York Garrett interview recording, 1993 June 03
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| Kara Miles | Where did you grow up? | 0:02 |
| York David Garrett | I was born in Edgecombe County, in a Black town that has the oldest charter of a city in North Carolina. A Black city in North Carolina, called Princeville, North Carolina. It's right on the Tar River, right across the street from Tarboro, North Carolina. And we had White and Colored live in Tarboro. In Princeville, we're all Black. It was an all Black town and they had this post office and stores, post office and other things you would normally have, a mayor and like that. But all of us were Black, and that continued to be that way, and it's still that way. | 0:04 |
| Kara Miles | Really? | 0:48 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. It is the oldest Black town, and the first Black town in North Carolina to have a—be chartered as a city. | 0:55 |
| Kara Miles | Do you know when it was chartered? | 1:03 |
| York David Garrett | I should know, but I don't. It was before I was born. I was born in that town in 1894 and my father had been living in that town for at least 12 to 14 years before I was born. I was the eighth child. I was child number 10. My father, who was a grocery merchant, where they call Plain and Fancy Groceries, owned the store in Tarboro, but he lived in Princeville. | 1:06 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. You called it what? Plain and Fancy? What did you— | 1:45 |
| York David Garrett | Plain and Fancy Grocery Store, that's what it was. All the stores were called that. Any grocery store that was being operated by anybody that was selling food, anything they could just—It wasn't dry goods, no dry goods. Plain and Fancy Grocery Store. They sold meat, cheese, butter, eggs, baking powder, coffee, tea. Everything that you would find in a supermarket now, those stores did that. That was it. That's what they sold. | 1:51 |
| Kara Miles | You said his store was in Tarboro? | 2:29 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. | 2:30 |
| Kara Miles | Why was his store there instead of in Princeville? | 2:30 |
| York David Garrett | Well, I can explain that to you, too. When my father was born—Four years before he was born, the Civil War was going on. Not the Civil War. Yeah. He was born a slave, but he didn't know anything about this because he was only four years. When the war was over, he was four years old. His mother and father belonged to some Whites that had slaves. His father's mother was looked upon by the people that owned them in very good form, and she was their housekeeper and cook for the people who owned the slaves. So she lived in the house with them. And the house is still standing, too, in Edgecombe County. In the house with the people that she was a slave of, she and her husband. And they had two children, my father and his sister. | 2:34 |
| York David Garrett | And after that, but before slavery time was over, his father who had the same name as I have—Father had the same name that I have, was a harness maker. All kinds of saddles. Always used to make saddles and things like that, and all in here. And it was very—I don't know how he learned it or where he was. He was a slave, but he learned at some time. Maybe before he left Africa or before he left wherever he came from, coming into America. But he came as a slave and he was indentured. | 3:54 |
| York David Garrett | So what happened, being a well-known—Not well-known, but a very well-trained harness maker—You understand what I'm saying? His master would loan him out to other farm people that had slaves, to do work for them, and he wasn't getting paid for it. Those people paid his master. I'm getting this from my father. He's told me this when I was a child. | 4:30 |
| York David Garrett | Once, my grandfather, he's my father's father, was sent somewhere to do this special job with some other slaveowners. And this job probably took two or three weeks, because the man knew how long it was going to take. And he wasn't worried about him, because he wasn't went either, been sent there by them. I guess he was. There wasn't no trains or nothing back in the old days. You could just walk or ride on one of the horses with a wagon or something, like that way. | 4:57 |
| York David Garrett | But before he got back to Edgecombe County where his wife was, working in the house with these White people that they owned them and was the cook, his master wanted to know why he was so long getting back from the place he sent him. He said, "I got to feed my father." Now, I don't know nothing about it, this is my father telling me this. I was still a boy. He said, "I don't know. I got back here as soon as I could. I was a good ways off." The man said, "Well, you should've been here at least a week ago." This is history that they told me. I don't know. I am not making it up. You understand what I'm saying? | 5:23 |
| York David Garrett | And he said, "And for that, because you're a week late getting back here, I'm gonna give you a good whipping." And my father says, my father told him—And of course, he got this real good from his mother, because his mother was going crazy. My father's mother was going crazy and he was just a little boy, so he got all this stuff from his mother and father. And he said he told the man, "I did what you told me to do and I did a good job and I'm satisfied with that. I got back as soon as I can. And I think you should be pleased with me. But I'm not going to take any whipping." | 6:07 |
| York David Garrett | The master said, "Yes, you are. I'm going to give you a good whipping tomorrow." And he said, "No, I ain't going for that." And they told me this now, I don't know that because that's before I was born. You understand what I'm saying? And so the next day, when they went to look for him, his father had gone. And he never saw him anymore. He left. The boss man didn't ever see him anymore, nobody else ever saw him anymore. He left and went back—And what they said then, said he went west. West could have been South Carolina or Tennessee, or anywhere. Could have been Ohio. I don't know. He just said he went west. He might have been in the same state, because where we live is the eastern part of North Carolina, Edgecombe County. | 6:50 |
| York David Garrett | But he said he left his master and never was seen anymore by any of his people. But his mother, my father's mother, continued to be with these people and yet because they were very fond of her, and she was their housekeeper and their cook and everything. And then they grew up. After her husband left and never came back, she married again. And the person she married that time was named Bowens, B-O-W-E-N-S. That was her second husband. And she only had two children by her first husband, York Garrett. My name's York Garrett. But she married again. Slavery time, but I mean, she married again, and she had that husband. I think she had four or five children, but they were not Garretts. They were Bowens because that husband was Bowens. | 7:35 |
| York David Garrett | And they left Edgecombe County and went—Cretia met this man. See, slavery is over now. You see what I mean? No slavery time then when she met this man. He had left Edgecombe County, went to Washington County, the county seat of Plymouth, North Carolina. Plymouth is in Washington. There's a town in east Carolina called Washington, but it's not in Washington County. That's in another county. But Plymouth, it's in Washington County, and that's where my grandmother went after she married the second time. And she had five or six children, and she raised them. But she didn't lose her connection with the two children she had in Edgecombe County. See, slavery time is gone now. They weren't in slavery then, they were free. The children though— | 8:32 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, White families—It's one of the big five families in Edgecombe County. That was my father's connection. My grandfather's connected with them. Well, they're very good people. White, but they had slaves, but they were good people. And one of the men that had owned him, didn't own him anymore because slavery was over, thought a lot of him and trained him as best he could. There wasn't no schools to carry way back then. You figure it out. In '64 or '65, 18. Understand? But he taught him and sent him to the little school that was provided, and he got about as high as fifth grade, which is a good way to go for Black slaves in those days. And he was very good at that. Well, I mean, he wasn't good, but he went as—That's as far as he went. | 9:40 |
| York David Garrett | This particular man liked him so well, he gave him a job working in his grocery store. Plain and Fancy Grocery Store, in Tarboro. And when the Spanish-American War came about, this White man went to the Army. Went in the war. And while he was there, he made a Major in the Spanish-American War. This the same war that Roosevelt was in, in the Army. And then he—You understand what I'm saying. And when he came back, having ascertained his degree—Not his degree, just an officer. He was an officer. He was a Major. He was an outstanding White person in the Union. A lot of them went and came back as privates, and some were sergeants and stuff like that. But he made the Major. He was a Major in the 1898 and the Spanish-American War. | 10:37 |
| York David Garrett | And came back, he told his old school, he said, "Well—" This is this White man, this White family. He decided that he could do better than just run a White and Black grocery store, so he sold his store to another White man in Tarboro that had enough money to buy the store from him. And that man moved from Tarboro to Durham. This is a funny thing. Before he did that, my father had grown up and gotten married, working under this man. And he had two children while he was working for this man, a girl and a boy. And my father was the boy for this man who was a Major, that came to Durham. | 11:38 |
| York David Garrett | But when my father got married and had his first child, he—Not his first child, his second child. He thought so much of this White man, that did all these things for him, he named his first child after this White man, William Jefferson. My father named that son William Jefferson Garrett. That man's name is William Jefferson Bernett. No, William Jefferson Gantt, the White man. So he, my father, named his first son after this White man that thought—He thought so much of the White man, and the man thought a lot of him, because he gave him a start. | 12:35 |
| York David Garrett | Then this man came to Durham. His family's here now. I've never seen them, but it's a big Gantt family in Durham now, and it's the same family that brought my father from nothing, up to where he would go, and put him in business. But he didn't put him in business, he was working for this store and sold the store to another White group, and that man learned to like my father just like the other man did, and thought a whole lot—And made him the first clerk in his store, in charge of everything. It's White and Black, but this—I mean, the store was a—well anyway, I mean, the White man own them and the White—but it was a store that you would—anybody could buy things from if you needed that kind of thing. | 13:13 |
| York David Garrett | Now, I don't want to take too much of your time, but I've got to tell you right quickly. So what happened, a few years after the man who my father was so fond of, that he named his first son after, liked what my father was doing well enough, and came bothered him to the extent that he said he thought Edgecombe County was a farming, cotton, corn, peanut place. That's what Edgecombe County still is. One of the biggest counties down there though, strong as hell. Edgecombe. Edgecombe. | 14:01 |
| York David Garrett | He, one morning—Now my father's married and he has two children. Maybe more than two, because I can get—I got to go back the years again now. One morning my father came to work and the man told him, he said, "York." Says, "I want to sell you my store." My father didn't ever own a store before, but he working. The other man, Gantt, that was his name. He said, "I can't. I don't have the money to buy your store with." And he said, "Well, that's what you don't know. I'm going to arrange so you can buy it. I'm going west." He said he went west. The other brother. He was just one of two or three brothers. The other brothers are still in Tarboro. They were Burnett's. | 14:43 |
| York David Garrett | He left, turned the store over to my father, and my father continued to operate it and sent him the money for it just like he supposed to have done, until he paid it off. Then the store was his, true and simple. And that store was located in Tarboro, North Carolina on Main Street, right downtown, in the heart of the town. And that's where my father was in business when I was born. He'd been in—he'd had—I told you, I was the eighth child. And he had had several children before me. But that's where he was in business when I was born. | 15:24 |
| York David Garrett | So I've never known my father to work for anybody, because he was in business for himself before I was born. And continued to be in business for himself until he died. He was well thought of in Edgecombe County and in the area, because that's where he had been all his life. And as he said, he had no father because his father ran away when the man said he was going to whip him, but his mother was still living. And later on, he had his mother to come back from Plymouth, where she went. Come back to Tarboro, and he built her a house for her to stay in. And bought his first house in Princeville. Then he moved from Prince—In that house in Princeville, when he had three children, I think, to another house in Princeville on Main Street. And that's the house I was born in. That house is still standing. | 16:05 |
| Kara Miles | It still stands? | 16:49 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. | 16:49 |
| Kara Miles | [indistinct 00:16:58]? | 16:49 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. Mm-hmm. Then when—In 1901, see all this time, my father is in business in Tarboro. All this time. He never had the business in Princeville, he just lived in Princeville. In 1901, he moved from Princeville to Tarboro and built it. Bought him a home, a house. Not a normal—Bought him a lot, and built him a home in Tarboro, on East St. James Street. It was an eight room house. It was very pretentious back in those days, for a Negro to have an eight room house, and it belonged to him. So when they moved from Princeville and came to Tarboro, I was five years old. | 17:05 |
| Kara Miles | When they moved from Princeville. | 17:44 |
| York David Garrett | Princeville. | 17:44 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. So the— | 17:44 |
| York David Garrett | Tarboro. | 17:44 |
| Kara Miles | —eight room house was in Tarboro? | 17:44 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, that he built. Well, all the—Yeah, he built all those houses. Well he didn't build them himself, he had them done, but his house in Tarboro was a brand new house that he had built, and he paid for it. And moved from Princeville. He still had his house in Princeville. He didn't sell his house in Princeville. He left it and he rented it out. Then he came to Tarboro, and that's when he established his residence for Tarboro, North Carolina instead of Princeville, North Carolina. And continued to be a citizen of Tarboro, North Carolina. Not Princeville anymore. | 17:49 |
| York David Garrett | But still, then, Tarboro had no Black schools. All the schools in Tarboro were White schools. Edgecombe County, they had no Black schools in Edgecombe County because Princeville was right across the river and it was all Black schools. The people who owned Tarboro, that were in charge of Tarboro and the White schools, they took all that money and sent it to the Colored town and you had the schools. So the school was called Princeville Graded School, that I graduated from. You see what I'm saying now? And it wasn't any Tarboro Grade School, Black. It was Whites. Grade, high school and everything. Very good schools, but there weren't any Black grade schools in Tarboro, until after I finished grammar school. Now that's all I wanted to tell you about that. That's all that's important, except— | 18:20 |
| York David Garrett | Me and my father had living—He lost some children. When people, from then—you have 22 years, some of them died back in childbirth, but you know what I mean. I said it was 10 children, I didn't say 10 that lived. You follow what I'm saying now? Six children lived to be grown. Eight of the six were teenagers when they died. But then we stopped living at— | 19:15 |
| York David Garrett | We were still going to school in Princeville, grade school, but we were living in Tarboro and we were counted—That was the county seat, and my father had been well-known, well thought of, all that time. He continued to be a citizen of Tarboro, and got into politics and things like that. | 19:57 |
| York David Garrett | He never was mayor. They had two or three mayors of Princeville, Black, but he never—he was doing—All the time, he was living in Tarboro, working in Tarboro, so he wasn't even too close to the Princeville side because he was getting his money and everything from the Tarboro side, where there were Blacks and Whites. Princeville was all Black. Tarboro was Black and White, and it was 50/50. One half of the people in Tarboro were Black and the other half were White. | 20:21 |
| Kara Miles | So both Blacks and Whites went to his store? | 20:50 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they continued to do that until he died. Now, that's enough about that. But I was going to let you know now, just so—what happened. When I was in about the sixth grade of Princeville graded school, they had a prominent well-known principal at the school, that finished over in Ohio, came south, like a lot of Whites and Blacks went south to help the people in the south after slavery. This man was named John Jones. A friend of mine then, Mary Anne, and when I got—He was the principal of the graded school, and he taught the two top classes. It was eighth grade school. The seventh and eighth grade, he taught. | 20:53 |
