Celestine Gregory interview recording, 1995 July 09
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| Kisha Turner | We can just begin then. Can you just tell us what year you were born in? | 0:03 |
| Celestine Gregory | Yeah. | 0:06 |
| Kisha Turner | Okay. | 0:08 |
| Celestine Gregory | I was born 1908, the 5th of October. | 0:09 |
| Kisha Turner | Where were you born? | 0:15 |
| Celestine Gregory | At Gold Island which used to be the Mill Pond in Clarendon County before Gold Island had named the Mill Pond with a wooden bridge. And I was born on the left-hand side of that water. Not far from the road. | 0:17 |
| Kisha Turner | Okay. What kind of work did your parents do? | 0:38 |
| Celestine Gregory | Farming. | 0:41 |
| Kisha Turner | Okay. | 0:43 |
| Celestine Gregory | My father was one of the largest Black men to farm in Clarendon County all his life. | 0:43 |
| Kisha Turner | And if you could describe, if you could remember the house you were born in? | 0:56 |
| Celestine Gregory | Yes. It was a large old antique house that White people used to live. That's when he was sharecropping and that was many, many years ago. When he stopped sharecropping, he bought a hundred acres of land and built a new house. And I was eight years old. We moved in a new house over there by Beth Maham. | 0:59 |
| Kisha Turner | So the house you were born in, was it formal? It was owned by the people who your father used to work for? | 1:40 |
| Celestine Gregory | No, he bought that land. | 1:47 |
| Kisha Turner | Okay. He bought the land from— | 1:49 |
| Celestine Gregory | He bought a hundred acres. | 1:50 |
| Kisha Turner | Okay. | 1:51 |
| Celestine Gregory | From, I don't know now. I forgot the name of the person. But the 50 acres, he bought it from Burke Briggs. Bill Nelson bought it from Burke Briggs, the other 50 acres. And we sold a hundred acres. I forgot what year, but we sold a hundred acres down there by Beth Maham. We sold a hundred acres by the water. | 1:51 |
| Kisha Turner | When you were a child, who lived in the household with you? How many people and what was their relationship or their relationships to you? | 2:27 |
| Celestine Gregory | My daddy raised one of his niece. Was married to Jimmy Freison, and my mother and he built a house not far from our house, was for my mother twin sister. And she lived there close, all her children were gone. | 2:36 |
| Kisha Turner | Okay. And other than your house and the house where your aunt lived, how many other people lived in the area with the other families? | 3:12 |
| Celestine Gregory | Well, Jack Touchberry farm was next and he had people on his place joining our place. Jack Touchberry was nice. | 3:22 |
| Kisha Turner | What kind of crops did your father have? | 3:40 |
| Celestine Gregory | Well, we planted a lot of cotton and tobacco. Well, at that time they didn't sow beans and stuff like that until my brother got a tractor. But my daddy died in 1948 in June. So he didn't know anything about no tractor. He just had news. | 3:43 |
| Kisha Turner | Okay. And did you work in the farm? | 4:10 |
| Celestine Gregory | Oh yes. | 4:14 |
| Kisha Turner | What kinds of things did you do? | 4:15 |
| Celestine Gregory | I know it was too good but we had to pick a bail of cotton before we go to college. That's 1500 pounds. And I used to pick on Saturday so I could go to college, to get myself, pack up and look pretty for college. So I would pick on Saturday and try to get my 1500 pound before school open and get my stuff packed to go to state college. | 4:19 |
| Kisha Turner | As far as schooling, what was the first school you went to? | 4:57 |
| Celestine Gregory | The crossroad. I can't think of the name. Brittany and Dowdy was my first teacher. | 5:18 |
| Kisha Turner | Who was the name of the school? | 5:20 |
| Celestine Gregory | Crossroad School. | 5:22 |
| Kisha Turner | Okay. | 5:24 |
| Celestine Gregory | Brittany and Dowdy School. You know where the store is? The school is where those trailers are, going down [indistinct 00:05:36]. Now we had to walk through the woods and come to the crossroad most of the time. If my daddy wasn't coming to the crossroad, we had to start out walking. | 5:25 |
| Kisha Turner | And what did school look like? | 5:55 |
