Mary Stone interview recording, 1993 July 30
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Transcript
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Chris Stewart | Yes. Go ahead. You can go ahead and state your name. | 0:02 |
Mary Carter Stone | My name is Mary Carter Stone. I was born in Riverdale, North Carolina. I'm the daughter of the late Sam and Sarah Gaskins. I am the third of 11 children and I grew up in a very close family. | 0:07 |
Mary Carter Stone | First of all, I will start with my grandparents. I remember them very well and I tell my grandchildren, which I has three grandchildren: Nathan, Nina, and Reggie and about 80 nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews. And in fact, in two weeks we'll be having our family reunion here in North Carolina. | 0:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | And so I have to sit and talk hours. They love to hear about my childhood day. My grandfather would sit and would tell stories because he remember slavery, and his parents would tell him about all the different things that happened. And it was in our family. We had the school, the Pelham School, and we had preachers and blacksmith and known for barbecue and sewing, carpenters. And we just had a wonderful life. And my grandfather always instilled with us to never say can't; always try, and I will never forget that. | 1:03 |
Mary Carter Stone | And as I look back and try to figure out just what he was really talking about, well, it took me about 50 years to put it all together. And I look back now, I say that I had a very rich life because we knew survivor. We were like the ants gathering the food in the summer for the fall, knowing how to sew, use whatever we had, never to waste. | 2:03 |
Mary Carter Stone | And success in my family was it's doing your best and being just to your fellow man. And I look back at my childhood far Jim Crow a segregation, I really didn't know what it was because it was a way of life. The Lipton European girls when I was a little girl, we played together. We ran in and out the house, but as they grew up about 10 years old, the playing was over. | 2:47 |
Mary Carter Stone | But we were always smile and seemed like we were telling each other we understood. And as I look back 68 years, those same girls that I played with, we never lost contact, never. We were separated just as the fingers on the hand. Their children and my children visit each other later years. We were individuals, and they say, "Mary, we love you." | 3:36 |
Mary Carter Stone | But it was just something we speak, kept on going downtown and it's unexplainable. How do we care so much for each other? But yet and still we were separated and still together. And I looks at that. | 4:25 |
Chris Stewart | Did they live close to you? | 4:48 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yes, but see I moved away at the age of 15. I went away to school and I never came back to live in North Carolina. But we would always call each other and always wrote and always visit. And now over the years, the last 25 years we have been free together to come to visit me and everyone stayed. | 4:50 |
Chris Stewart | Would you call and write in secret? Would it be in secret? | 5:18 |
Mary Carter Stone | No, we would just— I don't know. I guess she never spoke that she was still had contact with Mary. We just went along, and I would go to her house after I grew up and married and if I come to North Carolina and I would stop by. And we were always glad to see each other. | 5:22 |
Mary Carter Stone | And now we are free to go and come have lunch together at the restaurants and so forth. And we would come to town and she would go in the restaurant, we would see each other. She's going to town Saturday, I'm going to town. And we was riding on the same truck. She could go inside the restaurant and get her hotdog. I would have to go to the back door, and I paid the same price she did and they would give my hotdog, and I would go outside and eat it, go during my shopping. | 5:50 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember the house that you grew up in? Where did you say, in River? | 6:27 |
Mary Carter Stone | Riverdale. | 6:30 |
Chris Stewart | Riverdale. | 6:31 |
Mary Carter Stone | That's a suburb. Oh yes, I remember the house. My father built this house before he and my mother married, and it had a pump in the kitchen and had a sink. And I was born in that house. We had a midwife and I was born in that house, and my mother was a Pelham. And the Pelham family had owned 500 acres of waterfront property, and the graveyard is still there with my great-grandparents. They were slave. And little about little, the land got away. There's big houses down and all. | 6:32 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:07:16]? | 7:14 |
Mary Carter Stone | It's about eight miles east of New Bern. And the name of the road is Camp Cairo. It's from the across the railroad by, but known as the Pelham Estate. In fact, there's some information downtown New Bern, and the chimney. | 7:17 |
Mary Carter Stone | My grandparents house was an old slave house. We call it the old chimney house where that house had a dirt floor, but it was hard and it was made out of logs. And that big fire place where they hang the pots and so forth now. And what puzzle me were the windows of those houses. I remember them and they didn't have window pane, was bored and they opened outside. | 7:45 |
Mary Carter Stone | And I tried to visualize now for the draining, but they had to light the lamps in order to see. And it was terrible to just think about the living condition of it. And I remember my mother used to wallpaper with newspaper, but we had floors. But we had to scrub the floors and we always had to keep things clean. | 8:22 |
Mary Carter Stone | And school, we had the school, one-room school and I remember my teachers and so forth. But what a really amazed me were Mrs. Sarah Arrington. I will never forget her. She was 17 years old when she started teaching, and she would go to school. She still living up the street. You passed her house, and she was 17 years old. She was working for Mr. Proctor. He was the superintendent of the school, and she came down to teach in that one-room school. | 8:59 |
Mary Carter Stone | And there were students older than she, many of them in their '20s were still trying to get to seventh grade because the kids had to work a half a day or go to school two days a week or whatever. And my father and other parents would take wood to the school and we called them benches. They had this little board top and had a little troth to stack your books in and it would sit three or four would sit on the little bench, and we had this little tin heater, a little pot-belly heater and outside bathroom. | 9:40 |
Mary Carter Stone | It was terrible. This little school just by big as this room and it painted red. And down the curry time where the White school, it was a brick school with the windows and they had a cafeteria. But later we had lunch. I will never forget it. We had an apple, some raisin and pecan, that was our lunch. | 10:25 |
Chris Stewart | Would somebody bring that for you or would you bring it from home? | 10:52 |
Mary Carter Stone | No, that the counties started giving it. | 10:55 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 10:58 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, the children from home, we had the little tin buckets with the little top and we were going to school and we had sweet potatoes, crackers, biscuits, molasses or whatever, just as if we were going to work. | 10:58 |
Mary Carter Stone | But we learned. But one thing we had to learn were the tables from one to 12, we learned those tables. We learned to spell and how to use syllabus and write. And we had this crude writing paper called corn bread writing. They were real rough. You know that writing paper? | 11:19 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. | 11:45 |
Mary Carter Stone | And we had a book called the Primer Book and which we didn't have many thing. We had to make most everything that we had. And when we had recess, the larger boys would go in the woods, would got the long grapevine, would pull it down from the tree. That would be our jumping rope. But what we had, our teachers would taught us how to use what we had. Like corn trucks, we would make picture frame and baskets and pine needles and so forth. But she was patient and just, she had to do everything. But we learned more then than the kids learn now. | 11:46 |
Chris Stewart | Was this Ms. Arrington who— | 12:38 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mrs. Arrington, yes. And I gave a luncheon for her last year and I took pictures. I have pictures here. And so she went on finely. She finished college and all and went on, but she was 17 years old and she was teaching us. And the parents wanted their children to have an education. They didn't. Most of the people they couldn't read or write. And it was thrilling to hear parents say, "Mary can write her name and mine, too." | 12:39 |
Mary Carter Stone | If you could only write your name because there were so many adults that could not write their name. And the children worked very hard. And as I tell the young people today that we older people do not have the patience and the time with the young people. But to think and imagine 6, 7, 8 years old children, girls and boys in the fields chopping. The adults had to teach the children how to shop the field to keep them chopping up the product. You know what I mean? | 13:17 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:13:55]. | 13:54 |
Mary Carter Stone | But these people, they taught them and we would see this White children going to school, but we couldn't go to school, and was nothing that you could do about it at all, where were you going, and so forth. And so then later years, things were better like that. | 13:55 |
Chris Stewart | You mention that your grandparents lived close by. | 14:18 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh yeah. | 14:19 |
Chris Stewart | Did you have other relatives that lived around you as well? | 14:19 |
