Minnie McKee interview recording, 1993 June 18
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| Sonya Ramsey | Testing, testing. 1, 2, 3. Mrs. McKee, you said you grew up in the Brooklyn community? | 0:01 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yes, I did. | 0:08 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What was your street like and some of your neighbors? | 0:09 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, it was just a typical street with them houses and families and our neighbors, and everybody was neighborly in the neighborhood and tried to assist when things happened in families and we all felt very close to each other. | 0:13 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What type of occupations did the people have that lived in Brooklyn? | 0:34 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | They were mostly domestic, maybe construction work. There were some teachers and that part stretched out. There were some doctors in that neighborhood, not my immediate neighborhood, but I mean as far as Brooklyn is concerned. | 0:37 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Is Brooklyn a large community? | 1:03 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yes, and there was some doctors and lawyers, teachers and domestic workers. | 1:04 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did the children from all the different families play together or did certain children— | 1:13 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, usually children in the immediate block, they played together. But there was some extended friendships where we would go into other neighborhoods and play and go to birthday parties and things like that. | 1:17 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What were some of the— I wanted to ask, where did people in Brooklyn go to buy their groceries and things like that? | 1:38 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Let's see. Back in, do you mean the early days when I was a child? | 1:48 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 1:50 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, we'd have to go a great distance to get food. There was Piggly Wiggly at that time but you don't have here now, Trade Street, and A&P on Morehead Street and we'd have to go there. | 1:51 |
| Sonya Ramsey | How did you travel there? | 2:10 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, by the bus or walk, it wasn't too far to walk to the store. | 2:12 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did many people have cars? | 2:19 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Not too many people had cars, so we were used to walking and we walked to wherever we had to go | 2:22 |
| Sonya Ramsey | After school, what did you and your friends do for play time? | 2:30 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, the first thing you do when you come home from school, is take off your clothes— | 2:34 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Oh, you had different play clothes, okay. | 2:38 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | — and put on your play clothes. And then, we had chores at home to do and then we'd get together. And in the wintertime, mostly everybody was at home, 'cause it's very cold. The weather was very different from the way it is now, it was colder when I was a child. | 2:39 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Yeah, it was cold, okay. | 3:00 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | But the weather has changed. But in the winter, they'd stay home and play with each other as sisters and brothers. But in the summer and spring, they'd get out on the sidewalk and play within, we had playgrounds and such, back when I was coming up. You made your own playground out on the sidewalk or in the street, wasn't that many cars that go by. So, we enjoyed it and mothers would have magazines from Montgomery and Ward or Sears and Roebuck, and you looked through those and wish and wish and wish for everything you saw. But it was happy time, you knew nothing else and you couldn't compare your life and play time with anything else, you just lived in a time in which you lived. | 3:01 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did you listen to the radio? Not a lot? | 3:57 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | When radios came, yes. For a while there was no radio. But when radios came on, we were very excited that I never forget. My daddy didn't get one right away, but my aunt who lived about a block away got one. And we'd get up in the mornings and do our little chores and things we had to do and go to her house and listen to her radio and kept up like that, we couldn't stay that long. But then eventually then my daddy got a radio for us. | 4:00 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Do you remember any of the programs that you listen to? | 4:32 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | I can't think of my favorite programs back then. | 4:32 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Oh, that's fine. You said your aunt lived near you, did a lot of your family stay around—? | 4:39 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah, I had two aunts who lived in close together in proximity. I had four cousins and we played together a lot and did things together, my mother's sisters. And one had two boys and one had two girls. And my mother had these, the two girls. And they'd get together sometime and they'd invite each other to dinner, bring their children and we'd go to their houses and we'd play there like that. | 4:42 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Was Brooklyn, what was the surrounding neighborhood around Brooklyn? | 5:17 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Let's see, it was off of Morehead Street, which was a White section. And then on the other side was downtown, Trade Street and Tryon Street was on in between them. | 5:24 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Was your family always from Charlotte or did they migrate from other— | 5:39 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | No, my mother was born here. My father was born in South Carolina, but he came here at an early age. | 5:45 |
| Sonya Ramsey | When your mother was born, how did their family all, I'm surprised at how many families all lived in the same area, lived nearby. | 5:53 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, my grandmother lived there and they grew up over there, my aunts grew up over there. And then, my father bought a piece of property and built a house right next to my grandmother's house. But I was born in the third ward section until I was about two years old when my daddy built this house and then we moved over there and stayed there all the rest of the time until I married. | 6:01 |
| Sonya Ramsey | You said your father worked for the bank. | 6:28 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Bank. | 6:30 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Do you remember how he obtained that job? | 6:32 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | I don't remember. I don't know how he got that job, but they were very fond of him. It was called, as I said, the Charlotte National Bank and it was later taken in by [indistinct 00:06:45] Bank and Trust and they built a new company. And he worked there 50 years and got his 50, got his watch for 50 years and well respected, and people loved him so very much. And as I told you before, he turned the ground when they built the building for them at the ceremony, he was there with all the other officers of the Bank. | 6:33 |
| Sonya Ramsey | And you said that your mother was a dressmaker? | 7:08 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah, she was a seamstress. | 7:09 |
| Sonya Ramsey | And your grandmother was also? | 7:13 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | And my grandmother was a seamstress also. And my mother took sewing at Shaw University at that time and finished the equivalent of a high school education, which that's about all most girls did back in those days. And I never shall forget that, she had a scrapbook that she made in her class showing all the different kinds of stitches, button holes and all the types of maneuvers you do and you are making a dress, all sewing. And we used to look at that and everyone wonders, "Why don't you sew? Your mother sew for everybody, all those people that made all those clothes." I'd say, "Well, I tried but I couldn't please her." I can do the ordinary things but I'm not, I don't make dresses and things like that. But that was what she did and enjoyed it. And she had about four families she sewed for by the hour, at that time that was something— | 7:15 |
