Interview with Mrs. Earlene Allmond
March 22, 2003
Interviewed by Otelia Crawley-Hendrick
Mrs. Allmond attend the Muddy Fork School, located in the area of Longview. Two other named were used for that school-Peahill and Muddy Cross.
Q: How are you doing?
A: I’m doing real well. I got a little aggravated with myself because I took the wrong road. I should have come out up there and I went all the way pass Sandy Mount. A lot of extra driving.
Q: That’s all right. What area of Isle of Wight did you grow up in? Did they have a special name that they called that area?
A: It was Longview.
Q: Longview?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you have any sisters and brothers, if so, how many?
A: I had four sisters and two brothers.
Q: What school did you attend?
A: I went to P-Hill, Old Muddy Cross P-Hill School.
Q: Did your sisters and brothers also go to that school?
A: Yeah, they went there also ahead of me.
Q: Tell me where was P-Hill or Muddy Cross School located?
A: It was located between No. 10 and 644, Highway 644.
Q: What grades were taught there?
A: From first to the seventh.
Q: How many classrooms?
A: We had two at one time and eventually they opened a third one.
Q: How many teachers?
A: We had, ah, what you talking about at different times or all together?
Q: At one particular day how many teachers were there?
A: Oh, they had two.
Q: When they opened up to make a third classroom they had another teacher?
A: They had another teacher.
Q: Do you recall the names of any of the teachers at all?
A: One was Miss Estelle Wilson. Then she married and she was Mrs. Estelle Jordan. The other one was Mattie Jordan, which was Estelle’s sister-in-law.
Q: They taught there the entire time that you were there?
A: The time that I was there.
Q: Do you call any of the names of some of your classmates?
A: Oh yeah, quite a few. Let’s see, we had ah Edith Chapman, Carrie Chapman, Thornton Edwards, Estelle Edwards, Eunice Savage, Celestine Savage, Magnolia _________. Of course, the two I called were Edwardses. Bessie Crawley Allmond and quite a few more.
Q: All right, that was very good. Do you have any information about the history of P-Hill Muddy Cross School?
A: I don’t have very much history. They had the name up over the door, which was P-Hill. It was built in 1919. I think it was. I think that’s when it was.
Q: Do you know who participated in the building of that school?
A: No, because that was kind of ahead of my time.
Q: When was it closed?
A: When was it closed? I had graduated from there when it closed so I really don’t know when they moved and started going to Bridger when Bridger was built.
Q: How did you get to school?
A: I walked.
Q: Approximately how many miles was that?
A: It was approximately five to six miles, I’m sure.
Q: One way or going and coming?
A: One way.
Q: Did you have special jobs to do before you went to school in the morning, and when you went home after school, did you have special jobs?
A: Okay, I guess we brought in wood for keeping heat and cooking. Sometime we carried in water for washing, so forth and so on. We didn’t have nothing special to do. My parents always did all that stuff and my older sisters.
Q: So they sort of spoiled you?
A: Yeah, I was sorta spoiled. I didn’t have to do much.
Q: Okay, so what chores did you have to do at school?
A: Well, we washed the blackboard, cleaned the erasers, brought in water, if it wasn’t any boys around, and helped sweep the floors, pick up paper, and so forth. Nothing drastic.
Q: How did your school day start? What time in the morning did you have to be at school? How long did it last?
A: We were supposed to be at school, the bell ring at 9:00 o’clock. And we were out at 3. We had a ten-minute recess before 12 and we had at lunchtime we had like or 20 minutes, I think. Then we had another little ten-minute break before 3. That was it.
Q: What subjects were taught at your school?
A: We had reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling, English, geography, history, and some science.
Q: They really taught a lot there. Were there any particular or special textbooks that you used, or readers?
A: I should remember the name of some of them, but I don’t necessarily remember all that.
Q: What about the reader books, who did you read about?
A: We read about—I don’t know why Pocahontas come in my mind—but anyway Pocahontas, Hiawatha, and John Smith and all those good folk.
Q: What about spelling?