| York David Garrett | The principal taught. All the other schools—Well, you couldn't understand that. I'm not going—You understand how the—Way back then, how things would have been. And this man, I was very fond of him. And he was a very study strong man, and he did more personal teaching than he did just—Any students he had Black, that he thought had enough to go and was going to make it, he would take them under his wing and help them out. And get them to—They didn't have any regular graded schools. You can come on out, you graduated, during that time, see. But when you got to be in his class, if he kept you two years, he trained you really good, then you would leave. He let you go—fixed for you to go away to schools; Shaw, St. Aug, Elizabeth City, A&T, Winston-Salem and what not. Understand? | 21:50 |
| York David Garrett | And he would go to—And he was good enough that students he sent there made pretty good at school. My oldest sister that went to school in Tarboro, when she got in the same school I'm talking about, when I was—When she got old enough that they couldn't teach her anymore—You know what I mean, you couldn't go any further. My mother and father sent her to Shaw, to Estey Seminary. She graduated from Estey Seminary when she was about—But that was just a high school though. You see what I mean? At Shaw. She graduated from there and came back home and taught school. | 22:41 |
| York David Garrett | My oldest brother that lived, he finished the same school that I finished, and my father and mother sent him to Shaw. He went to Shaw and stayed six years, and got his—finished his prep school at Shaw, which is Shaw Prep School. Then went into college and graduated from—Got his AB Degree in Shaw, in 1908, ready to go into med school. At that time, Shaw had a med school, and he was—He could have gone into med school, his second year of college, which would be the choice. Or you would take another year in college and go into med school after you got your degree. | 23:18 |
| York David Garrett | Half of the people from the old Doctorates of Shaw that go into med school, half of them got their degrees in medicine. The other half didn't, but they got their MDs just the same. And 1/3 of the families built in Edgecombe—In Tarboro, North Carolina, medics and things like that that finish Shaw, are very outstanding, prominent physicians in the state. One of them was Dr. Warren, who is the father of Mrs. Wheeler. | 24:01 |
| Kara Miles | Of Ms. who? | 24:38 |
| York David Garrett | Mrs. Wheeler. | 24:41 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. | 24:41 |
| York David Garrett | The lady who owned the Mechanics and Farmer's Bank. Her daughter, Julia, is Dr. Warren's grandmother. And he went to Shaw, and got his medicine, and came back home to practice. Dr. Struther, Dr. Mills, Dr. Cort—Not Dr. Cortis. All those people been to Shaw and came back to North Carolina and practiced. Just North Carolina, straight out. We had a whole lot of medics that finished Shaw University before the school gave up medicine. | 24:43 |
| York David Garrett | But my brother, he was going to take medicine, had bad luck. The year he graduated, in 1908 and May, had put in his application for Shaw and had been accepted to go to med school at that point. Had about five close friends of his that was in the third year of medicine then, because they didn't go straight to college. But they were close to this here. They were just like this. He was going to join them, but in the year that he finished Shaw and got his degree, he came down with tuberculosis. He graduated in May and died in August, after spending six years in Shaw. | 25:24 |
| York David Garrett | That was my oldest brother, and I just loved him to death, because I'm a little boy. See what I mean? But you got a big brother and you're crazy about him, and especially he's going to this big school at Shaw University and all this football team and all this stuff, and I'm a little little kid. I guess I just because enamored with all that stuff. (laughs) | 26:07 |
| York David Garrett | But I just gave you that background to show you something about how that school was. It was this man from Oberlin had bought them out. But while I was in this school, Princeville Graded School, this man died. Died in school, while the school was going on. I was in his classroom, but I was only in the sixth grade. I wasn't—He hadn't had me long enough for me to graduate. And if he had, I would have gone to Shaw. | 26:25 |
| York David Garrett | Two years after he died—The first year he died, they bought another man from the West End, he was a Methodist minister, but he had a good degree and he had—well-trained. | 27:06 |
| York David Garrett | But a whole lot of them, hundreds of Negroes from the West here came in here and they got good spots because they had good schools to start with. They weren't in slavery. You see what I mean? But North Carolina and South Carolina and stuff like that, the rest of them, they were slaves. I mean, the group. | 27:16 |
| York David Garrett | Anyhow, when he had have—He died, and two years—First year after he died, there was an Episcopal family, a very important Episcopal family. People that were over the Episcopal church there in Tarboro. And they were very popular people. Good family. Solid family. And well-educated, and they were connected with—being Episcopalian, they were connected with St. Aug. And all of those—This man had three children. This preacher had three children, a boy and two girls. They sent the boy, after he—and he was trained—He didn't go to public school in Tarboro because they had a parochial school run by the Episcopal church. Private. That was the only Black school it was in Tarboro, but it wasn't accepted, because we all went to the public school. This was just a public school, called the Perry so and so School. His name was Perry. | 27:35 |
| York David Garrett | This boy, they trained this boy themselves. You know, just had about 20 or 30 members in the Episcopal church, and they would—Anybody that's their member, people that could go to the school, and they would take care of them in the parochial school. You know what—Do you follow me? | 28:52 |
| Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 29:08 |
| York David Garrett | So when this boy finished—They taught him well, good enough to go to St. Aug. And at that time, when you got to St. Aug—St. Aug, when you got there, you were either in the first year high school or below. That's what St. Aug was, the same St. Aug they say now. And he went there because he was of a prominent family of Episcopalians, and they had a close connection with all the people at St. Aug. So he was going to send that son to St. Aug. | 29:09 |
| York David Garrett | He went there, stayed, and graduated from St. Aug. Then he wanted to go north to go to college, but they didn't think he had enough training from St. Aug to get into the school he wanted to go to, so he went to—Name two schools. These great White high schools, academies, up in the East Coast. Name one or two. You might remember them. The White schools. They're there now. They're the people who provided all the people for Harvard, Yale, Brown and all like that. Those schools. Three or four different ones, but they were academies. Understand? | 29:41 |
| York David Garrett | So they were weren't—This young man wouldn't to go to Yale. But they didn't think that he knew, from St. Aug, what they taught him. He had finished St. Aug, but they didn't think he would do well, so they sent out some extra work at one of those academies. I can't think of it. It's '85, but they're still big things, right now. Most of the big White people that go to Yale and Harvard and Brown, and Cornell, go to a prep school before they go there. Now you heard of those prep schools, but I just can't call the name now. | 30:20 |
| York David Garrett | Anyhow, this the way this man went to that school for a year. And when he got through with that school, he was admitted to Yale. And he was admitted to Yale in 1902. His name was William Augustine Perry. He got his Augustine from St. Aug. I mean, that's where he got his name, St. Aug. The family, the Episcopal family. And he stayed there four years, and in 1907, he graduated. | 30:51 |
| York David Garrett | He was a musician too. His mother's father and his mother was musicians. Aunts, all like that, and he learned how to play organ and all that stuff. He was a very talented young man. But then he was admitted to Yale, and when he got there in 1902—he finished in 19—He must have got there in 1903, because he stayed there four years. He finished in 1907. And in 1907, he was valedictorian of class at Yale University, from Tarboro, North Carolina. And then this man who'd done so much for me, from Riverford, was dead. So he came back home and applied for the job as principal of the Tarboro—principal of graded school. To be principal of that school. | 31:23 |
| York David Garrett | The White folks wouldn't have it because they—the town, Tarboro, is controlled by the biggest, richest White people in the United States, probably life. [indistinct 00:32:28] and so and so and so, that's the reason in Edgecombe County, Tarboro, there's a group of White people that own the county. And they're White, but they thought well about the Colored people in the county that they thought well of. | 32:15 |
| York David Garrett | So when he came back to Tarboro and asked for the job, the people in charge of Tarboro's Graded School, because he was still principal of the graded school, gave him the job as principal of the Princeville Graded School. And he said what he wanted do, his desire was to set that school up on a good, strong basis, so they could compete with anybody in the United States, anywhere, as a grammar school. And it just so happened, the first year he came there, I was in the sixth grade. And it was two boys in his class, and all of them were girls. And he—I had known him since I was a kid, like this, and he knew my family. He took a particular interest in me and he tutored me for four years. | 32:46 |
| York David Garrett | I was the first boy from his tutoring to graduate from Yale in 1911. Valedictorian of Class of '11 and wrote the Yale's battle song. He wrote the battle song, 'Eli Here I Come'. He wrote that song. But now, when I graduated—I should have graduated two years before I did, but he—Most of us weren't going to be able to go nowhere anyhow, so he just kept on—taught us all the things that he could teach us. Even though you're going to public school, you'll know this. After he stayed there four years, he felt he'd done his job. He'd taken Tarboro Graded School and put it on a sound, sound, sound basis, from first grade to eighth. And I was the first—others been—Girls graduated, but I was the first boy that graduated under him, and I'd been under him four years. | 33:35 |
| York David Garrett | That's why when I left Tarboro Graded School and wanted to go to Shaw—And my mother wouldn't let me go to Shaw, because my brother had died from tuberculosis, she felt like the school killed him. My sister died from tuberculosis when she went to Estey. She thought the school killed them. It wasn't that. We couldn't do anything with tuberculosis then. | 34:33 |
| Kara Miles | Right. | 34:56 |
| York David Garrett | You following me? We didn't have any drugs for it. So when I—Now I'm the last boy in my family. Had girls over me, but my brother's dead, and all like that. So she says she didn't want me to go to Shaw, because I'd go over there and catch tuberculosis and die. So instead of me going to Shaw where I wanted to go when I finished Tarboro Graded School, they sent me to Elizabeth City instead, which I was supposed to have made the first year of high school class in Elizabeth City. They didn't have but two years in high school, the state normal, but that's just two. I was supposed to have made the first year class, but I had all the extra training from this high school. The name's Will, but they look— | 34:59 |
| York David Garrett | They said, "You're further than a second year. You're as good as a second year. All the work you've done now is a second year of high school." But I went there, so I stayed there six months and graduated. Because I had all this training that this man gave me personally, for four years. Then, I still wanted to go to Shaw, but the people wouldn't let me go, so I went to Howard instead. And had no trouble at all. I stayed at Elizabeth City one year, went to Howard and made the third year academy in Howard University, and that was a school just like those big White academy schools up the way. White principals, and White—Most of the teachers were White at Howard then, and all like that. And I got—and did all right there. [indistinct 00:36:40]. I finished the academy. | 35:47 |
| York David Garrett | I didn't want medicine, because I didn't think I was due. I didn't want medicine. I thought I wanted dentistry. I was in Howard three years before I could get out of the academy college and go into dental school at Howard. You know medical and dental school is medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. By the time I got through with that, I knew I couldn't be a dentist, because at those times, the dentist did all their work themselves. Mechanical work, building teeth, doing other stuff like that, and I was not going there for that type of thing. I can't even drive a nail straight, or saw a bow straight. That never wasn't my type. It wasn't going to go right. | 36:46 |
| York David Garrett | So I knew that, so I said, "Well—" But I've been going to my father all my life, from the time that I was born until [indistinct 00:37:34], and I know all about selling stuff in stores and working on people like that. So after I came back home, I asked Pa, I said, "What you going to do?" I said, "Well, only thing I can see is you train me, Father. If I can get in the pharmaceutical school, I can be a druggist and I could do—All the thing you teach me to selling and all the stuff like that, that would be my field. Only thing about it, it'll be professional." So he said, "If that's what you want to do, do it." So instead of entering dental school or Howard Medical school, which I didn't want to do, into Howard's Pharmaceutical School. And I graduated and came out of school, passed the board. | 37:26 |
| York David Garrett | My father was still in business in this store, in Tarboro on Main Street. And saved some money and all of the trouble of it. And he had enough money to buy things that I needed, and I opened my first store. Brand new store, everything custom built, in Edgecombe County, in Tarboro. That was in 19 something. It was 1920. I finished Howard in '20, in pharmacy, and I took the board that year. It took me a year to build the furniture and everything. The new store, I was going to put up in Tarboro. And I opened my first store May the 2nd, 1921. In Tarboro. And I stayed there until I came here. | 38:13 |
| Kara Miles | What did you sell at your store in Tarboro? | 39:05 |
| York David Garrett | I thought it was the best Black drug store in North Carolina. It was Garrett's Drug Store. There was no Black store in Tarboro, drug store. And the law was that no Blacks could be served in any White place, because it would be illegal. If a man came to the store, had some prescriptions from a White or Black doctor, and the prescription had to be filled and they could go take it, fill it in 40 minutes to fill it, he could get it—All these White stores now, just put you—And he had to go outside and stay on the street somewhere until they got through and come back and get it, because he couldn't stand in the store and get his medicine. The state made the law. No White person—No Colored person could be served anything like that in a White establishment, but they could in a Colored establishment. | 39:06 |
| York David Garrett | But see, it wasn't no Colored drug stores until I came there and opened up the first Colored drug store in Edgecombe, that Tarboro ever had. And it was easy for me to do that because my father. He had been down there all that time. He was in business selling to Colored people and all like that, before I was born. And was still doing it. And well—Like I said, [indistinct 00:40:32], but it's true, he was one of the best known and outstanding Black people in Tarboro. And continued to be until he died. | 40:08 |
| York David Garrett | So I'm not building up in there, I'm just saying what the situation was. So that's what I had drawn, and that's what I had to go from. And also, my brother, who stayed in Shaw for six years. He was a fine child. He said he liked him and he had the good grades, good looking and all like that. By the time he stayed in Shaw, back in those days with all those people he would come in contact with, Mr. Rollin, and all like that, he was one of the best known Black college guys in Shaw University. And he have his name as William Judson Garrett. He was named—This was the one that was named after this White man, that had come to [indistinct 00:41:34]. You know what I mean? | 40:49 |
| York David Garrett | With a name like that, he was an outstanding person. But then he had an outstanding name and it wasn't like—His name wasn't John Smith. He wasn't Willie Brown. He happened to have a name of his grandfather, which was—I mean, his grandfather was York Garrett, his father was York David Garrett. The David came before I came in. Then he had a brother was York David Garrett Junior. That's me. After—really, now when—How long you been here? | 41:32 |
| Kara Miles | About 45 minutes. | 42:18 |
| York David Garrett | Mm-hmm. Okay. How long you been in Durham? | 42:19 |
| Kara Miles | About a year. | 42:23 |
| York David Garrett | Well you weren't here when they—They had an affair for me a little over a year ago. | 42:24 |
| Kara Miles | Yeah, I saw the brochure for it though. | 42:31 |
| York David Garrett | Huh? | 42:33 |
