Esther Lloyd interview recording, 1995 July 20

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Esther Vincent Lloyd	My name is Esther Vincent Lloyd. I was born in Person County, North Carolina.	0:05
Mary Hebert	What county?	0:14
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Person.	0:14
Mary Hebert	Person.	0:15
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	0:16
Mary Hebert	Like P-E-R—	0:16
Esther Vincent Lloyd	S-O-N. Yes.	0:16
Mary Hebert	What's that mean [indistinct 00:00:26].	0:25
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Well, the county seat is Roxboro, North Carolina, and it's right on the Virginia border.	0:25
Mary Hebert	Is it safe to say a rural community?	0:35
Esther Vincent Lloyd	It's a very small— I was born in a rural community, but Roxboro is a very small town. Still is.	0:36
Mary Hebert	How far away from Roxboro did you say you were born?	0:42
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I would say maybe about 10 miles.	0:47
Mary Hebert	And was that was the nearest city or—	0:53
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. And that's where we went to high school, because there was no high school.	0:56
Mary Hebert	What was your family?	1:01
Esther Vincent Lloyd	My dad was Ernest Harvey Vincent. And my mom was Clarice. Well, is Clarice Elizabeth Allen Vincent.	1:04
Mary Hebert	What did they do for a living?	1:18
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Dad was a farmer when I was growing up.	1:21
Mary Hebert	And your mother didn't work?	1:24
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No, she did not.	1:26
Mary Hebert	Did he own his own land?	1:27
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.	1:30
Mary Hebert	Did you ever find out how she acquired the land, how your grandmother acquired the land?	1:41
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.	1:47
Mary Hebert	Did they ever say how they came about buying the land?	2:12
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Well, my grandfather had died before I was born, and my grandmother was not an easy person to talk with.	2:18
Mary Hebert	She never told you stories about what life like?	2:23
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.	2:25
Mary Hebert	And your father [indistinct 00:02:57].	2:52
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, in fact, they sold it and they sold it to one of the grandchildren, who still own that land.	2:56
Mary Hebert	Did you grow up living on your grandmother's land?	3:11
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.	3:15
Mary Hebert	Did any of them migrate out of Person County?	3:34
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.	3:37
Mary Hebert	But none of you [indistinct 00:03:48]?	3:47
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No, they all stayed home and worked the land.	3:48
Mary Hebert	So you grew up with lots of aunts and uncles [indistinct 00:03:55].	3:53
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Family, yes, yes.	3:55
Mary Hebert	What kind of house, can you describe the house you grew up in?	3:59
Esther Vincent Lloyd	It was a big house. Real big, with a huge yard painted white.	4:03
Mary Hebert	Did you have grass in the yard?	4:05
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Yes. It was a lot of grass to have to mow.	4:05
Mary Hebert	Did anyone else live in the house other than you and the immediate family?	4:06
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.	4:28
Mary Hebert	So the whole family lived in her house?	4:47
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	4:48
Mary Hebert	Did your father build his house or your family's house on that land?	4:48
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.	4:55
Mary Hebert	Is it kind of like she lived in the larger house and children lived in houses around her?	5:06
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.	5:13
Mary Hebert	It wasn't one house?	5:35
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.	5:36
Mary Hebert	Was it unusual for African Americans to own that much land in Person County?	5:50
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.	6:01
Mary Hebert	There weren't many sharecroppers around?	6:13
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.	6:16
Mary Hebert	Were they all African-Americans or [indistinct 00:06:42] sharecroppers?	6:31
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Oh, all African-American.	6:42
Mary Hebert	What kind of crops did they grow?	6:42
Esther Vincent Lloyd	The main money maker was tobacco.	6:46
Mary Hebert	Did you ever have to work on the farm?	6:50
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.	6:53
Mary Hebert	You cooked, you helped your mother cook [indistinct 00:07:13]?	7:11
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.	7:12
Mary Hebert	Cooking for the whole family?	7:33
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	7:37
Mary Hebert	[indistinct 00:07:43]?	7:37
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Anything like that? Sometimes, but not— Mostly family.	7:42
Mary Hebert	Where did you go to school?	7:45
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Okay. The grammar school was a school called Union Grove School. It was located in Hurdle Mills, North Carolina.	7:51
Mary Hebert	And was that a one room school house?	8:06
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.	8:11
Mary Hebert	And those were all in those two rooms?	8:27
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Yes.	8:27
Mary Hebert	How did that work? I mean, how did your teacher handle a class?	8:36
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.	8:38
Mary Hebert	And with your aunt as the teacher, I'm sure that [indistinct 00:09:00].	8:57
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—	9:00
Mary Hebert	What was the school like? Was it a well built school with—	9:16
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.	9:21
Mary Hebert	Was it heated by a wood stove?	10:03
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.	10:05
Mary Hebert	Could we make a copy of that and include it with your interview?	10:17
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?	10:21
Mary Hebert	No.	10:28
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.	10:30
Mary Hebert	So children were responsible for bringing in the wood—	10:45
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.	10:49
Mary Hebert	Was it a church-run school or was it a public school?	11:33
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.	11:36
Mary Hebert	How many months a year did you go to school? Was it nine months like it is today?	11:43
Esther Vincent Lloyd	September through May. I guess that's what, is that nine, ten months. Nine months. Yeah.	11:47
Mary Hebert	It was a normal school year. It wasn't delayed for crops and things like that?	11:53
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.	12:00
Mary Hebert	Did most children in the community go to school? This part of the community?	12:23
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Mm-hmm. Yes.	12:27
Mary Hebert	What were the books like? Were they used books?	12:29
Esther Vincent Lloyd	They were hand-me-down books. So sometimes pages were missing and sometimes they were written on. They were not clean.	12:35
Mary Hebert	Did the parents do any of the work of maintaining the school?	12:48
