Today is Saturday May 3, 2003 and I’m interviewing Mr. Aaron Chapman about the school days in the one and two room schoolhouses.
Q: Mr. Chapman, what area of Isle of Wight did you grow up in?
A: I grew up near Zuni.
Q: How many sisters and brothers did you have?
A: One sister and one brother.
Q: What schools did they attend?
A: My brother, he went to Walnut Grove; that was the school on Yellow Hammer Road. My sister, she finished school at Walnut Grove too, at that time I was too young. I went to Fairview School. We were _____ from the white schools, and I went to that in 1927.
Q: What grades were taught at Fairview?
A: One through seven.
Q: How many classrooms?
A: One
Q: One classroom, so there was one teacher. What was her name, do you remember?
A: The first teacher when I went there was Elizabeth Dole from Zuni. The next teacher was Josephine Chapman, my aunt. The next teacher was Ophelia Taylor from Norfolk. She got sick and she had to drop out and her cousin, Gertrude Taylor, took over for a while. Then, a Rev. Baker came in; he taught for a while. Then Aunt Josephine Chapman was back again. She was there and I graduated under her. She taught me fifth, sixth, and seventh grades.
Q: You went through some teachers then.
A: Oh yeah
Q: Did you go to Fairview one through seven?
A: Yes, I did.
Q: You said that year was what?
A: Started 1927 and graduated in 1934.
Q: Do you have any information about the history of Fairview? When it opened and when it closed?
A: Fairview, I think the white people gave it up in ’26… and they let the black people have it. At that time there were little schools all over the place, all of them within 5 or 6 miles. The black children had to walk. So they had to put the schools close enough together so that they could get there. It was closer.
Q: Some of the small ones—it made it easier for them to get there.
A: That’s right.
Q: How did you get to school?
A: I walked; I lived just about a five-minute walk from school.
Q: Did you have jobs or chores to do before you went to school and after you went to school?
A: You had jobs to do at school too. At that time we had a wood-burning heater. Some of the afternoons, the teachers would let some of the older boys go out in the woods and look for kindling wood to start the fire. Then when I got home in the evening I had to get the wood in for home to get the fire going in the bedroom so it would be warm.
Q: So you had chores to do at home and at school. Can you remember when, once you got to school, if it was cold, you got warmed up? How did you start your day at school?
A: We started with prayer and a song.
Q: A whole lot different than now isn’t it?
A: That was a must.
Q: Do you think they still need prayer in school?
A: Always
Q: Can you remember what subjects you covered at Fairview?
A: Reading, writing, arithmetic, English, spelling and all.
Q: Was there a special book or textbook when you went to school at Fairview that stuck with you and you remember the name of it, a textbook that you used.
A: I remember the geography book. There was a character that they called ”Little Ritchie”, his head was bald with little knots on his head. I can see it now. I remember arithmetic, that was my favorite subject. Arithmetic I did on my fingers. We used to go home and do the problems; the next day you go to school and put it on the board. The next day I went to school, I didn’t have it—I couldn’t work it. Well, you’ve got to work it; you’ve got to work it. I went back home and I worked it again, and I found that I had worked the problem. I put it on the board, and she agreed, but what had happened was she had been trying to work it through and she couldn’t work it through.
Q: So you didn’t know why you had to keep trying to work it.
A: (laughs)
Q: Can you remember how long your school days were?
A: I think they were from 9:00 to 3:00 or 3:30, something like that.
Q: Can you remember how long the school year was?
A: Well, black kids had a shorter year than white, we had to pick cotton. We started in October, I think and we’d go through June.
Q: Where did you eat lunch and how long was your lunch break?
A: We had a brown bag or a box your mother would fix for you. I think it was 35 or 40 minutes.
Q: So did you eat lunch in the classroom or did you have a special place?
A: In the classroom.
Q: What about recess? Did you have a recess?
A: Yes, we had a recess.
Q: What did you do at recess time?
A: Played games and took exercises.
Q: How would you describe your classroom?
A: It was a large room with a lot of windows. A bench for you to sit on, a desk that you put your books under the desk in front of you, you had a top for writing.
Q: How did you heat the school in the wintertime?
A: We had an iron heater we called them potbelly heaters.
Q: Can you remember where the restrooms were?
A: In the back, in a little house outside.
Q: Where did you get water when you were at Fairview?
A: We had a pump.
Q: So if some student wanted a drink of water, you had to go to the pump to get it, or did they pump it and bring it in?
A: Pump it and bring it in a bucket; you had a glass.
