RL00170-CS-0660_01 / Nancy Hunter interview recording, 1993 July 01 / Duke Digital Repository

Leslie Brown

You were a close, poor family?

0:11

Nancy Jones Hunter

A close, poor family. We always had plenty to eat and plenty to wear, as it was. I don't know anything to tell you about my childhood, no more than, as I just said, we were poor people. That's all.

0:19

Leslie Brown

Well, where did you grow up?

0:36

Nancy Jones Hunter

We grew up on out —I don't know which way you come from Tillery. You're probably 125, I guess. But we grew up right around in this —not in Enfield. We was out in the country. We grew up out there.

0:39

Leslie Brown

You said you grew up out in the country.

1:00

Nancy Jones Hunter

Right.

1:01

Leslie Brown

What did your family do?

1:05

Nancy Jones Hunter

As I said, we was on the farm, and that's where my father —All of us, all the children, it was eight of us children, and we all just worked the farm until our parents died. Then we all left here and went away. I came back here about it'll be 21 years now. I never went to Brick School. I did finish local school. But when I left here, I furthered my education in Newark, New Jersey.

1:09

Nancy Jones Hunter

I left here when I was real young when I left here, and I got married while I was here, real young, married. Marriage didn't work out, but there was four children. And then the other part of it was city life until about 29 years. I worked while I was there, and I went to school and took up nursing and that. As I said, I don't even know too much to tell you about it. That's the truth.

1:45

Leslie Brown

Well, let's go back and talk about the farm.

2:26

Nancy Jones Hunter

The farm I didn't like.

2:31

Leslie Brown

You didn't like the farm?

2:32

Nancy Jones Hunter

I didn't like the farm. Mm-mm, no.

2:34

Leslie Brown

Why didn't you?

2:35

Nancy Jones Hunter

I just didn't. Outside, I didn't like outside, no way working in the field. I never did like it. I didn't do too much of that. But the rest of the children, they did, but I didn't do too much out in the field.

2:38

Leslie Brown

Did your family own the land?

2:55

Nancy Jones Hunter

Yes, they did, some parts, and some part my father sharecropped, as you called it.

2:58

Leslie Brown

What did the house look like?

3:10

Nancy Jones Hunter

It was a two-room log house. That's what it was.

3:14

Leslie Brown

Under your arm.

3:19

Nancy Jones Hunter

Two-room log house, that's what it was, and we had a kitchen that stood out from the house.

3:21

Leslie Brown

The kitchen was detached from the house?

3:30

Nancy Jones Hunter

From the house. Yeah, from the house. So we would have to walk across the yard to get to the kitchen, about as far as it is to that next mobile home over there. We children wasn't allowed to do too much. We stayed around close. We would go and visit the friends that was around, but they were so far away that we didn't hardly visit, just the family.

3:33

Leslie Brown

Well, how did you meet the friends that you had?

4:08

Nancy Jones Hunter

When we were going to school. I couldn't say we had any friends more than going to school and back home. That's all. Because we was living right in walking distance of a school, which was on this highway out there, 301. They called it Hayward Rosenwald school. I think that's what it was. As far as friends, because back in that day, we were poor and the people that was a little better off, they didn't mix.

4:10

Leslie Brown

They didn't?

4:47

Nancy Jones Hunter

No, no, no. Mm-mm. Just these later years since I got back here, now those people that we didn't know, we knew them because we went to church. But mm-mm. You was in the class just like you said segregation. Mostly, that's the way it was. Anybody that had much more than we had, we wasn't classed in their class. It's been—

4:50

Leslie Brown

How did they separate you out?

5:20

Nancy Jones Hunter

They just didn't bother with us. As I say, after our parents passed, all of us left Enfield. I have a sister now in Jersey. I have a daughter and a son in Jersey. I don't know whether they thought it made us any better or what because we run away. We tried to better ourselves from what we grew up to be. I don't know. Everybody was just different. That's the way it was all through our childhood. That's the way it was.

5:22

Nancy Jones Hunter

We lived right around the corner from a lot of people, but they was in their group and we was in our group. Go to school, we would mingle. We would play at school, but that was it. So it's been segregation not only with what segregation is about now. But when we were coming up, it was segregation, too. Because, as I said, if the next Black person had a little bit more than we had, we wasn't classified in that. That's-

6:16

Leslie Brown

Does that have to do with skin color, too?