| Celestine Gregory | Little one room. | 5:57 |
| Kisha Turner | How many students were in the one room? | 5:58 |
| Celestine Gregory | Well, we moved to Clarendon but anyway, first grade there, must be about one or two but was close-by. And I was second grade, I think it was three of us. I can't remember the name. And then when I got to third grade, my sister got a job in Hartsville and that's all the school I ever attended in Clarendon County. I went to Hartsville with her and she worked there until she got married. After she got married, she took me with her to Brunswick, Georgia. And I stayed to Brunswick, Georgia until I finished. I guess they call it high school, anyway, it was the eighth grade from the Episcopalian school 'cause she got married to a Episcopalian minister. | 6:07 |
| Celestine Gregory | So I didn't have it too hard down here. But the children had it real hard down here getting to school, they wanted a bus and they act like they couldn't afford a bus but a Black man put a bus on the road so the children could have convenience of getting to school. But I'm telling you, we had a hard time here getting teachers and buses on the road and now the children appreciate them but they don't appreciate too much now. | 7:26 |
| Kisha Turner | Go ahead. | 8:13 |
| Celestine Gregory | Nothing. | 8:14 |
| Kisha Turner | You sure? | 8:17 |
| Celestine Gregory | Mm-hmm. | 8:18 |
| Kisha Turner | Okay. Did your parents ever talk to you about what it was like in this area when they were children? | 8:21 |
| Celestine Gregory | Oh, they couldn't. My daddy couldn't go to school like he wanted to, but he made himself, took the paper and learned to read himself. But he worked hard and sent my uncle Ton and his baby sister to school. They both were teachers. And after they got out of school, probably ask him what this word is and he learned to read and they always said he buyed so many places and sell. I forgot what they used to call papa. He used to buy places and sell to different people. | 8:27 |
| Kisha Turner | Was it real estate? | 9:26 |
| Celestine Gregory | Yeah. He was a real estate in Clarendon County because Judge Mellon was the Judge and he go and tell the Judge, "No, you not going lock him up. He didn't do nothing but take his fist and knock hell out that man. He didn't shoot him." Said, "I'm going to take him and be in charge like these bad boys are now." But see you can't do that now, you get killed. But if they got in a fight, the young people get in a fight, they didn't have guns and knives to kill, but papa would go to Judge Mellon and get them instead of putting them on the chain gang, he didn't do anything. He just, papa used to say, "Knock the hell out of them." And he would bring to the house and make room for them to stay at the farm or move their mother and father near us. And he would see that that boy be in a certain time at night. | 9:27 |
| Kisha Turner | So do you remember this or— | 10:35 |
| Celestine Gregory | I remember this. | 10:37 |
| Kisha Turner | So he would have— | 10:39 |
| Celestine Gregory | Because I would be home in the summer. See. I had to work in the summer. Oh, I remember this. But the children didn't have the opportunities like they have now. But they appreciate better 'cause there was no drugs like it. And I say the mouse couldn't get it if the rats didn't bring it in. You understand what I mean? | 10:41 |
| Kisha Turner | Yeah. | 11:18 |
| Celestine Gregory | You know what a rat is, the grown people. Right. The rats is these little boys selling drugs [indistinct 00:11:24]. | 11:18 |
| Kisha Turner | Okay. | 11:23 |
| Celestine Gregory | Some of them sell drugs and the parents don't want it but they get it somehow. I think you can't say too much about it 'cause they'll kill you. | 11:23 |
| Kisha Turner | Do you know how your father got the money to purchase the land— | 11:42 |
