Q: Today is June 11, 2003. My name is Delores Cuffey. I will be doing an interview on Eva Warren. Ms. Warren what area of Isle of Wight County did you grow up in?
A: Carrollton, right down the road.
Q: Carrollton. And how many brothers and sisters did you have?
A: Seven girls and three brothers, one sister deceased so it was ten of us, nine now.
Q: And what was the name, the school was Carrollton Elementary?
A: Yes, uh huh.
Q: And was it one or two rooms?
A: Two classrooms.
Q: Two. Okay do you remember what grades were taught?
A: Uh, from the first to the sixth.
Q: Okay, do you remember any of the teacher’s names?
A: Yes, uh huh, Lucy P. Blount and uh Clarice D. White, Mrs. White.
Q: Vaguely, do you remember what year you went to this school or what years you attended Carrollton?
A: Oh let’s see sixth grade, I started six years old.
Q: When you were six years old?
A: Uh huh. I went from there to the sixth grade. Hmm, about 50, I guess about 58, 1959. I can’t remember.
Q: Do you have any information on the history of the school? When it opened or closed?
A: No I don’t have that information on me.
Q: How did you get to school?
A: Well we walked from uh, my house to the school up there.
Q: About how far do you think that was? A mile?
A: Naw it’s more than a mile. Bout… maybe four or five, between four and five.
Q: And you walked to and from school?
A: Yes uh huh,
Q: What did the school day start like once you got there? When you got to school and it was time for the school to open, what was some of the first things you did?
A: Well we did Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and said a prayer. After that devotion, then whatever class ya know start our homework.
Q: Okay. What did the classroom look like? Did it have stuff on the walls or can you remember?
A: Well we had three classrooms in one. First, second and third was on one side and, well they was separated a partition wall in between- and the third, I mean fourth fifth and sixth was on the other side. We had wood heaters and wooden desks. The teacher had a desk.
Q: Did you have things on the wall?
A: Yeah, they had different pictures, you know each class had like ya know drawings or homework and alphabets and all that on the wall. Chalkboard and all.
Q: Do you remember if the, if the school day was as small as it is now or about the same?
A: About the same. But I went from nine to three anyway.
Q: Nine to three.
A: Mm hm same as they have now.
Q: School started like in the fall and went through to the next…
A: Mmm hm. Labor Day to um,
Q: Labor Day to about May?
A: No June, we always got out in June.
Q: June okay. The textbooks and all was that at school? Your parents bought your books and you carried them home? Do you remember where the books came from?
A: We used to had buy books back then .The school supplies, some of it, my mother used to buy our books back then too.
Q: Do you remember having recesses and lunch? What did you do, did you have a recess like in…
A: Yes we had recess during lunchtime. Well recess and lunch was you know, all combined in one you ate your lunch and after that, probably went outside and played. I can’t remember if we had a hour, half an hour or what, I think it might have been a half an hour. I’m not for sure, it was an hour.
Q: Did you have to take your lunch to school? Was there any food prepared?
A: Yes, we had to take out lunch everyday. We had no cafeteria. We had to take ours.
Q: Had nothing at school?
A: Yeah, didn’t take no lunch you didn’t eat or else someone else gave you their lunch.
Q: Gave you some of their lunch?
A: Yes. Uh huh
Q: What about water? Did you have water in the school?
A: Naw, we had uh, uh outside pump.
Q: So did anybody bring water in the school?
A: No everybody probably, if you brought something it was probably a juice, ya know whatever you brought from home or stopped at the store on the way to school, picked up.
Q: Do you remember anything about how the school was heated?
A: We had a coal, one of those big cast iron heaters. Well we burned wood and coal.
Q: Who made the fire?
A: Mrs. Ida Lee Bailey.
Q: What about restrooms at the time?
A: We had outside toilets.
Q: Outside. Okay, so did you have electricity or, you didn’t have electric?