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Yes, they do. The parents in the church.	12:55
Mary Hebert	So anyhow, it was a public school?	12:58
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	13:00
Mary Hebert	The county didn't do very much to maintain that?	13:00
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.	13:05
Mary Hebert	Did you have to walk there?	13:14
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	13:14
Mary Hebert	— The school?	13:14
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	13:14
Mary Hebert	And did you have to walk to school?	13:26
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	13:27
Mary Hebert	How long a walk was it?	13:29
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I was thinking about it, I think it was about a mile.	13:31
Mary Hebert	Did you walk with kids in your neighborhood?	13:38
Esther Vincent Lloyd	My brothers and sisters, I walked with them. Yeah, just my brothers and sisters, yes.	13:41
Mary Hebert	And where did you go to high school?	13:49
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I went to Person County Training School, it was called.	13:53
Mary Hebert	And that was a 12 year high— Or through 12th grade?	14:01
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	14:04
Mary Hebert	Were you bussed in Person County?	14:06
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, we were.	14:07
Mary Hebert	The county provided the bus?	14:07
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	14:07
Mary Hebert	Was it similar to the elementary school in that the books were used?	14:13
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I think they were. I don't remember ever having a nice, shiny new book.	14:19
Mary Hebert	Did they have a library?	14:28
Esther Vincent Lloyd	The high school did, yes.	14:30
Mary Hebert	The high school.	14:30
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	14:30
Mary Hebert	A gym?	14:30
Esther Vincent Lloyd	A gym, yes. The gym in auditorium were one.	14:35
Mary Hebert	Okay. How did it compare to the White schools in the county? Did you ever see any of those schools?	14:37
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.	14:48
Mary Hebert	Your school?	14:54
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.	14:58
Mary Hebert	So from appearances, they were comparable?	15:16
Esther Vincent Lloyd	From the outside? Yes, yes, yes.	15:19
Mary Hebert	[indistinct 00:15:24]. Did your parents encourage education, was that important to y'all?	15:21
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, they did. They really did.	15:28
Mary Hebert	How did your educational status— How did your education compare to theirs? Did you go further in school than they had?	15:31
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah, I have a Master's degree.	15:40
Mary Hebert	Did they have high school educations?	15:43
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.	15:43
Mary Hebert	Was studying and reading and doing homework an important part of your day? I mean, did your parents insist?	16:01
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.	16:09
Mary Hebert	There wasn't a Black public, segregated library?	16:42
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].	16:47
Mary Hebert	What about your high school library? Was it not well stocked with books?	16:58
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.	17:09
Mary Hebert	Did all of your brothers and sisters finish high school at least?	17:19
Esther Vincent Lloyd	All except one, and he didn't want to, and so my mom and dad didn't make him.	17:22
Mary Hebert	But education was important to them?	17:27
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Yes.	17:29
Mary Hebert	Were you involved in a lot of activities at the school?	17:29
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Well, we had a newspaper. I was involved in that.	17:39
Mary Hebert	Who were considered the teacher's pets? Were they good students, students who excelled?	17:46
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.	18:01
Mary Hebert	What kinds of games would you play with your brothers and sisters [indistinct 00:18:50]?	18:44
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.	18:52
Mary Hebert	And your play mostly involved relatives and cousins?	19:26
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Yes.	19:30
Mary Hebert	Not many children who the outlying [indistinct 00:19:38].	19:30
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.	19:38
Mary Hebert	Did you have to take care of the younger ones?	20:12
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.	20:15
Mary Hebert	Were they all born at home?	20:35
Esther Vincent Lloyd	The first four of us were, and the last three were born in Durham, North Carolina, Duke Hospital.	20:38
Mary Hebert	What church did your family attend?	20:51
Esther Vincent Lloyd	My dad was Primitive Baptist, and my mother was just a regular Missionary Baptist.	20:54
Mary Hebert	So which one did you go to? [indistinct 00:21:05]?	21:02
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Both. Yes, because they only had service once a month, so you were able to go to both.	21:04
Mary Hebert	You had an itinerant minister?	21:13
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, yes.	21:15
Mary Hebert	Were there many revivals held?	21:18
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.	21:21
Mary Hebert	Was it the same kind of thing where people would come from all over and serve food and—	22:17
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.	22:18
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?	22:43
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Yes. Most of it was, really. We ate a lot of fried chicken. We ate pork, because they raised hogs.	22:55
Mary Hebert	When a hog was slaughtered would the relatives come help?	23:12
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.	23:16
Mary Hebert	Did you ever attend quilting bees?	23:42
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I was in the house a lot of times when they had them, yes.	23:44
Mary Hebert	Did the women just gather and talk about what was going on in the neighborhood?	23:46
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.	23:50
Mary Hebert	Would they ever share it with the neighbors or [indistinct 00:24:15] nice and pretty.	24:11
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—	24:16
Mary Hebert	Was this during the Depression or was it after the Depression?	24:40
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.	24:42
Mary Hebert	Did your mother make a lot of clothes or did she go to town to buy them?	25:13
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.	25:17
Mary Hebert	Would you go in with her, or she would just go—	25:31
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.	25:33
Mary Hebert	Would they bring goodies out for you, treats?	25:52
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.	25:55
Mary Hebert	So your father had a car?	26:12
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, he had a car.	26:13
Mary Hebert	Did he have any other vehicles? Truck, tractors.	26:15
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Trucks. Tractors, yes. He had those.	26:17
Mary Hebert	So the farming wasn't done, you plow, it was—	26:21
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.	26:25
Mary Hebert	Getting back to shopping, you never went into the store with your parents?	26:42
