Q: Today is August the 12th of 2003. I’m at Pulaski Baptist Church and I’m Jean Uzzle and I’m interviewing Mr. Bobby Knight. Mr. Knight, where did you grow up in Isle of Wight County?
A: In Carrsville, Virginia.
Q: How many sisters and brothers did you have?
A: I have six brothers; I had six brothers and seven sisters. I mean 3 sisters, I’m sorry.
Q: And what school did they attend?
A: Well the first 5 of us attended Carrsville Elementary…and the next 5 uh, I mean, yeah I think attended Georgie Tyler Elementary.
Q: So you went to Carrsville and then Georgie Tyler.
A: Georgie Tyler, right.
Q: Okay. What grades were taught there?
A: At Carrsville? One through seven.
Q: How many classrooms where there?
A: Two classrooms. The first classroom taught grade one through three, and the second room taught four through seventh. Ms. Catherine Chapman taught the first one through three and Mrs. Coma Walden taught four through seven.
Q: Alright. Can you remember what year that was?
A: Yeah, let’s see, I started there in ’44. Let me think about it now, I’m 66. Yeah ’44 and I went there too, and I left around ‘52. Wait a minute…yeah sixth grade left in sixth grade; yeah I left in sixth grade.
Q: So you went from one to sixth?
A: To sixth right uh huh. And sixth and seventh I went to Georgie Tyler.
Q: Okay, how did you get to and from Carrsville?
A: To school? Carrsville School? Oh I walked.
Q: Approximately how far?
A: Well I say about a mile. A mile.
Q: Did you have jobs to at home before and after school?
A: Yes, I did (laughing)…. and sometimes I had a job to do at school.
Q: When you got to school, what did you do?
A: Well, in the- we had this coal bin that we had to have in the wintertime we had this coal bin and uh sometime the county didn’t have coal for us, so me and… myself and three other guys would have to go out on the railroad tracks and pick up coal in bags and bring them to school so we had…so kids could stay warm the next day…and I was one of the ones that would have to, being I got my lessons, so they would let me leave and go and pick up sticks.
Q: Coal?
A: Coal, yeah. Soon as I got my lessons…also go out in the woods to find little sticks for the fire to get started.
Q: Once you got to school, how did your day begin?
A: Our day began, well all classes are similar in the elementary, uh, one through three side and we began with the Lord’s Prayer --then we had the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America. Then Mrs. Walden, which was the principal, would give us our, everybody the agenda for the day and that’s the way it did. And then the fourth grade, we had, one had the seventh grade sitting in the back of the school at a table. The fourth grade sat at the left hand side. The fifth grade sat in the center and the sixth grade sat on the right hand side. So we had an aisle for each class with the seventh grade in the back.
Q: What subjects did you have?
A: Uh, I started school in the little primer then I moved to the big primer. Then I went to first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade.
Q: So you had classes like reading and…
A: Yeah. Reading, Writing, ‘Rithmetic, Spelling, and English…. and my favorite, I think, was Arithmetic and Spelling. I was always in the spelling bees and spelling matches. Teacher would line everybody up on the wall and everybody be missing a word and you’d have to sit down. So to make sure Marie Picott and I were in the same team cause we would be the last to sit down. Yeah, it was fun.
Q: So spelling was your…
A: Spelling and arithmetic.
Q: Was your favorite?
A: Right. Then English. I liked all of them. But you know, yeah right. We had fun and you know, had hardships. We had to try to learn while she was teaching another class…and had to get out studying and sometimes she knew we weren’t paying attention, she would ask one of the other classmen-- a question--answer a question for the lower classmen. I went to, finished there and went to Georgie Tyler in Windsor and Mr. Elgin Lowe was my principal there. Mrs. Walden, the same Mrs. Walden, was my sixth grade teacher at Windsor and Mrs. Julia Washington was my seventh grade teacher and so I graduated from Windsor…and we had to go across the school lunch hour, cause we didn’t have a cafeteria, we had to go across the road, to the school in Windsor to eat lunch.
Q: So how long was your school day?
A: My school day? Okay, we had to be at school at 9 o’clock and we left at 3:15.
Q: How long was your school year, do you remember?
A: 180 days.
Q: What month did it start in?
A: It started in August and we, in August, and we got out in June. We got to spend, well farmers, real early farmers had to spend a lot of, miss a lot of time out of school working- then you had to go out and catch up on your grades. I was fortunate enough not to ever fail anything.
Q: At lunchtime, how long was your lunch period and where did you eat your lunch?
