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Ila Blue interview recording, 1995 June 02

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Kisha Turner	Okay. This is interviewer Kisha Turner.	0:03
Blair Murphy	And this is Blair Murphy, interviewer number two.	0:06
Kisha Turner	Okay. Could you say your name and when you were born and where you were born?	0:10
Ila Jacuth Blue	Okay. My name is Ila, I-L-A, J. Blue, B-L-U-E. I was born in a little town in the country of Hoke County, county seat of Raeford, and you probably have heard that on the news because there's nothing else in Hoke County except Raeford. You have to say Raeford.	0:20
Kisha Turner	This is North Carolina?	0:58
Ila Jacuth Blue	Yeah, North Carolina. I was the 12th, number 12 of children. Seven girls and five boys. My papa was disappointed, he wanted six girls and six boys, but when I was born, it was seven girls and five boys. I don't know how much detail you want to go into there.	0:58
Kisha Turner	Whatever. Could you tell me a little bit about the community that your family lived in?	1:17
Ila Jacuth Blue	Nothing special about it, just a large farm. Little town between Laurinburg and Fayetteville was the town, and Raeford was just one of the small places, like Red Springs and Raeford and Aberdeen and what have you. Just a hub of them, and all country. All country, country, country. Primarily cotton and grain, like corn and wheat and rye, and trucks, watermelon. All watermelon, all kind of trucks. Schools three miles away. Everything on the farm, chickens that Mama, I would say she didn't do that but anyway, her chickens and selling eggs to the sanitarium that was about two miles away from us, between Raeford and Aberdeen.	1:24
Ila Jacuth Blue	Selling eggs and milk, butter, eggs and butter to the sanitarium, as a bonus to the family for money. Especially you had money in the fall. You had money in the fall, that's when you sold your cotton, and trucks like watermelon, all kind of truck. We had so many watermelon that people would pass by the road and just buy a watermelon. We wasn't trying to sell them, but we fed them to the hogs and et cetera.	2:43
Ila Jacuth Blue	When I was born, we had 12 children, but when I was born—There were only the oldest son, who was the third child died at three. He died with pneumonia. Pneumonia was one of the things that doctors were not comfortable with back in the olden days. And my oldest brother that I said was dead, he died at three years old, but my next brother was away in school.	3:22
Kisha Turner	Where'd he go to school?	3:51
Ila Jacuth Blue	He went to school, went to college at—He started at Lincoln University, but he exchange, he went to Johnson C. Smith because he wanted to be a minister. So, he graduated from Johnson C. Smith and he went into the ministry. And all the summers, he would come home, and he was a stranger to me because I didn't know him, hadn't seen him, didn't know him from Adam or a house cat. So, when he come home, he would, "This is the baby. This is a youngest child, baby girl." But I'd just scream and I'd run away from him. And he would offer me money to tell him goodbye. Never. And he would write home, he was coming home.	3:54
Ila Jacuth Blue	His name was David Cornelius, and they called him Nelia. Nelia's coming home. My sister and brother would be jumping, and so glad he was going to come home. Never me. Never let him put his hand on me, and he would offer me money, just tell me goodbye. He'd hand me some money. No, I'd stand back and look at him. You'd see how retarded I was. (laughs)	4:35
Ila Jacuth Blue	I couldn't figure that man come taking over the house, you know? Because Mama didn't allow that, you know? People run around and telling Mama. And he'd just take over, and my sisters and brothers just jumping all over his lap. I said, Lord, this is a funny family, you know? Do something like that.	4:53
Ila Jacuth Blue	But he kept on until he won me over. He finally won me over. I guess I was about ready to go to high school, but I said, "Well, I guess he is harmless." But the family was always very close together. And the sisters and brothers married off, and of course, we survived because of, as I say, we did things besides just the farm.	5:14
Kisha Turner	Sounds like education was very important in your family.	5:50
Ila Jacuth Blue	Very important in our family, because there were 12 children. I said one died, that left 11. The top four, top third went to college and the last third went to college, but the middle got caught in the Depression. They finished high school, but the middle caught two sisters and a brother. Two sisters and two brothers, that's right, caught in the Depression. They didn't go any further than high school.	5:57
Kisha Turner	Couldn't afford.	6:32
Ila Jacuth Blue	No, because the boll weevil ate the cotton crop. Boll weevil ate the cotton crop, so they couldn't go. So, the top third and the middle third missed it, [indistinct 00:06:47] little bit. The late four, three girls and a boy, and I guess we were lucky. We were lucky because the other sisters and brothers who didn't go to college and those who did go and didn't go, and those who were at home, and some who were married, helped us go to school.	6:33
Kisha Turner	Was it financial support?	7:16
Ila Jacuth Blue	Yes, financial support. When we finished what we called grade school then, I don't know what you guys call it now, grade school, there was no high school for Blacks to attend in the whole county. All right? But we were Presbyterians and my brother was then in Johnson C. Smith Presbyterian. And my mama read everything in the world, she knew about the school and so forth, so we went to a boarding school, what was then called Mary Potter High School in Oxford, North Carolina.	7:20
Ila Jacuth Blue	There were three of us. The third—the knee baby, as we called it, older baby, the knee baby, and the third one had gone to school for one year. She was a year ahead of us, but we finished seventh grade together, and she had gone to Livingstone College. Livingstone had a high school at that time, but since my sister and I came along, they sent us all to Mary Potter. That was better than sending her to Salisbury and two of us to Oxford, North Carolina. So, we went there.	8:03
Ila Jacuth Blue	And then when we graduated from Mary Potter, by the skin of our teeth, one thing about Mary Potter, everybody worked. Everybody went there had a job and that helped us, and my brother, that brother that I wouldn't speak to when I was growing up, he would always send us some spending checks.	8:45
Kisha Turner	What type of job did you do in there?	9:10
Ila Jacuth Blue	Now, we had jobs we had to do period just for our room and board. Wait tables, wash dishes, sweep the halls, and things of that kind.	9:13
Kisha Turner	And that covered the tuition and room and board?	9:27
Ila Jacuth Blue	It helped, yeah. It always helped. So, we did that. But he would send us a little spending change, and that meant everybody at home didn't have a dime because they were sending the money to us. But when we finished Mary Potter, that brother that I wouldn't speak to, he had gone to North Carolina Central. It wasn't North Carolina Central then, it was North Carolina College for Negroes, I think. Yeah. He had gone there for one year, but since he still had his mind on being a preacher, he went to transfer to Johnson C. Smith. So, he knew Dr. Shepard and he didn't tell us he was going to do this, but he came by to see Dr. Shepard. He was going back to Smith, so that was come right through there, and he was going from Oxford to Charlotte.	9:31
Ila Jacuth Blue	He came by and told Dr. Shepard that he had two sisters who just graduated from Mary Potter and blah, blah, blah, gave him a lot of junk, you know all of that kind of stuff. Dr. Shepard said, "Well, I'm going to say it, I'm going to give them a scholarship right here." Well, he did give us a scholarship because—And so my brother didn't have a telephone but he would write us and tell us what we had done. My mom, she said, "Get your little clothes, or wash your clothes, pack your trunks, you know, I'm going to be picking you up, to carry you up there."	10:26
Kisha Turner	Who was Dr. Shepard?	11:07
Ila Jacuth Blue	Dr. Shepard was the president. He was the founder of North Carolina Central University—	11:08
Kisha Turner	[indistinct 00:11:12].	11:11
Ila Jacuth Blue	Dr. James Edward Shepard. So, we came to North Carolina Central. It was North Carolina College for Negroes at that time.	11:13
Kisha Turner	What year did you come?	11:26
Ila Jacuth Blue	What time did we enter?	11:32
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	11:32
Ila Jacuth Blue	We came up here in '32. All right. We finished. We did two years. The next year, they didn't have any cotton crops. Boll weevil had them all cotton crops. If I'm taking too much time on that now, I—	11:32
Kisha Turner	No, not at all. She's just checking to make sure—	12:00
Ila Jacuth Blue	The boll weevils had eaten the crop, and we could not come to school. So, we had to stay out of school that year. Well, the next year, desperately writing again, to my brother at Johnson C. Have you ever heard about Barber-Scotia College?	12:03
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm. In Concord.	12:26
Ila Jacuth Blue	Okay. He was at Johnson C. and we were home picking cotton, because we picked what cotton we had. We didn't have any money to come back to school that year. We had already missed one year, and didn't have anything that year. And he wrote us a letter, didn't have a telephone of course, wrote us a letter and said, "Wash your clothes, pack your trunk. I'm coming for you, and going to take you up to Barber-Scotia in Concord, North Carolina. See, that's very close to Johnson C. Smith. We just laughed him to scorn. We said, "Now, this is crazy. What college would ever take us in this time of year?" You know what time of year it was? That was in November. School was started in September. I supposed they started in September, most colleges did.	12:31
Ila Jacuth Blue	We said, "This is the craziest thing." Said, "Nobody gonna take anybody in now." But we washed our clothes and packed our trunk, and he came. He came Saturday. He had a car there and he came Saturday and he packed his little trunk, and Sunday he put us in that car and took us on back there.	13:23
Ila Jacuth Blue	Now, where he got that money, I don't know. He was working in Charlotte. He was going to school and working, but brother always came across. He went up, he paid our first room rent.	13:42
Ila Jacuth Blue	And one thing, everybody had a job at Barber-Scotia, that was good. And so, we went to Barber-Scotia, but my sister and I were just laughing, said, "Who in the world going to take anybody in school this time of year?" But see the thing that worked in our favor, we didn't know that though until we reached there, because brother going to do it anyway, wouldn't care about what now.	13:54
Ila Jacuth Blue	When we came to North Carolina Central, the freshman year, my English teacher had a junior, one of the junior girls in an English major assisting her. We didn't know anything about this of course, until way about, I guess, 10 years later she told us about it, because we went to Barber-Scotia. There she was sitting up there, the girl who—She was the librarian there. She took library science, and so she was the librarian there. So, we knew her when we went up there, but we didn't know this.	14:20
Ila Jacuth Blue	So, when my brother—I missed some of the story. My brother went to Mary Potter. Okay. That's how we finally got there many years later, and in Mary Potter, he had a very dear friend by the name of Mr. Cozart. At this time, Mr. Cozart was the president of Barber-Scotia, but he didn't know that. They went together at Mary Potter. They were still schoolmates at Mary Potter.	15:04
Ila Jacuth Blue	But when he was in Charlotte, he accidentally met him on the street, and they talked about it, and he told my brother, he said that he was the first Black president. You see, Barber-Scotia first had White teachers and what have you, because when they came down and fought in the civil war, a lot of them came back and said they were going to help the Black children have school. And that's the only school had in my area, only high school they had in my area. There was one in Red Springs. There was one in Laurinburg, and they were all around us. So, that's how Barber-Scotia started. Okay.	15:33
