Lula Holmes interview recording, 1994 August 10
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Transcript
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Tunga White | Before I start asking you questions about your life, can you tell me what you remember about your grandparents, starting with the ones on your mother's side? | 0:00 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | My maternal grandparents raised us all, raised all the grandchildren, all six of us. We were the children of three daughters and a step-granddaughter. | 0:20 |
Tunga White | Now what [indistinct 00:00:51]? | 0:46 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | I'll tell you what now, my mother's mother was Hattie. She was a Holmes. She married a Willis. Then my grandfather was a Willis, but he was deceased when my mother was a child of four. So really, my maternal grandparents were Hattie Holmes Willis and James Willis, but we were reared by a step-grandfather, March Pope. | 0:57 |
Tunga White | You say your mother's father died when she was about four? | 1:34 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Four, mm-hmm. | 1:47 |
Tunga White | What did he die of, do you know? | 1:47 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | He was less than 30. He was playing baseball. Cramps. He was playing baseball and he was overheated as he ran to the bases. They gave him ice water to drink, and he got cramps and fell right there at third base. | 1:49 |
Tunga White | He was what age? | 2:16 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Let's see, my grandmother was— Well, he was three years older. He was probably 29, 28, 29, young man. | 2:21 |
Tunga White | Now, how many years of age were you? | 2:31 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | About five years later. It could have been less. Yeah, it was about five years. | 2:45 |
Tunga White | Your grandparents and your step-grandfather, were they from this area or what? | 3:01 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. This property we are on now was the step-grandfather's, his heirs' property. My grandfather was from the island, also. He was about four miles down. But then they moved to Ridgeland when they got married, and all the children were born in Ridgeland, South Carolina. | 3:10 |
Tunga White | What did they do for a living? | 3:35 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | My grandmother was the housewife, but she took in washing. She washed for some of the White family, washed and ironed. Domestic. Well, they call it now, domestic engineer. She worked as a domestic part-time. Because when we were all in school, then she worked, but she was really a housewife and she did the laundry for some White families here. | 3:46 |
Tunga White | So it was just [indistinct 00:04:26] laundry, what other types of work did she provide the White homes [indistinct 00:04:35]? | 4:25 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, she didn't because she had the children. But you see, while we were in school, she could run there and do a half day's work, or they used to bring the laundry to the house and she would do the laundry at home for some. Then for some, she went to their homes. Because I can remember. I was small, but I could remember her working for— Oh, I have to think of the name. Brant. Brant, at Club Bridge. She did the laundry and she did also laundry for the Thomas's. | 4:35 |
Tunga White | Your grandfather's occupation? | 5:19 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | My grandfather was a farmer and he was jack of all trades. He was a builder. He made nets and sold nets. He made the Bateauxs. | 5:28 |
Tunga White | What were Bateauxs? | 5:45 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | A boat to go fishing in, a small boat that they go fishing in. He made wagons and carts. He raised pigs and horses for sale, pigs, cows and horses. | 5:53 |
Tunga White | Now when he was farming- | 6:27 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | He worked for a while when I was smaller. He worked at the shell mill. He was a foreman down at the shell mill here on Frogmore Community. | 6:33 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:06:52]. | 6:47 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Club Bridge. About five blocks from here down the road. | 6:52 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:07:03]. | 6:58 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. At the shell mill. They had an oyster factory there, and they ground the oyster shells to make lime, and they exported that to Savannah by boat. It was a company-owned business. | 7:02 |
Tunga White | Were there any other Black [indistinct 00:07:42]? | 7:33 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Oh, yeah. There were others. In fact, the Blacks ran the factories. They were the people in charge. They even operated the company's store. | 7:50 |
Tunga White | You said he was also involved with farming. What what type of crops did he grow? | 7:59 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Corn, sweet potatoes, beans. For a while, he grew cotton. He did tomatoes. [indistinct 00:08:34] beans, peas, corn, cotton, sweet potatoes, okra, sugar cane. Oh, you name it. | 8:17 |
Tunga White | Were these consistent crops [indistinct 00:08:49]? | 8:43 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, that it was just for family use and to share with neighbors, but the tomato became a commercial. Cotton was sold, and when they started with tomatoes, tomatoes were sold. And so were the turkeys. | 8:53 |
Tunga White | How many acres would you say again? | 9:24 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Let's see. 18. Well, in this area, 18. Wait, now 10, 28, about 30 acres. Right in this area here, there were 30 acres. | 9:26 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:10:01]. | 9:55 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. My grandmother had 14 acres at Coffings Point. But this land that my grandfather farmed, this was heir's property. The 14 acres my grandmother had was her own. Where she is originally from, Coffings Point. She was born and raised in Coffings Point. | 10:02 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yeah, they met at the mill. | 10:48 |
Tunga White | You were saying something about, we were talking about her moving here once she got married? | 10:52 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. They met because of job location. She came down, she would do the laundry for this White family. I think the name was Brant or Brantley, Brant, I think. This is where he worked, at the shell miller, right next door. So they met, I think maybe with her commuting back and forth. | 10:59 |
