more. We have a number of black students in our
advanced graduate programs. I don’t deal that much with undergraduate programs. We
offer two in this department—one is 381 which is the initial course you must take if
you’re going into student teaching, and then we offer 375 which is not offered every year.
I deal primarily with graduate students.
AP: That’s interesting to hear that—[interruption]. When you came here, who was the head of
this institution?
JD: Chancellor Ferguson.
19
AP: What was he like? Can you comment on personality?
JD: He was a people person. If he knew you, if he was talking to the Queen of England, he
would acknowledge your presence. You always felt very comfortable around him. He
was a very gracious, very kind man. Very nice, very personable, and if he saw you on
campus, he would always speak and acknowledge you—very nice man.
AP: For just associates or faculty or students?
JD: Oh no. Staff—I mean me. If I went across the campus, “How are you,? Glad to see you,”
and this kind of thing.
AP: Did he have an agenda when he came here? Were there things he wanted to do?
JD: I really don’t know. See, when I came here, I was dealing with a whole different—even
though I was in the School of Education, assigned to the School of Education—I was
with Curry School, which was handled separately from the others.
AP: So it was a different administration.
JD: Yes, even though Curry was under the School of Ed, it was handled like a separate entity.
It wasn’t, but it was sort of handled like that.
AP: Did that mean that Curry could make its own administrative decisions? Was there a
conflict?
JD: No, it was not a conflict. It was just like, the school was handled—that’s a real funny
thing because for example, Curry School’s textbooks came through the state, through the
city. So there were some city things that we had to do. There were some university things
that we had to do. Some were sort of a hodge-podge kind of thing is the best way I know
how to describe it.
AP: That must have made interesting day-to-day life.
JD: Well, it was. Because you had to go trekking up to the city office with this—for example,
you had to keep certain attendance records which were city records. You had to keep
other things that were university records. I’m assuming that information that came down
to Mr. [Herbert] Vaughn [principal] came through the School of Ed—the School of Ed
was over Curry School. The dean at that time when I came to work here was Bob
O’Kane—Robert O’Kane—the School of Education since I have been here. Dr. O’Kane
stepped down, and David Reilly became dean. And then David Reilly stepped down, and
we had two interim deans—Don Russell, who was a former professor here and he’d
retired, and then the next year was Dr. [Jack] Bardon. And I may have it backwards—it
may have been Bardon first and Russell second. And now we have Dean [A. Edward]
Uprichard.
20
AP: Then after Dr. Ferguson, Dr. [William] Moran came. How was he recruited?
JD: He was recruited. I remember reading in the paper about it last summer—he’s been on
campus now ten years—he was recruited. Actually staff don’t have that much
knowledge; I think we have more knowledge now than we did then about who was being
recruited and when the people were coming on campus because we posted it on our
mailroom. You just look up there and it says, “So and so is coming in to be interviewed
for such and such a job.”
Mrs. [Frances] Ferguson died about the time that then Chancellor Ferguson
stepped down. And he moved out of the house on campus. He bought a house in town,
moved out of the house on campus so that it could be painted and renovations could be
made because Mrs. Ferguson was ill for several years. She had—if I’m not mistaken, I
think she had a malignancy, and they tried to do as little work around the house to [not]
bother her because she was in quite a bit of pain. And so—then Chancellor Ferguson
moved out of the house on campus into a house that they had bought so that they would
have free rein to do the renovations and the remodeling that needed to be done—painting
and these kinds of things.
AP: That must have been difficult for him to move out of the house and to lose his wife.
JD: Well, that happened all about the same time. At the time, he had already said that he was
going to step down, and then he taught for several years before he came ill and then died.
AP: What did he teach?
JD: History, as I recall. Don’t ask me, but I think it’s history.
AP: When you think of maybe your best time here, the best thing that has happened to you
here, and maybe the worst thing here at Woman’s College—UNCG. What do you think?
Maybe that’s an unfair question. Maybe we should rephrase it and say a fun thing here.
JD: Oh, we’ve had some real fun things over here that have happened. The children, the little
children, used to come into the office—I think this is one of the fun things that you will
appreciate—and their eyes would be big, and they’d say, “Ms. Dean?” And I’d say,
“Yes?” “Could we go to the spook hole?” “Where is the spook hole?” “Down there.”
“Tell me what’s down there.” “There’s blood on the floor!” And I say, “Blood on the
floor?” “Yes, ma’am.” I said, “Well, let me go down there with you.” (Because I thought
“Where’s this blood?”) So I went down in what they called the spook hole, which is right
under where we’re sitting now. The blood on the floor was red paint someone had spilled.
They said, “See! We told you, that’s blood on the floor!” “Honey, that’s not blood, that’s
red paint.” And there was a shuffle board, you remember shuffleboard? There was a
shuffleboard court down there, but the kids liked to go down there because it was spooky.
And it was spooky. Had like on little light bulb, and they enjoyed going down there. They
would hide down there. You had to sometimes go down there and dig them out. They
were really funny.
