Bessie Spicer interview recording, 1993 August 12

Download
- Rights
- Limited Re-Use
  CC BY-NC 4.0
  More Rights Info
- Files (1)
- MP3
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
Share

Embed Code
<iframe src='https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4jq0z91c?embed=true' height='125px' width='100%' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' scrolling='no' loading='lazy' allowfullscreen></iframe>
Permalink

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4jq0z91c
Skip to Item Info

Loading the media player...

Files for this Item

Transcript

Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.

Bessie Mills Spicer	Tell me what to say, you know.	0:02
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. Well, I'd like to go back to what you were telling me, Ms. Spicer. Were you born in Kinston?	0:04
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh.	0:10
Rhonda Mawhood	Uh-huh. And you told me you're 80 years old.	0:10
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I'm 80 years old.	0:13
Rhonda Mawhood	So you were born in 1913, okay. And was your family from Kinston, your mother and father?	0:15
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yes. Yeah, they're all in Kinston. We just moved down here on a farm.	0:27
Rhonda Mawhood	When was it that you moved to Newburg?	0:29
Bessie Mills Spicer	I can't tell you, but a long time. There was a little boy. He's 62 years old now.	0:30
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. So it is a long time ago.	0:40
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	0:43
Rhonda Mawhood	I should back up and ask you about Kinston, about your parents. What did your parents do, Ms. Spicer?	0:53
Bessie Mills Spicer	They was a farmer.	0:59
Rhonda Mawhood	Mm-hmm. And did they own land or did they rent land from someone?	1:02
Bessie Mills Spicer	My father, he rented and my— I don't remember him because I was too little when he died. My stepfather, he had a farm but he lost it. He did, my stepfather.	1:08
Rhonda Mawhood	So he lost his farm?	1:23
Bessie Mills Spicer	Mm-hmm.	1:24
Rhonda Mawhood	And then did he rent from someone after that?	1:25
Bessie Mills Spicer	No, he died and mama didn't keep on farming.	1:28
Rhonda Mawhood	Do you know how your stepfather lost his farm?	1:35
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, I guess by owing so much.	1:41
Rhonda Mawhood	So was it a White man who got his farm?	1:44
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. Tom Wood.	1:46
Rhonda Mawhood	Tom Wood?	1:48
Bessie Mills Spicer	Tom Wood.	1:49
Rhonda Mawhood	And so he owed money and this man got his farm?	1:54
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yes.	2:00
Rhonda Mawhood	The man who got the farm, was he a storekeeper or do you know what he did?	2:01
Bessie Mills Spicer	He loaned [indistinct 00:02:11] farm and the furniture or something, food to eat. Like a commissary you had to go to, to get what you want from them.	2:11
Rhonda Mawhood	Were you a little girl when your stepfather died, ma'am?	2:25
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I was small.	2:28
Rhonda Mawhood	And so how did your stepfather die? May I ask you?	2:33
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, he just got sick, died. Yeah.	2:36
Rhonda Mawhood	And how many children did your mother have at that time? How many children was she left with?	2:43
Bessie Mills Spicer	I think it was four. I think it was four.	2:52
Rhonda Mawhood	And were you one of the older ones or one of the younger ones?	2:57
Bessie Mills Spicer	I'm the oldest one, and the oldest one living. But he had children older than we did. Because his children went to college and we had to work and send them to college.	2:59
Rhonda Mawhood	Really?	3:18
Bessie Mills Spicer	.We couldn't go to school.	3:18
Rhonda Mawhood	So even after your stepfather died, you sent his children to college?	3:24
Bessie Mills Spicer	No. Mama, she moved away then.	3:30
Rhonda Mawhood	So your stepfather had been married before and had a family before?	3:39
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh, yeah.	3:42
Rhonda Mawhood	Did his first wife die?	3:47
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	3:49
Rhonda Mawhood	Oh, I see. And so you worked on the farm before your stepfather died?	3:53
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	3:57
Rhonda Mawhood	What kinds of things did you do on the farm?	3:58
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, I cut [indistinct 00:04:05] wood. I cut stove wood and I cut house wood. I plowed and swill.	4:02
Rhonda Mawhood	Sounds like you did some heavy work.	4:16
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. I done very hard with [indistinct 00:04:22].	4:17
Rhonda Mawhood	Sounds like maybe you did some work that the boys might have been doing.	4:24
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. Wasn't no boys. To put them farther so hard, I wished I could die. Long then. That farther would eat you up, [indistinct 00:04:44] in down. I primed tobacco and plowed tobacco, laid it by.	4:28
Rhonda Mawhood	So there were only girls in your family? No boys?	4:49
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yes. We had had one brother but he was too little, too small to work.	4:51
Rhonda Mawhood	So you were saying that you primed tobacco?	5:02