Tunga White | What about your step-grandfather? | 11:32 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Oh, this is my step-grandfather. | 11:39 |
Tunga White | This is not your real— Okay. | 11:40 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, my real grandfather, he was just a farmer. I don't know what kind of work he did, but they did have a land over on Ridgeland. I'm just wondering if my grandmother was working. They met with her coming, I think going to the oyster factory. Then after she moved here, she started doing the laundry. They met at the oyster factory. | 11:43 |
Tunga White | Tell me about your paternal grandparents. | 12:18 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | My father's father died early, before my mother married him. But his mother, I knew very well. She was a homemaker, domestic, and then she was an evangelist. Spent most of her time in Savannah. Josephine Mitchell was her name. Then Lara here, she married a Buckner. B-U-C-K-N-E-R of Sheldon, South Carolina. | 12:32 |
Tunga White | And your grandfather's name? | 13:22 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Oh my God. What is my grand— I've got it written down somewhere. Yes. | 13:22 |
Tunga White | You said she was an evangelist. What part or denomination? | 13:22 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Baptist. | 13:22 |
Tunga White | Can you tell me something about her evangelism in the area, or her family? | 13:22 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, because I wasn't around him much. I know she preached in all the small churches. When she came here, she would preach at the praise houses, I know. | 14:01 |
Tunga White | Can you tell me [indistinct 00:14:27]? | 14:19 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, I don't, in Savannah, but I know here on the island— I don't know if she preached there or if she just visited and spoke, a guest speaker or what. I know they have the Orange Grove where she belonged. Orange Grove Baptist, the Adams Street in that area. That's the area she— | 14:30 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:15:00]. | 14:54 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Which grandmother? | 15:06 |
Tunga White | Your father. | 15:06 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | My father. How many children? One. Just one. | 15:08 |
Tunga White | Did she [indistinct 00:15:20]? | 15:12 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Who? | 15:21 |
Tunga White | Your father's mom. | 15:21 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, she was an elderly lady. | 15:23 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:15:26]. | 15:24 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | What you mean? How many children did my grandmother have? | 15:28 |
Tunga White | How many children did your father's mother have? | 15:31 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Oh, she had two that I know of, but I think there were three children. We just say Pearl and Dad. | 15:34 |
Tunga White | Were they from this area also? | 15:42 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | They're from St. Helena, yes. My grandfather's name was Abram Mitchell. Then there was— Yeah. | 15:59 |
Tunga White | Can you give me their name [indistinct 00:16:27]? | 16:19 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Rebecca Willis Mitchell and Frank Mitchell, because my mother got married at 77. She got married. She was a great-grandmother. Her last name then became Days, who later married. My mother married late the second marriage, and so did my grandmother-in-law. | 16:28 |
Tunga White | How old was your grandmother when she [indistinct 00:17:10]? | 17:05 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Oh, I don't know, but she had to be in her early 60s. 60s. | 17:10 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:17:26]. | 17:18 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | My mother worked as a domestic. She was a Jewish kosher cook, but she worked here too with a family here on the island for a short while, about two years. She spent most of her time as a domestics. | 17:29 |
Tunga White | Was [indistinct 00:18:00]? | 17:59 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Here? | 18:02 |
Tunga White | Mm-hmm. | 18:03 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Here, she wasn't the cook here. She was the nurse, the children's— What do you call them? They're not babysitters. | 18:05 |
Tunga White | A nanny? | 18:14 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yeah, it's like a nanny, but they didn't call her nanny. What do you call them? Nurse, maybe? She was a children's— I can't think of the word now. For the grandchildren of Mrs. Claire I. MacDonald. | 18:15 |
Tunga White | Now, where was she a cook? | 18:44 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Right here on Frogmore Plantation. Oh, where she was a cook? | 18:56 |
Tunga White | Mm-hmm. | 18:58 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | In Savannah and New York. In Savannah, she worked for a name of a family, Foster, Bertha Foster. She worked with her from the time she was like 13 until she got married at 18. She worked with her about almost 20 years. | 18:59 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:19:42] | 19:31 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, it wasn't 20, either. Yeah, she worked for them from the time was 13. 10 would be 23. 23. She worked with them about 14 years. Or 15. | 19:41 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:20:07]? | 19:54 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | She went to Jacksonville first. And then from Jacksonville, she went to New York. She went to New York in 1940. In 1939, '40— She went to New York in '41. | 20:08 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:20:35]. | 20:28 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | My mother stayed in Jacksonville about five years. | 20:36 |
Tunga White | Your father, was he [indistinct 00:20:59]? | 20:43 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | My father had his own small business. At first, he worked at a bake shop. When I was small, I could remember him bringing home cookers and candy. He worked at a bake shop. And then later on he established his own business. He had a coal yard along with a small community store in Savannah, a neighborhood store, whatever you call it. | 20:59 |
