Q: We’re interviewing Mr. Robert Holloway. I'm Jean Uzzle and were gonna talk about your school days and any other information that you want to give us is welcomed. Mr. Holloway, where did you grow up in the area?
A: Exactly the same area better known as Livy Neck, Thomas Park.
Q: Thomas Park, Livy Neck. How many sisters and brothers did you have?
A: Well, eleven of us in the family.
Q: Did they attend the school with you?
A: Some did and some didn’t. The older ones attended the same school but at different intervals.
Q. What was the name of the school you attended?
A: Well, I don’t know exactly what they called it at that time. With the new school, everybody called it Livy Neck School in the church hall, the hall connected to Little Zion Baptist Church over there, at that time. It had two rooms, two little rooms, one upstairs and one downstairs and they taught classes. They didn’t have pre-school then. What they call primary thru the sixth grade.
Q: You said there were two rooms; one upstairs and one downstairs?
A: Yes.
Q: What grade did you attend there?
A: Attended grade, what they called primary, at that time, one thru third.
Q: Do you remember about what year that was?
A: 1928, 29, 30.
Q: 1928 through 1930?
A: Yes.
Q: Who were some of your teachers?
A: The first teacher was Cora Carrington.
Q: How did you get to school?
A: Walked.
Q: So how far, how many miles do you think you walked?
A: Wasn’t far, I’d say about ¼ of a mile.
Q: So you were fortunate enough not to have to walk a long way?
A: At that time.
Q: What jobs did you do before you went to school, after school? Did you have chores?
A: Yes we had chores. My chores were toting in wood. My older brother cut the wood and me and my younger brother, we toted it in. My sister brought in water to wash dishes and so forth. Everybody had a job to do.
Q: When you got to school, did you have chores to do at school? Were there things you had to do when you got to school, that you can remember?
A; Yes, I can remember that they had different ones that had to clean the vestibule, what they called it then. The little entrance when you came in. Different ones had to clean that out at times. Kids would throw paper and different things down and different ones had to do that at different intervals and had different ones come in. I didn’t do it but my brother did have to make fire, had to make fire. Didn’t have no fire to come into. The fire had to be made after the kids got to school in those days.
Q: You had chores to do at home and chores to do after you got to school?
A: That’s right.
Q: How did your school day begin? What did you do once you got to school?
A: Well, we’d get to school. If you got there early, if it wasn’t raining, we’d play around outside and then the teacher would call us all and ring the bell. Sorta like a dinner bell. All would come and line up in a line outside, rain or shine, most of the time it wasn’t raining too hard or snowing. We’d line up outside then we would pass in , in an orderly manner.
Q: Once you inside before your lessons begin, was there anything else that you did in the morning?
A: Basically nothing. Started with a devotional period in those days.
Q: So it started with devotion?
A: That’s right.
Q: Can you remember what subjects you had when you were in school?
A: Yea, reading, writing and arithmetic. After you got up in the upper grades, past the first, second and third grade, you took geography. They probably don’t call it geography now, imagine call it some social study or something now; study of the earth and its people.
Q: Were there any special books that you had while you were in school that you liked?
A: History, I always liked history, still do.
Q: Today, I want you to know that what you are giving me today is history?
A: Yes, that was the subject I always liked. My special was history. I wanted to be a historian.
Q: That’s interesting, it really is. How long was your school day?
A: Nine to three.
Q: Can you remember how long your school year was?
A: Yes, I think I know. Started in September and closed in May.
Q: Where did you eat lunch and how long was your lunch period?
A: Most of us had 12:00 recess, we called it. They sat inside the classroom. We did not have a cafeteria, no lunch room, nothing like that. So they’d eat their lunches inside. Some people slip outside and we had paper all over the grass. They wanted you to eat it inside before you went out.
Q: How long a period did you have for your lunchtime?
A: We had an hour at noon. We’d have what you call it a 10 minute recess at 10:00 am and another one somewhere around 1:30 or 2:00, 10 minute recess.
Q: That wasn’t long but did you do anything good in 10 minutes?
A: Most of the time they didn’t have any indoor restrooms or anything, so during that time you’d use, what we’d call, a bath run.
Q: So that made you went through rain, shine, and snow blowing outside?
A: Outside, don’t know how hard it was snowing or how cold it was.
Q: How would you describe your classroom at Livy Neck? Some of the things that was in there.
A: Number one. Main thing they had blackboards attached to the wall at that time. Most of the time, have them standing to move them. Blackboards attach to the wall at that time. _______________ three or four this way and about six or seven feet that way in a row.
Q: Is there anything else on the walls you can remember?