A: Spelling was just ordinary words. I remember we did have in one of our spelling classes we had like a little four line thing we supposed to write. As she call it and we supposed to write it by memory. I remember one of them was “the sun often wakes me in the morning; it shines through my open window; it touches my face with bright fingers; I know I cannot sleep any longer, but I lie still and wait to hear a call.” I can remember that one, but that’s the only one I remember out of all of them. We had a lot of them—about four or five. And we were supposed to write them by memory.
Q: How was the school separated as far as the grades? Was it one long building?
A: It was shaped something like an L Like two long to the front and one to the back or two to the side and one to the front—something like an L.
Q: What did your classroom look like? Was there anything on the walls or any information? Was there any kind of information up on the wall like ABCs?
A: I think they had them on the blackboard.
Q: How would your school day start? Once you reported in and the school bell rang at nine, then once you went inside the school what did you do next?
A: We opened with a devotion. We’d sing a song and we’d some time do Bible verses and some time we’d do the Lord’s Prayer, and then we’d have another little song. One of our songs, “My Faith Looks Up To Thee”, I remember that one.
Q: I think that song got passed along. It’s probably one that was shared by various two- and three-room schools among the African-Americans to sing “My Faith Looks Up To Thee”. How did the teacher go about teaching each grade level?
A: She took them by class. We had two or three classes in one room. I think it went from First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh, I think. Or either Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh. She’d call whichever first. First they’d go up there and do whatever they had to do then the others would go. We did it like, if it was reading we’d go up and read standup and everybody would read a portion of the story. And if it was spelling we’d stand she’d give us a word and everybody would spell. And the one that missed it would go to the next one. And the same thing with geography. Now you didn’t have stand for that. You just drew a map or learned the states or whatever that was. We just passed that in, if I remember correctly.
Q: You seem to be doing very good.
A: Arithmetic we had adding, subtraction, multiplication, long division, and short division. We did that from the book. You know we’d get the example and we’d work it and turn that in.
Q: Did they give you a lot homework to do?
A: No, we didn’t have homework. That was up to us, I suppose. She didn’t assign us any. It was up to us to study. Very often we’d have a story or something to read and come back and kinda narrate that what we had read what we could remember.
Q: In your reading did you have “Spot” and “Jane”? Did you read about “Spot”?
A: Yeah, read in the Primmer. “Dick” and “Jane”, I think it was.
Q: And “Puff”.
A: Yeah.
Q: You mentioned earlier about your lunch, the recess before lunch. How long was your lunch period?
A: I think that must have been about 20 minutes, I guess. I really think it was shorter than we wanted. That’s all I can remember.
Q: Where did you eat lunch?
A: We carried our own lunches. We carried some had lunch boxes, some had brown paper bags, and we carried food according to the season. Like in the wintertime we had fresh meat, we’d take sausage biscuits and egg. And we’d have preserves. My mother used to dry apples. She’d very often make applejacks. We’d take an applejack. So we had different things that we carried.
Q: That sounds like good eating. Did you get to eat inside the classroom or did you have to go outside?
A: If it was raining, we ate inside. If it was dry, now the church was right next door, and it had a big stoop like so lots of us would go over there and eat. Eventually, I think they stopped us from going over there, if I’m not mistaken. I guess, as we got bigger we got to acting ugly, I suppose because when you smaller you act better than you do the older you get.
Q: What did you do at recess?
A: We played stickball, dodge ball, ring-around-the-Rosie, go in and out the middle whatever that is. I think that’s the ring-around-the-Rosie as far as I know. But anyhow we had little games we played.
Q: Did the girls and boys play together?
A: Yeah, we played together.
Q: What about the lighting and the heating?
A: Well, we heated by wood stove. What kind of light did we have, I guess we went by sunlight because we didn’t have electricity. So we went by just sunlight.
Q: Were the windows tall?
A: Yeah, they had tall windows and high so we couldn’t set and look out, you know, to see what was going on outside. But if you stood up you could see out. The heating we had wood. The parents would bring wood. Different parents would bring wood. Some time it would be cut in stove length and then again I think some of them had to be sawed off after got to school, because I remember the little thing they put up to lay the wood on to saw. The students had to do that.
