Oral history interview with Emeve Singletary, 1990 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENNIAL ORAL HISTORY PROJECT COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Emeve Singletary
INTERVIEWER: Linda Danford
DATE: October 24, 1990
LD: Mrs. Singletary, can you tell me when you came to UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro] and in what capacity?
ES: You mean, when I was a student?
LD: Oh, you were a student here?
ES: Shall I go back to a student?
LD: Oh, please do. Please do. I do occasionally interview someone who also was a student here, and that's a double, double pleasure.
ES: I came here when I was sixteen years old from the lower part of South Carolina, Beaufort, South Carolina—actually, Port Royal. But I came here to enter the home economics, School of Home Economics, which was just a department then. That was back in 1927 and I graduated here. And after graduation, I was away two years. I went to graduate school in Richmond [Virginia], and then out at Merrill Palmer School in Detroit [Michigan]. And came back to teach. And except for intervals of having babies, I was in and out for the next, well I finally rounded out twenty-five years, back and forth. I would resign, thinking I would stay home, and they'd need a nursery school teacher and I would come back. And the last—well, at one time I brought my two-year-old son, and then the last time I had a four-year-old daughter who came with me. So I've been a part of home economics and child development for a long time.
LD: Child development then, is your specialty?
ES: Yes. Child development.
LD: Can I ask you some questions about UNCG, Woman's College [of the University of North Carolina], back in the late twenties?
ES: Sure thing. North Carolina College for Women.
LD: Women. You were here at a very interesting time.
ES: Yes. I graduated from the North Carolina College for Women before the name changed. 2
LD: When did the name change? When did it become the Woman's College?
ES: Oh, I don't remember now. I couldn't give you a date on that, but I was after I had graduated and was away, I guess. [Editor’s note: Name change occurred in 1932]
LD: And the stock market crash [October 1929] was during that period.
ES: Oh, it was very hard.
LD: Did it—there must have been a real change between the time you came and the time you left.
ES: Well, nobody had any money much, really. I mean it was just a real effort to get to college. It was really very hard. But there was very little difference with, between any of us, because nobody seemed to have very much. And it was an interesting time.
LD: Did that seem true before the crash or after? Even before?
ES: Yes. As far as I remember. Maybe it was just the fact that it was a struggle for me to get here, for my parents to send me.
LD: And you had heard of the college? It was well known in your area?
ES: Oh, yes. I came here because of home economics. There were two schools that were well known for their home economics department. And one was Winthrop in South Carolina, Rock Hill and North Carolina College for Women. And I did know—I had a friend who had graduated here in home ec, and she did talk to me, but that's why I came. It's funny. I didn't know what—have any idea of what I wanted to major in, and my mother is the one who picked it. She said— [laughs]
LD: I've had a number of people tell me that.
ES: She said, "This will be good for you to do, and then if you want to change your mind later, that's fine. But," she said, "I'd like for you to take home ec." And so that's really why I came as home ec major, and I haven't regretted it, really, ever.
LD: That wasn't too uncommon I think, in those days.
ES: I guess not. It's a little different now, isn't it?
LD: But not necessarily an improvement.
ES: You just—I was thinking this morning, you don't have the time, you don't—we did not take the time to play around with various things. You know, a year off here and a year off there and decide what you wanted to do. We had to decide. And were fortunate to be able 3
to. Different. Quite different.
LD: What was campus life like?
ES: It was all consuming. I mean it was—everything we did was on campus, really. There were the plays, and I remember the opera would come. I can't remember whether that was when I—I'm sure it was when I was in school. Included very good musical programs and we just participated in almost everything. And then the societies. We had the societies that were quite active at that time. The Cornelian and Dikean and Adelphian and another one. I can't remember the other one. [Editor’s note: Other society was Alethian] I was a Dikean at any rate, and they were active. And—
LD: Was that like a sorority?
ES: Yes. And then good speakers came. I remember when Eleanor Roosevelt [wife of United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt] came and talked. They were good people that they brought to campus and that was our entertainment, was really the campus life. I remember it was a real big deal to go down to the Carolina Theater to a movie, and then there was a real nice drugstore next door. We'd go on the trolley downtown. And the real nice drugstore next door that we'd get a sandwich and go back home, go back to the campus because we had to be in by ten o'clock [pm]. If you were out later than ten o'clock, you were really reprimanded. And nobody dared to stay out after ten o'clock.