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, yeah.	5:08
Rhonda Mawhood	Could you tell me about that, ma'am? I'm from up north and I never did that.	5:08
Bessie Mills Spicer	You had a truck to put it in and you pull the truck, and you walked behind and pull the back out and lay it in the truck. Then gave it to the barn, they would look it up. Like that. So I went to the back of [indistinct 00:05:32] and then I have the prime back on the back on the [indistinct 00:05:35] and put it on the chain, it bring it up to you and it take it out and loop it.	5:14
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. So it would go up, like into a storage place?	5:50
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	5:56
Rhonda Mawhood	Uh-huh. Okay. Where did you take your tobacco to market?	5:56
Bessie Mills Spicer	To Kinston or Greenville, like that.	6:05
Rhonda Mawhood	Kinston and Greenville?	6:05
Bessie Mills Spicer	Mm-hmm.	6:05
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you go to market with the tobacco?	6:07
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I haul back. Yep, haul back.	6:09
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you like going to market?	6:13
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I liked farm work.	6:14
Rhonda Mawhood	What did you like about it?	6:18
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, that's all I know about how come I liked it. I'd rather work out the field than work in the barn or work in the house.	6:20
Rhonda Mawhood	Did some of your other sisters do the housework?	6:33
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. And that farm had [indistinct 00:06:38] too. And they had a washer on a wash board, had a tub and then you had to scrub on your knee. Get on your knee to scrub the slow to all that.	6:35
Rhonda Mawhood	What did you use to scrub the floor?	6:54
Bessie Mills Spicer	The rag. Take a bucket and a rag then can scrub the floor with it. Get on your knees and scrub the floor.	6:55
Rhonda Mawhood	Sounds like maybe that was hard on the knees.	7:05
Bessie Mills Spicer	Knees. Yeah, that was the whole time.	7:07
Rhonda Mawhood	When you took your tobacco to market, do you think that you got a fair price for it?	7:12
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, we got some good price for it and some we didn't. The boss man got it. It all went to him because he could figure it up, how much a acre bring in then when you get through farming you deal older men. Dealing debt and didn't have nothing.	7:18
Rhonda Mawhood	Did your mother and your stepfather know how to figure? How to do arithmetic?	7:45
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, a little bit. They knew how to do that.	7:52
Rhonda Mawhood	Did they try to keep track of how much was owed them?	7:54
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	7:58
Rhonda Mawhood	And did they disagree with the boss man over how much? Who owed who what?	8:01
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, back then what the boss man said went. And I stopped school in the fourth grade.	8:08
Rhonda Mawhood	Fourth grade?	8:08
Bessie Mills Spicer	Mm-hmm.	8:08
Rhonda Mawhood	So you were about nine or 10 years old?	8:19
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	8:22
Rhonda Mawhood	How did that happen that you stopped school? Did somebody tell you that you had to stop school or did you decide on it?	8:28
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, if you lived in a White man house, you had to— Your mama would tell you, you had to do, like they said, do that kind of work, stay in the house. You couldn't go to school or something like that. That's how a lot of Colored children even learn. They had to work, but now they have a good chance.	8:32
Rhonda Mawhood	So the boss man decided that it was time for you to leave school?	9:03
Bessie Mills Spicer	No. Your family would keep you, work on the farm because that's all they did, farm.	9:10
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you know your grandparents when you were growing up, Ms. Spicer?	9:20
Bessie Mills Spicer	No. I knew my granddaddy. His name was A [indistinct 00:09:30]. That's the only one I knew.	9:23
Rhonda Mawhood	And what do you remember about your grandfather? Did you spend time with him when you were a little girl?	9:38
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I remember he was sick and mom would go in, stay with him the night and make us a [indistinct 00:09:52] and she'd get up that morning and take us home and fix the breakfast and go back. She'd go to work and at night, she'd go there to sit up with him.	9:42
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.So she took care of him when he was sick?	10:04
Bessie Mills Spicer	Mm-hmm. Okay.	10:06
Rhonda Mawhood	And so where did you meet your husband, Ms. Spicer?	10:11
Bessie Mills Spicer	My husband. Look, I said "When I get big enough, I'm going to get married." I didn't say old enough, I said big enough, I was going to get married. So I got married when I was real young.	10:13
Rhonda Mawhood	How old were you?	10:40
Bessie Mills Spicer	I was 14. As long as you say you were 19 and it went. But now you got to prove it.	10:41
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you tell your parents you were going to get married?	10:41
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yes.	10:41
