We are at Sweet Haven Church. I am Jean Uzzle and I’m going to interview Mr. Clem Batten. Mr. Batten what area of Isle of Wight did you grow up in?
A: I grew up in Carrollton, part of Isle of Wight.
Q: How many sisters and brothers did you have?
A: 14.
Q: 14 sisters and brothers?
A: Yes I did. Big family!
Q: Big Family! They‘d say the big families is where you find the food. What schools did they attend?
A: All of us attended the Carrollton School.
Q: That’s the school you attended too?
A: I attended Carrollton School, yes.
Q: What grades were taught at Carrollton School, do you remember?
A: The 1st grade through the 7th grade.
Q: How many classrooms were there in Carrollton School?
A: 2 classrooms.
Q: 2 classrooms, so that was 2 teachers?
A: 2 teachers, one in each classroom. One taught from the 1st through the 3rd and the other one, 4th through the 7th.
Q: Can you remember their names?
A: Mrs. H.E.Day for the 4th through the 7th. And Mrs. Carrie Bowman was from the pre-premier through the 3rd grade.
Q: Can you remember what year that was?
A: I was placed in the school because of my age being in that my birthday came in November. So I went there from the 7 years old which was 1937. I went there about 7 years. In fact it took more than that because we would just go there so many days because the fact that we worked on the farm. Sometime you did not make that grade for that year.
Q: Cause you had to spend more time on the farm?
A: Spend more time on the farm. Sometime we start school and then stopped to farm and then start back to school and stop again to that point.
Q: I imagine all the younger men did that?
A: All the younger.
Q: Do you know the history of Carrollton School? Do you know who was the beginning of it; who got Carrollton School built? Was it privately owned or did the state own it?
A: This was state owned at the time but before then they did have a private owned school. When they built this school the guy who owned the property donated that land to them and they, actually the county built the school.
Q: How did you get to school?
A: Walked!
Q: So how far, how many miles did it take, you think you walked?
A: From Nansemond Bridge to Carrollton School was about 6, that’s 6 miles each way.
Q: So that was really 12 miles a day?
A: 12 miles a day.
Q: Nice little walk, wasn’t it?
A: It was a long walk. Especially in the wintertime, it was really cold or the summer time, it was really hot.
Q: What jobs did you do before you went to school and after school? Did you have some jobs to do before you went to school and when you get home in the afternoon?
A: Always had something to do in the morning, such as, because a large family, a lot a washing went on, they carried the water about, I guess a quarter of a mile to go get the water and bring it to the house for washing before you go to school…and get up to feed the chickens, horse and all that type of thing. In the evening come I only had to cut the wood for both stoves or either we gather some wood on Saturday. But we had to cut it every evening when you come home and go in the field and work till just about dark before you come in the house to do your little homework.
Q: So you had a busy day?
A: Busy day yeah it was busy.
Q: Now once you got to school did you have chores to do at school?
A: Oh yes! At school we had to clean the school room and we had to cut wood, go out and get kindling in the evening cause to make the fire the next morning in the winter time. And they had some big wood but we had to go chop it up it up or either that, sometimes the wood wouldn’t come and we’d go in the woods and cut trees.
Q: How did your school day begin? Once you got to school and it was in the winter and you got your fire going, how did your day begin before you...?
A: It began with a song and a prayer. Always sang a song and had the Lord’s Prayer before we went to the classroom. All the classes would meet in one room and then have that and then report to our class.
Q: What subjects did you have?
A: Oh we had regular subjects: Reading, English, Arithmetic, Geography, History.
Q: Was there a special textbook or reader book that you liked when you went to school?
A: Peter and Peggy; I will never forget Peter and Peggy. I’d read that book and then I got some, I knew that book. I could read that book without the book.
Q: Without the book?
A: Without the book. Verbatim.
Q: How long was your school day?
A: We went to school 9 o’clock in the morning and I think we stayed till 3:15.
Q: O. K. How long was the school year?