| Kara Miles | I saw the flyer from it. [indistinct 00:42:36]. | 42:34 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. Well, yeah, see, that's why—They did this because of my father and my brother. I wasn't well-known. I wasn't lucky. I had—It was in me, or else I wouldn't have gone the way I did. But with a name like that, for 30 years, before my father died, he was the treasurer of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, statewide. And was a member of all the secret societies like; Masons, Odd Fellows, all like that. And was a grand lodge officer in all those things. | 42:36 |
| York David Garrett | And so, when I came along, and it got through me, and my name being the same as his, all the older people used to say, "What's your name?" And I'd say, "Why do you ask?" "You're York Garrett's boy?" "Yeah." Said, "You all right. You're going to make it, because he's a fine man." I got credit for him. Then as I got bigger and got circulated, 2/3 of the most important doctors in North Carolina would be [indistinct 00:43:42], because my brother, six or seven years before. And they liked me and took over, and took me in as their—is that—Oh, that's right. | 43:11 |
| York David Garrett | [INTERRUPTION 00:43:56] | 43:56 |
| York David Garrett | "—Be kin to York Garrett?" that was my father. So watch them ask me, "I'm York Garrett Junior." They said, "Well, he was a fine man." Said—And they started to give me the grips and everything. | 43:56 |
| York David Garrett | He was a member of five secret societies when he died. | 44:05 |
| Kara Miles | Which ones were they? | 44:13 |
| York David Garrett | He was the Grand Lodge Officer of the Masons. He was the Grand Lodge Officer and Treasurer of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows. He belonged to the Knights of Pythias, but he didn't do any grand lodge there. He was—All the members of the Masons, it was a women's department called—You know what it is. | 44:15 |
| Kara Miles | Eastern Star? | 44:44 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, Eastern Star. And all Eastern Star organizations had to have a man in it, two men. At least two men, to make it legal, to protect the women. So he was a member of Eastern Star. The Household of Ruth is a women's department of the Grand United of Odd Fellows, and they had the same thing coming up. They had to have a man, so he was a member of the Household of Ruth. He was a member of four Black societies, men, and two women's societies, when he died. And that was for the state. He was known from one end of the state to the other, because of his activity with the secret societies. That was his life. You know what I mean? And it was so much so, that I never took any part in any of it. | 44:45 |
| Kara Miles | Really? | 45:35 |
| York David Garrett | I think what might have happened—This sounds funny. Being the eighth child, by the time I was conceived, I guess my father was going to so many meetings every weekend, my mother just got sick of it. She was a member of those things too, the ladies. She's an Eastern Star. She's a Household of Ruth. You know what I'm saying? That's all, because she couldn't be in any men's organizations. And so, it must have turned her. So I ain't never going to join nothing like that, and never did. I never joined. | 45:39 |
| York David Garrett | And the people I come in contact with right now, can't believe that I'm not a Mason, that I'm not a lodge fellow, that I'm not so and so. Because all the ones still living knew my father. Well, he was the grand lodge on all those things. But so, I never joined. I'm—The only thing I've ever joined, secret society joined, was fraternity. | 46:08 |
| Kara Miles | Which one? | 46:27 |
| York David Garrett | Huh? | 46:27 |
| Kara Miles | Which fraternity? | 46:30 |
| York David Garrett | I'm afraid to tell you. I went to Howard in 1913. In 1913, Chi Delta Mu Medical Fraternity was started. That's the year I went there, but I wasn't—You could only join that if you were in med school. Understand? That was—But at that time, there were three fraternities in Howard. Alpha Phi Alpha, the B Chapter. Second chapter. The first one was at Cornell. The second was at Howard. The Omega Psi Phi. The first Omega Psi Phi was at Howard. And then the Phi Beta Sigma. They were all at Howard. And I was exposed to all three of them. And probably would have joined one of them. | 46:31 |
| York David Garrett | Alpha, Omegas, org—that's how I was in college. And I took one year in college and then decided what I needed was pharmacy, so I didn't have to go back to college for pharmacy. You see what I mean? So I just switched, after finishing one year in college, went on to pharmaceutical school. And being in pharmaceutical school—I'd been in the pharmaceutical school one year and I was initiated into Chi Delta Mu medical fraternity. | 0:01 |
| York David Garrett | See, they took medicine, dentistry and pharmacy, with a quota. There were 40 original members in the fraternity. 20 medics in med school at Howard, 15 dentists in med school at Howard, and five pharmacists. But they couldn't have been more than that because the quota was for 40 people in the fraternity. And the first time [indistinct 00:01:13] was eligible to be made, I was inducted into Chi Delta Mu fraternity and not Alpha because I wasn't in college. And not Omega because I wasn't in college. I was in med school—You understand what I mean? And so the fraternity that I joined was made in 1914 was Chi Delta Mu fraternity. | 0:34 |
| York David Garrett | And at that time all the fraternity were closed. You couldn't be member but one. Being a member of Chi Delta Mu, I wasn't eligible for the Alpha or Omega or Phi Beta Sigma because each one was closed to itself. | 1:25 |
| York David Garrett | But after eight or 10—it was two years, so many physicians and dentists in the medical presence came into contact with these strong Chi Delta Mu fraternity people they wanted to be a medical fraternity. So the three organizations came together and made a special pact that if you're a member of Chi Delta Mu, if you're a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, or if you're a member of Omega Psi Phi you could also be a member of one of the other groups. So I had access to be in the other three groups after the rule was changed. You understand what I'm saying? So when I came to Durham I was still Chi Delta Mu medical fraternity but they didn't have an active medical fraternity in Durham. You follow me? | 2:00 |
| York David Garrett | But they had a strong Beta Phi chapter of Omega Psi Phi and I didn't know—one morning I woke up, I went out to my campus, "Last night you were voted to Omega Psi Phi Beta Phi chapter." In that time it wasn't well-known that you could be that and medical too. I hadn't found out about it. | 3:01 |
| York David Garrett | I said, "No. I said, "How do they—You knew all the rule, but I'm a Chi Delta Mu?" He said, "We knew it." I said, "Well, you're sure?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, I don't know, what do I—" | 3:26 |
| York David Garrett | Because I had heard about the [indistinct 00:03:42], but I was busy running the drugstore. I had come to Durham then. I said, "Yeah. Well, I'll find out, so—" And he said, "Well, you'll embarass us." | 3:41 |
| York David Garrett | At that time, the Beta Phi chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, the strongest chapter in the United States was the Beta Phi chapter here in Durham but it was a graduate chapter. | 3:55 |
| York David Garrett | It was the strongest fraternity in the United States at that time and I had been voted into it and they said, "You're going to embarass a whole lot, if you tell you can't—really, voted on you and carried you in—" | 4:05 |
| York David Garrett | So I accepted I was voted into Beta Phi, Omega Psi Phi but I continued to be and still am Chi Delta Mu because that was my original fraternity. Chi, that stands for Chirurgical, Medical and Dental. Chi Delta Mu. | 4:17 |
| York David Garrett | But I didn't mean to get into that. That don't mean nothing. | 4:37 |
| Kara Miles | So you said you were just voted in? | 4:40 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. See, when you were brought into a fraternity you don't know anything about it till it's done. | 4:43 |
| York David Garrett | They wake you up say what they want. If they want you then they tell you, you have been accepted for so and so, and so and so, and so. So when I was accepted into Chi Delta Mu I didn't even know I was even being voted on, but they couldn't take but five pharmacists and they had three in at the time from a former class. | 4:50 |
| York David Garrett | So there wasn't but two places available. And I got one of those the first time I —I didn't apply. They say, you don't apply they go over you in the school, pick out who they want. Then they notify you after you've already been elected. You understand what I mean? Yeah. | 5:10 |
| York David Garrett | But that's all about that, but this other thing that you were asking about I guess I was telling you about—Oh, I'm going to tell you this again. | 5:34 |
| York David Garrett | The man who came from Yale, and spent four years organizing and putting in good shape, the Princeville Graded School, and had it so it was one of the best Black graded schools in North Carolina when he got through putting all that time into it. | 5:45 |
| York David Garrett | He came to Tarboro because he was Tarborian. [indistinct 00:05:58] father and sisters all still living. And then he came back, he did what he did for that and I felt so good about it that he told me—he kind of pitied me but I did my work with him. He was hoping that when the time would come that I would go to Yale. But my people weren't able to send them into Yale so I went to Howard. (laughs) See what I mean? | 5:56 |
| York David Garrett | Then I didn't finish go through college because I found out didn't need to go through college to get to pharmacy and do the thing I that I could do the best. Didn't think about it anymore but I'd never forgotten all the things he told me about Yale and all that kind of. And when my last son was born and was a pretty smart boy I thought and everybody thought so too—when we move to Durham he was two years old. And he went through all the schools in Durham. I don't mean all the schools. I mean, [indistinct 00:07:21] Durham. | 6:46 |
| York David Garrett | And when he got old enough and big enough he finished a year sooner than he should've in high school because he did some work in summer school [indistinct 00:07:31] his class was '49 and he finished in '48. But his classes [indistinct 00:07:38] in '49 at Hillside and he was valedictorian of his class he finished in with the year ahead of himself. (laughs) And I felt real good about it. You don't know him. You never met him? | 7:22 |
| Kara Miles | What's his name? | 7:56 |
| York David Garrett | Nathan Taylor Garrett. | 7:57 |
| Kara Miles | Yes, I've talked to him. | 7:59 |
| York David Garrett | Well, that's my baby son. So when he graduated from Hillside and was ready for college I was in better shape then than I had been before. He was my last child. | 8:01 |
| York David Garrett | I'd come in and done pretty good, owned my own store and still own the store in Tarboro. I haven't sold that yet. See what I mean? And later on came and opened another store here. One time I had three drugstores running the same time. | 8:20 |
| York David Garrett | But then I asked him, how would he feel about it. If he could be accepted at Yale would he go? He said, "I'd rather go to Central" You know what I mean. You saw the [indistinct 00:08:49]. I didn't ask him, did he want to go to Howard because the opinion had been built in me from that—the man that did so much for me years ago that I want to get some—not even a benefit. I wanted to get some connection. Reconnection with Yale. So I asked him that and he said, "Well—" "So you'll have to take the examination." They had a board examination for all the Ivy schools. See what I mean? For Yale, Harvard, Brown and Dartmouth. They had examinations down in Raleigh every year. And when you take that exam, mostly Whites take the exam, if you pass it, then you have eligible to go to either one of those schools, if any of them will take you, have enough room for you. | 8:35 |
| York David Garrett | And he asked me—when my wife took him down to take his examination in Raleigh for the college they asked him, what school did he want. He told his preference, Yale, Harvard or Dartmouth. And when he graduated, passed it, they said, "Yes, you passed. You're going to be accepted and they have a spot for you in Yale." And that's just where I wanted him to go. So he went there and stayed, and when he was 19 years—no, when he was going to 20 he graduated from Yale and that was his mark. And he went—that was my answer. I couldn't go but he went for me. He pretty liked it too. I mean, Nathan. You said you met him? | 9:41 |
| Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 10:29 |
| York David Garrett | Well, my family's lucky too. He did lots of good things. He made up his mind on things he wanted to do, the things that I would've never done and didn't want to do, but he did it and he's doing them. Still he's teaching out of Central now. He and his wife finished law school in '86. Central. But for a long time before that he was in Detroit. He gave up medicine. I wanted him to take up medicine, but he didn't want it particularly and he gave it up and went into business administration from a school out in Detroit. Then he graduated, then he took the board in business administration and accounting, CFA board. And he passed it. At the time he passed that there were no Black CPs in North Carolina and couldn't be. It was all White organization, but they couldn't stop him from practicing in North Carolina because he had passed his national board. | 10:31 |
| York David Garrett | So he stayed in Detroit and came here two, three years to do [indistinct 00:11:46], going back in Detroit because he was—not a [indistinct 00:11:53]. What do you call it? He was a member of the CPA board in the United States and he could do the work and he did. And now he's doing his thing because he [indistinct 00:12:07] last night and he's ready to quit. And I guess he is. I told him I don't blame him. I'd be ready to quit too if I'd done as much as he's done. | 11:42 |
| Kara Miles | So when did you come to Durham? | 12:18 |
| York David Garrett | '32. | 12:27 |
| Kara Miles | And why? What brought you here? | 12:27 |
| York David Garrett | '28 and '29, the Eastern part of North Carolina [indistinct 00:12:35] everything, not for Whites or Blacks, for everybody. And that was the time when you had the Bank Holiday and all that mess, and the whole country was down. And at that time, [indistinct 00:12:48] I'd been in business for seven or eight years there in Tarboro and did all right, I thought, but I wasn't doing any better. And then I had four children. I had made up my mind—I never had a scholarship [indistinct 00:13:05] school and never wanted one. Had made up my mind, I could send my children to school and [indistinct 00:13:10] scholarship. To hell with the scholarship. [indistinct 00:13:12] I could pay [indistinct 00:13:14]. And I did. [indistinct 00:13:17] I did, I was going to. And so when things got so bad I decided I better leave if I want to do what I want to do. I better leave down [indistinct 00:13:26] and come to [indistinct 00:13:29]. [indistinct 00:13:33] in North Carolina where they'd industries. And when the children got big enough I can send them to college like I hoped to do, they could go to school there. Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, or Durham or Wilmington, all of that. | 12:29 |
| York David Garrett | But none of those—I didn't [indistinct 00:13:58] particular about any of those [indistinct 00:14:00]. I didn't care which one I went to but I felt like what I'd [indistinct 00:14:06] if I was in a good town I'd make my living. And I was going to move my store from where it was to a good town and I knew [indistinct 00:14:17] I can do—if I was in a town where some business was I'd get my part of it. If the business was there, but down East it wasn't there then. Things [indistinct 00:14:28] before I lost everything I had. At that time my father was dead. He died '28 and [indistinct 00:14:42] but I could lose everything [indistinct 00:14:44] making enough to take care of yourself and your family. So I decided to go to come town in North Carolina that I could make it. And my wife and I made a trip, Wilmington, Charlotte, Winston-Salem. This [indistinct 00:15:04] I had some good friends there called [indistinct 00:15:06] four good stores. | 13:53 |
| York David Garrett | And then [indistinct 00:15:10] Daniel who was the medical director of North Carolina [indistinct 00:15:14] and a member of the Alpha Phi fraternity and a graduate of Harvard Medical School, which is the best medical school in the United States. He was a Greensboro boy. He came back to Tarboro, North Carolina. And there the daughter of the founder of the [indistinct 00:15:38] this outstanding physician, medical director of the North Carolina [indistinct 00:15:48]. The biggest and strongest Black company in the United States. That's who he was. So he didn't stay Greensboro, he came to Durham and they made him medical director of the North Carolina [indistinct 00:16:01] live in the house that John [indistinct 00:16:04] built. His wife was John [indistinct 00:16:08] daughter. [indistinct 00:16:10] so when I got back [indistinct 00:16:15] and I decided I was going to [indistinct 00:16:18]. When I got to [indistinct 00:16:18] I ran into a young man that [indistinct 00:16:24]. There was packs of medicine [indistinct 00:16:25]. And we had lived in the same house [indistinct 00:16:29] but he was in med school and I was in pharmaceutical. So we knew each other but had lost [indistinct 00:16:36]. I stayed there in [indistinct 00:16:40]. | 15:09 |
