Essie Dozier interview recording, 1995 August 11
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| Blair Murphy | If you could, state your full name, your date of birth, and your place of birth for the tape. | 0:00 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | All right. My name is Essie Coker Dozier. I was born April 20th, 1931, in Northampton County, North Carolina. | 0:11 |
| Blair Murphy | And we did a first tape. | 0:23 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | Yes. | 0:25 |
| Blair Murphy | And this is a follow-up tape. | 0:26 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | This is a follow-up tape. | 0:26 |
| Blair Murphy | Because there's some issues you wanted to discuss that you thought you missed. | 0:28 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | There's some things I want to talk about. I think one thing that I wanted to emphasize was the fact that I lived in an extended family. I think it was really my grandparents' home, Mother and Dad lived there with us. I think it may have been—Well, it was a farmhouse and it was a big house. And everybody kind of worked together to see to that things got done. And this may have been fortunate. I felt that I was fortunate, because I had my grandparents around me all the time, whom I loved dearly. And I had my parents around me all the time, whom I loved dearly. And an aunt who was a public school teacher in Northhampton County. So to me it was a very happy time and always a very fortunate time. Mother was a very, she was a fine mother, a very good person. She was quiet and she was a very private person. And she may have been quiet by the mere fact that she was an only child and she didn't have, say playmates and such. | 0:32 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | But that may have been the reason why she was not, say, as talkative as my aunt, who was Dolores's mother. She came from a large family of girls, girls talk and so Aunt May, who was my uncle's wife, was very talkative and had a different personality. Mother's personality was quiet and subdued and she was, as I said before, a very private person. But nevertheless, she was a very loving person. And of all of the people in her generation in my family, that would have been my dad and my Uncle Steven, my Aunt Verly and my Aunt Ruth and Dolores's mother Aunt May, Mother was the last one to leave us. And she died in the '90s, '92. And the rest of them were gone much sooner than that. So it was a very treasured time, I think. All of my life I think was treasured and especially—and scary almost. | 1:37 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | When we realized that Mother was the sole surviving one in her generation, it was very, very sad to me. Very sad to me for a lot of reasons when she passed. First of all, she was my mom and I loved her and she loved us. And her passing in the fall of '92 put us in a position to be the top generation, which is something I don't think anyone wants to experience. I don't know which is more devastating, to be the generation or to be next to the generation or whatever, it can be—I think it can be hard on one's emotions. I'd like to make a correction. I just said my mom died in the fall of '92, she died in fall of '91, November 20th, 1991. And I need to make that correction for the sake of being right, being what's right. With my family having lived on a large farm, it was a very productive farm. It raised everything that we needed. Corn for cornmeal, wheat for flour, and they took this to the grist mills to bring the barrels of flours and things back. | 2:44 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | I may have said this before, I'm not sure. There were cows for the milk and the butter, chickens and other poultry for eggs and whatnot. Even our own beef, our own pork. A smokehouse that was say about 14 or 15 by 14 or 15 square feet. And it was just laden with all kinds of meat. You walk in and a ham might hit you in the head or sausage links, this kind of thing. Those were always there. And my grandfather was a very caring person and sharing person, shared with everybody who needed something. Probably both people who didn't need, he just liked to grow things, produce things, and give. | 4:16 |
| Blair Murphy | What role did your mother play in the— | 4:59 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | What role did she play? | 5:00 |
| Blair Murphy | Mm-hmm. | 5:01 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | Mother played the role of—Well, she took care of us. That was her sole responsibility, to take care of us. But when it came to things that needed to be done around the farm, around the house, she was a helper, the same as Dolores's mother. Dolores's mother took care of them and Mother took care of us. And when it came to the household chores, I think each person took care of the part where they stayed, but there were some other chores that were shared. Canning and preserving, those were things that were shared. Preparing the vegetables for canning and the fruit for preserving and whatnot, all of the women took part in doing that. | 5:06 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | Each one I think was responsible for the cleanliness of their own families, as I remember, own families' personal belongings, clothes and whatnot. But there were some things which were shared. Sewing was done mainly by my Aunt Verly and my grandma, Mother didn't sew. And I don't think Dolores's mother sewed. The two women who married into the family didn't sew, but they were good cooks. They could all cook. I think it may have been a requirement, and I'm saying this very facetiously, may have been a requirement for being married into the Coker family, you had to know how to cook. If not, you learned very quickly. | 5:48 |