| Sonya Ramsey | And you and your sister would have to help her with her work when she was working on thing? | 8:23 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, we did, at home, we did things at home while she was gone. We did, how we washed, we ironed, we cleaned out the closets, we swept and kept the porch and yard right. Put clothes away and all, but no cooking because she said we wasted the food. And she would cook, she'd get up and do the cooking before she left and left it and we'd serve and, 'cause my dad would get home from his job sometime before she'd get there and we'd serve dinner and wash the dishes and put up everything by that time she'd come in. And of course, she sewed for us and made everything we wore. And for the people that she worked for, she made everything they wore, coats and everything. And then sometimes some of the girls will marry and she did all the bridal work for them and all. | 8:28 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did they have patterns then that they sew on— | 9:25 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah, she used patterns. Yeah, she used patterns. | 9:27 |
| Sonya Ramsey | You said your father built your home. Could you describe your home and what it looked like? | 9:34 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, he had it built. It was three bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen and a back porch. And it was comfortable. | 9:39 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Talked some about Christmas in your home. Could you talk some more about that and what it was—? | 9:57 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Oh yeah. Christmas was just a joyful time for us. All the decorations, you start shortly after November, after Thanksgiving, getting decorated for Christmas. And Mama would go in the closets and get all the decorations out and everything. And we'd wait for Papa to bring the tree, Christmas tree for us so we could decorate it. And Mama would start making fruitcakes shortly after Thanksgiving. And the only part about that I didn't like, because I didn't cracking those hickory nuts and getting all those nuts out and she'd say, "You're going do it 'cause you going to be eating that cake." But she'd make fruitcakes and then after the fruitcakes were made and then she'd make other cakes. And their friends would come in, at times she'd serve cake and maybe wine at Christmas time to their friends. And we had fruit, we could have five friends. We had lots of oranges and apples and all kind of nuts and things like that. And it was just, I had very, very happy time, Christmas. | 10:00 |
| Sonya Ramsey | And at your school, did they have Christmas celebrations and things like that too? | 11:19 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | When I was a child? | 11:23 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 11:23 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yes, they had programs, Christmas programs. | 11:25 |
| Sonya Ramsey | And did you ever have to participate? | 11:27 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yes, I did. | 11:27 |
| Sonya Ramsey | And what kind things did you do? | 11:31 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well I mostly, I sang the songs and sometimes I would be in little pantomimes or little plays that they'd have at Christmas time and all. | 11:31 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Could you talk some more— you talked some about your parents, but could you describe their personalities and the influence they had on your life? | 11:47 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, I'll tell you, my mother was a very, I'm not saying it because it's my mother, but she was a very smart person and got along well with people. And she participated in the PTA, and for a long while she was the president. And in the church she was the chairman of the missionaries and the ladies' aid society. And she had a lot of get up and go about her, and she was a very smart person. She read a lot, and people would come to her for advice and things, 'cause many of the friends that she had didn't, were not as outgoing as she was and she was very helpful to them. | 11:54 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | And my daddy was instrumental in them, large, he was a Mason. For a long time he was a secretary of the Masons and he had a lot of correspondence to do and he'd have us write letters for him and help him to write these letters. | 12:44 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | And they were kept abreast of what was going on. And my daddy, I'll never forget, when he'd come home from work, if we had taken the paper and started looking at the paper, if we didn't have that paper back in order the way it was, he would yell, 'cause he would read the paper from cover to cover every day. And he didn't like us to tamper with it and get it all out of order, pulling it apart. But they kept up with things very well. As I said, my dad was a lay reader in the Episcopal Church and Senior Warden. | 13:05 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | And my sister and I, we sit down sometimes and talk. He taught a class too, the deaf and dumb. And we don't know or remember him ever telling us how he learned that sign language. | 13:46 |
| Sonya Ramsey | So he knew how— Okay. | 14:00 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | He taught the sign language to them. And how he knew that, we just don't know. But he did, and those deaf and dumb people in the Episcopal Church were so fond of him because he could communicate with them. And he had a very beautiful voice and I shall never forget, when he got sick, healing and he couldn't go to church as much as he wanted to. There was some Sunday's he'd say, "I feel better, Minnie, and I want you take me to church." They were both kind of sick at that time and I had moved out here by then. | 14:04 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | And I'd go over there and get him and help him get dressed, take him to church. And sometime we'd be just a little bit late and we'd sit in the back and he'd start singing those songs and that tenor voice would come out and everybody would start look around and wave him at, "There's Mr. Jackson.", because they missed him so much because he was always in the choir. And when they'd hear that tenor voice back there in the back of the church, every head would turn back and they'd be so glad to see him. So whenever he felt like going, I'd take him. But they were both sick there, really for 13 years. Mama lived four more years after he died. But they were a loving couple. I never saw any strife or anything in the family that would upset me. | 14:50 |
| Sonya Ramsey | How did they make the decisions and how were the decisions made? | 15:46 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | We sat down and talked together and they used to talk with us about things that they know we were going to do. And one time we were going to remodel the house a little bit, but that time we were grown and working and living at home too and of course, we were going to share the bill. And we all sat down and talked about what we wanted and how we wanted it and who we were going to get to do it and all. We always did things together like that. | 15:48 |
| Sonya Ramsey | It seems you have a musical gift along with your father, did you sing around the home when you were growing up? | 16:22 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | I guess I did as a child and all that. I'll never forget, the first time I sang by myself was in Sunday school. And we had a friend who was a deacon in our church, he'd visited us often and he'd hear me singing around the house. So he said, "You're going to sing in Sunday school next Sunday." I said, "Oh, I am?" And so he said, "Yes." And so that was the first solo I sang in our church and I shall never forget it, it was, Jesus is All the World to me. And I sang it all straight through. And then after that I just kept going from that. | 16:27 |