| York David Garrett | It just so happened in Howard Academy there was a young lady that I knew. It was a classmate of mine. Fine girl. They had got married. She was in Howard Academy [indistinct 00:16:56]. He was in med school. Later they had got married and I didn't even know it and they were living in Winston-Salem, [indistinct 00:17:04] I went out to find a place to move my store to. And according to them, [indistinct 00:17:08]. You don't see everybody everyday. You got to try to make a living. So I said, "Okay." And so I told them what I had and he said, "Yeah, y'all, you can come around." [indistinct 00:17:21] close and friendly. Said, "I got a building." "Yeah?" "That if you like it, I can develop it, turn it into a drugstore, and if you come here, move your store—" Said, "I have a store. Bought and paid for. One of the best Black—" I mean, it was built special, furnished and everything for the place where I was in Tarboro. My father paid $8,000 for the furniture the day I [indistinct 00:17:51]. And he paid for it, for me. I still had it. It was still in Tarboro. | 16:40 |
| York David Garrett | And I was going to move that store somewhere. He said, "You can come on up here." I said, "[indistinct 00:18:03]. I got a nephew—No. I got an assistant, brother-in-law, that's a physician. He's [indistinct 00:18:11]. If you come here I can guarantee you he'd give you support. I'll give you mine. And you come and make it." [indistinct 00:18:18] doctors [indistinct 00:18:21]. And he talked to me. I said, "That's the best thing [indistinct 00:18:25]." His name was Quick. Dr. Quick. I said, "I'll take you up on that. Because I didn't expect you to do nothing for me. I got my [indistinct 00:18:34]. It's going to take my about six months to get it straightened out." Dr. Donnelley asked me, just [indistinct 00:18:40], he knew what I was planning to do because I wrote to him. He was secretary of the North Carolina [indistinct 00:18:45] Medical Society. Dr. Donnelley [indistinct 00:18:48]. And I wrote to him because he had a record of all the people in North Carolina, Blacks, dentists, pharmacy and [indistinct 00:18:56], and their addresses [indistinct 00:18:57] everything in a different town. | 17:58 |
| York David Garrett | And I got a letter [indistinct 00:19:00] asked him how would they feel about me—He knew him. I'd been to school with them in Howard [indistinct 00:19:08]. "Will I [indistinct 00:19:09] if I move my store there?" Some said yes, some said no, some said, "I think so." [indistinct 00:19:16] stores in those towns already but some of them weren't doing as good as I was. They were doing better than I was doing because the towns were better but they didn't have equipment and everything, and doing what I could do because I had a better store than they did except one place that was here in Durham. And so when I got [indistinct 00:19:39] my wife and I, I told them I was going to Winston-Salem. And Dr. Donnelley said, "All right. Have you signed the papers for that?" I said, "I don't have to sign the papers. I own my store. [indistinct 00:19:48]." I said [indistinct 00:19:50], "I ran into this good friend of mine that I knew him for a long time. He went to Howard. His wife was a classmate of mine and we all are close." | 18:59 |
| York David Garrett | See, he had met my wife and they were good [indistinct 00:19:58]. He said, "Well, I [indistinct 00:20:03] ask you to come by to see me before you went back to Tarboro. I own a drugstore here in [indistinct 00:20:12] Hotel. It's mine and it has done well. I would want to know, could I sell it to you?" I said, "Hell no. I ain't got no money to buy nothing new. I got a store." And I knew about the store. It was good. That was the only store in North Carolina was a better store than mine was in Tarboro because he bought the store and he had all that money he had [indistinct 00:20:46]. He spent $37,000 on that store [indistinct 00:20:49]. A drugstore, equipment and everything. And he didn't pay it off. And the reason he didn't pay it off was he didn't know, he should've known is, there's a lot of jealousy between all professions, and especially physicians. When he came here with his big job [indistinct 00:21:10] physician [indistinct 00:21:13] and opened this big store all the other physicians all decided they wouldn't support his store. There were four other stores at the time. [indistinct 00:21:25] they're going to make him bigger and they wouldn't give him any business for the store, not enough to [indistinct 00:21:41]. | 19:56 |
| York David Garrett | And the store was losing money ever since he opened it up. So he wanted to unload it. But he wanted to unload the store and I said, "I ain't buying nothing." And after that I went on back home and a number of people came to see me from here, all over [indistinct 00:21:51] big people [indistinct 00:21:53] interested in getting me to come to Durham. And if I could work it out and could see if I could—not to sell my store. [indistinct 00:22:08] to move my store to come here. If we could work out a deal with them and could make it then we could guarantee that I'd get on all right. And if I couldn't make it [indistinct 00:22:21]. After three years if I don't like it I can [indistinct 00:22:26] come from. Then they put the [indistinct 00:22:31] I'd be foolish not to try. So I decided I would try it after I talked to my wife. She said, "I'd really rather come here than Winston-Salem." That's what my wife said. It is a personal reason but we won't go into that. | 21:40 |
| York David Garrett | She knew these people [indistinct 00:22:53] she liked them but I'd had a peaceful life for 20-something years and I knew people all over the state because of my father and my brother. And there wasn't no family from [indistinct 00:23:13] that I can go and get in town and say, "Gary is in town. Tell him to come by the house. Come here. Stay with us. Blah, blah, blah." You know what I mean? That's something I had because of my father not because of me. Because [indistinct 00:23:33] anywhere in North Carolina. So I'd had no trouble socially. You understand what I'm trying to say? So that was easy. What had happened? I didn't get married when I first got out of school. I got out of school when 20 and I didn't marry till 21. I was in school in Howard seven years. In all that time I knew a whole lot of chicks. I mean, good people. [indistinct 00:24:12] Howard football team, [indistinct 00:24:15] all over the state. [indistinct 00:24:18]. I knew everybody. [indistinct 00:24:20] but I knew enough. And because of that fact anytime [indistinct 00:24:29] "Gary is in town? Tell him to come over here and stay with me." | 22:51 |
| York David Garrett | [indistinct 00:24:35]. So I got to know young women, they were all decent people, all over the state, for four, five years before I got married. And I was a bachelor [indistinct 00:24:55]. So that was no problem to me but because of that we had a way that we say [indistinct 00:25:10], go to any town you want to, just take yourself. Don't take nobody with you because this thing that you're looking for it's already there. It'll be there when you get there. So every time you would [indistinct 00:25:27] the best women [indistinct 00:25:28]. You knew them all and they knew you. [indistinct 00:25:32]. So easy. So you got nothing to worry about. And I didn't know who I was going to marry. Didn't give a darn. I was going to get married when I got my feet on the ground good. And when I went back home and was an eligible bachelor, and all the schools back then had women teachers than they did men. And most of the women teachers were single. And most of the women teachers didn't mind having some man that could [indistinct 00:26:03] feel good about it. And of course that's the way it was. | 24:34 |
| York David Garrett | So any town you went to you knew [indistinct 00:26:13]. So [indistinct 00:26:14] you didn't bring nobody with you. They were already here. You didn't even have to [indistinct 00:26:18], go in to [indistinct 00:26:22] they're there. You go down north, they're already there. [indistinct 00:26:29]. Don't misunderstand me. You're asking me some questions, I'm giving you some answers and [indistinct 00:26:39]. And that was because of my father name. [indistinct 00:26:43], because my brothers [indistinct 00:26:46]. And into some other things. And then because of the school that I picked. Howard was a fine school then and it ain't too bad now. I did really well in Howard. I did well enough in Howard, in my second year at Howard, I was always a [indistinct 00:27:11] student, all the time in school if I liked the subject. And the dean of the school of Howard Academy was a Black man. He was a fine man, [indistinct 00:27:30]. He had seen my mark in one subject [indistinct 00:27:34] and I'd passed everything except that one subject. And he didn't send for me. He sent for the instructor. Said, "Look here. [indistinct 00:27:50] As and Bs [indistinct 00:27:50] you gave him a 52." | 26:08 |
| York David Garrett | He said, "That's what he made." [indistinct 00:27:56]. He said, "That's what he made." He said I can't get this. "It's going to mess up his book. [indistinct 00:28:07] and everything [indistinct 00:28:09]." He said, "Well, that's what he made." Then he sent for me. He said, "Can you explain to me why you got—" He was teaching math and all this kind of stuff, [indistinct 00:28:20], everything. I just didn't like that. He said, "Can you tell me why you got a mark like that?" I said, "If he said it's what I made, it's what I must have made because I just [indistinct 00:28:30] and didn't pay no mind to it." [indistinct 00:28:33]. The dean talking to the instructor said, "Well, see, can you give him another exam? Because I don't want to see his marks [indistinct 00:28:44] like this. I'm getting him to go higher and higher." [indistinct 00:28:46]. He said, "No. I'll tell you what I'll do. Bring him in here right now. Let me talk to him." Said, "Garrett, if you promise me—" He was [indistinct 00:29:02] teacher. "If you promise me you'll never [indistinct 00:29:05]." I said, "I don't like it, no, because that's not my field. I'm going to [indistinct 00:29:13]." | 27:49 |
| York David Garrett | He said, "Well, all right then. I'm going to change my grade now from a 52 to 75." [indistinct 00:29:21] show me up [indistinct 00:29:26] teach you a damn thing. I said, "All right." So that's the only mark I ever had in Howard that I didn't pass, and I passed [indistinct 00:29:36], but that's part of my life. Have you ever heard of anything like that? When you're in school, it happens. [indistinct 00:29:52]. Okay. Well, I hope I told you something you like to hear. | 29:12 |
| Kara Miles | Oh yeah. So you took the Biltmore? | 29:58 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, on condition, and that was in 1932, and this is 19—what? '93? I had it until they closed it up. | 30:05 |
| Kara Miles | When was that? | 30:21 |
| York David Garrett | Urban renewal. Tore everything down in Hayti. | 30:22 |
| York David Garrett | It was still there in the hotel when they closed everything down, then I was old enough to go out, and then my wife was still living. She died at 70 years old. | 30:22 |
| York David Garrett | And so my son, one of my chidlren, took pharmacy and he had been in California for 10 years. He came back here and he had his ups and down but he was just like he was. And he was my son, my first son, so he asked me to open up a store down here for him. And he would be willing, if I opened it up for him, which I could do and he couldn't. He ran into a bad way with the examining body of the North Carolina State Pharmaceutical Society. Somebody on the board didn't like him. And you had to have 75 to pass and he took the examination three times, and they give him 72 and 73 twice, so he couldn't get a North Carolina license. Because North Carolina was the only state we knew that had reciprocity with forty-eight states but for any state, anytime you took the North Carolina board and didn't pass you couldn't get reciprocity, which was illegal—not illegal but that's what the law was. | 30:30 |
| York David Garrett | And so I had my license, had a nephew with his license, and this boy has a license in South Carolina and in Washington DC but he couldn't get one for North Carolina. He went out to California and LA and got a license out there but after he [indistinct 00:31:56]. So he decided to come back home. And he was here. | 31:38 |
| York David Garrett | And that's when they tore down the stores down here. And so he asked me to move the stores, instead of getting rid of, taking the money, to move the store as it was down here where I am now, and let him run it. I mean, he would do the work and I would have the license (laughs). So I told him, "Okay." I didn't want to do it but I did. | 32:05 |
| York David Garrett | But he had bad luck. Three years after he opened that store he died with cancer, and it left me out really bad. But then in the same year we opened the store my wife died. We'd been married 53 years and were very much dependent on each other. And this was our home here. And had all the children and everything. | 32:28 |
| York David Garrett | So what we decided, when he died I sold a part of the store that I didn't want to somebody else and just kept the prescription department rather than just stay here all day long and do nothing, I'd go down there and be doing something, meet somebody or do something. And that's what I'm doing now. I ain't working now more two, three hours a day. End up making this than don't make any. But I'm better off doing that than being home. Now I'm doing fine today because I'm here talking to you, but if I wasn't with you taking, I wouldn't be doing anything here. (laughs) Do you understand what I mean? So I realize what's good for me, so I just take it from here. | 33:02 |
| York David Garrett | And my son is lovely. I have a daughter, she's lovely. I had four children, three boys and one girl. My daughter, wanted to go to Howard because I went to Howard. I let her go to Howard and she never came back. She's still in Washington DC, working for Howard for several years in the public relations. [Indistinct 00:34:06], and after she did that— | 33:37 |
| York David Garrett | She's the first woman I ever knew to come up with this women's lib stuff. They gave her a job at Howard and kept offering another job and raising numbers. She like what she's doing, she didn't care about advancing pay, so she didn't take it. So they finally told her one day, they said—Said, "Ms—" She was named Hayes then. | 34:10 |
| York David Garrett | Said, "You get to the place, we keep offering you things, you don't take them, you're going to run out of places, and you're going to be left behind here." So she said, "Well, no, don't worry about me because I didn't know how long I wanted to stay at Howard anyhow. I went downtown about four or five months ago, and took examinations for the Department of Labor and passed it." And they told her they could put her to work right there but she—When they heard about it at Howard they said, "No, you're staying. We'll give you another job. Raise your salary." So she took it. | 34:38 |
| York David Garrett | Then about a year after that the job that they had for the man that was going out and recruiting high school students all over the South was a man with a family. That time Howard was paying him $8,000 a year and asked him—he was moving up to something else and asked her would she like that job? And she says she wouldn't mind. It was $3,000 more than she was getting paid and so they said, "Well, you got it." | 35:02 |
| York David Garrett | And so she took the job, she thought. And when they gave her the contract her contract said $6,000 a year. And she didn't remember getting that—she said, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Said the job was going to be—" Everybody know, you [indistinct 00:35:47], exactly what I mean. Said the boss said, "We didn't tell you were were going to be paying you $8,000. We was waiting then because he's a man with a family, children. He need that money. But we think you can do really well with $6,000 a year and we taking care of all these things for 'em." She said, "Well, I don't think that." She said, "Well—" | 35:31 |
| York David Garrett | She went downtown to the Department of Labor and told them and said, "You still have a job open for me?" The man said, "Yeah, you can go to next week." She said, "I can't come next week. I've got to give in two weeks of notice. I'll be done in two weeks." So she left Howard University and went on to the Department of Labor and stayed with them for 25 years. | 36:05 |
| York David Garrett | And she's lucky as she could be, and she's smart too. But she's lucky too. And 25 years, and by the time she got ready to be retired from them she worked on up in the Department of Labor that she had a job that no woman or man—Black woman had never had. | 36:22 |
| York David Garrett | They sent her to a European Economic Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. And she represented the United States in Geneva, in Switzerland, in 1960 for three and a half years. No woman had ever had that job and no Black had ever had that job. She did so well with it that when she came back [indistinct 00:37:03] promoted her till she got as high as she could go in the Department of Labor. Not an elected job, not a political job [indistinct 00:37:10]. And when she had a chance to retire she had three or four years she could work, but she said she had top salary and she could get caught in the government. She said so she'd just rather take that—what do you call it? | 36:43 |
| Kara Miles | Early retirement? | 37:25 |
| York David Garrett | Huh? | 37:27 |
| Kara Miles | Is it early retirement? | 37:28 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. Early retirement gets you your pension. | 37:30 |
| Kara Miles | Pension. Mm-hmm. | 37:31 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. And so she took that instead and gave up the job. But in the meantime she had a young man that she'd known and had known each other for 25 years long. [indistinct 00:37:50] she'd been married twice and the second time she got married to some other guy that was secretary to the dean. They call it [indistinct 00:38:00] dean [indistinct 00:38:02] school. He was a fine guy, I thought. So when she married him his close friend was a man who had been married before and had children, and he lost his first wife, and he married again a very nice lady, but [indistinct 00:38:22]. He had two children by his first wife, this man. When [indistinct 00:38:31] came to me [indistinct 00:38:39] Columbia. His name was Pratt. | 37:33 |