A: Pictures of different people. Famous Negroes like Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Booker T. Washington and some local ones, I can remember. At that time, my cousin Georgia Tyler was Supervisor. Fellow by the name of Hall, he was the Superintendent at that time. You might remember.
Q: I do remember Mr. Hall and Mrs. Tyler.
A: I know you remember Mrs. Tyler from the school; that was my cousin. Georgia Tyler, we had her picture on the wall.
Q: Most schools did have her picture on the wall? Good to meet some of them. So many people that we interviewed knew Ms. Tyler and told us about her. Did you have any alphabets or anything on the wall?
A: I can remember. I can almost see those ABC’s and those numbers.
Q: How was your school heated?
A: Space heater, what we call a flat-bedded stove or tall stove. We had just a king heater. You know these little tin heaters with the little round thing in the front. Burn you in front---freeze you behind.
Q: You told me about the restrooms. So I want to ask you that you told me they were on the outside? Where did you all get water?
A: They had a pump outside. About ten or twelve paces from the back door.
Q: How would you describe your teacher’s desk? Remember what it looked like?
A: Well, she had a homemade built desk. Wide flat desk with an open in the middle, box in on each side and drawers you could slide in and out. It was neatly built but wasn’t factory built. Look like some people around there were pretty good with carpentry built it. All the teacher’s use that one that come year to year. Number of years.
Q: Can you describe your desk or your seat that you had when you were at school?
A: Had little seats. Desks were bench type desks. Instead of having a single one, this would seat three or four. It would close the top up for sleeping or something. Open them. One in front of you had a back to it that you could use as a desk. Those were the ones that seem like they were sent in from some other school, maybe the white school. Then they had some that carpenters built, someone built. It near like those other ones that they could, of course, it wasn’t exactly the same, but near the design as possible they could get them.
Q: Did you have somewhere you could put your books in?
A: Yea, they had a little opening in the bottom that you could put your books in.
Q: Now the school supplies that you used in school. Did you have to furnish your own supplies or the school furnish them?
A: Yea, you had to furnish 100% your own books and all.
Q: Can you remember how you got your books; did you buy them or rent them?
A: We had to buy them and pay for them. Not having books for yourself and save them; wasn’t able to buy them because borrowing and sharing other people’s books, if you were an awful apt person, you just wouldn’t be able to make the grade.
Q: How was your lighting in the school? Was it electricity, lamp light or was it natural through the windows?
A: Well, during the daytime it was natural light. If you had to be there for any reason after dark, they had lamps, oil lamps. Just plain oil lamps that you set on shelves or table.
Q: Did you have a cloakroom or somewhere you hung your coats when you got to school?
A: Umm Umm. We had a place in there where they hung their coats and a shelf where they put their hats; different things like that. The bad part of that, you had to put your lunch in the same place. Now different, you wouldn’t have your wraps, lunches in the same place, now, for nothing. But that’s where you had to put your lunches, the same place you put your coats and hats.
Q: Go back to the water, you said, “you had the water next door.” Did you all bring the water in or did you have to go to the pump to get the water whenever you had to have water?
A: Go gets it whenever you want it. Sometimes they had a pitcher. You had a pitcher of water for your teacher, but the students, they had to go get their water rather than bring it in; had to get water when you need it. Most times, they expected you to get your water at ten minute recess. Of course, you had your lunch hour somewhere around 11:30. Different schools had it at different times. Some of them had it 12:00, some of them had it 11:30.
Q: When you were in school, what was discipline like? Punishment if you disobeyed in school. What was that like?
A: Lash across your back. Teacher had a long. Teacher had a long switch. When it got too bad. I can remember the last one that I knew use that thing, was Principal Grant, Ray Grant. He use to take that thing, switch…They say it was cruel today; they didn’t pay it no mind then, they shaped up. They take that thing and hit you like that and pull it and that thing would spin you.
Q: I imagined he didn’t have to do it to too many kids?
A: No, he didn’t, but he had to do it sometime when you got too unruly to the teachers. I can remember that _______________.
Q: I know, but the thing is you can’t do it no more.
A: _________________________________________________________________________.
Q: Now that you told me about this harsh punishment, is there any other school experience that you remember that you would like to tell me about? You know, when we go through life there are certain things that happen, that stand out above others.
A: When we were walking to school, that was after we moved and moved further. Like I telling you first, I didn’t have to walk farther; moved down to Thomas Park. You know where Day’s Point is? You know where that is now, that’s three miles and we were walking and we use to be walking in the snow and shoulder round and didn’t have paved roads. Roads were old, muddy roads and get slushy in the winter time and thawed and automobiles coming by splashing and buses. The whites use to come by and thumb their nose at us. We use to throw mud cakes at the buses and they use to come along and thumb their nose. I can remember that right now.