LD: Who did the reprimanding?
ES: The campus, the housemother. I won't make any—I won't call any names. [laughs]
LD: [unclear] must have been [unclear]
ES: And then later on, student government president kind of watched out to be sure everybody followed the rules. And we did. It was different. There were no boys, just girls.
LD: And it was much smaller.
ES: Much smaller. I think there were two hundred in my graduating class if I remember in the whole senior class the year that I graduated.
LD: Where was graduation held?
ES: In Aycock. Aycock Auditorium. It was a very happy time. It was really great. It was—I have no complaints about my undergraduate work. It was really fun.
LD: Did, do you remember the name of your housemother?
ES: Her name was—well at one time. I had lived in different dorms. Once it was Miss Andrews. Once it was Miss [Minnie Lou] Jamison, my freshman year. And that really 4
goes back. I think Miss Andrews, maybe, my junior year, something like that. And then Lillian Killingsworth was in one of the dorms. She—people would remember her. She was to be obeyed. [laughs] But I was not in her dorm. But each dorm had someone who lived in the dorm and was responsible for the girls and carrying out the rules.
LD: Do you remember any of your professors?
ES: Oh, yes, yes. I really do. Let's see, the one, I guess, that meant an awful lot to me as an undergraduate student was [Professor] Helen Ingram in the biology department. In fact, I named my first, my little girl for her. She was a real support and a wonderful person. I had her for two courses, for biology and anatomy also. We—and then I remember Miss [Elva] Barrow, who taught chemistry, the organic chemistry, who was very, just a very wonderful, wonderful teacher. And then, for an elective I had Mr. A.C. Hall [English professor] whom I adored. He was just really great. And then there were wonderful ones in home economics also. The nursery school teacher my senior year, who turned out to be a dear, dear friend of mine. Her name was [Miss] Isadore Blacklock. She just, I marveled at the way she managed the children, and I was her assistant one summer and worked with her. And oh, there were so many. Miss [Blanche] Shaffer, who was head of home economics, and all these when I was an undergraduate—just really, really fine dedicated people.
LD: Did you have much contact with the president of the college?
ES: Oh, yes, yes.
LD: It being a small atmosphere [unclear].
ES: Well, now, now, not as an undergraduate. Not Dr. [Julius I.] Foust. I really didn't know Dr. Foust. But Dr. [Walter Clinton] Jackson—every time I'd come back I'd go and talk with him because I would think I was through teaching and that they'd need a nursery school teacher. Rose Freedman [Smoot] taught in the nursery school also. And we would swap our duties. She would have a baby one year and I'd have one the next, and we would swap the nursery school back and forth. I remember one year, I had her young four-year-old son, and something I wanted Jimmy to do, and he said, "I wouldn't have to do this if my mother was teacher." [laughs] And I said, "I know that's true, but you see, your mother's not the teacher anymore." And I wished that she had had my daughter instead of me, [laughs] because she could have said the same thing to her. But it was fun. We—several years we did that and just kept it between us which was wonderful.
LD: Can you tell me something about this nursery program? Was this run by the home economics department for a kind of laboratory?
ES: Well, yes. When I came here, it was a lab in child development, and each girl was responsible for spending a certain amount of time in the nursery school. And it was in the old home, old part of the Home Ec[onomics] Building. Well, it moved around considerably, but when I was a student, it was—hard to know what they call it now. It 5
was downstairs—you went downstairs, and there were the two rooms one on either side of the hall. One was the nap room because we kept the children for naps, and the other was the play room, activity room. Later on, it was moved as the need arose. But that was where I first started, and it was a lab for the students in child development. And all of them took child development; all the home ec majors took child development. So all of us were in the nursery school at one time or another. And, of course, it continued to be that. A lab for the students who were majoring in child development and that's what I worked with those girls before I, after I finished my master's. I taught the course and—well, I supervised the lab. I did not teach the course. Mrs.—back to when I first came, someone else to be mentioned, Mrs. Rosa taught child development. Mrs. Bess Rosa, if you have heard of her, perhaps. Perfectly wonderful. She taught parent education and, of course, we had a lot to do with parents and so we worked with her in child development. But—and after I came back to teach I worked with her also. She never actually taught the nursery school. I taught the nursery school, and she did the parent education work.