| Kara Miles | Pratt? | 38:42 |
| York David Garrett | Pratt. And he [indistinct 00:38:49] in the meantime he took his children that were little children by his first wife who died, had been knowing my daughter all their life [indistinct 00:39:06]. There's three or four couples, all were really close together all the time. [indistinct 00:39:10]. You understand what I mean. And [indistinct 00:39:14] but Gloria had a way with children and children liked Gloria, and this man who had these two children, he and his wife separated and he [indistinct 00:39:31] California, but the children were [indistinct 00:39:33] but they had gotten used to Gloria. So Gloria was [indistinct 00:39:39]. She died before Gloria [indistinct 00:39:44]. She knew his second wife. And Gloria [indistinct 00:39:48]. He was the best man Gloria married the second time. This man was, that had these two children. | 38:45 |
| York David Garrett | When his wife left him—[indistinct 00:40:03] left him. When they separated and he had nobody, Gloria and her second husband broke up. [indistinct 00:40:17] broke up when she was in Geneva, Switzerland. So when she came back from Geneva she had nobody. [indistinct 00:40:24] got together they got married. So 25 years after she married a second time, she married the best man of her second husband. So he was the best man [indistinct 00:40:36]. Here is his picture. This is my daughter and her mother. [indistinct 00:40:45]. That didn't have nothing to do with our conversation but it's some history [indistinct 00:40:56] letting you know about. So I haven't had a [indistinct 00:41:02] Columbia. So I don't feel bad about that. [indistinct 00:41:08]. Okay. | 40:00 |
| Kara Miles | Is this the house you moved into when you came to Durham? | 41:14 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. [indistinct 00:41:19] lived in a hotel for a while till we bought this house. We bought this house in '34 and been here ever since. | 41:17 |
| Kara Miles | Have you seen the community change since you came here? | 41:30 |
| York David Garrett | Not down here. This was the part of—they tore down all the best part of Fayetteville Street down there but didn't tear down anything down here, urban renewal. All these houses were here when I came here and the houses were owned by the people who lived in them. People who built them and lived in them, they were living in these houses. We were lucky enough to get this house because the man who owned it had a grocery store, supermarket down Fayetteville Street. Down where everything's been torn down now. And the chain stores came in. Hurt him real bad, he was selling everybody on credit and all. He got the chain stores—he got in trouble and he decided he couldn't stand that pressure. But he got behind with his debts and some notes and things. I think [indistinct 00:42:32] insurance company had the first [indistinct 00:42:33] on this house. He was being all right until he got in trouble with— you know, that urban renewal stuff, You understand what I'm trying to say? | 41:33 |
| York David Garrett | He needed to get out of the area and go out in the country and build him a house and a store and everything, then he would be ahead of the competition with A&P and so-and-so, and Winn-Dixie, and all that mess. So he wanted to sell the house and we—We had been here just a year, so we bought the house in the end. | 42:36 |
| Kara Miles | And you'd been living in the hotel before that? | 43:01 |
| York David Garrett | Just one year. We never moved our furniture from Tarboro because I wasn't sure I was going to be here. See, I was—the plan was, for so many years, if it work, okay. If it don't, I can tote everything back to them and then go get my store in Winston-Salem but never had to do it because I made it here. And the longer we stayed, the better things got and I never worried. Never had a worry in the world. | 43:04 |
| Kara Miles | So did you sell the store in Tarboro? | 43:35 |
| York David Garrett | No. What we finally did, had a sister, she wasn't a druggist but she was a manager. She was a very good—she knew everything about running a business. She was one of the family. She was older than I was. She had twins, she was a twin. | 43:38 |
| York David Garrett | And she had been working for me in the store for several—was working with me in the store when I came here. See? Then when we decided not to sell this, move the store I left her in Tarboro to operate the store with a druggist, and I'd be back and forth. And then that continued that way until she got too old to operate the store regularly because she's older than I am. And when that happened, we—I think we were doing pretty good, we just closed the store. I'd built a building especially for the store and five apartments in Tarboro. And the building was still being owned. And four years ago, urban renewal in Tarboro did the same thing. Where the store was it was in a White neighborhood and they passed a law that as long as we had it and was operating it, we could continue doing, but when we stopped nobody else could come in with the store, they were going to take the store and tear it down and give me the money for it. You follow me? | 43:51 |
| Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 45:02 |
| York David Garrett | So and that happened about the same time— | 45:03 |
| York David Garrett | No. I still had the furniture and everything down there that I bought when I first got out of school, so we took the furniture out of it—they tore the building down. We took the furniture out and brought it here and combined it with the furniture I had at Biltmore and moved down here where I am now. | 45:06 |
| York David Garrett | But after my son died, that I opened the store for, I didn't need it so I sold most of the furniture to somebody else and just kept enough just to do what I was doing. | 45:29 |
| York David Garrett | But my sister, she's dead now. She continued to operate the store as long as she felt like doing it. She didn't have no pressure on it particularly because if she made the money she did it, if she didn't do it, it didn't do anything different, because I was in good enough shape to take care of her. She never had any children either. | 45:43 |
| York David Garrett | I had three sisters. One of them married and has three children. One is internal medicine in New York. The other one is medicine also, got his board, orthopedic surgeon, in New York. That's my sister's, oldest sister's boy. And she had three boys. The other boy is living in New York. He was principal of the Hempstead High School. He was into education, other two boys went into medicine. But they're still living and they have children. | 46:01 |
| York David Garrett | And the oldest boy, that's an orthopedic surgeon living in New York, had a son that surely going to take medicine, because they had taken medicine, Howard [indistinct 00:47:09] and whatnot, he— | 46:56 |
| York David Garrett | So he went along with it. So he went to Cornell and graduated, and the best veterinary medicine school in the United States is at Cornell. It's Ivy League school. The best physicians in Ivy League schools is Harvard; the best law school Ivy League school is Yale; the best business Ivy League school is Penn. Am I right? And the best veterinary medicine school is Cornell. | 0:01 |
| York David Garrett | And when University North Carolina, North Carolina State, found out that they were going to move the Tuskegee Veterinary Medicine School somewhere, A&T tried to get it and they beat them on it. And when this boy came out the school and asked for a job to do his residency, they grabbed him and said, "Come down here and do your residency. We'll take care of you fine, and if you can't, later on if you want to do any better, you can have a job here." | 0:37 |
| York David Garrett | So, two weeks ago, he's been down there six years. Now he's 28 years old. He finished Cornell veterinary medicine and he had to do his residency here, and find out they liked him so well they gave him a job. Stayed there. They said if he stay there until he's got his PhD, he could have a job for life, if he wanted. So he graduated from North Carolina State University medical school 10 days ago with his doctor of philosophy. And that was my great nephew. His father was the one that was orthopedic surgeon. So, I've been very lucky. | 1:06 |
| York David Garrett | But no, that was my older sister's children. They were twins, but she was the oldest one, and the youngest one was the one be in the drug store. And she never had any children. She got married, but she didn't stay married, so she didn't have children. But she stuck with me because she liked what I was doing. She stuck with me, when I first came here, she came here with me back and forth. I'll be here with the druggist's, and she be with me and I'd be in Tarboro, back and forth. | 1:47 |
| York David Garrett | I held onto the store down there for a long time because I thought I might go back there, instead of staying. I didn't know how it was going to turn out here, and if it didn't turn out here—And things got better by that time, see? Then I had two doctors that, if I'm back in Tarboro, I could persuade them to come on back to Tarboro and I could make it better. I'd a had two doctors to depend on. | 2:19 |
| York David Garrett | But after I wasn't there anymore, one of them ran on back to New York, over to Martinsville. Now he's back in New York, but I don't need them. I don't mean I don't need them, but I mean, you understand what I mean. Because I'm over the hill. I ain't [indistinct 00:03:01]. I'm a just sit here, enjoy talking to you. | 2:44 |
| Kara Miles | So when you came to Durham, did you like it here? | 3:06 |
| York David Garrett | Well, see I know about Durham before I came here, but in a social way. You see what I'm talking about? I told, that Durham was one of the towns in North Carolina that I knew for four or five years then. That's just one of the towns in North Carolina. Tell you the truth, North Carolina State right now, the group is on the top. They're the same thing in every town. In all those towns, they're known in every town they go to. Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston Salem, Highpoint, Wilmington, Durham, Raleigh, Goldsboro, Wilson, Rocky Mount, Roanoke Rapids. All those towns have Black medical—You know what I mean, professional people in them, and they Black, and they all know each other. They all just like this; they stick together, they do things together. See, it's easy as that. | 3:08 |
| York David Garrett | And you don't, unless you just get so big that you can't speak to nobody no more. You don't forget your people. You follow what I mean? And if you get as old as I am now, you don't follow around here too much either, because they ain't got time to be bothered nobody 98 years old. Can you understand that? Yeah, why would they want to be bothered somebody 98 years old? When they could be somebody 72 years old? Okay. | 4:04 |
| Kara Miles | Were there other Black pharmacists here? | 4:45 |
| York David Garrett | There were four Black drug stores here when I came. | 4:46 |
| Kara Miles | But you managed to succeed with all that competition. | 4:49 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I had some help. Because Dr. Donnie was who he was; this big doctor, big state man and tied up with the biggest Black company in the United States as medical director, and he called all the shots. Because of that, they offered me more than just buy the store. | 4:54 |
| York David Garrett | The family's close from the inside; they look after each other. The president of the Mutual was C.C. Spaulding. The second founder of the Mutual was Dr. Moore. Dr. Moore was the man here, his name was Moore. He finished Shaw University and was the first Black doctor to come here to Durham, but he married a woman that was in school in St. Aug, in nursing school. I mean, yeah, nursing school. And he met her while he was at Shaw, she was in nursing school. And they actually graduated here, they got married and they came here. And they came here as the first Black doctor here, and he was one of the vice-presidents and the second president of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. | 5:28 |
| York David Garrett | And he brought all the Spauldings here, because the Spauldings were his people. He was a Moore, but the Spauldings were his people. Cousins, down. And they filled the town up with those people, and they were good people. They were running the town, they owned the town. They had Merricks, with a father John Merrick and his son John Merrick, and he married Dr. Moore's daughter. One of the daughters; Dr. Moore had just two daughters. | 6:18 |
| York David Garrett | Another cousin of Dr. Moore, but he wasn't no kin to Dr. Moore. He was John Merrick's son, but John Merrick had a sister. That man that started the Mutual had a sister, and when C.C. Spaulding was brought here by Dr. Moore to take over and help run the Mutual of North Carolina, Mutual Life Insurance Company, he brought C.C.Spaulding here. And when he brought C.C.Spaulding here, C.C.Spaulding was single. He was a young man, he was single. | 6:55 |
| York David Garrett | Now, follow me closely now. But John Merrick had a sister, so C.C.Spaulding married John Merrick's sister. So all the C.C.Spaulding's children were first cousins to John Merrick's children. And Dr. Moore was over all of them. He wasn't a Spaulding, but that was his family. He brought the family here, but he just happened to be named Moore instead of Spaulding. Down east, you all mixed up; Whites and Blacks, and all that. | 7:32 |
| York David Garrett | So when that happened, he came here. He had close connections from his wife, from a town that I came from. And I had known his family—Not I had, my father had known his family all my life. So in a way, I wasn't no kin to them, but the family on the inside together. So that made McDougald, you've heard that name? He's dead, but you heard of McDougald Terrace. You heard the gym, got his name, McDougald Gym. He was one of Dr. Moore's second cousins. And as fine [indistinct 00:08:55] learned a whole lot about banking and so, had been sent to school for that. And he was the ones who helped start the Mechanics and Farmers Bank. And was the strongest man in the bank until he died. | 8:09 |
| York David Garrett | But—not but, but and—of course, it wasn't but, it was and. | 9:11 |
| York David Garrett | And the family had so much family stuff in them, that they stayed together. I don't mean stayed together, they—You feel me? So, McDougalds, Dr. Moore was Ariel McDougald's second cousin. Dr. Moore just had two children; one that John Merrick married, and the other one married McDougald. They're cousins, but they weren't too close of kin. They weren't exactly kissing cousins, but they were cousins. And they just had two children, little boys. So everything that Dr. Moore had went to McDougald, and part of the stuff that he had, which was the Merrick's because the Merrick's were the biggest thing on the other side anyhow, so they had everything. | 9:11 |
| York David Garrett | And so what happened when their children got married, when Lyda Moore married Ed Merrick, whose father was the founder of the Mutual, and whose husband was the treasurer of the Mutual until he died, married. They got married and they had two children. And the two children they had are Dr. C.D. Watts, daughter, and Sansom, in Raleigh, daughter. They didn't have no boys, just the two girls. They were all those Dr. Moore's grandchildren and C.C.Spaulding's first cousins. And John Merrick, according to the marriage of his daughter, his sister with their cousin. | 10:02 |
| York David Garrett | So, this family, they all tied in this way. And you get tied in with them and you know them well enough, you ain't got to worry about a thing if you do what they want you to do, or do what you want to do if they agree with it. You ain't got nothing to worry about. So what they did for me, they promised me, they call it a bunch of office and things. Not at one time. Before I came down there in 1913, the year I went to Howard, I stopped by Richmond first and met a lot of people in Richmond that I had never known before. But I was visiting with a family, a very strong Black family on Claire Street in Richmond. | 10:53 |
| York David Garrett | And I got to know this lady, she's an old lady, but she challenged. Nothing wrong. [indistinct 00:11:43] doing, so soon as she found out I was going to Howard, I had never been to Howard. She said, "Y'all, if you would go to Lincoln—Not Lincoln, through Union, you could stay with me. You wouldn't have no house rent to pay, nothing like that. Because you a nice boy." I was just only about 17, 18 years old. That's all I was. "And I help you get through school. I said, "I don't need no help. My father's going to get me through school. I'm going to Howard, my application's already in, so I'm going to Howard." | 11:36 |
| York David Garrett | But I got to know that family real well, and while I was with that family, there was a young man just a little older than I was, father had started the Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, Virginia. Big Blacks. They was these big Blacks in Richmond, and the bank closed but he had been trained in business finance. And he had left Richmond years ago, in '13. I hadn't seen him. This is '32 when I came here. I knew about him, but hadn't been seeing him. And when I came here, he was not in Richmond anymore. He was comptroller for North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, living here in Durham, right up the street here. And remembered me, I remembered him. And he found out they were trying to get me to come here, so he came and told me. Said, "Y'all, I'm comptroller of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. If you want to come here—" He knew I didn't want to come, because he had knew me a long time. He knew I had a whole lot of connections. I'm talking about girl connections. He had them too. | 12:10 |