Mary Carter Stone | No, my mother were the only one in North Carolina that stayed in North Carolina. But I had cousins and it was unity. But as I think about it, like we are sitting here and like you live in the country, you could be one fourth or either half a mile away. Now what's your name? | 14:28 |
Chris Stewart | Kris. | 15:00 |
Mary Carter Stone | And I wanted, it was something about human nature— That's what I'm working on now, to figure that out. Our children could play, but it wasn't this fighting. But I could go in the yard and small and hear the grown people say, how could they call you so far and you could hear that echo? | 15:01 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 15:38 |
Mary Carter Stone | You asked some the older people you know about it someday, and they didn't have telephone. | 15:42 |
Chris Stewart | Right. Yes. | 15:48 |
Mary Carter Stone | But that echo that it was a communication of the neighborhood, communication. | 15:51 |
Chris Stewart | So you said your grandfather owned 500 acres of land? | 15:59 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah, the family, five Pelham boys, each one of them had 100 acres each. | 16:00 |
Chris Stewart | And your grandfather was one of? | 16:07 |
Mary Carter Stone | One of them. | 16:09 |
Chris Stewart | One of the five that owned the 100 acres? | 16:10 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 16:11 |
Chris Stewart | The family must have been one of the bigger land owning families in the area. | 16:14 |
Mary Carter Stone | I remember very well they had every type of fruit that you could name was on that farm. | 16:22 |
Chris Stewart | When did your grandfather get his land? | 16:29 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, that came back from, oh well, 1700 probably. | 16:32 |
Chris Stewart | So he was one of the earliest [indistinct 00:16:40]? | 16:37 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yes, but we have, I came to New Bern and stopped the sale of the land. We have two acres left. My cousin, they'll be in next week from New York and the Pelham land on that. But with the four-way highway as you going to Morehead came and took part of it. But there's the pine trees and all that we have that three acres, but all the waterfront, all of that is been gone. Beautiful. Sitting up on to hill, overlook. | 16:39 |
Mary Carter Stone | But most the Black people, they own the water that you take from for the [indistinct 00:17:19] in, it's in James City. Have you read the book about James City? But [indistinct 00:17:26] in is in James. You should sing those houses. It look like, have you ever visited the Bahamas or the Caribbean? | 17:13 |
Chris Stewart | No. | 17:32 |
Mary Carter Stone | Well, it looked like that. When I [indistinct 00:17:37] the Caribbeans and the Bahamas, and when I first went over and I looked around and when I went in what you called the bush, you know the shacks and so forth? | 17:33 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 17:51 |
Mary Carter Stone | But that's the way James City used to look. | 17:52 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 17:53 |
Mary Carter Stone | Everybody got their start in James City. But every 100 years something come up about that night. Just little bits and pieces. They just took it. I remember James City. | 17:56 |
Chris Stewart | How did your family lose their land? | 18:06 |
Mary Carter Stone | Well, when they start dying off and so forth. They was elderly and then they say with tax, and I remember the lawyers here and had the grapes. We used to had to pick the grapes and the gather the figs, the pairs up, all the different types of fruit and would bring it to put it in the mule and cart and come to town to trying to pay tax. How in the world could you pay? Actually I remember my father made 30 cents a day. | 18:08 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 18:43 |
Mary Carter Stone | 30 cents a day. | 18:43 |
Chris Stewart | Did he work for your grandfather or did he work? | 18:44 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh no. | 18:48 |
Chris Stewart | Did your father own land as well? | 18:49 |
Mary Carter Stone | My father owned land. And see my father was from half a lot. And that was still his part of the land, we still owned it, and all the people built around it. And so probably sell it to some of them. | 18:50 |
Chris Stewart | So both your father and mother were farmers? They farmed basically? | 19:04 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yes. | 19:09 |
Chris Stewart | Did they ever do any other kind of work? | 19:10 |
Mary Carter Stone | No. | 19:11 |
Chris Stewart | No. Wow. | 19:11 |
Mary Carter Stone | My mother never, she stayed at home and cooked. She would gardening chickens and things like that. And so she had 11 children. | 19:14 |
Chris Stewart | She can— | 19:22 |
Mary Carter Stone | And my father died, there was five girls at home. | 19:24 |
Chris Stewart | Oh. | 19:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | My baby sister were five years old. | 19:30 |
Chris Stewart | So your father died young? | 19:35 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yes, he was 64. | 19:38 |
Chris Stewart | Oh. Wow. | 19:39 |
Mary Carter Stone | And he'd been dead now, what? 42 years. So he'd been over a 100. My mother died 22 years ago, but she never remarried. | 19:40 |
Chris Stewart | What do you remember about family celebrations, about family get-togethers? | 19:55 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, family get together. There is still within me of the love— I start like this when my mother, three brothers, one left early young went to Newport News, Virginia and he became something like a overseer at the lone children. And the next one, Charlie, he retired from General Mills in Buffalo. And Clellin, he worked with Ford and he died a young, too, about 52. | 20:01 |
Mary Carter Stone | He had a stroke. And she had two sisters and one went to New York and went to school, and she became a nurse. And the oldest daughter, Anna-Olivia, she learned, went to North and learned to run the elevator and she retired there. And so just only left my mother in North Carolina. But we would have in the fall of the year, and they have what you call a hog killing. | 20:42 |
Chris Stewart | Heard about these. | 21:13 |
Mary Carter Stone | What I still can't figure out, the family was very important. They had to have the best. My mother would get the most beautiful head of collard green, would cut them and would wrap them in paper, put them in a box. They take eggs, fresh eggs, and put them in a box and put corn meal around to keep them from breaking. And they would take this fresh meat tenderloins and a fresh ham, wrap it all. It wasn't in a plastic in those days and paper, and mail it to New York. I can't understand a person doing— I often wonder how did those greens look and what condition was that meat in? | 21:16 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:22:16]. | 22:14 |
Mary Carter Stone | It wasn't they wanted them to have the best would make cakes and so forth and mail and ship it to New York. And when they would get to come down to visit for the holiday, everybody was so happy. Had to clean the house, cook cakes and pie, chickens and pork and meat. I don't eat pork today. And all just, and neighbors and everybody would come over to visit. They wanted to know what was going on up north. It was something. They live in north and they came down south. | 22:16 |
Chris Stewart | So it'd be exciting to find out what was happening up north? | 22:55 |
Mary Carter Stone | And everybody want to go up north. | 22:58 |
Chris Stewart | Why? | 23:00 |
Mary Carter Stone | Because they thought the condition for living were better than it was here, even regardless how poor a person were. And as I look back, some they eat what you ate, come to your house and eat and so forth. But it was something in hear children talk was something about it, they couldn't trust them enough. I think now it's got to be in the genes. I've learned that baby and that mother conceived the baby. That child is trained before it come into this world. | 23:03 |
Mary Carter Stone | At Greater Baltimore Medical Center, I worked with those babies so long until when I went in overnight, I could do and see those babies. I never seen them before. And I was standing, analyze those babies and describe that mother and never seen them. And I would be right. And then later I've noticed women that's pregnant. If they're happy and lovely, they had the most gorgeous, lovely baby. If they hateful, sneaking or something, those children is in them. It's in them. [indistinct 00:24:39]. | 23:50 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:24:41]. | 24:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | But it was a lot of fun. And I had these friends that were Black that were niggers. And so we'd say, "Nigger, go in and get this or that." They'll walk right in and had to come out, and we would laugh. | 24:41 |
Chris Stewart | Where was this? | 25:03 |
Mary Carter Stone | Going in a restaurant. Here [indistinct 00:25:09]. But they didn't see they're going by the color. | 25:06 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. Oh, so when you say nigger, you mean a fair-skinned person who could go in and do that for you? | 25:15 |
Mary Carter Stone | That's what the White would call them niggers. | 25:21 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 25:23 |
Mary Carter Stone | And they would, the real fair skin. So the. White people, they the one that would [indistinct 00:25:35]. | 25:26 |
Chris Stewart | So off they'd go into the restaurant. Would you stand there and watch? | 25:37 |
Mary Carter Stone | [indistinct 00:25:42] be standing on the corner. And I got out [indistinct 00:25:46] just as nice. I had go in together. We would laugh. It's really— | 25:42 |
Chris Stewart | Were these people from the Harlow area or just people that you grew up with that you knew? | 25:56 |
Mary Carter Stone | I didn't grow up. I was away in school. I came home for Christmas. I met my husband in the Christmas holiday, and the next December the 8th we got married. I came and got married. | 26:03 |
Chris Stewart | Where did you go away to school? | 26:15 |
Mary Carter Stone | I've been in New York, in Maryland. | 26:17 |
