Oral history interview with Ruth Whittemore Sherrill, 1981 [text/print transcript]

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UNCG CENTENARY PROJECT ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Ruth Whittemore Sherrill
INTERVIEWER: Richard Bardolph
DATE: March 17, 1981
ALSO PRESENT: Mrs. Sherrill’s daughters Sarah Sherrill Rainey and Martha Lee Sherrill
Matthews
[some unclear audio at beginning of recording]
RB: —and visiting at the Sherrill’s, where Mrs. Sherrill has her two daughters with us today.
They are Sarah Sherrill Rainey and Martha Lee [Sherrill] Matthews, both graduates of
UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro] as well. Their mother attended
the [State Normal and Industrial] College, I think, between 1908 and 1911, and went into
teaching before she graduated. Okay, and let’s start from there. To begin with, Mrs.
Sherrill, let’s get a few biographical data. Were you born in Newton?
RS: No, Concord, North Carolina.
RB: And grew up there?
RS: Well, part of the time. And then we moved to Greensboro.
RB: You lived in Greensboro.
RS: We were in Greensboro a right good while. And that’s when I attended—
RB: Oh, of course, I remember. You were a town student.
RS: Oh yeah, I was a day student.
RB: We get the perspective now of somebody who lived at home while she was at—
RS: Some of that—
RB: And then your elementary education was received in Concord, was it?
RS: No, most of it was in Greensboro.
RB: Oh, you arrived there at—about that—
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RS: Yes.
RB: Now, was it a public school?
RS: Yeah, on the [graded school?]. Well, I went one year, Jefferson Academy down in
McLeansville, [North Carolina], I don’t [unclear] three of us go down there, so we went
down to Jefferson Academy. School [unclear] returning to the Normal.
RB: Was it—did you feel handicapped when you entered the Normal, from having had an
inadequate elementary school training?
RS: Yes, but I entered as a teacher, and that’s what I paid—to be a teacher at least three years.
But I overdid and taught [unclear] years. [chuckles]
RB: We keep hearing about that, I wonder if we can give a little more detail. I understand
you—[someone speaking inaudibly in background] Now, when did they make these
payments to you? Was it while you were in college, when the state supported you in
college, because you were going to be a teacher—
RS: They didn’t support me.
RB: They didn’t?
RS: I paid fifteen dollars. [laughter]
RB: Yes, but you said if students promised to teach—
RS: Yeah, if you promised to teach you paid fifteen dollars.
RB: If you did not promise to teach, were there certain things not available to you?
RS: I don’t know.
RB: I had understood that that arrangement that the state made included financial aid to
students as well as encouraging them to come into the field.
RS: I didn’t need the aid.
RB: I’m sure that I’m correctly informed that there are some students who were able to come
to Greensboro only because the state supported them upon the promise of later repaying
that obligation by teaching at least two years.
RS: I have a friend, though, that couldn’t afford it, and she lived out in the country and
[unclear] her room, she’d bring her food and her wood. [unclear] in her room, and then
walk over to school.
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RB: Did she not—did she not live on the campus?
RS: She didn’t—she lived [unclear] to bring all that in from the country, and just stayed in
that little room.
RB: This is the first time we’ve heard this. That students would come and bring their own
fuel—
RS: Well, she married and she taught here, after a fashion[?]. She died about a year or two
ago.
RB: I see. I’m fascinated by this—
RS: I was a Delta, belonged to the Delta Society. And we went to that one night and we were
late getting out and the last streetcar had left. Catherine[?] asked me and my friend to go
over to her house and spend the night. Well, all three of us slept in the bed and she didn’t
have any wood so we didn’t have any fire. We threw our coats and all on the bed.
RB: Now, where was this room?
RS: She lived over on [Beech Street?]
RB: It was a private home? And she took a room, and was responsible for its heating herself?
And would bring in the fuel—
RS: Food and everything else.
?: Is that the same as [unclear]
RS: Yeah. Had two daughters and one of them died, but the other one still [unclear]—
finished. [unclear] Well, the lady that owned the house came to the door as we went out
and asked her to come and eat breakfast, and I told her that—you know, then people
didn’t have telephones. I told her we had to get on home in case the [unclear] and she was
about ready to perish when we came home. I don’t know what Mother thought.
RB: How far was that off campus?
RS: Was what?
RB: How far from campus was it?
RS: It was just across the street, it wasn’t very far.
RB: Oh [unclear] of these? I see. That’s all been changed.
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RS: It wasn’t very far at all. And it was a nice house she lived in, the woman was awfully
nice.
?: [unclear] mother was worried about you not coming home.
RS: Well, I don’t remember about that part.
RB: Was it at your grandmother’s that you lived?
RS: No, my mother’s.
RB: Oh, oh, your mother.
RS: My mother’s.
RB: Did you have sisters?
RS: Oh yeah, I had two sisters and three brothers.
RB: Did the sisters attend college?
RS: No, I don’t know why, but she went down to Lillington College.
RB: Lillington. No longer—
RS: And she taught, and then she married and lived in Baltimore[?] but she passed away
[unclear] years ago.
RB: That was one sister. And you had another?
RS: She went to [unclear] too. I had another sister, [unclear] and she didn’t—but she taught,
she’s [unclear] now, three or four years.
RB: And did the boys go to school too? College?
RS: [unclear] Yes, my oldest brother went to Catawba College here in Newton. And took a
[unclear], my father sent him to New York, but then he [unclear] worked for the
Greensboro newspaper, and the other one to do the same thing, so he went to Chicago.
And while he was up there, instead of going to school all the time, with his money, he
bought his wife a diamond ring, his girlfriend a diamond ring. And [unclear] part of it. He
said “I just went without food to buy that ring.” [laughs] But he finished and he worked
for the Greensboro Record, believe that was the evening paper, wasn’t it?
RB: Still is. Yes.
?: [unclear]
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RB: Did it strain your parents’ resources for you to go to college?
RS: Not as I—I never heard of it.
RB: Did they have to sacrifice successively—there was sufficient—
RS: Yes. Well, he was in several occupations, I mean, he was a real estate agent and had a dry
cleaning plant and a roller shop and a store.
RB: And that was here in Greensboro?
RS: That was in—after we moved to Burlington [North Carolina].
RB: I see.
RS: But in Greensboro, he worked in the mill there, covering rollers for the comb people, and
he always wanted to go in business for himself, and I guess it was a good thing because
he made quite a bit more. But I don’t remember ever—you know, when you’re poor, you
never know it, they say. [laughs]
RB: Yeah, that’s right. [unclear]
RS: So maybe I was poor and didn’t—so maybe I was poor and didn’t know it. But we
always had plenty to eat and plenty to [unclear]
RB: Had your parents, before you, had the advantage of higher education?