Ila Jacuth Blue	So, this man, who knew my brother in high school, said that I am the first Black president of Barber-Scotia. And my brother, he didn't miss a beat about anything. He said, "Well, I have two sisters who are not in school at this time." And Dr. Cozart was crazy enough to tell him yes, to bring them on up, you know? And that's how we got in Barber-Scotia. We didn't know how brother did it, but nobody going to take, bring anybody in the school in November. The first semester is almost over.	16:18
Ila Jacuth Blue	But anyway, that's how we got there, and everybody had a duty. So, we worked our way. That was a two year college, so when we left there, we graduated on the song and a prayer. Our work was all right. I can tell you anybody can finally go to school, because our work was good. I made good grades, the first semester because we hit the books. Well, when it's time to graduate, Dr. Cozart called my sister and me in, and we had passed everything. We were eligible to graduate. And he told us that our diploma would be wrapped just like everybody else's but it's going to just be a sheet of paper because we owed the school. We owed the school everywhere we went. We owed the school. And we said, "Okay, we'll send them back in the summer." We did send back in the summer.	16:58
Ila Jacuth Blue	But anyway, so when you called on graduation roster, he "chip chip chip," and got us in. We've been up there. We lived in the building. We went up to the third floor, and we were packed. Our brother was there, of course, and he was going to take us home. He was going to take us home that afternoon, all right? My sister was named Lula, I called her Toot. The family called her Toot. I said, "Toot, I want to read to you my diploma." And Dr. Cozart told us it was going to be a blank piece of paper, but I pulled it out. I said, "Something wrong here. He made a mistake. This is the real McCoy." It was a diploma. So we put it back and we wrapped it up and we put the ribbon on it, and we headed back down into his office. He was in his office. We said, "Dr. Cozart, you made a mistake." He said, "Have a seat then."	18:16
Ila Jacuth Blue	So, we sat down. We said, "But you give us—" And he started talking, sitting there—we said, "Lord have mercy. Don't know what they going to do with us." But we said, "You gave us the certificate, the diploma, and we're going to work to send the money back to get our diploma." He said, "No, you can take that with you now." He went around that there, and we was sitting there, and he knew exactly where we were going to sit.	19:14
Ila Jacuth Blue	He said, then he told us something. He said, "Yesterday, the alumni association met, Barber-Scotia alumni association met." He went to the meeting and he carried five names. Barber-Scotia had a high school at that time, the last two years, and he said, "I carried in five names, your two names and three more names." I think there were three for college and two for high school, he said, that owed money. And he appealed to the alumni association to help him. And he said that alumni association paid every dime for those five people. And that's how we had the real McCoy.	19:41
Kisha Turner	That's wonderful.	20:31
Ila Jacuth Blue	You know, we were—I said, "Lord, my mama prayed for me." And so, we got the real McCoy. I call tell you everything happened to me was a miracle. So, we went home and we said, "We're going to work, and then we're going back to North Carolina Central." Because Scotia was just a two year college at that time. It's four year now. But the boll weevil ate up everything, and we were still working on the farm, and my mama was purely a genius. But I can't tell you a thing about my mama. All right.	20:33
Ila Jacuth Blue	The dean of ladies wrote us again in October, that was a month earlier than Barber-Scotia, and asked us, did we want to return to school? And we said that's a crazy question. Everybody want to return to school. So we wrote a little letter back and told her yes, we want to come to school. Okay.	21:16
Ila Jacuth Blue	And she wrote us back, you know, and told that they had an opening, didn't have anything in the dormitory. If we could find a place to stay in the city, they had an opening, we could come back to school. And so, make a long story short, we packed our little thing and took all the money in the family, that everybody had, every dime of it, and we came up and registered in October.	21:35
Ila Jacuth Blue	Now, my brother, we called brother and told him—He was the only one that had a car in the family. We called brother. He was still in Charlotte. He came and he's the one found a place for us to stay. When he was here in that one year in college, he located—That was my mama's first cousin, I believe it's family, and he had boarded with the son and his wife. No. It was the daughter and her husband he ended up with. Anyway, so when we told him we were coming back, he's big shot. He called them and asked them could we stay with them until the next semester, because we could come on campus after Christmas. So, when brother came and picked us up, child, he had a place for us to stay.	22:10
Ila Jacuth Blue	So, that's the way we came back. Went onto fourth year, we came on time. We took every dime the family had and they said, "Want you to be there because you'll be a senior this year." So, we came back and graduated. That's the story of my life. That's the story of my life. Let me tell you why I said my mama was a genius. You better cut this thing off because you don't need this in the—	23:11
Kisha Turner	[indistinct 00:23:44] whatever you have to say.	23:43
Ila Jacuth Blue	My mama was a genius. After I finished North Carolina Central, I worked and taught in the high school at home. My major was English, minor was math, so I taught English and math—	23:51
Kisha Turner	Do you remember what year you started teaching?	24:00
Ila Jacuth Blue	'38, I think.	24:04
Kisha Turner	Okay.	24:04
Ila Jacuth Blue	I taught English and math, et cetera, and coached the girls' basketball team, so on, so on, so. All right. I decided to go back to school and get a master's. So, I came back to Central, got a master's at Central. And when I went back to high school, then Dr. Ferrison, who was the chairman wrote me a letter and asked me—I taught in high school, I believe, six years. I believe. Four, six. I believe it was six. Yeah. I think I came back here. Actually, I graduated from my master's, I think in '44. I think '44-45. Anyway, he asked me to come back and teach freshman English. Okay. So, my family thought that was great. That was great.	24:11
Ila Jacuth Blue	I missed something. I haven't missed it yet, because that was a long time [indistinct 00:25:20]. So, I came back and taught at Central. I believe at '48, I decided I wanted to go on to do the doctorate, and then my family thought that was good too, especially my [indistinct 00:25:43] doctor. Yes, it was '48. So, I went that year, and I didn't have any money to spare, so Mama asked my sister who was teaching to give her some money for me to come home for Christmas. I didn't know how I got home, because she told me to come on home, so I came home.	25:15
Ila Jacuth Blue	And so I came back in the spring, after school closed in spring. And that's when I found out, I knew Mama was pretty smart but I found out Mama was a genius. See, when my mama was in the school, they didn't have any high school. When you finished seventh grade, she said they would go back to school and help the teachers with the other children. She never did go onto anything. So, Mama was sick when I came back. That was my worst summer. That's when I lost my mama. Mama was sick, and her teeth were bothering her. She told me [indistinct 00:26:45] take her to the dentist. I said okay, and I took her. I can't tell you all the things Mama told me, I'll tell you just one.	26:05
Ila Jacuth Blue	But when we were coming back, I think Mama felt she probably was going to leave us, you know? And she's talking to me about things, and she told me things about me when I was a baby, and I was grown then. I guess I was even 30, and she was telling me something, just talking about when I was a baby. Just the two of us in the car, and she said the things—She said, "I had 12 children," but she said they were all different. She told me about me. She paid me a great compliment for one thing. She said, "When I was nursing you, if I dropped anything on the floor, you would crawl down out of my lap and pick it up and give it to me and crawl back up there. None of the other children do anything like that." Anything that dropped, I'd give it to her.	26:56
Ila Jacuth Blue	And she went on talking to me about a lot of things about me. And she talked about the Lord, and how she had prayed. We were out of school, you know? And that was at least—Let's see, we finished Bible school [indistinct 00:28:13]. I guess that was almost 15-20 years after we left Barber-Scotia, Mama said. But she taught me about always trying to stay with the Lord, you know? But I probably strayed away from that. But anyway, she said, "You can always, if you try, you can generally get things going, but you have to get the Lord's blessing with you, you know?" And she said, the year my sister and I stayed out of school, or almost out of school, [indistinct 00:29:09] wrote us, but that was in '30 something. She said, "That's when I wrote the governor."	27:58
Ila Jacuth Blue	I almost stopped the car. I said, "Mama, when did you write the governor?" She said, "When you and Toot were out of school." My sister. And I was then in University of Michigan. I said, "When you write the governor? Why'd you write the governor, Mama?" She says, "Because I wrote him," and she said, "I know I misspelled words and all that but I wrote him and told him I was a citizen of the state and my children were out of school, and I wanted to put them in school."	29:15
Ila Jacuth Blue	Now, the governor didn't write Mama but this is the way it happened. I told you Dean Rush wrote us and asked us to come back to school, but this is the way it went. She wrote the governor, the governor wrote Dr. Shepard. He and Dr. Shepard were very friendly. They were very friendly. So, this is the way I figure, Dr. Shepard, Dean Rush who was the dean of women, while we were in school, wrote the governor, and he told her to write us and ask us, because the governor wrote Dr. Shepard that this lady want her children in school. Because Mama told him she was a citizen of the state.	29:51
Ila Jacuth Blue	I was flabbergasted. Well, the letter came, and wanted to know did we want to come back to school, you know? And we laughed about it—	30:35
Kisha Turner	[indistinct 00:30:46].	30:46
Ila Jacuth Blue	I told you we laughed about that. And we came. And that's the way we got back in school. But I say, I haven't met anybody—Nobody has met anybody like his mama, you know? But she didn't say a word to us about that letter. She say, "I know I misspelled some words." And that was years, we had finished college. I had taught here for about six years, and now I was at University of Michigan, she had never said one word about that. She didn't say, "You got in there because I—" Uh-uh. She never even mentioned it.	30:46
Kisha Turner	Where do you think her commitment to making sure that you finished school came from?	31:26
Ila Jacuth Blue	Beg your pardon?	31:36
Kisha Turner	Why do you feel that she was so worried about you being in school? Where do you think she got that value from?	31:39
Ila Jacuth Blue	I don't know. Got it from her parents, I guess. I don't know exactly. Got it from her parents, I guess. I never knew—I knew my paternal grandfather and my maternal grandmother. I didn't know the other two, and it was the—I should've known both of them, my paternal grandfather because my mama's papa, the way she talked about him was just like my mama. She got it from her. And of course, my paternal grandfather, he was great. He died when I was about five. His wife was dead when I was born, of course I didn't know his mama. But after his wife died, he would spend months with his children. He had a lot of them. So, maybe he'd come spend about two months with my father, my father's family. Then he'd go onto another. The Blues, he said, big family.	31:50