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.	26:47
Mary Hebert	Did you ever notice that they weren't waited on, they waited on White customers before you [indistinct 00:27:11]?	27:03
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.	27:13
Mary Hebert	What about not being able to try on clothes in stores?	27:31
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.	27:34
Mary Hebert	So even this [indistinct 00:27:57] Baltimore, they were still practicing segregation?	27:56
Esther Vincent Lloyd	And that was in the '50s. Yes.	28:02
Mary Hebert	What about hats and shoes and things like that?	28:03
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.	28:07
Mary Hebert	She would even buy the shoes without taking you into the shoe store?	28:22
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.	28:24
Mary Hebert	Who were some of the leading Black families in your community?	28:44
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—	28:49
Mary Hebert	Did your family have any marriages with those other families also?	29:16
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah.	29:18
Mary Hebert	And these were all landowners?	29:18
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Yes.	29:25
Mary Hebert	Was Saturday a happy a day of rest when people got off of work [indistinct 00:29:39]?	29:29
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.	29:38
Mary Hebert	Did you have the places to dry the tobacco and all of that?	29:58
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. The barns. Yes. Yes, we had those.	30:00
Mary Hebert	And he would bring it to market?	30:05
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.	30:07
Mary Hebert	Did y'all have a smokehouse?	30:14
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Yes.	30:17
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?	30:17
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.	30:27
Mary Hebert	You mentioned corn shucking. He grew corn, also?	30:56
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	30:58
Mary Hebert	And would he sell that?	30:59
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No, the corn was mainly for the family, for the horses, mules or whatever. Cows.	31:01
Mary Hebert	Hurdle Mills, how is spelled?	31:08
Esther Vincent Lloyd	H-U-R-D-L-E. Mills is one word.	31:10
Mary Hebert	I just couldn't [indistinct 00:31:17] pronunciation.	31:16
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Some people spell it Hurdles Mill, and then some people say Hurdle Mills. So we always said Hurdle Mills.	31:20
Mary Hebert	Do you come across different spellings on the census [indistinct 00:31:32]?	31:27
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.	31:31
Mary Hebert	So even the street signs are—	31:46
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, yes. Are different, yes.	31:48
Mary Hebert	Was the NAACP active in the community?	31:51
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.	31:57
Mary Hebert	Did the White power structure maintain strict control over the Black population? Was the Klan active?	32:09
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.	32:18
Mary Hebert	Was that in the county [indistinct 00:33:01]?	32:55
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—	33:00
Mary Hebert	During [indistinct 00:33:20]. Did the White community attempt to prevent Black students from going to school?	33:18
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.	33:26
Mary Hebert	So the White students would do that?	33:38
Esther Vincent Lloyd	And we would throw rocks at the bus, and they would report us.	33:41
Mary Hebert	Did other people do the same thing to you while you were walking to school, say adults in pick up trucks?	33:50
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No, no, no. Just the children.	33:58
Mary Hebert	Were there many White families that lived around you?	33:59
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.	34:08
Mary Hebert	So you never played with any of the children?	34:20
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.	34:24
Mary Hebert	Did she treat your mother as a friend, or—	35:02
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.	35:06
Mary Hebert	So there was a conscious break in the friendship. Was it made by her family, by the White family?	35:22
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah, I would say it was, yes.	35:28
Mary Hebert	But your mother remained friends with her?	35:29
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.	35:37
Mary Hebert	They owned their own land also.	35:48
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Yes.	35:51
Mary Hebert	And the McCulloughs?	35:51
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Yes.	35:51
Mary Hebert	What were some of the gathering places in your community? Was church the main one?	35:57
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.	36:03
Mary Hebert	And so your mother belonged to these sorts of things?	36:40
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, yes.	36:43
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?	36:46
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.	36:56
Mary Hebert	These women's clubs, were the women who belonged mostly from the families that you mentioned earlier?	37:23
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—	37:30
Mary Hebert	How was healthcare in your community? Did White doctors provide healthcare for Black families?	37:59
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. We had one. Dr. Banes, who was the family doctor for everybody in the whole community.	38:04
Mary Hebert	Was this waiting room segregated, or did you make [indistinct 00:38:18]?	38:15
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.	38:18
Mary Hebert	It was segregated. Were there any other things that you could do for fun in the community? Movie theater, soda fountains?	38:35
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No. No. First time I went to the movie was, I guess I was 11th or 12th grade.	38:44
Mary Hebert	And you went somewhere else?	38:52
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.	38:55
Mary Hebert	So that wasn't something that teenagers normally did?	39:15
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No, no. There was no place hardly for Black teenagers to go.	39:18
Mary Hebert	Did the school have dances and things like that?	39:24
Esther Vincent Lloyd	A prom. That's it.	39:26
Mary Hebert	Football games?	39:29
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.	39:30
Mary Hebert	What was dating like? Were you allowed to date?	39:42
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.	39:46
Mary Hebert	So the boyfriend would have to come to your house?	40:08
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	40:11
Mary Hebert	What about prom? Were you allowed to go out with him to prom? Or your brother had to go along?	40:17
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.	40:24
Mary Hebert	Did your brothers and your younger sisters have it easier than you?	40:58
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, they did. Yes they did.	41:02
Mary Hebert	When did you decide to go to college?	41:04
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.	41:14
Mary Hebert	Was sending you to college a financial hardship or anything?	41:41
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.	41:46

