Q: Today is Saturday, January 8th and we’re at the Isle of Wight/ Smithfield Visitor’s Center and we’re interviewing Mrs. Audrey Tucker at this time. Mrs. Tucker, first of all, welcome and we hope that you will have an interesting and pleasant conversation with us just talking about your elementary school days. First of all, what area of Isle of Wight did you grow up in?
A: In the Mill Swamp area. If that, that would be on the northeast, south, I can’t, I can’t tell you that but it’s the Mill Swamp area.
Q: Are there some local points that we would recognize, when you say that area, mention that area, are we headed towards Smithfield, Windsor or?
A: Heading toward Ivor.
Q: Toward Ivor, past the courthouse?
A: Not that way, you’re going out on the road here, the Mill Swamp Road, leading from Smithfield; you’re going there and following that road, that way to Ivor.
Q: Okay and did you have brothers and sisters?
A: Yes, I had four brothers and one sister.
Q: Did they attend the same elementary school that you attended?
A: One of them did, uh being the youngest. The others was in, lived in another county.
Q: Okay. So when you started, you were the only one that went?
A: My brother.
Q: Your brother and you?
A: Uh-huh.
Q: Okay and what school was this?
A: Godwin Elementary.
Q: Godwin Elementary and what grades were taught at Godwin?
A: Grade one through seven.
Q: Grades one through seven with how many classrooms?
A: One classroom.
Q: One classroom. Did you attend all of the grades there, one through seven or some other number?
A: No, I started at grade three; third through seven.
Q: What years would that have been?
A: In ’42 to ’47.
Q: During that time did you have just one teacher or more than one?
A: I had one teacher.
Q: And who was that?
A: Cornelia Quarels.
Q: Alright, very good. I knew her. Do you recall any of the history of the Godwin School? You know, maybe who started it or who were some of the past teachers there? Anything at all that might help us.
A: No, I really don’t remember any teachers there because, like I said, I wasn’t in that county until I started in the third grade and I was only seven years old then and I don’t remember. No, I don’t know anything about it, but I would think that _________ Godwin played a great part in that. The school was named Godwin School and he lived across the road and I believe he played a great part in that.
Q: How did you get to and from school?
A: We walked.
Q: You walked and what distance was that?
A: It was, I would say at least five to six miles.
Q: One way?
A: One way.
Q: Did you have chores to do before you went to school or after?
A: After school, yes.
Q: What type of chores did you do? Were you on a farm?
A: I was on a farm, yes. Well, at that age in elementary school, though actually I didn’t have any, a lot of chores to do ‘cause I was just a kid.
Q: Your other brothers and sisters did most of it?
A: Yes.
Q: Very good. What do you remember about the way the school day began at Godwin?
A: Oh, well, you came in and the first, when you walked in there was a entranceway there where we hung our coats up and we went into the classroom and our day began with devotions. We had, Mrs. Quarels always read from psalms. She would read scripture. She read from a book of psalms. We sang and we had the pledge of allegiance. We sang songs like, we sang folk songs, a lot of folk songs like Dixieland, Auld Lang Syne, Way Down Upon The Swanee River; those kind of songs. That was our devotion, that was the first thing we done.
Q: Besides singing, did the class do any other participation; verses, bible verses, or things of that sort?
A: No, not bible verses, I don’t remember that, bible verses. She always read the scripture.
Q: What types of subjects did you work on during the day?
A: Oh, we had, of course we had reading, arithmetic, we had language, we called.
Q: Do you remember the names of any of your text books, or perhaps your early reader, anything that stands out?
A: I think by the time I got there, I think we had passed the Dick and Jane books, you know.
Q: But that is what you had as your primer reader?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you go to, was Godwin open basic time as a regular school year, from September through May or was there another schedule?
A: No, it was September through May.
Q: What do you recall about the lunch period? What did you do at lunchtime and where did you eat, inside, outside?
A: We ate at our desks, inside at our desks and then after that we could go out and play.
Q: What types of things did you do at recess? What types of games did you play?
A: Ring games, the girls like to get together and play ring games and sometimes we did play ball, you know. They had a swing and seesaw and so, yeah we had time.
Q: Some other schools didn’t have any materials and some, some did.
A: We had the swing. We had the seesaw and we had a sliding board, yes we did. We had a sliding board and we played ring games. We had fun, really.
Q: Did you have, do you recall other than the lunch recess, having another break during the day or was that usually it?
A: That I don’t, yeah, that was usually it. There might have been occasions where we went out in the afternoon to, you know, to play. I don’t think that was everyday.
Q: Might have been a special occasion or reward?
A: Yes.
Q: How would you describe your school’s classroom?
A: The layout you mean?
Q: The layout, what was in there?
A: Oh, okay. What was in there was we had a sandbox for the little children. We had a piano and we had a stand with a big globe. I thought it was a big globe. Over there we had a large, we called it a library, but actually it was just a large bookcase and we had a kitchen. We had a kitchen to our school. In the winter time, maybe once a month, we would have soup, hot soup; one day, make it one day a week, we had hot soup. Some of the higher grades would help with that and fix the soup. That was enjoyable; otherwise, you know, we had to bring your own lunch.
Q: Did you use the, did they use the kitchen for anything other than the days they had soup? Did, you know, did they ever make anything else, drinks or something like that?
A: No. Now the other thing we did on special holidays, Valentine’s-not Valentine’s, Halloween, Easter, Christmas, we had what we called exercises at school. We had programs or they called it entertainment. We used to do a lot of drama. We had plays and speeches and we had this exercise at night and the community would come out and to hear that. That was something we looked forward to. It really was very, very enjoyable. At that time we did use the kitchen, because we sold hot dogs and ice cream.