Q: To saw the wood?
A: Yeah, if it was brought in long length, but if it was cut in stove length they didn’t. It was already in a pile. We had a woodshed that the wood was kept in.
Q: What about the water supply? Where did you get your water?
A: We had a pump that act up whenever it wanted to. It was one that they called lose and you had to prime it. You had to pour water in it while somebody pumped and you pour the water in and keep on like that until it got the suction and then it would come out.
Q: Whose assignment was to get the water? Who had to get the water, the girls?
A: The boys would mostly bring the water in.
Q: What about the restrooms? Did you have indoor?
A: We had outdoor restrooms. If I’m not mistaken, I think my Daddy built one of the restrooms that was set apart from the school. Had one for the girls on one side and down further up kinda back in the bushes they had one for the boys.
Q: What was your Daddy’s name?
A: Robert Williams, Robert Henry Williams.
Q: Would you be surprised if I said that old schoolhouse as well as the church, Muddy Cross, nicknamed church Bethany Christian was partially built by Charlie Ensley, who happened to have been my great-great grandfather?
A: Yeah.
Q: Now tell me about your teacher’s desk. What did it look like?
A: The teacher’s desk?
Q: Yes, do you recall what was on her desk? Did she have
A: We had right nice furniture. So she had a desk with, I think it had a place there for things to go under the desk. She wouldn’t allow us to play around there. The seats that we had some of them had the desk with a back. I wasn’t there when they had the ink well, but some of those desks had inkwells. You had to put your ink pen in there and dip it to write. By the time we went to school they didn’t have that. We still had the desks, but we didn’t have to use the inkwells.
Q: What year did you start going to that school?
A: Oh boy, all right I’m 83 now and I think we started at seven years old. We didn’t go quite as early as they go now. I think I started at seven years old. I must started going 1925, I guess.
Q: Tell me something about your teachers. Do you recall any specific thing about them that was funny or their behavior?
A: I can tell you about my first grade teacher. She lived down in Carrollton. And, of course, we didn’t have transportation anything like we have now. Her parents had provided her with a mule and buggy. She used to drive the mule and buggy to school. The mule was named Charlie and the boys would go out and tie it up for her. She’d bring a bale of hay, not a bale, some hay along to give it for it to eat.
Q: What was her name?
A: Miss Mattie Jordan. She did never marry. She was a spinster. Miss Estelle Wilson roomed with Miss Carrie Johnson at close to No. Ten. She used to walk ‘cause it wasn’t that; it was a good little ways, too. I remember one morning she came and she was so cold she had turned right blue, I guess . I think she put her hands in cold water, I know. I don’t think she dipped them in warm water ‘cause that would have made it worse. But any way, she was quite cold when she got to school. That’s all I can tell you some mornings.
Q: Who heated up the classroom to get the fire started?
A: The boys always started the fire. I think she probably had assignments for different ones to come early to get the fires going. Some time I didn’t get there that early so I don’t know who did it. But I’m sure they were the ones that did it.
Q: Did you have a chalkboard?
A: Yeah, what we called a blackboard. And we had the chalk, white chalk. That came in little packages about this long.
Q: Was it used in each classroom?
A: Yeah, each classroom had a chalkboard, if you want to call it that.
Q: Are there any other school supplies that you recall? Where did you keep your books?
A: In the desk, if you didn’t want to take them home. Some we didn’t have to take home you could leave it in your desk. But as a rule, we carried our books home. We had a book bag. My mother used to make.
Some of us were fortunate enough to be able to buy the ones out the store, but my mother used to sew so she used to buy denim and make our book bags.
Q: That was very unique.
A: It used to have a place there for your pencil, and a little place for your ruler. We used to have a six-inch ruler, I think, we used to use. Stick that down in there.
Q: What about a cloakroom? Did your school have a cloakroom or wall hook?
A: No, we didn’t have cloakroom. We had a thing on the wall with hooks on it and you’d hang your coats. We had a big ole wood box we used to put the wood in when they brought it in so they wouldn’t have to go out every time they needed wood for the stove.