21
Then we had this mysterious man in here. We could see him, but we could never
catch him. So we decided one day—it was Mr. Bonn [?] who was the principal, and the
janitor’s name was Johnny Williams and myself. And Mr. Bonn says, “I see him. He’s up
there. See him, up there in the window?” Well we decided we’d catch him, and, you
know, we never caught that scudder. I went one way; Johnny went another; Mr. Bonn
went another—and we never caught him, never ever caught him.
AP: Was it really a person?
JD: There was really a person in here; there was really a man in here. He slept in here. He
about drove us nuts because we couldn’t catch him. At that time before this building was
renovated, they put it in the classification with Curry and Aycock Auditorium as to which
building was the hardest to police. The people could come in here because of the way the
doors were. If you left a door—if it didn’t close and lock automatically, if it was left the
least bit ajar—anybody could get in here. And that was prior to the renovation. We
moved out of this building in ’81, and after the renovation moved back in ’83. It’s not
that easy to get back in here now. But then you could. And this man—we think, honestly,
we figured out where he went—there are crawl tunnels in this building. And we think that
he hid in the crawl tunnels. Telephone man got lost in the crawl tunnel one day.
AP: Recently?
JD: In the last eight or nine years. Two of the phone men came in and said, “Jeannette, did
you see the phone man?” I said, “Yeah. But it’s been a while ago.” They said, “Well, his
truck’s down here, and he was supposed to meet us for lunch.” And I said, “Well, I don’t
know where he is.” So they went down and they opened the door to the crawl tunnel and
called. And he said, “Well for gosh sakes, come in here and get me!” He said, “I have
gotten so confused in here. I’ve just been going around in circles, and I knew you’d come
look for me.” So they went in and got him out. And for a long time, no phone man would
go in the crawl tunnel. I understand the crawl tunnel—it’s a main tunnel and then it has
branches off of it. And they would go in and tie a string outside so that they could be sure
they could reel the string in and get out.
AP: Where does the tunnel go? Which direction, east or west?
JD: The tunnel goes under this wing of the building. There may be one in the other direction,
but this one that I’m speaking of goes in this direction under this wing of the building.
There’s a door down there—I think it’s still down there. And it’s a huge up step; you’ve
got to do a hike to get in it. It’s not a crawl that you have to do on all fours; it’s a crouch,
that’s about how it is, it’s a crouch tunnel. And the man was putting some wiring in, and
he said he just got so turned around, and he said he thought, “Well, I’m just so confused I
don’t know where I’m going.” I wouldn’t want to be in that crawl tunnel. But that’s
where we think this man slept. When we got after him—when he knew that we were after
him, he just went in the crawl tunnel and closed the door—and he knew we’d give up.
You know, you couldn’t spend all day looking for this clown, whoever he was.
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AP: One of the original homeless?
JD: Yeah, I think that, before we had so many street people. I don’t think he was a street
person. I really don’t. He didn’t look like it; but I did see him two or three in the window.
I said, “Johnny, there he is, let’s go get him,” but we never caught him.
AP: So there were some fun or different things. What about a bad time or uncomfortable
time?
JD: Well, an uncomfortable time—we’ve had one bomb scare since I’ve been over here, and
that was uncomfortable because I had never been involved in a bomb scare. Another
uncomfortable time was when the Black Panthers [African-American revolutionary leftist
organization active from 1966-82] from A&T surrounded the campus. I was sitting in my
office working. It was in the fall of the year as I recall, and the phone rang, and I was on
that side of the building at the time, and I swung around to answer the phone and I said,
“Oh my goodness,” and they’re out there out there doing the Black Panther signal. And
somebody said, “What’s wrong?” I said, “The campus is surrounded.” They said,
“Surrounded what?” I said, “Surrounded with Black Panthers.” That’s sort of
intimidating, I guess. There was no violence or no problem, but it was startling to me to
turn around about 4:30 [pm] or quarter to five and see all these people just around the
campus, around the whole outer perimeter of the campus.
AP: What year was that?
JD: Had to have been, probably—I don’t really know. I would think sometime in the mid-
’70s. I really don’t know when it was.
AP: What were they doing? What did they want to do?
JD: I don’t really know. There was some kind of hullaballoo, and it had something to do with,
I think, the dining area. I don’t know. I know we’ve had some problems in the dining
area, and that’s the reason we now have the computerized dining cards because the other
students would come in and if you had three punches left, they would intimidate the other
students—particularly the young girls—“Give me your punches,” and they were scared
of these people. But this had something to do with the dining hall. I don’t recall what it
was. I don’t know if it was some kind of labor problem, food problem; I really don’t
know.
AP: Who were the cafeteria workers?
JD: The cafeteria workers were hired at that time—I think at that time ARA [food service]
was already on campus—now don’t hold me to that. But years ago, the food on campus
was old southern cooking; I mean, when I was a student over here.
AP: White cooks or black cooks?