Q: Did your night activities usually happen during each one of those special holiday seasons or was there just one or two events at night or were they all at night? Do you recall?
A: They were, those exercises were all at night, you know, so the families could come out and be a part of it because, otherwise, that was a rural community and everybody’s farming; so that was done at night.
Q: At that time, did you have, what did you use for lighting? Did you have electricity, what type or what kind of lamps did you have?
A: I really don’t remember but I know there was not electricity because there was no electricity down that highway, I mean down that road. It was a dirt road and they hadn’t even put electricity in that area…. because the other thing was they would, somebody would bring this load of wood and the boys would go out and stack the wood up, stack it up so it would dry out. I even know how to stack wood. So we had the wood stove for the classroom and for the kitchen.
Q: It’s wonderful and interesting to see how even in the county some schools were different depending on the community they were in and what resources they had. Many of them did not have as much as your school had. Your school was heated by the pot belly stove?
A: The potbelly stove.
Q: Your water supply?
A: We had a well outside, yes.
Q: You just, you went outside at the recess period or something like that to get water, or did you have certain times that you could do that?
A: Well, she had a pail, a water pail, you know, and the boys would go out and get the water and bring the pail of water back into the kitchen; so that’s, that’s where we had, you know. You didn’t have to go all the way outside during the day.
Q: Did you have chalkboards or blackboards?
A: Chalkboards, yes. Blackboards, yes.
Q: Any other school supplies that you recall?
A: Well, we had plenty of construction paper and scissors, paste, we call it. We had about like four or five windows on the east side of the building and after holidays, we would, they would do cut-out pictures and put on the windows; decorate the windows and all like that. So we had, as far as I knew, there was plenty of construction paper and stuff like that to do those kind of things.
Q: Do you know who supplied that for you?
A: No, I don’t but I mean I can suspect that a lot of funds, I think the parents would pay dues, you know, and I think a lot of the supplies was bought by the parents actually paying dues.
Q: Do you know if you had an actual parent grouping as some of the other schools did that evolved into our regular PTA now?
A: I, I don’t remember at that school that we did. I know in another school we did, I remember that and I don’t know why I remember that, but it had to be something, because I don’t remember my daddy going and daddy was always been involved; so I’m not sure.
Q: Okay and you mentioned that you already had a cloakroom, cloak area in the hallway. You didn’t have a room off.
A: No, but it was a closet. Yes.
Q: What do you remember about discipline and punishment in the classroom?
A: Well now, she had a yard stick and a ruler, you know, the little foot ruler but I don’t remember a lot, so that tells me that they were pretty well behaved because I don’t remember her using it or have to use it that much. You know and, and what amazes me was, is one teacher done so much with seven grades. I can see her moving, like the first grade sits here and the second there, you know, your rows like that, and I could see her after she instruct the first grade, she would move over to the next aisle and give the second grade their instruction and then she move over to the next aisle. Like I said, we would just… we just had so many things to do. It wasn’t just reading, writing, arithmetic but it was drama and it was, you know, a lot of other stuff, singing and stuff like that.
Q: Teachers, during that period, were already doing better grouping and team teaching types of activities than many folks, you know, were doing not too long ago?
A: Yeah.
Q: Do you have any positive memories that stand out in your mind?
A: Positive memories.
Q: Of school, maybe something that you, it might be the whole period of time that you went to the elementary school all together or some incident that you recall that basically just gives you the overall idea that this was, that you enjoyed your whole school experience or most of it?
A: Well, actually the things I just said, there’s nothing really that stands out over anything else. I enjoyed, I mean I have very fond memories of school and we just had a good time.
Q: Very good. Were there any negative memories that you don’t mind speaking of?
A: And you know what, you asked me that last night, you mentioned that last night and I thought about it and I don’t know of anything. I really don’t. The only thing that I could think of, it was not, it didn’t happen at school, it may have happened on the way home. We was walking down the road and kids get into things walking down the road. At school, we had a good time. I don’t have anything negative about school.
Q: The things that may have happened on your way to and from school, were with the same students that you were with in the classroom?
A: Uh-huh.
Q: But they were not, it was not a problem in the classroom?
A: That’s right.
Q: Is there anything else that you recall about your school experiences on the elementary level that you want to tell us about?
A: I believe we have covered most of it, it seems like.
Q: Then would you tell us, this is my last question, something about yourself, a brief biography of what you did after school?
A: After the elementary school, I went to Isle of Wight.
Q: Was it Westside or Isle of Wight Training?
A: It was Isle of Wight Training at that time, yes.
Q: After high school, what did you pursue after that?
A: After high school, I went to work at Gwaltney’s and that’s where I stayed and I just retired in ’03 and at that time of retirement I was working in accounts receivable and credit. I have, I enjoyed working at Gwaltney, I enjoyed the experiences because when I went there no black people were in the office and therefore, I was production, in production.
Q: You seen many changes?
A: I wrote the President a letter and he acknowledged it. I went to school, you had to have typing. That was a…I went to school and I got that and then I took other courses in accounting and I just went from one area to the other and I have enjoyed it- working there. Right now I’m working at Main Street Church as the office secretary.
Q: Anything you would like to tell us about family?
A: I’m married to Timothy Tucker. I have three children and I have one daughter is in, lives in Woodbridge, Virginia with my one grandson and I have another daughter in Fort Washington, Maryland and I have a daughter that lives in Newport News. So I have three daughters, one grandson.
Q: Very good. Is there anything else you would like to add to our interview before closing?
A: I can’t think of anything.
Q: Then we have enjoyed having you here and we hope that you will keep in touch and keep up with our news as we prepare to move the school building and open up by next year, and Mrs. Tucker we want to thank you for coming in today.
A: Okay, all right.