Interview with Mrs. Virgie Scott
February 8,2003
By Sandra M. Lowe
Mrs. Scott attended Muddy Fork School, then called Muddy Cross or Peahill to people in the community. She began school in 1924 at the age of seven. She was raised on the family farm. After marriage, she ran a beauty parlor for many years.
Q. Mrs. Scott, what area of Isle of Wight did you grow up in?
A. Red Point.
Q. Red Point?
A. Red Point. That's what we called it. Isle of Wight, Smithfield, Benn’s Church and Red Point.
Q. Can you tell us the number of sisters and brother you had and if you remember what schools they might have attended?
A. Oh, uh one sister and two brothers.
Q. All right, and what school did you attend?
A. We called it ( Muddy Cross or Peahill).
Q. Do you remember what year that was?
A. Umm, no. I started school back then and I started school when I was seven years old and now I am eighty-six. I couldn't tell you what year did I start. I really don't know what year it was.
Q. We can figure that out. That will give us a good idea. (1924)
A. I thought of that question, I really did.. . but I couldn't think because at that time a lot of school children________.
Q. Around 1920, I believe, a little bit before that. Do you remember what grades were taught when you were at Muddy Cross?
A. Yes I do, it went until seventh grade. They had two rooms. The teacher in the lower room Ms. Mattie Jordan and she taught from the first to the third grade...and then you would pass and go into the next room, and that teacher's name was Ms. Estelle Wilson. You stayed in that room until you come to the seventh grade and that's when I graduated in the seventh grade. The school, there was in Smithfield and I lived too far to walk there and I couldn't go no longer.
Q. Do you recall those two teachers; they evidently stayed at that school for quite sometime?
A. They stayed there for years; I mean a long time.
Q. How far from school did you live? How long did it take you to get there?
A. I lived five miles from school and I had to walk.
Q. Do you recall any experiences or things that you did on your way to school? What games you played or names of any people that walked to school with you?
A. On our way to school, the games we played would be passing houses dogs would be after us…. and the children, the white children, they were riding, because they had a ride and the colored children and they would pick at us. And that's the only thing.
Q. I heard several other people that had that experience also. It depends on where you were and what race you are.
A. That's right. You had so far to walk when you get there you would be so cold until your fingers would be so cold and numb
Q. What did you do to get warmed up, and did the boys or girls have certain jobs as far as getting the room ready?
A. The boys had to go out into the woods and get this type of wood called lightwood and bring it to school and start the fire. You had to sit there long before you could get any lesson on them cold days. You had to sit there awhile before you could get any lesson because you wasn’t able to write.
Q. Were there any specific chores that the students had to do besides getting the wood in?
A. No.
Q. How did your day start after you were able to warm up? What was the beginning like?
A. The beginning of the day, uh when I first started, remember that would be you would sing your alphabet and counting to one hundred in the lower grades in the first room. That would be the starting off. When I got to the second room we would always start off with our arithmetic in the morning and then come back to our language, history, spelling it would come out like that. First thing in the morning it would always be our …
Q. It would be your arithmetic.
A. Our arithmetic, that was the very first thing in the morning.
Q. What were some other subjects you covered in school?
A. We always had to work toward a thing called Exhibition Day…and we would have something that we would sew and the boys would make clothes pins and different things with the ______, and the girls would sew or either crochet. We would always make something to put on for the exhibition day.
Q. Do you recall any particular textbooks you had in school? Is there anything that you remember about your subjects or the books that you had?
A. The only thing I remember was our, uh, to learn the Roman letters. I don't think I ever learned. [Laughter]
Q. Well they are not in use very much now.
A. I don't think I ever learned. I think I remember them more than anything else. Because I worked so hard, but I never really learned.
Q. That's all right, as I said before that's something that's we don't use much. I think you must have known that that's something you wouldn't use much. How long was the school day?
A. We had to be there seven, eight. I don't remember if was seven or eight. It had to be eight. We had to walk, children had to walk to school. All the children walked. Nobody rode to school. Everybody walked. It had to be eight o'clock that we had to be at school. And we was there until three-thirty.
Q. Did you have a regular school year like we have now starting in September getting out in May or June?
A. Yes we did, we come out in May.
Q. You didn't have any breaks in there for students to work on the farm.
A. Oh,no.
Q. What do you remember about lunch?
A. Oh, boy. We had our little buckets. They weren’t real lunch buckets either. We had lunch buckets. We'd have baking powder and different things and we had little tin buckets, and you’d run your fingers up through the hole and pull up…we had buckets, little tin buckets we would put our lunch in. And that's what we brought to school…and them that didn't have a bucket just brought it in a paper bag. And we would sit our lunch.. there was a bench that we had that children sit on, but we wasn't using it. And it was sitting against the wall and the children would sit their lunch, everyone would sit their lunch on it and sometimes by the time you go get your lunch... some other children didn't have any lunch, they had took your lunch. And that's how our lunch would sit. We brought our lunch from home.
Q. How long would the lunchtime last? Do you remember?
A. No, I don't remember, I think it was a half an hour or an hour.
Q. And recess went along with it?
A. That's right. We had recess in the morning. We had ten O’clock and we had another recess. I think it was ten minutes.
Q. In the afternoon?
A. Yeah, I think it was ten minutes.
Q. Was before lunch or after lunch?
A. We had the recess right before.
Q. What can you tell me about recess? What games did you play? What types of things did you do when you had a recess?
A. We played ball. You had to play it in the road because we didn't have that much space. You didn’t see a car very often, not back there onthem roads. We would have the ball diamond out there in the road. The larger children played ball and the smaller ones would play ring games. Oh there were a lot of ring games like-“Dropping The Handkerchief ”, and put your right foot in, put your right foot out and give me a shake, shake, shake and turn yourself about. [Laughter]. Those games like that we used to play, um huh, that’s what we did at recess, and of course the older girls talking, 1 guess about their boyfriends because they didn't allow us to play together.
