Mrs. Bessie Wells Penn

I was born May 10, 1899 and have spent all my life in Isle of Wight County.  I grew up on a farm in Rushmere near what was called “the neck.”  I remember my childhood as being lots of fun, and playing Jack-in-the-Bush and baseball as two of my favorite games.  If I could relive any of the earlier days, it would be when I was under twelve.  I had no responsibilities then.  We walked to school—had no transportation—unless it was a rainy day and Papa would send for us.

Joanna Price was my favorite teacher.  We had benches but no desks.  Later, we had benches with backs to them.  We had to write in our laps on slate boards using slate pencils.  The slate pencil wouldn’t have any wood around them; they looked just like a nail.  We had reading, spelling, English, physiology, and history.  I know that we never did have all the set of books that we should’ve had.  My mother had some books that her father had, and that’s what she taught us.  The first book I had was the first “Reader,” and if you don’t mind, I’ll show it to you now (ha-ha).  If fact, I can show you all the school books that I ever used.  (Editor’s note: Shown were a Reader published in 1901 with Ferguson Wharf, Va., Bessie O. Wilson written in it; History of Virginia; Modern Advanced Arithmetic, published in 1914; World Speller, Grades 2 to 7, published in 1915; Fifth Reader, published in 1911; Primer of Sanitation and Physiology, published in 1915; and a self-pronouncing dictionary).

“When this little book begins to roam, just give it a kick and send it home,” (ha, ha).  My teacher wanted me to have it.  I wanted to go to Petersburg (Virginia State Normal School)—put in my application for Petersburg.  They sent me a card and said they thought they could take me at Virginia State.  But at that time, Papa didn’t get the money, and I was kept home.  One of those books has that card in it.  My teachers looked like they were anxious for me to go to school.  They would come and talk to my father, and he would promise he was gon’send me, but he didn’t.  He believed in school, though, and believed in his children going to school.

The book Many Voices was published in 1986 as part of a project of the Interview Committee appointed in 1984 for the Isle of Wight County 350th Sesquitricentennial Celebration. The Oral History project taped the recollections of our older citizens and developed their stories from the transcriptions. Many Voices gave a permanent record of the previously unrecorded family life and history in Isle of Wight County. These excerpts take only the discussions dealing with the education memories of some of those citizens.