Interview with Ms. Elmire Wiggins
November, 2003
Interviewed by Sandra Lowe
Miss Wiggins attended grade 1 at Bridger School in 1953, and was there through grade 5, students went on to Isle of Wight Training School for grades 6-12.
Q: Would you tell me what your maiden name was in school?
A: Fortunately, I made myself say fortunate, I’ve never been married.
Q: That’s quite alright, some of the best people I know aren’t. What area of Isle of Wight did you grow up in?
Q: What landmark would I use? Would I be heading towards Surry?
A: Benn’s Church.
Q: How many sisters and brothers did you have?
A: I had four sisters and seven brothers.
Q: Did any of them attend the same elementary school that you went to?
A: All of us did.
Q: What school was that?
A: The school was Bridger (we called it Bridger School).
Q: How long did you attend Bridger? Did you go from First through Six or Seven or?
A: It was a two-room school. The first room went from grade one; two, three and the next room went from grade four through five.
Q: So Bridger only went up to grade five?
A: Yes
Q: You’re the second person to tell me that. When you left Bridger’s, you would move on to?
A: Isle of Wight training in the sixth grade.
Q: You started in the first grade so what year would that have been approximately?
A: That would be 1953.
Q: And you said Bridger had two rooms? Do you recall the names of the teachers that you had?
A: I just remember their last names. Grade one through three was Miss Mattie Jordan and the fourth through fifth was Mrs. Parker. Willie K. Parker that was her name. The children use to call her ____________.
Q: Do you recall anything about when Bridger School was opened or when it closed, or anything about the history of the school itself?
A: No, I don’t remember exactly when the school first started.
Q: How far did you live from Bridger?
A: Maybe about two or three miles. We started out walking to school.
Q: Tell me about that?
A: The bus didn’t come our way you know and we had to walk to school. So we got ready in the morning and walked, like we stayed down at old Croatan road and the school was at the head of the road on the opposite side. So we walked up there and we used to come home for lunch. When we went to school we used to dig a hole in the stream of water running on the side of the road and you could see the sand at the bottom the water was so clear the water was so clear and we would dig a hole, dig the sand out, dig a little hole when we go to school and when we come back then we would drink that cool water. That was memorable for me because the water was so cool and clear.
Q: Was it just about anywhere on the road or was there a sandy area or something?
A: It was a wooded area. No harm in that area. I remember a lot of trees up high and you could see nothing but the ground and lower the water was down one of the streams right beside the road. Some people would call it a ditch and we would get down on our hands and knees and drink that water.
Q: Any other experiences that you recall from your walking back and forth to school?
A: No, we had some good times, laughing, and talking and running and playing. We use to get to school and had to wait for the teacher to come to open the door and the school had a porch and all of us would stand on the porch especially in the wintertime. We stand on the porch real close together trying to keep warm. Some of the neighbors let some of the children come to their house. Like Virginia and Thornton Edwards. Some children went to their home to keep warm until the schoolteacher came and opened the door and make the fire for us. We had a wooden, no it wasn’t wooden, and it was oil, no coal that black coal. I remember the blocks of coal that they used to put in there to make a fire for us.
Q: Was this a long porch along the school?
A: Yeah, Not the length of the school but fairly long.
Q: At Bridger you had two or three steps to go up?
A: Yeah, it wasn’t so bad. There were two doors that separated the rooms. Each room had it’s own entrance door.
Q: That was in the front you would go up and go into the building?
A: Hm hm
Q: Did you have any side doors?
A: No, I don’t remember any side doors but it was (I can’t remember how the room was divided). Whether the door that go thru from one room to the other one inside the building, but I don’t remember being no back doors to it at all.
Q: When you went in the building for your side of the room did you have a cloak area for your coats and hats or was that in the classroom?
A: Well, a closet.
Q: That was part of the classroom itself?
A: I think so, I don’t remember that.
Q: So you couldn’t go in the building until the teacher got there and when she arrived you were able to line up and go in or you just went in?
A: Laughter. She probably wanted us to line up. But I think we just got in as quick as we could because it was so cold in the wintertime.
Q: What would you do once you got in?
A: The first through the third grades had tables and chairs. So we would go find our chair and sit in it. All depended on what grade you were in, it wasn’t sectioned off but first grade had a certain amount of table and chairs to sit in and second and the third and when we got in the fourth and the fifth grade we had desks that we were suppose to sit in and an old piano in there so my desk was next to the piano.
Q: Do you remember any other furniture in the room besides the desk and the teacher’s desk and you said you had a piano in the fourth and fifth grade?
A: Mrs. Parker used to play the piano and we learned the twenty third psalms in that class and we learned the pledge to the flag and we learned the twenty third psalms, that’s where I learned the twenty third psalms in that classroom. We would say it together.
Q: Was there anything else that you’d do for devotions?
A: We sung God Bless America and we sung We Gather Together. Lot of people used to sing that at Thanksgiving time, but we sung that. Those are the ones I remember. We had recess. I can’t remember how long recess lasted but there was a fence in front of the school. You couldn’t see all the way as far as it went because it was May Pop, it used to come out in May. It was a fruit that grew and inside of it looked like some kind of seed in there and had some kind of moist.
Q: Was it like honeysuckle?
A: Honeysuckle grew on the fence, but this fruit called May Pop we used to eat especially at recess and it came out in May and I don’t know if May Pop is the right name but that’s what we used to call it.
Q: But it was different from the honeysuckle?
A: Oh, Yeah! Sometimes the children would suck the flower.
Q: The honeysuckles I remember were green and fairly large.
A: No, these were yellow, yellow and white.
Q: That’s a new one on me. After devotions what did you do in your classes? What do you remember about your subjects and materials that you went through in classes?