Tunga White | Do you know what area in Savannah [indistinct 00:21:46] ? | 21:37 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes, on Orange Street on the West side of Savannah, Georgia. | 21:45 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:21:54] have a name of the [indistinct 00:21:59]? | 21:54 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | It must have been Yamako Village. I remember it was on Orange Street. Oh boy, the fella— I could tell you who could tell you all about it. He just went home from across the street because he and my dad were good friends. Mack. His name was Dero Mack, but he wasn't there then. They would visit. The boat ran right from here to Savannah, and they'd go on one trip and come back on the other. But anyway. | 21:59 |
Tunga White | You said your mother was 18 when she married your father. Do you know what year? | 22:38 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | It must have been '23. | 22:49 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:22:49]. | 22:49 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | [indistinct 00:22:49]— incident. | 22:49 |
Tunga White | What did you [indistinct 00:23:20] that age? | 23:18 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well, I must have been four, just before starting the school, I know because my parents were separated and she went to Jacksonville and took me. She brought me here. He would come to my grandmother and they would say, "That's your husband. He said he's sorry. Go back." So she went to Florida with me, and then she had relatives there. Then when she started working, got a job, then she brought me home to my grandmother, which must have been four or five months later. | 23:28 |
Tunga White | How many [indistinct 00:24:31]. Can you describe grandmother's home and [indistinct 00:24:45]? | 24:26 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes, I remember the first house we had. I know it was a clay chimney. The chimney was made of clay, and we had one, two, three, four— There were two bedrooms, living room and kitchen. | 24:46 |
Tunga White | Did it have a front porch? | 25:21 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes, it had a porch. | 25:23 |
Tunga White | How would you describe the condition of the house? [indistinct 00:25:33]. | 25:28 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | It wasn't poor and it wasn't that good, because I remember we had wooden shutters, windows. Then in 1920, I was three. 1925, or early [indistinct 00:26:04]— 1925, because I had just moved back. My mother had just brought me to my grandparents and then he said, "Well, she's a girl." It was already when they had the two boys, because the two boys shared a room and they had a bedroom. Then when I was a girl, he said, "Well, we needed more room." So, it must have been 1926, early '26, he built another house on the same lot, and that was a two-story house. We had two bedrooms upstairs, and we had three rooms downstairs, living room, kitchen, bedroom, and two upstairs. Yes. | 25:38 |
Tunga White | You had two [indistinct 00:27:24] and one downstairs. | 27:24 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. | 27:24 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:27:25] downstairs. | 27:24 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | My grandparents, and that had a porch. | 27:25 |
Tunga White | When did other cousins move in? | 27:39 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Other cousins moved in in '26. November or October of '26. Their mother died, my grandmother's oldest child died, and the oldest son she had, my grandmother had him. But then the two girls came to live. | 27:50 |
Tunga White | What was their father [indistinct 00:28:29]? | 28:23 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Wait, I'll tell you. It was yellow jaundice. Her mother said the sheets, everything where she with perspire— Yeah. She died in Savannah. They said it was yellow jaundice. | 28:34 |
Tunga White | So you shared your bedroom with [indistinct 00:29:07]? | 29:05 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. | 29:07 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:29:08]. | 29:07 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | You mean all of them? All right. First, it was Henry Pope and Jessie Pope. And then in 1920, we got Christina Rogers and Sarah Erlina Rogers. | 29:10 |
Tunga White | What was the age [indistinct 00:29:34]? | 29:30 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Age. Christina's P-E-R-C-I-N-A. Her daddy was Percy, and they named her Percina. The mother's name was Sarah, and they named the baby Sarah. | 29:34 |
Tunga White | What was the circumstance [indistinct 00:30:05]- | 30:04 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Then a year later, my grandfather added two more rooms, and we had a seven room house. | 30:04 |
Tunga White | What bedroom did you have? | 30:20 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Bedrooms. He just moved the kitchen and turned the kitchen around so that the heat from the stove would warm the bedroom. But anyway, he added two more rooms. | 30:29 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:30:47] two boys, what was [indistinct 00:30:54]? | 30:46 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | The boys were upstairs in the old— They had the two bedrooms upstairs, the three boys. Oh, I didn't put Thomas Pope. That was her step-great grand. It was his granddaughter's son, and she reared him. | 30:58 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:31:24]. | 31:18 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | We had two in 1926. He was born the same time the aunt died. So then, we had the two bedrooms for the girls on one side of the house, and then the kitchen, and then the living room, and then the bedroom for my grandmother, and the boys had the upstairs. | 31:23 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:32:05]. | 31:52 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well, I had been in Savannah with them, but mother had to work and who's going to keep me? She didn't make enough money to pay somebody to. They were, but they were working also. And by doing this, she would be able to send the money home to support me and to help the family. That was the main, she could get a better job. She could even sleep in if she had to, and they made more money sleeping in than they did. | 32:06 |