Chris Stewart | What school did you go to? | 26:19 |
Mary Carter Stone | First time, I went to Peter Iverson Irish School. And then I came back to Morgan in Maryland. | 26:22 |
Chris Stewart | To Morgan did you say? | 26:32 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 26:32 |
Chris Stewart | I see. I'd like to talk a little bit more about your family if possible. Who made the decisions in your household? | 26:32 |
Mary Carter Stone | My father. My father were the head of the household. He was the type of father that would buy all the clothes, even the little panties and materials, shoes and socks, would have the grocery and all. And my mother cared for everything that my father bought in the house. | 26:38 |
Chris Stewart | Where would your father do the shopping? Where would he do the marketing? | 26:59 |
Mary Carter Stone | It would come to New Bern. There was a few store. It wasn't built up like it were now. And that would be cheese, beef, fish, and a few canned goods because my mother did canned vegetables and the fruits. We raised the chickens and the hogs and the dried beans and peas and stuff like that. We would cut the peaches and dried the peaches, dried apple, dried figs and so forth like that. | 27:04 |
Mary Carter Stone | And raise the sweet potatoes and the White potatoes. And the onions and butches hanging in the smokehouse. See, people that live in the country, the one that was smart enough or took time, then some of them had to work so hard, how could they work, take care of home when they get in there 7:00 to 8 o'clock at night? | 27:40 |
Chris Stewart | Right. What kind of crops did your father have? | 28:09 |
Mary Carter Stone | Corn, cotton, tobacco and peanuts. And the [indistinct 00:28:21]. | 28:14 |
Chris Stewart | Where was the marketplace? Where would he bring his crops to market? | 28:23 |
Mary Carter Stone | They would bring it to town. | 28:28 |
Chris Stewart | To Newburn? | 28:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | Uh-huh. Some women's they had, they would come and sell their product, vegetable produce like that. | 28:33 |
Chris Stewart | Where was the tobacco? Were the tobacco warehouses here in this area or were they? | 28:42 |
Mary Carter Stone | No, I don't think were no warehouses in Newburn. They quite go to Greenville, or Washington, or Wilson or something. Wilmington or something like that. | 28:46 |
Chris Stewart | Do you know if your father got his fair price for his crop as say maybe White farmers got for their crop? | 28:55 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh no, because that I'll tell what it is. Now, I have a cousin, Alonzo Pelham, and lives in Vanceboro. I know you, okay? And lots of time I would say, "Now you sell it for me." And those White people would do it." | 29:01 |
Chris Stewart | I see. | 29:23 |
Mary Carter Stone | Because they would get more. But no one else, they would arrange it for. | 29:24 |
Chris Stewart | Did your father do that? | 29:31 |
Mary Carter Stone | I'm sure many times. It's just like today that you might not know it, but still there's something, a human relationship because it don't have no color. | 29:33 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 29:46 |
Mary Carter Stone | And then I also noticed after all the ignorant of the European in the country, if anyone would get sick, those White women would be right there. | 29:50 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 30:05 |
Mary Carter Stone | With that chicken soup. | 30:05 |
Chris Stewart | With that chicken soup. Were there other kinds of— | 30:07 |
Mary Carter Stone | But then if one is mean, everybody knew it. | 30:13 |
Chris Stewart | One White woman? If she's mean? | 30:16 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm, of that family. Everybody, the whole neighborhood knew it. | 30:18 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of healthcare? | 30:24 |
Mary Carter Stone | Wasn't no healthcare. In Newburn, they had the one hospital and the Blacks was down in the basement. | 30:26 |
Chris Stewart | What was that? Good? | 30:33 |
Mary Carter Stone | St. Luke. | 30:33 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, that was St. Luke? | 30:33 |
Mary Carter Stone | That's the old hospital. Good Shepherd wasn't even there. | 30:36 |
Chris Stewart | There yet? | 30:40 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-mm. | 30:41 |
Chris Stewart | That was until the '40s. Right? | 30:41 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah. In the '40s. | 30:41 |
Chris Stewart | So how did mothers care for their children when they got sick? | 30:45 |
Mary Carter Stone | When they got sick, let's thinking now. They had midwives. And Ms. Joseph Blake and Ms. Whiney, Aunt Whiney everybody called her. And these people, midwives waited on the nurse that both Black and White. | 30:51 |
Chris Stewart | They did? | 31:10 |
Mary Carter Stone | And there were Dr. Hodges, there was a few doctors in town, but very seldom when would go to a doctor, they hear them say, "Well, he or she is mighty sick." And I can't remember a little girl of anybody going in the hospital. They used herbs. | 31:12 |
Mary Carter Stone | And what fascinated me, my grandparent— Well, we had wells and the grow the marijuana around the wells. And a cold, upset stomach and so forth, we'd go out to the horse stable, we got a corn cobb, take a knife and cut it or break it, clean out the inside, stick a hole in it. Go down to the bridge, got a reed and put the marijuana. Everybody's smoking a pipe, but they use it as an herb because I had never— But we call it hemp. | 31:34 |
Mary Carter Stone | And people have asthma, the children would go and sit with their elderly when they had asthma and we'd be making pipes and they would be smoking pipe to open up the lungs and convert other herbs and so forth, put around like that. And if anyone was sick, well, they all died a natural death. | 32:14 |
Mary Carter Stone | There wasn't no nursing home. They had something they called the poor house. And it was a disgrace. See, did you know Sam children put him in the poor house? See, people didn't do that. And the people just died. You would come and stay till 8:00 or 10 o'clock. Someone else would come and stay till 12:00, and the next one would stay until daybreak that they would call it, and they would nurse the people like that. They died. | 32:40 |
Chris Stewart | Was there anybody in particular in your community that people really looked to for healthcare that really knew the kinds of herbs to use? | 33:15 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, yes. Every neighborhood. Over here in Brices Creek were Mrs. Maggie Heath. | 33:26 |
Chris Stewart | Maggie Heath? | 33:35 |
Mary Carter Stone | Maggie. | 33:37 |
Chris Stewart | What part is that now? | 33:38 |
Mary Carter Stone | That's right in James City. And unless you go train they call it Brices Creek, she's been dead for years. Miss Mag Heath was known for herbs. | 33:39 |
Chris Stewart | What about in, is that— | 33:51 |
Mary Carter Stone | In Riverdale, miss Melissa Burden. | 33:52 |
Chris Stewart | Vernon? | 33:57 |
Mary Carter Stone | B-U-R-D-E-N. | 33:58 |
Chris Stewart | And then what would— | 34:06 |
Mary Carter Stone | But that was just a regular routine growing herbs, like growing a vegetable garden. | 34:06 |
Chris Stewart | What kinds of things did these women know about that other women didn't know? | 34:10 |
Mary Carter Stone | Well, they know there's so many different names. You stick a nail in your foot or something of why? Well, automatically there was a penny and a piece of fat meat. | 34:16 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 34:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | And that would draw it up. And unless they have a bore, they use [indistinct 00:34:39] soap and sugar to bring you to a head. Well, here is a cut, [indistinct 00:34:54] cut, the cobwebs to stop the bleeding. And most of all, clay for this, clay for that, dirt for this, a dirt for that. And oh, just cramps. They would use lion's tongues. If you'd have cramp from your period, they make a tea and like you'd be working in the fields or something. And some of the little old women, the children know them because that's what they use to go down near the water and get Acabacca, they would call it, shaped like a leaf. And the women would get a leaf and chew it. | 34:31 |
Chris Stewart | Acabacca? | 35:38 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yes. And it looked like a heart leaf. And you just put in there, and you could feel the pain go away. And there would be the people, they would have fevers like malaria fevers and so forth. And they would get the, pop the leaves off the trees and would line the bed, then they put the patient in there. And it's just a few minutes they be parched up to bring the temperature down. It was so many things. | 35:40 |
Chris Stewart | What about cures for things that maybe weren't physical, maybe love sick or a broken heart? | 36:17 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh. | 36:17 |
Chris Stewart | Or a troubled soul? | 36:17 |
Mary Carter Stone | Listen. And I was talking with them and those old women, they could analyze those young people. They say, "Honey, what's wrong with you?" I can't talk like they talk then. And you hear someone say, her feeling is hurt. I think we need to get that back so I can look at you so we can have that close. I can say, "Chris, what's wrong with you?" I use it a lot in my work. | 36:26 |
Mary Carter Stone | Someone say her feelings is hurt. The next one say, "Who hurt her feeling? Mary hurt it. But that place they going to come to me and when they finish with me, I'll cry. They wouldn't be screaming nothing. But you don't hurt nobody feeling, you don't hear that anymore. | 36:59 |
Mary Carter Stone | But see, the people don't know. It's the talking with the people. I'm a reflexologist. As I've worked with the people and I noticed their reflexes and I can say what's wrong with you? See, I have that communication with them. People don't have time to talk with people now. People not concerned with people. But during that area, people was concerned with one another. That was allowed. And I'm glad that I came through that because I have been to the mountain top. The way that I was raised, nothing excites me. I feel free, [indistinct 00:38:12]. | 37:22 |