| Celestine Gregory | Yeah. He out [indistinct 00:11:52]. And then he was a good sharecropper. He ain't never worked for anyone. He sharecropped their land. You get your bill cut and I get mine and my mother says what? She would sell out the garbage and she would save that and put it up. And we had a big ice bar. He would get ice, the man would deliver ice down there and he'd get out. Mama said she would save that old grits. And the next morning she'd make pancakes for us. Good pancakes with little homemade flour she used to. I remember when my daddy had a place over the ditch, used to have rice. I remember rice growing here, right across from our house. And my mother were working rice and I did too in that mud. But we made our own rice and it was sharing meat and stuff like that. We didn't work 'cause Papa killed his horse. He had a smokehouse full of meat. Dr. Stoops and Dr. Kagan, they would ride down to the house. | 11:50 |
| Celestine Gregory | "Billy sell me a hand." Papa said, "No, I'll give you a hand but I ain't selling." 'Cause he wasn't supposed to sell it. And Papa shared what he had with him, but they never had to buy nothing from papa. [indistinct 00:13:36]. Papa said he'd go down the street and come back. Daddy had a store where the first light is on the right-hand side. That was a grocery store. Then he sold furniture in the other part. My daddy got a bed in there now. He bought it from Mr. Sprout. And papa said he'd go down on the street where Karen knows there's beef across from Piggy the vegan on that street. It was two or three restaurant of his friends down there. And he would take eggs and butter from our corn and sell them. | 13:20 |
| Celestine Gregory | And that will show that he didn't have to buy anything but some sugar and coffee because we made our own grits. | 14:33 |
| Kisha Turner | What about clothing, did you make? | 14:45 |
| Celestine Gregory | My daddy would get the best clothes from my mother and her children. 'Cause my mother sewed for White and Black. [indistinct 00:15:00] grandmother wouldn't put on her dress unless—Leah, [indistinct 00:15:05], and mama sewed for her, made her little extra money. She was a seamstress. | 14:47 |
| Celestine Gregory | But we all had it hard. Oh, God. I was teaching, I'm going to bring this up. I don't care. You have it on. I was teaching at Scotts Branch, 20 some years there. I work in the board building. Ms. Amy and I were the only teachers there after they closed the little schools out and bring into the big school. We were the only teachers there that work in this board building and my husband was in Jersey. He couldn't work [indistinct 00:15:57]. So my son and I would go up every summer. And this year I ran away. They always give us our contract. So I told the girl up the street when it be mailed to me, to send it to me. So I got in touch with her. She said no mail. So I said to Howard, I said, "Junior and I better go home because I feel funny." | 15:14 |
| Celestine Gregory | Because I dreamt at the crossroad there was a lot of White people talking. And I don't go out to these meetings in the evening now. But my mother was sick and this is after we built here. So I ain't never went out to any ACP meeting. So even after my mother died here, I didn't go out. But anyway, someone told William Brunson that they saw my car and that was a Black man did it too, to the NAACP meeting. And it wasn't my car, it was somebody else car. When I went into the office. When I got here, it was on the third I believe. I went in the office. Shoot, he'll get it. I said Mr. But— | 16:31 |
| Celestine Gregory | Get it Howard. Mr. Buts. I said, "I haven't received a contract." Yeah, he was lying. Well, we decided just to have two teachers, a third grade teachers and not the third. And they had three. But they fired me. So that Monday morning, I let my son out. I had a truck then and a car. So I had some [indistinct 00:18:08] down to the farm and I just made up my mind, my husband working in Jersey, I could make it. The house being paid for by the company, was nothing for me to worry about. So when Bill Davis saw me, he's dead now. I was so mad. So I told him. He said, "Celeste, why you not in school?" And he was going up the street. I said, "See that man, he caused me to be fired." I said, "[indistinct 00:18:48] firing me." What's happening? | 17:34 |
| Speaker 1 | John. | 18:50 |