7:01

Nancy Jones Hunter

Yep, a lot to do with skin color. A lot to do with that because when I got married, these people, they was real light-skinned. They really didn't want me in the family. But then that's a lot of reason why the marriage didn't hold up. We all now just like it's a different group of people. It didn't bother me. When I was a child, it might would bother me because I said, "Well—"

7:02

Nancy Jones Hunter

My sister that died some years ago, she never got over it. I think she just hated the people. But it don't bother me now because I've learned better. These people that didn't want to associate with us, well, now they associate. They'll talk, and they'll carry on just like nothing, just like they were always there for us. But that's just the way it was.

7:45

Leslie Brown

So people who were a little better off didn't help the people who were a little poor?

8:16

Nancy Jones Hunter

Mm-mm. No. Mm-mm. No.

8:22

Leslie Brown

Do you remember any specific incident?

8:32

Nancy Jones Hunter

No, uh-uh. No, I don't remember no specific incident why it was like that. See, because my parents, they never sat down and talked to us about different things. Because a lot of things now people ask me, I don't even know anything about it. Just like this girl, she came around wanting to —She was getting up the background of some people. I have heard the name, but how their life was, I couldn't tell her because Bernice Bronson, she lives right around on Cofield Street, I think, or Pope Street, one of them.

8:34

Nancy Jones Hunter

But anyway, she and her daughter was here a while ago, not too long ago. They was asking me about different people. As I say, I knew the names. But as far as associating with them or how they were brought up, I couldn't tell them because, see, most parents, they mostly would sit down and talk to the children, I guess. But see, we didn't have no common family discussions. We didn't have any of that. Uh-uh.

9:25

Nancy Jones Hunter

All we had was dos and don'ts. You don't do this and you don't do that. So that's the way we were brought up with dos and don'ts.

10:04

Leslie Brown

What were some of the dos and what were some of the don'ts?

10:13

Nancy Jones Hunter

When you was getting up in age and they thought you might meet a boy or something like that and you might do something you wasn't supposed to do, they would always tell you that. "You don't do that, and you don't do this." Just dos and don'ts.

10:21

Leslie Brown

What were some—

10:44

Nancy Jones Hunter

We had to go to church. We had to go to school as far as we could go. Every Sunday, we would have to get up and go to Sunday school even if it wasn't a service Sunday because we only had service, at that time, once a month. But we was always in church and always —So those values, they stick with me because I still go to church. I love to go to church all the time. I'm mostly in church all the time.

10:49

Nancy Jones Hunter

But other than that, I can't —Now, my brother that died, well, I used to sit down and talk to him before he died. I don't have any brothers living now. It's just only two of us living, my sister that's in East Orange, New Jersey, and myself. But he used to sit down, and he could tell us a whole lot. But after he died I said, "Well—" As I said, my mother and father, I don't know why people didn't —They didn't want the children to know anything. I don't know why that was.

11:19

Nancy Jones Hunter

I mean my family, I don't know about anybody else's family. But that's what happened to us when we were coming up. You didn't know nothing.

11:54

Leslie Brown

What kinds of things did your brother used to tell you?

12:09

Nancy Jones Hunter

He used to tell me about the older people that I used to hear the names mentioned. I would ask him. I'd say, "Who was So—and-so?" And he would sit down, and he would tell us. But he would tell me because I was always after —Well, none of us never talked that much. But after I left here and was in Newark, New Jersey, and working, then I had to start talking. So I guess I talk too much now, I guess. I don't know.

12:12

Nancy Jones Hunter

But anyway, I would always ask him about different people that I could remember the name, but I didn't remember what they could do because I was small. And then they were older people, and they was dying out. I would always ask him did he remember So-and-so. Just like there was a family of people, they was Knights, I think. He would tell me who this one was and who that one was and all that. But I can't remember. I just know what he would tell me.

12:49

Nancy Jones Hunter

Now, the children around here now, they grew up since I did because I'm 73 years old. You know now that they don't know nothing way back there. So I don't have anybody to talk to. I got a daughter in South Carolina. Well, my children mostly, they were raised in Jersey, so they don't know anything about down here too much. But anyway, I'd call my sister. My sister, she's younger than I am, and she don't even remember. She can't help me out none because people always asking me about this one and that one.