Chris Stewart | Do you think that you learned that ability to communicate with people the way you can from those dramatic experience from growing up with those women? | 38:13 |
Mary Carter Stone | It is. That's the implant when I was growing up to communicate with people. It is. It's the way everybody can't do it because that. I remember as a child and to see the women's a different one, been through so much and just hurt so bad. It's when you look back and you could see that the people working so hard and the children listening to them adults talk. A pregnant woman [indistinct 00:38:58] psych as long as from here to the door, picking cotton, dragging it through a miscarriage. And when you hear those things that come, and then it grew up with you and it comes so vivid from time to time and to see what the people have been through with. | 38:25 |
Mary Carter Stone | And it make you wonder. All survivor. And it's amazing these are the signs that we spoke of is something about the Black people. How were they able to survive as much as they've been through? And just think about the knowledge that some of them had. I have a list from the 17th century patent that these people did. Even the insignificant umbrella, they took no credit for it. Talking about Charlie Limber [indistinct 00:40:09] flew across country Black guy, just look at the cowboy. | 39:26 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 40:12 |
Mary Carter Stone | And all this is coming to serve 'cause all the other ones that the older European, they dead and gone. But that this generation is learning about it. | 40:15 |
Chris Stewart | We hope. | 40:28 |
Mary Carter Stone | Hmm? | 40:30 |
Chris Stewart | We hope they're learning. | 40:31 |
Mary Carter Stone | And all that. But do you call it cruel, lack of knowledge? And then that to bring you back how the people need to be educated, materialistic, money and how you work for it, not work for it, slave. How can a [indistinct 00:41:07] be like that, to think of it, the time period? But there has never ever been anyone that's as far as history concerned that a race of people has been mistreated as the American Negro. But if you give one the opportunity and get behind it, they'll always surpass. | 40:35 |
Chris Stewart | Right. Yeah. | 41:31 |
Mary Carter Stone | Corey Stewart, my nephew, basketball player, but he's studied, he's down in University of North Carolina. And he's going to be a doctor. He has another year. | 41:34 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. He's in med school right now? | 41:47 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh yeah. | 41:49 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 41:49 |
Mary Carter Stone | And play basketball with. And my granddaughter, Anita Carter, she always say she's going to be a president of a bank someday. And so she's number three. See the banks see her and they pay for her to go to school. They transferred her up to Alexandria. And oh, she's the youngest one of all. But see, they see something that's in her. | 41:51 |
Chris Stewart | Oh yeah. Alexandria, Virginia? | 42:16 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 42:19 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. That's a fast-paced life. | 42:19 |
Mary Carter Stone | And her husband, he's a controller for national. | 42:23 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. He must be very proud of your children and grandchildren. | 42:29 |
Mary Carter Stone | See, all they need is just the opportunity. | 42:31 |
Chris Stewart | Opportunity. | 42:34 |
Mary Carter Stone | But we didn't have all this talk. We made our wagon. The children knew how to make the rabbit box to catch the rabbit, how to set the traps to catch the animal, how to scratch the skin and all. We could do so many things because we didn't have anything. We got toys once a year, a doll baby's set of dishes. That's all we knew, a set of dishes and doll baby. | 42:38 |
Chris Stewart | Did you make your own toys then? Did you just make things out of stuff? | 43:05 |
Mary Carter Stone | My mother. What you think? You see these dolls and so forth? Re raged doll, all that came from slave. Because what did I have to make the dolls out of? Wood. A cloth mama used to make all kinds of dolls for. Somebody picked it up and went on and make it, I think. But the only thing that have, I have two patterns of my great-grandmother's quilt. | 43:10 |
Chris Stewart | Your great-grandmother's quilt? | 43:36 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 43:38 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. It must be— | 43:39 |
Mary Carter Stone | And I haven't shown it. | 43:39 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 43:40 |
Mary Carter Stone | Not yet. And so I'm going to make it and then for my grandmother, and then I got sent in or got a patent. I have a copyright. | 43:42 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, good. | 43:51 |
Mary Carter Stone | One like that. | 43:52 |
Chris Stewart | When do you think people, or when do you feel like you felt like you had become an adult woman? | 43:54 |
Mary Carter Stone | Well, I was one of the most fortunate one. Like I say, my mother had 11 children, eight girls and three boys. 10 of my mother's children all nursed her right breast. I was the third. I would nurse that breast. I would the only one that nursed her left breast. And momma say probably I like to hear her heart beat. And my brother, he's younger than I. My second brother, he always say that I had received my mother's blessing. When my grandmother died, she died unexpected. They gave a surprise birthday party. And when she came in, all the friends sang Happy Birthday. And my mother dropped dead, my grandmother. | 44:01 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 45:07 |
Mary Carter Stone | When my mother was pregnant with me, my grandmother died April the 14th, and I was born September. And my mother loved her mother. She grieved for her mother. And she was easy to cry. But I have all of those attributes. And my mother and I were very, very close. She loved all of us children, but I loved my mother. | 45:07 |
Mary Carter Stone | I just had to see her up and down the road, coming to see my mother. And I was with her. I was the last child with her. I came in on Sunday, and on Monday I took out for lunch. We went shopping and I came. So I told her that if I wouldn't be home before 7 o'clock, that I would be there the next morning at 7 o'clock. And when I got there at 7 o'clock, I knocked on the door and she didn't— | 45:42 |
Mary Carter Stone | They would say that she was in the bag. And when I walked around, opened the door and went in, she was lying on the sofa. I found my mother dead. She had died with a heart attack. | 0:02 |
Chris Stewart | You had been the last person to see her? | 0:20 |
Mary Carter Stone | Alive. And I was writing a paper on death, when I came home I said, "Mama, I know all about death, preparation of the family, the spine and the patient." She said, "Tell me all about it." And I did. I was really wrapped up in it and she just went on to sleep. But it dawned on me about a month later, I've been into shock but I didn't realize went on through the Barren, everything, everybody came in. And so my husband and I had been having problems for some time and I felt after losing my mother, I had nothing to lose. And I say, my mother had lived with my father and children die. And I would have lived with my husband until we just parted. But I felt that I didn't have to. I came this funeral, I never stayed another day with him. | 0:29 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 1:45 |
Mary Carter Stone | I couldn't. | 1:45 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 1:48 |
Mary Carter Stone | I wanted to go on my own and I wanted to live like my mother. She was loved. And define my own place. Well, I always knew that I could do it. And I've worked, like I said, I've went on back to school. I took special courses [indistinct 00:02:18] of a stroke, cancer and Parkinson. But that was all it wrote. And they bought, they brought Lara Dopa in. My job was going to the hospital for 72 hours to observe the patient. Well I got, that's when I started living at Jet Asia and I kept right on going where the doctors were sending me. And then I went back to my childhood. I seen so much in and out hospitals working and I thought about earn and food and I started feeding the people, loving the people, listen to the people, caressing their hand and being with them. | 1:49 |
Mary Carter Stone | To build confidence in them to let them know that I was there, to help them, to be with them. You don't have to worry. And I would see people that come back to life, is love and care. And the White lady, Virginia Betso, she saw it and took me upon her knees and taught me nursing. She received one of the highest award that has ever been awarded to a woman administrator at John Hopkins for her work. | 3:17 |
Chris Stewart | And how did you get to know her? | 4:05 |
Mary Carter Stone | Well, her aunt [indistinct 00:04:14] was in New York, came down, was taken sick and I was represented to her. | 4:08 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, okay. | 4:22 |
Mary Carter Stone | And I started working private duty and I stayed there. And then I took care of her mother. And then I went up to New Jersey to PA Ransom of Ransom Airlines and [indistinct 00:04:39] airline. And I was interviewed five times. I wanted that job, but I knew I wasn't going to get it because I was a Black woman. | 4:22 |
Chris Stewart | When was this? | 4:50 |
Mary Carter Stone | When was that? February 1969. And they called Mrs. Betso back. She said I called Mrs. Stone first and then I called the doctor. And from then on. | 4:53 |
Chris Stewart | You had become friends. | 5:13 |
Mary Carter Stone | From then on. | 5:15 |
Chris Stewart | Did you go to nursing school? Was that when you were going to school, right after you got out? | 5:16 |