| Celestine Gregory | Okay, they fired me. He said, "What?" I said yes. I said, "But I'll make it because I'll raise some [indistinct 00:19:03]." So Howard Junior, he started crying. I said, "You don't need to cry baby. You got on clothes just like the rest of them." But a old superintendent, Mr. Weldon and the [indistinct 00:19:19] sent for me. It was an opening for January after Christmas. And so that's how I started working. So I finished my retirement there after seven years. I worked seven years. Then it was coming in with the middle school. This middle school, they were going to transfer me back to St. Paul. They have an opening there. So I told them, I said, "Well, I'll see you later." So I went here and I prayed. My daddy told me, "You have dreams, so don't step back." | 18:53 |
| Celestine Gregory | You see they fired me from Scotts Branch. And then I worked seven years in District two. Now, it was time for me to retire anyway. So I went in and talked to Mr. Oum. I said, "Mr. Oum, don't worry about where you going to place me." So he goes, "I've tax law school." I said, "Forget about that." | 20:13 |
| Celestine Gregory | He said, "You got to work." I said, "No I don't." I said, "I'll eat some marsh and milk until October the fifth." I start getting my retirement and my social security 'cause I'll be 62 years old. He said, "I wish I was 62." And that was it for me. I don't bother with anyone's business but mine. | 20:42 |
| Kisha Turner | Do you remember the depression? What it was like here before you went to New York, I guess? | 21:10 |
| Celestine Gregory | The Depression. It was tough with some people that was on the other man's farm. Didn't have a farm but quite a few Black people had their own farm and they made the living. Well, you could take a nickel and buy anything you want. Money was scarce. But the ones that wanted to have something, they had it because they worked and then put all in the slot. And they really got lazy people now. See people had to work one time, they don't have to work now. | 21:18 |
| Kisha Turner | Do you remember WPA workers? | 22:07 |
| Celestine Gregory | My brother was one and he was younger than I. | 22:09 |
| Kisha Turner | What did he do? | 22:12 |
| Celestine Gregory | He was away from here. They used to send free food down here. I wouldn't tell you what happened. | 22:15 |
| Kisha Turner | Why did you go to New York? | 22:32 |
| Celestine Gregory | [indistinct 00:22:36]. If I could make more money, and my daddy agree for it than my mother. $50 a month. And I went up there showing snaps and getting no sun burnt and make $35. And then after I started doing piece work, I made over $50 a week. | 22:35 |
| Kisha Turner | Did you take a train up? | 22:57 |
| Celestine Gregory | Mm? | 22:59 |
| Kisha Turner | Did you take a train to New York? | 22:59 |
| Celestine Gregory | No, Reverend Carter took me through the country and my daddy give me a $100 in [indistinct 00:23:12]. Stockton and here in my purse. A $100, is like a thousand here. But he give me a $100 and put money in my purse and paid Reverend Carter. He wasn't a preacher then. He was transferring through the country, transferring people through the country. | 23:03 |
| Kisha Turner | And did you know someone in New York before you went? | 23:35 |
| Celestine Gregory | Yes. My daddy's niece, she was living on 23rd street. I can't remember. Between 8th and 7th Avenue. And I stayed there until I got married. No, I got married—Anyway, I came here in '45. But I went at peak in 1943, I left New York and went to my girlfriend, Beautician because I took up Beautician and I was working in her shop in Newark and then I left there. I still stayed with her but I got me an inspector job. I was just the age to go in, when the war was going on, examining these little cups to put powder in and I worked until the plant closed. The war was over there. | 23:38 |
| Celestine Gregory | I worked all my life. Still working. | 25:05 |
| Kisha Turner | When you worked in a plant, when you worked in a factory with the snaps, do you remember any Union activity? | 25:05 |
| Celestine Gregory | No, we didn't have Union then. It started all that mess after I stopped teaching. We didn't have Union in New York then. | 25:11 |
| Kisha Turner | Your bosses were White people? How was it with them? | 25:25 |
| Celestine Gregory | Very nice. That's what I said. The White lady got me on this piece work. | 25:29 |