Rhonda Mawhood	Or your mother?	10:41
Bessie Mills Spicer	My mother know that, she didn't care.	10:42
Rhonda Mawhood	So did you know your husband? Did you grow up with him?	10:46
Bessie Mills Spicer	No, I didn't grow up with him but we stayed on the same farm together. He farm with the same man. He stay across the road, I stay across the road like this way. His home was Jacksonville.	10:48
Rhonda Mawhood	Jacksonville, okay.	11:03
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh. And he moved up there, Wyse Fork park up there about Kinston.	11:03
Rhonda Mawhood	I'd like to ask you about your husband again, but I'd like to ask you when your stepfather died, what kind of work did your mother do then?	11:17
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, she stopped farming and just done farm work, but she get little pay for it like that. Go help other people like that and she scrubbed and washed and doing things like that. And help them in the house.	11:25
Rhonda Mawhood	And where did you live at that time? You were living in Kinston, whose plot? But	11:55
Bessie Mills Spicer	White folk.	11:59
Rhonda Mawhood	White, uh-huh. And did she rent a house from someone?	12:01
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, they stayed with the boss man there in front of the house.	12:05
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	12:06
Bessie Mills Spicer	We'd live in.	12:11
Rhonda Mawhood	And did-	12:13
Bessie Mills Spicer	So long you could work, but when you get so you couldn't work, you had to look for yourself. You was out.	12:13
Rhonda Mawhood	So did your sisters also stay with your mother and work on the farm?	12:21
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh. We had one brother.	12:33
Rhonda Mawhood	Oh right. And your younger brother?	12:34
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	12:35
Rhonda Mawhood	And so when he got old enough, did he do farm work also?	12:36
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, but he left and he went to New York and lived up there.	12:39
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you have other family in New York?	12:50
Bessie Mills Spicer	No, he just went there.	12:53
Rhonda Mawhood	He just went?	12:55
Bessie Mills Spicer	Mm-hmm.	12:56
Rhonda Mawhood	Was he very young when he left for New York?	12:58
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. Yeah, he was young. And stayed in Newport News. He did.	13:08
Rhonda Mawhood	What did your mother think of that when he left?	13:10
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, she agreed with him. Because he was working about where that he find out he could do better, thought could do a little better. So he moved out.	13:14
Rhonda Mawhood	And so you got married when you were 14.	13:34
Bessie Mills Spicer	Mm-hmm.	13:39
Rhonda Mawhood	And then you and your husband, did you continue to do farm work together?	13:41
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. We farm.	13:44
Rhonda Mawhood	And how many children did you and your husband have together?	13:47
Bessie Mills Spicer	We had five.	13:50
Rhonda Mawhood	So it seems like maybe you were pretty young when your first one was born?	13:56
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, that's my boy. He's 60 years old.	13:59
Rhonda Mawhood	He's 60?	14:02
Bessie Mills Spicer	62.	14:04
Rhonda Mawhood	62. So you were about 18 when you had him?	14:07
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. He done farm work too until the car hit him.	14:08
Rhonda Mawhood	Mm-hmm. Around here in Newburn?	14:10
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, James' School. Used to be James' School up there, but we didn't get no help for him or nothing.	14:22
Rhonda Mawhood	No?	14:31
Bessie Mills Spicer	Hmm-mm.	14:31
Rhonda Mawhood	What made you and your husband decide to move to James City?	14:42
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, his home was in Jackson and he stayed up in Newburn. And he moved to White folk on a farm, same farm we was on. So we got to go in together and I made him.	14:46
Rhonda Mawhood	So he wanted to come back home? He wanted to come back home to Newburn, James City area?	15:05
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. He moved back with El Harvey at a farm.	15:12
Rhonda Mawhood	Whose farm was it, ma'am?	15:18
Bessie Mills Spicer	El Harvey.	15:19
Rhonda Mawhood	Mm-hmm. Okay. And how many of your children were born already when you moved to James City or to Newburn?	15:20
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, they were born at Kinston, but we moved out here when they were young.	15:29
Rhonda Mawhood	So you already had all five children?	15:42
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, and all my grandchildren's home is down here in Newburn.	15:44
Rhonda Mawhood	So you and your husband-	15:52
Bessie Mills Spicer	And his children. But he ain't never been married. But he took his children though. I kept the children.	15:53
Rhonda Mawhood	So you kept your son's children?	16:01
Bessie Mills Spicer	Mm-hmm.	16:04
Rhonda Mawhood	How many of them?	16:05
Bessie Mills Spicer	He had three girls and one boy.	16:05
Rhonda Mawhood	Mm-hmm. And you took care of all of them?	16:13
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, he did. I just kept them. He fed them and clothes and done.	16:14