| Sonya Ramsey | How old were you when first sang? | 17:03 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | I guess that I have been about seven. | 17:06 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. Singing ever since— | 17:08 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah. And I had a heck of a life. My sister and I, she's two years older, but we could share the same things. A lot of— Mama used to dress us alike, a lot of people thought we were twins because she would dress us alike. | 17:11 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever have a sibling rivalry or anything like that? | 17:34 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well I guess we had a little misunderstandings. I never forget, Mama and Daddy would always, on the weekends he'd bring us a Spanish peanuts, he'd bring a big bag for us for the weekend and fruit and stuff. And then, when Mama go to work Monday and of course he'd go to work, and we'd been eating it all the weekend, we'd have some left over. And my sister would get them and hide the peanuts and wouldn't tell me where they were. And I knew she knew because I could smell that she had been eating them, that was— the fight was on then. And I'd tell Mama about it, would tell Mama and Papa about what she did, she said, "No, I didn't. She knew where they were." I'd say, "No, I didn't." Little things like that, nothing major. We got along, we still get along well. | 17:38 |
| Sonya Ramsey | When you went to elementary school, do you have any special— did any teachers stand out in your mind that influenced, helped influence your life or anything like that? | 18:33 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | We had one teacher, her name was Ms. Hannah Stewart. She was an elderly lady who never married, but she was a teacher that— she handled everything and everybody in the school, the bad children, the good children and all. Everybody was scared of Ms. Hannah Stewart. And the year that I was to go in her room, I was scared to go in there. And Mama said, "Watch, if you're going to be a good little girl, she's not going bother you. So, you don't have to worry about it, she just scares those children, try to help those who need help." But I never [indistinct 00:19:28] again, I got along so very well with her and she just always stuck in my mind as someone that I liked very well. | 18:45 |
| Sonya Ramsey | And you went to Second Ward High School? | 19:39 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Second Ward High School. | 19:39 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Was this the first time you ever really met and interacted with people from other neighborhoods and— | 19:43 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah. | 19:47 |
| Sonya Ramsey | — what was that like? | 19:48 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | That was fun, met a lot of good friends. A lot of them lived in what they call the First Ward Section of the city. And of course, after you meet those people and all, then they started visiting us and that gave us a chance to visit in other sections of the city. And that was interesting. | 19:51 |
| Sonya Ramsey | I've learned from other interviews that sometimes the boys had a problem going from other neighborhoods. | 20:14 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah, I've heard of that. I don't have brothers, but I've heard boys talk about when they go into, there's a section here called the Greenville section. If they go over there, might be a fight. If they'd come over and in the Brooklyn section, that happened. But I don't know too much about it, by not having brothers I wasn't too close to it, but I'd hear about it. | 20:20 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did that ever happen with the girls though? Did you guys have any problems going to the other neighborhoods? | 20:42 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | No, I've never heard about the girls having any problems. No. We had some, there's a section here called the Cherry section, and we have a very good friend, she lives up the street from me. Her name is Mrs. Mildred Aldridge, and she lived in the Cherry Section. And we used to go and visit her family and they'd come over and visit us. And we could walk, they're almost near Myers Park, a section called Myers Park. But we could walk, it wasn't so built up, we could go through places and cross little lake branches and we'd walk down Sunday afternoons and they'd ball-golf and our parents used to visit each other too. | 20:47 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What was— I know they had active football games and things like that. | 21:34 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Oh yeah, they did. | 21:43 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What types of social activities did they have? | 21:43 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | They had football games and basketball games and then they'd have a social after the games in an auditorium that they had here at that time. And of course, you see, we could go if our parents would take us. And as we got in high school, we get a groups of us, we'd go together, and after the game and have a dance. And your mom would tell you what time be home or not to stay for the dance and come home, but you know you're going to stay. And it was a lot of fun. And then after that, pardon, after we went off to school and met other friends from other places, my mother, they'd come here and visit us and we'd go and visit them. | 21:43 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What was dating like at Second Ward? | 22:34 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Oh well, your Mama would let you sit in the living room and talk a little bit. And then my Daddy, he had a little whistle and he would whistle for us if he thought the person was staying too long. And when you hear that whistle, I say, "You have to go now." That meant to go. And we had a lot of fun times, a lot of sad times when we lost our parents. And when my mother lost her mother, who we called, the Other Mama, she lived right next door. And as a child, as I told you, she was a seamstress. And she called me over sometime to pick up pins off the floor where she'd been fitting dresses and I didn't much like to do that. And I said, "Mama, do I have to do that?" She'd say, "Go on and help your grandmother out a little bit." And I would go, but I didn't like picking up pins. | 22:38 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What type of person was she? | 23:41 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Very strict and aristocratic acting. I said, she tried to act like those people she sold for. But she was very kind and very good to us. She'd help Mama make clothes for us and they kept up with what people are wearing during the time. And of course, that made us wear nice things. | 23:44 |