A: 9 months. Because we started in, started in the 1st of September, the 28th of August really and then go until the end of June.
Q: Where did you eat your lunch and how long did you have for lunch?
A: We had 30 minutes to eat it. Most of the time we had it in a brown bag that we carried to school with us. And we would eat any where; sit on the outside as long as we kept the paper up off the ground.
Q: Did you have a recess other than your lunch?
A: Yes, we had 10 o’clock in the morning; we have 10 minutes recess. We would go out for 10 minutes, play around. Go back and we had 10 minute recess about 2 in the evening. We had 2-10 minute recess. The first one we played games because the teacher would come out and that would be your physical ed. at that time. But the 2 o’clock one you could just about do, play like you want to.
Q: What was some of the games that you all played? Can you remember?
A: Yes. Hop Foot, La La on the grass hand and swing them around and pop them off. Shot marbles, we shot marbles, bob jacks, played baseball with a sock. Take a sock and stuff it and played it, played baseball in the back. So many of them you didn’t get to play everyday. You would get to play some days.
Q: How would describe your classroom at school? What did the room look like?
A: Well it was just a room. It didn’t have a lot of picture on the wall, just the blackboard. Blackboard took up a whole side. Windows on in one side all the way down and they had the coatroom on the end. Well they had, in the middle you had folding doors cause the 2 classrooms so when you have a big gathering closed the doors so it was used as 1 room.
Q: How was the school heated in the winter time?
A: Potbelly wood stove. Yes in deed. You have to get there early in the morning and make the fire. The boys had to make the fire…and get the room heated but it didn’t, most the time in the wintertime it didn’t get warm until round after lunch the stove would heat up the room. You couldn’t stand around until 9 o’clock, 9 o’clock you had to leave that stove.
Q: Where was the restroom?
A: The restroom down in the woods. We had, I guess, it was 200 feet from the school back in the woods there, the boys on one side and girls on the other side back in the woods. That’s were we had to go to the bathroom.
Q: Well, where did you get you water?
A: Well, well. Had a well sitting in front of the school. Get certain people go there and pump for their children. Been good all day you get a chance to go pump the water and bring it in. Had a cooler, set it out and pour it in the cooler and little cups that you drink. We had to bring our own little cup. Had these little push up cup,
Q: The little fold-up ones, yeah?
A: The little fold-up yeah! Drink in our own cup. Wasn’t allowed to drink behind somebody else, it wasn’t sanitary.
Q: All right! How would you describe your teacher’s desk?
A: Teacher’s desk was most of time would be piled up. She’d have, cause see she had every grade she taught, you go around the desk and for the teaching of the class…and she would put those paper and pile them up on her desk. And she had a junky desk but she knew where it was, because she had to correct the papers.
Q: Describe your desk, what as your desk like?
A: We had to keep our desk top clean. We had this, in the 1st grade we had single desk for the 1st classroom, single desk to keep our books up under. More or less like the desks are today. But when you got to the 4th desk they had the wide desk where 2 persons could set in the desk.
Q: So it was double sitting as you got larger? You did tell me that you all had the blackboard, the chalkboard?
A: Oh yes, we had the blackboard, the chalkboard…and the good part about that is that if you messed up in the daytime you have to stay after school to clean the blackboard. We didn’t call it the chalkboard, we called it the blackboard. We had to go there and clean the blackboard and all the erasers and beat out all the dust and bring them back…and the teacher would stay there and inspect them to make sure they were clean. Cause don’t you take them eraser and you beat some of them and you bring them back piled up and your spread them out there she wouldn’t look at them, you been done left a lot of powder in them.
Q: All right can you remember whether your school supplies, whether you had to furnish your own supplies or did the county give you your supplies?
A: We had to furnish our own supplies. The teacher would at times, if you came to them without a pencil or paper, and a lot of kids didn’t have them, they couldn’t afford it and the teacher would give them paper and pencil and I assume she brought them out of her funds.