RS: No, but my father, some way he learned, you know, to write that shading[?] stuff, you
know, how you write in shade[?] things? And he taught that. Now, I don’t know where
he—he was from Wentworth, [North Carolina] the Whittemores lived over in
Wentworth. So I never did know too much about his people.
RB: Well, he must have been enthusiastic about education. To send you all off to school.
RS: I think maybe he was.
RB: And was your intention when you entered college to become a teacher?
RS: Yes sir.
RB: You said that a minute after we entered the talk here today.
RS: Yes.
RB: Right. Did your sisters become teachers too?
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RS: Yeah, both of them.
RB: And there never was any doubt in your mind that that was what you wanted to do?
RS: No what?
RB: You, even as a child, thought of becoming a teacher.
RS: Oh yes, I taught sticks and stones[?] [unclear]. [laughs] Had them learned.
RB: And how many years did you teach, after being in college?
RS: Well, I taught about three years in Burlington, Elmira [Street] School at one of the mills.
And then I had an aunt living in Lenoir, [North Carolina] and the superintendent of the
county school lived across the street and he had me come over. He said “Ruth, we need
teachers up here. How about coming up next year and teaching for me?’ Well, I did, and
that’s where I met my husband. [laughs] But I didn’t claim him then. But anyway. Hmm?
?: You left out Blue[?].
RS: Well, that was after that. And then I taught on Mrs. Cone’s estate, and the children
there—you know, at Woman’s College [now The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro] they teach you how to prepare a lesson for the next day. And that always
helped so much, so I taught three years on Mrs. Cone’s estate, and some of my pupils
went over to Appalachian, and Professor Dougherty—let’s see, what did he say?
Anyway, he asked me to come over there and teach.
?: Oh, over there at Appalachian?
RS: Yes, they were—but it was just kind of a high school, it wasn’t a college. Wasn’t hardly a
high school.
?: Did they call it Appalachian back then?
RS: Yes, Appalachian School, I think, then.
RB: Is that what has been continued as UNC—Appalachian State University, [Boone, North
Carolina]?
RS: But it’s a college now.
RB: Yeah. I believe they even call it a university.
RS: But they offered me a job, three hundred and ninety-five dollars a year.
RB: Something you could not afford to pass up! [chuckles]
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RS: And I had charge of a hall, of the girls, you know. And I get my room and board free, and
you had washing machines and things in the basement do that. But I decided I didn’t
want it. They—World War I was about over and [unclear] was coming home, and not
that I thought I’d ever marry him, I didn’t then, but anyway, I just wanted to come home.
So I went back to Burlington. And the flu epidemic broke out, that’s one reason I went
back. But I think that’s one reason I went back. But while I was on the Cone estate we
had a [unclear], had enough money to buy an organ. And I could play well enough to
play that. So we’d have singing and Christmas music. We’d do anything we wanted to, so
we’d bring a big Christmas tree in and the children would decorate it with jack o’ lanterns
and chains of popcorn and different things.
RB: Did the Cones live up there?
RS: Oh yeah, they lived—we lived in the house that she lived in while her mansion was being
built. She was really nice to us.
RB: [unclear] [speaking simultaneously]
?: [unclear] It’s a beautiful, beautiful mansion. That was her summer home. She didn’t live
there the—
RS: She didn’t live there year round. And then after he died, before he died—he had died,
though, when I was up there. His people would come one summer and spend the time
with her, and the next summer, her people would come.
RB: I see.
RS: And her butler, any time she wanted a chicken dressed, well then you had to buy a live
chicken and dress it. Or make ice cream, Charles, the butler, would be glad to do that for
us. And we got all our milk and butter from the dairy there, so it didn’t cost you. And
then they had a garden, and the gardener would bring up vegetables to us, and then take
some on to her—give us some and take the rest on to her.
?: Well, is that where Mary Chester[?] taught with you?
RS: Yes.
?: So there was just two teachers for all the—
RS: Yes, two teachers.
?: And you taught all ages?
RS: Well, yes.
?: How many children a year would be in the program?
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RS: What?
?: How many children?
RS: Well, I had about eighteen, maybe fifteen or eighteen to my room, the other one had
about twenty. Wasn’t very many. But rain or shine, those children would come to school
and someone would always get there early to make a fire in the long stove, and they had a
woodhouse out at the back and I don’t know who cut the wood, I guess maybe the men
would bring it up already cut. And she asked me, could I teach them home ec[onomics], a
little bit about cooking or something, so she sent some linen tablecloths down that I’ve
never seen anything as pretty in my life. [laughs] They were old, though, some that she
didn’t need. And some dishes. So we taught them to make an arrangement—you know,
for the center of the table, and how to set a table. And then everywhere I’d visit, they’d
make biscuits about that big. As my father said, catheads. So we taught them to make
biscuits and cut them out, you know. And then made them make cakes or cookies or
something. And once in a while we’d have a real dinner, let them bring food from home.
And then they didn’t know what a party was, so once in a while we’d have a party,
maybe I’d make taffy candy and teach them to pull taffy candy. So we’d—I really
enjoyed that. And then the children, some of them went over to Boone. And they were so
much more advanced than the other children that that’s when Professor Dougherty asked
me to come over and teach. But it wasn’t hardly a high school then, so maybe I could
have made it.
RB: Before you began teaching, had you had any practice at Greensboro, or did they just
confront you with your classroom and turn you loose to start teaching?
RS: Oh, no. Since my father worked for the Cones, they had a house there for the children to
go to have parties and teach you to cook and different things, and Miss Cone—Caesar
[Cone, textile entrepreneur and mill owner], they would come down sometimes. And, so
we had a lot of advantages of different things.
?: Did you have to do practice teaching when you were at WC [Woman’s College], Mother?
RS: No, I hadn’t then.
?: You didn’t do any practice teaching?
RS: But I did, though, after I moved to Burlington, [North Carolina] I did some practice
teaching. The sixth grade, a man got sick and I went over there at Elmira [Street School
in Burlington] and that’s when I began teaching there, then.
RB: Do you remember, were there any kind of examinations at the end of your college work?
[unclear] I know. Was it any—did the state require any kind of examination to get a
certificate?
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RS: Yes. And that’s what I got at Elon College, [Elon, North Carolina]. They had a six week
course for teachers, but I don’t remember what it was, but I know that’s where I got my
certificate to teach.
RB: Without which you could not have—
RS: I don’t guess so, I know you had to have a certificate.
RB: You would not have been an accredited teacher.
RS: And I know one summer, they’d have a—what did they call it, now? Maybe a week’s
extended[?] in the county seat, some people would come, teachers from Raleigh, [North
Carolina] would come up.
RB: Institutes.
RS: Institutes.
RB: Teachers’ Institutes.