| Sonya Ramsey | How did they get ideas about fashion then at that time? What was the style— | 24:10 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, with magazines, you'd have McCall magazines and the Vogue magazines or whatever magazines were out at that time. And I remember going to town with Mama to buy patterns and she'd get patterns. And she could transpose those patterns to anything she wants. She'd get a basic pattern and she can use it for other things. And I was real stupid sometimes where I'd say, "Mama, I want to dress from downtown. I want a store bought dress." She'd say, "Minnie, you're wearing the best right there." But every now and then I just want to go downtown and get a store— | 24:13 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Other people [indistinct 00:24:52]. | 24:51 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | — bought dress. And every now and then I would, she would get her something from downtown. But most of the time she'd made our things. | 24:54 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What would the best store downtown for Blacks to shop? | 25:04 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well at that time we had Belk's and Ivy's and were right downtown, they've moved all those stores from downtown to wherever we live, it was just easier to get downtown. There were other little dress stores down there also. But Belk's and Ivy's, and there was a Efred's store, that's where we did most of shopping, of course, you're going to go in Crescents, all the five and 10 cent stores when you're down there. And that was a trip, and we could walk from our house downtown. | 25:07 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Which one was— of those department stores, what treated Blacks the best? Or were they all about the same? | 25:39 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | But to they tell you the truth, they're all about the same. They look at you, they don't know whether you have any money to pay for what you're going to buy. Or sometimes they look at you as if, "Why are you here?" But, they were there to serve the public and they'd do it some reluctantly and some were very nice. But you— | 25:46 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What did your parents tell you about, when events like that happened, what'd they tell you about that and things like that? When Blacks were mistreated and stuff? | 26:14 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | I don't remember anything they ever told us. But I heard my sister, yesterday I was talking with my sister and she said she went downtown one time and they had the water found as White and Colored and she drank out of the White and said some lady said, "Can't you see what— Do you know what you are doing?" She say, "Yeah, I got a drink of water." "Well that water's for Whites. She said, "How do you know it's for Whites?" Said, "Don't you see that sign?" She said, "I can't read." She made a joke out of that and all, but everything was— We had to go to a restroom that was designated for Blacks. But I never stayed downtown long enough to do all that, to have to do all that. And then some of them salespersons were very nice. And what we would do, we would always get one that we thought was nice and we'd always try to get them to wait on us and what times we went down there. | 26:24 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to go on to school at Second Ward, what you decide after that that you wanted to be a teacher and educate—? | 27:33 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, I'd always loved children and I always said I wanted to be a teacher of small children. And Winston-Salem Teachers College, as it was called when I went there, was a A teachers college and they— | 27:40 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What's that, an A teachers college, were they rated or was it just a— | 27:55 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | — No, it was a teacher's— | 27:55 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Just for teachers. | 28:01 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | — for teachers for teaching and they didn't have any other— Later on they got a nursing and other things on there. But at first, it was for teaching, you'd go so long in teaching and you'd go out to city and practice teaching, work with the teachers in the city. But as it has grown, they have other specialties there that you can do. And that is why I chose that school and I'm very glad I did. | 28:03 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Were you a bit homesick when you first arrived there? | 28:34 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well it's fun, I was with a very good friend, of a girl and I who finished and we roomed together and everything. And I did all right. And I never forget, as I told you, I sang a lot on the campus. It was Mother's Day and we had a program and I sang some Mother's Day song, right now it escapes me what it was, and children were just crying and all that, and then I started crying, and I couldn't stop crying for anything. | 28:37 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | And we went to the room and the matron came and they said, "Why is she crying? When did she lose her mother?" And my roommate said, "She hadn't lost her mother, said she got a mother and a grandmother." She said, "Well, Mini why are you crying?" So I said, "'Cause those other children who don't have a mother." I'll never forget that. "Well you stop that crying and you sang so beautifully and you made the children think about their parents and they're crying and some of them have lost them parents, but you haven't lost yours, so stop crying." I just couldn't stop. I'll never forget that. That was my first year away from home, first year. | 29:10 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Were you very active with your singing during that time? | 29:50 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah. Well, I sang with the choir and had to do a lot of practicing and learning a lot of songs that we sang, the chorus, the TC Chorus sang and that took good time having to go to practice and all. | 29:53 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did you participate in any other activities? | 30:12 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, we didn't have that many other activities at that time on the campus other than what we do with Physical Ed, we'd have intramural games and things like that. And we could play tennis. | 30:12 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did you stay in the dormitory? | 30:29 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yes, I did. | 30:31 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What was that experience like? | 30:31 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | That was strange to me after not ever being away from home like that, but it was on. And we had duty work to do at that time, they called it. And you just do what you had to do. | 30:33 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What was duty work? | 30:50 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Sometimes it'd be cleaning the bathrooms, dusting the floors in the halls and all the little things like that. And I had a friend that was there, very girl who was a valedictorian of our high school class, she was there but she didn't have much financial support so she had to work her way through. And I would help her and I'd go with her every day, and people thought I was working my way through college, 'cause I wanted to help her to get through. And so, I never will forget, one of the professors said, "How are you getting along with your work to help you through?" I said, "I'm not working to help my way to school, my father sent me to school, but I'm helping my friend." But I was with her as much as I could, so she could get through and come back to the room and study and be with us. | 30:55 |
| Sonya Ramsey | That's nice. | 31:59 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | And things like that. | 32:00 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did your sister also attend college? | 32:04 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | No. Yeah, she went to Charlotte University and she— her major's English. She was an English teacher here in Charlotte. I was just telling her yesterday, I read the paper about a boy who was an artist. I don't know whether you saw The Charlotte Observer or not, but he dibbled around with art where he never found his place in art. Did you read that? And he went to Second Ward. So I asked her if she doesn't take the morning's paper and she knows the boy, I'm keep the paper so she can read it. Now he has gotten to the place with his home and his family, he can stop working, really settle down with his painting. And she's an English teacher and she has a lot of her previous students who remember her and come to see her. | 32:07 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Well, after your first holiday away from, in college, was it, a year away, was it hard to just coming back home for the summer? | 33:03 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, we got to come home for Christmas and Thanksgiving sometime. But now, what did you say? | 33:10 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Was it hard to adjust the coming back at home after being away from home? | 33:18 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | No, it was a happy time to be home. Yeah. To get some of Mama's good hot rolls and things like that. It was great. But right at first I was a little homesick as everybody else, when you first go until you get adjusted. But I knew I had to be there and I didn't have Mama to fall back on, I didn't have my sister to fall back on, I had to get in there and work and do what I had to do so I could get through and get out and work and help my Daddy. | 33:22 |
