Interview with Mrs. Constance D. Mabry
November 8, 2003
Interviewed by Sandra M. Lowe
Mrs. Mabry attended the two-room, Carrsville School for a year and then went to Camptown School, which had more than three rooms.
Q: What area of Isle of Wight did you grow up in?
A: I grew up in Carrsville, Virginia and I lived in the family house that was near the church, Pulaski Baptist Church but the school I went to was down (we had up the road and down the road.) and where I lived by the church was considered down the road. Up the road was the city part (laughter), which we considered the city. And I went to school up the road at the Carrsville Elementary School or it was just called Carrsville School.
Q: When you went to the Carrsville School this was the second school that they had had there. I assumed. There was one beside Pulaski Church. And then they moved one up to what we call now Grants Lane?
A: Right, that’s correct. That was the one I went to and it was a two-room school when I went.
Q: When they built the building they built two rooms on it or did they add one after having started out with one?
A: I don’t remember but I know as you walked in there was a foyer, very small foyer and seemed like it was one big room but we were divided into two classes. One was on one side of the room and one was on the other. So I considered it a two room but it was still probably a one-room school with two classes.
Q: There was nothing dividing the two rooms? Did they have a curtain or anything?
A: Just from recollection, I know we didn’t have a curtain. I think it was just two rooms set up.
Q: You could see everything that was going on on the other side?
A: I think that’s the way it was. I know it was the lower grades in one side and higher grades in the other.
Q: One side had grades 1-3?
A: I don’t remember but I know it was the lower grades and then the higher grades. And it was probably 1-3 and 4-6 on the other side.
Q: But you had two teachers?
A: Yes, Ms. Chapman taught the lower grades and Ms. Walden, who was the principal, taught the higher grades and I went there one year. I started in the forties and then we transferred, I went to first grade there, and second grade we went to Camptown. It was another elementary school.
Q: Do you have any information about the school itself when it was built or
A: No and I should have researched that or something but I never have. I’m sure it’s in some of the Pulaski you know the history in Carrsville but I don’t have any. I will go back and research this. But it was very enjoyable. We had a great time. We played on the playground. Our playground was just outdoors and just a regular day. Discipline was very rigid. If you did anything wrong you were spanked. However I guess I thought I could do nothing wrong, the teacher. I sat in Ms. Chapman’s lap all day and it was fun. I was one of those who had never been away from home and so I cried a lot and I think that was why she thought of putting me in her lap to keep me from crying.
Q: If you add 6 years to your birth year about when would that have been?
A: What that I went to school?
Q: When you first went to school?
A: Well I started to school when I was seven in1949.
Q: During that one year that you went to school you said that you lived nearby, so did you walk to school?
A: Yes, we had no buses or anything. Everybody walked to school or very few people had cars. Most of us walked to school. I walked from down the road, up the road. Christine Alexander, Alexander Daughtry, Cecelia Picott, they would leave their house and come across the field and get me and then we would all walk down the road. The older ones in our neighborhood took care of the younger ones. Kept us off the road and if you did anything bad they would tell your parents and the parents would beat you or discipline you. Much different than it is today.
Q: Did you have any chores to do at home?
A: Oh, Yes (laughed). When I came home, we didn’t have indoor plumbing, I had to get the pots in from upstairs and downstairs for all the bedrooms and I had to cut wood, chop wood and I had to bring chop stove wood smaller it in the house. I had to get the big log wood for the heater upstairs and I had to bring that in and no matter what, I took music lessons, but I still had my chores to do when I got home from music. Even if they had to put the lights on, I had to do my chore.
Q: What do you remember about the school day for the time when you were at Carrsville?