| York David Garrett | He said, "If you wanted to come here, you'll make it because I can see that you'll make it this way." Said, "We have a whole lot of people at the Mutual and the bank, and the Mutual Savings and Loan, that are working. More women than we have men, and they all get good salaries and they all spend money for medicine, this, that and the other. But they all need accounts. They'll need somebody take care of them. If you can come there, you heard about all members council, all those people that I tell you about that I send to you, you won't have to worry about a thing. Because I'll see you get paid. | 13:23 |
| York David Garrett | If you got on and lose job over there, I'll find out about it before they do and they ain't going to be owing you a whole lot of money. Understand what I mean? And if you do that and take care of all those people like they need to be taken care of—" Said, "It's going to be a little hard on this way because they ain't going to pay you good, but they good payers. They going to pay you. They may, you have a 30 day, or 60 days, or 90 day account, they may pay in six months, but they will pay you. Because long as they got their job, they going to have to pay you." That type of thing. You understand what I mean? | 14:03 |
| York David Garrett | And that was WD Hill. You heard that name since you been here, because there's something up here named after him. And I had known him before I left and went to Howard. And that relationship stayed close until he died. So I had him, and I had Mr. Cardi Moore's, Dr. Moore's wife. She and my wife's mother were first cousins. I had McDougald, who had married Dr. Moore's daughter, and he's the head of the bank. Are you following me? | 14:36 |
| York David Garrett | So between all those people, told me, "If you come here and wanted to make it, you could make it if you want to make it. And if at any time you don't want to stay, you can leave any time you want to. There won't be no [indistinct 00:15:49] than you came." And so I never left. | 15:26 |
| Kara Miles | I read in this thing about the "back room" at the Biltmore. What was that? | 15:48 |
| York David Garrett | Well, that was it. When I came here, the Biltmore was a good sized building. Had a front and a back. I don't know where you got that from, but this is true. All the best people—I don't mean best people. All good people, put it that way, that frequented in a social way, would always—Not always the same ones all the time. Would wind up in the back part of the drugstore where we played bridge and stuff like that, and didn't have anything against the front part. So if we had a prescription that had to be filled, and people we waiting on, but they could be there and socialized, and fraternize, and play bridge and all this stuff together. And coming and going just like this. | 15:49 |
| York David Garrett | And not only that, I was a single—A lot of single players. I was the central person that they all got to know and they could depend on me. And anybody that had something to do that he was wanting to do, or supposed to do, or hoped to do, and they want everybody to know what they're doing, he come by and tell me there, "I'll be out for two hours. Anybody calling me, take the message for me." There wasn't no cell phone. | 16:26 |
| York David Garrett | Then he gone, and all of them married, women and men. And he come back, "Yeah, doc. I get any calls while I was gone? Anybody looking for me?" I said, "Yeah, so-and-so called. I told them you'd be here in a few minutes. You was up the street somewhere." I said, "No, ain't nobody called." | 16:48 |
| York David Garrett | "All right then. Well, I'm going on home now." That's how they—But the back room was a socializing place for the whole bunch of people, of certain types. Mostly professional, and business people, and done. And they had access in this drugstore. Not in the department. In the back, behind the prescription counter. I had tables and chairs and things like that back there. There's a lounge and nothing more of that. They wasn't crooked. I don't mean that, but they could do what they had to do and wasn't nobody knowing what they had to do because they weren't doing it there. You know what I mean? | 17:05 |
| York David Garrett | And if you wanted to play bridge, we'd have bridge going in there sometimes, we'd start at 8:00 in the evening—Didn't have nothing to do with stopping the business in the drugstore, because business in the drugstore stayed open til 11:00 every night. We'd have business going, or things going on there, and be a group back in the back rise and fly. Six to eight people waiting and as these people leave, another couple sit down and started playing. And they playing til 2:00, 3:00 in the morning. Any morning you want. It made me [indistinct 00:18:17] because either I'd be home, or there'd be somebody in there that I could leave the key with and they would lock up at 3:00. | 17:48 |
| York David Garrett | So I ain't know you seen that on there, but that's what that was and I operated. After I bought the place, it got to be a social gathering. Not for women, for men in the town. And all the men, it was a social gathering there. Where people who were officers or big jobs with the Mutual, the bank, other certain billing and loan, and teachers too. There were a lot of principals in schools here, youngsters. You know what I mean? Knoxville College and so-and-so, Yale and Harvard, and they taught in the schools. All those were frequenting the place and I was the—This my place after I bought it. And they were welcome, and I took good care of them and I didn't put their business in the streets, and I didn't put my business in the streets if I had any. Of course I never had any. | 18:25 |
| York David Garrett | So it was, everything was fine. | 19:15 |
| Kara Miles | So, the back room was there before you owned it? | 19:20 |
| York David Garrett | That was a part of the building. The building, the hotel was a great big building and the drugstore was just one section of it. Now, there was three stories to the hotel. Top floor, second floor, bottom floor and the basement. On the bottom floor, there was the drugstore and a place where you get food. They had a dining room upstairs, but the place down there like a quick food place where you can go and you can order your food, sit down there. And it had a piano and box—I mean, what you call them organ things? You know, what's the name of the thing? | 19:26 |
| Kara Miles | A jukebox? | 20:10 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, exactly. And that was there in the space. Why? And there was they linked to the whole hotel on that floor. Only thing on the floor where I was, was just the drugstore, and was a link to the store from the front window, back to the back door, and one story up. And that's where the drugstore was, and that was much too much room for just a drugstore. So we used half of the store; wasn't no partition. Half of the store was the drugstore with the fountain, cigarettes, cigars, magazines, things like that. Booths, a fountain, ice cream, all those kind of things. Then right on back, everything the drugstore's supposed to have, we had in the drugstore. Plus the prescription. | 20:14 |
| York David Garrett | Then behind that department, way it used to be, you really didn't see nobody filling up a prescription because they'd go back in the back and do it. It was a space big enough for me to have two spaces back there. One just for the prescription department they'd be working in. I had two or three people hired as druggist's. Then the bigger space in the back for the socialized for the, not women. The men in town that wanted to frequent the place, they were good customers of mine. I knew everybody in the room. | 21:07 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, so that's the way that got famous. And I operated it, and it was decent. There was no mess. The mess wasn't any mess going on, it was on somebody else. But I knew about somebody and their mother would come up, they could reach me and I could reach them. I mean not them, the person they looking for. You follow what I'm trying to say? | 21:33 |
| York David Garrett | And I developed that habit and that disposition with the people so I was pretty well liked and pretty well trusted, because they knew I don't put nobody's business in the street. Didn't then and don't now. I put my own business in the closet, but not in the street. So, that's what they were talking about. And that got to be so well known, for 20 or more years it was well known that if you want socialize, you ain't got nothing, don't want to be just buying something, go on down to the drugstore, go in the back because they got tables back there and chairs, things like that. You can play bridge, you can do this, that, the other, or just talk about what you watching. The best football game, basketball, and on like that. | 21:55 |
| York David Garrett | That's what it was and that's the way it had to be. And I liked it, and my wife liked it because I was spending so much time not at home, being in charge of the store, that you couldn't run the store unless there was somebody in charge you could depend on. That's what happened to the store before, when Dr. Darnell and them owned the store. They had nobody in the store that owned the store, that was the party, and so all the funds get messed up from here to here. And when I'm there now, all the funds go where they're supposed to get, and if I got enough money, I can pay all the bills. | 22:40 |
| York David Garrett | And I can tell you another story. Went on up to the place that I had—I could buy anything that I needed to buy, from two or three sources. You know, and had good credit. At that time, your line of credit borrowed [indistinct 00:23:32] was anywhere from 30-90 days, anything you bought. Most of it was 60 days. Today, you have two months to pay for it then. Ain't no matter what it is, and if you sold $10,000 worth of stuff and in 60 days you get your money from it, you get your profit from it, you all right. | 23:14 |
| York David Garrett | Anyway, I had two or three grown people. I had druggists and people like that. Then I had a connection with the high school, they were called the Diversified Occupational scholars. And they asked a lot of stores, not just me, in Durham that was—Colored—in business to take so many students from high school every year who wanted to train them in the things that you were doing. Whatever you were doing. And then you would take responsibility on that, and you'd train them and you'd mark them for attendance and everything, and that was part of their course in the school. In Hillside or in grammar school or what not. And that helped the students. | 24:00 |
| York David Garrett | And what had happened for me is, now over a period of all those years, people now had grandchildren coming and going, seeing me and all that, because they're, "My mom was down here when she was a little girl." You know, and I say, "What was your mama's name? Which one are you? Yeah, I remember them." Only thing about it now is, very few of them left. I'm about the only one left because all those folks you talking about, they already dead. I went to seven funerals in the last four weeks. People I'd known for years, and I'm older than all of them. A man was buried the day before yesterday, and one was buried today that I knew, and he was a person grew up around here. | 24:40 |
| York David Garrett | Because our store wasn't the only store, but we were the only store that survived. Others, as you got older and the people died, some of them didn't have nobody carry it on and wasn't looking. And those stores, when they got to that, they closed and was disposed of. When I came here, Dr. James, when I came there was a HI Drug Store, Bull City Drug Store, the Biltmore Drug Store, Community Drug Store. Then there's one or two people uptown, over the bank, they run just an actual prescription shop. What I'm doing now. All those were here in business, and they stayed in business until something happened or there's too much competition, too much traffic. And they either died or closed up and left, or something like that. | 25:32 |
| York David Garrett | And the only reason I'm still doing what I'm doing is because I ain't got nothing else to do. There's nothing I'd like any better, so I don't try anything else. I know your heard down there about it, but that's what it was. That was a meeting spot. Another thing I did, I can say this now because they all supposedly dead. And there's always a whole lot of politics in any big business. When the Mutual, all the big meetings for the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and for banking, was held in Durham. They would come from wherever their companies was, where the meeting was going to be, the people would come here to meet. They had their meeting, but there was factions and groups in all these things, too. | 26:21 |
| York David Garrett | And I was not involved. I didn't know anything, didn't need nothing. Nine times out of 10, when a big vote was going to come up, something going to happen, I knew what the answer's going to be before they had the meeting. Because the groups that voted to do it would get together at the drug store, back there in the hotel then, and say, "Well, I want him. I want him. Well, I'll vote for him. I tell you what, you do so-and-so, I'll do so-and-so." I heard everything they said, but they knew I wasn't going to tell it because it didn't mean nothing to me. I was just running the drug store. I wasn't in no Mutual. I wasn't in the bank. You understand what I mean? I wasn't teacher. I wasn't principal of no school. I had children in school, I knew all of the teachers and things. Because a lot of them that lacked things that'd be lacked, they were spending time here in our drug store too. | 27:10 |
| York David Garrett | I had a good, close friend that finished Knoxville College and came to North Carolina to teach when he first got out of Knoxville College. He's a good fellow, a nice fellow, fine fellow. And when he first got out of Knoxville College and came to North Carolina to practice and work, he was teaching school in Washington, North Carolina and he was a good athlete and all that. He played on the Knoxville team and the little high schools coming up then, he would help with them. | 27:53 |
| York David Garrett | I met him seven years before I ever came to Durham. Didn't think I would ever see him any more because Tarboro was in that area. We had a high school in Tarboro, had one in Greensboro, one in Washington, and all that. And we call that "down east." | 28:24 |
| York David Garrett | So when I came to Durham later, that boy had left down there, had come to Durham to be principal of the East End High School, that was Puff Marshall. He died about three years ago and he and I got to be real, real, real close friends. For 30 years, didn't a day pass, if he was in town and I lived out there, we didn't see each other. He'd come down and spend his time at the store with me, talk about it. He liked bridge, too. You know what I mean? That type of thing. We'd have a good time together. | 28:37 |
| York David Garrett | And he, all them little people knowing me, so it's just a good social group. I mean, the town was full of social people, but three or four big clubs. Women's clubs, the one men's club, big club. But there's three or four women's club that still be operating, of the different people in Durham that you don't have too many people in bridge club because if you got too many, you got too many. A dozen or 14 or 16 is enough for any club. You follow what I'm trying to say? And if you more than that, they start another club and call it by another name. The Low High, the Clean Highs, the Grand Slams, the Little—What is that? | 29:09 |
| York David Garrett | Anyhow, my wife was a member of three clubs. She was the Clean High Club, and the Go Me Club. Most of them were bridge clubs, but one was famous for eating a certain kind of food they did, and they got to be real well known for that. And then there's another one called the Saturday Night Club. She wasn't a member of that, but she was invited sometimes. Then there was another club called the Educational Summit. | 30:01 |
| York David Garrett | But that covered all of the groups of what we could—Everybody's good, but what we considered the best women back in Durham were in those different groups like that and they were just as competitive as they should be. You know, members of different churches and all that. Yeah, put all that together and had a ball. Yeah. | 30:30 |
| Kara Miles | So you said it's a lot of professional people. It was mostly professional people that were in the back room and stuff? | 30:57 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, yeah. Either teachers, or bankers, or Mutual people, or stuff like that. Yeah, that's only those. Yeah. | 31:01 |
| Kara Miles | Was it mostly professional people who bought things from the drug store? | 31:11 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, all of them were customers of mine. See, they were my customers because I had been—When Billy Hill, the man I'm a tell you about, talk about this, most of the people were themselves good enough to be who they were and you could give them accounts and they would pay you. You'd bill them and they'd pay you. | 31:16 |
| York David Garrett | On the other hand, some of them, if you tied within those businesses that I'm talking about, if they wanted to run out on you, they couldn't. Because when you find out they was going, they could hold that check until they paid everybody they owed and that was it. That's the way, but I had a lot of Washington people, too. And they fit in, but they were not in this group I'm talking about, this back room group. They were people that worked at Lagenmeyer's, American Tobacco Company, another tobacco company. See, there were four tobacco companies here. They had common—I don't mean common labor, but special labor people. They were getting good salaries at the time. Whatever a big salary was at the time, they were getting those salaries. And there were any number of those people. | 31:35 |