| Sonya Ramsey | After you graduated from Winston-Salem, where did you start your first teaching? | 33:55 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Right here in Charlotte. | 33:59 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Charlotte. | 34:00 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | At Fairview School. I had a second grade class. | 34:02 |
| Sonya Ramsey | You said a principal helped you get that, a job or how did you— | 34:05 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, I got a job in regional North Carolina. The school recommended me for that job. But before it was time for me to report for duty, I got the job here. My sister was teaching at Fairview. | 34:09 |
| Sonya Ramsey | — Oh, okay. | 34:26 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | And so, the principal there says, "You have a sister coming out." And she had done well and the principal liked her and said, "Well, I want your sister." And so, then we just got the ball rolling and I got the job over there. | 34:27 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What grade did she teach in? | 34:40 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | She taught fourth and fifth, at that time she didn't get a job, she was really a high school teacher, but at that time she didn't get a job in the high school. So she taught and I taught, I had second grade and she taught, I think she had fifth or sixth grade that year. But she wasn't there for about one year and then she got a job in high school. | 34:43 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What kind of values did you try to instill in the children you taught and attitudes? | 35:07 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | The kind of the, first love yourself, love your race, love who you are. And I tried to give them a little background of how we came about as they could take it at an early age— | 35:12 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Of Black history? | 35:30 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | — Of a little Black history, uh-huh. So that they would know where they are and why they're different. I mean, not different, but why there are different races and why we look different because of our backgrounds. And I didn't, at that early age, I didn't do too much of that, but when Negro History Week would come around and all, and I always kept some pictures of some Black people up in the room and they'd want to know about them. And then we go to the library and I'd get a book or something and I'd read and let them know who they are and say, "You remember these names because you'll have to know about these people." I gave them as much as the second grade could take to let them know that they should be proud of who they are and a little bit of where they came from and how we evolved as we have. | 35:31 |
| Sonya Ramsey | That's great. How would you discipline your students? | 36:27 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | I don't know, the children seemed to like me, I liked them. They understood me. And if I was displeased, I would let them know and I'd just talk with them and ask them not to do if they were doing some to disturb other classmates and ask them not to do— Children would listen back in those days better than they do now, because now they tell me, they say, "Oh, do this to me, I'll tell my mama," or all that, all kind of stuff like that. But I would say, "Now, if you do that again, I'd have to speak to your mother about it." But you see, it's all turn all the way around now. | 36:31 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did you have a good relationship with your students' parents? | 37:10 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yes, I did. They would visit the room and do little things in the room and I'd invite them to come. | 37:14 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever have any experiences with the White superintendent of schools and things like that to come? | 37:22 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | I tell you what, when I went to Double Oaks, we had a supervisor that introduced a new type of group teaching, where that I had seen done in New York when I was getting my master's and I liked it. And I had grouped my children and made my little curriculum out as I wanted it. And I had a group, a math group, a reading group, a science group and all. And they would work at different times and then they'd move back to another group and work in that group and then move around like that. And she was so impressed with it. | 37:29 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | She invited the superintendent and teachers from all over the city to come and observe me. Even my sister came from Second Ward to observe what was happening in the second grade class. But I enjoyed it. We had a little housekeeping section and teaching them what you have to do at home to keep your home well. | 38:21 |
| Sonya Ramsey | You taught those kind of things too? | 38:45 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yes. And signs, the children would have flowers and they'd have, we had fish and we had plants, everybody had a little plant to take care of in that group and whatnot. And we just did well. I like teaching and they observed me, some of them said, "Girl, all them people come to your room. How did you feel?" I said, "Well, I was a little nervous." I said, "But the children did well." 'Cause after all, they came to observe children and see what they had been doing and how they could carry on, 'cause they carried on their own little things. But I never had any disagreement with any of my people who were over me, I always got along well with everybody. | 38:47 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Okay. You talked about you got your master's at Columbia University. | 39:43 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | That's right. | 39:46 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Was that academic experience more intense than your one at Winston-Salem State? | 39:47 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah. The reading was deeper and it was different. It was deeper and wider and what you could build on your background, what you knew, which helped you to get through it. | 39:53 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Was there a good number of Black students or were you— | 40:08 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | There were quite a few Blacks, more Whites though. But there were quite some from here were there, but we would probably be in different classes. And you seem alone, because everybody's going his way. And at first it was new to me and I had to learn my way around, but I made it all right. | 40:12 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Where did you stay when you lived in New York? | 40:36 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Actually, with a cousin of my mother's, and she had a nice home there and I was very comfortable. And I'd get this bus and go, because when I first went, I didn't want to trust myself on the subway. And my cousin was showing, "All you have to do, you do this, you do that." I said, "Listen, is there a bus out there that'll take me?" And she showed me. So one Sunday afternoon we got the bus before, the Sunday before I was going and took a dry run over there. So every morning I go down there and get the bus and go right on the school, come and get that bus and come right on back. | 40:38 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Was this the first time you were ever in class with White students and things like that? | 41:15 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Mm-hmm. | 41:18 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Why did you adjust to that? | 41:18 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well no, I had never been in a class, I had been in meetings and things and all like that with other Whites, but not classwork. Did all right and met a lot of friends. They were very friendly and we shared ideas and I worked together. I had no trouble. It was very nice. | 41:24 |