Tunga White | What school did you [indistinct 00:33:06]? | 33:05 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | The first three years I spent— No, I can't say that either. All right, because, yeah. Well, the first two years— Wait, let me tell you, before you start writing. The first two years I spent at Frogmore, and then I went to summer school at Penn, and I made the third grade. No, I did the second. I made one. Let's see how this thing went. I did the first grade, then I was promoted to the second. Well, I'll just say I did the first three years at Frogmore. | 33:06 |
Tunga White | How far was Frogmore? | 33:51 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Right there, where you made the turn, Seaside Road. You see a building? That's where Frogmore School was. That was Buford County. We had community schools. Then- | 34:03 |
Tunga White | Can you recall [indistinct 00:34:28]? | 34:21 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. My teacher was Edith Simmons, grades one and two, and Susie Major, the third grade. Then mother came from Florida and she moved us all into Penn in October 1930. | 34:27 |
Tunga White | Can you tell me how many grades [indistinct 00:35:24]? | 35:02 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Six. | 35:23 |
Tunga White | How many [indistinct 00:35:24]? | 35:23 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | At Frogmore School? That was, if they only— It was a two teacher school. Then later it became, when they built the new school, it became three. | 35:25 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:35:33]. | 35:32 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | It must have been '34, '35. | 35:32 |
Tunga White | Can you recall how your teachers divided up their grades they taught [indistinct 00:36:00]? | 35:41 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well, well, Edith Simmons had the, they used to call it ABC, but that was the primary. She had had the kindergarten, first and second grades. And now how she did the classes, well, you have to, if you were working with one class, then the others were probably doing some type of work that they would give. | 36:00 |
Tunga White | How many rooms [indistinct 00:36:50]? | 36:43 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | There were two. | 36:50 |
Tunga White | And then Frogmore School had the home visits. Did you get home visits? | 36:50 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes, they would go to the homes of children. Usually, if there was a problem or something or children were skipping school, or if the child had a cold and was coughing too much, things like that. It was walking distance for Edith, because she walked to go home. | 37:08 |
Tunga White | And the other teacher [indistinct 00:37:32]. | 37:26 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | She was here right near at Penn, right behind Penn. Right behind where you were living. You see a family down on that side? That's where— Major. She was a Major. She was Susie Major. That's where she lived. Of course, they would ride in a horse and buggy. The boys would unhitch the horse or else if she had a ride, somebody coming this way, who was going through Frogmore, going to Club Bridge to work, something like that. She could always get a ride. | 37:31 |
Tunga White | During [indistinct 00:38:14] Frogmore School, can you tell me how tell me how long [indistinct 00:38:17]? | 38:06 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | From October until March. | 38:18 |
Tunga White | How long would you go? All day? | 38:27 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | 9:00 to 4:00. 9:00 to 4:00, or 9:00 to 3:00. And with 4:00. 9:00 to 3:00. | 38:28 |
Tunga White | When you think about [indistinct 00:38:55]. | 38:55 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, maybe when they finished. Maybe the larger child group, maybe those who were sixth graders, because when I went to Frogmore School, to me, these people were adults that they had there in the sixth grade. They were grown. Well, I guess they're probably 17, 18. It was nothing to be in elementary school because I guess, like you say, when it came the farming time and when these large farmers started farming, the parents took the children out of school to go to make some money to help, so they had to repeat the grade most likely. | 39:05 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | But it wasn't too much of that around here, because the kids got out of school at 3:00, and usually that time of the year the days are long. They did take some children out though so they could work, yes. Now, I can't tell you how much. I was small then. Listen, I wasn't even eight years old when I left. When I went to Penn, I was in my eighth year. | 39:44 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:40:16]. | 40:11 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. I can remember the second grade, our commencement. We call it Exhibition Day, when my class did what is now the Electric Slide. | 40:31 |
Tunga White | Really? | 40:52 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | The teacher had the broom, Mrs. Edith Simmons, and she would tap out. It's really, that's what I've tried to tell them, that we were doing the early edition of the Electric Slide. | 40:52 |
Tunga White | They had various [indistinct 00:41:11]? | 41:06 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes, mm-hmm. Yes, yes. | 41:10 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:41:18]. | 41:14 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. The biggest for the school, even for Penn, but Penn had other activities like Farmer's Fair and Baby Day and all of that. That was a huge community participation. But the elementary county schools, Exhibition was the high point. | 41:19 |
Tunga White | And that was [indistinct 00:41:51]? | 41:46 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | The closing, yes. You see, the children who were out of school, so that planning starts in April, so therefore there wasn't too much absenteeism from October until March. But after that, you see March, they start turning the ground and they start planning in March. That was one of the reasons why the school— | 41:51 |
