Dr. Richard Bardolph, history professor emeritus at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro interviewed Mrs. Mabel Merritt in 1981. Below are Bardolph's notes regarding the interview. The audio and transcript for the oral history interview and page one of the notes were not transferred to University Archives in 1991. The narrative begins with page two of his notes. Mabel Coltrane Merritt (1885 - 1984) received a diploma in 1903 from the Greensboro Female College, now Greensboro College, in Greensboro, North Carolina. She was the wife of Robert A. Merritt, Sr. who taught education at the State Normal and Industrial College, now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, from 1906 until his retirement due to poor health in 1916. After her husband's death, she served as principal for thirty-two years at the Pomona Mills School, later Hunter School, until she retired in 1950. For twelve summer sessions, Merritt attended the college working on her master's degree. Merritt recalls growing up in an education-centered family, being the daughter of a Methodist minister, attending Greensboro Female College, and the trolley line that ran along Spring Garden Street where she lived. She describes being a faculty wife and living on Spring Garden Street next to Edward Jacob Forney who was head of the commercial department on campus. Merritt mentions college administrators and faculty members Edward Jacob Forney, Julius Isaac Foust, Sue May Kirkland, Charles Duncan McIver, and Lula Martin McIver.