Ila Jacuth Blue	The thing I remember about him, how gentle he was with Mama and the chickens. He'd go out there and help Mama with her chickens. He'd be holding the little biddy, look at that big old man holding those little chickens. I couldn't put it all together. He would hoe the garden for Mama. This old man, gray hair, he'd hoe the garden for Mama. I couldn't put it all together then, but I was five when he died. But he left that impression on me. He'd be so gentle, the little old biddy. I'll tell about Grandpa.	32:58
Ila Jacuth Blue	And when Grandpa got happy, he would just—he'd just laugh, you know, and get up on the table. I'd wonder, what in the world was wrong with Grandpapa. Grandpa was happy [indistinct 00:33:47]. I didn't put it together until years later, I put that together. And Grandpa was just—I said, "Those little old biddies, he just hold the little—" (laughs)	33:34
Ila Jacuth Blue	He would. He'd hoe the garden. He'd say, "Betsy—" My mama was named Betsy Luann. He'd say, "Betsy, I'm going to hoe the garden for you," and he'd hoe the garden. But I knew my paternal grandfather and my maternal grandmother.	33:56
Kisha Turner	Did they ever tell you stories?	34:21
Ila Jacuth Blue	Beg your pardon?	34:23
Kisha Turner	Did they tell you stories about their experience?	34:23
Ila Jacuth Blue	Yes. I don't remember many Grandpa telling, but he would tell the family, but I was quite small. I was about five, I think, when he died. I was eight when my grandmother died. My family was so large, they were gone before I got there.	34:26
Kisha Turner	Most of your family live in the area?	34:46
Ila Jacuth Blue	Beg your pardon?	34:48
Kisha Turner	Where you grew up? [indistinct 00:34:51].	34:49
Ila Jacuth Blue	Mm-hmm. Yes, ma'am.	34:51
Kisha Turner	Did you work together?	34:53
Ila Jacuth Blue	That's right. Well, no. My paternal, yeah, they were really—My paternal family was in a different county but they were the adjoining county.	34:54
Kisha Turner	What county was that?	35:11
Ila Jacuth Blue	We lived in Hoke.	35:11
Kisha Turner	Hoke, okay.	35:14
Ila Jacuth Blue	And they lived in what was, they called it Cool River but they call it Moore now, where Aberdeen is. That's where my grandfather finally was, up in Aberdeen. In fact, that's where my grandpa—But Hoke was made, so they tell me, the historians say just so Hoke would have—My county was made just so the state would have 100 counties. They didn't want 99 counties. So, it carved out of Scotland County, where Laurinburg is, and Moore County where Aberdeen and Southern Pine and Carthage and Fayetteville, Cumberland County, they carved. So, they carved about, and then Robeson, that's Red Springs and Lumberton County but they carved Raeford out of the other counties, so they could have 100. That's what the historians say. They didn't want 99. They wanted 100.	35:14
Kisha Turner	What kind of work did you do on the farm, when you were younger?	36:18
Ila Jacuth Blue	Everything. My favorite was plowing.	36:22
Kisha Turner	Really?	36:25
Ila Jacuth Blue	But I couldn't do it much because my youngest brother, there were three girls under him, but understand there was a big span between the next girl and my brother and the children [indistinct 00:36:40] pick on being the baby, you know? And we'd be in the field, he'd say, "Sister, I'll take the hoe and you can plow." I just liked to plow. Okay. I'd grab it, he'd get the hoe. But he'd get the hoe and go sit under the tree, you know? And when I came back with the plow, then Nathan, he'd say, "Sister, you put that plow down. You go get your hoe from Sylvester because he's sitting under that tree."	36:25
Ila Jacuth Blue	But we hoed cotton, we picked cotton. We plowed. One sister and I, Sisa and I plowed when they had to throw fertilizer and we would split the middle part. The only thing I didn't do, what they had to do was clean the ditch bank. We made the men do that. We wouldn't clean that ditch bank.	37:01
Kisha Turner	Did you go to school? How'd you work school out while you were working?	37:23
Ila Jacuth Blue	Well, it worked out for us when I came along. It wasn't that way when the rest of them came along. When I came along, the farmers—The schools, not the farmers, they had problems. The children just would have to stay out of school for picking cotton and hoeing cotton and things like that. So, they did something that I thought was very nice. I think they yanked a month out of the school year, and put it in when the crops were laid by. So, we went to school, I think it was August, mainly August. So, nothing was going on plowing and hoeing. The crops were already made.	37:31
Ila Jacuth Blue	So, it was August, and so they had school one month. I think one or two. Anyway, and then we'd go back to school, after you had gathered the farm, because nobody's in school. Nobody in school, except those in first and second, third grade, because they weren't hoeing and picking cotton. But those who were large enough, the people had them home and we always had to stay out of school two days. And I would just swear I would never go in again. I'd say, "If I can't go today, I'm not ever going." Nobody wouldn't say a word because they know I'd be the first thing up the next morning. I'd say, "I'm not going." I had to stay home to help with the hog killing, and the digging sweet potatoes. We had to stay home for those two days. But I'd say, "I can't go today, I'm not going tomorrow." [indistinct 00:39:29]. Nobody said a word to me. Didn't nobody [indistinct 00:39:33] because I'd be up early the next morning and go to school. I was a school nut. I was just a school nut. I thoroughly enjoyed going to school.	38:26
Kisha Turner	It sounds like your family was self-sufficient, because if you had hogs and chickens and sweet potatoes.	39:41
Ila Jacuth Blue	We ate. We didn't have any money but we ate. We didn't raise tobacco, so that's where we made our money on. See, we had so many in the family, until we started marrying off, we could take care of our farm, maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. But Friday, we would go and work for somebody else. Those who had tobacco, I would remember that I would string tobacco and then two of my sisters would hand tobacco to me. [indistinct 00:40:24]. We'd go home. We thought we had a pocket full of money. When we'd go back home, we would do things like that. And of course, my brother sometimes would sell things, like go up to highway and sell watermelon, cantaloupe, things like that.	39:49
Kisha Turner	So, did you keep the money that you would earn separately for yourselves or was it handed back to your parents?	40:45
Ila Jacuth Blue	Yeah. Everybody has his own little pocketbook. Nobody touching that money. Nobody touching that money. They'll say that's your [indistinct 00:41:04]. No, you went out and made that little money. If that's your money, you can have it. And Mama and sisters, I said Mama was a pure genius. My mama was a pure genius. Mama and sister's out there. Our house was too small, you know? I look back then, I say how in the world did we stay in that place?	40:52
Kisha Turner	What was it like?	41:25
Ila Jacuth Blue	All those people, and then you had—Everybody at night—you got your bedroom and your big beds. No. We had two and three in a bed, I guess sometimes. [indistinct 00:41:38]. All the boys that had the one room, they would have two, three beds in that one room, and all that. That never dawned on me, I thought that was the way to live until I grew up a little bit. But Mama insisted that I say that, I say that, leave 'em on the mantelpiece, put the thing that you wanted to keep, like money, for example. You bring [indistinct 00:42:10] money. You put that on the mantelpiece. Put that on the mantelpiece.	41:26
Ila Jacuth Blue	We had a wardrobe, you know? You haven't seen the old wardrobe and one part had a door to it on the top. Put it in there. You could put all your little niceties in there when you wanted, and the boys had one. One in the girls' room, one in the boys' room [indistinct 00:42:27]. Because if you touched it now, touched anybody else's, my mama would whip you. You can't whip children now, I guess. But Mama would be in bad shape. Mama would be in bad shape, can't whip you. Mama was the kind would tell you, this hurts me worse than it hurst you.	42:10
Kisha Turner	We've heard it. I know I've heard it.	42:46
Ila Jacuth Blue	Yes, ma'am. She'd tell me. And I'd wonder, how in the world could that hurt Mama worse than it's hurting me? Because I told my kids one day, I taught my Sunday school kid, I tell her, because I said she was about to kill me. I said, "One of these days, Mama going to kill herself because she about to kill me." (laughs) [indistinct 00:43:12].	42:48
Kisha Turner	What would you do with your money?	43:13
Ila Jacuth Blue	What'd you do with your money?	43:16
Kisha Turner	Yeah. What would you do with your money?	43:16
Ila Jacuth Blue	Let me tell you this, Mama was telling us—Mama was an oddity in the world, because being in the world now, an oddity because Mama thought that the Bible meant you're supposed to—That 10% or whatever it is, you're supposed to give that to the Lord and all like that. But we'd have a lot of jokes behind Mama's back, you know? Mama used to tell us, she'd tell us, "If you got a [indistinct 00:43:50] a nickel," she'd tell us how much you're supposed to, she said give two cents to the church, that 10%. And she'd go off and the other three, you save. You give two to the church and you save two and you can spend that one, you know? And Mama would leave us. But we were going to school then, and we'd get behind her back and say, "We know two cents out of a nickel is more than 10%." Behind her back.	43:18
Ila Jacuth Blue	We didn't need necessarily a lot of money, especially as children, because our parents, they kept us in good clothes and we had hand me downs from my sisters and brothers, but you can look at my feet, I had a good—I finally got to the place that they couldn't hand me down, because my feet were larger than the two immediately ahead of me. Because the one next to me, her foot was always smaller than mine. I believe I came out the womb with some big feet for a girl. But anyway. But we didn't have any problem because we didn't know you could live life the way it's living now. Because mama wouldn't have let us live it anyway then. I just thought it was great. I enjoyed growing up. I just thought it was great. I just thought it was great, with brother riding me on their back [indistinct 00:45:35] running around and everybody playing. They let us play.	44:27
Ila Jacuth Blue	Now, but I say that Mama would've been a good sergeant in the army, I'm telling you. And I tell people now, I told a lot of my students, I said, "Wonder where Mama get all that knowledge to put that thing." Everybody had something to do. Nobody running around and the house was crowded, but everybody had doing, and Mama had it all written out. And Mama say after she got two or three children, she stopped working in the field. She let Papa and the boys do that work in that field and so forth, and the children grow up and then they would do it.	45:38
Ila Jacuth Blue	But Mama had everything. Mama knew when it was your week to wash the breakfast dishes, or your week to wash the dinner dishes and supper dishes, and you had to go about that. After I grew up, I said Mama could've been a sergeant, a great one. And it's your week to cook. I thank the Lord about that, she never did give me a week cook, because they didn't like my cooking. They didn't like my cooking. But washing those dishes, I had that, and doing the laundry. They liked my laundry.	46:14
Kisha Turner	What'd you have to do, to do the laundry?	46:50
Ila Jacuth Blue	The laundry?	46:50
Kisha Turner	Yeah.	46:50
Ila Jacuth Blue	It's the old fashioned laundry. You had three tubs. And in one tub, you would put your white clothes in that one to soak, and you'd rub it on that board, and then you'd take it out and you'd put it in that big, black pot and you'd boil it. And then you'd take it out and you run it to three water. This water from the pot, and you had a little lye in the pot, and then the rest [indistinct 00:47:20]. And the last water, you would put it in, had bluing in it. And then you'd put it on that line—	46:53