| Blair Murphy | Among your parents, who made decisions about you? | 6:24 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | About us? | 6:28 |
| Blair Murphy | About the siblings? | 6:28 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | Whether it was my mother or my dad? | 6:30 |
| Blair Murphy | Yeah. | 6:31 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | I don't remember that being an issue. I don't ever remember that being an issue. I guess they had the way of whatever needed to be discussed or needed final conclusions or solutions, they did it not in our earshot. I don't ever remember hearing that. And yet it seems that there were not problems that I was unhappy because of the way something went. I think they just knew how to handle that. And I might say another thing, unlike this generation, whatever the family issues were or issues in the neighborhood, we never heard them discussed by our grandparents and parents. | 6:32 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | They just were not discussed in front of us. I feel that there were times they were saying, "Okay now, you go on out in the yard and play," or, "You do this," or, "You do that." They would get us out of earshot of some business matters, and I guess personal matters and community things that they needed to discuss that they felt should not have been shared by children. And I think I'm glad because it certainly kept me a child much longer, did not have to be concerned about grown folks—the issues of adults. | 7:13 |
| Blair Murphy | Did your mother prepare you about the issues of race? Do you remember anyone preparing you about the issues of race? | 7:41 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | I really don't. We lived on a farm. That was the first 10 years of my life. And I think the closest thing was a White family. Of course, we could see the houses of that—Well, there were two houses for that family. The family, the White family lived in one, and a Black family who helped them lived in another. And then there were two or three other houses we could see that were owned by Blacks. But I never heard the N-word in my house, anywhere around my house. I never heard any of my grandparents talk about any issue where they had to discuss the N word or even the word—No ethnic terms were used. And I don't ever remember hearing them talk about any such issues. Yet, every day when we went to school it was an issue, but not to the point that we were upset by it or bothered by it or would even talk about it. And that was having to walk to school while our White neighbors rode the bus. | 7:52 |
| Blair Murphy | Did they explain that to you? Or just— | 9:08 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | Never explained, we never questioned it. We just thought, I guess that was the way it was. I don't remember any of our friends ever discussed this among ourselves, at that tender age. And sure as we got older, of course I wasn't going to school there when I got older because I left, finished the fourth grade, then that was all. But I was always back there, always going back there visiting. And from that time until the 12th grade, which is the grade that my cousin finished, I never remember our talking about it. And that's kind of sad that you would take something like that to be a way of life, something that was so unlike another person's life who was not that different from me, except that they were White and we were Black. But Mother didn't prepare us, Daddy didn't. I guess we may have to an extent been protected from it. Maybe they saw some issues they would've protected us from. | 9:10 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | I do remember a racial incident. It was a kid, it was a child's incident, because I think this could've happened with Black or White, or Black and Black or White and White. I was always, and I still am, very afraid of worms or anything that creeps and crawls. And Dolores and I were coming from the mailbox one day and this White girl, can't think of her name, Catherine something, who lived nearby was coming from the mailbox at the same time, and she picked up a worm and threw it on me, threw the worm on me. I was terrified, very afraid. And I ran so hard that I fell down and hurt myself. I was dusty and dirty and a little bit bloody by the time I got home. And oh, she was just laughing and giggling behind me and I was just running. So I was running so hard that I could feel my heels hitting my back. | 10:14 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | Her parents did not like it. Catherine's parents, who were White, did not like that, that she had treated me that way and she was punished. So I think the relationship with the Blacks and Whites in our community was good. They did not condone her behavior, even though I thought it was mean then because I was afraid of the worm, but now I know that race, color had nothing to do with it. That's not the reason she threw it, she just thought it was a fun thing to do. I believe that. | 11:08 |