Q: In the summer time when the weather was very hot what did you do for air conditioning?
A: Open the windows.
Q: Did you open them from the top or from the top and the bottom, or just from the bottom?
A: They opened from the bottom. I don’t think these went but one way.
Q: Are there some school experiences that you would like to share?
A: Experiences?
Q: Yes, that you had while you were going to school, on your way walking to school or going back home or while you were at school.
A: The experiences we had very often when it would rain like we have a lot of rain this winter, the swamps where we had to cross over would swell and my parents and other parents would put logs or planks or something across there to walk on. Lot of time the water would come over and we’d have to hop, skip, or jump over those places to get to the other side. Some time the thing would be kind of rocky so it would be kind of frightening, so I guess that was kind of an experience getting over that swamp to get to school. Not only that one, they joined. The one we went ‘cross from my house the water went that way so we had to cross it like this. When we got down a little further and turned the water come this way and we had to go cross like that. So we had to do two before we got to school.
Q: How many miles did you have to walk to get to school?
A: I think about six, six to seven miles.
Q: One way or?
A: One way.
Q: Did you and your sisters and brothers go together or were there other children in the neighborhood that walked along with you?
A: Yeah, it was some children in the neighborhood that went, but I was on the end of the line. So I only went with two of my sisters, because my older sisters and brothers had gone on and graduated or quit or whatever they had done. Very often we would have other people after the school closed up at Christian Home, some of the students that went to that school came to P-Hill. They would come through our yard and we’d all get together and go to school.
Q: So the school at Christian Home closed up a long time before?
A: Before P-Hill.
Q: I believe that’s the school building that they are wanting to move to Isle of Wight County.
A: Yeah, Christian Home.
Q: Are there any other (END OF TAPE)
Q: Let’s go back a little bit to when the Christian Home School closed. Do you recall any of the names of the students who went to P-Hill or who didn’t go to P-Hill?
A: That come from Christian Home?
Q: Yes.
A: Yeah, it was the Jordan family, one of the Jordan families—Claudine, Gertrude, Betty, Margaret and it was some more of ‘em but them three the ones I remember. The others had probably gone ahead or whatever. And then they had the Dardens—Dorothy Darden, Geraldine Darden, and they were living up there with up on the Christian Home Road. Some more of the Dardens that moved closer to P-Hill, so they didn’t come through our yard but they still went to school. I couldn’t think of those just now when I was calling Manly Darden and Kate and Corinthius and Cora.
Q: So they walked from their home?
A: Yeah, they walked from their home. Nobody had transportation unless it rained or snowed. Then our parents would come and pick us up or take us out or something like that.
Q: How did your parents pick you up?
A: With the horse and cart or poor gal, whatever was convenient.
Q: So some of the Jordan girls went to P-Hill School, too?
A: Yeah, eventually.
Q: Are there any other early childhood memories that you can recall about your growing up?
A: No, no more than I just grew up. I know ah she used to a nurse used to come. I think it was a nurse. I know we used to weigh, I don’t know if it was the beginning of the school year or the closing. But I remember I would gain ten pounds each year between school closing and the time I went back. And I think by the time I got to weigh 99 pounds I think I stopped right there.
Q: What time did you start school and when did it end?
A: We started in May. Wait a minute. I guess we started in January and closed in May and June.
Q: Closed in June?
A: We started in January.
Q: So you went to school for just a few months out of the year?
A: Yeah, I think so. ‘Cause we had like three months vacation. I think it was three. January, February, March, April, May. We closed in May and June. I think we came out in June. But I don’t ever remember going in December, or any of the other winter months. I think we went most of the winter months. I’m not really sure of that ‘cause I had never thought about it really.
Q: Some of it probably makes sense because during the winter time there wasn’t much farming going on and having to harvest different crops.
A: Right.
Q: After attending school what sort of jobs or changes or experiences do you recall that happened in your county?
A: After school closed, at home?
Q: At home and in your community.
A: My Daddy was a farmer. So when we were home we helped to harvest whatever, or chopped out the grass or whatever was supposed to be done. I guess that’s some of the things we did when we come from school. Pick some cotton and stuff, you know, and chop peanuts, replant corn, and we did whatever was necessary to be done.