RS: And I know that’s something I went to. I never heard “Little Black Sambo,” and that lady
told “Little Black Sambo.” Well, when I went up to Boone that summer, that summer
school, I don’t know why, but the teacher—well, they just didn’t know how to teach
compared with what I had learned at Woman’s College.
And finally one says “Miss Whittemore, how about you telling us a story
tomorrow?”
I said “I’d be glad to.” And I don’t know how many—I told “Little Black
Sambo,” and I just undressed[?] him [laughs] and while I was up there talking, you’d see
some of those teachers, I know a man took out his pocketknife and sat there and picked
his teeth with his pocketknife. [all laugh] And some would have tobacco in their mouth,
[makes spitting noise] right down on the floor. It was awful, you don’t—people then just
didn’t know anything. And they enjoyed that “Little Black Sambo,” and then finally I
was—made the “Three Little Pigs,” I cut out the little pictures, you know, and told that
story to them. So I was about taking charge of everything. [laughs]
RB: Now, when you were at Woman’s College, were they consciously trying to prepare you
for—
RS: They certainly did.
RB: It was not just subject matter, you weren’t learning just history and geography—
RS: No, you were really taught how—and a lot of times when you’d go in a room, I can’t
remember her name, but then women wore blouses like a shirt, and she wouldn’t let you
come in her room with your sleeves rolled up if they were long. She’d give you a little
lecture on how to be a lady, as she called it.
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RB: That changed things. [chuckles]
RS: And now, like I’m sitting—never sit cross legged, no lady sits cross legged. And you
know, right now, I sit like this.
RB: And that’s left over from—
RS: And no lady chews chewing gum in public. Well, I can’t chew chewing gum. [laughs]
RB: Did you know—who was the lady principal? Miss [Sue May] Kirkland [lady principal]?
RS: Oh yeah. She was in Spencer Hall, Miss Kirkland. You remember her, don’t you, Martha
Lee?
RB: Of course, in Spencer Hall.
RS: But I did go with some friends down there to eat one day, lunch or dinner. I think it was
dinner at night.
RB: That’s right, you missed that part of the—
RS: That’s right, but the day students had, in the main building, the administration building,
second floor, were a lot of desks, and we could go up there and assign a desk for our
home. You know, put our lunch, our books.
RB: Was it assigned to the town student, you had a place of your own?
RS: Yes. And then in the basement was lunchroom, that had a two-burner oil stove. And
tables and chairs, and we could cook if we wanted to, but sometimes we’d make hot
chocolate but that’s all we ever did.
RB: Typically, a town student would carry your lunch from home?
RS: Yes.
RB: And were you not permitted to eat in the dining halls with the resident students?
RS: No.
RB: That was an interesting social situation right there, teachers sitting at each table in the
dining room.
RS: Yeah. Well, I ate over there one time, but I don’t know that I remember that. And the
girls waited on the tables.
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RB: Yes, many of them earned their—part of their way through college that way. Did you feel
deprived of any of the college’s, you know, offerings that the college had to make
students, did you feel you missed some things from being a town student? Or did you feel
like a second-class citizen as a town student?
RS: No, no, no. You’d just mingle, you know, and sometimes in class, you’d sit with a
dormitory girl. No, we were all just the same. I don’t think they knew town people from
the dormitory people.
?: Did you ever wish you could live in the dorm?
RS: No, no. But then when I was taking the—took my physical test in physical ed, the teacher
told me that my legs were weak and my back was weak, that I ought to do more walking,
and says “Where do you live?” And I told her we got the streetcar there and rode up to
the square, you know, the square, and then I’d change cars there and go. Said “Will you
take to walking one way or the other?” And you know I’m a great walker right now.
RB: That’s probably one of the best things you carried away from the college. [RS laughs]
You don’t remember, do you, a time when the students were required to walk in the late
afternoons?
RS: Well, you see, we’d go home before that started, I guess. The day students did all their
walking themselves. But that—I can’t think who was the gym teacher then. But I know I
wanted to play basketball so bad, and I was too little, didn’t weigh enough, wasn’t tall
enough. But then she’d give you exercises and make you take deep breaths, you know.
And you know, I’d wake up at night and I’m [breathes in audibly] taking deep breaths, I
still do that. [laughs] And it’s really helpful, too, and walking down for the mail. I try to
walk straight and take deep breaths all the way down. So I—it certainly did make an
impression on me, the time I got to go there. And the teachers were wonderful.
RB: Were you afraid of them?
RS: Afraid of them? No.
RB: Or did you feel easy with them?
RS: I wondered, though, a lot of times, one teacher, she’d put one word up on the board, and
asked you to jot down the first thing that you thought of when that word was—
RB: Freudian psychiatry.
RS: [chuckles]
RB: What was her object[ive?]? Do you what she did that for?
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RS: Well, to see where you’re from, or something, or what you was thinking or—I really
don’t know what was the object.
RB: Well, they use that trick now, you know, psychiatrists do that, to say the first thing that
comes to mind. After you’ve finished about half an hour of that, they can tell you more
about yourself than you want them to know.
RS: [laughs] Well, I expect so. Well, I thought it was something like that.
RB: Did you know Miss [Gertrude] Mendenhall [mathematics faculty]?
RS: Oh yeah.
RB: Now, wasn’t she a little [unclear]?
RS: Wasn’t she though?
RB: Didn’t she seem a little severe, to you?
RS: No.
RB: No? Some—
RS: I’ve never seen anybody I was scared of.
RB: Oh, well. [speaking simultaneously]
RS: And I’ve never seen a stranger. [laughs]
RB: —Terrified of Miss Mendenhall. She looked that way, more than—
?: What did she teach?
RB: She taught mathematics, and I think that’s why a lot of girls were scared of her, because
they couldn’t handle math.
?: Did she teach you math, Mother?
RS: Yes, she taught you math. Who—what was her name?
?: Mendenhall.
RB: Mendenhall.
RS: Mendenhall?
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RB: She looked like a New England spinster-type. And—rawboned, and—there’s a picture of
her at the time of her death in the college magazine.
RS: Well, there were so many—the students, then, were young and maybe we didn’t have too
good of manners or anything, so I guess all those things, she taught you how to sit, and
not chew gum, all that thing, was really good for you.
RB: We keep hearing that, too, that many of those teachers gave a good deal of attention to
things like that.
RS: Yeah. They don’t do it now.
RB: That’s true.
RS: Well, they do that in day school, now, your little boys and little girls. And the boy would
always have to hold the girl’s coat, and then the boy would hold his cap until he got
outside to put it on, you know. [chuckles]
RB: Well, things have changed.
RS: Haven’t they changed.
RB: In that department. [chuckles]
?: Isn’t that true.
RB: Do you have—did you ever have any classes with Dr. Jackson [history faculty, dean of
administration, and chancellor]? Dr. Walter C. Jackson?
RS: Something about that name—what did he teach?
RB: History.
RS: History, yeah.