Q: Did the teacher have any aid or anything on the wall pertaining to learning of your lessons like on the walls-maybe maps or something of that sort that you can remember?
A; She had a map sitting on her desk, a round one. That’s the only map that and when we doing geography she always had that map available for us to lookup certain things. But other than that there was nothing on the board.
Q: Now did the primary part, did they have their alphabets or something like that on there?
A: What they do had on the corner of the blackboard, have the tables, tables 2x2 is 4. They had something like that on there and their ABCs was across the top of the blackboard all the way down. And they had that, the big A and the little a and the big B and the little b.
Q: Now the lighting in the school how was it? Was it electricity or was it kerosene lamps or was it natural light through the windows?
A: It was electric but it only had 2 bulbs in the room. So actually the light really came through the windows. We used daylight coming through the window mostly. Cause when it got cloudy a lot, we turn them lights on but they didn’t give you much light because the room was pretty good for 2 lights.
Q: All right. Did you have somewhere to hang your coats?
Yeah, we had what you call cloakroom and you put your coat in there in the cloakroom because you won’t allowed to keep them in the seats, so you put them in the cloakroom, hang them up in the cloakroom.
Q: What was discipline like in school when you were there?
A: The cloakroom was __ off, that’s where they would take you really give you the going over. Or they would come to the bench or seat sometime, stick your hand out and take the ruler and whipped you in the hand. But if they take you in that cloakroom and they whip you right cross the rump or pulled your birches up and whip your legs. Yeah the teacher would take you in the cloakroom and give you a good going over.
Q: Well do you thing that perhaps made the kids more respectful or behave better in school than the kids do now?
A: Well for some that, no, that would make you love your teacher. You loved your teacher for disciplining you. Today I think about if the teacher had not had disciplined me where would I have been. See cause I was...
Q: Yeah you could have been behind the bars?
A: Yeah, I would. I was one of these little rough boys…and, but I loved the teacher and I had respect for the teacher because the teacher would come down and see mama and daddy. And if things didn’t go well that day Mrs. Day would come on down there, Mrs. White rather at the time, she would come on down there and to see my mama. Many times I had blocked her out, take a log and put it across the fence; _______ and she couldn’t with that log out of there so she couldn’t get in. I was very mischievous…and I...
Q: You were?
A: Yeah, I was. So I went and blocked her out…and then she would get out that car and walk to the house to tell mama. Mama would give you another scorcher and you go back and move that log too. Yeah, she did that. You just can’t, won’t no such thing as talking back to the teacher. Kids do in this day and time and say anything that come in their mind to the teacher and the teacher would burn you and take you on home. And sometimes she would, Mrs. White, would leave the class and take me in the car and carry me home.
Q: You were bad, weren’t you?
A: I was bad yeah I was bad. I won’t minding them __ I was bad but …
Q: What she did for and what your mama, parents did for you made a man out of you?
A: Yes she did. Even through I was bad she showed that kind of motherly love for me…and you see on the last end of she and I was the best of friends. I go down and cut her grass on Saturday and bust my gut for her, cause she was a fine person.
Q: That’s good. So do you think that teachers then were more dedicated than teachers are today?
A: It’s difficult to say, more dedicated. You got to know. You knew one another more so than they do today. See today you go to the teacher for one class and then you move on to the next class to another teacher. Well this teacher taught all 4 classes and you had 5 subjects, she taught all 5 subjects so she…
Q: She had you all day, you spent more time with that one teacher, it that what you are trying to say?
A: Right, You spent more time with that teacher than you did with your mama because you would be see at night and that teacher you would have about all day.
Q: So that was a positive memory of your teachers, wasn’t it?
A: Yeah, it was that.
Q: O.K. now were there any negative memories of your teacher or your school days or students that you went to school with? Was there something that happened that you didn’t really like and it was something that was always stuck with you?