A: Well, those who had it ate it at um, out in the yard under a tree or sitting on the see-saw or whatever, wherever you could find to eat it. And we uh, that was in the Carrsville school. A lot of times we didn’t have any lunch so we played ball for lunch and ate when we got home.
Q: So you carried lunch from home?
A: No, a lot of times we didn’t carry anything. From a large family we didn’t have very big, you know parents couldn’t fix it for everybody so we just considering we just played and stayed there and went back home and ate after school.
Q: What about recess? Did you have a recess other than your lunch period?
A: Yes, we had a recess, yeah. Other than lunch period? Uhh, I think lunch period was a recess. We’d eat and go out and play.
Q: Did you have a recess after that? Or before that?
A: No… not a recess after that, not before. We had to use the bathroom we had to ask to be excused and we, teacher would let you go out to the bathroom, to the outdoor privy, to the bathroom; get you a drink of water from the hand pump.
Q: So how long was your lunch period? Do you remember?
A: Yeah, about an hour .We had to eat and we had time to play. Go to school all sweaty and everything. It was fun.
Q: How would you describe your classroom at school?
A: Oh I think I already went through that didn’t I?
Q: You did, you did already you told me how they were seated, okay you did tell me about that. How was the school heated in the wintertime?
A: We had a pot-bellied, two pot-bellied heaters, one in each classroom…and we had to… had one of the kids was a janitor -he had to come in make the fire and then we would whoever or whenever we needed coal and the county had coal we would go out to the coal bin and come and get the coal and keep the heat going all day. In the evening we would make sure the heat was gone out so, cause we didn’t want any fires in the school. So the heat was completely extinguished in the evening and a new one was started each morning.
Q: Can you remember where you got your water from?
A: Yes, we had a hand pump. About uh, let’s see I guess it must have been about 20 yards from the building. It was a hand pump…and a latrine there, a latrine outdoor privy in the school. That privy wasn’t supposed to die away from me, the water system.
Q: So did you have to bring the water in, when you wanted water what did you do?
A: To drink? Go to the pump, yes that’s right. If you didn’t have a cup, most of the time we had to use our hands for a cup. The pump--would wash our hands, then we use our hands for a cup to drink the water, we didn’t have cups.
Q: Alright, how would you describe your teachers’ desk?
A: Teachers desk? Well she had her desk in the front of the school, and uh, which were, they were situated about, you know best they could be. She had her things, her books, her little library sitting on top of her desk, her little books. There were no closets, no private closets at that school.
Q: So how was the students’ desk, how was your desk?
A: My desk was a little desk that you would slide in…and if you bend over the person behind you he raised his desk up, his top would come up so the thing he wrote on, mess him up. But you had to sit kind of still. And at Windsor I think we had individual desks where we could just slide right in and had your personal desk.
Q: What about a chalkboard. Did you have a chalkboard?
A: Yeah, we had a blackboard; we didn’t have a green board. It was a blackboard. Chalk and an eraser.
Q: And what about your school supplies, did you have to furnish your own school supplies or did the county?
A: You had to furnish everything. You had to buy your books, you had to buy your pencils and papers…and at Carrsville School Mrs. Walden always kept some pencils, I think you could get a pencil for 2 cents…and then, so we had to buy all your papers and your books. County supplied nothing. Our Superintendent was named Mr. Hall we would see him every so often. He would come and give us a lecture then we’d suffer consequences from then on out (laughing).
Q: Were there any teacher’s aids on the wall? You know, like maps or pictures or…?
A: Yes, we had uh…we had drawings that our teacher would make herself all over, around the wall. Little animals and different little things and she had the alphabets up on the wall and she also had the numbers from 1 to 10 on the wall…. and we all learned from that…and we also had a… in our geography class we had a large round globe we called it, and it could turn and find all the countries and the states or whatever on that round thing.
Q: Um, your lighting in the school. Can you remember whether it was natural light through the windows or was it electric or was it kerosene lamps?
A: We had electric, yeah right, right electric.
Q: Was there anywhere to hang your coats?
A: Yeah, they had a little closet. A little uh, little rack there to hang your coats at. Right a little rack to hang your coats on.
Q: Can you tell me what punishment was like as far as discipline in school at that time.
A: The only discipline you had was to stand out in the corner or that’s about it, stand up in the corner-- unless your got your little switching from the teacher with a paddle. Yeah.
Q: So was there very much punishment?