RB: And then later he became the dean of the school.
RS: In the McIver Building.
RB: Yes, yes.
RS: Well, [unclear] we always said that’s a bad way of—[laughs] Well, [unclear] met a lady
down at the beach, down at Manteo, [North Carolina] one time that remembered me. At
Leona’s house? Don’t you remember?
?: [unclear]
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RS: Well, I know you said something about it, and I said, oh yeah, I remember her, we was in
math together.
?: Well, had you graduated, would you have graduated in the Class of 1912?
RB: She entered an age that would normally [unclear] 1912.
RS: But I had such a nice time and met so many nice people and all, I don’t regret that I
didn’t finish. But then my girls, when they started school, I said “Now, if we’re going to
college, we’re going to finish, and you’re going to teach or work a year before you get
married.” Now, that was down—wasn’t that right?
?: Well, we never had any thought of not finishing, at least I never did.
RS: So Martha Lee taught at Coker College, [Hartsville, South Carolina].
RB: Coker—South Carolina. [unclear]
RS: And then Sarah went up to Arlington, Virginia and taught up there. And she taught her
year out and married in August. [laughs]
RB: Fulfilled her contract. You had the feeling that you enjoyed the college years?
RS: Is what?
RB: That you enjoyed—you enjoyed yourself at college?
RS: Oh yes, I enjoyed just living.
RB: Interesting—
RS: And I never get lonesome, I’ve got too much to think about, too much to do, or
something.
?: [unclear]
RB: Do you remember anything about the college that you didn’t like?
RS: No.
RB: No? Nobody did. Everybody gives the college—it’s high grades.
?: Isn’t that nice? You [unclear]
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RS: Well, then, I tell you, they were really nice to the girls, and they taught you different
things and they were good to you, and you didn’t think about being scared to them—of
them.
RB: And you got the idea that they were really interested in you, right?
RS: Yes. They were interested in the teachers—in the girls, and we were interested in them. I
remember one of the teachers, she must have been an English teacher [Eleanore Elliott].
Oh, she could read poetry the prettiest, I could sit a week and listen to her read that book.
RB: Another Miss Elliott, two Miss Elliotts.
RS: I bet it was.
RB: It was Elliott in English who was fondly remembered by a [unclear]—
?: That must be.
RB: Twenty-five years of—
?: Mother’s trying to think of her name.
RS: And then one day there was a fire over on Lee Street, and a bunch of us, town girls and
the others, too, I guess, went over and there was a girl over there named Mary
[Saintsing?], and she always had such pretty hair, all just fixy[?], you know, and we
couldn’t believe it was real. Well, we were standing under a tree and there was some dead
leaves on it and it caught afire, and somebody hollered and said “Mary, your hair is on
fire!” And she jerked that thing off. [all laugh]
?: Oh, the beautiful hair!
RS: So then we knew it was a wig. But then we didn’t know what a wig was, hardly.
?: No. Did she have bad hair underneath?
RS: Well, she told us that she’d had typhoid fever. And all the hair came out, and [unclear] of
that wig. So we felt sorry for her, but yet that satisfied our curiosity. [laughs]
?: Yes. Typhoid fever. From typhoid.
RS: Yes. But I just had a nice time going and coming, and then after I got to walking, some
of the other girls would walk with me, you know, but the first time I tried walking the
college to the square, I couldn’t make it. Had to sit down and rest.
?: Really? I walk it all the time.
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RB: Now, how far was it that you lived from the college? Do you remember what the name of
the street was that you lived on?
RS: Summit Avenue. Summit Avenue.
?: That’s far out.
RB: That’s about where the AAA—Marymount and Beale[??] Association is.
RS: Well, now, there was a school on out from Summit Avenue. Bessemer? Well, now, my
brothers went out there. [unclear]
RB: That’s a good two miles.
RS: Yes.
?: Oh, more than.
RS: But they walk.
?: Oh, from your home. But we’re talking about walking like you did to the university, that
would be quite a—
RS: Yes.
RB: A long walk.
?: Mother, you’re tearing[?] that paper right in the microphone. [pause] Have you got
something else [unclear] would like to tell you? Look at your notes and see if you—
RB: Are there some things that you jotted down that you thought we ought to know about?
RS: I think you’ve hit everything. [laughter] Well, if I hadn’t moved to Burlington, probably,
I would have [unclear]. But [unclear] I did take art, freshman art. I tried—I thought I was
an artist, you know.
RB: What was taught in art courses there in those days?
?: Drawing?
RB: Did you paint?
RS: No—well—
RB: Draw?
17
RS: I remember the first lesson. You used your pencil, or a pencil that she gave us, had to
draw Jack and Jill going up the hill, or Jack and Jill coming down the hill. [laughs] But
then the picture, who was it you asked me today about the picture? I drew that while I
was there, what was it, a horse and a—a horse up on a field, and then a little tree, a little
branch running, a little tree kind of on the edge a-falling over. And I thought it was real
good, and she remembered today and asked me what happened to it. Well, I had it framed
and had it in the sitting room in Greensboro. Was it—and anyway, my son came in with a
slingshot and shot it. [laughter] Yes, here—it was in Hickory. And so I took it down and
that was the end of my [unclear] I think. And then I went to summer school at Lenoir-
Rhyne College, [Hickory, North Carolina] and that was just like going to the poor house,
it was so run-down, and the teachers—and when it got out that I had gone to Woman’s
College, well, they thought I was something. But it—it’s come out now, but it wasn’t
much of a college then, say, a long time ago.
RB: You’re saying that the physical facilities were much better at Greensboro than at Lenoir-
Rhyne.
?: The buildings.
RB: The buildings?
RS: The buildings were all run-down. But they’re in good condition now, and it’s an A-1
college, I guess, isn’t it?
RB: It’s a respectable college.
RS: But Martha Lee was at Woman’s College and once in a while she’d come home and go
with some of her friends—don’t you remember?
ML: Lenoir-Rhyne?
RS: Yes, Lenoir-Rhyne.
ML: I never considered going there.
RS: There wasn’t any comparison, it wasn’t good to her.
RB: Was it coeducational?
ML: No. Oh, Lenoir-Rhyne? Yes.
RB: It was. I wonder if your mother thought an all-girls school was a good idea. Did you think
it was a good idea to have—
RS: No, I didn’t tell them to go—didn’t even suggest going down there.
18
RB: I understand. But when you were there, did you sometimes wish it were a coeducational
college, at—
RS: No, boys didn’t enter my mind then, no.
RB: And—but see, there are still a few women’s colleges left.
RS: Yes.
RB: Not very many, but there are a few.
RS: Her daughter goes to one, to Converse [College, Spartanburg, South Carolina].
RB: Our daughter went to Mount Holyoke [College, South Hadley, Massachusetts], an all-girls—
guess it’s still an all-girl.