Ila Jacuth Blue	Then you pour a little bit in it and then stir up the water, then you look in it and it's kind of funny and it, ooh, the clothes. It would be very white, very white.	0:02
Blair Murphy	Would that take you all day to do, to wash?	0:12
Ila Jacuth Blue	No, not all day, not all day. No. It takes some time because you had to boil it in that pot, but for the most part—And you had a board for dirty collars and things. You have a scrub board. You haven't seen it?	0:20
Blair Murphy	Yeah, my mother talks about it.	0:37
Ila Jacuth Blue	She did? Yeah, you scrub that and get all that dirt—	0:38
Blair Murphy	What kind of dishes do you remember?	0:42
Ila Jacuth Blue	Dishes? Well, they had for the teaching we did as children, you had tin dishes, so you wouldn't break them. As you grew up—	0:44
Blair Murphy	So you got [indistinct 00:00:59]	0:58
Ila Jacuth Blue	If you got a little faith and confidence in it, then you can have a regular plate. But other than that, you had the regular dishes, but—	0:59
Blair Murphy	What kind of food [indistinct 00:01:08]	1:07
Ila Jacuth Blue	Oh, we didn't have to worry about the food. We raised it. We raised the food. We didn't have a dime, but see, we all the eggs we wanted, all the chicken we wanted, all the milk we wanted, all the beef we wanted Papa killed. Hogs, twice a year, and killed beef once a year. So we had all our meat. Then we'd go right down on the swamp and fish. We had the stream went through our farm and we'd go down there fishing. But we didn't have any money in our house [indistinct 00:01:46]	1:08
Blair Murphy	Your family owned that land though?	1:46
Ila Jacuth Blue	Oh, yeah.	1:48
Blair Murphy	How did they come to own that land?	1:48
Ila Jacuth Blue	My mama's daddy gave it to her. I'll tell you, that's another story. My two grandfathers were slaves. My two grandfather were slaves. But both of them had no problem with growing up, anything. In the first place, my paternal grandfather was "Old Marsa's" son. And that was one thing. So he was special.	1:51
Ila Jacuth Blue	All right. But my maternal grandfather, he was a youngster. He was much younger than my paternal grandfather because I think when it was over, when the Northern rushed through there and swept it out, and people say, burned up Georgia, he was in the teens. But he grew up from—	2:33
Ila Jacuth Blue	He was lucky, where most of them had that. If you read about slavery and listen to the people who knew about slavery, now and then, you would find a contrary man or missus, but for the most part, you know Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, you know what her success? Was with the White women helped her. They couldn't go in the daytime because people would see them, all those people running around in the woods and swamp.	3:08
Ila Jacuth Blue	But my paternal grandfather would tell all about this, because he knew all about it. He didn't tell me much because I didn't know him, but he told me about that the White ladies—Now of course, there were some White ladies that wouldn't do it, of course. You always going to get some good and mean.	3:48
Ila Jacuth Blue	See, the White ladies would hide the slaves in the daytime down in their cellars and my grandpa told my family that, because the law found it out, but they couldn't do anything about because you don't never doubt what the White ladies say. White lady [indistinct 00:04:30] He told about some that he knew about that Harriet Tubman had different group. Of course, there was more than one group, but she was the big one.	4:08
Ila Jacuth Blue	Harriet Tubman had them, and had a sick child, had. And Old Mistress had them down in the cellar and said somebody told the law. And said the law came there and told them [indistinct 00:04:52] was there and she told them, "No, there wasn't nobody there." Said they had a sick child and said this sick child started crying. So Missus went over to that piano and she did some playing. She played, they couldn't hear anything. After any point in the night she said, "I told you something about—" Something like that, what the very words were. So they left. You can't doubt the white lady's word, so the law left. But they knew they were down there. And at night, she rumbled them up and set them on their way. That's the way they traveled. Did you ever read Uncle Tom's Cabin?	4:37
Blair Murphy	Yes.	5:29
Ila Jacuth Blue	Well, that's the way they traveled. It said it was the White missus [indistinct 00:05:35] and not every one. But she said you would get you a good one.	5:29
Ila Jacuth Blue	And I said, going back to my grandfather, my maternal grandfather, that's what he told my mama, I think he was 16 or 18, either one, when the war was over. He said that sometime you have a very cruel overseer on the farm, so he's going to beat the boys for nothing. He said, but all you had to do—And said the boys could outrun. All you got to do, you go to that house, the missus, his missus, not everyone didn't do that, but he says that he "Get the missus." And she would say, "You don't put a hand on that boy." And she'd keep him around the house, say, "He going to help me today" till 2:00 or 3:00 until all this wear out. Then she let him go back to the field.	5:39
Ila Jacuth Blue	But he said he had to go there many a day. That man just comes up walking to him with that whip. He said, you'd beat to that house first. But see, he was lucky. Of course, I don't know, maybe women are just more humane than men, I don't know.	6:31
Ila Jacuth Blue	But he said, "You never would have made the Underground Railroad if it hadn't been for those—some of those White ladies." Said they would hide them in the daytime. My grandpapa told my mama about the one that they say they had them there. And they knew they were there since somebody told the law they were there. She told them, "No, they weren't there." And then when you had the baby crying, said she started playing that piano.	6:49
Blair Murphy	Who did?	7:15
Ila Jacuth Blue	The White lady started playing the piano.	7:15
Blair Murphy	Did he run away from slavery?	7:18
Ila Jacuth Blue	Who? My [indistinct 00:07:22] papa? No.	7:21
Blair Murphy	He stayed in slavery till the war came?	7:22
Ila Jacuth Blue	Yeah, he wasn't doing any work. I'm telling you, the boss was his daddy.	7:25
Blair Murphy	That was your paternal—	7:30
Ila Jacuth Blue	My paternal grandfather, uh-huh. But my maternal grandfather was much younger. I'll tell you about him. Mama told us this. He told Mama, of course, because he was, I think, 17 when the war was over. You see, what they call now Wagram and Laurinburg and Raeford and all that. Raeford wasn't in—but it was in that area down there. That's where we lived and that was his land. He lived in Hoke County between Laurinburg and Raeford and Red Spring and Aberdeen and all that stuff. He told Mama that he was 16 or 17 when the war was over. Okay? He said that the Yankees came through and just swept anything they wanted to because they had won. And say that they called him and say, "Dave, I want you to keep the horses."	7:31
Ila Jacuth Blue	It's a place we call Lumber River. It's not a river, but it's a water and bridge and everything. Said, "I want you to keep them down here all day." The White people, White men, brought their best horses because the Yankees, as you know, were riding through just taking them. And gave them to gave, said, "Dave, you keep them quiet now. Get them down at Lumber River." That's a place you can go through, but you wouldn't see the horses. It's sand all around there, it could have been a beach if you had [indistinct 00:09:17] because we look at it now when we go to Laurinburg.	8:43
Ila Jacuth Blue	So Dave was down there with the horses. He had a gang of horses, all the best that these people had because the Yankees going to ride through and just take them. Okay. So her daddy say he could hear them coming, hear the Yankees coming, because they was making a lot of noise because they had won. They was taking everything. He could hear them coming. Said he just waited. Said he took off his shirt. He had on a white shirt. So he took it off and he was down there with the horses. [indistinct 00:09:56] He said he heard them hit the bridge. It was a long bridge over Lumber River. He heard them hit the bridge. He took off. Took a white shirt, went up there. And he stopped them. He said, "Come down here and get all these horses." (interviewer laughs)	9:21
Ila Jacuth Blue	They went down there and every man took one and the one that had might have been, jumped on them for it—And he rode off with them. He knew he had to go because they would kill him. (interviewer laughs)	10:12
Ila Jacuth Blue	Well, he stayed off for years, he stayed. They rode on up, finally to New York. And he left and went to a little place, I don't know whether it was Jamaica or somewhere. He stayed off until he was grown and came back. I guess all the masters were dead, I guess, when he came back, but—	10:27
Blair Murphy	So he fled to New York?	10:45
Ila Jacuth Blue	Well, he didn't stay there. He went on with the Yankees because he knew he had to go now. (Ila laughs) He gave all those horses away. Say he took off his shirt, come out of there, down there and then he jumped bareback, didn't even have a saddle. Right on there, wild man. Drove all off with those Yankees.	10:46
Ila Jacuth Blue	Take this off of me. I got to run in there and do something. Just take this off me.	11:06