Tunga White | Why did your mother [indistinct 00:42:24]? | 42:15 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Because it was a more progressive school. Penn was a private school and she didn't have the opportunity to attend. My grandmother did, but she didn't have the opportunity to go to Penn because there were too many of them and the towns were just tight in the early 1900s. So she couldn't go, and she wanted us to have the benefit of that kind of education. | 42:27 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:43:08] also [indistinct 00:43:12]? | 43:08 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes, all of us went. | 43:11 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:43:20]? | 43:12 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | The first grade was $1 and was $5, and then it went to $6 for tuition. But you bought your own books, your own supplies, everything. | 43:23 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:43:42]. | 43:36 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes, you had to. | 43:43 |
Tunga White | So you had to walk [indistinct 00:44:02]? | 43:43 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | At first. We walked the first year or two, and then Penn got the buses. | 44:02 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:44:18]. | 44:09 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | It must have been fifth or sixth grade. It had to be '32. '32. | 44:21 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:44:34]. | 44:23 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | The teachers drove the bus, the men. The Ag, no, he didn't. AJ Brown, Aurelius J. Brown and Melvin T. Welding drove the Curtis. Our buses were named after the benefactor. Isabella Curtis of Boston Gay. They were called chariots, the Curtis Chariot, and the Elton was driven by— [indistinct 00:45:23] Elton. It must have been Mr. Fripp, and the Elton was named after a— These were Penn trustees, Dr. Elton, Mr. Fripp, and Mr. Boyd, I guess. It must be Mr. Fripp and Mr. Boyd drove the other end. One went on this end of the island and the other went on the other end. | 44:36 |
Tunga White | Do you have any idea [indistinct 00:46:23]? | 46:08 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, the county schools didn't get- | 46:08 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | When I finished [indistinct 00:00:02] in '39, I went on to college, but I know that they didn't have any buses. The children still have to walk to school. The Whites had buses but not— [indistinct 00:00:15]. Oh, yeah. Our academics. We had English, we had English literature and English. We had [indistinct 00:00:41]. We had math, we had chemistry, we had bible, we had history, modern and ancient. | 0:00 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Let's see. English, literature, math, biology, chemistry. I'm trying to think now. And then, we had the industrial. We had Home ec, sewing. Oh, [indistinct 00:01:56] as usual. My favorite class would be chemistry. I like history. Ancient history or just plain history. | 1:17 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:02:23]. | 2:15 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | One. History was taught by [indistinct 00:02:36] your homeroom teacher. I had history under Augusta Johnson. I might've had her with somebody else too in high school. But Augusta Johnson was our [indistinct 00:03:02] teacher. | 2:22 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:03:11]. | 3:01 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | That's no guess. There're 11 of us. | 3:17 |
Tunga White | Was that a large class, small class, or average? | 3:19 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Average. They ran from 20 to one. No, not one. We never had one. | 3:26 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:03:42]. | 3:36 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. That was the year they had a scare here in Beaufort County of infantile paralysis and we could not even have a junior prom. The juniors gave us a dinner instead. We could not have a large commencement. We could only invite the immediate family and we held it in the [indistinct 00:04:11] community house instead of the large [indistinct 00:04:17] Hall. We couldn't take a class trip either. We only went locally to Fort Frederick and Port Royal. | 3:44 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:04:50]. | 4:37 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | I'm trying to think where did the class before me go. I think the class before me went up to state college, to Orangeburg. | 4:53 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:05:33] | 5:08 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Infantile paralysis. | 5:50 |
Tunga White | Now this was [indistinct 00:05:58] in- | 5:58 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | I don't know, but I know it was Beaufort County. It was the scare. | 5:58 |
Tunga White | You mentioned earlier, some other [indistinct 00:06:27]. | 6:11 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Oh, I didn't put another— Physical ed we had in high school. That's what the girls had. And then the boys had carpentry, basket making, real writing, blacksmith, shoe repair and carpentry, dairying. | 6:28 |
Tunga White | So while we're [indistinct 00:07:16] so were for any of these classes [indistinct 00:07:16]? | 7:16 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. And the girls were girls only. Home ec and sewing the girls classes. | 7:16 |
Tunga White | So even that [indistinct 00:07:25]. | 7:21 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Not for girls. In the art shop, handy craft, when you were in the elementary, you learned how to make some— They showed you how to do it, make the baskets. | 7:24 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:07:46] | 7:41 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. | 7:46 |
Tunga White | What kind of things [indistinct 00:07:54] home ec classes [indistinct 00:07:56] | 7:54 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | In the home ec classes, we were taught— We had a building that we had our studies in called Better Home. And we were taught first how to prepare nutritious meals, how to serve at the table and how to be waitresses at the table. We were taught housekeeping. We were taught preserving food through canning and jars. What else? And in our sewing classes, we were taught how to make articles for the home. We did fancy hand stitching on sheets and pillowcases, embroidery, how to make draperies, how to make— From burlap, we made suits, book bags and slacks and jackets. We were taught— We made all the uniforms for the basketball team, girls' basketball team. We made caps and aprons for our industrial day. And in our home ec classes, we also cooked for the lunches, prepared the lunches for the day school students. | 7:56 |