ML: And I went all-girl.
RB: [unclear]
RS: She loves it down there. We had a wedding last Saturday, and Saturday night I had
twenty-two here to eat dinner.
RB: Ah! Now, were you using any skills Saturday night that you had picked up at college?
ML: [laughs]
RS: Was I what?
RB: Were any of the things that you did for the wedding, did they benefit from the training
you had at the college?
RS: Oh, probably so. I think maybe it did.
RB: Because they were interested in turning out ladies.
RS: They certainly were.
RB: As well as well-trained minds, weren’t they? They did pay attention to those human
refinements that now have dropped out. [chuckles]
RS: Why don’t they do that now?
RB: There’s no demand for it, nobody wants it.
19
RS: Well, I didn’t demand it then. [laughs] They just knew more than we knew, so they didn’t
mind teaching it.
RB: You’ll get no attention if you turn the conversation to things like that now.
?: How about recreational facilities, things like that?
RB: Yeah, what was available by way of recreation and amusements for town students? What
did you do for entertainment or fun?
RS: Oh, what we did, we did at home or somewhere. You see, we’d come to school and when
we got through we went home.
ML: But you stayed for society meetings.
RS: Oh, we’d come—I didn’t go to all of them, but I came in—I was trying to think of the
password. I can’t even remember that now.
?: They did [unclear] have passwords? [unclear]
RB: And by your time there were four. In her day there were two.
?: And today there are none.
?: Oh, there are not?
RS: Well, I don’t think girls needed as much entertaining and going as they do now.
RB: Probably not. And nobody had radios, of course.
RS: No, no.
RB: And of course not a television
RS: We didn’t have anything!
?: Dances on campus?
RS: Of course, we had a piano, and my father and mother thought all girls had to learn to
play, and I was glad that I had taken piano lessons. And then the teacher wanted us to
learn to play an organ, and the woman across the street from us had an organ. [chuckles]
And I’d go over and play that some.
RB: [unclear] Where was the piano kept?
?: Oh no, she said at their home.
20
RB: Oh, at home! I see. Because I wondered where anything like that was available to the
regular, rest of the—
?: What do you remember about physical education? You know, we asked that this
morning. But physical education, do you remember—
RB: Do you remember having physical education courses?
RS: Yes, yes.
?: Where was the gym?
RS: I believe it was in the basement of Spencer [Dormitory] building.
?: At the same place.
RB: What kind of equipment could they have down there? Couldn’t have been much.
RS: Well, it wasn’t too much, but I know there was something you had to run, kind of like a
horse, and jump up on it.
RB: Oh yes. They call them horses.
RS: But mostly we’d just exercise.
RB: By that you mean the calisthenics?
RS: Or run and jump or something like that.
RB: In the uncomfortable gym suits.
RS: [laughs]
RB: Right?
RS: Yeah, they were. I don’t have mine now.
RB: We’ve had bitter complaints [speaking simultaneously, unclear, telephone ringing]
RS: Yeah, but if we had a class in the McIver Building, you had to hurry like everything, so
day students usually just put a skirt or dress on over the bloomers and go on with it on.
RB: No chance for a shower, either, right?
RS: No, you didn’t have time for a shower.
21
?: [unclear] to take a shower, they just had to go straight on. I don’t remember ever being
able to take a shower, there wasn’t enough time!
RS: If you had time—in fact, they almost required it, to take a shower.
RB: There were showers on the campus?
RS: Yeah. Well, they were in the gym place, I don’t know whether they were in the
dormitories too or anything. We had water in our house.
RB: Oh, I’m sure.
RS: We had tubs, though, we didn’t have a shower.
RB: Electric lights?
RS: Yeah, I had electric light.
RB: Were there electric lights on—in the college? In the classrooms?
RS: Yeah, as far as I remember. I know there were. Because I don’t remember any lamps, and
I’d remember them, wouldn’t I.
RB: Well, I think gas lamps lingered on in some areas until after World War I. We had them
in my house when I was growing up, gas lights.
?: Did you have gas lights in college? They must have been gas lamps.
RB: No, she thinks they were electricity.
?: She thinks it was electricity?
RB: Light bulb hanging down from the cord.
RS: Well, ours at home was. [chuckles] And I imagine they were there, I—
RB: You think that in the classrooms, if there were lights, that they were electric lights.
RS: I imagine they were, but I really don’t know.
?: [unclear, door closes]
RS: Well, I think you hit everything, I just—
?: Not yet!
22
RB: We may have one or two left. Do you think that the girls from the larger cities, of course
there were no very large cities in North Carolina, but there are some girls whom you
could call city girls and then there were country girls. Did they mix pretty well?
RS: Well, no. Now, we thought the people down at GFC [Greensboro Female College], the
college in—
RB: The Greensboro [College?]?
RS: Yeah, were—they thought themselves—I know we’d go to a ballgame together, and
sometimes the college was invited to a ballgame out on—but that was kind of across
from Cone’s estate. They thought they were better than [State] Normal [and Industrial
School] girls. Or we thought so, maybe.
RB: Even you thought so? That they had more class?
RS: Yes. We thought they acted like they did.
?: What was this?
RB: The Greensboro College girls. They—they—yeah.
RS: Are they still like that?
RB: She had the impression that there were real grounds for that assumption, that they were a
little better. I think she’s saying that? That they had more polish, than—
RS: Yes.
RB: Because perhaps there’s a larger portion of our girls who were from the countryside and
among smaller—because it always has cost more to go to GC.
RS: Well, a lot of them were preachers’ daughters. Our preachers’ daughter was there, and I
said something to her about it, she said “Oh, no, you have the wrong idea.”
RB: Did you think that whatever might be said about social differences between GC and
Woman’s College, that you get a better education on our campus than at GC?
RS: Well, as far as education, they did, but there was more of a society thing. Now, my
daughter Martha Lee got a scholarship to go there. But she didn’t accept it.
ML: Good thing.
RS: She wanted to go to university—and I don’t think I insisted on either one of them going
to university, but they decided they’d go. But if you’re going, you’re going to finish the
whole four years! [laughs]
23
RB: When you were growing up, the number of girls who went to college was still very small,
you know, it was unusual for girls to get a college education.
RS: I know it.
RB: In part because the sons would be provided for first, and there usually isn’t enough left
over to educate them all and the ones who would be deprived would be the girls. Did you
find—have a feeling that people tended to think of girls going to college—that was a
little far-out, you know, that it wasn’t quite what ordinary people do? Was it thought of
as—
?: Advanced.
RB: Advanced, or maybe even a little strange that a girl should want to go to college?
RS: Well, I think I had some friends that after I started college and they didn’t go, I think I
lost some of them. I don’t know whether they thought I was—
RB: It was a distance? I see. I think you’d find that in those days it was just assumed that the
only reason for sending a girl to college is to make a teacher out of her, that college isn’t
going to do very much besides that for a girl, except to train her to be a teacher.