| Kisha Turner | The Italian woman you were talking about. | 25:36 |
| Celestine Gregory | Spoke to the boys. I always got along with White and Black. I never had any trouble here. I came out to church and we used to call her Catfish and I used to take her daughter to Columbus to the doctor all the time. She worked with DSS but she retired too. I heard someone hollering across the driveway, "Aunt Celeste." But I was very funny. I got along with everybody. | 25:40 |
| Kisha Turner | What were your first impressions in New York when you went up there? | 26:14 |
| Celestine Gregory | I was afraid 'cause see my cousin wouldn't let me go out and play, and she would point out different things to me. And I never was a person who loved the street. I'd go to church and come home and be satisfied. I don't like outside now, but I learned to drive. I bought my own car and when I moved to Jersey, I transferred people to the plant. That was my extra money. | 26:18 |
| Kisha Turner | Oh okay. | 27:02 |
| Celestine Gregory | They used to call me an old hag 'cause I didn't like the street. Like young people like to say they having a good time, I didn't ever see that. My mother always had [indistinct 00:27:22] treating me. We filed together and she was much older. Old lady with a young girl. But we filed together. She died right here in '79. | 27:06 |
| Kisha Turner | What church did you go to? | 27:41 |
| Celestine Gregory | Oh, what's that church name? My mother's church. We have a bishop here. I can't call the name of the church. But the bishop was preaching to the church that I was going to. It's Bishop Nichols' church in New York. But he came to South Carolina and was preaching. He was a bishop here. I think he still living. I don't know. I think he's still living. | 27:43 |
| Kisha Turner | So you said you made $35 a week at the Snap Factory and then you moved to doing piece work a week. | 28:39 |
| Celestine Gregory | Yeah, around $50 a week. | 28:46 |
| Kisha Turner | And you had your own—Did you live with your cousin the whole time you were there? | 28:49 |
| Celestine Gregory | Yeah. | 28:53 |
| Kisha Turner | And why did you decide to return to Clarendon? | 28:55 |
| Celestine Gregory | Well, see I left my cousin and went to Jersey. Was working with the government and the war was over with. I met my husband here. And then Papa was keeping safe. So I came to help him out on the farm. And then my daddy didn't like that. He wanted me to go back to Morris College. | 29:04 |
| Kisha Turner | Go back to school and complete your degree. | 29:27 |
| Celestine Gregory | Yeah. And when I take the test that they always give you, all the teachers going to school, they flunked. They had to take it over. But I'm being in a lot of the stuff, what they had on the paper, like bread and coffee and sugar. I was living into that area. And milk, they couldn't get milk. You only have to get by stamps or something. And so I was living into that kind of milk. So when I came they had a lot of that stuff on the exam and I read up on different things that they was going to have too. So I told my sister-in-law, I said, "Let me tell you something." What you call that exam? What do you call it? | 29:29 |
| Kisha Turner | Which one? | 30:38 |
| Celestine Gregory | The exam that you had to take to get your teacher's certificate. | 30:39 |
| Kisha Turner | The certification. | 30:45 |
| Celestine Gregory | They call it RT. Oh, I don't know. They take it now for the certificate. | 30:51 |
| Kisha Turner | I've never taught. | 30:57 |
| Celestine Gregory | I can't call it now. But anyway, before we finished school, we had to take that because I was teaching before and if I take it I could teach until I finished. And my sister-in-law and all, went to take it. And I was reading up on a lot of that stuff and I told her, I said, "This test, you don't guess." I said, "When you read it, you know you know that question." I said, "Then you mark it." I said, "But what you don't know, don't touch it." They marked it. They came out with nothing. I came out with a B, I said, "I'm not taking it anymore." | 31:01 |