Rhonda Mawhood	So you raised a lot more than five children?	16:21
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I raised a lot of children. Other people's children, I raised a lot of them.	16:24
Rhonda Mawhood	Other people's children too, like neighbors' children?	16:29
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, would come stay with me and my sister-in-law's children like that.	16:40
Rhonda Mawhood	Do you remember a lot of people doing that, Ms. Spicer? In the earlier days, people taking care of other people's children?	16:44
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	16:55
Rhonda Mawhood	Sounds like maybe people looked out for each other.	16:58
Bessie Mills Spicer	And when we go to church, the boss lady would let us wear her children's clothes at the church and give them back to her. We were raised like that.	17:05
Rhonda Mawhood	When you were growing up in Kinston, when you were a little girl, did you play with the boss family's children?	17:20
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	17:28
Rhonda Mawhood	And did you get along with them okay?	17:32
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	17:33
Rhonda Mawhood	Uh-huh.	17:34
Bessie Mills Spicer	And some of them, they'd go to sleep at my mama's house and their mother had to come get them when they go to sleep. They loved her so good.	17:36
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you ever go over to their house?	17:49
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I had many meals up there.	17:51
Rhonda Mawhood	Mm-hmm. So you ate with them?	18:04
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh.	18:04
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you keep knowing them as you got older or was there a time when—	18:06
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, we still know them. They come down here.	18:09
Rhonda Mawhood	Now?	18:10
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. We moved out here but she dead now. But some of the children living though.	18:10
Rhonda Mawhood	How would you say the White people and the Black people got along together in Kinston when you were growing up?	18:29
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, them what I made with, they got along fine but there was Ku Klux, would come around and get people from the house and mean to the wife and kill them. You wouldn't never know who it was. Come get them.	18:33
Rhonda Mawhood	So you heard about the Ku Klux Klan?	19:00
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. And I went and stayed in my aunt's house and then one Ku Klux come there and I didn't never stay with her no more, because I was scared.	19:00
Rhonda Mawhood	So you were there when the Ku Klux came?	19:04
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, but I knew it was to have mask on the plate. And they would come get you, they'd get me. They'd take me out and murder me. But you wouldn't know who it was.	19:06
Rhonda Mawhood	Why did the Ku Klux come to your aunt's house at that time?	19:22
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, the man was— Like anybody they didn't like if they whipped their wife.	19:24
Rhonda Mawhood	If a Black man whipped his wife?	19:34
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh.	19:35
Rhonda Mawhood	The Klu Klux would come?	19:36
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. And they'd come beat him up and then if he do it again, they'd kill him.	19:37
Rhonda Mawhood	Would they come for any other reasons?	19:41
Bessie Mills Spicer	Hmm-mm.	19:44
Rhonda Mawhood	So only if the Black man beat his own wife?	19:45
Bessie Mills Spicer	Mm-hmm.	19:47
Rhonda Mawhood	They would come then?	19:48
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	19:49
Rhonda Mawhood	So is that why they came to your aunt's house?	19:51
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. Yeah.	19:54
Rhonda Mawhood	What do you remember about them? You said you were afraid, you were scared?	19:58
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I didn't never go there no more. Because I didn't never know what come of them and they didn't see no more and you hear talk. And we used to go out there and eat peanuts with hogs, you know. So I stopped that. I didn't go there no more.	20:01
Rhonda Mawhood	But you used to go and visit with the hogs?	20:23
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. We would go there with the hogs, eating peanuts.	20:26
Rhonda Mawhood	Do you remember hog killing time, Ms. Spicer?	20:33
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, we used to raise hogs, [indistinct 00:20:43].	20:36
Rhonda Mawhood	What was hog killing time like?	20:44
Bessie Mills Spicer	It was like fun. You had your own meat and stuff. And things were cheaper than it is now, because you could go still get flour sent over mills, sugar, flour.	20:47
Rhonda Mawhood	Did they have parties at hog killing time?	21:09
Bessie Mills Spicer	No, we didn't have no party but we have a good time. And then long then, they would have some roads, you had to open the gate and they'd pay little children to open the gate. We'd save the money like that. [indistinct 00:21:31] it and ground in, then go surprise mama with it.	21:12
Rhonda Mawhood	So you'd save up the money, get your mother something?	21:36