RS: Yes. Well, I had a cousin that went to Woman’s College, and finished, she was quite a bit
older. Bessie Whittemore. I don’t know when she was there.
RB: She was a cousin?
RS: Yes, a cousin. She was from—and they lived out in the country, about where Mebane—
somewhere out from Burlington, way out in the country.
RB: Do you still keep in touch with classmates? Do you—
RS: Well, I did know Ms. [Cayshin?] that died. She was the only one in town that I knew.
RB: You know, a surprising number of students have come out of Newton, especially way
back in those early days. The Class of 1905 was [unclear]
RS: Well, I knew a few others, but they’ve all been dead for twenty or thirty years. I knew
them. [laughs]
?: I know, this lady we visited this morning, she’s so surprised that she’s still alive.
RS: And I’m older than she is.
?: Yes.
24
RS: I’m going to get acquainted with her, I’ll call her up. Well, that Mrs. Hewitt, I believe,
that was in the magazine from Newton, I looked in the phone book, thought maybe I
could find her, and there’s about that many names of it. So I didn’t try to find.
RB: Do you ever go to reunions, the class reunions?
RS: Oh. I went with my daughter to hers a time or two, but I never did go to mine. But they
never—you don’t ever miss, do you?
?: We keep trying to make her go, because there are lots there that she would love talking
with, but she won’t go.
RB: Has she kept the alumnae news?
RS: I know one I went to, Dr. Gold was sitting there and I knew her, and so I went over and
talked to her. [laughs] We was sitting on the ground. [unclear]
?: Some of the others, might have mentioned a few names of people. Like do you remember
Harriet Elliott?
RS: Yeah, I remember that name. Well, I remember that Jewish woman that—Weill.
?: Oh! Yes.
RB: That’s the one who—Laura Weill [Class of 1910]?
RS: Laura Weill.
?: Laura Weill—Weill?
RS: From Wilmington [North Carolina]. Wasn’t she from Wilmington?
RB: Yes, those people were from Wilmington. There was a dormitory named for her, you
know.
?: Yeah, Laura Weill.
RS: Yeah.
RB: She was a Jewish girl, and I think in her senior year she won all the honors there were,
you know, the editor, the class president and editor of the magazine, which is an
interesting piece of evidence about the lack of racial prejudice.
?: Was she there, you knew her?
25
RS: No, I don’t think she was there, but I went back to visit several times, you know, and I
think I met her one time then. But I remember her, some way.
?: Let’s see, who else. Oh, Dr. [Julius Isaac] Foust [pedagogy faculty, practice school
principal, and college president].
RS: Oh yeah.
RB: Did you know Dr. Foust?
RS: Yeah, I remember him. Tall.
RB: In your time, were there student assemblies, say, once or twice a week in the student
[unclear]?
RS: Yes, and we all had seats.
RB: Assigned seats?
RS: Assigned to you.
RB: So they could report you if you were absent?
RS: Yes, that was there. I think they were kind of strict on—
RB: Yes they were.
RS: Well, you didn’t want to skip. In fact you didn’t want to skip anything.
?: Because it was important to your development.
RS: Yeah. And I don’t remember anybody trying to skip. Was a nice bunch of children. I
guess we were all just children.
RB: Did Dr. Foust participate in those chapel meetings?
RS: Yes, he was up sometimes. He was there always, and maybe—Greer[?]. Was there a
Greer there?
?: I don’t know.
RB: Could be.
?: That might be, I don’t remember.
26
RB: In the very first years of the college, one thing that our graduates in those years all
remember is that Dr. [Charles Duncan] McIver [founding president] used to speak at
the—
RS: Yeah, I remember him too.
[recording error]
RB: You remember him?
RS: I remember that name, seemed to me, I don’t know whether I remember him or not.
RB: Might have been before you got there, just before you got there. The name must have
been constantly mentioned. Because his wife, his widow [Lula Martin McIver], continued
to live on the campus for years thereafter. But during his years, he was the founding
president, he would make these chapel talks, and some of them are still remembered,
some of the talks that—we encounter—
RS: Well, I don’t think Foust did that much, though.
RB: He was an entirely different kind of person, yes.
RS: Didn’t he smoke a cigar all of the time?
RB: [chuckles] You’re telling me, now. You remember him as a cigar smoker?
RS: Yeah, always had that in the mouth.
RB: Very tall, thin man.
RS: Yeah, tall and thin and he looked like he might have TB [tuberculosis]. [chuckles]
RB: Yes. He was still in Greensboro the first year I was here, that was 1944, and I remember
being invited into his presence, and I sat and talked with him for a while. It was a very
hot day but he had a fire going in the fireplace, and a blanket over his knees.
RS: And had the air condition[ing] on? [laughs]
?: No, he was cold, he was an old man.
RB: Very fragile by that time. He had been president for a long, long time, a very strong
leader.
?: You’ve mentioned Miss Kirkland to her.
27
RB: Yes. You do remember there was a lady principal named Miss Kirkland?
?: Oh, but of course she was a town student.
RB: She would have very little occasion to meet her, yeah.
RS: Well, I thought she was in the dormitory.
RB: Yes, in Spencer, and she was called “lady principal.” In those days, that meant that she
looked after the living—
RS: The girls, yes. No, I had a friend always having pins in her mouth, and said Miss
Kirkland was always after her for having pins in her mouth. She was afraid she’d
swallow one. I can’t stand to put a pin in my mouth now. [laughs]
?: All those things go back to those days.
?: Who was the president?
RS: What?
?: Who was the president?
RS: The president? Foust.
RB: Julius Foust.
RS: Was he there when you was there?
?: No, no, [Walter Clinton] Jackson was there.
RS: Jackson.
RB: Yeah, he became president about ’35, and he was called dean of administration. [unclear]
Let me see if—I think we’ve covered just about—
RS: I believe you have, too.
RB: Most of our—
?: It’s interesting that you did not have any feelings about being left out, being a town
student.
RS: I don’t think any of us did.
?: That must have developed later, then.
28
RB: Well, things like that differ from individual to individual. Because—yeah.
?: There were town students who felt left out. I was a town student, so—[unclear]
RS: And you were left out?
RB: No, she wasn’t.
?: No, I was in Illinois[?].
RS: Well, I knew a few of the town students that were down my way and would go up on the
streetcar and there was one or two little Jewish girls in it.
?: From out that way. The Sternbergers [prominent Greensboro family] lived out there.
RS: Yes, that’s what it was, Sternbergers.
?: Was it Blanche Sternberger?
RS: I know I can see her now. I didn’t know how to eat an orange like she did.