LD: And this was in the building that is where the current Home Ec Building is?
ES: Well, they built the new building. This is the little building that faced Walker Avenue when there was a Walker Avenue. It's a parking lot. It's just that one little building there between—well, McIver [Building] on one side and then just that first building there that they had incorporated, and that was all there was to the home ec department at that time when I was first here. And then they built the building, the new one.
LD: I don't know when that was built, do you?
ES: I don't know. I don't remember that. I'm not too great at dates.
LD: It's not important. So you graduated in '31?
ES: In '32.
LD: Thirty-two. And then you came back?
ES: And I was gone two years.
LD: Two years. And so you came back the first time in '34.
ES: Yes. And then I can't tell you the years because I was in and out.
LD: So, my record says you came in '59, but that's not—I have '59 to '76. But you must have—
ES: Well, your records are probably better than mine. But I did come in '34, and I did teach. I was in and out, and I have that written down somewhere. I'm not sure where it is. [laughs] I said if anybody ever asks me again, if I ever had to apply for a job, I was not going to do it anymore because I could not. [laughs]
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LD: Well, the university probably has a record some place.
ES: Yes, they do; they have, they should have it. But I finally wound up with twenty-five years. So it was a total of twenty-five years. And I finished up in '76. So it was stretched out between those years.
LD: But it means that you do have quite a perspective on the development of the college.
ES: It has changed. It really has changed so much. And it was a real joy to be involved and to be in the nursery school, I think. We just—I don't know too much about what they're doing now. But I do know what we did. [laughs]
LD: Was it still a department when you left or had it already become a School?
ES: It had become a School. That's right.
LD: And what kinds of changes—did that mean anything to the child development program?
ES: Not too much in the nursery school. Of course, the building was built, the little nursery school building was built while I was in and out, and we had a major in child development, and we would get juniors and seniors who were majoring in child development. Most of them, I'd say, were senior students and had been pretty well weeded out by then, so it was a real privilege to supervise their teaching. And Nancy White [Class of 1946, 1955 master of education, 1963 PhD]. Let's see, Dr. Nancy White taught the course the last few years when I was there, and I did the student teaching, taught and supervised the student teachers. And we would have twenty-four children; twenty-four, twelve threes and twelve four-year olds in the two separate rooms. Louise [Long] Wilson [Class of 1953, 1963 MS] taught the three year olds, and I had the four year olds. And we had a wonderful program of parent education as well as working with the children.
LD: Meaning what? The parents would come in for—?
ES: We would invite them in for observation. We had the observation booth so that they could come in. And then we had a very good parent education program with meetings and speakers and discussions about the children and parent conferences, so that when there was any, any—and we reserved the right to have the cooperation of the parents. I mean that was one reason we would take the children. I mean, if the parents would not cooperate, why we would not take the children. It really was a close cooperation between parents and teachers and the children.
LD: And the children were drawn from the community?
ES: From the community, yes. That's right.
LD: On the basis of applications? 7
ES: Right. And age. First come, first served. We didn't have any preference given to faculty children or to anybody else. We—
LD: Did you have a certain makeup in each class? Were you looking for a certain number of girls and boys or—?
ES: Yes. Yes. We liked to have six girls and six boys in each of the rooms, as nearly as we could manage it.
LD: Was this an all-day program?
ES: No. Back when it first started, we kept the children for naps. But then the thinking was that really sleeping was not, did not have to be a group experience. [laughs]
LD: And sometimes it's very difficult to make it a group experience.
ES: And it was very—it was not easy; now, it really wasn't easy because I put them to bed for many a long day. But when they decided that it was no longer a group experience necessary, then the naps were dropped and that was pretty far back that they—they were still sleeping when I came to teach, and I did it for several years.
LD: So it was essentially nine [am] to twelve [pm]?