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, give it to her when she— And she said, "Lord, I haven't got nothing." We'd give it to her. We always would do something to make her happy and praise us. But not you thinking about you praising her. We used to wash the dishes and I cut wood and took wood up there and get up your water at night like that.	21:39
Rhonda Mawhood	Where did you get your water, Ms. Spicer?	22:08
Bessie Mills Spicer	Get it from the pump.	22:10
Rhonda Mawhood	How far was that from your house?	22:11
Bessie Mills Spicer	We had a pump right to the house.	22:13
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. Right outside?	22:14
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh.	22:14
Rhonda Mawhood	And did you have an outhouse?	22:21
Bessie Mills Spicer	What's that?	22:22
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you have an outhouse? Like a privy for the bathroom?	22:24
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, the house is made outside.	22:29
Rhonda Mawhood	Mm-hmm.	22:39
Bessie Mills Spicer	And then they used to have a well you'd get water on.	22:39
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you and your mother have a garden when you were growing up where you grew vegetables?	22:47
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, we grew vegetables.	22:51
Rhonda Mawhood	And for the vegetable garden, did you just keep what you raised there?	22:59
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. You had a garden of your own.	23:06
Rhonda Mawhood	What kinds of things did you grow in the garden?	23:08
Bessie Mills Spicer	Cucumber, squash and tomatoes and cabbage and collards and beans, field peas, full lot of stuff like that.	23:11
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you like working in the garden?	23:20
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I like working. And long then, that time, you had to keep your house closed because gypsies would come along and they would go in your stuff and steal you. Steal you and put you in that little old wagon and carry you off.	23:24
Rhonda Mawhood	The gypsies?	23:44
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh.	23:44
Rhonda Mawhood	Did your mother warn you about that?	23:47
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, we would keep the house closed and wouldn't let nobody come in.	23:49
Rhonda Mawhood	So it was children that the gypsies were supposed to be after?	23:54
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. Yeah. The gypsies when they come there and your parents be home and they handwriting something, when you cook it, get them some or go in the field and get your corn or frater, something like that.	24:02
Rhonda Mawhood	These gypsies, what did they look like? Do you remember?	24:13
Bessie Mills Spicer	They was White people but they were different kind of people. Just gypsies. I know you heard talk of gypsies.	24:16
Rhonda Mawhood	I have.	24:26
Bessie Mills Spicer	They used to ride around in their— Ride around, come to your house. But you don't hear talk of them riding around, nothing like that. The law stopped them.	24:29
Rhonda Mawhood	Did your mother give food to the gypsies ever?	24:41
Bessie Mills Spicer	They come in, take it if they could get in your house. And she'd be home, she always warn them. Tell them not to bother things.	24:49
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you ever talk to the gypsies?	25:03
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I talked to them.	25:05
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you talk to children or to grownups?	25:08
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, children too.	25:11
Rhonda Mawhood	Children?	25:11
Bessie Mills Spicer	And if their children would die, they wouldn't bury the children. They would keep in their little wagons. Caught.	25:18
Rhonda Mawhood	With them?	25:24
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	25:25
Rhonda Mawhood	How long would they keep them?	25:27
Bessie Mills Spicer	I don't know how long they keep them, but they keep them.	25:30
Rhonda Mawhood	Sounds like people told children's stories about gypsies when you were coming along.	25:33
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. Mm-hmm.	25:40
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. The ones you talked to, what did you think of them?	25:43
Bessie Mills Spicer	They were all right, but they just talked funny and wanted to take things. Wouldn't ask you, they would go and take it. Like they were boss, their children around like that.	25:46
Rhonda Mawhood	And they spoke English?	25:59
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, they spoke, yeah. But talked funny, they did. But you could understand them, some words they say.	26:01
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you know any Indians when you were growing up?	26:12
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh. I know some now. Still Indian people.	26:13
Rhonda Mawhood	What did the Indians you knew when you were growing up look like? Looked more like me or more like you?	26:22
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, more like you on there, but skin looked darker. And they talk funny.	26:27
Rhonda Mawhood	What kind of work did the Indians you knew do?	26:37
Bessie Mills Spicer	I don't know what they do, but now some of them farms and tell you fortune. Some of them do it like that.	26:43