Ila Jacuth Blue	[INTERRUPTION 00:11:13]	11:13
Ila Jacuth Blue	But as I say, Mama had a job for everybody to do.	11:16
Blair Murphy	Yeah.	11:17
Ila Jacuth Blue	This is your week to do so and so and your week to do so and so. But I thought that was great myself. Yeah, my sister and brother told me, "You need to have better sense."	11:22
Blair Murphy	We wanted to make sure that we understood. Your family got your land from your paternal grandfather?	11:33
Ila Jacuth Blue	Maternal grandfather.	11:38
Blair Murphy	Maternal grandfather?	11:39
Ila Jacuth Blue	Mm-hmm.	11:41
Blair Murphy	And he acquired the land how?	11:43
Ila Jacuth Blue	Oh well. After he left and went away, he stayed away a few years, you see? He was growing up. When he left, I guess he was about 17 when he left. When he came back, he had some money. But he didn't buy it then. He came back and worked. He was working on this farm. If you remember a little history, they were selling land almost for nothing once upon a time.	11:46
Blair Murphy	Mm-hmm.	12:25
Ila Jacuth Blue	He brought several, several acres and he had three children, he had two girls and a boy, but the boy died. So he divided it between his two daughters. My mama half of it and my aunt half of it. Then—	12:25
Blair Murphy	So did he have any problems with White people around, holding onto the land?	12:41
Ila Jacuth Blue	No. No problems. I don't perhaps know all of the ins and out of this, but something—I don't know what period it was, but they were just selling land almost dirt cheap. I don't know how much it was, but Mama was telling us this because I never knew him.	12:51
Blair Murphy	Mm-hmm. It was before [indistinct 00:13:16]	13:14
Ila Jacuth Blue	But she said he was always a go-getter. She said people hear them talking and everything, maybe they degraded something. He'd say, "You see that Black nigger or so-and-so." Mama said, "But I guess nobody said anything," Mama said, "because he was Black himself." See, he was very dark. But see, he was always enterprising. He gave all those horses away. He felt bad after—They said, "Now Dave, I want you to keep them, you just keep them until they come through here, they take all the horses." Because they were taking horses, anything they needed. They was the heroes then. They had won the war.	13:19
Ila Jacuth Blue	He told them, "Yeah, he would." I think he was 17 then. But he knew he was going to leave out of there because he better leave there. So he jumped on one, one of those horses didn't even have a saddle on it, nothing.	14:05
Blair Murphy	So the White men thought he was going to—	14:15
Ila Jacuth Blue	He was going to keep the—	14:18
Blair Murphy	Keep the horses for them?	14:19
Ila Jacuth Blue	Well, not only one. It was those in that area.	14:21
Blair Murphy	Oh.	14:25
Ila Jacuth Blue	Because they were taking horses. They ride one and go get him another one and go to that man's house and take another and throw a saddle on that one and go on. And Dave told them, "Yeah, he keep them."	14:25
Blair Murphy	What kind of church did you go to?	14:38
Ila Jacuth Blue	The old Presbyterian.	14:38
Blair Murphy	It was in the area? In your county?	14:38
Ila Jacuth Blue	Beg pardon?	14:38
Blair Murphy	It was in your county?	14:48
Ila Jacuth Blue	Yes.	14:50
Ila Jacuth Blue	I hope you guys don't get wet.	14:56
Ila Jacuth Blue	I say after the Civil War, many of them, particularly these were soldiers primarily, who saw the situation, just what slavery had been. That just disgusted about them. I said, it came down and they just created schools almost like mushroom stool. I mentioned you about Red Springs. Red Springs is 12 miles from my door. There was one in Red Springs and one in Lumberton, one in Laurinburg, one in Carthage. I went to the one in Oxford.	15:04
Ila Jacuth Blue	But the one in Red Springs then was no longer in use because when they had the public school, then the people started sending their children to the public school because none of the Presbyterian church which I joined now, there are several people in there—One lady in there, not several, who went to this school in Red Springs down below our house. Lumberton it was then, down below our house. My older sisters and brothers went there. They went there. The schools that the Blacks had early, until the state made them do it, were constructed by the Presbyterian Church and there was another group, the Rosenwald Fund. Have you heard of Rosenwald Fund?	15:57
Blair Murphy	Yeah.	17:00
Ila Jacuth Blue	The Rosenwald Fund. Now the Rosenwald Fund, it was called the Rosenwald, but that was the Rockefeller family and their ancestry. Now the grade school that I attended, one through seven, was a Rosenwald School. The state was not building schools then. The counties was supposed to do it.	17:01
Blair Murphy	And they didn't?	17:28
Ila Jacuth Blue	They didn't do it. When I graduated from grade school, I didn't have anywhere to go at home because they had not built schools for Blacks.	17:29
Blair Murphy	Well, how was your Rosenwald School? Did you have-	17:41
Ila Jacuth Blue	They were better than the county—See, the county was building the schools then. They was better than the county. Now the one that I attended, in the center was a large auditorium and a stage. That stage opened onto a closet, a long big closet. There were four rooms, two on that end of the stage, two on that end of the stage, the one that I attended. So they had grades then. See, once upon a time, you had primer. Always had eight grades. Some people said, "But you got eight grades now." You had eight grades then, but the first one was primer instead of first year. You had a primer one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And still gave you the eight years.	17:51
Ila Jacuth Blue	I graduated from a Rosenwald School. It was about three miles from my home, so my mama, I suppose she did it with all the children, I don't know. I don't know. But when I was five, Mama and my older sisters started teaching me the primer. You had to buy your own books, so she went to town, bought the primer, take me the book. Because they taught me the primer, they taught me first grade because Mama said six miles a day, three one way and three back, was too much for me to walk. So they taught me at home.	18:41
Ila Jacuth Blue	So when I went to school, and you had to buy the books for the child anyway then. See, the county wasn't as good. Now when the state took over the schools, they were much better. But those counties were known to pander, you know. Those crackers. (laughs)	19:30
Ila Jacuth Blue	So when I went to school, I knew the primer and the first grade because they had taught me at home. I had a very nice teacher. She and my preacher brother were supposed to marry. We wanted him to marry her. Of course, I don't know what happened to them, but they didn't marry. We put it on him. We said he didn't have sense enough to marry Bessie. But anyway, he would come from home from school, he'd just dap in there and take a bath and dress and go. "I got to go see the party." He called it a party. "I got to go see the party." We were just flabbergasted when he didn't marry Bessie and she was loved.	19:52
Ila Jacuth Blue	I went to her class. No, I went to the neighbor's class. No. And I said I was supposed to be in the primer. But I knew the primer and I knew the first grade. They had taught me at home. And I told a little story. I went back home and told my people, I stayed in there I guess about two months. Went back home and told them that—You had to buy the books then. I told my mama that the teacher said you need to buy me the first grade book, because I was ready for the first grade. [indistinct 00:21:11] Mama went to town and bought it. So the next day I went in, the teacher said, oh, you know, "These children are doing lots of things. I found that out." I went in the next day, but I went in the teacher's room and had my book, and the other teacher's room had a book. She thought I had been promoted. But I promoted myself.	20:41
Ila Jacuth Blue	So I was sitting up in there because they had taught me that in the school because Mama thought it was too long for me to walk twice a day. So they had taught me that. So I knew the work, and really, I was having a good time. Passed the class, and the teacher I had left came stepping in to talk with that other teacher, and while she was there, she looked at me. I sitting up there just nice, didn't say a word. And she didn't say anything to me, but she talked to the teacher. I was sitting there. The teacher said, "But she brought—told me she was in first grade." But she didn't bother me. She left me in there. Well, I really had been through that book, but they had carried me through it at home.	21:35
Blair Murphy	Your older siblings?	22:23
Ila Jacuth Blue	Uh-huh.	22:26
Blair Murphy	And your mother?	22:26
Ila Jacuth Blue	That's right. They carried me through that book. So the teacher—	22:28
Blair Murphy	So that's how you ended up in the same grade with your sister?	22:31
Ila Jacuth Blue	That's right. The teacher didn't say anything. I guess she figured I did know it. I guess she said she learned it from somewhere, but she was nice enough. She could have stood on protocol and said that—I was sitting there with the book. Mama had to buy. [indistinct 00:22:48] I was sitting there. (laughs)	22:32