A: Yeah we had electricity in the classroom but uh; yeah in the classroom cause we did have those real big lights in the ceiling.
Q: Do you remember having somewhere to hang your coats? Did you have a closet or something?
A: No we didn’t have no closet. Most time we, ya know you put your coat in your desk.
Q: On the back?
A: Books and everything. We had a little piece up under the seat you know, so you could put your coat or whatever you had in there.
Q: Is that where you put your lunch too, until…?
A: Yeah, uh huh we ain’t have no refrigerator so we’d have nowhere else to put it.
Q: What would happen if somebody was acting up bad in class? What kind of punishment did you get do you remember?
A: Yeah you got a whipping. Popping in your hand with that ruler.
Q: By the teacher?
A: Yes, uh huh.
Q: Can you think of any positive memories that happened when you were going to school, whether it was on your way to school or after you got to school? Anything that sticks out in your mind, how you know some things stick with you for life.
A: Like I say, one girl used to take my lunch everyday when I was going to school. I used to get a whipping for that. My teacher used to whip me and my mom used to whip my sister ____ I think I was about, I can’t remember, I was about nine or ten and I just decided it was time for me to stop getting all those whippings. So I used to give her my lunch and my money so then I decided one day I would start fighting back.
Q: You just let her have your lunch?
A: Yeah, she was bigger than I was; I was scared of her! Yeah I used to give her my lunch everyday.
Q: So then you would get punished cause you would let somebody have your lunch.
A: Yeah I come home I’d be hungry everyday cause I didn’t eat all day.
Q: And they were wondering why you were hungry if you had lunch. Anything else sticks out in your mind?
A: I remember one time I went to school and my hands had got real cold, it was during the winter. I stuck it up to the heater like that and that was the worse thing I ever could do. You talking about something aching, and my hands were aching so bad and uh Mrs. Ida Lee was the janitor, well everyone called it back then. She came outside to the pump ya know pump water on it. I never realized you put cold water on a aching hand like that and it thaw em out. That’s what she did.
Q: So it made it feel better?
A: Hmm mm,
Q: If you could talk to a young person now going to school based on knowing what you went through what would you tell a child now that’s going to school, what kind of advice would you give them? Even if it was your own child.
A: Well, most kids, I got grandkids now I try to talk to them stay in school .The teacher there to learn you and the teacher that help you, I know I had problems, I had problems in school you know with the teachers and all. I realize now what they was trying to tell me now cause by me not graduating what I went through it’s hard to get a job. Even if you have a GED and a college education it’s still hard to get a job. They tell you they gonna hire you and they still ain’t hire you. You call me I don’t call you and all that. So most time I try to tell them stay in school .At least till you get 21 that’s it. After that ya know, even if ya know try to stay in and get your education.
Q: So you would stress how important it was to get an education?
A: Yeah that’s really important in these days and time to ya know, get that education.
Q: Yeah it’s just like now they don’t see it that way.
A: Yeah most young people…
Q: Some do.
A: That’s what I’m saying some of em they get 16, 17 in their last year of school, they want to drop out. Cause I had a daughter, well I got two daughters did the same thing. They got in 12th, 11th grade and decided not to, well this not for me, they didn’t want to go to school no more; I don’t like my teachers so they quit. So now all three of us trying to get our GED.
Q: You wanna just tell us something about your self, just an autobiographical sketch of your life? It’s up to you what you wanna tell us about.
A: Well, I got married at an early age I got married when I was 15. My father deceased when I was like three, so I never knew my father .My mother lived until I got 13, so after I got 13 my sister raised us. Like I was trying to tell most kids, your parents are your most important value too also. I know they might do some stuff that you don’t like but I always try to stress to my kids, listen to your mom and daddy you only gonna get one each…and I try to be, try to make them independent and be on their own. I taught my kids and grandkids to tell them to be independent. I started working at an early age too. Cause I think I started working when I was what, like ten or twelve in the peanut fields, strawberries, string beans and always working since I was about, I know I was 12. I been working all my life just about, I’m 55 years old I will be 56 in August.