13:22

Nancy Jones Hunter

Just like these people that was trying to get the history on these people I was telling you about. This man, I remember the name but I don't know anything about him because I was a small child when he died. I remember when he died, and I remember my father. They was living in the country, too. My father, on the mule and wagon, he went over where this man was living. He got his body. Then, they wasn't in no casket, in just the box that they made.

14:20

Nancy Jones Hunter

My father and this man, they didn't embalm at that time like they do now. Right now, in my mind, I can envision seeing my father on that wagon. He had this handkerchief tied over his nose because the man was smelling. His name was Peter Duncan, they called him. I can remember that. So when I called my sister and asked her, I said, "Do you remember Peter Duncan?" She don't remember. "I don't remember." Everybody that's older than I am at our church, Smith Chapel Baptist Church up the road about four miles up there on the right as you going north, and I wanted to ask all those people after the girl came here and was asking me about Peter Duncan.

14:58

Nancy Jones Hunter

I said, "Now, girl, I'm going to tell you the truth. I don't know anything about Peter Duncan. just the name, that's all." So I went to church. I tried to find out something because this lady that I know, she lived near Peter Duncan at that time. I know where they lived and all of that. But she didn't know nothing. She didn't know anything. And then this fellow, Johnny Wade, he didn't know anything. He is 80-something years old, and he couldn't tell me anything about Peter Duncan. So I said, "Mm-mm."

15:46

Nancy Jones Hunter

But I did hear a lot of names. But as far as what their background was, I can't tell you, and not too much about my own background, no more than what I've already told you because we were poor. I'm telling you, we came up poor. But my father, I appreciate what they did for me. Now, we always had plenty to eat, and we had just this two-room log cabin house. Well, they made space enough in there for all of us to sleep because some of the children had gotten married anyway and gone and moved out.

16:24

Nancy Jones Hunter

One of my sisters, she got killed in '37 right on that highway out there. She could sew very well, so she would make all our clothes. We had as much as the poor person at that time could have because my father raised his meat hogs, and he had his corn and potatoes. My mama made a garden. We had plenty doing the garden season. She would always can food. So we didn't go hungry for anything. We was well-fed, but we were just poor. That's all. We just didn't have any money. So that's the way it was.

17:15

Nancy Jones Hunter

And then, as I said, the people that had more than us, I don't know whether they thought they was better than we were or what, but they just didn't associate. My father, he was a well-known —Now, if we had a death or anything like that, we'll say that the people did because I remember when my sister got killed in this accident. She was on the way coming into Enfield town here. A big old International truck ran into the wagon, and it killed her instantly, knocked my father.

18:10

Nancy Jones Hunter

It shook him up so bad, before he died, he lost his mind. My sister had a daughter. She didn't get hurt. And then my baby sister, she was on the wagon, but she didn't get hurt. So they was able to go back to the house and tell them what had happened. It wasn't no money out of that. So I don't know what happened to that. I really don't. But anyway, the sister that's in Jersey, it did, it really messed her leg up. She was in the hospital, I guess, about eight months because they had the skin graft and two or three times to get her so she could be able to walk.

18:52

Nancy Jones Hunter

It didn't break the bone or anything. It just like you would skin something. It just tore all that flesh right on down. So we had it pretty rough. But thanks the Lord, we came through it pretty good.

19:45

Leslie Brown

Now, when your sister was in the hospital, what hospital did she go into?

20:02

Nancy Jones Hunter

Lord, Lord, Lord. It was a hospital over there in Rocky Mount at that time. What was the name of that hospital? It's not there anymore because they built a new hospital. What's the name? Lord, please let me think. I guess I'm getting Alzheimer's. What in the world was the name of that hospital there? Because at one time, they didn't allow Black people in there, not unless you had some money. I don't know how in the world she got in there. Lord have mercy. I can't even remember the name of the hospital now. But she—

20:07

Leslie Brown

Do you remember what year that was?

20:47

Nancy Jones Hunter

Uh-huh, 1937. I remember that because I had already gotten married at a young age, and I was pregnant with my second child. That was September. I remember that very well. That was September of 1937 because my daughter was born in June of '38.

20:49

Leslie Brown

It wasn't a segregated hospital?

21:17

Nancy Jones Hunter

No, if you had some money, anybody that had money, they could go in there. But they didn't allow too many Black people in there.