Ila Jacuth Blue	So that's how we went through school together because I took my job in hand and walked on into the other teacher's room and had my book and everything. The teacher said that Mama had bought the book and that Mama had bought it. Those teachers told me, said, "I told a tale." I said, "Teachers told me what to do." But I did know that book and I knew I knew the book. I was doing all right, reading and spelling. I decided I was going on. I don't know what in the world made me do a thing like that. That was terrific.	22:57
Blair Murphy	Sure was.	23:28
Ila Jacuth Blue	I knew I shouldn't have done that. But I was sitting there—	23:28
Blair Murphy	[indistinct 00:23:42]	23:28
Ila Jacuth Blue	But the Lord was with me. Let me tell you this now, but I shouldn't be—I'm telling you this on this tape. The Lord really has been with me. Let me tell how He was with me. That brother of mine did everything for that, that I wouldn't even speak to. He was in college. I bet he was at Lincoln University then before he went to Johnson C. Smith, Lincoln College. I was fourth grade. He became ill and he came home. He was ill. I believe it was the last semester, I think it was the semester, and into the summer. So he came home. So when he was well enough to go back to school—See, he hadn't been working and he didn't have any money.	23:44
Ila Jacuth Blue	They needed a teacher for a two-teacher school. A two-teacher school. No, it wasn't in the same county, but it was a little school called Millside. It was [indistinct 00:25:10] a long time, and they asked him to be the principal of this school. And he accepted it. He needed the money in the first place because he'd been sick, he hadn't worked. He needed the money. Then he was going back to school in September. Okay. He accepted it.	24:49
Ila Jacuth Blue	So we, there were three of us, the last three children, three girls. Said, "We want to go to our brother's school." And she said okay. But he had to live there because it was a long walk and maybe rain and so forth. But we would walk from home, take our lunch and walk. So I was fourth grade, I remember that. I was fourth grade. Well, I know you don't do that with your little sister and brother. I would ask my sister, I had trouble with improper fractions. If I had to subtract three-fourths maybe from just one-fourth up top there. And I'd go to my sisters and brothers and they would work it for me. The answer was in the book then. And I'd say, "Well, how'd you get that?" And they'd say, "I borrowed one." But they never did explain to me what they borrowed. They didn't tell me if it was three-fourths and one-fourth that they borrowed one and that was four-fourths you added to that one-fourth. They'd just say, "I borrowed one."	25:31
Ila Jacuth Blue	I would look at that. You see, I just put the one up there and I'd have eleven-fourths sitting up there, something like that. But they never told me that. And I would go and ask them again because I couldn't work it. I couldn't work that improper fraction. So when they going to Bro. Bro, the big principal. He was teaching this math class, all this math class. Some kids in there were smart too, smart. There was one little boy in there named Dedford Purcell. He was just like this, like lightning. He could just do all the lessons, math and everything else. Well, my brother was a smartie. He sent us to the board. Now he didn't know that I couldn't work that improper fraction. I had never asked him. I had asked my sisters and brothers who were home with me.	26:45
Ila Jacuth Blue	And bless the pastor, he gave us a problem that was improper fraction. So I had everything going. I don't know what it was, whether I had two-thirds and one-third above or what it was, but, so I stood there and I said, "Well, by golly, I'm in good luck. I'm standing by Dedford Purcell." I kind of sneaked over there and I put down his answer. I knew Dedford would be right. I put down his answer. Then Bro would have me then, return to your seat and then he'd have somebody to stand and so forth. And he got to that problem, he called on me.	27:48
Ila Jacuth Blue	But you see, I didn't know that Bro saw me copying the boy's answer. But he saw me. He called on me. In those days, you stand. I stood up and I said, "So and so and so." And I said, "You can't take two-thirds from one-third. So I borrowed one." And to this day, Mama was praying for me. Something said, "Ding, ding, ding, ding." Said, "You borrowed three-third." Lord, I was so happy. I said, "I borrowed one and I add three-third to one-third, four-thirds, so two-thirds for four-thirds. And two-thirds and so and so and so." And I sat.	28:38
Ila Jacuth Blue	Bro knew I had copied that answer. He has never mentioned it to me. We went home that night—went home that weekend because he stayed, go home Friday and come back Sunday night. He went home and told Mama. He said, "I don't know how she explained this thing because I saw her copy that." That's why he called on me because he was going to let me know you don't do things like that. He didn't say anything to me, so I didn't say anything to him. But I said to myself, "Yeah, but the Lord was stronger than you were. The Lord had my mama praying for me." Mama was praying for me. I just couldn't get that improper fractions because they didn't explain it to me right, my sisters and brothers. They said, "I borrowed one." But they didn't tell me, reduce it to one-third or two twos or two-halves or three-thirds or four-fourths. But I knew Dedford would be right, so I just copied him and went to my seat.	29:27
Blair Murphy	His name was Bedford?	30:25
Ila Jacuth Blue	Huh?	30:25
Blair Murphy	What was the name?	30:25
Ila Jacuth Blue	Dedford Purcell.	30:26
Blair Murphy	Purcell.	30:26
Ila Jacuth Blue	Dedford Purcell.	30:31
Blair Murphy	Okay.	30:32
Ila Jacuth Blue	He went home and told Mama that. He didn't know how, and said, "She explained it very well," said, but didn't know how I got it because I saw her copying off Dedford. So Mama told me what he said. But I said, "Lord have mercy." I didn't tell Mama, but Mama was praying for me. I couldn't get those improper fractions, they never explained it to me. And the teacher never explained it to me. They said, "Borrow one." What are you borrowing one? Is that the one up there? I knew it was ridiculous to have 10 so-and-so.	30:34
Blair Murphy	How big was your school?	31:09
Ila Jacuth Blue	Oh, small school. You mean my grade school?	31:11
Blair Murphy	Both. The Rosenwald School and the school your brother was principal.	31:16
Ila Jacuth Blue	The Rosenwald School was large. The rooms and the plant was large and a large student body.	31:24
Blair Murphy	Would they have [indistinct 00:31:39] in your classes?	31:38
Ila Jacuth Blue	Oh, I guess generally, see, they went through seventh grade. So I would imagine anywhere from 30 or 40 students.	31:40
Blair Murphy	Oh.	31:52
Ila Jacuth Blue	See, it was in a location, a little place called Bowmore and there was a store there, the store down the road. There was a church in there and a Masonic Lodge there and it was particularly populated with farming, farmers. It was rural and they had a lot of children. Farmers had a lot of children. My parents had 12. The classes were reasonably large.	31:53
Blair Murphy	It was attended by students all around the area?	32:34
Ila Jacuth Blue	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All around the area. That's right.	32:35
Blair Murphy	Did you pay for the Rosenwald School?	32:40
Ila Jacuth Blue	Huh?	32:41
Blair Murphy	Did you have to pay to go to the Rosenwald School?	32:41
Ila Jacuth Blue	No. The Rockefeller family just knew we didn't have any—As I say, after the Civil War, they built schools and churches for the Blacks. Schools and churches. Particularly the Presbyterians. That's why they titled it the Presbyterian, I guess. I don't know. I know my family was in the Presbyterian Church already. But they built churches and I said Bible scholarship. The man who came down and gave the money for that had fought in the Civil War. He was from the Washington area and he came back and he said that he wanted to set up a school for Black children.	32:45
Ila Jacuth Blue	That's where Mary McLeod Bethune went to school because her mama—The Presbyterian missionary came by then after the war, take these Black children and teach them. So they went to the Bethune cotton patch and the mama said, "Well, I don't know. We got to pick this cotton." They said, "Well, take that one over there." So she lays it in where she don't pick cotton. Well, that was Mary McLeod. And she took her and she finished with that teacher in that little house and then they gave her a scholarship, the Bible scholarship. She was going to be a missionary. But she was so smart, she ran through everything. I don't know, they said 18 year, when she graduated. That's right, Bible scholarship was not a four-year school then.	33:24
Ila Jacuth Blue	So the missionary group didn't want to send anybody under 21 because you have a lot of things happening to you. They wanted you to be an adult when you went. So in the meantime, while she was waiting to be adult, she decided she was going to have a school. All right? She was writing people, philanthropic people who had helped schools or built Bible scholarship, for example, and she got tied up with the Rockefellers again. She wrote them and told them, wanted to—So they wrote and told her that they'd come down and see her plant then, before they put any money in it, see what she was doing. She said, "Okay. All right."	34:16