Q: So even when you was trying to go to school some days you would stay out to…
A: No, no, I never had to stay out of school. That’s all. I worked until; I went to school till I got pregnant then back then if you got pregnant you couldn’t go to school. You could go to ______ after I got pregnant I would have to go to a different county, a different school. Isle of Wight would not take nobody at school that was pregnant. In other words, I didn’t really go to another county or school. I just stayed with my sister; I stayed home then me and my husband we decided to get married…and I never did get my education but I went _____ three or four times different classes you know take another advance and still trying to get my GED, still working on that.
Q: Do you think, well, basically going to school, I wanted you to show some comparison between going to school then and now but I think you touched on it when you said one teacher had three classes she taught.
A: Yeah each teacher, each side of the classroom had well a partition in between it. Mrs. White had first, second, and third and Ms. Blount had fourth, fifth, and sixth. So really you had, like I think maybe two rows, two or three rows with third grade and the other three or four with fourth, uh yeah fourth and fifth like that. So we were blocked in sections like that. But everybody to me even though we had a three room classroom the kids, everybody learned because some of the stuff that we learned in elementary they are doing it in high school now and like I said I think we really, I don’t know well, a small classroom we really learned it all or what, ya know.
Q: Do you think teachers showed more interest then than now or maybe some teachers still do and some don’t?
A: Some teachers still do, some don’t. Some do. I say yeah some classes ya know they showed more interest. I’m gonna give you an example my granddaughter. I had my granddaughter, I kept her for a year to go to school over here she was in Smithfield. The teacher waited to me until half the semester to tell me she that was failing when she could have told me less than the first six weeks when she got her report card she could have told me she not, you know, doing her level.
Q: So you could have…
A: Yeah like I was telling her to me I could had helped her more because she was staying with her mother and me both. Her mother would take her at night and I had her during the day ya know with her working and I, to me, they repeated her she was doing, to me she had a good report card but they said the state say you gotta have a certain manner of pass this to go to the next grade. I don’t think that’s, I didn’t think that was fair. Then she came and asked me should I repeat her or should I send her to the next grade. Now you the teacher. She said she put her in the next grade she not gonna be on the same level as the kids but I said if she on a different level you still could have passed her. To me back then we didn’t really, no body really failed in classes. Not in first, second, and third grade now they even fail them in kindergarten.
Q: Cause I even skipped a grade.
A: That’s what I said. I had one daughter ever since she started school they wanna skip her each year but each year she kept telling me she didn’t want to be skipped she wanted to stay with her classmates and didn’t want to graduate before the rest of them did so she stayed in her grade.
Q: With her class?
A: Yeah.
Q: Is there anything else that comes to mind that you would like to share with us? Anything you can think of? A lot of times when you are trying to think of something you will think of it later.
A: Well when I got to high school it was a little different cause once we got down here in Carrollton we started riding the bus. Mr. Horace Davis was the bus driver back then.
Q: And you went to Isle of Wight?
A: Mm hum I went to the old high school then. It was a little different; the teachers were a little different…and somehow I passed a test and didn’t know how I passed it, all I know is I just studied it and I got an A. I was surprised one day the teacher said I got one person in classroom made an A and everybody peeking around who is this person made an A. Come to find out it was me. I really didn’t even study for the test I just guessed the answers. I knew the basic answer but as far as studying for the test, I never did. I always liked being around kids. My husband’s in the military so we traveled a pretty, ya know pretty much. Most everywhere we went to everyone call us, even mom and dad and wanna stay with us all the time.
Q: All right, we thank you so much for coming in for this interview. Somewhere down the line when they get all of this completed it will be in the Museum where people can go in and just pull it up and look at it.
A: Okay.
Q: Thanks a lot.
A: All right.