21:20

Leslie Brown

Was she on the same ward as other Whites or was she in a separate ward for just Blacks?

21:34

Nancy Jones Hunter

She was in a separate ward just for Blacks.

21:39

Leslie Brown

Do you remember—

21:47

Nancy Jones Hunter

Lord have mercy. I wish I could think of the hospital.

21:50

Leslie Brown

Do you remember if she had a Black doctor or White doctor?

21:50

Nancy Jones Hunter

I can't remember that either. I don't know because I don't even know whether they was letting Black doctors doctor there at that time or not. I don't know.

21:54

Leslie Brown

Do you remember if there were any Black doctors in Enfield at all?

22:07

Nancy Jones Hunter

Well, let me see. I—

22:13

Leslie Brown

Or anywhere around here at all?

22:14

Nancy Jones Hunter

Not at that time. I can't remember. I don't even know because it was a Dr. DuBissette here. I don't know whether he was Black or White. I'm going to tell you the truth because I know when we would get sick because I know I had pneumonia about three times when I was a child. I know it was a White doctor that came every time. So I don't think. At that time, I don't think it was.

22:16

Nancy Jones Hunter

Let me see now. Since I've been back here, somebody did tell me that a Dr. Bryant was here. I think he was Black, but he didn't stay too long.

22:49

Leslie Brown

Do you remember anything about Dr. DuBissette?

23:03

Nancy Jones Hunter

Mm-mm, just the name. That's all. Just the name. I was real small because, as I say, my father never let us come to town even just to look around. We didn't never do that until we got up like teenagers or something. Then he would bring us into town the fall of the year after crops was housed, bring us to town. But other than that, mm-mm.

23:06

Leslie Brown

Well, what would you do when your father would bring you to town?

23:37

Nancy Jones Hunter

We didn't do nothing but just walk and look. That's all because there wasn't that many stores that was open at that time. So we would just walk, just to say we had been to Enfield.

23:40

Leslie Brown

So you'd just walk and look, but you wouldn't shop?

23:58

Nancy Jones Hunter

Yeah. He would give us some money. Well, as the children grew up, he would always —He would take the older ones and he would bring them to town. After the crops was housed, he would harvest. He would give each child some money to spend, buy whatever they wanted. So we would buy little different things, something for your hair or something like that. But no, mm-mm.

24:00

Nancy Jones Hunter

We just has our childhood, really. It was exciting to us because we didn't know no better. We thought it was all right for us because we got along all right. But exciting childhood, I guess it was exciting. I don't know. But that's the way it was.

24:41

Leslie Brown

You said you went to a Rosenwald School.

25:06

Nancy Jones Hunter

That's what the name it was out there on —When you got almost to Enfield —I don't know. You come out 125 or 481?

25:08

Leslie Brown

I think 481.

25:18

Nancy Jones Hunter

Yeah. I think a part of that building is still standing there now, I think, up there on 301 out there. On this side of the highway, we lived on this side of the highway across. We could just walk right across the field to the school.

25:24

Leslie Brown

What kind of school was it?

25:52

Nancy Jones Hunter

It was just a grade school. I don't know. At that time, that's what they called. It was elementary school. I think it went up to about the 10th grade at that time.

25:53

Leslie Brown

Did your parents have to pay anything for you to go?

26:03

Nancy Jones Hunter

There? No, uh-uh. No.

26:05

Leslie Brown

Do you remember anything about the school being built at all?

26:11

Nancy Jones Hunter

No, uh-uh. I don't remember when it was built. I did hear some people talking about another school before they built that school. They had a little log school or something sit on the side out there. I don't know whether I was born or not, but I know I didn't go there to the school. But I've heard them talk about it.

26:13

Leslie Brown

When you finished the Rosenwald School, where did you go?

26:43

Nancy Jones Hunter

We didn't go anyplace after that. Up to the 10th grade and that was it until I left here.

26:47

Leslie Brown

So the Rosenwald School only went up to 10th grade?

26:55

Nancy Jones Hunter

10th grade.

26:57

Leslie Brown

How many rooms did the school have?

27:00

Nancy Jones Hunter

It had two rooms.

27:01

Leslie Brown

Do you remember the teachers?

27:07

Nancy Jones Hunter

The teachers that I had when I was going, you mean?

27:09

Leslie Brown

Mm-hmm.

27:15

Nancy Jones Hunter

Room one was named Alberta Silver and Annie Neville.