A: No, not much punishment. Well, there had been, would be some problems. Or every now and then might have a couple kids out back, big kids, wanting to fight or something like that. But no, no uh, you might see somebody with a knife every now and then and if you had a knife, you show it off to the big boys somebody tell on you. They had no…uh discipline …not as far as big fights or anything like that.
Q: Are there any additional school experiences you would like to tell us about that you can remember where you went to school?
A: Well I guess that’s about, uh covered everything but we uh, going get to and from school. We had to however the weather was, that’s how you had to walk there to get there. If it was snow you had to walk you know, rain or whatever get there the best way you can….unless your parents had a vehicle. A lot of times the parents-- they had a vehicle, they would be using it on the farm or something and they couldn’t take the kids to school. So a lot of days when it was fair weather we had to leave school a half a day to work on the farms-- things like that. It was tough trying to get an education.
Q: So is there any positive memories that you have that happened with the teacher, the school, or the students that happened while you were there?
A: Well, we had Miss Catherine Chapman, she was trying to teach everybody how to read and write. She had the most beautiful handwriting I’ve ever seen. But I guess I wasn’t that steady mine didn’t never come out that well. I must say she tried to teach us her skills and they were really, taught kids if you need to be one on one with the teacher she would stay back after school and work with you if you had to do that. She would get you during the recess, she would sit up there and eat her lunch and give you, and study with you, help you to learn what you need to learn. Those who want to learn. And they would also take the kids that were more apt than some others and kept tutor the ones that were behind, slow. We had to do a lot of that, trying to help the ones that had a hard time, that were slower--help them to learn to read. We were successful sometimes but sometimes we never became successful.
Q: So is there any other childhood memories you’d like to tell us about? It doesn’t have to be at school, maybe at home.
A: Well no more than we were from a large family, we’ve had hard times together. We didn’t have very many toys so sometimes we had to make our own toys. Sometimes we had to get up, we had to play ball. We played ball, baseball year round. We’d build a fire, play in the snow. We didn’t have basketball, we did get football, we played football, baseball year round .We just had fun with that. The ball, most the time we would use a tennis ball and we would burst the ball and we had to walk to Holland 3 miles to get a ball. We’d get our 15 cents together, go off to Holland and get a ball, walk back and start playing ball again. Sometimes it got so bad, we would even get a sock and a rock and wrap strings and rags around it and make us a ball. Wouldn’t go very far but we had fun anyway (laughing).
Q: It served the purpose right?
A: Served the purpose right. Our bat was a pole handle or axe handle something that broke.
Q: After attending school, what job changes or other experiences that you recall in the county the changes from that time to now?
A: From that time to now as far as the school?
Q: Well yes, school or whatever.
A: Well, I think they got it better. They officially got buses we were bussed to school and when we were going to Windsor school we were bussed to school and before we started the Windsor school we didn’t have any buses. That’s a big change…and we went from everybody’s outdoors privies were gone.
Q: Job changes, from the farm to…
A: Right from the farm to the public jobs. I had two jobs in my life. I worked at the Newport News Shipyard for about 11 years and I worked longshoreman for 26 years.
Q: Can you give me a short autobiography of your life from Carrsville to now, generally from one school to another and then to your jobs and to your retirement.
A: Well, like I said started school in Carrsville and went to sixth grade. I did sixth and seventh grade to Georgie Tyler, Windsor…and then I came out and went to the Shipyard. I went to Isle of Wight Training School and graduated from Isle of Wight Training School in ’57. There I went to Newport News Shipyard for 11 years and I left there and went to Longshoreman for 26 years, where I retired…. and my reason for leaving the shipyard was because I didn’t like…the benefits weren’t good enough. I thought one day I might get older and had retired and I couldn’t retire for $300-400 dollars a week, or month. So I decided to leave there for better benefits. I’m married. I have two children. I have a son, Bobby Jr. he’s graduated from Virginia State University and my daughter’s Tonya and she graduated from Virginia State University. Both now uh, my son works for Suffolk City School Board and my daughter work for the FDIC Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond, so they both …my wife Audrey, she’s retired from the Navy Base as an account supervisor, now she’s working for Isle of Wight School system as a library clerk, I believe... and I lost one brother, my brother next to me, that I was so close to, I ‘m close to all of them, but I lost him, Matthew in ‘88’…lost my daddy further back in ‘76’, my mother’s still living, she’s 82 years old. So we’re blessed. So we’ve had a happy life. Thank you.
Q: I want to thank you, Mr. Knight, for your interview, it’s been really interesting…thank you so much.