Mary Carter Stone | So the doctors, I would go, I went to nursing school, then I stopped because I couldn't nurse. Too many patients, so forth. And then so the doctor wanted me to go to take a special course. | 5:23 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, I see. | 5:40 |
Mary Carter Stone | That's where I had them. | 5:40 |
Chris Stewart | I see. | 5:40 |
Mary Carter Stone | And I stuck with Parkinson until I got tired of it. | 5:40 |
Chris Stewart | When you first left Riverdale and went away to school, you said? | 5:44 |
Mary Carter Stone | Been away to New York. Oh, I was afraid to talk. I was afraid to walk. Out in the, ooh, is terrible. | 5:51 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, bad. | 5:56 |
Mary Carter Stone | No one should have been put through to take a country girl, a big city and sent someone out. | 6:02 |
Chris Stewart | Did you live with relative? Did you have a— | 6:15 |
Mary Carter Stone | My aunt. [indistinct 00:06:20] And so she had been there for years. I was afraid to talk. | 6:19 |
Chris Stewart | How come? | 6:27 |
Mary Carter Stone | Because I didn't sound like the northern people. I was frightened with too many people. The buildings too tall, a nervous wreck. And I had to go through so many changes, but it was something I could do it. And I never forget. That was back what, 1939, and a Jewish doctor who is a dentist and I went to work there. But the people were so kind and so patient and they taught me and I became a dentist assistant. | 6:29 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, okay. How long did you work there? | 7:24 |
Mary Carter Stone | I stayed there about five years. | 7:24 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. Living with your aunt? | 7:25 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yes, living with my aunt. And so after a while that I got used to it and always liked designing clothes and modeling and so forth. | 7:30 |
Chris Stewart | So did you do some of that on the side? | 7:40 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh yes. And so then after I've finished and I never came back to stay in North Carolina until last year. | 7:49 |
Chris Stewart | Why didn't you come back? Why? | 8:02 |
Mary Carter Stone | I don't know. | 8:04 |
Chris Stewart | Did your husband have work other places? | 8:04 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh yeah. I think he might work for the government, and I not to stay. And then I never, I was busy, going to school, going to school, going to school, going to school, taking up different short subject. And so after I finished in 1975 and it just came to me that I wasn't home. I wanted to go back home for my roots. And I had read an article article years ago, Lina Horn, where she lost her husband and her son both within a year. And she was so depressed, she had been to doctors and doctors and doctors in psychology. So one ask her to go home and she went back to Macon, Georgia. And she said when she went into this little club, said everybody greeted her. Said Lena May, here's Lena May. Said she never fell so much love in her life. And that's when she started getting better. | 8:09 |
Chris Stewart | Those people around her just supported her. | 9:41 |
Mary Carter Stone | Right. And with the jobs that I had and working, I had all the cream that go with the most beautiful places in the world and everything. But still something was missing. I wanted to come back. | 9:48 |
Chris Stewart | What kinds of values do you think that your parents gave you to take you into adulthood? | 10:13 |
Mary Carter Stone | They gave me the most highest values in the world. I know who I am. I'm Neri Carter Stone. I've rubbed elbows with the greatest scientist of the world. I've analyzed them from the head to the feet. I feel free. As a Black woman, I feel that I'm the most strongest person in the world. What do I mean about free? I can go to you with no scream anywhere, anytime I can talk to you, I walk to you, I can speak to you. I don't want you to think of anything else. I can take your baby and I can do the same thing. And then I can see, I can do fine with people but I felt so sorry for White women. If I could shake that off, if they were free, you know what a mean, that they could come up to me and stand anywhere across the room. I come in, you happened to meet in the bathroom together, you get, they don't know, artificial. I think it's so pitiful. | 10:20 |
Chris Stewart | When do you think that that happened for you? At what point in your life did you feel that freedom? | 12:23 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, I about 40 and you should see me. I was something else. I knew it. I knew I had them because you know what? First they were telling me where I was from. That was it. | 12:30 |
Chris Stewart | Who would tell you? | 12:47 |
Mary Carter Stone | People, European. | 12:52 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. Why? | 12:53 |
Mary Carter Stone | I don't know. They're very, very few. Even here if I happen to dress and go someplace, they tell me, say I know you from here or there. I say, how did you guess? It's a very, very few people, European, would I ever say that I'm from North Carolina. They just come. I don't know why. | 13:01 |
Chris Stewart | So you think it was about when you were 40 that you felt like this freedom? | 13:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah. | 13:34 |
Chris Stewart | Was there an incident or an event that brought that on? | 13:35 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh yeah. Because a lot of them, just being by knowing myself and working and with the staff and patients. Well, I kept studying, I knew that I knew more than they did. I knew I had it, that you can't have it. That's something you can't take from me, my knowledge. You might can prevent me from producing it, but I still have it, and that's something no one can take. And then my parents always say, when you do something, do it well and if you don't know, ask, then you will learn. | 13:39 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of work exactly were you doing when you came into this? When you started? Sounds really wonderful. | 14:31 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, I had confidence in myself. I had already made it then, I have worked enough. I knew I had confidence in myself. I knew my job, I knew my job. I knew I had that authority and unconscious. I would be like this, be quiet to shut up, listen to me. I don't know. Just be quiet and listen to me and you would, just be quiet. I'm not conscious of it. You know your work and you know I don't know it. So be quiet and listen to me. And they listen. They listen. Like I had an aunt, her name was Matt Allen. I used to hear my grandparents talk about great-great aunt, a strong woman. She always had deep respect. A strong woman. And that was it. I don't care. Just the way you conduct yourself. The way that, I had a man, he chased me out less than 45 minutes. I picked up my loose suitcase, went out that front door and came in the Black door. I told him I was there to do a job and I'm going to do just that. And I did. | 14:37 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 16:17 |
Mary Carter Stone | I have worked for some heavy people, and I got lot of pictures and everything. I've worked for some heavy people. | 16:20 |
Chris Stewart | Sounds like there's a whole tradition in your family of very strong women. | 16:31 |
Mary Carter Stone | No, it's the woman that know, what can they tell me? Human being is not machine. I don't care who you are and what you are. Degrees, forget it. Finale to come down. It's communication of one human being to another and it's still working. That communication. Even the day of the slave, that was a Black woman that kept those women, families together. And still today. | 16:37 |
Chris Stewart | What did you like about living in the city? | 17:18 |
Mary Carter Stone | Nothing. I don't even think God intend for people to live right straight up in the sky to come together. I don't even think. | 17:20 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. Well here's the next question. What do you love about living in the country? | 17:31 |
Mary Carter Stone | In the life, what I like about the country is nothing in this world, I can't give it up because I practice it 365 days a year. I'm out of bed at 5:00 AM, I've got to get out of bed, fix a cup of coffee, tea, get my paper, put three pillows on the back of my bed and read my paper. Now that's me. I don't care where I am or why, I wake up. But when I can go out in the country, open the door, look right, look left, and take a deep breath, it's the energy from it or something. A lie. | 17:38 |
Mary Carter Stone | A little village here. I stayed here. People, it's just something with the inner, I wouldn't give up nothing to see those people. Little Black people go in that little church and come out, to see the expression on that face, to sit on the porch. Look out the window or go upstairs and lie on the bed and look and listen at those people tune of the songs that they sing. And I said to myself, they are still enslaved. You know how the tune of that voice is? Those songs, what they going to do when they get to heaven? | 18:33 |
Chris Stewart | Did you go to church when you were young? | 19:32 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yes. I go to church when I was young. But history. Well, when I got that understanding, when that slave master read and was telling the people about Jesus and then he called in one of the guys and told him what to say. To go back and tell those people they couldn't even read but do this and that. But when you die you go to heaven, walk the golden street and all that kind of stuff. | 19:34 |
Chris Stewart | Bear your burden on earth. | 20:13 |
Mary Carter Stone | And here and all, thou shall not steal. They stole to survive. They didn't have anything but who were doing the stealing. And with that religion I believe I knew that there's a God, it's something that within you but not with this religion stuff like that happening. I don't go for that. But it's something that's in you, yourself that knows that there's a supreme being but not this big organized business mess. Forget it. I don't go for that. | 20:16 |