A: Oh, I loved it. It was fun. I learned to read and write of course. You got to see everybody. I was an only child and my parents, my grandparents mostly was very, very rigid. All of us in a house. My mother, my grandmother, my uncle and I and my cousin. It was called a family house. It was a big, big house and we all lived there together and I couldn’t do anything. I mean they were just very, very structured and I went to school and I came back from school. It was like it was timework, they knew exactly when I should be back, if not someone would come looking for me. Most of the time I followed the rules because if I didn’t you’d get a spanking. And I loved to go to school because it was when I got to see people. School and church was my life and I enjoyed it. Then I’d go to school and during our lunch hour there was a little store called Boone store or Boone Shop, we called it the shop. I’d go there and have lunch sometime. You know buy little candy and stuff if I had the money. And I went to Leesar’s house, Leesar Boone lived right near the school, I would bring my lunch but sometimes I would go to her house to eat it and sometimes I’d eat her food too but school was very enjoyable.
Q: What can you tell us about recess?
A: Oh, I loved recess. We didn’t have a lot of tooly things. We played hopscotch, Rabbit in the pea patch, Little Sally Walker, I guess that’s the same, Hide and Seek, and we did have a sliding board and a swing. It was all lots of fun. We had about 45 minutes, so we didn’t have a lot of time you know, we had pump water. You’d have to do everything at recess. We had pump water and outdoor plumbing. Everything was outdoors. You know you had to put water in the pump to start it. Prime it. We didn’t have cups and glasses and all. We made our cups out of notebook paper and we made it in the shape of a cone and we got our water in that and it was just, I wouldn’t give anything in the world for my earlier education because it taught me a lot for today.
Q: Is there anything else you could add to the description of the inside of the building or the outside?
A: Well, the outside was just a regular school building you know they kept it painted and all. It was clean. On the inside we ABC, s all around the room. Sometime they had corner spot where if you did real good work it would be on the board and we had blackboards at that time and the rooms were, to have your work on the board was just something, I didn’t have a lot of work on the board but when I did it was just a joy to be recognized as having outstanding work for the six weeks and we got report cards. We had devotion. Everybody had to have a bible verse. We pledged allegiance to the flag and so it kept us reading the Bible because you didn’t want to say the same Bible verse all the time and you didn’t want to say one that someone else had said and you know it was fun.
Q: What was in the building for heat?
A: We had two stoves. Two potbelly stoves, one on each side of the room and we started out with wood and then we ended up with coal and I guess the county anyway all I know, the wood came and we didn’t have to bring it in the school to keep heat in and the during the latter part when I said I went there one year, I went there 1 ½ years, because the second part of the second grade is when we changed over and went to a new school. We change over from wood to coal. They gave us so much coal a year. I think it was like two loads of coal, it wasn’t very much and that coal had to last us the whole year and the train was very active in Carrsville at that time. We would go after school and pick up coal and put it in a pail and bring it back to school and that was surplus coal. You know would fall off the train, the train would stop and coal would fall off and you know. It was a pail, I guess it was a coal pail you put all this in this big pail and it had a little mouth and you poured it through this in the heater.
Q: As I recall, you could pick up quite a lot of coal from the tracks.
A: Oh yeah and you had fun doing it. Because you were with other kids and you would talk and play. Throw a piece of coal. I mean you know and everything we did in the good old days (laughs) it was just fun in doing it.
Q: Did I ask you where you put your coats and hats?
A: No, but when we came in, it was a little cloak room type and it had the little hangar and we just put them there, several coats on top each other and then at the end of the day you got your coat and went home.
Q: What can you tell us about discipline and punishment at the elementary level?
A: Well it was very strict. When the teacher told us something you better do it or you would get a spanking with the ruler and then they tell your Mother about it and when you got home you got another spanking with a switch and looked like the word got there almost as soon as you did. (Laughter) You respected authority and we were never put in a corner or anything until we got to Georgia Tyler I didn’t mean Georgia Tyler, Camptown Elementary. Then discipline changed somewhat. As I said somewhat, we just got a little more but at Carrsville we got the ruler and the principal was the one that gave you the spanking, Mrs. Walls, she was the one that spanked.
Q: If your punishment was that severe enough that Mrs. Walls needed to punish you, you probably had aggravated them quite a bit?
A: Well maybe, she was the one that did the discipline mostly. Mrs. Chapman , anything happened she told Mrs. Wall, you’d go to Mrs. Wall. You didn’t want to go to Mrs. Wall because you knew that you were going to get a spanking and we were basically pretty good kids. We didn’t do that much because we respected authority and we respected our parents and as I said the word got home before you did almost and you know if you did anything at all at school you just as well to know you were going to get another spanking when you got home that was just a known thing.