A: I didn’t like that cloakroom but that was my fault…and a lot of times, the teacher would, you get out and something would happen, they didn’t send you home for it…and most kids would get a whipping for it. If you got in a fight with a kid, another kid, both of you would get a whipping. I didn’t think that was right because sometimes the other would start first but knowing my attitude at the school I couldn’t tell them I hadn’t done nothing cause see she knew if I hadn’t done nothing the 1st chance I get I was going to do something so go head on and bless me in time because I feel like they owe it to me.
Q: Are there any other additional school experience that you had while you were in school that you would like to tell us, tell me about other than telling me you were mischievous and into everything?
A: The beautiful part about it was every year we had school closing. See from the pre-primer right on out to the pre-primary, that’s what they called it then. But it’s the preprimary now right on out to the 7th grade. Every year you had a school program. And you learned a poem and every holiday you had a school closing, like Christmas. You learned a poem and the family would come out and that’s when they opened up them doors. The parents would come out and hear you speak that piece and they had ice cream and cake and all …
Q: Homemade ice cream?
A: Homemade ice cream, yeah! And if you get to stay after school to freeze that and they go home and you get the dash for freezing it…and then they had May Day. You wrap the May Pole. My goodness, everybody would be there. The school would be run over with people. You’d bring your little brother or little sister on with you that day. And get out to play games and that day we didn’t do nothing, but it was activity like day. You play and something that you did down through the years, you get a chance to show them to your parents. You would stick that on the bulletin for that day. And exhibit day, it was something, it was something to behold. and kids don’t have that relationship with the school. And some of them hardly know who their teachers are. You ask them who teach you so and so, they got to stop and think about who taught them that today. But then, we knew, we had a close relationship. Like I said the teacher was just like mama, they were sweet, yeah they were, they were sweet. And they felt like I guess they felt like we were their kids. I mean that’s all they knew. And most of them, Mrs. White or Ms. Carrie. Ms. Carrie had one kid and Mrs. White didn’t have any kids. We were her kids. And she loved us. And we loved her even through we were mischievous we loved her.
Q: All right so they are some special memories that you have that will always stick with you, isn’t it, in the May Days and the school closings and all that?
A: And get new clothes for that thing too. Go over there and you going to stand up there. I can remember now some of the poems that I learned at that time. I heard my cousin, he’s say used to say, ‘Robin is a friendly bird’. And all that type of thing about the birds and ___ day, different things in the air, the trees, talked about the trees and Santa Claus and all. I think about sometimes now it gives me inward, a good feeling, like a spiritual feeling. And I am so grateful to those people, they passed but I am grateful to them for what they did for me and the same thing they done for me they did for a lot of others.
Q: That’s wonderful. That is beautiful childhood memories that you have from school, with your bad self.
A: I like the way you put it. I probably robbed some other kids of what they could have learned at a time like in those days.
Q: No I think those teachers really just put themselves completely into their children so, maybe you didn’t. Maybe a few minutes might have gone where she could have spent it somewhere else.
A: See, parents worked with the teacher. If you were bad like today and they didn’t go there and tell the teacher come tell mama something about me, mama won’t going to jump on that teacher. She was going get me because she know that teacher ain’t coming in and telling her something wrong that I didn’t do. Ain’t no point in telling her that I didn’t do it. My best bet is to tell my mama I’m sorry. And see but with God-fearing parents it makes a difference anyway. The people today, our parents don’t really, ain’t really dedicated to the children like parents of the children of yesterday. It just seem like to me that parents want to be, want children for their friends or associates where as then I came along parents were parents. I won’t mama’s buddy or daddy’s buddy, no, we didn’t hang together. Where I hung, daddy didn’t hang and where daddy hang I better not show up there.
Q: Well that does make a difference so maybe that’s the difference that we see in the schools now. Like when I asked you did you thought the teachers were more dedicated then than they are now, it’s because everything is different. Children are not reared like you were reared. Parents are not close to the children’s teachers like our parents were in those days. So that does make a difference doesn’t it?
A: Yeah, definitely makes a difference.