Mary Hebert	— in Durham before you went to Central?	0:02
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Not really. I had gone to Durham a lot when my dad would go to the tobacco markets. We used to go and shop.	0:06
Mary Hebert	So y'all would make a day of it?	0:18
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Mm—hmm.	0:18
Mary Hebert	How far a drive was it?	0:18
Esther Vincent Lloyd	About a half an hour now. I don't know in mileage.	0:24
Mary Hebert	It's about a half an hour now?	0:27
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah.	0:27
Mary Hebert	It's not that far.	0:32
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No, it's right near Hillsborough in Cedar Grove.	0:34
Mary Hebert	What was it like moving from small town to a fairly decent—sized city? Was it a culture shock for you?	0:39
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I moved from— Okay, to Durham. Not really. Now, don't ask me why. I don't know. I had read a lot, everything I could get my hands on, so I wasn't so culturally deprived in a sense. I knew about a lot of things that I hadn't seen or had not done. No, not really. I don't know what I could say. I think the college was more of a culture shock than the people were because I stayed in the Black part of town and there were Black stores, grocery stores and that kind of stuff, so you went to those, you felt comfortable, and that kind of stuff, restaurants and things.	0:49
Mary Hebert	So you shopped mainly in the Black business district?	1:41
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, yes. Clothes I didn't buy for myself anyway, so— But—	1:46
Mary Hebert	So your mother was still buying clothes for you?	1:51
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Oh, yes. Yes, she was until, I guess, I graduated. Well, no, I did go away and work one summer in Baltimore.	1:55
Mary Hebert	What did you major in?	2:05
Esther Vincent Lloyd	French. I was in the best French student in high school, so they thought I should major in French, and I majored in French and minored in library science. I never used the French. I've forgotten most of it.	2:06
Mary Hebert	So you planned on being a school teacher?	2:28
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No. Excuse me. I wanted to be an interpreter for the UN. Because I was getting in the beginning a minor in business education, so I wanted to be an interpreter for the UN. But I changed my minor to library science. I should have done that from the very beginning because I loved working in the library. I've always enjoyed it. I wouldn't have enjoyed what I would've been doing as much as I enjoyed working in the library.	2:31
Mary Hebert	You mentioned that college was a culture shock on you. What kind way was that?	3:11
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Well, I met students from all over the world there, and I had not done that before. I had mainly met students, children, my cousins from the North, and mainly people in my community ,so it was kind of a culture shock to get there and find out that there are students who are smarter than you are. Because you're the smartest in your class, and then you discover that there are people who know things that you don't know because they had a better background. I think that was the main thing. Meeting other Black students who had lots of clothes and all that and I didn't, that was kind of a shock to me. I did all right in college, but the first year I think the adjustment was a bit much.	3:18
Mary Hebert	Do you think that your high school prepared you for college or not?	4:17
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I think they did the best they could with what they had, but, no, not really. It's kind of a shock when you were in high school and you're an honor roll student and you're this and that and then you go to college and you find that you don't really know really all that much compared to some other students who had gone to better schools.	4:21
Mary Hebert	Did you join any clubs or organizations, a sorority?	4:47
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No. No. I started to, but— I don't know how much of this you really want to include, but when I was in college there were certain kinds of physical beauty you had to have to join certain sororities, and I didn't like that part. I just did not like it. I felt that any girl, regardless of how she looked, if she met the qualifications, she should be able to join. I didn't want to join anything where you look at a person and say, "We don't want them as a part of our organization because of how they look." I just don't.	4:51
Mary Hebert	And so you didn't join?	5:32
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Never joined.	5:32
Mary Hebert	Were you in college when the civil rights movement was starting to take off?	5:39
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	5:42
Mary Hebert	How did that impact the student body of Central?	5:43
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Well, when I was there, it was— '54 is when I graduated, so they were in the middle of all these discussions you used to see on television about civil rights. I don't ever remember us discussing it at all in school and classes. I really don't. Probably by that time, I was out of all of my social studies classes, so we didn't discuss it. It really didn't make a difference at that particular time. You were interested in it because whatever was on TV, you were trying to see it, but it didn't really have any particular impact on us.	5:47
Mary Hebert	At what point did you decide to move North? Was it right after college?	6:35
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No, I got a job in Danville, Virginia as a librarian, high school librarian, and I worked there for two years.	6:39
Mary Hebert	What was that library like? Was it underfunded, understocked?	6:54
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, it was. It was a new school, and the shelves were almost empty. I concentrated on building up sections of the library rather than the whole library because if you had two or three books in a category you needed to get books because it was a high school. It was nine through 12 at that particular time. It was a fairly—	7:00
Mary Hebert	How'd you— Go on.	7:21
Esther Vincent Lloyd	It was a fairly large school, maybe a medium—sized school.	7:23
Mary Hebert	How'd you go about getting books? Did you order them?	7:28