Rhonda Mawhood	What did the Black people in your community think of Indians?	26:54
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, you had to be warned of them or they'd come around and take your stuff. Go in your garden, go in your field and take fodder and corn and stuff like that. And sweet potato, anything they wanted. So the grown people, they would stop them.	27:00
Rhonda Mawhood	They would stop them?	27:21
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	27:21
Rhonda Mawhood	How would would they stop them?	27:30
Bessie Mills Spicer	Just will them go in there.	27:32
Rhonda Mawhood	Did people ever fight about this?	27:36
Bessie Mills Spicer	No. No nothing, fight. They just as listening though. After a while, the law got so they wouldn't let them go around plenty. They have a camp where they be, to that camp.	27:37
Rhonda Mawhood	When you were growing up, Ms. Spicer, when someone in your family got sick, what would you do then?	28:00
Bessie Mills Spicer	There was a doctor coming around in a horse and buggy. And then when somebody die, they would lay them out on the wash and put them on a cooling boat, put them back in the bed once. And then they would— They didn't have no funeral home like it is now.	28:07
Rhonda Mawhood	They'd lay them out at home?	28:26
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I'd be scared to death. I hear them cats fighting. I thought that my sister fighting when she died.	28:28
Rhonda Mawhood	When your sister? Did you say when your sister died?	28:38
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, she had pneumonia.	28:42
Rhonda Mawhood	How old was she when she passed on?	28:45
Bessie Mills Spicer	She was young and the children used to have whooping cough and measles. Small pox. Long then. And the flu, you didn't hear all [indistinct 00:29:00] these going around now.	28:47
Rhonda Mawhood	And when your sister passed away, was she laid out in the house?	29:06
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	29:09
Rhonda Mawhood	And that scared you?	29:10
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, I was scared of dead people then. But now I got used to them. The sick people, I was scared of them but I got used to them.	29:12
Rhonda Mawhood	When you got older, when you got grown?	29:21
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	29:22
Rhonda Mawhood	How old were you when your sister died?	29:23
Bessie Mills Spicer	I was real young.	29:23
Rhonda Mawhood	You were really young, okay.	29:23
Bessie Mills Spicer	And my stepfather tell me to go close the door. I was scared to even close the door being in another room.	29:23
Rhonda Mawhood	I understand.	29:23
Bessie Mills Spicer	And then you have to bath them yourself and lay them out on the cooling board, let them out on a ironing board or in the bed, where people would go and set up nights with them.	29:26
Rhonda Mawhood	So he'd set up after the person was dead?	30:01
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. Until they bury them. And then you used to cook on wood stoves, then. Have wood stoves, fire places or heaters, something like that. Like burning wood.	30:04
Rhonda Mawhood	Do you like better cooking on a wood stove or cooking on the kind of stove you have now?	30:29
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, long then I like the— It is more healthier heat than in the other kind of heat, wood heat is. But now I like this other heat better because I got older and I'm not able to do that kind of work.	30:34
Rhonda Mawhood	Because you have to split the wood and everything.	30:54
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. And cut it all it up.	30:56
Rhonda Mawhood	But you didn't mind so much?	31:02
Bessie Mills Spicer	No.	31:03
Rhonda Mawhood	When you were coming up.	31:04
Bessie Mills Spicer	And then when you go to church, if you had a buggy you would [indistinct 00:31:12] you have a buggy. And I used to work day and take them to the church at night, they call revival. And your mama wouldn't let you get foot on that church. If you wanted to walk, you had to walk right with the church away.	31:05
Rhonda Mawhood	Did girls and boys walk to the revivals or to church and back together?	31:37
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. We'd go to Sunday school.	31:41
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you like Sunday school, Miss Spicer?	31:49
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. I'd pull all my slippers in the— You see blackberries along the road, I'd pick blackberries and eat them.	31:49
Rhonda Mawhood	Uh-huh? On your way to Sunday school?	32:06
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, on my way back home.	32:07
Rhonda Mawhood	Mm-hmm. Did the church that you went to ever organize fun things like picnics or things like that?	32:14
Bessie Mills Spicer	No, nothing? No. They didn't have a picnic then. All they had was revival church at night.	32:21
Rhonda Mawhood	Did people like the revivals?	32:30
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, you had to go to church if you didn't want to go. You had to go to church. I loved to go. And then at night, they have prayer meeting at each one of their house at night. Like my house this night, your house next night. And then they get [indistinct 00:32:58] in there and they would bump their head and that would tickle us and we wouldn't let the grown people see us laughing. Because you'd get a whooping. Then make my eyes, they did now. They would be jumping in there.	32:31