27:27

Leslie Brown

What was her name? Sorry.

27:29

Nancy Jones Hunter

Huh?

27:30

Leslie Brown

What was the other one's name?

27:30

Nancy Jones Hunter

Annie Neville.

27:31

Leslie Brown

Okay.

27:31

Nancy Jones Hunter

And then when they would get a teacher, she would stay there for about —If she taught this session, she would come back next year. So we had mostly the same teacher every year, mostly. But I do remember. Then they cut it down to just one teacher there. Reverend McKinley Nicholson, he taught out there for a good while.

27:38

Leslie Brown

Were your teachers Black?

28:15

Nancy Jones Hunter

Yeah, they were Black. Mrs. Ruth Fields, she taught there for quite a while. I think that's all the teachers that I had there because they would repeat over and over.

28:21

Leslie Brown

What were the teachers like?

28:47

Nancy Jones Hunter

What do you mean? The attitudes?

28:51

Leslie Brown

Mm-hmm.

28:53

Nancy Jones Hunter

They had good attitudes if you were good. At that time, you had to mind your teacher. You couldn't talk back to your teacher. You could ask the questions and all of that. But they were very good teachers. They took up a lot of time with the children that they had to handle because after it was down to just one teacher, she would have to have all the grades from primary on up. Yeah. But teachers was nice, very nice.

28:55

Leslie Brown

Why did they cut it back to only one teacher?

29:33

Nancy Jones Hunter

I don't know why they did that. But they just closed one of the rooms off. I don't know. I never knew why. I guess because a lot of the children, they started to, I guess, after they would finish that 10th grade, they'd go away. Then it would be smaller children. But I don't know why they just stopped it to just one teacher. But the teachers was real nice. All of them was real nice.

29:36

Leslie Brown

Did they ever play favorites?

30:19

Nancy Jones Hunter

One of them. That's Alberta Silver. Yeah. She always said I was her favorite. But other than that, no. They would treat everybody else mostly the same, all the children the same.

30:23

Leslie Brown

Did you ever see the teachers outside of school?

30:42

Nancy Jones Hunter

No, uh-uh, because they didn't live right here in Enfield. They would always come from another town, and I never did see them.

30:47

Leslie Brown

So the teachers came from another town every day to teach in Enfield?

30:57

Nancy Jones Hunter

No, they would live with somebody here in Enfield while they were —Yeah, they would live with them. That was the rural school. But then Inborden elementary school down here, you hear of that, where they had different teachers and all of that. But I never went to Inborden.

31:00

Leslie Brown

You said you didn't go to the Brick School, but did you know anything about it?

31:30

Nancy Jones Hunter

Mm-mm. Not a thing about Brick School.

31:33

Leslie Brown

Did they know anybody who went to the Brick School?

31:36

Nancy Jones Hunter

Well, now that since I've been back here I do because the lady I was talking to the other day, Julia Exum, I guess you hear that name, well, she went there. This man that I took care of his wife —Well, since I've been back here, I've been a community worker from one house to the other when people sick because I did go to school for —I started for a nurse, but then I got hurt on the job and I had to drop out. And then I wasn't able to go back because I hurt my back lifting a patient.

31:38

Nancy Jones Hunter

But anyway, when I came back here and everybody heard that I was a nurse's aide, everybody that was sick, they wanted Nancy Hunter. "Nancy Hunter." I said, "Well, I'm not but one person." I said, "You have to split me open, I guess." Because everybody wanted me to come and wait on them because I try to treat the patients good. When sick people are sick, you have a lot to go through because the attitude changes from one minute to the next.

32:25

Nancy Jones Hunter

You had to have patience with them. When I first came back here, Minnie Cotton, she was sick. So when she heard about it. Well, Minnie Cotton, I had known her from childhood, but she was one of those in the little upper class. So she didn't bother with us too much. But after I came back here, she heard that I was here and she remembered me. So I took care of her for four years until she passed. And then from there —Oh, boy. And from there—

32:57

Nancy Jones Hunter

—Minnie Cotton, I went to Elizabeth Cofield. She was Julia Exum's sister-in-law. I worked with her for three years. Excuse me. Her husband, he passed before she did. So then I stayed and took care of her. But she didn't live something like about almost five —She lived about five months after he passed. So then I started with Julia's niece, Thomas Cofield's daughter, Claudia. I started with her. So I worked there, I guess, about two years with her.