| Sonya Ramsey | How about with your teachers and things like that? | 41:45 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | With what? | 41:47 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Your teachers. | 41:48 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Here? | 41:49 |
| Sonya Ramsey | In Columbia. Your teachers you had when you were at the school? | 41:49 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Oh. Well, they were rather impersonal because the classes were very large. | 41:54 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 41:58 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | And they knew you because they had the list. And if you had any work to turn in, of course, your name was on that work. And when they sent it back, if they had anything to say about it, they'd say it. But most of all the classes were very large. And then we'd take trips to the different schools to observe the methods of teaching. And that was very helpful to me and I just really— that really helped me more than anything else because I knew I was coming right back into the classroom. | 42:01 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I guess we can go on. Could you describe how you met your husband again? | 42:39 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Oh. Well, I lived in the Brooklyn section, he lived out here in Biddleville section. I knew of his family, but I didn't know them personally. And he had a brother to die. And he came to my house to ask me if I would sing solo of his brother's funeral. Well, I did. And because I knew of his brother, 'cause his brother went to Second Ward. And as I told you before, my husband didn't get a chance to finish high school, he stopped to work to help his family. But anyway, I sang at his brother's funeral. And I guess, a few, many years after that I met him again somewhere else and we struck up a friendship and it just went on from there. | 42:44 |
| Sonya Ramsey | And you had mentioned, and I mentioned before that he seemed to have a gift for business. How did he develop this business? | 43:40 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | How he developed, I don't know. I think he was born with it. | 43:45 |
| Sonya Ramsey | How did he get to the process of eventually opening his own club? | 43:48 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, he always wanted a club. That was one thing we talked about when we were married, 'cause he didn't have it. And he would serve, somebody would get him to help serve parties at the country, White country clubs here, wait tables and things like that on his spare time from his regular job. And he just got, wanted and said, "My Black people need something like this." And he says, "If I ever get a chance, I'm going to get something for it." | 43:54 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | And so, he had a flare for business and he knew how to go to get information that he needed. He knew who to ask and he understood what people told him. So it's a saving, this house became for sale. It was about four blocks above where we were living and we bought this house. And it was a frame building, as you can see in the book. And he fixed it up the best he could when he first started. And wrote letters to people to see if they would like to join it. | 44:23 |
| Sonya Ramsey | How did he get— Did he save his money to buy the house or did he get a loan? | 45:09 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, I was working. | 45:13 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 45:13 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | I was working and my father had an uncle who helped him, because somebody else was bidding on the house and we had to have the money right away. And so then we got it, and then he remodeled it, as you could see in the paper and tried to make it modernize, modern, he modernized the place and it just went on from there. | 45:18 |
| Sonya Ramsey | And you said— how did he go about soliciting members and advertising about the club? | 45:42 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Wrote letters to people that he thought would enjoy or would be good people for a club because it was private and he tried to get people who were congenial with each other. And then after he did that and people started joining and they tell other people about it and they'd come and ask for memberships. | 45:47 |
| Sonya Ramsey | How did they review the members or didn't have to apply for membership? | 46:12 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | He had a board of directors. He had picked out guys, a board of directors and they would decide on who was good and who was not. | 46:15 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 46:24 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | And he didn't have do— took a lot of off of him. | 46:25 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did he have a big staff throughout the year? | 46:31 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, no. He always had a board of directors, guys that he could go to and talk to about things. But he did mainly all of it by himself. | 46:32 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Was this board of directors businessmen in the community? | 46:43 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | There were teachers and some were businessmen and all like that. And when they first started, but that dwindled down and some of them left down or died or something. But then after— | 46:46 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Okay. And you said in the clubs that— Did they have music and things like that? | 0:01 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yes, they had music. He catered to fraternities, sororities, and social clubs, and they would have parties. They'd invite friends to their functions, and some of them would have a band. He always had somebody play the piano all the time. Some clubs would want a band and, of course, they would get the band. | 0:07 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever sing there? In the club? | 0:37 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Oh, sometimes just for fun. Sometime my husband and I, we would sing, but not as a regular thing. Some church people would have meetings there, missionary things would have things there, and he would prepare the food if they wanted to, or sometimes they'd bring their own food. Alumni associations had meetings there. | 0:39 |
| Sonya Ramsey | You said that men were mostly the members. Could women go there by themselves or did they have to be escorted? | 1:11 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | They could go by themselves. Uh-huh. | 1:21 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did they have a dress code there or anything like that? | 1:24 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | They had to be dressed right. If they weren't, he would send them out of there. Mm-hmm. We never had any trouble like that. Anytime that he saw something that wasn't right, he'd just go to them without anybody knowing what's happening. They gone. Mm-hmm. | 1:28 |
| Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask you, I was looking through the booklet and your husband had a lot of political activities and stuff. | 1:43 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | That's right. He was a politician. He worked in politics. He was a Democrat, and he helped a lot of Democrats, and got people to go and vote and give them money to help them with their campaigns and all like that. | 1:50 |