| Blair Murphy | A little kid? | 11:35 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | Oh yeah, little kid, just thought it was a funny—Excuse me. She wasn't afraid of them and I was afraid of them. And we had some very happy times, because my father would, grandfather—Well, that was a family thing, I always say him, but they had watermelon patches as far as you could see, you saw these little green bubbles, which were the watermelons in the fields. And I think one of the most fun things that we did as children of the community, while the adults were out working in the field, we would get up in the morning and we would walk over into the watermelon field while the watermelon was still cool from the dew that had fallen the night before—Dew doesn't fall, it condenses. Anyway, it was created the night before. | 11:36 |
| Blair Murphy | Mm-hmm. | 12:19 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | My cousin would just hit the watermelon with the side of his hand like so, and crack it open and do that one watermelon for each of us. We would just dig in and eat only the heart of the watermelon and leave it. And we would go from watermelon to watermelon, eating only the hearts until we had enough. And we literally rolled back to the house. My grandfather did not like that because those open watermelons would create the attendance of crows and birds into the watermelon patch, and they would not only eat those, but they would destroy other ones, so that wasn't good. We were punished I think for that, but other than that—And some of the sad things in my life, I think the earliest one I remember was losing my grandfather when he was, that was in 1942 I think. And then my grandmother died when I was a senior in high school in 1950, and Dolores's dad, Uncle Steven died in '68. | 12:21 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | And then I think the next ones were in 1980 when her mother died and my daddy's youngest sister died. And then of course my aunt who lived to be 88 died the day after her birthday, and then of course Mother, 1991. With Mother being the last one, she was very, very special. I think she was coddled by us and everybody wanted Mother to be with them. I wanted Mother to be in my household. My sister Eunice wanted my mother to be with her, and Bill wanted Mother to be with him. All of us wanted her to be with us and I think it's because we just kind of wanted to take care of her and share her last few days with us and with her doing the best that we could for her, doing everything for her. As it was, as it turned out, while she had her own household, Daddy had owned his own house. | 13:16 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | I don't ever remember a time when he didn't own his own house, but she had her own household. But Mother was always a little bit afraid of things and she did not want to live in this large house by herself, so she chose to be with my sister some of the time, with me some of the time, and with my brother Bill some of the time. And that's the way it was, she was wherever she wanted to be. In Connecticut, in Virginia Beach, in Norfolk or in Virginia Beach with my brother, wherever she wanted to be. And of course when she became very ill, she was at Bill's house, my brother Bill's house. And they lived in Kempsville. He lived in Kempsville right on the same route that I used to go to work every day. So I played a role in her being there, even though it was his household, I would stop by twice a day and do things for her, combing her hair, going by in the morning because Bill worked at night, so I'd go by in the morning. | 14:15 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | He came in I think at midnight, so I would go by in the morning so that he would not have to get up right away and do things for her such as soon as she wanted something to eat, or sometimes I didn't comb her hair quite that early because she didn't feel up to combing it quite that early, but if she wanted it combed I would do it, because I always had left in plenty of time to do that. And then of course I would come by evenings and spend time with her and be with her. And I would take her shopping, take her to the beauty parlor, sometimes do her hair myself. She had long, beautiful, silky hair. Then before she died, it was beginning to turn silver. It was very beautiful, very beautiful silver color. But that was the way we took care, my mother did not have long hospitalizations, my dad did. | 15:13 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | My dad, unfortunately, I was so hurt that he had worked so hard to take care of us along with Mother all of his life that he did not live to enjoy his retirement, because soon after he retired, he became ill and never really enjoyed a very healthful year after he retired, didn't get to enjoy it long. But that's the way it is. And with Mother passing one year and my son the next year, I think I cry almost every day. And I can cry in anybody's presence and you don't