Tunga White | What grade was [indistinct 00:10:28]. | 10:27 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Really they started you in the fourth grade. We had our first, and then we went on through high school. One day a week we spent in, it's called the industrial day. And that's when— there's some pictures here. | 10:29 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:11:51]. | 10:47 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well, we had pan trained midwives in midwifery. And they had in May, what they call baby day, where the midwife would bring in their— have the parents bring in the children, have the parents bring in the babies or some of the babies that they had delivered. And they were weighed and inspect— Not inspected, examined by the school's nurse and doctor or a group of visiting celebrities who would judge which baby gets first prize by weight and height it had grown, et cetera. | 12:00 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:12:52]. | 12:46 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | One was Margaret King. And when she passed, it was Dorothy Dudley, [indistinct 00:13:06] graduate who went to [indistinct 00:13:07] and returned. | 12:52 |
Tunga White | Do you know anything about Margaret King? [indistinct 00:13:16] to the campus? | 12:57 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No. It was a community too on emergency cases. And sometimes she just went, I guess the statistics or whatever. But she went into the community. As I can remember, even before I started the school, the nurse coming to the house. | 13:34 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:13:46]. | 13:44 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yes. She died on the table in Savannah having a ruptured appendix. | 13:54 |
Tunga White | Do you know [indistinct 00:13:58]? | 13:57 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, but it could have been 32, 33. | 13:58 |
Tunga White | Do you know the course of midwives, how long [indistinct 00:14:32]? | 14:06 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well, they had monthly meetings for training. And then once a year they had this gala affair, Baby Day. And then we had commencement, exhibition it was called, and that was in May. But then we continued with summer school until the end of July. Then we had in the fall Arbor Day, and Farmer's Fair. The Farmer's Fair [indistinct 00:15:40] , I guess November, after the harvesting of crops. | 14:32 |
Tunga White | Then for Arbor Day [indistinct 00:15:48]. | 15:47 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Planted trees, yes. We have on Penn campus, The Road of Remembrance, that's near [indistinct 00:15:57] the buildings that they're renovating. You know where [indistinct 00:16:02] house is? | 15:47 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:16:04]. | 16:02 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Right across from the road is on the other, across from the main building from [indistinct 00:16:12] there is a road that goes down and that's come all the way to Saxonville and right on through Penland. And that was done to benefactors, people who gave money support the Penn. We would plant a tree to their memory or in their honor, and it was called a Road of Remembrance. | 16:04 |
Tunga White | And the Farmer's Fair, what [indistinct 00:16:43] | 16:35 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | That's a community activity wherein people from the islands brought in their best quilt. They're all judged for prizes, their best canned goods, the prettiest jar, you know, see the figs in the jars. So pretty and nicely stand up. You'll see the okra and tomatoes, you'll see them with blueberries, plums, beans. And then the farmers would bring sugar cane, they would bring corn, their peas. They would bring peanuts on the vine and then some in a basket. They would bring other crops, sweet potatoes as an exhibit. And the girls would bring— And the women would bring, they would make their midwife aprons and they would bring quilts. They would bring embroidery work that they did. Or if they covered, they made covers, or if they covered a chair or covers for a couch. The sewing class, they would put our exhibits to things that we made in sewing in our class. The home ec class would bring food, biscuits, cakes, pies, and they'd slices and taste it and judge it. Get first prize, second prize, third prize. | 16:45 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | And we had what we call a homemaker from the sixth grade up. A student, each student— Not each student, but a student from every family, all grade, every family was asked to give their child an acre of land. And we were to plant it and see who could raise the most bushels per acre. And that person received a Penn sweater with a red sweater with a big pee on it. That was prize for having the north corn on your acre. | 18:36 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:19:27]. | 19:26 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, no [indistinct 00:19:32]. Yes, yes. And the main thing, oh, they would have a program, the home demonstration agent, the community, the county worked out of Penn. And our home ec teacher did community work also. | 19:29 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:19:54]. | 19:51 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Mabel Price. Later became Washington, Mabel Price Washington. But she was Mabel Price at that time. | 19:55 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | She went into community and had canning club [indistinct 00:20:12] elderly women. And the younger mother she had here on Frogmore, a Priscilla art club where they came and they sewed also, along with learning how to can, they made articles for the home. They took a peanut butter jar or a jelly jar, and they would put, I guess it's oil in a basin and a pan in a basin. And then they would pour different colors of paint and you'd stir it and you'd get a multicolor like your dress. And they would just roll that. We did that also at Penn until it's covered. And it's a beautiful vase. | 20:09 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | And we did that and made that for our parents for Christmas. And she taught that to the community too. And they made quilts also. They did embroidery, sewing. We had also