Ila Jacuth Blue	So they sent somebody down, somebody from the Rockefeller Foundation. He came on the train, so she met him on the train. Did she have a car then? She may have had a car. No, I think they walked from the train station to a place and he wanted to see the school. Okay, they walked, they walking and talking. Finally, she got to the place. Looking there, they saw some land. He said, "Well, where is the school?" Said, "This place?" Said, "Yes." Said, "Where is the school?" She said, "Yeah, that school is here." He said, "Where?" She said—He went back, told them to send the money. Said she got that land. She said, went back to Rockefellers [indistinct 00:36:06] They sent the money for Bethune Cookman College. I tell you, she is—Have you ever seen her? Mary McLeod Bethune?	35:08
Blair Murphy	Pictures, yeah.	36:16
Ila Jacuth Blue	You haven't seen her?	36:18
Blair Murphy	I have.	36:19
Ila Jacuth Blue	Oh, you have? She came to North Carolina Central when I was there.	36:19
Blair Murphy	When you were going to school?	36:28
Ila Jacuth Blue	Uh-huh. The poor students could hardly get in on a Saturday afternoon. Shucks. Standing room only. She was great. She was great. She was great. She told us about that she has a son. And sh was talking about how from youth on up, how you should be and what you should do about the children. And said she and her son were walking down the street. People would talk about her son, saying he's kind of ne'er-do-well. Now he may not be that bad. Anyway, said she and her son was walking down the street and they met a White lady with a son walking down the street. Well, it was her boy. They figured her son. And her son said to her, said, "Mama, I tipped my hat to that lady, but that boy didn't tip his hat to you."	36:29
Ila Jacuth Blue	So she said, "Son, I want you to be a gentleman." Said, "I don't know what that lady wants her boy to be." (laughs) She said, "Son." Figured he understood it then. [indistinct 00:37:51] be a gentleman. He done tip his hat to the lady. But she was perfect. She was saying, "I'm a mahogany blonde and I'm glad of it." (laughs)	37:37
Ila Jacuth Blue	Standing room only, on Saturday afternoon. These kids would be out football games. Said, "No, siree." Hardly get in the place. Mary McLeod Bethune, and it was worth it. Go there and look at Mary McLeod Bethune. She was a dynamic lady.	38:00
Blair Murphy	What was Durham like when you were going to school?	38:19
Ila Jacuth Blue	Oh. I would give it a good grade. I would give it a good grade. I'd give it a good grade, number one, because their regard for this school and Dr. James Edward Shepard. They were people in the school at Central when I came here, should have been out years and years and years ago. But they didn't have anywhere to go. When I came here to go to school, I was a college [indistinct 00:39:08] I was kind of early for college perhaps. But anyway, there were so many adults, mamas and papas. They weren't mamas and papas, but they should have been mamas and papas. They used to laugh at me. The men and women would say something to me just to hear me say this. They'd say, "Little Blue." See, there were two of us. They'd call her Big Blue. "Little Blue." But I was taller than she was. They'd say, "Little Blue, so and so and so." And I'd say, "Ma'am" and "Yes, sir" and that would just tickle them to death. I didn't know what, they just had a good time. [indistinct 00:39:48]	38:32
Ila Jacuth Blue	So I say, "Ma'am, yes, sir." I didn't know what they were doing. That's what we did in the country. We said "Ma'am" to Mama and we'd say "Yes, sir" to people and "Yes, ma'am" to people. But they come on. And I thought they were so old that I should say—	39:48
Blair Murphy	These were other students?	40:07
Ila Jacuth Blue	Yeah, they were students. They had no school until Dr. Shepard started, but it was religious training school and Chautauqua at first. Then finally it got around to the North Carolina College for Negroes. That's what it was when I came.	40:09
Blair Murphy	Okay.	40:24
Ila Jacuth Blue	North Carolina College for Negroes when I came. But there were people there who had wanted to finish high school, but they needed their boarding school money to go to one of the other schools. My brother was in a school, but he would work in the summer at the hotel, big hotels, to go to school in the winter. So these people, they were older. They said [indistinct 00:40:54] I said, "Ma'am. Ma'am. I thought they were. I said, "Yes, Ma'am, yes, sir." That would just tickle them because I would say, "Yes, Ma'am" and so. I didn't even know what [indistinct 00:41:03] was all about then till I found out. So they'd say, "Let me go here and ask this question," just to hear me say, "yes, ma'am" or "yes, sir." That would just tickle them. I said—	40:25
Blair Murphy	What would be—	41:13
Ila Jacuth Blue	Huh?	41:13
Blair Murphy	What would you do for entertainment?	41:15
Ila Jacuth Blue	Well, there wasn't much entertainment in Durham. There was a theater. Well, back in those days, students didn't have all those liberties that they have now. They're on your own now, you see? No, you had to be in at a certain time of night. You had to check out. You'd go down to the—in our dormitory, you'd go down to the, what did you call the lady? The matron, I guess. You would have a big book, you would check out.	41:20
Blair Murphy	Even as a graduate student?	42:00
Ila Jacuth Blue	No, not as a graduate student.	42:03
Blair Murphy	As a graduate student, you'd live with your family?	42:04
Ila Jacuth Blue	Oh yeah, as a graduate, you were on your own as a graduate student. But undergrad, you had to go down, you'd check out and you'd check in. When you came in, you'd check in. The dormitories were locked at certain times, the girls' dormitory. I don't think the men's dormitory was locked. Of course, I don't know. But the girls' dormitory, you didn't go out after so-and-so. They were that kind. Oh, when I first came, you had a lights-out. You studied, but the bell would ring at 11:30 or 12:00 or something and you're supposed to turn your lights out then. But some people did, some people didn't. But the boys probably saw the town, but the girls didn't. They had to check in and out and they were due in at a certain time.	42:05
Blair Murphy	The guys didn't have to come, they didn't have a curfew?	43:04
Ila Jacuth Blue	No. Uh-uh. They didn't have a curfew. I don't think they did now. [indistinct 00:43:29] when I first came here. I don't know, but I don't think they did. I really don't know. I know the girls did, but I don't think the boys did now. I don't think they did. Could be, but they didn't have automobiles. They didn't have automobiles. Dr. Shepard didn't permit it, boys running around. He said, "Wasting your parents' money." One boy did come here from—was it Tarboro? It wasn't Tarboro. Around Rocky Mount or so. He had a good-looking car and ran around all the time, but he was failing everything, so they put him in his car and sent him back home. Dr. Shepard said, "Y'all must not be wasting your parents' money." But he was failing everything, but he had this car. But that was the last we saw of him. Somebody said, "Where is old so-and-so?" In the dining room. [indistinct 00:44:35] said, "Dr. Shepard sent him home."	43:08
Ila Jacuth Blue	Oh Lord, it's a whole new ballgame. It's a whole new ballgame now. Whole new ballgame. Now everybody has an automobile. I had a car when I went to the University of Michigan.	44:36
Blair Murphy	That where you got your graduate degree?	45:01
Ila Jacuth Blue	Mm-hmm.	45:01
Blair Murphy	When did you go to Michigan?	45:01
Ila Jacuth Blue	Hm?	45:03
Blair Murphy	What year did you go to Michigan?	45:03
Ila Jacuth Blue	My first year was either '47 or '48.	45:13
Blair Murphy	How was Ann Arbor? That was in Ann Arbor?	45:18
Ila Jacuth Blue	Ann Arbor.	45:21
Blair Murphy	How was that?	45:21
Ila Jacuth Blue	Ann Arbor's a nice little town. It's a small town. It's a nice little town. First year I went to Ann Arbor, I had a car, but I left it at home, left it at home for the family. But then after that, I carried my car. When I started going in summer to complete my dissertation and doctorate and so forth, I take my sister with me. She has a Library Science degree from NCCU, from here. So she'd go with me and she was my cook. She was an excellent cook. We lived in a dormitory that had a kitchen. She is an excellent cook and people would come down the house and say, "Who's that cooking all that good stuff down there?" So she would go with me. We were the only two left at home at that time anyway. And we would drive. We would drive up.	45:23
Blair Murphy	Long drive.	46:33
Ila Jacuth Blue	Yeah. But we would break it, we would break the drive. The first year, I didn't have a car. That's right. Didn't have a car the first year. But when we went in summer school, with my sister's car, I guess. [indistinct 00:46:53] we'd drive. But she had a very good friend in the Library Science. Now she had a Library Science degree from Central, but since she was up there, she decided she wanted to get another one at Michigan. She was just playing along, and she did. But she had a good friend in the Library Science, a little white girl from West Virginia. That's where we broke our trip after that. We would spend in her apartment. We'd go up and spend the—	46:37