Chris Stewart | You think it's still enslaves people? | 20:52 |
Mary Carter Stone | That's why they got them there. When all they come up, they send that money once a year. They still have slaves right along. They let them go. Listen the blight, Mary Carter Stone say, the religious institution is the only place in America that Blacks can gather without having a policeman. | 20:54 |
Chris Stewart | Oh yeah. | 21:20 |
Mary Carter Stone | Right? | 21:21 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 21:21 |
Mary Carter Stone | That religion, that lie is the only place because it's his religion, he own it. They sends out that money to the conference once a yeah. But if they didn't have it, what in the world would it be? [indistinct 00:21:40] religion. They need to be free. A lot of people is being free from the religious institution. His religion's fine but you got to know what it is and what it goes by. | 21:22 |
Chris Stewart | Were you baptized? | 21:54 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah, I was baptized when I was 12 years old. Just like my parents were. They did just like their father. They keep running back. | 21:56 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember the baptism? | 22:04 |
Mary Carter Stone | Huh? | 22:04 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember your baptism? | 22:04 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yes. I remember my baptism and all that stuff and all that. Tradition. Tradition. And go right back to slavery. The people couldn't even read or write. | 22:05 |
Chris Stewart | Do you remember, did you feel different after you were baptized? | 22:17 |
Mary Carter Stone | No. | 22:20 |
Chris Stewart | No? | 22:20 |
Mary Carter Stone | No. They just, people just had to hear. But like [indistinct 00:22:28] long in those days you say you go to the moon and be, you got on your knees and your praying, pray. So I didn't get it this year, I'll get it next year. And the people praying. Praying. Then they jump up, start shining. Well he got the religion and all of that back is still, it's pitiful. It's still pitiful. But now the changes that you would be seeing would be young people like you all. I take them 45 on back. They're the ones that are making the change. | 22:22 |
Mary Carter Stone | I was up in Chicago in March and there was 412 young men and women were at that church. The minister were 35 years old. I went back October, they had 800 and now they have over 1,500. What is he telling the people? These were drug addict, homeless people. That was just ordinary people. And how with the teaching, how they have changed stuff. And that program have a brochure, they have something with the people. Is working with people. They have something to live for. They're having business and so forth and all. The older one, they're dying on out the way. | 22:56 |
Chris Stewart | I'd like to go back just a little bit. How old were you when you got married? | 23:42 |
Mary Carter Stone | 21. | 23:47 |
Chris Stewart | So you were not a really young girl yet. Had you finished, had you gone to school for a while? | 23:47 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah. | 23:55 |
Chris Stewart | Did your mother give you any advice or did any other women give you any advice on how to be a good wife or how to find a good husband? | 23:55 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh yes. The women's, you can't marry this one because they're not nice to his mother. You can't marry this one because he's too proud. This one is a thief or irresponsible. Oh yeah. He going have some, he's smart, he's nice. He always going to have something. But the women's, they were real nosy. Oh, you got the learn to cook and this. They prepare you, like the sewing, the washing, keep the house like that. They had to be smart. Not no lazy. Oh, if it's a son, you can't marry her or go with her, she's too proud looking like Jezebel. You can't go with her. No. Them people are too nasty. They're lazy but that word too proud. Too proud. They wouldn't want the daughter there. And do you know his people? | 24:06 |
Chris Stewart | Do you notice people? | 25:22 |
Mary Carter Stone | No. The parents would say, do you know his people? | 25:23 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, okay. | 25:25 |
Mary Carter Stone | That mean his background. No, them people to go back, you know. Well I know this or that. You know something like. | 25:26 |
Chris Stewart | What would you do to court? | 25:36 |
Mary Carter Stone | To court? | 25:37 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. What kinds of things would you do when you were courting? | 25:39 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, you'll go to the movie or go visit somebody. Be back home before the sun go down and you'll never go in the place alone. Don't let a boy touch you. Don't let him put your hands on you. Your daddy is say if you bring a baby here, he going to kill you. Where going to get the baby from? | 25:39 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. No getting pregnant. | 26:01 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh no. If a girl in the neighborhood got pregnant, you couldn't visit her or nothing and the parents wouldn't say that she got pregnant. She got her leg broken. You see her walking down the road. But the leg is broke. But you didn't know what it meant. And they didn't, the parents didn't talk everything in front of the children. | 26:04 |
Chris Stewart | Really? Did teenage girls talk about that kind of stuff at all? I mean just among the girls? | 26:29 |
Mary Carter Stone | No. | 26:36 |
Chris Stewart | No. | 26:36 |
Mary Carter Stone | If a girl and the boy were talking, they would call him fast. Couldn't you let [indistinct 00:26:44] we talking about a boy or something, you wasn't supposed to associate with them, they too fast and all of that. You didn't hear no talking. And then it was something that was going on. He said, did you know Neri ran away and Neri this or he stole her or something like that. You don't hear that now. | 26:38 |
Chris Stewart | But you heard that then sometimes? | 27:04 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah. And the young people get, they got married young, like teenagers and so forth. | 27:10 |
Chris Stewart | So you were unusual to get married when you were 21? Was it unusual for somebody to wait until your age to get married? | 27:16 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yes. Because most of my friends, they were married already. | 27:24 |
Chris Stewart | Why did you wait? | 27:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | I was married. Well, I married. | 27:30 |
Chris Stewart | You just didn't want to? | 27:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | I just didn't. But my mother never wanted me to marry. Mama said that my husband was too proud. He from down in the Hollow, doesn't have a lot, too proud. | 27:42 |
Chris Stewart | So how come you married him if he was too proud? | 27:56 |
Mary Carter Stone | I would make my own decision. | 27:58 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, okay. | 28:00 |
Mary Carter Stone | I'm going to make my own decision. But she never forgave me. | 28:01 |
Chris Stewart | Really? Did you and she talk about it? | 28:03 |
Mary Carter Stone | She wanted me to marry Robert Lee. | 28:08 |
Chris Stewart | Who's that? | 28:10 |
Mary Carter Stone | That's somebody up in Connecticut. I wasn't going to marry Robert Lee because all mothers wanted all the daughters to marry Robert Lee. He was nice. | 28:11 |
Chris Stewart | And he wasn't nice? | 28:19 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah, to me he was nice. But Robert Lee had to go out in Connecticut to find a wife. All the girls wasn't going to marry Rob Lee, but all the mothers love Rob Lee. He was so [indistinct 00:28:33] | 28:20 |
Chris Stewart | So why didn't your mom like him? | 28:33 |
Mary Carter Stone | She said he was too proud. | 28:35 |
Chris Stewart | Well, now you got to tell me about what she means here when she's saying too proud. | 28:38 |
Mary Carter Stone | Well like— | 28:43 |
Chris Stewart | Like looking good? | 28:48 |
Mary Carter Stone | What are those [indistinct 00:28:52] | 28:49 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 28:54 |
Mary Carter Stone | Women chaser. | 28:54 |
Chris Stewart | And he grew up in Harlow, did you say? Where did he grow up? | 28:56 |
Mary Carter Stone | He grew up [indistinct 00:28:59]. | 28:57 |
Chris Stewart | Oh he did. | 29:00 |
Mary Carter Stone | But he was nice, from a nice family. But she thought he wasn't for me. | 29:02 |
Chris Stewart | What kind of work did he do? | 29:06 |
Mary Carter Stone | He worked a civil service. | 29:08 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, he did. He did have a good job. | 29:12 |
Mary Carter Stone | In Navy Bay. Oh yeah, he was nice. He was clean. A woman chaser, pretty boy. | 29:15 |
Chris Stewart | So is that why you wanted to leave after your mother died? | 29:18 |
Mary Carter Stone | Huh? | 29:21 |
Chris Stewart | Is that why you wanted to leave [indistinct 00:29:24] | 29:21 |
Mary Carter Stone | I stayed with him. If she been living, I would be with him now. | 29:23 |
Chris Stewart | But is that why you left? | 29:24 |
Mary Carter Stone | But she didn't know I had to prove. She said I didn't give her the opportunity to say I told you so. | 29:26 |
Chris Stewart | Oh no. So you waited until your mother died, then you left. | 29:43 |
Mary Carter Stone | I used to hear my baby sister say, I don't hear that mama's dating in the hell away. | 29:45 |
Chris Stewart | Oh wow. | 29:49 |
Mary Carter Stone | I just stayed upstairs with another [indistinct 00:29:55]. | 29:53 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. And did you end up, so you ended up leaving him because he was too proud, right? | 29:55 |
Mary Carter Stone | Huh? I was determined to stay with him. | 30:01 |
Chris Stewart | Because your mother was right? | 30:04 |
Mary Carter Stone | You might do the same thing. | 30:06 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah, probably. | 30:07 |