Rhonda Mawhood	Mm-hmm. They felt the spirit.	33:08
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	33:14
Rhonda Mawhood	Were you baptized Ms. Spicer?	33:16
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh.	33:17
Rhonda Mawhood	Were you about 12 or so when you were baptized?	33:20
Bessie Mills Spicer	I was older than that, I believe.	33:23
Rhonda Mawhood	You were older than that?	33:23
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	33:23
Rhonda Mawhood	And where were you baptized?	33:23
Bessie Mills Spicer	I used to go church to Beautiful Valley out there. Kinston, a place up there called Wyze Fork. And he was baptized too. My children's daddy got baptized together. I got baptized before they did.	33:24
Rhonda Mawhood	How did you feel when you were baptized?	34:01
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, I felt good but I was scared of the water. But they talked to me and got me all right. And I feel good.	34:10
Rhonda Mawhood	Was it in the river you were baptized?	34:15
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh. In the river.	34:15
Rhonda Mawhood	Which river was that?	34:19
Bessie Mills Spicer	Up in Kinston. News River, I think that.	34:24
Rhonda Mawhood	News River, I think so.	34:24
Bessie Mills Spicer	I think News River.	34:24
Rhonda Mawhood	Mm-hmm. And then your husband and your children got baptized together?	34:35
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	34:38
Rhonda Mawhood	Later on?	34:39
Bessie Mills Spicer	Mm-hmm.	34:45
Rhonda Mawhood	Uh-huh. So what church did do you go to here in James City?	34:45
Bessie Mills Spicer	Reform Callow. That's the church I joined, Reform Callow. when I was up in Kinston, I joined St. Peter.	34:55
Rhonda Mawhood	St. Peter's, uh-huh.	34:58
Bessie Mills Spicer	And then when I [indistinct 00:35:06] I joined a Free Baptist church. But every time I would leave a place, I'd come to church. If I'd been living over here, I'd join that church right out there.	35:13
Rhonda Mawhood	When did you move into this house, Ms. Spicer?	35:22
Bessie Mills Spicer	When my husband got, so he couldn't work, but it was a long time when he got it from Jim Water.	35:30
Rhonda Mawhood	What was your husband's name? I didn't ask you.	35:39
Bessie Mills Spicer	James Mannis Spicer.	35:42
Rhonda Mawhood	What was your name before you got married?	35:47
Bessie Mills Spicer	Bessett Mills.	35:49
Rhonda Mawhood	Mills. So where did your children go to school, Ms. Spicer.	36:00
Bessie Mills Spicer	They went to the school up here in James City. James City school. There used to be a school but they isn't there now. Used to be a school out there.	36:05
Rhonda Mawhood	And you were still doing farm work when you moved here?	36:21
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, that's why I coming down here. More farm work.	36:24
Rhonda Mawhood	So the people who you worked for here, were they nice?	36:31
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	36:34
Rhonda Mawhood	It was White people you worked for here in Newburn?	36:35
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. But how come? I moved down here and moved down here on El Harbor Farm. And then we farm with a house and a man, Newton, we was farming on his farm because we come down here.	36:40
Rhonda Mawhood	And were those farms in Newburn?	37:03
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. Out here this way. Out the country.	37:05
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay, so out more like around James City?	37:09
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	37:12
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. How did you get to work? Did you live on there? Did you live on their land?	37:12
Bessie Mills Spicer	Live right on the farm. Then you could drive a tractor, truck and a harbor. I didn't never get no driving license. I wish I had a got something because I do all that kind of driving and they never get nothing.	37:21
Rhonda Mawhood	Did your children work on the farm too?	37:40
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, all of them was on the farm.	37:42
Rhonda Mawhood	So they went to school and they worked on the farm?	37:48
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, but they went to school more since I got up. Got up more than I did. They went to school more than I did. Because some of them graduated.	37:52
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you want them to go to school?	38:12
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted them to go to school.	38:16
Rhonda Mawhood	I'd like to ask you about holidays in your family when you were growing up. How would your family celebrate Christmas, for example?	38:26
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, they'd have Christmas and Santa Claus come down the chimney. We would believe it and tell mama, "Don't make the fire or it would burn him up, coming down the chimney." And then by the time Christmas, we would never be out to get our wood and water stuff up because we were scared of Santa Claus.	38:36
Rhonda Mawhood	You were scared of Santa Claus?	39:04
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. Scared of him.	39:04
Rhonda Mawhood	Why was that?	39:04
Bessie Mills Spicer	I don't know, I just was scared of him.	39:04