| Sonya Ramsey | In what ways did he help? Did politicians stop by the club? | 2:18 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah, politicians would come to the club, and they'd have meetings and invite people to come so they could speak to the people about their issues and what their platform was. They had big political meetings there. Yeah. | 2:21 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Could you just talk about your husband's role in bringing the golf tournament to—? | 2:37 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Oh, a long time ago. Yes, he had a golf tournament here. It was very successful, but after it was over, he didn't follow through because he didn't have time to go out there and play golf too much. He'd spend most of his time at the club. But he'd think of things that would help people and get it started. But you see, other people don't always follow through on things. But he had a lot of wonderful ideas for people and for his race. | 2:42 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Was he active in the NAACP? | 3:19 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah, he worked and they'd have meetings out there years ago. And, of course, a lot of times there's no place else real near to have things, you know, meetings. He worked with the Boy Scouts. I shall never forget one time, he had bought a lot of T-shirts to give to the Boy Scouts and he bought more than he needed. I mean, more than they used. So then I carried them to my school to give to some children, needy children that needed them. But he'd do a lot of things like that. There's no church in Charlotte that ever came to him by helping support, that he didn't help them and he'd help them in a big way. | 3:22 |
| Sonya Ramsey | He had a good relationship with the church? | 4:16 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah. He'd help them in a big way. | 4:18 |
| Sonya Ramsey | So financially he would? | 4:22 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yes, financially he would help them. Not his church, just any person would come over here, "This is happening to our church and all like that and will you help me?" He would help them and then he'd go around to his members and say, "Come on, give me some money and help these people out in this church," and all like that. | 4:26 |
| Sonya Ramsey | So during this time you were still teaching, right? | 4:44 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | That's right. | 4:47 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Then you opened a daycare center? | 4:49 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | That was going on while I was teaching. I had a daycare, the nursery, while I was teaching. I had retired in '73, and by that time the nursery was closed and somebody was using the building for something else. | 4:52 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Could you tell me, once again, why you decided to open the nursery and how you came about getting it—? | 5:14 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Why? Well, right out here in this section we could see where so many little children didn't have anything to do. The parents were not sending them to nursery schools and all like that. And we catered mostly to indigent children, and the welfare paid, you see. | 5:19 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 5:41 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | We had a nice place for them. They'd get a full meal and lunch, and juice all through the day. I had little cots for them to sleep on. We had to follow all them rules that you have to follow for a nursery school because people would come by and check you all the time. And we had the little commodes for the little children. And they had a kitchen, a full-time kitchen and a cook. She would fix real nice meals for me. And it would worry me so much, the children were not eating well. | 5:41 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Why? Because they were used to eating sandwiches. That was all they wanted. But it was all the parents would give them, just a bologna sandwich and go on out and play. But we were trying to get them to be able to eat a full well balanced meal. Eventually they started enjoying it, but at first all they wanted, "I want a sandwich. I don't want this." But we finally got them to eat a full balanced meal that they were getting. Of course, they would get snacks all the time during the day. It worked real well. | 6:24 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | But as I said, I was teaching and we had to staff the place. And if something happened, somebody couldn't come, you got to have a certain number of people for a certain number of children at all times. They can't come. Now I got to go to my work. My mama's up there sick, and I'd have to find somebody, some of my friends who weren't working or somebody to go over there and work for me, and it just got to be too much for me and I had to let it go. | 7:01 |
| Sonya Ramsey | It seems like your husband who was such a prominent figure in the community, and so being his wife, so you are too, did you ever feel nervous about being in the limelight and being known and things like that? | 7:31 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | No. No. | 7:42 |
| Sonya Ramsey | I noticed in the booklet you were in several clubs, I think, the Bluebird Club. Can you talk about that? | 7:42 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yes, I was. That was a Bridge club, one of the oldest clubs in the city when they played Bridge. And now here of late, I just got tired of playing Bridge and going, and I came out. | 7:53 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What's some of the other clubs that you— The Congenial Club? | 8:04 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah, I do that now. | 8:06 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What type of club was that? | 8:10 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | We play Pinochle. There's just eight of us. | 8:10 |
| Sonya Ramsey | When you play Pinochle and other card games, what kind of things did you talk about? | 8:14 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | What you mean? At our— | 8:19 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 8:20 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | There were a lot of us in the same church. There were about four of us in there who belonged to First Baptist West where we talk about things that happened in church, or just anything that happened in the city that we want to talk about. Any of the current affairs that go on, we talk about it. And just spend three or four hours playing Pinochle and having fun. We have dinner. First we have dinner, a full course dinner. And most of the time we meet at McDonald's. In fact, I have the next meeting, which will be the first Tuesday in July. And I had thought once of having somebody come in here and cater it for me, but I just don't feel like getting out all those dishes and things. So we have our dinner at McDonald's and they give us a room to play in. And, of course, you carry your peanuts and candy and all that kind of other stuff you going to have. | 8:21 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Were you in any other types of organizations or clubs? | 9:17 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, the sorority. | 9:25 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Which sorority was that? | 9:29 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | AKA. | 9:29 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. Oh, I remember, did you join at Winston-Salem sorority or you joined later—? | 9:29 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | No. They did not have one on the campus. I had to join a graduate chapter. My sister was AKA. People had been trying to get you to join the chapters while we were in college, and she said, "You just wait till you finish and come on down here and join. You going in the AKA." I said, "How do you know I might want to be a Delta?" I said, "No, you don't." | 9:30 |
| Sonya Ramsey | No way, huh? | 9:53 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | So I came on after I finished and joined them, AKA. | 9:57 |
| Sonya Ramsey | During the time of segregation, what kind of activities did the AKA do? | 10:02 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, you see, it wasn't too many places you could go. What did they do? It's been a long time now. We did a lot of things at home, in your home, in your yard. | 10:07 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did you do any charitable work, political work, or things like that? | 10:28 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Not too much. I'd help my husband sometime when he's helping for a certain candidate. I would go out and carry literature in certain sections and things like that. But I didn't do too much of it. | 10:28 |