Ila Jacuth Blue	—say that the people who commute could park on campus, and the handicapped could park on campus. Anybody else, so—	0:02
Blair Murphy	Did they welcome Black students?	0:13
Ila Jacuth Blue	Huh?	0:13
Blair Murphy	They welcomed Black students at Michigan?	0:13
Ila Jacuth Blue	Oh. No, Michigan has never been segregated.	0:18
Blair Murphy	Really?	0:21
Ila Jacuth Blue	Michigan has never been segregated.	0:21
Blair Murphy	Did y'all first-	0:24
Ila Jacuth Blue	It's one of the states that's never been segregated.	0:25
Blair Murphy	So Black students have been going there for a long time?	0:28
Ila Jacuth Blue	All the time. The first time we went up, I had my little automobile. The first time I went, I didn't have my automobile, but my sister and I met someone with an automobile. And when you're registered, you have to, if you have a car, put some of that, put all our stuff down there.	0:30
Ila Jacuth Blue	And so, oh goodness, I parked my car where I was living, in the university house, but that was city property, something like that. Along the street, you have to move it on Tuesday and Thursday. They're going to clean the street, and when they clean the street, you have to be moving your car about. And so I got a little note in my mail from them, about oh, so-and-so has my—	0:48
Ila Jacuth Blue	So I wonder, what's supposed to say because you didn't—Well, I hadn't moved the car. I guess I said—I said, "But I already had registered my car." When I registered, you had to register your car, and so forth. They said, "Oh yeah, but that's just to drive in the city. You can't drive on the campus." They said only the people who commute and the handicaps, because they just had too many. They didn't have the space to let anybody else in there. People who commute in the handicap can park on campus, close the building. But no, you can't do that.	1:24
Ila Jacuth Blue	I said, well thank you, sir. I paid my little money. I said, "It's the last time I do this." Then you live on the street, and then many cities do that, of course course. On Monday and Wednesday, or Friday, then they sweep this side. So you have to be sure you're going to have your car on the other side. And that's where we have to do.	2:07
Ila Jacuth Blue	But we lived in the best barber house. That's right on where—It's kind of off the campus. But we were on the city street. And so we had to keep that well. And it had a kitchen there, and my sister cook up some good stuff. She was an excellent cook.	2:30
Blair Murphy	When did you finish at Michigan?	2:49
Ila Jacuth Blue	Michigan? Oh, I've forgotten all these dates.	2:51
Blair Murphy	You've been doing a good job. How long do you think?	2:57
Ila Jacuth Blue	Must have been—Well it took a long time because I was going in summer school. I went, my first year I went a whole year. I wanted to get the lay of the land and get myself settled. Now I went my first year. That was the only, my first year. I went in September and came back Christmas, and came back in the summer.	3:02
Ila Jacuth Blue	But after that, I did it in summer school. And once I passed the test, the math test, then my committee told me I could write my dissertation in Durham. I could send him copies, but I never sent him copies. I'd go up in the summer and talk with him. And I wasn't taking any classes. So he said it didn't have to be in Ann Arbor to do that. So that's what I did. And then you have to go up.	3:23
Ila Jacuth Blue	But I said I thoroughly enjoyed it, except the last thing that my advisor sent me a notice. Oh you have, the dissertation was fine and everything. And we have set up your oral examination in January, and so, and so, and so. Now it's so cold in Michigan in January. I said, "Now what made him do a thing like that?"	4:02
Ila Jacuth Blue	But I knew I had to go. And so I went. I went on the train. I don't like to fly. But I went on the train. Okay? And school was out. It was January, that's right. Schools, they were out for Christmas vacation. And I went, and I stayed with the families, the family where I stayed when I was going to school there. All right? So it was a bad night, but I went down. I said, "I should go on back to Durham." [Indistinct 00:05:19] I didn't like that thing.	4:34
Ila Jacuth Blue	But anyway, I went down. We had the examination. And then other students who were working on dissertation and things, they all wanted to come up, and see what gives, how they act. So there were servers there. And so we got through it all right. So I went on back to my place, and see I was working. I told Dr. Farison, the chairman of my department, I said, "I'll be back." I told them how long I'd been gone. I was due the leave the next morning.	5:21
Ila Jacuth Blue	I went down to the airport, I was ready. I sat, and I sat, and I sat. And I go up to the desk. I said, "That flight didn't?" "No, it's not ready yet." And that was a time when there were kidnapping airplanes and doing all that kind of stuff, you know, and shooting and carrying on. I said to myself, I said, "I don't know whether I want get on that thing or not when it comes." I went back again and asked the lady. She said, "No, no, no, no." So I went back again. I said, "Has anything happened to the airplane?" She said, "Oh no," says, "The engine just froze." You know, Ann Arbor, ooh, Ann Arbor can be so cold. And I'm from the dear old sunny South Lane.	6:00
Ila Jacuth Blue	But I'd been sitting there to myself. I say, somebody had called in and set a bomb on that thing. I said, "I don't know if I'm going to get on it or not." But when she told me it was frozen, I decided I would get on it. But that's when they were calling in, saying there'd be a bomb on the plane. And that was before your day, of course. But some people thought that was funny to call in and do things like that. And then I said, "If they call in, that's a bomb on there, I'm not going to be on it."	6:52
Ila Jacuth Blue	But we left that, we left Ann Arbor. It was supposed to be about, what, a three hour flight. But we were going to stop in West Virginia, and then somewhere in North Carolina. Ooh, have mercy. We were here in no time. They made up just about all that time they had lost. They brought that plane in. But I don't like to fly, you see. I'm a known flyer. But when I get on that ground, I say, "Thank you, Lord."	7:18
Ila Jacuth Blue	I've been on it since then, but I just don't like to fly. I just don't like to fly. And now, the way these little old things around here have been dropping. Have you been reading about that? I think I'm going in my old piece of automobile.	7:54
Ila Jacuth Blue	But Michigan is cold, cold, cold. It is cold. But it's such a lovely place. And the people is lovely place. I enjoyed my professors, I enjoy the students. And it was just a nice place. I enjoyed it. But it is cold. I can tell you that. If you can stand the winter, you can make it. The students had a joke. What was it? Say, oh, Michigan is a place of winter in August, I think that's what it says. Winter in August.	8:13
Blair Murphy	Winter in August.	9:01
Ila Jacuth Blue	Say anything else. Free. All those in all them books. Winter in August.	9:03
Ila Jacuth Blue	Michigan was the great—Did you read about Michigan's coach getting himself knocked off of the—You don't read about sports, do you?	9:03
Blair Murphy	Sometimes.	9:16
Ila Jacuth Blue	Well Michigan coach, Mueller, the football coach that went out and bam, hit his wife, grandmother, and drank and cursed out the police and everything, and lost his job. And he wasn't the coach when I was there, of course. That was a long time since I was there. (laughs)	9:17
Ila Jacuth Blue	But I said, "This is ridiculous." Getting—And they said how much he was getting. And of course, to me it sounded like 10 million dollars. But tell them—	9:34

Item Info

Title:

Ila Blue interview recording, 1995 June 02

Date:

June 2, 1995

Creator:

Blue, Ila Jacuth

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Description:

Name: Ila Jacuth Blue; Date of birth: 1914-01-01; Place of birth: Raeford, NC; Occupation(s): agriculture; high school teacher; professor; Residence: Durham, NC
Informant ID: 1240; Interviewed by: Blair Murphy and Kisha Turner.

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English

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Behind the Veil

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

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

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

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Interview number: 303
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Ila Blue interview recording, 1995 June 02

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1. lla Blue administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Ila Blue interview recording, 1995 June 02

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