Q: How would you describe your teacher’s desk?
A: Very simple, in the center of the room in front, we had a lot of books or whatever on the desk for her.
Q: Did you have chalkboards at that time?
A: Yes, we did—had a blackboard.
Q: Now your pencils and paper or crayons—if you had crayons back in that time, who supplied that for you?
A: You bought your own.
Q: Were there any teacher’s aids on the wall? Can you remember anything on the walls when you were in there such as maps or maybe . . .?
A: World map, map of Booker T. Washington.
Q: Did you have ABC’s?
A: Oh yeah, the ABC’s were there.
Q: Now about the lighting, did you have lamplight and natural light?
A: Lamp light—didn’t need it in the daytime. Sometimes we would have a little party at the night to raise a little money, that’s when we used the lamps.
Q: So in the daytime you used the natural light through the windows?
A: Right.
Q: I noticed all the schools usually had a lot of windows, so maybe that was so they could have the natural light. Did you have somewhere to hang your coats?
A: Yes, on a nail in the hall.
Q: What was discipline like in the school when you were there?
A: If you did wrong, if you misbehaved, you got a whipping. The parents didn’t worry about it. If they knew about it, you got another one when you got home.
Q: (laughs) So you got two for the price of one. What were some of the positive memories of your school days, the teachers and the students?
A: Well the teachers, I had no favorites, they were always just and kind and would bring us candy. They would praise us for doing well. We had a report card to carry home. They would call on you to see how you were doing and what needs to be done to correct this problem if you have one.
Q: Were there some negatives or some point about your school days you didn’t like about teachers or students?
A: I thought some of my teachers had some favorites. She gave him more privileges than others, I didn’t like that.
Q: Did you have any additional experiences that you had while you were in school that you would like to tell me about? Maybe something happened that you remember, might have been going to school, after you got to school, recess, whatever.
A: During recess when I was smaller, maybe 9 or 10 years old, the larger boys would pick on the smaller boys. At recess time the smaller boys would go to the back of the school to the woods. We would play in the woods. We went back there one day; we didn’t hear the bell; we went back to class late. I think we got a spanking for that.
Q: Were there any early childhood memories you can recall either at home or at school— some of your playtime?
A: Playtime was some of the worst time.
Q: Tell the worst times then.
A: There was a boy there that my sister never felt that fond of. My sister was sitting in front of him; they got into scrambling. I was going to get in between them and break them up. One of them hit me across the head by mistake, so I left that fight and went on and sat down.
Q: So you were about to get the worst of that fight.
A: I was about to get the worst of that-and one day a boy brought a 45 pistol to school.
Q: That was unusual for that time isn’t it.
A: Yeah, he stole it from home from his father and brought it to school and put it under his coat and stuck it under his desk. Another boy was bothering him; he was going to protect himself. That was a scary time.
Q: That’s unusual for that time for a student to do that. Did the teacher ever find out he had that?
A: Never found out. No one told her.
Q: After finishing school, can you see the differences and changes in the county since you were at Fairview in Isle of Wight County?
A: One of the largest changes is that children don’t have to walk to school anymore. When I went to high school, some of the older boys had cars; you had to get yourself there.
Q: It was left up to you how you got to high school.
A: That’s right
Q: That is a great change. If you had something to say to students, to the children of today, what would you say to them?
A: I would say to them, you have fate in your hands, you need to go to school, when you get home, study. We had a hard time getting there—cold; roads were frozen in the morning; on the way home, mud was that deep. Now everything is going to come true for them. You have no reason not to make it.
Q: Can you give me a little highlight on your life from Fairview to Isle of Wight County? You walked to Fairview and from Fairview you went to Smithfield. From Isle of Wight Training and you had to catch a ride…
A: My Daddy would carry me in a “Model T”, and I stayed in a house not far from school.
Q: So all in all you made it.
A: I made it. How I got through high school was no problem; my grades never fell under a B.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to tell me about your school days? Sometimes it is good to reminisce about them, isn’t it?
A: I enjoyed myself in school. I changed different places where I stayed while I was in school. I had a chance to go out and have a little fun. There was a little place called, I can’t think of it right now, they had sodas, pickles, jams, it was just enjoyable. I had a part-time job working, picking up peanuts. My mother worked in a peanut factory, she would bring home peanuts. I could sell all the peanuts I could get my hands on.
Q: To make yourself a little change.
Q: Mr. Chapman, I have thoroughly enjoyed the interview with you. You can remind your children and grandchildren to go to the museum and listen to how it was when you went to school. So thank you very much for the interview.