Q: Do you think that the education that you received helped to prepare you for a type of job or work that you wanted that you did do in your lifetime?
A: Well, I think the reading; spelling and arithmetic gave us more of a head start with whatever was necessary for later in life. I love to read and could spell at one time right good. Some time now those four- letter and five-letter words kinda get me baffled. Anyway, arithmetic was good to help us in our figuring and calculating and so forth.
Q: What sort of discipline did your parents apply at home versus the discipline that your teachers had for you?
A: The teacher had a little stash of switches in the corner and if we didn’t behave she’d switch whoever was necessary to be switched. The parents didn’t object like they do now. If a teacher hit a child now, she going to jail or somewhere. Anyway, the same applied for home. If we didn’t behave, we’d get a switching. Nothing severe, but we would know…I never like to get switched so I always tried to behave.
Q: If the teacher sent you parents a note home?
A: Never for me…never had to send a note for me. We did get in some little push and shoves every once in a while, but wasn’t nothing severe enough to write no note about.
Q: Tell us a little bit about the highlights of your life. Give us just a little brief autobiography of yourself. Just tell us about yourself.
A: I never had a very exciting life, necessarily. I was never sick so much. And if I was like when they had like ah measles or head colds or viruses or whatever, I’d always be the last one to get it, so that was a plus, I think. Other than that everything was nice. Like I said, my mother used to sew and we would get our little Easter clothes and swish around and thought we was top dog then, you know. That was the main thing. We had a very simple life, nothing exciting.
Q: Were you the youngest?
A: Yeah, I was the youngest, so I was mostly by myself, so it wasn’t a whole lot of stuff to get into to, you know, to do or anything.
Q: Are you married?
A: Now?
Q: Did you get married back then?
A: Oh yeah. I did marry.
Q: Did you have children?
A: Had four.
Q: What were they, boys?
A: One boy and three girls.
Q: Mrs. Earlene Byrd Allmond, I do thank you for allowing me to interview you for this schoolhouse project. Is there anything else you would like to share about yourself, or your children, or your school days?
A: I think we done hit the most that is necessary.
Q: Well, thank you very much.
A: You most welcome. Okay, we had ah I guess I had to repeat again James Crawley, Robert Crawley, Anna Ensley, Athalon Walker, James Evans, James Birdsong, Niesie Birdsong, Desi Wyzee Birdsong, she went by Briggs, I think. I don’t need that and it’s ever so many more. If I’d been thinking what the interview would be like I coulda recalled more of the names.
Q: You’ve done very well.
A: Wilma Symms, Garfield Symms,
Q: That’s good.
A: Eunice Chapman.
Q: So you had fond memories of your school days?
A: Yeah, very fond memories of and at the end of each school year we’d always have a little ah, pageant like, I guess, a little program. And we’d always do that in the church. We’d go over and practice then we’d have the parents to come to see what we had learned and what we were doing. That was quite enjoyable.
Q: How far was the church from?
A: It was right across—the road separated the church. In other words, Muddy Cross Road came through here and the school was here and the church was there, so we just run across the road to the church.
Q: You used the church as a part of like an auditorium for the school?
A: Yeah. We would hang sheets across the roster so we could dress behind it and then come out and perform or whatever we had to do. It was all very nice. I remember one year when the truck farm was having string beans and different things to pick and some of the students would go to do that, what they called a truck farm. Like I said, my parents were farmers so by me being on the end, I didn’t necessarily have to go to help earn this money, you know, to help support the family. Dorothy Copeland and myself was the only two in school for about three weeks. She was in Miss Mattie room; I was in Miss Estelle room. We go out for lunch and she and I would set out and share our lunch on the church step. We did that for ‘bout three weeks. After the truck farming stuff was all picked, then the other children came on back to school. We went back playing ball and whatever else was necessary. It was quite a—nothing I’d want go back to, but it was nice at that time.
Q: All right, well, thank you very much, Mrs. Allmond. I do sincerely appreciate your taking the time with us today.
A: You’re welcome. Okay.