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah, but Virginia had a list of— They would have a company, and they had a list of books you could order from that company. They didn't give you too much leeway. When I went to New Jersey, I could order anything I wanted as long as it wasn't porno, and if I had ordered porno they wouldn't have known the difference, just between you and me.	7:31
Mary Hebert	Were the schools better—funded in New Jersey than they were in the South? Were the libraries better—funded in New Jersey?	7:53
Esther Vincent Lloyd	In the particular town I worked in, they were very well—funded. And then we got books from the Library of Congress. They were free and they were new. I was a reference librarian and had a whole reference library, and I had beautiful and wonderful books there. That clock goes off every day at 12:00, and I don't understand. I turn it off every day. It's malfunctioning, I think. Sorry.	8:06
Mary Hebert	This is something we ask everyone that we interview. Did you ever feel like you were treated as a second—class citizen while you were in the South during the period of segregation?	8:41
Esther Vincent Lloyd	That's really hard for me to say because my parents shielded us, especially the girls, from a lot of that, so I didn't have that much contact with people.	8:57
Mary Hebert	And even after you went to Durham, you remained mainly in Black communities?	9:11
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, yes.	9:12
Mary Hebert	Didn't go outside of it?	9:12
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Once in a while, I would go shopping, but I didn't have a lot of money for shopping, so I very seldom even did that.	9:19
Mary Hebert	It— Go on.	9:28
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I felt it more when I worked in Baltimore that summer than I ever did in North Carolina. But that was because I was shielded from it.	9:30
Mary Hebert	What did you do in Baltimore?	9:39
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I worked in a laundry that supplied sheets and all kinds of stuff for hospitals, and I would have to package however many [indistinct 00:09:53]— It was Johns Hopkins. I would have to package however many sheets they wanted or whatever. Shrouds, sheets, and gowns for the patients is really what we did.	9:41
Mary Hebert	How did you get that job?	10:04
Esther Vincent Lloyd	My mother's sister had worked there when she first went to Baltimore, and she worked with this young guy, and he had become the boss, so she just went over and said, "This is my niece, and I want her to have a job," and I got a job.	10:08
Mary Hebert	So you stayed with her while you were in Baltimore?	10:21
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I stayed with my grandmother, really, but she—	10:23
Mary Hebert	Your mother's mother?	10:25
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, mm—hmm. I stayed with her. But that was an experience. That's really when I came, I think, face—to—face with segregation. You wanted to shop, you couldn't try the things on, and I was able to buy a few things that summer, and I couldn't understand that because I hadn't—.	10:28
Mary Hebert	What about restaurants and things like that? Did you frequently—	10:48
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No, we didn't. We didn't. That was one of the things growing up. We didn't go to restaurants very much. Most of the time, when we ate restaurant food, my father would get it as a takeout.	10:52
Mary Hebert	And that was another way of him shielding you from—	11:04
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I suppose so. But, actually, I don't remember him ever going to White restaurants. I think they were Black restaurants. But he would bring the food out to us, and we would eat it that way.	11:07
Mary Hebert	What about travel? What was that like for you? You mentioned that y'all would drive to Durham a lot. Were there places you could stop along the road, like gas stations, restaurants, bathrooms?	11:20
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, we would stop at gas stations, but you always had to go way around the back somewhere you were almost afraid to go to use the bathroom. So that was a problem. [indistinct 00:11:46]. My husband just came in. That was a problem. We used to travel to Baltimore, and there was not many places you could go to the bathroom along the road, so—	11:34
Mary Hebert	Did you make a day trip out of it without [indistinct 00:12:02].	11:59
Esther Vincent Lloyd	To?	12:01
Mary Hebert	To Baltimore? Would y'all—	12:03
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah. You would drive straight through, yes.	12:04
Mary Hebert	What about packing lunches? Would y'all do that, pack food in the car [indistinct 00:12:12]—	12:08
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, yes, we did. We did.	12:10
Mary Hebert	Did you ever spend much time with your mother's mother other than that summer that you stayed with her?	12:16
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Well, she was a lovely person. I got to know her very well. She was much nicer than my other grandmother was. I really shouldn't say that, but she was a very lovely person, a very sweet person who made a real special effort to treat all of her grandchildren the same. You didn't know whether she loves this one better than she did that one or not. But my other grandmother was the opposite. She—	12:22
Mary Hebert	She had her favorites?	12:53
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah, she didn't like her grandchildren who were not attractive. She didn't like them. That's what I was told by the grandchildren or some of them. But—	12:54
Mary Hebert	Well, your mother's mother, would she tell you about what life was like when she was growing up, about great—grandparents and things like that?	13:06
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Oh, a little, yes. They told me a little about their parents. My great—grandfather had been a coffin maker. He used to make all the coffins in the county for everybody, Black and White. As soon as some Whites learned to make coffins, he was no longer allowed to do it.	13:14
Mary Hebert	This was in North Carolina?	13:38
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Mm—hmm, Person County.	13:39
Mary Hebert	When did she move to Baltimore?	13:42
Esther Vincent Lloyd	My grandmother? It would have to be in the late '40s or early '50s.	13:43