| York David Garrett | In fact, Durham was a hub at that time, and that's why I didn't expect to come here to do nothing because at that time, they had four stores here operating. Only reason was, the Biltmore had gotten in a bad rut. Opened up all the expensive stuff, and then the Black dentists and physicians would not support them because jealousy. They say, "Why would they help him? He up on top now. He [indistinct 00:32:55] anyhow to to help. Go get somebody over there that's trying to struggle to make it." So they sent their prescriptions to other places. | 32:23 |
| York David Garrett | And they continued to do that until they died because all of that just my posters. But I was lucky enough to have a doctor down the street, three doctors over here that got to know me and like me, so they sent their work to me. They know me, and I know them! But I don't remember their names now, but I mean I was exposed to those people in another way. But they were coming and out, buying funny books and comics and things like that, and goods. The Regional Theater right next door to the drug store and you go to the theater, then come back by the drug store, pick up the ice cream and drinks there on their way home. | 33:04 |
| York David Garrett | And it started this way on up, and as children grew up that's like it was. They'd say, "Doc, you don't remember me, but I used to get the best ice cream in the world. Them cones and everything, sometimes used them to make this stuff and put some ice cream in it. Man, that was some kind of good. I remember that." I say, "Oh, no. How old are you?" He say, "I'm 68 now." | 33:40 |
| York David Garrett | I mean, they didn't even—I said, "Okay, then. Was it good?" | 34:02 |
| York David Garrett | "Yes, some kind of good." Said, "I wish they had something like that now." But I mean, I have to go uptown and do everything for myself because ain't nobody do anything for me. So things that I never did, purchasing and all that, my wife did it all for years. Then I had some help that would do it. Now I don't have that help because I don't need any help. So, a lot of things I have to do myself that I never did before, so I'm out in the street every now and then, seeing people. | 34:07 |
| York David Garrett | And everywhere I go, two people out of every street, Black people, I see, "Hi Doc. Hey Doc Garrett." So-and-so on. Sometimes they stop me and say, "Do you remember me?" I say, "Yes and no. What's your name?" I said, "When were you a druggist?" Say, "Nah, I never worked in drug stores here, but I was down there all the time." Things like that, you know? I say, "Well, what did I do wrong?" Say, "Nothing. If you did something wrong, I wouldn't be speaking to you now." (laughs) | 34:34 |
| York David Garrett | Yes, indeed. | 35:01 |
| York David Garrett | Okay, anything else you want to ask me? | 35:02 |
| Kara Miles | A couple more things, yes. So, okay, you said there were working class people who came to the store, but they didn't come to the back room. | 35:07 |
| York David Garrett | No, no. Just like your private home. You know, some people don't visit you, but you know them. | 35:20 |
| Kara Miles | Did they even know that the back room existed? | 35:21 |
| York David Garrett | Of course they did because they saw people coming and going all the time, but the back room was not public. That was private. But the ones who were using it, knew it was public for them because it had a special door. Here's the counter, here's a counter, all the stuff in the middle here. Through that door, go in to the [indistinct 00:35:46] go in through the back. See what I mean? Swinging doors, yeah. | 35:23 |
| York David Garrett | And a lot of people I knew, been knowing for 30 years or more, never been in the back part of the drug store. They had nothing to go back there for. They wasn't playing no bridge, no cards, nothing like that. I never allowed gambling. Never allowed gambling in the store. Anybody that played, you just played for fun, but no money involved because that's when you get into trouble. When people started gambling, they get mad and started fighting. Pull out knives and started shooting and cutting each other. And I knew where that was going. There was plenty of clubs that did that, looked after that. You know what I mean? | 35:52 |
| Kara Miles | All right, one last question. Why weren't women allowed back in the back room? | 36:30 |
| York David Garrett | Well, they could go back if they had a friend with them, or a cousin. | 36:33 |
| Kara Miles | You mean a man with them? | 36:35 |
| York David Garrett | No, them customers, a lot of those people were personal friends of mine and my wife. And my wife was going and coming from the store all the time, and my daughter. She worked in the store regularly when she was a kid, up until she decided she wanted to go to Howard. It wasn't a cut off place, but just like you, you could be owning your own home. Some people may be invited in, and some people be invited to the door. And the ones who were invited in are your personal, close friends. Those people that were in there were close personal friends of mine and people that I knew a little better. Mostly the officers and all of the Mutual, the bank, and the building and loan, and teachers and the instructors, and yeah. The bankers, insurance company, and so on. So-and-so, all that stuff. | 36:40 |
| York David Garrett | All those people were personal friends of mine and they had access. And a lot of people wouldn't want to go because they weren't interested in what we were doing. They wanted to be out somewhere, drinking some liquor, or getting drunk, or playing poker. You understand what I'm trying to say? | 37:11 |
| Kara Miles | So, people couldn't drink liquor in the back room? | 37:49 |
| York David Garrett | We served no alcoholic drinks. Didn't allow any alcoholic drinks except maybe after 11:00, if there's three or four people there that I knew real well. Because that was during prohibition. If they had their own liquor, they could sell it. They would go out from, get them a Coca Cola or something, and ice. Come back in, get a bottle of liquor and I didn't object to it. I never drank myself, but I never object to anybody else drinking what they wanted to drink. | 37:52 |
| York David Garrett | But you couldn't be around me drunk because I wasn't around anybody drunk. I never been drunk. It's one of those things, I didn't go for that. And I wasn't against it, and everybody knew what I was for and wasn't for, so they did what they knew I would accept and what I could go along with and what I—And that was only the real close friends of mine. All these we're talking about were people that if you had a wedding or had something, they would be at the wedding. If it was a funeral or something, they'd be at the funeral. And wouldn't miss. Those are the people that I knew that close. | 38:23 |
| York David Garrett | Then there were thousands of people that would stop and wonder, "I can't go in there. We don't visit him. We go to his business place and if we see him on the street, he's a nice guy. He's an okay guy, but you know, we don't socialize with them." Each group has its own social status and they like what they like, and that's what they do. And if you go along with them, you can get along with them all right. That's really the way that was. | 38:58 |
| Kara Miles | Okay, I just have some forms I need to fill out, like with your family information and stuff. | 39:26 |
| York David Garrett | Okay, all right. | 39:31 |
| Kara Miles | I've already filled out your current address. What's your zip code now? | 39:32 |
| York David Garrett | 27702. | 39:35 |
| Kara Miles | And if your name appears in print, if someone writes something using this tape here, how would you like your name to appear? | 39:39 |
| York David Garrett | Well, appear like it is. I went to Howard University and then I decided to go into pharmacy. The degrees they were giving in pharmacy then was a pharmacy degree. They don't give that now. They give it now, but not in four years. | 39:47 |
| York David Garrett | So when I graduated from Howard, I got a pharmacy degree. So that's how I happen to be Dr. York Garrett Junior. | 40:04 |
| Kara Miles | So would you like your name to be Dr. York? | 40:12 |
| York David Garrett | That's the way it is in the book. If you look in the book, that's the way you saw it. Dr. York D. Garrett. Not MD, not DDS, but I'm Pharm D and that's what my license say and that's what my certificate, my graduation. | 40:12 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. Let's see, I know you told me you were born in 1894. What's the date? | 40:27 |
| York David Garrett | December 10th. | 40:38 |
| Kara Miles | And you were born in Edgecombe? | 40:40 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, Edgecombe County. You can put Tarboro Principle. Either one. They usually say Edgecombe County because Edgecombe County is a big county and it's well known. And only about three towns in the county; Pinetops is one. Rocky Mountain's in half of this county, Edgecombe. Half of Rocky Mountains in Nash County, the other half of Rocky Mountain is in Edgecombe, because Rocky Mountain is not a county seat. Tarboro is the county seat for Edgecombe, and Nashville is the county seat for Nash. | 40:44 |
| Kara Miles | And you are widowed? | 41:16 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, yeah. | 41:18 |
| Kara Miles | What was your wife's name? | 41:20 |
| York David Garrett | Julia Williams Garrett. | 41:22 |
| Kara Miles | And do you know her birthday? | 41:28 |
| York David Garrett | Yes, it's two days ago. She's born May 20th, 1900. If she were living now, last week she would've been 93 years old. | 41:32 |
| Kara Miles | Okay, when did she died? | 41:44 |
| York David Garrett | '77. August, I mean July the 27th, 1977. | 41:45 |
| Kara Miles | Okay, and where was she born? | 41:51 |
| York David Garrett | She was born in Tarboro, Edgecombe County. She and her parents, they're full families. Big strong family. | 42:01 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. What was her occupation? | 42:04 |
| York David Garrett | Well, she finished St. Aug. She taught a couple of years, and then she went to New York because she had a brother and a sister that lived in New York and she stayed with. For a little while, she was in New York before we got married. She stayed with one of her brother's girlfriend in New York. But when we got married, she came back to Tarboro. | 42:10 |
| York David Garrett | We got married in '23 and from then on, that's what she was, my wife. After she got married, she never had a job. She worked like hell, but she helped run the drug store. She was over all the help in the drug store. Tell them how to clean up, this, that and the other. When to come in and go, and all that. She did all the scheduling and she did all my running around to the banks and things up town. Deposits and stuff, she was in charge of. I was in charge of it, but she was the one that they would see. And anytime anything had to be done, I would talk to either McDougald, until he stopped being at the bank. Then William [indistinct 00:43:24] and the people that did building and loans, along down there. | 42:38 |
| York David Garrett | She was the front for all of my business affairs. She had the right to sign anything and any time they had something for me, they could give it to her because they knowed I was going to get it. | 43:27 |
| Kara Miles | Okay, what was your mother's name? | 43:43 |
| York David Garrett | Sarah Frances Garrett. | 43:45 |
| Kara Miles | Does Sarah have a H at the end? Or just S-A-R-A? | 43:50 |
| York David Garrett | S-A-R-A-H. | 43:54 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. | 43:57 |
| York David Garrett | That was my father's only wife. They were married when—He was about nine months older than she was. And they married, and they only married once, and they lived. He died, I forget what year they were married, but he died in '28 and she died in '31. | 43:57 |
| Kara Miles | Okay, do you know when she was born? | 44:20 |
| York David Garrett | I should know. I'd have to look it up to see. I know she was born on the 15th of March, but I've forgotten what year. But she was nine months younger than my father. I have pictures of all them upstairs. | 44:26 |
| Kara Miles | Okay, do you know when your father was born? | 44:42 |
| York David Garrett | He was born July the 5th, the year before she was born. But I tell you what, when he died he was—You can figure it out yourself. They were nine months apart in age, and when he died, he was 59 years old. He wasn't 60. I don't mean 59. Yeah, he was 59 years old because he didn't get to be 60. Am I right now, about that? 59 or 69? | 44:49 |
| York David Garrett | Anyhow, he died in '28. On December, '28, and when he died he hadn't—I'm getting mixed up now. I know he hadn't reached 70. He was 69. That's right, he was 69. And my mother, when she died, see she died two years after he did, and she was 71. He died 69. | 45:19 |
| Kara Miles | Okay, all right. Do you know your mother's maiden name? | 45:47 |
| York David Garrett | Yes and no. Her father, in slavery time, most the Colored people took the master's name. She had a whole lot of cousins with the name Harrison, but she was not a Harrison, because when her father grew up he was married and he had children, and he didn't like his master, period. So one day when he was a young man, he hadn't married then. He didn't have any children then. He was a young man. A circus came in town, John Robinson Circus. Just like this big old circus still nowadays. Barnum and Bailey, so and so on. John Robinson came with the circus and he loved that circus so he changed his name from Harrison to Robinson. So he was known as Frank Robinson, and all his sisters and brothers, and all his cousins, were Harrisons. They kept their master's name because they liked their master. He didn't like his master worth a damn. And he wouldn't go say, he say he don't want to have it, and he never kept his name. | 45:49 |
| York David Garrett | So, he married. He was the only one in his family was a Robinson, and he took the name himself. He named himself Robinson, rather than be named Harrison. And they kept that name til he died. But what he did not—Well, ain't no but. And because of that, that's why we don't have any cousins that are Robinsons, except his immediate family and his children and grandchildren. | 47:00 |
| York David Garrett | Her father married twice. He married my mother's mother. And she died. Then he married again. His first wife, my mother's mother, was half-Indian. And she had one or two sisters that were half-Indians. Then when her father married again, he married a Colored—Well, not Colored. But you know what I mean. His second wife was just a Colored woman, and he had two children by his second wife. But there were ten years difference in those children. He had two children by his first wife, my mother and her brother. She was ten years older than her brother. Long ways apart, they had it so long. Then he married again. My grandfather married again, and the woman he married that time, he had three children by that woman. But they were all Robinson instead of being Harrison because they took their father's name. And two or three of them lived until a few years ago. One of them that died—yeah. About 10 years ago, the last one died. They died after my mother did. | 0:02 |
| Kara Miles | Did your mother work? | 1:25 |
| York David Garrett | With her husband. | 1:27 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. At the store? | 1:27 |
| York David Garrett | No. At home. She ran the house and took care of eight or nine children. She worked. Only thing about it, she was a good organizer. She knew what she was doing, and she didn't want to do all that work. And she had those children that come along. She had twins, Hattie and Mattie. And when [indistinct 00:01:49] and she wanted to have three children. When my sister was born, [indistinct 00:01:55], who happened to be the secretary of North Carolina NAACP for 37 years. That's Ms. Burdette. When she was born, she was, of course—[indistinct 00:02:10]. The oldest one of the twins, my mother turned her over to her, said, "You take care of this baby. You nurse him, you clean him, and everything." | 1:30 |
| York David Garrett | Two years later, little less than two years later, when I was born, she turned me over to my other one of the twins, the younger one of the twins. But they were twins. And so that twin raised me. My mother didn't have to touch either one of them because she was busy running that house and cooking and doing all this other stuff. And I was the last child that was born that lived to get more than five years old. I was the baby. But I mean, she had two children after me, but one of them died at childbirth and the other died at three years old. | 2:20 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. What was your father's name? | 3:05 |
| York David Garrett | York David Garrett. | 3:07 |
| Kara Miles | And he was Senior? | 3:10 |
| York David Garrett | Huh? | 3:14 |
| Kara Miles | He was Garrett, Senior? | 3:18 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah, yeah. Because, see, his father was York Garrett, but not David. His mother had a brother named David, and when this child was born, she named him York and put David in for her brother. York David Garrett. So that's the reason my father is York David Garrett. But his father was not York David. His father was just York Garrett. Then when I came along and they looked at me after the eighth child, they said "Well this is really the only [indistinct 00:03:44] have more boys or not," so they named me York David Garrett, Junior. | 3:19 |
| Kara Miles | Where was your father born? | 3:51 |