RB: [chuckles]
RS: And down on the—we’d be on the streetcar together, whether it was Blanche or what it
was, and now I can see her eating that orange. Well, I learned to eat an orange by
watching her. [laughs]
?: That’s interesting:
RS: Isn’t it, though?
?: But the Sternberger home was out there?
RS: Oh yeah, it was on the left going down. Big, pretty home.
?: Yes. It became a hospital.
RS: Did it?
RB: A children’s hospital.
?: Women’s and children’s hospital for a while. I know—
29
RS: And then the people that lived across the street, he was a doctor in a drug store out at
White Oak, I believe. He was—I knew him, he married a cousin of mine. So I knew
them.
RB: That would have been Fordham.
RS: I can’t even recall their name now.
?: Let’s see, another one—Mrs. Douglas, Mrs. Douglas was earlier, wasn’t—
RB: Yeah, you wouldn’t remember Virginia Brown, who later became Virginia Brown
Douglas. She was in Class of ’03 [Editor’s note: Virginia Brown was Class of 1902].
[unclear]
RS: I tell you, all the people I knew are dead.
?: Yeah. Clara Booth Byrd [Class of 1913 and alumna secretary].
RB: Oh, Clara Booth Byrd.
RS: Yeah, I remember her, Clara Booth. Yes. Is she still alive?
?: She’s alive yet. She’s in the Friends Home [retirement facility].
RS: Well, I’m not going to a home. I’m not going to get that old.
RB: Well, we’re home now. Here at home now. [RS chuckles] She said that like—
RS: They’ll have a place for me. All the children. Now, my son has that lake house and I have
an apartment—we have an apartment out there. A little kitchenette and a bedroom and a
living room facing the lake.
?: Where is that, what lake?
RS: Lake Hickory—Lake what? Lake Hickory.
?: Why don’t you look at your notes, have you got anything else?
RS: No, he’s hit everything I put down. [all speaking simultaneously]
?: That means it’s a good interview.
RS: But I’ll tell you, wasn’t any trouble to get a job teaching, though, then. They’d just beg
you to come and teach. And I don’t regret—
30
RB: There were communities that needed teachers that couldn’t afford to pay for them, last—
two weeks ago, we talked to Mrs. Wall who was a Class of 1905, during her first year as
a teacher, she taught free, no salary. They begged her, you know, they knew that she had
just moved in with her new husband as a young graduate of the college, and they
assumed because she was from Woman’s College, she was imbued with this idea of
service to humanity, so they put it to her “We need a teacher, but we don’t have any
money, would you do it?” She did, and she stayed on until she was seventy—seventy or
seventy-one years old. And in the meantime raised a whole family.
?: And became a tremendously creative teacher, just tremendous the things, she did, she’s
so modern.
RB: Yeah, a community leader. One of these giant women—
?: The amount of service, the kind of services.
RB: And it was more than just a [unclear]
?: And you educate a woman, you educate a family.
?: That’s right.
RS: Well, Mrs. Cone supplemented our salary. I mean, we made forty-five dollars a month,
and she gave us fifteen extra, made it sixty. And every Christmas, she’d send a hundred-pound
box of candy down for us to divide with the children from one day old to, I don’t
know if it was eighteen or twenty. So we had it in bags, these little bags, paper bags,
white, to put that candy in. And then little collapsible cups for them to drink out of, she’d
send a bunch of them. I said we would talk to her and make over her, and I think she did
more while I was up there than she ever did before. Because—and then I knew that things
would be nice, just so I’d put a big pot of water on our stove and all in my room, put the
cups in there and boil them for a while to clean them. [laughs]
?: Did you learn that at Woman’s College? Where’d you learn that?
RS: What?
?: Did you learn that at Woman’s College?
RS: Oh, I don’t know, but I knew what germs were. [laughs] Probably I did.
?: That’s wonderful.
RB: There are a lot of Sherrills here in this area, here.
?: Sherrills?
RB: Sherrills, yeah.
31
?: A few.
RB: I have, next week, an appointment with—and she’s a member of the Class of 1926,
named Catherine Sherrill.
RS: I thought maybe you would interview these two and add up, because I thought you was
getting from the first up to some time.
?: Well, trying to get the earlier people now, and eventually—
RB: There are five women, seventy-five this year. Seventy-five years old this year.
RS: You still live in Greensboro, then.
?: Oh yes, yes. I’m a member of the city council, in Greensboro.
RS: Oh, you are? [unclear]
RB: We went to college together.
RS: I have a friend who’s teaching in Greensboro, and she’s—[discussion in background] She
taught there in Highland, in Greensboro, I mean in Hickory. I can’t recall her name. But
anyway, she has charge, I think, of two or three or four schools. And she’s retired now,
but she never did marry.
?: We live just a block from the campus, we live on Tate Street.
RB: That was originally Lithia Street.
?: Yes, used to be—that’s right. And the McIvers’ daughter lived in that house first.
RS: Oh.
RB: Annie McIver [Class of 1905], who became—
RS: I remember that name, but I don’t think I knew her. But I remember that name.
RB: Her first home after she became a bride is the house we lived in.
?: Yes, we talked with one woman who had been a classmate of Annie McIver’s, and they
did something to—let’s see, to rebuke Mr. McIver.
RB: Yes, the faculty decided not to graduate one girl who got into some kind of problem, and
the senior class drew up a petition, and the senior class included Annie McIver, and they
presented this remonstrance to President McIver, and he dressed them down right there
32
and rebuked them for having the brass to address their betters that way. He made it very
clear to them, and Annie—was that her name?
?: Annie McIver, yes.
RB: The woman who told us this.
?: That was May Hicks [Class 1905], I think.
RB: Yes, that was May Williams Hicks. She said they all felt like two cents when he got
through with them. None of this business of equality and bargaining power of the
students with the administration.
?: [unclear] in recent years.
?: Now, were the girls allowed to date when you were there?
RS: Was what?
?: Were the girls allowed to date?
RB: Have young men callers and leave the campus?
RS: Well, I didn’t date. Well, I did maybe a time or two, but my father wouldn’t let me date.
And boys didn’t bother me, I mean, I didn’t—I know there was one little boy, though, he
was working there in Greensboro and he went up to Connecticut to live, and before he
left, was an election. Wilson—who ran against Wilson?
RB: Hughes? In ’16.
RS: I don’t know. But anyway, I bet him a [unclear] that mine would win. And he bet me a
pair of white kid gloves, and I know he sent me white kid gloves, the prettiest gloves I
ever had in my life. And he said the clerk said no woman would wear a glove that little.
[laughs] But they fit.
?: Did they? Good.
?: Were there dances? Was there ever a dance?
RS: I never did go to any of them. We’d go out to the park and watch people dance
sometimes, Lindley Park, you know, they had a big pavilion out there and have dances.
?: Oh, I didn’t know that.
RS: I don’t know whether they have it now or not. They don’t have it?
33
?: Never heard of it.