A: I don’t remember exactly what we did next. I don’t remember, I really don’t.
Q: Favorite subject? Or anything that you remember about your math or history class or reading?
A: I know we had reading.
Q: And your school day did it start at 9:00 and end at 3:00, 2:00 or 3:00?
A: I’m not sure on this now. Most likely 9:00 to 3:00.
Q: What do you recall about the lunch period?
A: Of course we had our bag lunch you know everybody brought their own lunch from home. We use to go home sometimes for lunch, we did. We had to walk to school, so we used to go home and children bought their little bag lunch. Some of them had lunch boxes and I don’t remember how long the lunch period lasted but we sat at our same little table or desk whatever and ate lunch. We didn’t have a lunchroom.
Q: Did you go outside for a recess break then or was that later in the day?
A: No, I can’t remember at lunchtime. We had recess I think it was twice and recess probably lasted maybe for half an hour, I don’t know.
Q: And your room was heated by coal and potbelly stove type?
A: It wasn’t potbelly. It was just a regular tin stove.
Q: Was your classroom decorated with any pictures or letters of the alphabet or?
A: I believe the alphabet was on the blackboard. I believe they were and I can’t really say for sure.
Q: Do you remember if the teacher needed to use any kind of punishment for your classmates?
A: Not Miss Mattie little short ruler but Mrs. Parker had a long one. (Laughter). I remember one day, I’m afraid of worms inside class and Andrew Goodman opened his science book up in class one day to a page that had a worm on it and I hollered out in class. Mrs. Parker didn’t touch Andrew but she hit me with that ruler, and her ruler was thick. You know what that would be child abuse today but they used the ruler.
Q: That was enough to handle things in that day?
A: Oh Yeah! The kid wasn’t really bad in school then. We didn’t know anything bad to do so everyone got along pretty good.
Q: Do you have any negative memories of school?
A: No I just loved school. Didn’t want to miss a day. It was fun to go and meet little friends and socialize. Miss Mattie used to sell cookies, they were coconut cookies. We were glad to go to her car to help her you know. Bring her items in school. Her books and everything and materials. We had tests you know, it was a lot of fun.
Q: Are there any other school experiences that you haven’t told us about?
A: Laugh! Let me see. When I went to, not in the Bridger school it was a lot of fun and learning experience and when I graduated to Isle of Wight Training School that was a different experience for me and I met a whole lot of strange people because those children there stayed in the town of Smithfield, a lot of them did, and we was coming from a different area so it was a new experience for me. My teacher, I’ll never forget, her name was Mrs. Thomlin at the time, I understand she has been married again and I don’t know her married name, but she was my homeroom teacher in the sixth grade and she was the first one to tell me I need to wear a bra. You know she didn’t say it out loud, she called me to her desk one day and she told me and when I went home I telled Mama but by it being so many in the family, it was a hand me down thing you know so I wore one of my sisters and I never forgot her. I thank her for that. I was a little ashamed at first. I would walk around and I looked larger than some in class, I felt self-conscious. I don’t think I ever told anybody that and I used to walk around with my shoulder hunched up and tried to draw my chest in. School was good. I loved it. I didn’t have a teacher that I disliked. I liked my teachers. I used to go there everyday. I didn’t like to miss school. Only thing I regret is that I didn’t go to college.
(It’s never too late) Now it’s seems like I’m too tired and never have the time and I regret that.
Q: The last question I have, is would you tell me what you did after school? Work your way up to the present day?
A: O.K. After I graduated from school I went to Philadelphia for 8 months, stayed with my sister-in-law Gladys Edwards, and I worked. I did some housework and I worked at the Internal Revenue Center for a while. I came back home; I got pregnant with my son Danny. You said after I graduated?
Q: Right that’s what I want; you to give us some of the highlights of things that you did, work and, you’re on the right path.
A: Before that happened, I’ll go back to when we was in high school. During the summertime our school went to Conn. And a school in Carrsville, those two schools I know went to Conn. And worked in tobacco for the summer, so I did that for three years and we worked and they sent our money home to our parents. We had a little bit to spend but that went on until the children got so unruly that they did away with that. Mrs. Reddick was in charge of the girls and I’ll never forget one night one of the girls after she told us to go to bed one of the girls hollered out and she thought that I did it and I didn’t, so I was accused of that. I had to sleep on her floor, come in her room and sleep on the floor all night long. It was four college girls, we stayed in the house, they had a dormitory and they had a house, and one room, with four college girls. The one I stayed in had eight girls and there was another room and the rest of the girls stayed in the dorm. That was enjoyable because I learned, we tied the tobacco and we sewed it and the boys picked it and once maybe two or three times they let the girls and boys get together. Then after I graduated from high school I decided not to go to college and I got some information from service but I didn’t have no one to really help me along the way, guide me, no one that I knew of in the pathway of righteousness so I could have probably went into the service, I think I would have liked that but I didn’t so I ended up with a baby and I decided not to go on welfare, so after he was nine months old I went to work and I’ve been working every since. I work at Gwaltney Meat Packing Plant.
Q: You are still working?
A: Yes
Q: Did you have anything else you would like to add to your interview because I have no other questions for you?
A: Not really, just during my school year and my experience in life it’s not a whole lot of regrets because life goes on and -----------------------and nobody else paid my way through life and after I went out and got the baby I decided to take care of him. And I did that. I was a single parent, I’ve never married and with the help of the good Lord and people at church and my parents raised my sons, and well I ended up having two sons. My sons to be very respectable men and never had one ounce of trouble out of them. They never spent a night in jail or nothing like that. So I’m just thankful for that. Right now both of them are happily married and have their own families and I have two lovely daughter-in-laws and five grandchildren and one on the way.