Esther Vincent Lloyd: My name is Esther Vincent Lloyd. I was born in Person County, North Carolina. Mary Hebert: What county? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Person. Mary Hebert: Person. Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: Like P-E-R— Esther Vincent Lloyd: S-O-N. Yes. Mary Hebert: What's that mean [indistinct 00:00:26]. Esther Vincent Lloyd: Well, the county seat is Roxboro, North Carolina, and it's right on the Virginia border. Mary Hebert: Is it safe to say a rural community? Esther Vincent Lloyd: It's a very small— I was born in a rural community, but Roxboro is a very small town. Still is. Mary Hebert: How far away from Roxboro did you say you were born? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I would say maybe about 10 miles. Mary Hebert: And was that was the nearest city or— Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. And that's where we went to high school, because there was no high school. Mary Hebert: What was your family? Esther Vincent Lloyd: My dad was Ernest Harvey Vincent. And my mom was Clarice. Well, is Clarice Elizabeth Allen Vincent. Mary Hebert: What did they do for a living? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Dad was a farmer when I was growing up. Mary Hebert: And your mother didn't work? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No, she did not. Mary Hebert: Did he own his own land? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Part of the time. My grandmother owned a great deal of land, so somehow she had her children work that land, because my grandfather had died when they were small. Mary Hebert: Did you ever find out how she acquired the land, how your grandmother acquired the land? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I have the deeds to that land. I do genealogy, so I've gone back and gotten everything from the marriage certificates to the deeds. And it probably was a lot of money they spent, but he had bought about 70 acres once, and I think it cost about $4,000. I don't remember exactly. I would have to look at the deed. Mary Hebert: Did they ever say how they came about buying the land? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Well, my grandfather had died before I was born, and my grandmother was not an easy person to talk with. Mary Hebert: She never told you stories about what life like? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No, she was very private. You couldn't find out anything about the family when I was a child. I guess that's why I was so interested in doing it now, genealogy, and just from some of the stories I've learned from some of the other relatives, I kind of put things together. But no, they never talked about, to me, how they got the land. Mary Hebert: And your father [indistinct 00:02:57]. Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes, in fact, they sold it and they sold it to one of the grandchildren, who still own that land. Mary Hebert: Did you grow up living on your grandmother's land? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Most of my life, yes. I grew up where my father grew up, and he grew up where his mother grew up, in the same county. And my grandmother grew up where her parents grew up. So it's a long list of people in Person County. Mary Hebert: Did any of them migrate out of Person County? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Only one of my father's brothers went to live in Jersey City, and he hated farming. That's why he went. Mary Hebert: But none of you [indistinct 00:03:48]? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No, they all stayed home and worked the land. Mary Hebert: So you grew up with lots of aunts and uncles [indistinct 00:03:55]. Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Family, yes, yes. Mary Hebert: What kind of house, can you describe the house you grew up in? Esther Vincent Lloyd: It was a big house. Real big, with a huge yard painted white. Mary Hebert: Did you have grass in the yard? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Yes. It was a lot of grass to have to mow. Mary Hebert: Did anyone else live in the house other than you and the immediate family? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No. At one point we lived right in the house with Grandma. Grandma had an older son. Her oldest son lived with her, and he died, so several of her children took turns trying to live with her so she could stay home. Mary Hebert: So the whole family lived in her house? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: Did your father build his house or your family's house on that land? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I don't know. See, when I remember the house that was built, I don't know who built that house. I guess my grandmother had had it built. Mary Hebert: Is it kind of like she lived in the larger house and children lived in houses around her? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Not really. In the end it was a lot of land because after my grandfather bought the 70, 80 acres, my grandmother bought more land after he died. It was within walking distance, but it wasn't right together. Mary Hebert: It wasn't one house? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No, no. There was one. The second son— Yeah, the second son lived in adjoining part of the farm. But the other part of the farmland was separated by other people's land. So that's how it worked. Mary Hebert: Was it unusual for African Americans to own that much land in Person County? Esther Vincent Lloyd: When I was born, no. I knew the Reliances, the Bradshaws. I was trying to see if I remember anyone else. They all owned a lot of land. Mary Hebert: There weren't many sharecroppers around? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Not right around me. I'm sure they were. We had sharecroppers. When I say we, I'm thinking in terms of my grandmother and my father and uncles. Mary Hebert: Were they all African-Americans or [indistinct 00:06:42] sharecroppers? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Oh, all African-American. Mary Hebert: What kind of crops did they grow? Esther Vincent Lloyd: The main money maker was tobacco. Mary Hebert: Did you ever have to work on the farm? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Some, but I had brothers and I was kind of lazy. I did not like the hot sun. And my dad had to stay on my back so much, he decided that maybe I would do better at working at the house. So I cooked and I cleaned. Mary Hebert: You cooked, you helped your mother cook [indistinct 00:07:13]? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yeah, my mother would go— She would work on the farm. She didn't mind that, but I just didn't like it. I never liked it. I guess it was more work for my dad to get me to do the work than it was for him to just let me go to the house and I would cook and clean and that kind of stuff, and I have been doing it since I was, I guess in high school. Mary Hebert: Cooking for the whole family? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: [indistinct 00:07:43]? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Anything like that? Sometimes, but not— Mostly family. Mary Hebert: Where did you go to school? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Okay. The grammar school was a school called Union Grove School. It was located in Hurdle Mills, North Carolina. Mary Hebert: And was that a one room school house? Esther Vincent Lloyd: It was two rooms. First through the third grade, my dad's sister was my teacher. Tough teacher. And then four through seven was another teacher. Mary Hebert: And those were all in those two rooms? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Yes. Mary Hebert: How did that work? I mean, how did your teacher handle a class? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Well, if she was teaching, say, arithmetic to the third graders, then the first and second graders had writing kind of things they had to do. They had very few discipline problems because our parents would kill us if we acted up. Mary Hebert: And with your aunt as the teacher, I'm sure that [indistinct 00:09:00]. Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes, so it worked very well for, I guess, a time. It wasn't an ideal situation, I'm sure. But I think it worked, in a way, better than it does today with— Because I was in teaching, so I— Mary Hebert: What was the school like? Was it a well built school with— Esther Vincent Lloyd: It had been a church at one time. In fact, they are redoing it now. I was there in October of '90— What's this? '95. Of '94. And my cousins, a lot of us were there and we went inside the building, because they're redoing it. They're trying to make it historical. The church itself is doing it. And the rooms were so small. They seemed so big when we were going there, and we went inside. In fact, we had our family reunion there in '92, and we were able to go inside then, too. So it was small, two room schoolhouse. Mary Hebert: Was it heated by a wood stove? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Yes. In fact, I wrote about it. But this, I want. Where is it? Somewhere here I wrote about the school. Mary Hebert: Could we make a copy of that and include it with your interview? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yeah. I was going to put it in our newsletter. But our newsletter is not sold, so it won't cause any problem, will it? Mary Hebert: No. Esther Vincent Lloyd: I will probably change it a little bit, when I put it in the newsletter, but I wrote about the school and that, about the outdoor toilets and how we did the custodial work ourselves and that kind of stuff. Mary Hebert: So children were responsible for bringing in the wood— Esther Vincent Lloyd: The wood, and coal. We did have some coal. It was a big potbelly stove in the middle of the room. And we brought the wood, we washed the boards, we swept up the floors, we got the water from— There was a spring. I didn't realize, I thought it was a well with a pump, but when we were there in October, my brother reminded me that it was a spring that they used to get the water from the spring. I didn't realize. Because the church was, it still is, right next door. The building that was a school had been a church, and they built a bigger church next door, and it's still there. Mary Hebert: Was it a church-run school or was it a public school? Esther Vincent Lloyd: It was a public school, yeah. I suppose it started out as a church-run school, but it's a public school. Mary Hebert: How many months a year did you go to school? Was it nine months like it is today? Esther Vincent Lloyd: September through May. I guess that's what, is that nine, ten months. Nine months. Yeah. Mary Hebert: It was a normal school year. It wasn't delayed for crops and things like that? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I think it started probably last of August, but we were not kept out of school for crops, probably because our parents owned the land, but some of the children were kept out. They couldn't go to school because of crops. Mary Hebert: Did most children in the community go to school? This part of the community? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Mm-hmm. Yes. Mary Hebert: What were the books like? Were they used books? Esther Vincent Lloyd: They were hand-me-down books. So sometimes pages were missing and sometimes they were written on. They were not clean. Mary Hebert: Did the parents do any of the work of maintaining the school? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Yes, they do. The parents in the church. Mary Hebert: So anyhow, it was a public school? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: The county didn't do very much to maintain that? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No, I don't remember them ever doing anything. I think the parents did all of it. I don't remember them doing anything at all. Mary Hebert: Did you have to walk there? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: — The school? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: And did you have to walk to school? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: How long a walk was it? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I was thinking about it, I think it was about a mile. Mary Hebert: Did you walk with kids in your neighborhood? Esther Vincent Lloyd: My brothers and sisters, I walked with them. Yeah, just my brothers and sisters, yes. Mary Hebert: And where did you go to high school? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I went to Person County Training School, it was called. Mary Hebert: And that was a 12 year high— Or through 12th grade? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: Were you bussed in Person County? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes, we were. Mary Hebert: The county provided the bus? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: Was it similar to the elementary school in that the books were used? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I think they were. I don't remember ever having a nice, shiny new book. Mary Hebert: Did they have a library? Esther Vincent Lloyd: The high school did, yes. Mary Hebert: The high school. Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: A gym? Esther Vincent Lloyd: A gym, yes. The gym in auditorium were one. Mary Hebert: Okay. How did it compare to the White schools in the county? Did you ever see any of those schools? Esther Vincent Lloyd: The nearest I got to the White schools was the outside. You could see the outside. It was a brick high school. Mary Hebert: Your school? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Mm-hmm. It was quite large for that particular county. As far as comparison, I have no idea, because I never was inside. I know the grounds were nice, but the grounds were nice at the White high schools. Mary Hebert: So from appearances, they were comparable? Esther Vincent Lloyd: From the outside? Yes, yes, yes. Mary Hebert: [indistinct 00:15:24]. Did your parents encourage education, was that important to y'all? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes, they did. They really did. Mary Hebert: How did your educational status— How did your education compare to theirs? Did you go further in school than they had? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yeah, I have a Master's degree. Mary Hebert: Did they have high school educations? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No, because when my mother and father went to school, when they got to the high school, there was no transportation. So they would have to go and board at someone's house in town. Mary Hebert: Was studying and reading and doing homework an important part of your day? I mean, did your parents insist? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Well with me, they didn't have to insist. I loved doing my homework. In fact, I would stay up so late, sometimes my father would make me go to bed, and if I got left by the bus, I would be very upset for the day. But they did want you to do your homework, and they did want you to bring home good grades. So after I learned to read, they had no problems with me. There just weren't enough books around for me to read. I loved to read and I couldn't get ahold of any books. Mary Hebert: There wasn't a Black public, segregated library? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No, not that I've ever known about. The little library in Roxboro, I'm pretty sure there was no place for us to get books. I don't remember [indistinct 00:16:58]. Mary Hebert: What about your high school library? Was it not well stocked with books? Esther Vincent Lloyd: It was okay, but it wasn't, no, it wasn't the best library, but it was the best that they could do with the money they had. Mary Hebert: Did all of your brothers and sisters finish high school at least? Esther Vincent Lloyd: All except one, and he didn't want to, and so my mom and dad didn't make him. Mary Hebert: But education was important to them? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Yes. Mary Hebert: Were you involved in a lot of activities at the school? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Well, we had a newspaper. I was involved in that. Mary Hebert: Who were considered the teacher's pets? Were they good students, students who excelled? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yeah, I guess. I guess. That's not really always true, though. It wasn't always true. It was the children of— I don't really know how to say this, it's kind of uncomfortable talking about, but it was the children who were descendants from slave masters. They were the favorites, and if there were scholarships or anything to be given, they got them. They automatically got them. Mary Hebert: What kinds of games would you play with your brothers and sisters [indistinct 00:18:50]? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Oh, we would play hopscotch, tag, softball. We would do things like get inside of tires and somebody would roll it, and we would go wherever the tire landed. Let's see, what else did we do? Hide and seek. We played dominoes. A lot of hate dominoes because of that. And Bingo, I don't like that, because of that, we played those two games because they probably were the only games we had. Mary Hebert: And your play mostly involved relatives and cousins? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Yes. Mary Hebert: Not many children who the outlying [indistinct 00:19:38]. Esther Vincent Lloyd: Unfortunately, most of the people who lived around each other were relatives. We did play with some children sometimes if they came to visit my mom and dad or we went to visit them, but it was mostly relatives, because on the farm, everybody was working most of the time. And then when they had time off, they would go and be with their relatives. So I didn't, but see, when my younger brothers and sisters came along, they had a different lifestyle. I was the oldest of seven children. Mary Hebert: Did you have to take care of the younger ones? Esther Vincent Lloyd: To some extent, yes. I did help take care of them. Well, I cooked for them and probably helped them bathe and dress and all that, because my mom, she had so much to do that I did help. Mary Hebert: Were they all born at home? Esther Vincent Lloyd: The first four of us were, and the last three were born in Durham, North Carolina, Duke Hospital. Mary Hebert: What church did your family attend? Esther Vincent Lloyd: My dad was Primitive Baptist, and my mother was just a regular Missionary Baptist. Mary Hebert: So which one did you go to? [indistinct 00:21:05]? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Both. Yes, because they only had service once a month, so you were able to go to both. Mary Hebert: You had an itinerant minister? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes, yes. Mary Hebert: Were there many revivals held? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Once a year, the Missionary Baptist had revival. The Primitive Baptist people didn't have revivals. They had what they call associations, where they would go to a different section of North Carolina to another church and they would set up this huge tent and they would have service for three days, and they would have food, and they would have all these visiting ministers and all that. That was the way they did it, because they didn't have Sunday school, they didn't have things like other Baptist people. In fact, that church is still there, and most of my family is buried, on my dad's side, is buried at this Primitive Baptist church. My mom's church would have revival and that kind of stuff. Mary Hebert: Was it the same kind of thing where people would come from all over and serve food and— Esther Vincent Lloyd: Revival? No, no, no. They would have evening service and then go home. But once, with my mother's church in May and October, they would have a homecoming or whatever it was called, and people would bring food and then people could go up and down and eat anybody's food. Mary Hebert: What kinds of food were typical foods that you ate, like [indistinct 00:22:50] or cooked? Was there a lot of stuff they produced on the farm? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Yes. Most of it was, really. We ate a lot of fried chicken. We ate pork, because they raised hogs. Mary Hebert: When a hog was slaughtered would the relatives come help? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Relatives and neighbors, yes. They would come and help. They also would come when they had, they would call it corn shucking, when they would have all these people come. All the neighbors came and they did all the corn and they made these big meals and they would also come when my mother had, they had quilting bees. They would have big dinners. Mary Hebert: Did you ever attend quilting bees? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I was in the house a lot of times when they had them, yes. Mary Hebert: Did the women just gather and talk about what was going on in the neighborhood? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes, that's what they did. And then they would talk about things like— Because they did a lot of canning of their foods and how many— We used to say it was so dull, "How many jars of this do you have? And how many— " They would tell each other how many jars of this and that they had. And if it looked pretty, they would show it off and all that. Mary Hebert: Would they ever share it with the neighbors or [indistinct 00:24:15] nice and pretty. Esther Vincent Lloyd: Oh, yeah. Yes. In fact, when I was growing up, no one had any reason to be hungry around us, because anybody who had food would share it with other people. There were plenty of fruit trees and plenty of vegetables, and a lot of it went to waste because— Mary Hebert: Was this during the Depression or was it after the Depression? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I was born in 1932, during the Depression. So I don't remember that part of— Yeah, so I don't remember that part of the Depression. We realize now that we were poor, but we didn't know we were poor, because we had plenty of food, and we always had shelter. And I guess we didn't have a lot of clothes, but I can't remember that except I guess when I was a teenager, I know I didn't have as many clothes as I wanted. Mary Hebert: Did your mother make a lot of clothes or did she go to town to buy them? Esther Vincent Lloyd: She made some, but she would go to town and we never got to select. She would select what she wanted us to have, and we would, because that's all we saw. And it was pretty to us, because that's all we saw. Mary Hebert: Would you go in with her, or she would just go— Esther Vincent Lloyd: Not usually. It was interesting. I was thinking about that too, the other day, how they used to leave us in the car while they went in the store. And of course in back in that time, it was pretty safe. Nobody ever bothered the children. Mary Hebert: Would they bring goodies out for you, treats? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yeah, but we didn't have a lot of goodies. My mother made most of our goodies. We had dessert all the time, but we didn't have candy a lot. We got candy at Christmas and special holidays. Mary Hebert: So your father had a car? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes, he had a car. Mary Hebert: Did he have any other vehicles? Truck, tractors. Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Trucks. Tractors, yes. He had those. Mary Hebert: So the farming wasn't done, you plow, it was— Esther Vincent Lloyd: In the earlier days they did use— In fact, they used a mule and plow, even though they had tractors. I don't know that much about farming still, so I don't know when they used what and why they used certain things. Mary Hebert: Getting back to shopping, you never went into the store with your parents? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yeah, I have been in, but it wasn't a usual thing. I remember seeing the Colored and the White water, and I was always curious about the color of the water. Mary Hebert: Did you ever notice that they weren't waited on, they waited on White customers before you [indistinct 00:27:11]? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I'm sure it happened. My mother's right around the corner. She could tell you. She's 82. But I don't remember specific things like that. I don't remember. Mary Hebert: What about not being able to try on clothes in stores? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Well, I remember that, but my first— Maybe that's why my mother didn't take us in the store. Maybe we couldn't try them on. But I remember in Baltimore, when I was in college, going there in Hecht's department store, you could buy the clothes, but you couldn't try them on. Mary Hebert: So even this [indistinct 00:27:57] Baltimore, they were still practicing segregation? Esther Vincent Lloyd: And that was in the '50s. Yes. Mary Hebert: What about hats and shoes and things like that? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Hats, I think once she bought those, they were yours. Shoes, I don't remember how my mother ever decided what size shoe we wore, but we never had corns and all of that. Mary Hebert: She would even buy the shoes without taking you into the shoe store? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Or else she ordered them from Montgomery Ward's or Sears and Roebuck. But no, we didn't get to try on too many shoes. I guess she had some way she measured our foot. Mary Hebert: Who were some of the leading Black families in your community? Esther Vincent Lloyd: My family, the Reliances, the Bradshaws. You mean Black families? The Brashers, Reliances, Vincents. When I think about the churches, these families, all intermarriage, so the churches and schools were— Mary Hebert: Did your family have any marriages with those other families also? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yeah. Mary Hebert: And these were all landowners? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Yes. Mary Hebert: Was Saturday a happy a day of rest when people got off of work [indistinct 00:29:39]? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Well, it depended on whether dad wanted us to work or not. I think sometimes our brothers worked all day on Saturday, depending on— If the tobacco was ready to be pulled, they would do it. Mary Hebert: Did you have the places to dry the tobacco and all of that? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. The barns. Yes. Yes, we had those. Mary Hebert: And he would bring it to market? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. In the fall. And that would be his main income. That and sweet potatoes. He used to do sweet potatoes too. Mary Hebert: Did y'all have a smokehouse? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Yes. Mary Hebert: And what about a grist mill to grind the corn [indistinct 00:30:26]? Or did he go out and buy the meal? Esther Vincent Lloyd: He would have take his corn to the mill. Hurdle Mills is where our property was located, all the property, and it was named that because that's where the mills were. I remember the mills used to be right down in a place where there was water, I guess water helped to turn the wheel, and they would take the wheat and the corn there and get the corn meal and the flour ground. Mary Hebert: You mentioned corn shucking. He grew corn, also? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: And would he sell that? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No, the corn was mainly for the family, for the horses, mules or whatever. Cows. Mary Hebert: Hurdle Mills, how is spelled? Esther Vincent Lloyd: H-U-R-D-L-E. Mills is one word. Mary Hebert: I just couldn't [indistinct 00:31:17] pronunciation. Esther Vincent Lloyd: Some people spell it Hurdles Mill, and then some people say Hurdle Mills. So we always said Hurdle Mills. Mary Hebert: Do you come across different spellings on the census [indistinct 00:31:32]? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yeah, in fact, somewhere in my notes, I have an article from the newspaper where they have taken the road signs and they've photoed them and how some say Hurdles Mill and some say Hurdle Mills. Mary Hebert: So even the street signs are— Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes, yes. Are different, yes. Mary Hebert: Was the NAACP active in the community? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No. I never really heard of the NAACP, I guess, until I went to college. I think they would've been afraid to be active when I was growing up. Mary Hebert: Did the White power structure maintain strict control over the Black population? Was the Klan active? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I had always heard of the Klan, but I have never seen one. My dad had this policy, all of his family and friends knew that if you came to visit him, you let him know who you are, because he always kept a loaded gun over the door, because you never know. And they knew that you don't come and play. You just say I'm who I am when you knock on the door. But I never saw any Klans. I never heard of any bothering anyone in my family. Mary Hebert: Was that in the county [indistinct 00:33:01]? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Not really. I know that early on, that people were lynched, but not right in my little town. They were early on, but I didn't hear of any during my— Mary Hebert: During [indistinct 00:33:20]. Did the White community attempt to prevent Black students from going to school? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I suppose they did. I can remember walking to school and how they used to spit on us out of the bus. Mary Hebert: So the White students would do that? Esther Vincent Lloyd: And we would throw rocks at the bus, and they would report us. Mary Hebert: Did other people do the same thing to you while you were walking to school, say adults in pick up trucks? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No, no, no. Just the children. Mary Hebert: Were there many White families that lived around you? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Not really. There was one, the McCulloughs, and they stayed to themselves and we stayed to ourselves. Their farm joined my grandfather's land. Mary Hebert: So you never played with any of the children? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yeah, there was one family, the Wilsons. It was a Mrs. Wilson who used to like my mother, and she would come to visit, and we used to go to visit them and they had, I think, three daughters and one son. And my mother used to cook chitlins and she liked those, so she would come and eat chitlins. In fact, when her husband killed the hogs, she would give the chitlins to my mother so my mother would cook them, and she would come and eat. And we played with them until we all got to be teenagers, and then we weren't allowed to play anymore. Mary Hebert: Did she treat your mother as a friend, or— Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes, she did, but my mother called her Mrs. Wilson, and she called my mother by her first name. But yes, she did. She was very nice. It was shocking when we couldn't play with the girls and the guy anymore. But that was the trend then. Mary Hebert: So there was a conscious break in the friendship. Was it made by her family, by the White family? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yeah, I would say it was, yes. Mary Hebert: But your mother remained friends with her? Esther Vincent Lloyd: After the children became teenagers, they didn't visit anymore. I'm just trying to remember exactly where their farm was in relation to ours. I can vaguely remember. Mary Hebert: They owned their own land also. Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Yes. Mary Hebert: And the McCulloughs? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Yes. Mary Hebert: What were some of the gathering places in your community? Was church the main one? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Church was the main one, yes. That and there was no other places for women to gather, females, except maybe they had— I've forgotten what it was called, but they had a farm demonstration agent and a home economist, I guess, and they had clubs, women's clubs, and they would meet at each other's house once a month and she would demonstrate how to cook certain dishes and that kind of stuff. And the women would serve food and all that. Mary Hebert: And so your mother belonged to these sorts of things? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes, yes. Mary Hebert: Were they concerned with charity and helping families who were [indistinct 00:36:52] of need, or was that more of a community thing? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No, it's more of a community thing. If anyone got burned out or what have you, people were there. If they heard about it, they were there to help. They just helped people they knew in the community, that was the way they did it. But there were no formal groups or anything that helped out if there was a disaster. Mary Hebert: These women's clubs, were the women who belonged mostly from the families that you mentioned earlier? Esther Vincent Lloyd: From the families in that community, yes. Somehow they were interrelated through marriage. In fact, all of them just about were interrelated through marriage. But there were some who were not related, but I suppose they might have been sharecroppers, the ones who— Mary Hebert: How was healthcare in your community? Did White doctors provide healthcare for Black families? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. We had one. Dr. Banes, who was the family doctor for everybody in the whole community. Mary Hebert: Was this waiting room segregated, or did you make [indistinct 00:38:18]? Esther Vincent Lloyd: That was one thing I think I asked my sister and I said, if it was segregated, I didn't know it, because when I think about it, I never saw any Whites in that room. And so we probably had another room. Mary Hebert: It was segregated. Were there any other things that you could do for fun in the community? Movie theater, soda fountains? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No. No. First time I went to the movie was, I guess I was 11th or 12th grade. Mary Hebert: And you went somewhere else? Esther Vincent Lloyd: We went to the movie in Roxboro, but we went as a class from school, and it was a religious film. I can't remember. It would've been in the '50s, so I can't remember exactly what it was. I'd have to kind of look. Mary Hebert: So that wasn't something that teenagers normally did? Esther Vincent Lloyd: No, no. There was no place hardly for Black teenagers to go. Mary Hebert: Did the school have dances and things like that? Esther Vincent Lloyd: A prom. That's it. Mary Hebert: Football games? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yeah, they had football games. And football games then were during the school day. They weren't on Saturday. I don't remember them being on Saturday. Mary Hebert: What was dating like? Were you allowed to date? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I was the oldest of seven children, so I didn't get to do a lot of dating in high school. I had maybe about three different boyfriends, but I was not allowed to go out with the guys. Even if my brother went along, I was not allowed to go. Mary Hebert: So the boyfriend would have to come to your house? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes. Mary Hebert: What about prom? Were you allowed to go out with him to prom? Or your brother had to go along? Esther Vincent Lloyd: One prom I went to, my brother went because he was— His friend invited me. His friend was older than he, because he had— I don't know, why was he older? He was older. He was my age, but he was my brother's friend, and he invited me to the prom. No, I didn't go along with them either. My dad wouldn't let me go. My dad delivered me to the door and he picked me up. That's how it worked. Mary Hebert: Did your brothers and your younger sisters have it easier than you? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Yes, they did. Yes they did. Mary Hebert: When did you decide to go to college? Esther Vincent Lloyd: I probably was always told by my dad's sister that I was going to college, so somehow I grew up thinking I was going to college. Didn't know how the money was going to come, but I went. I had enough people encouraging me. My mother was the main one, because she had not finished high school, and she wanted me to go. Mary Hebert: Was sending you to college a financial hardship or anything? Esther Vincent Lloyd: Not really, because it was very, very cheap when I went to college, and then I stayed with people who had intermarried in my family, with my aunt's sister-in-law. And I stayed there, and my mom and dad didn't really have to pay room and board because they brought food over, and I helped with the babysitting. I helped her with the babysitting of her children.