Q: So whatever behavior had occurred was minor to begin with?
A: Right compared to today. It was like chewing gum, staying in your seat, walking to the pencil sharpener, we had a manual pencil sharpener.
Q: And you weren’t suppose to?
A: Right you sharpened your pencils once a day in the morning when we got there other times with permission, but some of us just could not stay away from the pencil sharpener for some reason or another we were always going. My basic problem was sitting in my seat. I always wanted to be jumping up and going to the front of the room. You know the seat was just hard for me to sit in and you know, I was very talkative and that was another thing that got their attention because they couldn’t teach the class with you talking so much. I was always whispering all through school. I think that was my hardest problem from first grade through twelfth grade (laughter). Other than that I was basically a pretty good kid.
Q: Did you have any negative impressions or memories of school?
A: No we had the best two teachers in the world and during my year of Carrsville school I have nothing everything was just really great. It was a learning experience. We were anxious to get to school everyday and it was just wonderful.
Q: Any other school experiences you want to tell us about? Maybe a school program or anything that went on that stood out in your memory about Carrsville?
A: Our little programs that we had were mostly done at church, you know we didn’t do very many at school. We didn’t have parent and teacher conferences and all the things they have today. Church and school were very close together and so any little programs we had like Christmas, Easter all those things were done at church as part of our church school and when I went to Camptown Elementary that was in Isle of Wight County but it was a different school. We had to get the bus to go to school then after seventh grade we went to Georgia Tyler in Windsor Virginia and we got the bus. We passed by many schools, Caucasian schools. We had during them days a black school and a white school and we had to pass by the white school which was right there in Carrsville to get to the black school which was about 13 miles away and we’d have to get up early to go to school to get the bus because most of us didn’t have transportation, so you had to get the bus or miss a day of school. We stayed at school until I think school was over at 3:15 then we got the bus. It was like 4:00 when we got home 4:00 or 4:30 when we got home from school.
Q:; I have one last question for you , it’s not really a question, we would like to get a little biographical sketch of the highlights of your life after high school.
A: Well I started out by going to St. Paul's College in Lawrenceville Va.. I stayed there for a year and a half, no I stayed there for two years and then I decided I did not want to be a teacher and I went back to New Jersey, I was living back and forth from New Jersey and Conn. My parents divorced so I had to live in Conn. for 3 months and 9 months I was between Carrsville and New Jersey and after college I was in New Jersey. East Orange, New Jersey and when I left college I went back to East Orange, New Jersey and I went to Berkley secretarial college. In the north, Berkley secretarial college and Catherine Givers were the top secretarial colleges in the north and I went to Berkley. I integrated the schools. I enjoyed the girls there. It was an all girls, school. The teachers were teachers that were in the profession. If you were taught advertisement you were in the advertisement business. It was a great school. Excellent and after that they placed me and I worked for the state of New Jersey. Then I took the test, passed the test and I gave state exams and I worked for the state of New Jersey, Department of Civil Services, which I enjoyed and later I got married. My college sweetheart, I met Earl when I was in college and we got married. From there we had two children. My daughter went to college and my son-started college; my husband had already finished college. So I decided I wouldn’t be the only one in the family without an education, college degree. So I went back to college and got my degree from Norfolk State University and I graduated Cum Laude. I was in many art programs and I have enjoyed my tenure college life and I thoroughly enjoyed my marriage life and I’m very active in church. When I left Carrsville I joined the church in New Jersey, Union Baptist Church. That was where my family went. When I relocated back to Virginia I joined Zion Baptist Church in Portsmouth, Virginia and that’s where I’m still a member and I’m still active in church, in choir, missionary and the usher board and also the active women of Zion .I am in a lot of civic organizations and I’m very civic minded.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?
A: No, I have two lovely grandchildren, two boys. I’d love to have a girl but anyway I guess I’ll settle for my two boys and they are a joy.
Q: And the ages?
A: Two and Seven. They are grandma’s joy.