Mary Hebert	And did she move to live up there with her—	13:53
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Her oldest son.	13:55
Mary Hebert	Her son?	13:55
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Because my grandfather had died when my mother was a child, was in high school, and my grandmother tried to farm, but it was very hard for her. So the oldest son went to Baltimore to work to send money back for them to live. She lived in North Carolina until her two youngest daughter graduated high school, and then she went to Baltimore to live.	13:56
Mary Hebert	Is there anything that you'd like to talk about that I haven't asked you about? Any topics that we haven't covered?	14:22
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I think the first time I really met segregation head—on was when I went for a job interview in New Jersey, my first job interview. There was a job in the paper for a librarian at a state hospital, and I went to apply for it, and the man in personnel, who was a Northerner, was interviewing me, and he asked me what I had done, and I told him I had worked in the high school. He said, "Well, aren't all Black teachers lazy?" I looked at him because I'd never been asked any kind of question like that. "Well, what do you mean?" He said, "Well, I've always heard that all Black teachers were lazy."	14:35
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I don't know what happened to me, but I was on my way out of that door. I said to him, I said, "I don't know about all Black teachers, I know about me, and I'm not lazy," and I was on my way out the door. He was calling me asking me to come back, and I needed a job. So I went back. That was, to me, one of the worst things that happened to me except— Well, when I worked in the high school, I had— When I first started working in Elizabeth, I was a reading teacher for about a few months, and then I went into a middle school as a librarian. I think the worst thing that happened my whole lifetime was proving that I knew what I knew. Every day, you had to prove that you knew what you knew, that you knew what you were doing, even with some of the teachers, but mostly with students. I didn't really hold that against the students so much as I did the adults.	15:22
Mary Hebert	These were White students?	16:22
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Mm—hmm.	16:23
Mary Hebert	And this was in New Jersey?	16:24
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Mm—hmm.	16:25
Mary Hebert	Why did you decide to go up there? Was it—	16:27
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Because my ex—husband went there to get work, so we moved there.	16:29
Mary Hebert	So you moved. And you stayed there?	16:37
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes.	16:37
Mary Hebert	Until just a couple years—	16:37
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Until I retired.	16:38
Mary Hebert	How did the North differ from the South? You lived under the system of legalized segregation in the South. When you moved North, was—	16:40
Esther Vincent Lloyd	It's still segregation there, but it was just more subtle. I was surprised when I moved on the street and people would tell me, "Oh, there's no segregation here." Then my first job interview, I said, "What are they thinking? What's wrong with them? It's there." Even though I hadn't experienced a lot of it down South, I had heard people talk about it. I heard my dad talk about things that happened and my relatives. So I knew that it existed. I couldn't understand why they couldn't see it. That was strange to me.	16:49
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I said to them, "It took the Southern people to show you that you had segregation?" There were places you couldn't go in New Jersey, even when I went there in the '50s. You could go, but you weren't welcome there, so you would be better off not going. But there were towns in New Jersey— Both places I lived, in Rahway and in Colonia, it bordered on a town. There were no Blacks in that town, and if you went through that town, a young Black man in a car, he was apt to be stopped by the police.	17:30
Mary Hebert	So it existed there, just not in the legalized form that it was in the South?	18:10
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Right, right. It existed and still does. In a way, I've always said that I like the South better than I did the North because you knew exactly what was what and in the North you could get caught in the situation and find out that it was the same thing, but at least you knew. I respect people more when I know what they think than I do when I don't know.	18:15
Mary Hebert	I had another question. It slipped completely out of my mind. Oh, did you ever hear about Black figures while you were growing up, important people, national figures?	18:45
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah.	18:56
Mary Hebert	Was there a Black History League [indistinct 00:19:05]?	19:04
Esther Vincent Lloyd	There was Black History League, but then in the Black schools the Black teachers taught you Black history, although it wasn't part of the curriculum. I always knew that I had a history. So I felt that in a sense I was better educated than the Northern kids were because— And when I went to New Jersey and I became a librarian at the hospital, I asked if I could do a bulletin board for Black History Week. I needed materials, and I needed money to buy the materials, so that's why I had to get permission. They said, "Yes, what is that?" I was just so shocked.	19:06
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I did the bulletin boards, and the bulletin boards were in the hall. I got this kit from— I can't remember right now, but they used to sell Black history kits every year, and there would be a lot of photos and stuff. So I got this kit, and I put up this bulletin board, and I was shocked that the Black people and all the White people had never heard of Black History Week at that particular time. But in our schools we knew Langston Hughes and we knew about all these people. I went North and, even in the '70s, I had Black kids who would come in and say to me, "But there's nobody to write about." I would pull books out and show them. "Oh, I had no idea." I'd just say that's culturally deprived. I mean, it is. It's culturally—	19:43
Mary Hebert	In the Southern schools, did you read Langston Hughes and some of the other Renaissance writers?	20:39