Q. So most of the girls played together and the boys played together.
A. That's right and then they played this way: The smaller girls could be your sisters. But you didn't play with your sister, at school. You played with your equal. The smaller group played together and the larger group played together.
Q. The handkerchief game that was when you were in a circle?
A. Yeah, round and round and you drop it. That's right.
Q. And then they had to run after you and catch you?
A. That's right.
Q. Now after you went back in the building, what did the classrooms look like? The inside of the building where you had class?
A. What did it look like?
Q. Yes, how was it set up, did you have desks? Did you have a chalkboard or slate board? Was there anything in that room that maybe some other buildings didn't have?
A. No, I guess not. We had one big black board, a large black board. And then… over the top of the blackboard were the ABCs and 123s, and there would be what you should drink in the morning, milk, and things that were good for you and a picture of it would be there. Then they had the seats that we sit in, two could sit in a seat. I remember you put your books you wasn't using and the ones you’re using, you put on top__________. And there were rows of that. Our wraps, coats, we hung inside the room.
Q. You didn't have a separate cloak for your coats and things? How was your room heated? You said you had two rooms.
A. And they both had wooden heat by stoves.
Q. What did you do for water and for using the restroom?
A. The water we had a pump on the outside. That's how we got our water, the pump. The restroom- - was as far from the school as it was from here today (Christian Home Church) to that old school there. You had to leave the schoolyard and cross a road then go over in part of the woods to use the restroom. They had one for the girls and one for the boys.
Q. Inside of the building again, were there any other teaching supplies there or nothing else on the walls?
A. Nothing else but what the teacher bought.
Q. The school supplies, you said the teachers bought just about everything. The books came from where?
A. You had to buy your own books. You would get a list showing what each child needed, but the parents had to pay for the books.
Q. Discipline and punishment how did that work in your classroom?
A. Well, she would send the boys out to get switches, and if they didn't obey she'd call them up there and switch you in the hand.
Q. And that was usually enough.
A. It was enough.
Q. What kind of things were you likely to get a switching for?
A. Sometimes, some of the children would act naughty and want to fight. That would be one. She might switch them once in awhile about the lesson. She might tell you if she has to talk to you two or three times and you don't come up she'd tell you if you missed that spelling she'd give you so many licks on your hand. That would make them do a little better. Most of the children, I don’t know…and talking about the boys… sometime they did it outside, I didn't know what it was. But anyway, that's the way ( ).
Q. What they were disciplined for, nowadays, would be minor compared to some of the things that the kids do nowadays.
A. Oh, yes, I would say so.
Q. I understand. Can you think of any other school experience you want to tell us about? Anything at all you recall?
A. Uh, no. There isn't really much more I know about I know when the children- -. She had a lot of problem with children talking and if you really made her angry, sure enough, she'd make everybody stay in. [Laughter]. When it was time to go home she'd make everybody stay. Some days she'd let one go at a time. Everyone would get quiet and she'd tell you “you may be excused”. But then she had to wait for the rest of them.
Q. So you had company to walk home?
A. That's right. Cause you had to walk on the road and woods on each side. Some of them by being naughty like that…that's one time she would punish them too. Some of the children just wouldn't be quiet. I don't know why. But, of all of my going, I never remember getting a lick, never. One thing, I guess, my parents were strict on us. We did what they said. They told the teachers when we had PTA meetings if my children don't obey you, let me know. If you punish them, let me know because I am going to punish them again when they get home…and we know we were going to get it. So we'd do like they said.
Q. Those were the days.
A. That's right.
Q. Ms. Scott, could you tell us about your life biography after school. What types of things you did for marriage and so forth?
A. I can remember just before school closed the teachers would ask what are you all going to be doing over the summer. Some of the children would say I am going out of town, I am going New York, Philadelphia, PA all that good stuff. And I knew where I was going. I didn't say a word. When school closed I had to go to work. I had to help daddy. My daddy was a farmer. When school closed, everyday I was in the fields working on the crops. That's what I had to do.
Q. What crops did your father grow?
A. Oh my goodness. At a certain time of the year, in the spring, we'd start out with string beans, garden peas, tomatoes, then later we'd plant corn _______________. We took a stick, chop it up and put it down in the corners and make a hole in the ground and drop that corn in there and cover it up with your feet. That's what we had to do. Then when it came up you'd take a hoe and chop it out, chop the grass in between it, thin it out, and in the fall of the year we would pick cotton and shuck out peanuts, stack em… we don’t stack em now, but put them on a stick, pick cotton. Oh, boy. I was a regular farmer.
Q. When you finished school did you continue to live on the farm or did you go somewhere else?
A. Oh, no, no. I still lived on the farm and farmed all my life, until I got married. Then I got married and _______________. Then, after then I got _______________and I opened a beauty parlor of my own. Worked there for years and years then I came home. I went to the new house and a garden-- eighteen years…and my sister and I, after working all those years, we saved our money and bought land and built our home.
Q. Do you have anything else you would like for us to know about you, your life, your school anything at all?.
A. No. Only thing I can say is that I desired to go further in school, I loved school; I loved it. But I just…my parents just wasn't able to send me and we didn't have the transportation to get there. I am just thankful for the education I did and I was able make it this far. I didn't have much education, but I thank the Lord I do have a little. ( ). We had another name for it. Is it common sense?
Q. You didn't go far, but you ( )
A. That's right and I am thankful The Lord blessed me to get enough to bring me this far. The education is wonderful, it's good. I don't have nothing against it. _________ everybody that can get it. But education isn't all; you need some understanding and judgment along with it.
Q. Thank you very much and we appreciate it.