33:44

Nancy Jones Hunter

So then I went into the hospice, working with hospice, and did all over everywhere. Meals on Wheels and don't drive, so you can imagine how that it is. But people has been very good, come to drive me. So I don't have no complaints about that. I wish I had more to tell you, but I just can't remember.

34:31

Leslie Brown

Well, you said you went north to get your training?

34:53

Nancy Jones Hunter

Uh-huh. After I got there, well —You see all these burns? Well, I went into a laundry. From that, I came out of working because I never seen a laundry before. How you do shirts, it's just a person standing up and you just put the shirt on. But they didn't have that new machine at that time. They had this, you had to put your sleeves on this thing. It was like a arm. It's just as hot as it could be. I walked by and burned my —See these things?

34:57

Nancy Jones Hunter

But right here, now that's me doing all that in the oven, cooking. So that right there. Yeah. But over here, now that's these right here. I put everything on them. It looked like I did nothing. Maybe I didn't use it long enough. And then from there, I said, "Oh, boy." I said, "I think I want to go into the hospital and do some nursing." So from there, I went to Staten Island, New York, over there. It was a hospital for retarded children.

35:29

Nancy Jones Hunter

I started out there. If you work real good and everything, they evaluate you all the time. I was in the group that they evaluated. I got a lot of training, reading and mostly just listening to everything that I could listen to and the understanding. What I didn't understand, I would ask questions. That helped me a whole lot. Then they sent me out to school. But as I say, I hurt my back and I hurt my knee there. I had to have surgery on the back end the knee.

36:00

Nancy Jones Hunter

So then they retired me from there with disability. So I said, "Well, I guess I'll go back home to North Carolina." So I came back here in '75, and that's when everybody just fell right in on me here then. I've been moving ever since, walking and all that. I was talking to Ms. Becky Roger this morning. I'm like, "You're not as old as I am." I told Becky, "Shut up." I said, "I'm older than you are." I said, "I'm 73 years old." "No, I don't believe it." Talking about, "You just shut your mouth."

36:47

Nancy Jones Hunter

Talking about, "And the way you get about." Talking about, "Uh-uh." Talking about, "I don't believe it." I said, "Well, I'm only going by what my mother said. I don't know because," I said, "I had to take her word for it." But nobody believes I'm 73 years old. No, because I saw you when you stopped and started to staring when I said —Nobody believes I'm 73 years old. October the 8th of this year, I'll be 74 years old.

37:31

Leslie Brown

Well, how old were you when you got married?

37:59

Nancy Jones Hunter

Oh, don't even ask that. I don't even want that to go on that tape.

38:04

Leslie Brown

Okay. Were you married when you went to New Jersey?

38:13

Nancy Jones Hunter

Uh-huh. Yeah.

38:13

Leslie Brown

Why did you choose New Jersey? Or how did you pick New Jersey?

38:15

Nancy Jones Hunter

Well, my husband, he had a brother up there who had been up there practically all his life. So he wanted us to come up there. When we left, my mother-in-law said, "Y'all ain't going to be together up there." So I don't know. I wasn't doing nothing but going to work because, shoot, I ain't never been one of those types that would run around. I ain't putting all the blame on him because it takes two birds to make it and break it.

38:17

Nancy Jones Hunter

So the marriage, it ended when we was in Jersey. So he came back. He lives in Ahoskie now and came back. I stayed on because I had three of the children. I had a son there live right across the street then. So I had three of the children with me. Two of them, they were old enough to get a job. But the baby girl, she was still in school. So I said, "Now I got to do something to take care of these children." I said, "I can't go out here talking about prostituting. I don't know nothing about that stuff."

38:50

Nancy Jones Hunter

I said, "Another thing, you get killed behind that." I said, "I don't want to do it, no way, because that's not my thing." But anyway, I worked different jobs until I started this training in the hospital. So from there, it was the restaurant and waitress work. I used to do that a lot. And then everybody when they got to know me —I'm not putting nothing on myself. But I was such a good worker. Everybody wanted me to come. I said, I can't do that."