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes, yes. But it wasn't part of the curriculum. It was like you read it. You knew you should read it. But I always had a sense of who I was or who I am, really, because I knew that we did have history. There was a Black history book that was done by, I can't remember now, [indistinct 00:21:12], I think, that we used to read, too. I think that was part of the curriculum that the Black teachers put in. It wasn't part of the curriculum that the county had. But they wanted us to know, and it makes a difference when you grow up to know that you have a history.	20:43
Mary Hebert	Was that stressed in your home also or your parents didn't—	21:37
Esther Vincent Lloyd	My parents didn't know that much about Black history, so, no, not really. I've just always been interested in the fact that— I just was always curious about it.	21:40
Mary Hebert	Do you think that's where your fascination with the genealogy comes from, wanting to know your history?	21:55
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Mm—hmm. Yeah. I've been doing genealogy for quite a few years now. When we went to Raleigh in May of this year and I found the cohabitation papers of my great—grandparents, they were people I didn't even know their names until I got my grandfather's death certificate and I found out their name. Yeah. I'm sure that has a lot to do with— Family has always been so important to me. I think family's more important to me than it is to the other part of the family. Yeah, I'm getting together family reunion for 1996, and from the very beginning when we started to have family reunions I got to be the historian because I did— I think that speech I just gave you there, I think I did that with some changes. I have some notes on there, so I need that back.	22:03
Mary Hebert	Okay.	22:57
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Do you want me to make a copy?	22:57
Mary Hebert	[indistinct 00:23:00]—	22:59
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I can make a copy and give you—	23:00
Mary Hebert	Give it to me next [indistinct 00:23:03]?	23:01
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah, sure. Yeah, I've always been fascinated with family and knowing how people are related. Now, my husband's family, I went to his family reunions two or three times, and I knew how they were related, but I've always— I don't know why I'm so interested in families and relation and how they're related. I've always been interested.	23:02
Mary Hebert	This question's completely different than what we were talking about, but did your family have a radio and television when you were growing up?	23:29
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Radio.	23:38
Mary Hebert	What would y'all listen to a lot?	23:38
Esther Vincent Lloyd	My mom used to listen to Stella Dallas. I remember that. We would listen to a lot of the rock and roll music at of the time. We would listen to romance stories on TV, I mean, on television, not television, on radio, radio. See, I forget about the radio now.	23:43
Mary Hebert	Were your brothers interested in Joe Lewis and the Negro Baseball League and those things?	24:12
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah. When Joe Lewis would fight, everybody would go— Say somebody didn't have a radio. They went to the neighbors' house who had a radio, and they would listen to Joe Lewis fight the fight. Yeah, they were interested in that.	24:17
Mary Hebert	Would other families go to your house to use your radio or—	24:31
Esther Vincent Lloyd	If they didn't have one, yes, yes, or if they were there at the particular time, they would stay to listen to the fight. I don't remember too much else that we really had time to listen to. I guess, being in North Carolina, there was a lot of country music on. We listened to that. So you develop a like for a lot of that, too.	24:36
Mary Hebert	Did you grow up with electricity and indoor plumbing and those things, or [indistinct 00:25:06]?	25:03
Esther Vincent Lloyd	When I got to high school, we had electricity. Well, before that. But I can remember in the early years studying by the lamplight. Never indoor plumbing while I was there.	25:07
Mary Hebert	Is that something they added later on?	25:20
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah. Well, then my father sold his— He had bought his father's land, and he sold that to my cousin, and they moved to the city. So my younger brothers and sisters grew up with indoor plumbing. But I didn't.	25:22
Mary Hebert	What did you do for water? Would you have to go out to the pump and pump it?	25:43
Esther Vincent Lloyd	There was a well. We had a well.	25:46
Mary Hebert	You had a well?	25:48
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah, had a well, and that's how we got our water.	25:48
Mary Hebert	And how was the house heated? Was it—	25:56
Esther Vincent Lloyd	In the beginning, I can remember a fireplace and I can remember a wood stove and then oil stoves where they would light and they would stay lit all night and be warm. But I can remember dad getting up in the coal, making the fire before we would get out of bed in the fireplace.	25:57
Mary Hebert	And what about the stove that you cooked on? Was it comparable to the gas stoves that we have now or—	26:17
Esther Vincent Lloyd	In the beginning, my mom had a wood stove, and then we got an electric stove. When we got electric, we got an electric stove.	26:25
Mary Hebert	And so that's what you used mostly [indistinct 00:26:34].	26:32
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Mm—hmm. Mm—hmm. No, no, no, no.	26:33
Mary Hebert	No. Did she teach you how to cook? Is that something you picked up from your mama?	26:38
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Not really. Most of my cooking I do from cookbooks. I've been interested in cookbooks, and I collect a lot, especially a lot of the Black cookbooks or the country cookbooks. I like the Southern cookbooks. I kind of watched her, but she didn't really have time to teach us how to cook. Right now, I use cookbooks. I just do.	26:43
Mary Hebert	And when you cooked for the family, would you do it with cookbooks also?	27:13
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No. No, no, no. That I had to do by trial and error.	27:17
Mary Hebert	What do you think is the most important thing that your parents taught you?	27:22