ES: It was essentially nine 'til twelve. They had lunch. And so it was after twelve. It was around twelve. It was around twelve-thirty before they would leave because we'd eat at twelve and then we'd send them home at one o'clock [pm].
LD: Interesting.
ES: It was great.
LD: Let me ask you something about the administrators that you came in contact with because you must have seen quite a few. What other chancellors do you remember besides Dr. Jackson?
ES: Well, of course, Dr. Foust was there when I was a student. I had not much contact with him. He was a little austere, I understand. I don't know. Dr. Jackson, and I was there when Dr. [Otis] Singletary [chancellor] was there also. He—family connections somehow with my husband's family. I don't know exactly how.
LD: I meant to ask you about that.
ES: Yes, I don't know how exactly, but family connection. And let's see. There were others. Can you name me some right this minute, and I'll tell you. [laughs]
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LD: Dr. [Edward Kidder] Graham [Jr.], in the early '50s?
ES: Yes. I didn't have too much contact with Dr. Graham. I don't remember. And really not too much with any of them except Dr. Jackson. Dr. Jackson was such an approachable person, and at that time, I guess, I was kind of in and out. Maybe more out at that time. I don't have the dates exactly in mind when they were there. But I do remember, of course, Dr. Graham and Dr. Singletary.
LD: And then James Ferguson.
ES: And Dr. Ferguson. Yes. And I did have, we did have such nice relationships, the nursery school with the Dr. Ferguson. He would ride through campus and just wave at the children. And we would take them over there for Halloween and sing for him. And he was so gracious and so interested in the nursery school. And I remember the children would—well I guess they drew pictures for Dr. Jackson, maybe not Dr. Ferguson, I can't remember, but he was always so pleased to have their drawings, and we had such a close relationship with those two, especially close. And of course when Dr. Singletary was in, we had his little girl in nursery school. Kendall Singletary, who—anytime we wanted anything done, she would say, "I'd ask my daddy." [laughs]
LD: So he must have been a somewhat younger chancellor than some of the others.
ES: Yes. Yes. She was his youngest. And Kendall would go and get things done. She would ask him and she would—she was a friend of all the workmen on campus, and she was not the least bit hesitant to ask for whatever she wanted done that we needed done at the nursery school. Before we could even request, she would put in her request, and it was really very good. [laughs]
LD: How helpful.
ES: She was really darling. Cute little girl.
LD: What about some of the other administrators, like Mereb Mossman [sociology and anthropology faculty, dean of instruction, dean of the College. dean of faculty, vice chancellor for academic affairs]?
ES: I had no real contact with her except as a friend—just a real delightful, loved person on campus, always.
LD: She had—as I understand she had quite an impact on the college.
ES: She did. She did. She was, she did have an impact. She really did, on so many people and on the whole university. Very outstanding.
LD: What kind of an administrator was she?
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ES: Well, as far as I know—as I say, I had very little, we were sort of isolated in the nursery school. I was not out on campus as much. I was right there, except that I know that she was so well thought of in the administration of the university. There was not any— well I don't know of any discord or anything. She just seemed really wonderful.
LD: How did some of the events that were taking place on campus seem to affect the campus? For instance, the war years, the Vietnam War [United States backed the South Vietnamese government against North Vietnam and occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1955 to the fall of Saigon in1975]. Was there much consciousness on campus of that turmoil that was going on elsewhere?
ES: I think there was consciousness of it. I don't know how, really how it touched students, except, well, the ones that I worked with were very aware of what was going on. Those that had people involved in it. I don't remember anything particular about that.
LD: But your students were mostly females?
ES: All females. They were all females.
LD: So they weren't being drafted.
ES: No. No.
LD: What about integration?
ES: Well, now that goes kind of back. It was just fine as far as I was concerned. I had the black students that I really loved, you know? Some of them. My very good students were black. Some that I think of so fondly, and they just worked right in with the whole group, the nursery school. It was a real fine experience. I don't—
LD: And you remember this happening fairly peacefully in Greensboro?
ES: Oh, yes, yes, I do. Of course, Greensboro was the place it all began with the, down at the dime store with the sit-in [nonviolent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960 which led to the Woolworth department store chain reversing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States]. And I guess it was a good place to begin, probably.