have to know it because I have learned to cry inwardly, and I do that a lot. And I think about them a lot. | 16:07 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | I don't know, my only regret about any of them except my son, because well, I think that's different, that passing is different from anyone else. But as far as my parents are concerned and my other relatives, I think my only regret is that they just didn't live longer. As far as the things we did for them and taking care of them, I think nothing was left to be desired, just did it all. At one time, Daddy was in the hospital at the same time his two sisters were, and at different hospitals. And I went to see each one of them every day. And Mother was home, didn't feel up to going in the hospital to visit. And I did things at the house, because at that point my children and I were living with Mother and Daddy and with rearing my four kids and working every day full-time in the school system, Daddy was set, Mother was home, but she wasn't well, but she wasn't hospitalized. | 16:57 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | Excuse me. I found myself just asking somebody to come in to help with the washing and the ironing. I would wash and probably dry and get them to iron and help with that. I did that for a while, not a long time, but I did it for a while until—I wanted to be sure that I didn't get sick. I couldn't afford to be sick. My parents needed me and my children needed me, so I tried to do things that would keep me on my feet and taking care of them and taking care of my family. My parents were two farsighted people, I think. They didn't have the education that they gave their children. I think this may have been true in a lot of families, in a lot of cases. | 17:55 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | Mother finished, I guess ninth and 10th grade. Dad finished one of the lower elementary grades. But they had the foresight to know that we could not stop where they had to stop. For whatever reasons, that was as far as they could go. So they saw to it that each of us could have had a college education, because my brother and sister did not finish college. It wasn't a family thing, it was a personal thing, because the family thing to us was, when we finished high school, was not are you going to college? It was where are you going to college? And it was everybody's right to go to school beyond high school. It was everybody's responsibility to go. And it was just something that my dad instilled in us. And I took advantage of his insight. I took advantage of Mother's insight and Mother's desire to see to it that I would go to school. | 18:40 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | Mother was determined that all of us would go to school, that all of us would finish high school and finish college. Never forget she was working once, and she said she told one of her coworkers that I was finishing high school, I'll be going to college, and this coworker said it will never happen, she'll never finish. I was determined to finish, not for her, but I proved to her that I could finish and that I really never stopped learning. Master's degree. I attempted two master's degrees, or attempted three and I got one, because one I took, most of the courses were offered locally on site in the public school, and we had to take nine hours offsite, back on the campus. And I was divorced. I was the mother of four young children. I could not afford to spend a summer away from them. And I didn't. | 19:39 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | And then I think something happened, another three hours were brought to Chesapeake, I did that, so I came within six hours of a master's degree. And I really feel that I have it, because whatever knowledge there was to be gained from all of that study, I have it. You see? So for all practical purposes, I am within about 12 hours of two masters combined, and one I completed. So I'm literally, there were three. Each one is something different that I really wanted to do. So I don't know. | 20:31 |
| Blair Murphy | Anything else? | 21:17 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | Huh? | 21:17 |
| Blair Murphy | Anything else you wanted to bring up? | 21:17 |
| Essie Coker Dozier | I don't know. I guess that may be it. Guess what? I'll probably think of 51 other things by the time these tape recorders turn off. But I think that may be it. I just wanted to say that we are from a good, strong family. According to other people in the neighborhood, we were a well-respected family and people thought a lot of us. People said we were rich. I don't know if we were or not. I didn't think so. I thought we were a good family. I thought we were well taken care of. We lived in a nice home and when I meet some former classmates, "Oh yeah, I remember you, your family was always rich." I said, "No. No, we weren't." But that's the way people felt. I still don't think so. I don't think we were poor. I don't think anybody during my—Any of my friends really thought they were poor. If we were, we didn't know it. If we were rich, we didn't know it. We were just well taken care of and well-respected. | 21:20 |
| Blair Murphy | Mm-hmm. Okay. | 22:15 |
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