Rhonda Mawhood	And what about Easter? How would you celebrate Easter when you were a little girl?	39:14
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah, they'd go to church. Church.	39:18
Rhonda Mawhood	And when you had your own family, when you had your own children, how did you celebrate Christmas then?	39:26
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, you would buy them a little something and the lot thing they wanted and we said, "Yeah, tell Santa what you want." They said, "I don't want it if Santa got to bring it." And so we got about what the lot thing they wanted, that they get. So he couldn't get much for Christmas.	39:31
Rhonda Mawhood	Did your mother or your father or stepfather used to tell you stories when you were a little girl?	40:10
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	40:16
Rhonda Mawhood	What kind of stories would they tell you?	40:17
Bessie Mills Spicer	Tell about Humpty-Dumpty, I think. Humpty-Dumpty and all that. And Mary Had a Little Lamb. I can't think of what to tell you. And this thing to you to go to sleep at night.	40:25
Rhonda Mawhood	Was it your mother who told you about Santa Claus or somebody else?	40:39
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah. Yeah. Mother and father tell you about Santa Claus.	40:42
Rhonda Mawhood	What about music? Did you sing when you were a little girl?	40:49
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	40:52
Rhonda Mawhood	What kinds of music would you sing?	40:53
Bessie Mills Spicer	We would sing them to church house like that. To the church and go to Sunday school.	40:55
Rhonda Mawhood	Do you have a favorite hymn that you like?	41:03
Bessie Mills Spicer	No, the best one I liked was Amazing Grace and Walk With Me Lord, Walk With Me.	41:06
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you ever go to tent shows or things like that?	41:26
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	41:30
Rhonda Mawhood	Can you tell me me about this?	41:30
Bessie Mills Spicer	I go to the shows and the boys will say they want to talk to me. But I have a crowd of White children and Colored children all together. They always did take time with children and take them with me to the shows like that. I didn't like the movies.	41:35
Rhonda Mawhood	You didn't like the movies?	41:49
Bessie Mills Spicer	But my boys, my children liked the movies. I didn't never like the movies.	42:00
Rhonda Mawhood	Would you take them to the movies?	42:07
Bessie Mills Spicer	No, I let them go because we were right close to it. Didn't have pay 10 cents, then they got a 15 cent.	42:08
Rhonda Mawhood	And the tent shows you say that you took children to them, but were there any tent shows that were just for grownups?	42:21
Bessie Mills Spicer	Not that I know of. The children would like to see all these elephant and bears and lawn and thing. The clown, like that. The children, they were like they do now, like they have one. They used to have elephant, riding the elephant and riding horses. And you have camels and monkey, baboons like that, and have a mermaid.	42:31
Rhonda Mawhood	A mermaid?	42:39
Bessie Mills Spicer	Yeah.	42:39
Rhonda Mawhood	What was the mermaid like?	42:39
Bessie Mills Spicer	It was like a woman but had fish like a tail.	42:39
Rhonda Mawhood	Oh my goodness. So you saw a mermaid at the circus?	42:39
Bessie Mills Spicer	Uh-huh. And then there was a woman born like a monkey, but she was a pretty woman. But she would write with her toe, write with a foot, could write with a foot. Move it like that. When you go to the circus.	43:02
Rhonda Mawhood	Ms. Spicer, could I ask you. If you were going to give advice to young people coming up today, what kind of advice would you give them?	43:58
Bessie Mills Spicer	Well, I'd give them advice to stay in school and go to work and make something of themselves. Stop walking around these streets and nothing down, taking dope and stuff like that. To go to school and try to be somebody. Make something of yourself. Because everybody got a good change now, better than it did in the olden time. Some can't go to school, won't even go to school. Finish.	44:06
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you Ms. Spicer.	44:46

Item Info

Title:

Bessie Spicer interview recording, 1993 August 12

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4jq0z91c

Date:

August 12, 1993

Creator:

Spicer, Bessie Mills

Contributor:

Mawhood, Rhonda Lyn

Description:

Name: Bessie Mills Spicer; Date of birth: 1913-04-16; Place of birth: Kinston, NC; Occupation(s): agriculture; Residence: James Cuty, NC
Informant ID: 283; Interviewed by: Rhonda Mawhood.

Identifier:

Interview number: 721
598633e9-a6c4-489e-b122-7963255e9230
behindtheveil
btvnc06020
ark:/87924/r4jq0z91c
a207a1fd-5b7f-476a-a678-a958c336adfc

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

Related Resources:

See below

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Occupation:

Agriculture

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Series:

Type:

Sound

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

Bessie Spicer interview recording, 1993 August 12

Transcript

Item Info

1. Bessie Spicer administrative file, 1993

John Hope Franklin Research Center

More Info & Options

Transcript

Item Info

Related Items

John Hope Franklin Research Center

More Info & Options