| York David Garrett | I guess he must have been born in Edgecombe County. That's where they were living when he was a little child. And his mother was a nurse. Not a nurse. The cook for the family that owned them. And that was Edgecombe County. | 3:54 |
| Kara Miles | All right. Now I need all your brothers' and sisters' names and—Were they all born in—? | 4:13 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. All of them were born in the same town. I mean, in Edgecombe County. | 4:21 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. And I need all their names, and if you know their birthday and death date. | 4:25 |
| York David Garrett | I don't know that. I can find out, but I don't—Ain't too much trouble. My sister was the oldest child. | 4:31 |
| Kara Miles | That was— | 4:35 |
| York David Garrett | Mary Emma Garrett. She's the one finished her school in Raleigh. What's the name? Estey in the old days but they don't use that name now. [indistinct 00:04:49]. It wasn't Shaw. Like Hartshorn in Virginia? Hartshorn was the girls' school of Union. Spelman is the girls' school of Atlanta. Hartshorn and the boys' school in Union is Union. Other one in Atlanta [indistinct 00:05:12]. You know what I'm talking about. But now in Shaw, there was a girls' school and a boys' school. It was all Shaw, but they call the girls' school by its name and the boys' school was Shaw. Understand what I'm talking about? And I call it [indistinct 00:05:28], but I forgot what it was. But that's the school she finished. | 4:37 |
| York David Garrett | And the building is still there on Shaw campus that she went to school in. But it was a part of Shaw University, but that's where she went to school. Her name was Mary Emma Garrett. And now the other [indistinct 00:05:49] one child was born, died about a year or something like that. I didn't know him because that was before I was born. Then the next child was born was [indistinct 00:06:00] Garrett. He was the third child. He lived to finish college. And the next children were the twins, Hattie and Mattie. Hattie Price and Mattie Garrett. And the next was a daughter, a sister of mine who was older than—She was younger than the twins, but she was [indistinct 00:06:30]. Her name was Annie Lilian Gertrude Garrett. She lived to get 17 years old. | 5:31 |
| Kara Miles | Anna— | 6:37 |
| York David Garrett | Lilian Gertrude Garrett. She lived to get 17 years old. She— | 6:38 |
| Kara Miles | How old was your brother when he died? | 6:45 |
| York David Garrett | He was about 22. He just finished college. And he finished early. No. When he died, he died in 1908. He died in 1908. Yeah, he was about 22 when he died. He died in 1908. Now what you was going to say? | 6:54 |
| Kara Miles | The seventh child, you just said Anna Lilian Gertrude. Who was next? | 7:15 |
| York David Garrett | Next was Sarah Beatrice Garrett. That's the one that was 37 years she was secretary of the NAACP for North Carolina. And she was a very prominent person. She's still living. 24th of January, you know how old she was? | 7:22 |
| Kara Miles | How old? | 7:40 |
| York David Garrett | Huh? | 7:40 |
| Kara Miles | How old? | 7:40 |
| York David Garrett | She's older than I am. | 7:43 |
| Kara Miles | Really? Oh, yeah. Because you're the eighth child. Yeah. | 7:44 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. She was 100 years old the 24th of January. And her grandson came down for her birthday, and he was McDougald's grandson. The man with the bank, the daughter, was this boy's mother. So I'm tied into the family eventually. You see what I mean? My sister's son married McDougald's daughter. And they have three children. But don't talk about them. They ain't got nothing to do with it. But I'm just saying. They had three children, and they all—The children are still living and doing all right. | 7:49 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. And then it was you. And then there were two others that died, you said? | 8:36 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. One of them lived to get four years old, but she died. She had measles. My sister, Beatrice, and I and this child had measles the same time. And they lost her. But Bea and I lived. The last child after that was a boy. But I think my mother said that boy surely could have lived. Should have lived. But when she was pregnant with him, she had a nephew, my father's nephew. My father's nephew that was living with them, and he was a little boy. And he was crazy about his aunt, but he was a baby. And she picking him up, lifting him, and carrying him, pulling at him when she was pregnant and made something happen to the baby. And the baby didn't live. | 8:43 |
| York David Garrett | But nothing nobody did, but I mean—My mother told me, said if she hadn't been straining over trying to take care of this baby, put him in the bed and take him out and all that, he was too big for her to be carrying him. That's why she thinks she lost her last child. That was the last child they had. That was the tenth child. But he was just born, then they buried him. | 9:53 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. All right. I need your children's names. I know Nathan. | 10:01 |
| York David Garrett | Wasn't going to start with Nathan. | 10:01 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. All right. | 10:01 |
| York David Garrett | First child was York David Garrett, III. The next child— | 10:22 |
| Kara Miles | When was York born? | 10:33 |
| York David Garrett | '23. | 10:35 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. When did he die? | 10:35 |
| York David Garrett | '77. He died two months and five days after his mother died. | 10:44 |
| York David Garrett | He was not very retarded, but was semi-retarded. And they figured he was born—That was the first child. When he was born, he had a bad heart condition. Congenital heart murmur. And also, her water broke at eight months. Do you know what I'm talking about? And they thought they were going to lose either him or her. So they decided not to wait. She was living in New York then. We were married, but she was living in New York with her brother's girlfriend. So they rushed her to the hospital, and they found out she was having trouble, so he was a forceps baby, and injured his head. | 10:49 |
| York David Garrett | But he lived. They thought he wasn't going to live, but he lived. And he had a bad heart condition, and he kept that condition until he died. But they told us with his heart, head thing, he was kind of semi-retarded. He could learn, and he can do real well. But he wasn't up with all the other children. What would take him two years what somebody else can learn in one year. That's what they told us when we found out he was having trouble. | 11:33 |
| York David Garrett | I hadn't been too long out of Howard University and had close ties with Freedmen's Hospital, knew all the doctors and nurses and everything. And I sent him back up there to them to see what can they do for him. Tonsillectomy. Nobody wanted to take a chance with him because they didn't—I was very well-known, they didn't want it known if they had worked on my kid and he died. I mean, the doctor, he didn't want to take that chance. Dr. Plummer. Dr. Plummer down in Raleigh. | 12:04 |
| York David Garrett | But he was always just like this. So they finally took him to Washington to put him in the hospital, and they sent him to children's hospital. And they gave him a tonsillectomy, and that's when they found out, said he couldn't possibly live to get more than 12 years old. They asked my wife—She was with him. "Had any more children?" "Yes, I got two more, a girl and a boy. This girl." So they said, "Well, go back home, put all your time on him. Just take good care of him. Do the best you can by him because he won't get to live over 10 or 12 years old." And so she said, "I promise you, we're going to take care of him the best we could." And he died at 53. (laughs) | 12:34 |
| York David Garrett | She took care of him for 50 something years. And two months and five days after she died, he died. Two months and five days after we buried her, we buried him. | 13:15 |
| York David Garrett | And he was in good shape. I mean, had a good mind and everything, but he was slow in doing things. You know what I'm talking about. I'm going to go ahead next question. | 13:32 |
| Kara Miles | The second child? | 13:43 |
| York David Garrett | Oh, that was Gloria. | 13:46 |
| Kara Miles | Gloria. Okay. | 13:47 |
| York David Garrett | One that went to Geneva, Switzerland. She's my heart, too. Yes, indeed. | 13:50 |
| Kara Miles | When was she born? (phone rings) Let me take this off so you— | 13:55 |
| Kara Miles | [INTERRUPTION 00:13:55] | 13:55 |
| York David Garrett | November 17, 1927. | 13:55 |
| Kara Miles | Is he still alive? | 13:55 |
| York David Garrett | No. He was the one that died with cancer. | 13:55 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. And when was— | 13:55 |
| York David Garrett | He has a daughter. He has a wife that teaches [indistinct 00:14:16] children. He has a grandson that teaches, that's at A&T. That's by his second wife. He had one child by his second wife. By his first wife, he had two children, a boy and a girl. The girl's at Knoxville College, working. And the boy, until about six months ago, was in Paris. [Indistinct 00:14:39] doing good work. But they're doing something that I wouldn't want to do, but he's still living. But that was Arlo. Arlo had three children, two by his first wife and one by his second wife. | 14:11 |
| Kara Miles | And what year did he die? | 14:59 |
| York David Garrett | Dog if I know. Must have been [indistinct 00:15:07]. | 15:07 |
| Kara Miles | What decade? Do you know? | 15:07 |
| York David Garrett | He ain't been dead too long because this crazy—This boy now that's his son was born in '75. No, born in '70. And the boy now is 22. He's the one [indistinct 00:15:24]. And Arlo died about six years ago. He died here in [indistinct 00:15:32] hospital. Had cancer. | 15:07 |
| Kara Miles | And last child is Nathan? | 15:36 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. | 15:39 |
| Kara Miles | Your last one? | 15:40 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. Nathan Taylor Garrett. | 15:40 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. And when was he born? | 15:45 |
| York David Garrett | August 8, 1931. How old is that? | 15:46 |
| Kara Miles | You going to make me do math? 60- | 15:55 |
| York David Garrett | About 61? | 16:01 |
| Kara Miles | 62? | 16:01 |
| York David Garrett | He'd be 62 August 8th. | 16:02 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. That'd be right. Do you have any grandchildren? | 16:04 |
| York David Garrett | Oh, yes. | 16:07 |
| Kara Miles | How many? | 16:08 |
| York David Garrett | Ain't got too many grands, but I got a whole lot of great-grands. One of the grandchildren I have—Gloria never had any children. [indistinct 00:16:19] never had any children. Arlo had two children. Yeah. I mean, three children. And then the last one was Nathan. Nathan had two children. He says he got three because he married a girl [indistinct 00:16:45], and they had one child. They separated. He married Wanda, and she had one child before she got married from her husband that died in the army. Then they got married and got to know each other real well. Then they had another child between them. So they have one child, one child, one child together. So little Nathan is Wanda's and Nathan's child. | 16:14 |
| York David Garrett | And the girl in Detroit is just Nathan's child by his first wife. Is that right? Yeah. And her mother is still living. And real lucky. She's the girlfriend of the mayor of Detroit. That's right. They had an agreement. They got [indistinct 00:17:44] together, but they had an agreement not to get married. But she's accepted at all the social affairs in Detroit as his guest. [indistinct 00:17:51] as if they got married. But they decided they wouldn't get married. She's still known as Joyce Garrett. She didn't go back to her maiden name after they separated. She kept her name, and so she's still Joyce Garrett. And she had one child, and she—daughter, one child. And that child has four children. So I have four great-grands there. And my daughter in [indistinct 00:18:36], she has three children that were my great-grands. Four and three's seven, right? | 17:13 |
| Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 18:43 |
| York David Garrett | Then Nathan is here. He has little Nathan I'm talking about. Married, had one child, and that's my great-grandson. | 18:44 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. So you have eight. | 18:53 |
| York David Garrett | Huh? | 18:53 |
| Kara Miles | So you have eight? | 18:53 |
| York David Garrett | Eight great-grands. Yeah. | 18:57 |
| Kara Miles | All right. Now let's see. I need to know—Okay. How long did you live in Tarboro? | 19:00 |
| York David Garrett | From 1901 until 1932. | 19:09 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. And then you moved into Durham the rest of the time? | 19:10 |
| York David Garrett | I came here in '32. | 19:16 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. So before Tarboro, where did you live? You said 1901? Where did you live when you were born? | 19:26 |
| York David Garrett | I told you, Princeville, the oldest Colored town in the United States. | 19:28 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. That's right. You lived in Princeville. | 19:31 |
| York David Garrett | I was born in Princeville. | 19:31 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. All right. Let's see. I need your schools. I know you went to— | 19:40 |
| York David Garrett | Just two. | 19:41 |
| Kara Miles | Princeville Graded School. Do you know what year you started there? | 19:44 |
| York David Garrett | I started there when I was a baby, whenever that way. I don't know when I started, but I know when I graduated. | 19:48 |
| Kara Miles | All right. When did you graduate? | 19:48 |
| York David Garrett | Must have been '11. | 19:57 |
| Kara Miles | 1911? | 19:58 |
| York David Garrett | 1911. Yeah. Because I went to Howard in '13. And I stayed out of school a year. | 20:04 |
| Kara Miles | All right. Okay. And then you went to Elizabeth City? | 20:08 |
| York David Garrett | It was 1912. | 20:17 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. And then you went to Howard. | 20:20 |
| York David Garrett | 1913. Finished Howard in '20. | 20:20 |
| Kara Miles | That was the pharmacy school. | 20:29 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. | 20:30 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. And so your jobs—You've owned your drug store. | 20:31 |
| York David Garrett | Yeah. I never had a job working for anybody but my father until I owned my own place. I didn't have to. He had work for me to do. | 20:39 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. Have you ever received any awards or honors or held any offices? | 20:43 |
| York David Garrett | That's too much, Miss. Yeah, that was— | 21:03 |
| Kara Miles | What was the most important one? | 21:05 |
| York David Garrett | Well, I mean, as soon as I finished pharmacy, I took the board and passed it, opened up my first store. I've told you all this. [indistinct 00:21:17] passed it and operated it until I came to Durham, which was '32. And before I came to Durham, I got active in professional societies. Medical and pharmaceutical societies in North Carolina. And got to be the secretary of the Pharmaceutical Department of National Medical Association. I kept that job for 25 years. | 21:10 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. That was secretary of what now? | 21:51 |
| York David Garrett | I was the secretary of National Medical Association Pharmaceutical Department. I was secretary of that organization. Not the whole thing, just the pharmacy part. For 25 years. | 21:53 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. So when did you start that? | 22:08 |
| York David Garrett | '27. '27. No. Before '27. Yeah. '26. '26. I worked for them, kept going with them until later during the national meetings, too, because I was being the secretary of the National Pharmaceutical Association Department. I started attending National Medical Association then and continued until the three departments separated. Dentistry went one way. Pharmacy went another way and Medicine another way. And I was with them when they split. And just before they split, they started an organization. But during that time, I was 25 years I was the Secretary of the Pharmaceutical Section. And also during that time, locally, the state, Old North State Medical Society, we were all together. Understand what I'm saying? | 22:11 |
| York David Garrett | But then they never had a president of the Old North State Society that was a pharmacist. They had—generally, a physician was president. The dentist was secretary, and the pharmacist was the treasurer. But having attended about 10 or 12 years, they decided that they thought they wanted to give me the honor of being the president of Old North State Medical Society. I was the first Black, first pharmacist ever to be president of the Old North State Medical Society. I served there just one year. And later on, I can tell you now— | 23:25 |
| York David Garrett | That was in the start of the National Pharmaceutical Association. Come from the Old North—come from the state organization into the national organization. I had more of the material and everything than anybody else did for 25 years. So I turned all that over to the pharmaceutical department of the National Pharmaceutical Association, to Dean Cooper, at Howard. So he has credit for being the founder of the National Pharmaceutical Association. But I was there 25 years before he was. That's what I mean is he got all the stuff from what I brought in all together. And so then I became president of the National Pharmaceutical Association in '65, '66. Not '66. '55. Yeah. Because I was installed in that [indistinct 00:25:02]. | 24:02 |
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