LD: I would think so.
ES: To be accepted here, maybe more easily than other places.
LD: Were your students graduating and going into child care in this area?
ES: A lot of them wanted to. Now, there weren't enough jobs. Some of them had to go into other jobs, other things, fields. They couldn't find enough places in teaching nursery 10
school. A lot of them did go into it in supervisory positions. But many of them did not find placement. Some of them would have to get office jobs or other things, which is sad because we really needed more facilities for young children.
LD: It seems like Greensboro, right now, has quite a few nursery programs.
ES: I'm sure it's opened up a lot since I was in the last, well, since '76 when I—
LD: Probably in the last fifteen years or so.
ES: You see, it's been long time.
LD: There's so much of a demand now for it.
ES: So much more demand.
LD: For various kinds of day care.
ES: And then with—and, of course, our nursery, the nursery school was not day care. It was, but I think day care maybe is moving more into planned programs.
LD: I think most of it when my children were in school, most of the day care had some sort of planned program in the morning, and in the afternoon was [unclear]
ES: But back pretty far, it was not as well planned and as well supervised and the people did not have to have the training to go into it. But they do, I'm sure, now.
LD: What kind of discipline did you administer, I mean, teach them to administer? Was that a very controversial issue?
ES: Not really. Not really. Our theory of discipline, we worked on discipline, but within, freedom within limits, let's say. That the children—we taught the children the bounds beyond which they could not go and they were not allowed to go any farther. I mean, that was our job. We were there. We had no distractions. Not like a mother at home. And we enforced it. Didn't spank, of course. Physically restrained if we needed to.
LD: Meaning time-out chair or something like that?
ES: Well, just, if someone was going to kick—well, if someone was going to kick the teacher because he was very angry, we avoided it by holding the feet. We didn't allow it. It just was not allowed. The teachers were not abused. We did a lot of talking, but we enforced the discipline and within limits, wide limits, the children were perfectly free to act as long as they didn't infringe on someone else or abuse someone else. But we did—we maintained very good discipline. I just felt it was so important, just very important. And they were happy. And they were just happy children for the most part. We did have some that we really had to work with very diligently. And, but that was all we had to do. That 11
was our job, and so we maintained it and the children learned to respect it, pretty much.
LD: What was the teacher-pupil ratio?
ES: Well, there were twelve children. One full-time teacher in each room and, at times, usually an assistant teacher. I'd have a grad—I’d have an assistant teacher, and then we had the student teachers come in. So there were enough to maintain what we needed to do and to follow through on everything that we required of them.
LD: You said, "Of course, we didn't spank," but back in the twenties and thirties it must not have—was it? It must have been more acceptable socially.
ES: Never did. No. When I was a student, the teacher, the nursery school teacher was a task master. Really. She was the best I ever saw, really, the one that I worked with. And she had the same theory of discipline, wide limits—freedom within wide limits, but no farther. Just this far and no farther. You don't go any farther than this. No abuse of each other. Just not allowed. And if you had to restrain physically, you did it, but you did it lovingly, and you stuck with it until the tantrum was over and the child could talk about it and then be readmitted to the group. We spent a lot of time. [laughs] Spent a lot of time doing it. But it was very rewarding. And I see these children now. They're young adults and it's wonderful. It's wonderful to see them all grown up, places. And they remember. They remember their nursery school experience. It's amazing that they remember when they were threes and fours.
LD: I'm not surprised, actually, that they remember it.
ES: They do remember it, and they remember being there. And they remember a lot of things about it. It's really very rewarding.
LD: For a child it's a totally rewarding experience.
ES: It is. It's just great.
LD: Pleasant and fun and—
ES: It was pleasant and happy. I go to the weddings a lot of the time, when they're being married and there's one, there's one lawyer in town that I see, I'm real glad to see. I guess there are two of them that I taught—and at my church sometimes I see a whole row of them sitting up. There's one family that has four that I taught, all four of them, and it's wonderful to have them remember you.
LD: I’m sure it is. Who were the chairmen of the home ec department? That's something I should have asked you.