what we call better home day, where the home ec class would take a building in the community that was in disrepair and they would use it as a project. And the girls, the boys would do the woodwork, put in new interiors. A lot of the houses that they were not what [indistinct 00:21:54] called, had ceiling board. They didn't have the ply board, but they would take cardboard boxes, the huge boxes that you'd get like washing machines and stuff. And they would make it like a board. And then they would paint it just like you do this here. Now that's cement over board. But they could make it smooth, just like they did these walls and they would paint it. | 21:08 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Then the girls would go and we'd make draperies, we'd make the— Even if the bed was an old bed, either we would find somebody who would give a bed. Some of the stores or some White family would donate a bed or some Black family who had an extra bed or an extra table or an extra, not lamp. Well, oil, kerosene lamp then. And the boys would make, if they had a fireplace, they'd make [indistinct 00:23:06] iron, and so that it would be nice looking. And anything in the house that needed repairs was done. And the boys would take old furniture and refinish it. And then we would have a big day, a celebration where the public could go in and out and see what can be done with little or no money. And that involved both the boys and girls in our industrial work. They saw some of the things that we learned at Penn in our classes. That was a big day. | 22:32 |
Tunga White | Now after you [indistinct 00:23:43] to the home, or? | 23:42 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | They're in it all the while. | 23:43 |
Tunga White | So it wasn't abandoned [indistinct 00:23:43]. | 23:43 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, no, no, no. That someone owned, yes. And we did it while they were still living in room by room. | 23:43 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:24:24]. | 23:43 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | The whole, no, it wouldn't take the home school year. A matter of months. But you'd start making the things, the bed spreads and the sheets, et cetera. You'd start that ahead of time. And then you'd go in and the boys would paint. You put little wallpaper, decoration. | 24:24 |
Tunga White | So were all the [indistinct 00:25:28]. | 25:28 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Okay, Penn provided that, but they've probably got some of it through donations. The builders, after all. | 25:28 |
Tunga White | What about the families? How much [indistinct 00:25:28]. | 25:28 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well most of them didn't have any money. So what we went in and did is just what we could do. And most of it, some of the stuff belonged to the family. And then whatever they were short of whatever we could supply, we would get it. And you got it through Penn buying it or as gifts from people. You'll ask, "You have a chair, an old chair in the barn or an old chair that you're not going to use, you think you don't want?" And you could go to these used furniture store and I'm sure that's what Penn did and asked, "Could you donate something?" | 25:28 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Oh, that was one day. But back to the Farmer's Fair, the big treat was the barbecue. They would barbecue a cow and there's nothing like that barbecue, no place else. Just in this big VAT, they cook that cow all night and threw in some rice and onions and other seasoning and they would serve it to every one, thousands. All the school children and all the community. Everybody would come in. That was a drawing power right there. The barbecue. And they would serve it in the little trays with soda with a couple of saltines. But that was the treat of the day, honestly. And then a lot of people brought in stuff that they didn't want to carry back home, like sugar cane. They'd give it, or you could purchase it too. Sugar cane, they'll give you five, whatever. And then pumpkins, sweet potato and rice. "Sell me that bushel of sweet potato." | 26:14 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:27:42]. | 27:36 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | A treat. Yes. All right, that was that. And then whatever day did we have? Well, Christmas, | 27:41 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | The big treat, well for the elementary grades would be the Christmas program when Santa Claus appears. And for the upper classes, we look forward to the mystery play. That's a play about the birth of Christ, starting with the prediction that he would come. And then with the angel Gabriel appearing unto Mary and Mary going to Elizabeth. And then all on the birth of Christ. And the whole thing is done. It's such a sweet and such a lovely and touching thing. We give a shorter version of it now. It has been devised, revived in the community. We do it the Christian third Sunday in December. It's called a mystery play. | 27:42 |
Tunga White | Now, back when you all were doing [indistinct 00:29:08] you got the open calls [indistinct 00:29:09] wanted to participate, or was it seniors that put it on? | 28:53 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, all of the classes, they took the players from all classes. Some were talented, some who could sing because we had the choir. And then you had the wise men singing their song, each singing their song, each with a different— I think there were four, three kings of orient length. And they would each have a verse. And then there were the students who had the same with joys of Mary and all of that. So we were chosen at availability. A lot of students couldn't come to rehearsal at night and [indistinct 00:30:09] adults from the baby up. | 29:15 |
Tunga White | You graduated from | 30:16 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina. | 30:16 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:30:35]. | 30:16 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | I was only 16 and a half when I came out of high school. I wanted to be a nurse. And St. Agnes at Raleigh was the school that most people from this area went to. And you had to be 18 to enter. So the associates principal advised me to go two years to Voorhees. And then when I'm 18, apply and go on to nursing school. | 30:34 |
Tunga White | So what kind of program [indistinct 00:31:24]. | 31:13 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Elementary ed and physical education. | 31:24 |