RS: You never did? Where there’s a lake?
?: At Lindley Park?
RS: Yes. Lindley Park, and that was a—you’d get on the streetcar, and that was about the end
of the line and that was a good place to go, you know, on a Sunday afternoon or maybe
the ladies[?] would have a dance out there. And I guess you had to be invited, because
most all of them would come with the evening dresses on, you know, and soft music and
just a little bit of light. But we’d just stand around and watch them.
RB: Clang, clang, clang with the trolley.
?: I’ll have to find out about that, where the trolley ran.
RB: What did it cost to ride on the trolley?
RS: Well, I was so little I always rode half-fare. I’d get twelve tickets, I think, for a dollar. It
wasn’t much then, maybe five cents. And I’ve seen people on the trolley, they’d come
around taking up your money, they’d take money out of their mouth, and I thought “Oh,
my, how nasty and filthy they could be.”
?: They didn’t know about germs, did they? They didn’t know about germs. No, I think
there wasn’t dancing for—until after 1919? Remember?
RS: Did they have dances there at the college?
?: No, they didn’t. This was—a woman we talked with this morning, a graduate, said that
she would so much have liked to learn to dance, and to dance while she was there, but she
didn’t have the chance.
RS: You know, my father wasn’t strict, I don’t guess, but he never would let us play cards or
dance.
RB: Were you Baptists?
RS: Rook was always in, but I couldn’t even invite my friends in to play rook. But there was
two couples, we’d meet about once or twice a month at somebody’s house, us four, my
sister and her boyfriend and me and my boyfriend and then the other couple, and play
rook.
RB: But that’s as far as you could go.
RS: That’s right. Well, he wouldn’t even let us play rook at home.
34
?: You’d meet at somebody else’s house.
RS: Yes.
?: Now that was dating, you talked about—
RS: That was dating, but that was after—I was teaching school then.
?: Oh, my goodness. Now, I was trying to think, now, Mrs.—the lady this morning said that
she would have liked to have learned to dance, but dancing was not allowed until after
she got out. Now, whom have we spoken with who talked about people dancing? Girls
dancing together, but no boys ever being around to dance?
RB: I know that’s what they tell me, girls from the 1926 class, but you haven’t talked to any
of them.
?: They say there weren’t any boys around, either, to dance? They danced together.
RS: Well, you know boys don’t care about dancing as much as girls, I don’t believe. Because
out at the country club, when our daughters used to go out dancing there, there’d be boys
standing around and sometimes two girls would dance together. Well, finally, though, my
husband and I took dancing lessons. A bunch—that’s been ages ago. And we had dancing
in the homes, and then we used to go up to Brown Mountain Beach, you ever hear of that
place? And you could rent a cottage or a cabin up there, and maybe two or three nights a
week, they’d have dancing down in the hall. And I know one night a man came over,
asked me could he dance with my daughter. They played some kind of a hillbilly song, I
don’t know. But I think he’d had a drink or two. [laughter] I said “I’m sorry, but she
doesn’t dance.” I didn’t want her to dance with him.
?: Brown Mountain—the only thing I’ve ever heard about Brown Mountain is the Brown
Mountain Light.
RS: Yes. Well, you can see that at places at the beach. I’ve seen it.
?: There’s a lake there, then.
RS: Yeah, a stream, but they kind of fix a big lake there. But I couldn’t swim, and we’d spend
about six weeks every summer up there, when the children were little. And all of them
could swim, and they’d have the best time.
?: Sure. Great. Well, it must be cool here in the summer.
RS: It is, it’s much nicer here in the summertime than down in Burling—Greensboro. You
know, in the summertime down there sometimes it’d be so hot and all you couldn’t even
put powder on your face or get ready for a date if you had one.
35
?: But here it’s certainly cooler.
RS: It’s cooler, yes. Now, we have air conditioning. Of course, my husband has it so cool at
the plant that when he comes over he’ll turn the air conditioning up a bunch, but I freeze
to death.
?: You don’t like it. We don’t like it, we don’t have it at our house.
RS: You don’t? But we have it, and—
?: We have a ceiling fan, and then we have a lot of trees around the house and we don’t—
RS: We had a whole lot of trees until they trimmed them the other week.
?: Yeah, I noticed you had [unclear]
RS: They trim them down close.
?: It’ll take them a while to come back, but they’ll be nice then.
RS: The people used to sell lumber off of the farms over here, and I know—I guess it was this
farm first—no, it was another farm up here. He sold all the trees off of it and let my
husband have it just for nothing almost, so we started buying farms around it that nobody
wanted, and people were going to town. So now we have about a little over a thousand
acres.
?: Now, do you mainly graze—have grazing?
RS: Just have cows, yes. We have cows. Now, across the street over there, that’s ours.
?: Now, this is milk cows?
RS: No, no, no milk cows.
?: Beef cattle.
RS: Yes, beef cattle.
?: That’s what I thought.
RS: And now they have little babies, though, and they nurse them.
?: Oh, that’s wonderful. Early this—is it—
RS: And we have the best superintendent of the farm, and he has too many helping him, but
there isn’t anything that he can’t do. He’s kind of a doctor, and if a cow gets—now, we
36
have two horses, and they got foundered in the hooves, the toenails or what do you call it.
The hooves grew out, and we had a—what do you call a—
RB: Veterinarian.
RS: No.
?: Blacksmith.
RS: That shoes horses.
?: Blacksmith.
RB: Blacksmith. Horseshoer.
RS: There’s a big other funny name.
RB: Farrier?
RS: Farrier. He comes around once in a while.
?: Oh!
RS: And so he had the—shoed them, cut the hooves of the horses and now Charlie does it, he
doesn’t have to have him.
?: Because he watched.
RS: Yes.
?: You know, one thing we should do on this is get her whole name before we quit
unwinding it. Because you said just Mrs. So-and-so. It should be Mrs. your first name
and your last name—you know, her maiden name. Whittemore.
RB: Right. You’re Ruth Whittemore Sherrill.
RS: Yes.
?: Right, because you’ve got Mrs. Sherrill in there.
RB: Now of [address redacted].
RS: Is what?
RB: You’re at [address redacted] [discussion regarding address redacted]
37
RS: Now, our name used to be on the mailbox. Somebody—they were selling them, and I
think my husband bought it and they put it up. But then somebody shot it down or it got
broke down. So my son said “Don’t ever put your name back up there, because they
know—” Our house has been broken into twice. But one time they took the old clock,
belonged to my great grandmother, and my grandmother said she was just a little girl
when they bought it second handed. That and a little television in the kitchen. And then
the next time they came in, they took a gun out of the gun closet, one of these high-powered,
you shoot way off with it, I forget what it was called. And then we had a
burglar alarm on, and since we’ve had that on [extraneous discussion about burglar alarm
redacted]
[End of Interview]