| Sonya Ramsey | When the sorority was trying to induct new members, what kind of qualities did they look for and things in selecting members? | 10:46 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, you had to have a certain scholastic score. They looked for a little talent, if you have any. Congeniality and how well you fit in with people and get along with people and all like that. So, of course, you applied and, of course, they discussed all that and they'd tell you that they're going to take you and they going to make you. You have to go through all that initiation. | 10:54 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did you feel a big rivalry between the sororities or did you have friends from the other sororities you could—? | 11:23 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | No. No, didn't feel it. But I should never forget when I was being initiated. At that time my sister was pregnant and she said, "Now y'all be careful with me. Be easy on my sister." That's what she told me since then. And they'd have you standing around on corners and places. You had to go down to Smith and just stand out there on the corner. But it used to be a theater down there. It was a nice theater at that time. Grand Theater they called it. And you'd stand there so long. My husband knew what was happening, and up and down the street he was riding, watching me standing on that corner and all. And one of the things I enjoyed was when they had a boolay in Boston. What year was that? I can't remember. He went with me and we went to Boston, and we had such a beautiful time there. | 11:28 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What kind of things happened at the Boolay? | 12:23 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Oh, they had whole dinners and banquets and dances, speakers. | 12:25 |
| Sonya Ramsey | What different types of speakers did they have? | 12:32 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well at the time, I can't name who it was. It's been so long. I can't name who the speakers were. | 12:35 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did they speak on political subjects? | 12:40 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Some on political subjects, education, anything that affects us as a race. | 12:41 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 12:50 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Mm-hmm. So he went to that boolay with me, and I haven't been to a boolay since that one. But he took off to go with me. | 12:51 |
| Sonya Ramsey | That's nice. I noticed your husband also participated in raising money for Johnson C. Smith. | 13:03 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah, he started what they called a 100 Club. Guys would come to the club, and he said, "Let's do something for Smith." Now the athletic association, they didn't need money for the boys and all like that. And he was the original person who started what they call a 100 Club, and they just had a banquet or something for the 100 Club, and I sent him some money in memory of him as the start. And I got a nice brochure from that meeting that they had, and they mentioned in there that he was the founder of the 100 Club. | 13:09 |
| Sonya Ramsey | I also noticed they had a list that you were their godchildren. Did you have a lot of, or were you godparents to a lot of children? | 13:54 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | My parents do some. I don't remember what you're referring to now in the book. | 14:04 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Oh, that's all right. | 14:13 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Mm-mm. | 14:13 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Let's see about— One last question. How did the club change over the decades of the 40 years and things like that or more? | 14:17 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, the clientele changed. They got younger people came, started joining. He tried to keep up with what was going on as far as activities were concerned. But other than that, it was just mainly a private club. | 14:29 |
| Sonya Ramsey | You always remained private? | 14:53 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Uh-huh. And, of course, he had rooms upstairs. People could have private meetings. If he was having a big something downstairs, you could be private upstairs. He had meeting places up there. | 14:54 |
| Sonya Ramsey | You mentioned you were in the La Correttes Club, also? | 15:07 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Les Pierettes. | 15:08 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Les Pierettes. | 15:08 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Yeah. It's a social club. | 15:08 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Okay. [INTERRUPTION 00:15:18] | 15:08 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Oh, no. I don't want— Mm-mm. | 15:08 |
| Sonya Ramsey | You talked about the— What you said. | 15:08 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Les Pierettes. Yes, that was a club that was started by four or five Second Ward high school girls who were much older than I when they started while they were in high school. And, of course, they graduated from high school and went in different directions. When they all finished school and came back home they said, "Let's get our little club back up together again," which they did. And, of course, then they invited other people to join in, people who were congenial and, that is, people who would fit in with the group. | 15:24 |
| Sonya Ramsey | And what type of activities— | 15:57 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | We used to have parties. We would have Hawaiian parties, and we'd have picnics and dances. We'd have dances and invite other clubs and members a long time ago. But now we don't do very much of anything at our age. But we do try to think of the needy and maybe bring things or send things to the needy and do things like that. Bring your shoes or things you not going to wear again and take them down to the Christian Ministry for them to give out to the needy. We do things like that most of the time. | 15:57 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Okay. One last question. You mentioned you and your husband helped a lot of neighborhood churches. What church did you attend throughout? Was it First Baptist West? | 16:39 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | I attended First Baptist all my life except when I did go with my father to St. Michael's & All Angels Episcopal. He attended Gethsemane as a young child, and then he left and went to First Presbyterian. | 16:46 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Your husband did? | 17:03 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Uh-huh. And then he decided he wanted to come with me and he came and joined First Baptist West. That's where he was when he died. | 17:06 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Did your husband have an important role in the church? Did he do a lot of things in the church? | 17:13 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | Well, I did, but he didn't do too much in the First Baptist while he was there. He hadn't been there that long. But he gave a lot to the different organizations who were doing things. For instance, one time it was cancer week and he decided he would take that over. And that Sunday he got some guy and say, "Everybody take a door and as the people come out, ask them to give you something for this cancer fund." And they raised a whole lot of money in a few minutes. At that particular time he had cancer and was sick himself. But he'd do things on the spur of moment right quick. And a lot of people didn't know all the nice things that he did do, but he did a lot of things. Yeah. | 17:16 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Okay. That's all my questions. Is there anything else you'd like to add? | 18:08 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | It's been nice meeting you. | 18:18 |
| Sonya Ramsey | Oh, thank you. | 18:18 |
| Minnie Jackson McKee | It's been nice meeting you. And I'm sorry your— | 18:19 |
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