[recording error, possible End Side A—Begin Side B of tape] 12
ES: The one that—of course the last one that I worked with was Dr. Naomi Albanese who was there for many, many years and a wonderful, wonderful administrator. Very cooperative with us in our programs and especially interested in the nursery school. In fact, her father came to live with her at one time and he was very, very elderly. He never learned really to speak English. He came over here from Italy and they lived in Pennsylvania and he was a minister and he—as I understand it, preached in Italian to these Italian, this community there. And he came to live with her when he was very advanced in years, and I'm not sure, way, way up, and he would come to the nursery school in the afternoons and observe the children. He'd sit there and just enjoy them and teach them a few little Italian words which was really fun to do and it was really cute. The children, when their car pools would come, someone would call the car pools, and I remember once they'd say, "Mr. Albanese, your ride has come." [laughs] And so he would go out just like the children and get into, whoever was going to take him home. But she did have him there for a while. She was a very, very bright, warm lovely lady that we felt privileged to have.
ES: And she did preside over the transition from the department to School?
ES: Yes, she did. And as I say, I was a little isolated in the nursery school but she was a moving force, really, in home economics. And was—we remember her very fondly.
LD: Are there any other reminiscences that you want to make sure we record? Can you think of anyone else you would like to talk about?
ES: I'd like to go back to Bess Rosa, way back. She came here just before I came back from Merrill-Palmer [In Detroit, Michigan, a highly innovative child development model school of multidisciplinary training, research and community engagement]. She came in the spring, and I came in the fall to UNCG, and she had been out there teaching parent, doing parent education studies with Merrill-Palmer. And I thought she was the best lecturer I had ever heard on the subject and I would follow her around because she was in Detroit when I was. And she came to UNCG to teach parent education. And she made talks throughout Guilford County. I shared an office with her and enjoyed her four children. She was a widow, perfectly wonderful person. She was the one that taught me so much about little children and about living. And I would just like to pay tribute to her because she was—meant so much to so many people on campus and through the county.
LD: Who was the other woman you mentioned earlier? Isadore?
ES: Blacklock. She was teaching in the nursery school when I was a student and past master as a teacher and she had been at Merrill-Palmer also in Detroit and had known Mrs. Rosa when she was out there as a student, and she had stayed. Ms. Blacklock had stayed out there as a graduate, as an assistant teacher, and then came to teach here at the university. And then when I was—came as a student, she was my teacher in the nursery school. And then I might mention somebody else that first year. Miss Butler, in the cafeteria, that people would remember. Ms. Butler was wonderful. She taught institutional management. That was my major because that was the only major that I could have except for teacher 13
training, and I was never going to teach, you see; I didn't think. So Miss [Dr. Myra] Butler was in charge of the cafeteria and you never saw anything but her chasing down the hall. She just was everywhere, just was wonderful, and was really very good in cafeteria management. And she—we had the cafeteria and—
LD: You're talking about the cafeteria now that was in the—?
ES: Well, in the home ec department, yes, the small cafeteria. We worked in it, all of us, in institutional management. That was when I was a senior. Institutional management.
LD: And so that was also a very old program?
ES: That was way back.
LD: My husband and I used to eat there when he first came to UNCG, and we were real disappointed when they—
ES: Isn't that too bad?
LD: When they closed it, there were a lot of faculty members who were quite disappointed.
ES: Oh, I thought it was too bad. We learned an awful lot. You know, we worked the cash register, we did the cooking, a lot of it, as students. We would—
LD: It was a very pleasant place to eat.
ES: It's very pleasant, very pleasant. But I would just like to mention Myra Butler because she was very special to many of us, even though I never planned to manage a cafeteria. Never.
LD: Sounds like you got a lot of practical experience.
ES: Oh, we did. We did everything. And it was a special, really a special time, those years, those undergraduate years, I thought. I wouldn't swap them for anything. And you brought back these memories to me that I haven't thought about in a long time. [laughs]
LD: Well, good. Good.
ES: It's just been pleasant.
LD: Well, thank you. I've enjoyed the interview.
ES: Well, very informal. I've enjoyed it, too. Thank you.
LD: Thank you.
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[End of Interview]