Mary Carter Stone | You probably do the same thing. But see those women can see the future. And that's the truth. A lot of the young women now, they have seen the older days the women, you were proud. You don't hear that word anymore. But you can see these little pickety like, oh, forget it. I'm forever, keep on about your business. I'll tell you why I think about marriage today. I really don't know anyone that's really married. I seen two people in the house. I don't call it married because I go in the beautiful homes and I'll see this building. | 30:13 |
Mary Carter Stone | There's a man and a woman in the building, both Black and White. Then the man have a chance. He would say we same house but we not married. She may not put her feet in my room. And then the wife give her chance. She'll say, you know what, he don't say 20 words a week to me. But what turns my stomach and you know what's going on. And some function can be down at the church and someplace see him come scrolling in together. What kind of marriage is that? | 31:13 |
Chris Stewart | Do you think that that's, how do you think marriage is— | 31:55 |
Mary Carter Stone | Hypocritical. | 31:58 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 31:59 |
Mary Carter Stone | Just a hypocritical act. Because I never met a man to really know that man, Black or White, that don't have a mistress in play. | 31:59 |
Chris Stewart | That's what I wanted to know. | 32:16 |
Mary Carter Stone | Old men that say that, well I've been going for 30 years. I don't care who it is. They going to holler Jim Crow or anything they want. If a man love a woman, no color will keep him away. He's just a hypocritical act. And in my researching marriage, if they go by the Bible, was it Leah or Abraham gave her me as a wife for Abraham. A wife is of who they have relationship with, don't make the wife. But this thing, I forgot. I ain't marrying nobody. | 32:19 |
Chris Stewart | What about marriages when you were young? | 33:13 |
Mary Carter Stone | Well, honorable, you know married. When you got married, you can't go this, you can't do that. You can't. What you not supposed to do nothing because you married? Supposed to become a old woman or something? | 33:18 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. Was that true for men too? | 33:29 |
Mary Carter Stone | No. Even women say, oh, fast Henry. Oh, fast John or something. | 33:32 |
Chris Stewart | So women were supposed to settle down and be— | 33:39 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, at that time, I used to know more invalid White women. They didn't divorce their husband. They got in the bed and stay year in, year out. Like they say, I will never sleep with you again. I will never wash for you again. I would never cook for you again. I would not leave out of here for you again. Because in the country they had farms and so the Black woman cook and take care of the house, the children and [indistinct 00:34:16] they become invalids. They didn't divorce. They come in. I mean, how could they psychological got their mind to get on the bed and stay. But they did, ask your grandparent. | 33:42 |
Chris Stewart | So that's sort of how, that was sort of their way of divorcing? | 34:26 |
Mary Carter Stone | Divorcing. Did they do it up there in West? You don't hear the word invalid anymore. | 34:31 |
Chris Stewart | I don't know. I've actually read about that kind of thing [indistinct 00:34:42]. | 34:37 |
Mary Carter Stone | Miss Dolly, I knew when [indistinct 00:34:43] to them, they would like in their 40s or something, they would sitting up in the bed, They sit, got in the bed, they never washed anymore, they never cooked anymore, they never swept the flow, they didn't do nothing anymore. | 34:42 |
Chris Stewart | What about Black women? What would Black women do? | 34:59 |
Mary Carter Stone | Well, Black women always had to work anyway. So that was just nothing. Just run around getting women's babies like this one and that. | 35:01 |
Chris Stewart | But could they divorce? | 35:08 |
Mary Carter Stone | They were divorced, divorce required. | 35:10 |
Chris Stewart | Huh? | 35:12 |
Mary Carter Stone | Divorced required. I guess the average back there, average Black woman never been in a lawyer's office. | 35:12 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 35:17 |
Mary Carter Stone | I paid them no mind. | 35:18 |
Chris Stewart | So you said that White women could just become invalids when they didn't want have anything to do with that man anymore. What could Black women do if they didn't want to have anything to do with that man? | 35:19 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, sometimes they would leave to go away and stay with some of the families or friend. One lady, Ms. Mary Stewart, when her children grew up grown, she left. And she stayed there all those years until the children grew up. Usually very few would leave the children. Some of them would leave the children. | 35:29 |
Chris Stewart | Well, can you think of any other questions I should ask you? Questions about other parts of your life that you think that I should ask you? | 35:57 |
Mary Carter Stone | Ask me, what do I think about a White man? | 36:10 |
Chris Stewart | It's asked. | 36:14 |
Mary Carter Stone | Well, I had a instructor, his name was Donald Stone, retired army officer. He was the nicest man I've ever met in my life. Very precise. And I studied him like a Philadelphia lawyer. I couldn't catch the man and a lie. I watched him, his mannerism, and then Mr. Perfect, he was real nice. His pictures [indistinct 00:37:12] something. Very nice. He was a man. He had patience. By me being a woman by himself, I opened the car door and get out and go by my business. Nobody waited on me. I had to sit still. And he opened the door, got on my nerve. And I studied that name. I studied that name. I looked at that name. I looked at that name. I got to go to all the nice places and all, was the nicest person clean I've ever met in my life. And so I says, well, this is too good to be true. Too good to be true. Well, I married him March 1977. I knew forced him March 1977, when the clock say tic and he said tock, to get alimony. | 36:17 |
Chris Stewart | You married him and you divorced him in the same month? | 38:29 |
Mary Carter Stone | In the same year. | 38:33 |
Chris Stewart | How come? | 38:34 |
Mary Carter Stone | Huh? | 38:34 |
Chris Stewart | How come? | 38:34 |
Mary Carter Stone | One thing, I think he was too nice. He was rude. I said to myself. | 38:46 |
Chris Stewart | You didn't know what to do with all that niceness. You were used to some other crowd man, right? | 38:54 |
Mary Carter Stone | I was working, making good money, working. Only give me $30 to take the girls out for lunch or something like that. But he have like that. And so he asked, he says, "Neri, say, I tell you everything." He says, "And I want to know everything about you." I say, "God didn't tell. He is not a [indistinct 00:39:35] everything." But I was trying to figure out just what were he up to. He play there but I wasn't going to show, wasn't going to get in there deeper and say, know too much about your business and why they ever go and all. | 39:00 |
Mary Carter Stone | But he was really too nice. But I said, well I don't know. I say, but this is one Black woman. I say, I'm going to play this role. I run and call my lawyer. And I said, that guy just made me sick. I said, [indistinct 00:40:01] I said, I don't know. I says, I just can't take it. I said, he made me sick. So [indistinct 00:40:08] said, Neri said, watch [indistinct 00:40:09]. I said, I don't know. That man's too nice, it's something I can't [indistinct 00:40:20]. | 39:46 |
Mary Carter Stone | I said I had [indistinct 00:40:24] He made me sick. So long and then, so I had got this house headed, rented. I got another one down in Florida. But you wouldn't know Jesse was conniving or something, I couldn't pinpoint. I said, I better not try to find out I got here. But anyway, I got my alimony check every month. I'd never be that lucky again. That man was so nice until he made me sick. | 40:12 |
Chris Stewart | What did people— | 40:59 |
Mary Carter Stone | I don't know. You can't trust it. | 41:01 |
Chris Stewart | How long were you together? How long? | 41:03 |
Mary Carter Stone | I've been married for five years. I couldn't catch him in a lot. I couldn't do nothing. But he hadn't. But what was that role he was playing, wonder what he was up to? But it was something I just couldn't click. | 41:04 |
Chris Stewart | Did other people disapprove of your marriage, of you being together? | 41:18 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh no. No the people that I know. I know many of them. I was very independent. I was a working woman. I was freedom, I own everything. | 41:23 |
Chris Stewart | What about other people who you might not have known, people who weren't friends or whatever? Where were you living when you were living together? | 41:33 |
Mary Carter Stone | Maryland. Baltimore. | 41:38 |
Chris Stewart | You were in Maryland. | 41:39 |
Mary Carter Stone | And he was 100% man. He was one firm man, dignified man. Very nice. He was just one of, too nice. I mean, just as if the president or something like that, what you up to? | 41:44 |
Chris Stewart | There's got to be something going on. | 41:53 |
Mary Carter Stone | Go talk to my [indistinct 00:42:00] I mean I seen, but I've been around so many of them, seeing them, like a snake, you know, [indistinct 00:42:07] different colors and all, everything. | 42:03 |
Chris Stewart | So you married him in March of '77? | 42:06 |
Mary Carter Stone | Then divorced in '77. Starting my [indistinct 00:42:14] December I got my first check. '77. | 42:13 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. So have you been on your own since? | 42:18 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh sure. Of course. | 42:20 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, I actually have one other question. It's not a very nice question though, but I'm just going to ask. | 42:25 |
Mary Carter Stone | Just ask me. | 42:30 |
Chris Stewart | Have you ever felt during your lifetime that other people treated you like you were a second class citizen? | 42:32 |
Mary Carter Stone | No, it's just I've been up like that. Never. | 42:40 |
Chris Stewart | Really? | 42:44 |