Q: After attending schools and your jobs what changes can you recall that happened in the county or in the school systems now? I know you have seen a lot of changes from Carrollton Elementary to where schools are now.
A: Well they had this visiting teacher would come, Mrs. Tyler. She would come down and visit every now and then. That day when she come, the kids would put forth their best efforts because they wanted their teacher to look good before the visiting teacher. They wanted the teacher to know that she was in control and she was in control. But on those days when they would come we would __. And then went the superintendent would come and visit the school. At that time that was Mr. Hall. That was the only superintendent I really had back in those days and he was the only one. He would come into Mrs. White’s room and you would hear him in Mrs. Carrie’s room. He had a deep voice, deep voice. You could hear him talking. You knew he was there. You didn’t have to see his car, you knew he was there. And you gave him respect him too. But the changes are that the school systems changed so much, it’s the teachers, I would say the teachers changed, the students changed, the principal. Like Mrs. White was the principal and the teacher. She taught them 4 classes and she was the principal of the school. See but now you got teachers for every class and it is a great deal of change and then they taught that devotion that they had in the morning and they done away with that. The way I felt that set the stage for today. At least start you off right, if you didn’t stay right all day. Sometime a good start can make the day. You start off with a song and a prayer, you get out playing and you might decide you want to do something different and think about it, that song and that prayer you had you’ll say well ah …and read the scripture too yeah we did, we read the scripture and we had to know the 24th Psalm…and we had to recite it. One time calls on one … and we had to learn that and this wasn’t part of our teaching but this teacher through this.
Q: Now can you just give me a short autobiography of the highlights of your life which you have already done, it was from Carrollton School to retirement age?
A: Oh my!
Q: Just short. Just tell me, you pretty much told me what Carrollton was like.
A: I after I left Carrollton School I went to Isle of Wight Training School. I went there a couple of years and then I decided I wanted to be a soldier. And I was drafted at 18 but I went in at 18. I was drafted and went into the army and had basic training and 2 years I went to Chorea and served over there in the combat room. And then came back. Well I got married just before I went into the military. After I was in I came home on 19 day the land route and stayed 18 days and on the 19th day I got married so I had to leave the next day to go back. All that was well and good. But one of the funniest things that happened to me, I think I was the idea was growing up in a Christian home and we were made to go to Sunday School and church. We had church twice a month. And during the other Sundays we had to go to somebody else church that was having it. So I think the religious background gave me a good lease on life where as I learned to love people. I love people and I love to talk to people. I like to the young, I like to tell them, not boasting, how well that I done that I am, in a sense I am telling them that you can make a life for yourself if you will. I didn’t finish high school but after I went on back when I was in the army I took further learning…and I went on when I came out of the army and I got a GED. And I went to work in the shipyard and rose from a laborer to a acting general foreman. I could have been a general foreman if I had accepted it…and I was a nuclear foreman, which is one of the hardest foremen in there. And I learned to read the drawing and all that without a high school education…and most of the people thought that I had a college education because all the apprentice boys would come out of school in my department. They always wanted to give them to me because some reason or other they learned more working with me. But it was just the idea that I cared about them. I didn’t get all the breaks that I thought I deserved. And anything that I could do to help somebody else to make it to the top or whatever, I always do my best. Right now in my neighborhood I talk to so many young men, some of them were trifling but I talked to them and tell them that “you can make it, you can make it, and you can have a good life if you put forth an effort.” I am grateful because I have a good life. I have 4 kids and all 4 of them got a degree in college and my oldest daughter got a masters. And I took advantage of the little bit of education that I had but I never had any ill feeling against education. I knew it was something that you need. And I pushed my kids that they might go to college. And I am grateful. I’m grateful.
Q: That is wonderful. I have enjoyed this interview with you. This has been an experience. I want you to tell your children and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren to go to this museum and listen to what granddaddy had to say about his school days. And those encouraging words that you say they probably will never for get them. Thank you so much for the interview.