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Honesty, and if you're going to do a job, do it well or don't do it at all, and keep your promise. Those were the things that I remember the most. I like to try to keep my promise. If I promise you I'm going to— My dad always said, too, "If you promise someone you're going to do something, you do it or else you call them and tell them why you can't do it." So that's three things that they taught me. In fact, sometimes people tell me I'm too honest, but I don't feel good being any other way.	27:29
Mary Hebert	Was the Bible an important part of your home when you were growing up? Did your family do readings or pray together?	28:02
Esther Vincent Lloyd	No. And people always wonder. They'll say, "I know your family was very religious." They weren't. They really weren't. They went to church, but— I guess my mom probably was the most religious of all of us, and she wasn't a fanatic or anything about it. So we would go to church. But, see, church was our social outlet, so we may not— We probably a lot of times didn't even go inside the church. We stayed outside, and you were on the grounds, and you talked to your friends.	28:09
Esther Vincent Lloyd	So, as a result, I don't know a lot about the Bible. We had a Bible, but I don't know a lot about the Bible. I never went to Sunday school in my whole life. People say, "Oh, you are that old and"— I never went to Sunday school because they had church once a month. My dad's— The Primitive Baptist didn't have Sunday school. They didn't have revival. But my mom's church was about 25 miles away, so we never got to Sunday school. We never got there early enough to go to Sunday school. So I never went to Sunday school in my life. After I got to be grown up, I didn't want to go because I was afraid I had missed so much I was illiterate.	28:46
Mary Hebert	So y'all would drive to your mother's church?	29:33
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Mm—hmm. And—	29:35
Mary Hebert	Would y'all go in one car?	29:37
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yes. Yes, we did. There were seven of us, but then we were little. I don't know how we ever fitted into those cars because I think those cars— Well, they may have been bigger than my car is out there now.	29:39
Mary Hebert	I was just curious because you said there were seven children and I just wondered if [indistinct 00:29:56]—	29:52
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Yeah, we all went to church. I just wonder, though, when we got older, if we— The older ones didn't always go. I think maybe that's what happened. The older brothers or something, they didn't always go to church.	29:56
Mary Hebert	Did y'all do anything special on Sundays, or was church what y'all did? Y'all went and visited with [indistinct 00:30:15]?	30:13
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Family visits. That was very important. They would have Sundays where they would say they were going to spend the day at certain brothers' or sisters' homes. That meant you went for dinner. You didn't really spend the whole day, but you'd go afternoon and you would stay until dark and eat and talk and that kind of stuff. That was a tradition. You had to spend the day with every brother or sister.	30:15
Esther Vincent Lloyd	But we had no places to go or nothing except to friends' homes, relatives mostly because when I was growing up you couldn't— There were certain people you couldn't associate with, and there were plenty of people watching you to tell you that you can't associate with that person or this person. Grandmas, uncles, aunts, everybody watched you, and they would— "I'm going to tell your daddy. You know you shouldn't be associating with that person because of so and so." It wasn't that they were such bad people. We knew them from school. But when you went to church, there were certain people you just couldn't associate with.	30:44
Mary Hebert	I've heard a lot that, during that time period, the community would raise the child. Do you think that's—	31:28
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Sure was. If you did something wrong, it wasn't like they used to beat you where I came from, but they would make sure your parents knew. I was just afraid to do anything because— I never got a lot of spankings from my dad, though, or my mom. But it would seem like if you did something at school, they didn't have telephones, but somehow they would know before that day was over that you had done something. So I never did anything because I didn't want daddy to give me a whipping. Yeah, they did. They really—	31:31
Mary Hebert	And was it any adult who could pass it on to your—	32:11
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Any adult, yes.	32:13
Mary Hebert	I've asked several people this, and I don't know if anyone understands the question, but I ask because I've never got a clear answer. At what point, did someone become an adult and could tell you, "Oh, you're misbehaving?" Was it teenagers, or was it older than that?	32:15
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Older, I think.	32:42
Mary Hebert	Married—	32:42
Esther Vincent Lloyd	Married people, yes, yes. Yes, that would be it.	32:42
Mary Hebert	Well, those are about all the questions that I have. As I said before, is there anything else that you'd like to bring up that we didn't cover?	32:42
Esther Vincent Lloyd	I can't think of anything right now.	32:52
Mary Hebert	I'll stop—	32:54

Item Info

Title:

Esther Lloyd interview recording, 1995 July 20

Date:

July 20, 1995

Creator:

Lloyd, Esther Vincent

Contributor:

Hebert, Mary

Description:

Name: Esther Vincent Lloyd; Date of birth: 1932-10-10; Place of birth: Woodsdale, NC; Occupation(s): librarian; Residence: Virginia Beach, VA
Informant ID: 993; Interviewed by: Mary Hebert.

Occupation:

Librarian

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-2004

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-1319
3e267775-bfbd-475f-b6ad-64f7af10c5c0
behindtheveil
2808c8ca-43ac-444d-958c-0018f10c0465
ark:/87924/r4ws8vw03
2808c8ca-43ac-444d-958c-0018f10c0465

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Esther Lloyd interview recording, 1995 July 20

Transcript

Item Info

1. Esther Lloyd administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Esther Lloyd interview recording, 1995 July 20

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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