39:31

Nancy Jones Hunter

Just like here, everybody, they have heard about how well I take care of the patients. This lady, she called me last week, I think, just before —I don't know. It wasn't you I talked to that day. No. But anyway, the one that I was talking to told me you would be here today. This lady, she had called me and wanted me five days a week to cook, now, a White lady. I said, "No, no, no. I can't do that five days a week." I don't know who gave her my name. But her mother-in-law or sister-in-law or somebody, she's a cancer patient.

40:12

Nancy Jones Hunter

So she wanted me to go wait on her mother-in-law or sister-in-law, whoever it was. So I said, "Now, I don't know nothing about fixing no food." White people is something else to get along with, some of them. They all got their ways, but some of them try to act a little different than the others. So I told her. I said, "My schedule is so filled up." I said, "I don't know what to do." Because five days I'm gone with the Meals on Wheels. But it don't take that long to deliver them.

40:56

Nancy Jones Hunter

When did she want me to come and cook? So I don't know. I said, "Let me check it out," I said, "and I'll get back to you." I said, "The 1st of the month, I'll get back to you." I ain't called her because it's too much because, see, with hospice patients, you are not supposed to cook. You're not supposed to. You're supposed go one day a week. You can make a phone call, but it's left up to you if you want to visit them more than one day.

41:34

Nancy Jones Hunter

But that's the procedure, one day a week, and you can call them, see how they're doing. But she wanted me five days. I said, "Mm-mm. No." And then this lady that the fourth Sunday of this month, she'll be dead two years. That was a Black lady. She had cancer. During the time that she was getting in the last stage, I guess, of the cancer, her husband started losing his eyesight. I think I started with her something like April of that year, and she died.

42:03

Nancy Jones Hunter

Well, she went on through. I was with her a year. And then after she passed, every time he would get ready to go to the doctor, see about his eyes, he would always call me. This week, Tuesday and yesterday, I was gone all day with him because he had a cataract removed. He had surgery on both his eyes last year. We had to go to Durham then, down there to the eyecare center down there. And then I picks up his laundry and do that and try to keep his house in order a little bit. So I got my hands quite full.

42:51

Leslie Brown

Did you ever work for White people before you went to New Jersey?

43:39

Nancy Jones Hunter

No, mm-mm. Some after I got to Jersey, I did.

43:51

Leslie Brown

What was that like?

43:55

Nancy Jones Hunter

I didn't have to cook. They just wanted me to come in and do a little cleaning like that, no ironing or nothing like that. But this lady wanted me to do some cleaning. I said, "I ain't able to do no cleaning there." Wouldn't do it anyhow, not now. Uh-uh. And then again, they wouldn't want to pay you or anything. That's the thing about it. They could put them in the nursing home. But see, they know that they going to have to pay a lot of money to put them in there. So they going to try to keep them out of the nursing home and try to find somebody that they can work to death to take care of them.

43:56

Leslie Brown

How old were you when you went to New Jersey?

44:43

Nancy Jones Hunter

I ain't going to tell you that.

44:45

Leslie Brown

You're not going to tell me that.

44:45

Nancy Jones Hunter

Wait a minute. I don't mind. I don't mind telling you anything because it's done passed and gone now. (laughs) Passed and gone. When I got married, I told you I wasn't going to tell you, I was 15 years old when I got married, right? I didn't have to get married, but my head was telling me to leave home, right, and I know that would be the only way that I would get away from home if I got married, right? And I guess that's why the marriage didn't work out. So I don't mind telling you since you got me wound up. (laughs) So no, I don't mind telling.

44:48

Leslie Brown

So, well, then let's—since you raised it. When you got married, where did you live?

45:25

Nancy Jones Hunter

I lived with my husband's people. That was a—

45:31

Leslie Brown

You lived with his family?

45:35

Nancy Jones Hunter

Yeah. That was a mistake.

45:36

Leslie Brown

Why was that?

45:38

Nancy Jones Hunter

See, because I just eloped right on away from home one day. Left home and got married. Just eloped. Then I was afraid to go back home.

45:40

Leslie Brown

Why were you afraid to go back home?

45:50

Nancy Jones Hunter

Because, see, my mama didn't know I had this plan in my mind. My daddy didn't know I had it planned, and I know my daddy would probably kill me, I guess, all that young getting married. I didn't have to get married. No, I wasn't pregnant or anything like that. I'm going to tell you. I ain't going to put that on tape, though.

45:54

RL00170-CS-0660_01

Transcript

File Info

John Hope Franklin Research Center