| Celestine Gregory | I said, "I'm going to let it stay." My other cousin took it over and she made a A. But Hailey knows how to take it over because they didn't understand how to mark it. And see, that machine, if you get what's on that paper right and don't mark nothing wrong, it's not going to stop. And so I told him, I said, "You mark what you know. Don't guess nothing, just be sure." I said, "Coffee was on [indistinct 00:32:33]. Just mark that you know that." Sugar, canned milk. I said mark that, you know those things. So I took it once and I said, "I wasn't going to bother anymore." | 32:00 |
| Kisha Turner | When you got married, what was the occasion like? | 32:48 |
| Celestine Gregory | Well that was in 1946. | 32:54 |
| Kisha Turner | Did you wear white? | 32:57 |
| Celestine Gregory | No. See, I got married just at the house. The old house down there. My daddy was living there and he was sick. But we had a huge house so he made barbecue and invited two ministers over. I didn't ever want no big stuff because I know he didn't have that type of money and I could use whatever I had. So my husband was in the army at that time. But he got in [indistinct 00:33:40] to help farm. Then he died in '46. Then my husband got sick and I think we built this house in the 50s. [indistinct 00:33:54] 'cause we didn't have a bathroom at that time. | 33:01 |
| Kisha Turner | Was your husband stationed overseas? | 33:55 |
| Celestine Gregory | Yeah, he was stationed overseas. He'd have to tell you that. I don't know. It was quite a few years he was oversees. You can take this off now. | 34:03 |
| Kisha Turner | You want me to turn it off? | 34:28 |
| Celestine Gregory | What else you want to know? I done tell you everything. | 34:29 |
| Kisha Turner | Would you mind talking about your father when he bought the land and made the 50 acre plots? | 34:33 |
| Celestine Gregory | I don't care. It's three families [indistinct 00:34:52] 50 acres now. Well, I forgot my Sam Frazier. Gibson lost his, but he just bought the 600 hundred acres and cut it up for Black people to have something. 'Cause they could never get nothing. There was always sharecropping and staying there. And my daddy said, "If you don't have nothing but a piece of land, you can always plant it and get something." But I can't explain all of it because so many of them went back. | 34:42 |
| Kisha Turner | They sold it. | 35:31 |
| Celestine Gregory | No, they took it. | 35:32 |
| Kisha Turner | They took it. | 35:34 |
| Celestine Gregory | From the Black people. They mortgaged it, they borrow him money only to borrow to get farmland and didn't pay. And they took those [indistinct 00:35:48] but only three family holding on. | 35:35 |
| Kisha Turner | How were they able to keep it? How were those three families able to keep that land? | 35:53 |
| Celestine Gregory | 'Cause they farm it and then mortgaged it. You mortgage something to someone, they going to take it. Them other people mortgaged it. 'Cause my cousin Marcus, my daddy told them not to mortgage, to come and see mama and myself and we could take him to Mr. Strong, the National Banking Sumter and get the money and we could arrange to pay. He didn't do that. 'Cause see, Mr. Strong had no [indistinct 00:36:32], and we could've kept him out, but he didn't do that. He just [indistinct 00:36:40], these old places would let you have money and high price money. | 35:58 |
| Kisha Turner | You mentioned that your father sold some land when they were making the lake, sold some of his land? | 36:47 |
| Celestine Gregory | Into that water. | 36:53 |
| Kisha Turner | I've spoken to several people who sold land or the government bought land from them and they weren't satisfied with what the government gave them for their land. They didn't feel like they gave them enough money. | 36:56 |
| Celestine Gregory | Well, that's down on this farm. They took them Black people. My dad didn't do that. They took their land because they said they couldn't farm it themselves. They want it for wildlife and they're wildlife farming it. Let's give him a little something. | 37:07 |
| Kisha Turner | And they took that land? | 37:34 |
| Celestine Gregory | Yeah. | 37:34 |
| Kisha Turner | Okay. All right. Well, thank you. | 37:34 |
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