Tunga White | Tell me how | 31:27 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well it was similar to life at Penn. Oh, we didn't say in there that Penn was a boarding school and you spent your last two years, junior and senior year on campus learning the social graces and how to live with other students because you would be going away to school or away to work and in a different environment completely. Well, the president at Voorhees was a former pennite. He was the superintendent at Penn. He was third in line. | 31:44 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | And he knew the parents, grandparents, and parents of most of us here on the island. And they would come by and encourage you to come to Voorhees. That was an episcopalian college. And we got there and we saw that home because it was of similar character. They were very strict like Penn was. And above all, you have to be a lady and gentleman. You were expected to be. And you had the religious instruction. That was a must. Of course in the boarding school there, I'll tell you, Voorhees was [indistinct 00:33:38] our food at Penn was much better. What we ate at Penn as students, they ate in the teacher's dining room at Voorhees, just [indistinct 00:33:52] difference. | 32:27 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well, it was maybe- | 33:55 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:33:57]. | 33:56 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well they gave you the same. You had peas and beans, you had pork chops. But it was all together different than Penn. You had dessert. I think you got dessert on Sunday [indistinct 00:34:21] But the food, whoa, nicely prepared. Delectable, delectable. [indistinct 00:34:37] Luckily we had a store on campus. No, they didn't call it a store [indistinct 00:34:47] commissary. And we could always go in and buy peanut butter and buy sardines. We didn't want what they had in the dining room. [indistinct 00:35:07] at 10:00, we had at least seven [indistinct 00:35:13] had fresh water fish. And there is a difference in taste. The cornbread we made at Penn, they didn't make that kind of thing. | 34:01 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:35:30]. | 34:54 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | For the food, yes. Boy, I tell you [indistinct 00:35:35] fried chicken, [indistinct 00:35:41]. | 34:54 |
Tunga White | How often did you go home? | 34:54 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Not very often. He went home for Christmas and that's the only time in the school here. And Mr. Blandon would be coming over to Penn, but he'd bring a boy, bring the boys with him. He never brought the girls. [indistinct 00:36:02] busy working and they have no transportation. | 35:41 |
Tunga White | How long was the [indistinct 00:36:09]. | 35:55 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | We didn't get the break. We just came home for Christmas. And then after the holiday, we're back in school. We didn't have spring break as I remember. | 35:55 |
Tunga White | How long was the Christmas break? | 35:55 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | It might've been two weeks. | 35:55 |
Tunga White | So after the Christmas- | 35:55 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Or 8, but you went back after the New Year? | 35:55 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:36:52]. | 35:55 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | No, no, no, no, no. The war came. The war was on. And I and all my cousins have gone, two of them had gone to the war. I came back and I thought in the [indistinct 00:37:23] and then I went on to New York and I got a job paying three times the salary here, so I stayed. | 36:59 |
Tunga White | Yeah. What school did you teach? | 37:26 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | [indistinct 00:37:41] down on, what is it called? McTureous Urus M-C-T-U-R-E-O-U-S. [indistinct 00:38:07] one and two. No, I'm sorry. Two and three. | 37:26 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:38:16]. | 37:26 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yeah. | 37:26 |
Tunga White | And after that [indistinct 00:38:26]. | 37:26 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well, you went to look for a job. You are out of school early year and you have to live. You didn't make enough money to live off. So you went— All, most of the teachers and the high school students go away for the summer seeking more employment. | 38:38 |
Tunga White | [indistinct 00:38:55]. | 38:50 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well, my mother was up there. And I had been going up every year and every summer. | 38:56 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | And I could get money to go to college, at least buy clothing and help defray some of the cost. | 39:04 |
Tunga White | After retirement [indistinct 00:39:32]. | 39:21 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Well, I got married and I went back to school. Hunter College was offering a free tuition to teacher, people who would take elementary teaching rather. And I went and I applied and they interviewed me and told me I did not have a foreign language in high school. And I would, in order to enter, I'd have to have a foreign language. So then I took cosmetology in the day and went to school at night and I took Spanish and I took algebra just to not lose the whole night, just to take one subject. | 39:34 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | And by the time I finished that, my husband had moved to California, was stationed in California. And then he found out that he was going to have shore duty there. So we went to California [indistinct 00:41:04] to that. I didn't work at cosmetology for a while until 1950. Then I went on California and we stayed there a while. And then he was the sailor. He went to Michigan and we went to Maine. And by that time, the son was a teenager and my husband came out of the service because he felt he should be at home to where that boy [indistinct 00:41:39] we have a child, that boy, the girl. And was the oldest, but the boy was the one that you had to, because then they were having little gangs and [indistinct 00:41:57] joined and beat them up and they'd do all sorts of things to him. So he said he'd better get out, that he could be home and do the father. | 40:45 |
Lula Mitchell Holmes | Yeah. Okay. | 42:00 |
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