Q: After attending school and going to jobs and the changes, what changes do you see that’s in the county from the time you went to school?
A: Well, number one, from the time end of grade school in the county; they talked about equal that every grade was equal, but it wasn’t equal. I can see the unbalance, because I can remember, when I started to going to school right up there, what they call the Smithfield Middle School now. That was called, IWT, Isle of Wight Training School at that time. That was the one I went to in later years and white children schools had seem to me the Smithfield High School, up there, had five or six buses then running, maybe more, but at least five or six and they only had in Isle of Wight County, one single bus for the black children; just one. And that came through from Windsor, all the way from Camptown and just picked up a few; just one little bus the size of, you know the little buses they have for the handicap.
Q: The little mini-buses.
A: Yea, that’s large that bus was and it came all the way from Camptown, and you know they couldn’t pick-up too many. That’s the only one they had. All the rest of the children come to school, either walked or their parents brought them by some other means. Of course, I can remember that several people had private buses. Sam Johnson, Thomas Johnson’s father, he had a bus; one of the old school buses the county came from the white people. He use to bring children to school and Walter Thomas, he had an old bus he was bringing children. Richard Blunt had a pick-up truck with a top on it, he was bringing children to school; and I know you know, Charlie Brown, he had one he was driving from Carrollton like that pick-up bringing children and that’s the only transportation I know they had. As far as having buses like they have now, was non-existent for the black, of course the white they had.
Q: You know that seem like it was a struggle for you to get there, while they say they were giving you something. When you get there the best way you can and, I think, that all of you who struggled to make it, you know, to get that education wasn’t easy, I know.
A: No, it really wasn’t. Seem like it was a flowery bed for these children but it seem like they had it all, but it look like a really flowery bed compared to what we had.
Q: Do you feel like they see it the way you see it?
A: In other words, let me put it this way. What we get now compared to what the white got then and what we was getting was no comparison to what they would get. No comparison by no means. What we get now is compared to what the white children got then ‘cause, I can remember what they were getting then and how they did. Some of them had to walk to school who was close, wasn’t too far then.
Q: So if you had any advice, what would you say to the children of today?
A: I would tell them take advantage of the privilege that they have and not take it lightly, for granted and thinking it’s something that just come automatically. Something that already been bought with a price. You don’t hear them singing the song; I am redeemed, talking with Jesus that bought us all with a price. The privileges that they have now was bought with a price. I can remember going to the PTA meetings and struggles, trials and tribulations that they had to get this done and get that done. I can remember Reverend Joe Almond. Do you remember him?
Q: I remember him, yes I do.
A: Old man, E.J. Holloway, all them struggling in my day-- Jeremiah Cuffey and a lot of others. I could go on and on and name different ones struggling to try and get this done and get that done. I remember when I started to going to school up here, six little rooms; Smithfield Middle School, six rooms; made something like an “H” shape. Rooms on one end and rooms on the other end and two rooms in the middle. Four and two in the middle that made up six. That’s what they had and they added on a little while later, they added on one more, then again, added on another one, then again added on another; kept adding on rooms like that until that school expanded. Seem like when I left, they had nine or ten rooms when I left there. See I never did finish, in 42, I left there; jobs and things, try to make a little money and the army got me before I got _____________. I did never finish. When I left there, they went but eleventh grade then; didn’t have a twelfth grade. I left there in ninth grade.
Q: Well, Mr. Holloway, we sure have enjoyed your interview.
A: Yea, you know I use to be sharp and I got a little dull now, but I use to be sharp. I use to tell that thing like a photographic copy, one time, but I can still remember a lot of how it was then.
Q: If you don’t have anything else to tell me, I really enjoyed the interview. Can you think of anything else to say before we..?
A: No I can’t think of anything now, but I’m sure there be plenty of them would come in mind, you know different things that happen.
Q: So you are the second person that attended Livy Neck to give an interview. I never knew where it was, I’ve heard of it but I did not know where it was.
A: What did they call it; did they have another name besides that? I can’t recall if they had another name. Only thing I know is Livy Neck School. Little Neck School. Some of the people never liked that name, Livy Neck; they always wanted to use the name Thomas Park. That’s what they call it most of time, now.
Q: Mr. Holloway, I have enjoyed your interview and just remember from years to come, somebody can go in and listen to your interview and I’m sure they’ll be inspired like I have been inspired and thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for the interview.
A: I was too glad, I enjoyed coming.