23
JD: Oh, black cooks. Old, black, Southern cooking. It was soul food. It was green beans,
Southern cooked. Black-eyed peas, those kind of things. It was good old Southern
cooking. And they could cook; man alive, they could cook. We had a couple that cooked
here in Curry—one was named Tossie. I remember that—and that’s the way she cooked.
Old South—she was a good cook.
AP: Why do you think—I’m assuming these mostly were women? Black women? How do
you think they felt about being here? Why do you think they’d come here as a place to
work?
JD: It’s a good place to work—one of the few places that had retirement benefits. At that
time, retirement benefits were not very prevalent until probably—and people didn’t think
a lot about retirement until probably up in the ’70s. Retirement was just something you
know—hey, that’s off in the future. But these people lived in this area. About the only
way—I was told years ago that you could get on over here at the custodial staff or the
grounds staff was to have some relative—Uncle John or Aunt Sally or somebody—and
they would recommend, “Why don’t you hire my nephew or my niece?” And that’s the
way they came over here. And there are a lot of people to this day that work on this
campus that live—a lot of the maids and the janitors live over here on Warren Street. You
know where Warren Street is—runs parallel to Aycock. And there were a lot on McGee
Street. McGee Street was full—the back end of McGee Street in behind St. Mary’s
House—there were an awful lot of people that lived there that worked on the UNCG
campus. And it was a secure job. You did your job; you weren’t going to be laid off
because industry closed down. You didn’t have layoffs. You had a good vacation plan.
Not that they made a lot of money. Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t mean to imply that.
But they had a lot of good fringe benefits. That’s the same way the university is now. The
SPA [subject to the state personnel act] employees, of which I am one, and which they
are some—the salaries aren’t the greatest, but they have good fringe benefits. We have
good insurance, good retirement, good plans like that.
AP: So it was a balance?
JD: It was a balance, and a lot of these people were—a lot of these black women were maybe
the sole support of the family. I don’t know this because I didn’t know a lot of them.
Some of them over here now, I know that we have some husbands and wives that work
on campus. We have a lot of that, and years ago you couldn’t have that. Now the ruling
with the state is that as long as nepotism is not practiced as far as—I could not supervise
anyone from my family. Now I happen to have a stepdaughter that works on campus, just
started; one of the girls, the girl that just went by the door—her mother works on campus
and her father works on campus. There are a lot of family people that have three or four
people that work on campus. I could name you a number of them. But they don’t work in
the same school, department, area or whatever.
AP: That’s interesting about the cooking situation. What about laundry or custodial?
24
JD: We had a laundry by the way. It was down there at the time I was a small child across the
street from Old Curry. And then later the laundry moved over here and then closed up
some few years ago. Now before the laundry closed up, we as staff or faculty could take
our clothes over there and they would launder them and they billed you on a monthly
basis or you paid when you went in—whichever way you wanted it done. And a lot of
people took advantage of that for their sheets and towels and those kinds of things.
AP: That’s been a major change about the whole feeling of the university? And maybe that
students and faculty just don’t live around here?
JD: That’s right. The laundry became, I would say, sort of obsolete because so many of the
students were moving out of campus that the washers on the campus were close around—
they phased the laundry out. A lot of the people that worked in the laundry, they hired in
other capacities on campus. Several of the people on the housekeeping staff were initially
in the laundry. Some of them went to grounds. Some of them were old enough to retire.
Some of them are still here. As a matter of fact, I spoke to one today at a retirement party
and she initially came out of the laundry. I don’t remember her from the laundry—
AP: So a lot of them wanted to stay?
JD: That’s true, but a lot of them had some age on them, and they felt better about staying
here. Some of them wanted to stay, and some of them felt a great deal of loyalty. I don’t
know that all of them stayed, but I think a good portion of them stayed.
AP: Well, that’s interesting. Times have changed. What have we left out? We haven’t told a
whole history, but what are other things that you’d like to say—anything that you’d like
to tell about?
JD: I would like to reiterate that Curry was a great school. It really was. I went to Curry; of
course I would think it was great, but it really was. And I will tell you another little side
issue. The company I worked for, which was Pet Milk Company, prior to coming to work
here—and I worked for milk products division, which was the canned milk division. This
company closed their office locally so I went out looking for a job. You would be amazed
at the number of interviews I got because I went to Curry School. They didn’t have a job
for me; they wanted to talk to me because I was a Curryite. They were a former Curryite
or they had gone to school or their sister or brother had gone to school at Curry, and so
they wanted to talk to me. I thought it was quite amusing. I went home and I told my
husband, “You would not believe that I had three interviews today because I went to
Curry School.” They would ask your education background, and I would say Curry
School from da da da da. And he would say, “Did they offer you a job?” And I’d say,
“No, they didn’t have a job; they just wanted to talk to me because they were Curryites
too.” He said “That’s interesting.”
AP: A real sense of community and strength about that. Good place.
JD: A good place to go to school and a good place to be from.
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AP: Thanks so much.
[End of Interview]