Mary Carter Stone | Never. Because I don't care where I am. I can change to be the bag lady. And you would think I was the bag. It's all psychological what the person think. Either I can come out and the Queen of Sheba. | 42:48 |
Chris Stewart | You were looking like the Queen of Sheba on Monday. That's for darn sure. | 43:07 |
Mary Carter Stone | You know what? I can do that. I can do that. I know that I can stop a show and don't have to open my mouth. | 43:10 |
Chris Stewart | Well, I mean, that's good to hear. | 43:25 |
Mary Carter Stone | No, I'm not second class. I know it. I can walk in anywhere. | 43:28 |
Chris Stewart | A lot of people have told me that they just haven't allowed it. They just say people have tried it, they just [indistinct 00:43:39]. | 43:33 |
Mary Carter Stone | I can just go in and feel, I know I can walk in any place and stop the show. Don't have to say a word. I've been there. I can just go in and just put my hand on my hip and just look around. They wonder where I am, the father's [indistinct 00:43:59] I know. | 43:38 |
Chris Stewart | Could you have done that before you turned 40? Remember you said 40 was the time? | 44:01 |
Mary Carter Stone | No, 40. No, that were before then, about 30. | 44:05 |
Chris Stewart | Oh yeah. Were your parents like that too as well? Was your mother like that? | 44:10 |
Mary Carter Stone | There's my mother. She was a very strong lady. | 44:16 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. Where is this, is this your home in Maryland? | 44:23 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. I know— | 44:29 |
Chris Stewart | It's beautiful, right? | 44:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | — I'm not. I know I'm somebody. I know. I know. Like you. | 44:32 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 44:39 |
Mary Carter Stone | You are beautiful and all that. You know you got it. So if you got it, flaunt it. | 44:44 |
Chris Stewart | I learned from you. I learned from you. | 44:50 |
Mary Carter Stone | Like you. But you don't have to[indistinct 00:44:57] you got a beautiful smile, you're free. Don't mean you're not tight. You understand, you know what you know, nobody else knows, so what you going to, shy is so awful. | 44:52 |
Chris Stewart | No time for that. Got no time for that. Well, is there anything else that we should talk about? I have some forms to fill out, some biographical information. | 45:09 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, I love to cook. And I feel that I know how to cook and I have this philosophy. Anything that I do, I try to do it just as if I'm doing it for God. I enjoy my work of decorating the tray, of fixing unique things. They just come automatic to me. Penny Par, she did all different soups and things like that. I love to sew and I love people. I love people. Some people make me sick. I don't have to say anything to them, I don't have to know them. I can just look up at them and something go all over me. And then I know how some people vibrate people. Some people just dreaming. As being a reflexologist, when they would come in the office or something like that. I know what I have right there. | 45:19 |
Mary Carter Stone | And then they're learning about the body and how people vibrate people and all these different things. And I just put them all in the bucket, nobody here today going tomorrow, forgotten about the next day. And so to worry about it or something like that, that's just a waste. I don't have time for that. I sleep all night long. I don't need sleepy pills or nothing like that. And it's the bright conscious, how you look at life and there's so much to think about. I don't look bad so much except I had a— | 46:35 |
Mary Carter Stone | As a little girl, we didn't have the Barbie dolls. We could have a grass called crabgrass. And we used to take the comb and comb the roots for the hair. That was our doll baby and it was so much and with love. I didn't grow up in violence. | 0:02 |
Chris Stewart | Your family protected you from a lot of— | 0:28 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh yes. My father was head of his house, and so that was it. And big family, it's more together. I have my sister, the one I'm next to, she has 10 children and all girls. Six of them college graduate and the other one, they went to vocational school. And I noticed that in the big families [indistinct 00:00:56] well because one of those daughters is a major in the Army. | 0:30 |
Chris Stewart | Really? Wow. | 1:02 |
Mary Carter Stone | And the one is a engineer, nurses, two business and like that. Every one of them own their own home and all of them got good job. And then they all come in. They give the parents a thousand dollars a month. I mean $100, that's a thousand dollars right there. You give them $10, that's whatever. Big family closer together and it's not as selfish. | 1:02 |
Chris Stewart | Children take care of parents then? | 1:34 |
Mary Carter Stone | Right. The bigger the family. | 1:37 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. Yeah. That's also something that we've heard over and over again. | 1:39 |
Mary Carter Stone | I'm the only one in the family that had one. My son is the oldest in both family and he has three children. | 1:44 |
Chris Stewart | Well, he's expanding. He had three. | 1:54 |
Mary Carter Stone | Right. | 1:56 |
Chris Stewart | He's expanding. They'll have more. | 1:56 |
Mary Carter Stone | And they'll have more. But if I had had a lot of children, I wouldn't have been able to help my family like that. | 1:57 |
Chris Stewart | When you went away to work, did you send money back to your parents? | 2:07 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh yeah. Send that money back to the family. | 2:09 |
Chris Stewart | Did your brothers and sisters do that as well? | 2:15 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh yes. All of us. | 2:17 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah? Did you go back and forth to visit? | 2:19 |
Mary Carter Stone | To visit. Yes, indeed. We are still close together then. It's 104 of us from those 11 children and all. They all be in next week. | 2:20 |
Chris Stewart | Next week? | 2:33 |
Mary Carter Stone | Having a family reunion. That would've been something to interview, all them children. They be in next— Where will you be next week? | 2:34 |
Chris Stewart | We're going to be back in Durham. Going to be in Durham. | 2:40 |
Mary Carter Stone | Well, they'll be here. | 2:43 |
Chris Stewart | When next week? | 2:45 |
Mary Carter Stone | Because we are having the picnic over at the Stanley White, the recreation center and going have the banquet at the Days Inn. | 2:46 |
Chris Stewart | Here in town? | 2:54 |
Mary Carter Stone | And we children, the 10 children, my oldest brother died. But we not paying anything. It's our children. | 2:57 |
Chris Stewart | Oh wow. Wow. Isn't that wonderful? It's like a gift to you, to bring everybody back together. Is anybody in the family going to get back to Riverdale just to take a look over there at the Pelham? | 3:04 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh yes, we always go there. | 3:20 |
Chris Stewart | I think I'm going to take a drive over there, check it out. | 3:22 |
Mary Carter Stone | I could go with you to go down to see my grandparents' tombstone. | 3:29 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, that would be wonderful. Do you want to do that? | 3:35 |
Mary Carter Stone | We can go now. | 3:40 |
Chris Stewart | Well, let's fill out this first and then we'll do— Is that okay? | 3:40 |
Mary Carter Stone | Because I goes down and look and I can tell you could where I was born. | 3:43 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, that would be wonderful. | 3:49 |
Mary Carter Stone | Show you the Pelham land. All the land. | 3:50 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, I would love that. I would love that. | 3:52 |
Mary Carter Stone | And see them big house. | 3:54 |
Chris Stewart | Would you mind if I took pictures? | 3:55 |
Mary Carter Stone | No. | 3:58 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 3:58 |
Mary Carter Stone | It's houses built down there and show you where we used to have the vineyard, with nothing but Black people. | 3:58 |
Chris Stewart | That would be wonderful. We'll do that when we're done doing this. Yes. That would be wonderful. Okay. I need to get your full name. This is the form that we fill out. It's biographical information. | 4:06 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah. | 4:16 |
Chris Stewart | Your full name? | 4:17 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mary Frances. Oh, Mary Frances. You want my— Before I was married, I was a Gaskins. | 4:20 |
Chris Stewart | And then? | 4:37 |
Mary Carter Stone | Carter Stone. | 4:38 |
Chris Stewart | Stone for— No. And you're at 1209 Raleigh Street. Right? | 4:44 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 4:51 |
Chris Stewart | What's your telephone number? | 4:59 |
Mary Carter Stone | 636-5239 | 5:01 |
Chris Stewart | I was calling 637. That's why I couldn't get [indistinct 00:05:13] How would you like your name to appear in any written materials that might result from this tape? | 5:07 |
Mary Carter Stone | That be the only time that I could carry my parents' name. | 5:23 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 5:26 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mary Frances Gaskins. | 5:27 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 5:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | Because everybody knows Mary Frances Gaskin. | 5:31 |
Chris Stewart | Your date of birth? | 5:44 |
Mary Carter Stone | 9/1/25. | 5:46 |
Chris Stewart | And you were born? | 5:50 |
Mary Carter Stone | Riverdale. | 5:52 |
Chris Stewart | Riverdale. Now was this an all Black community that was very close to James City or was it farther? | 5:58 |
Mary Carter Stone | Just next from James City, the next little village. Mostly were a Black neighborhood. Most of all of that were Black. It was, except Mr. Woods and Wilcox and Kadise and Latham. Well, everything else were Black. Oh, you missed so much. Oh, if you just see those little tracks and little people and not no grass. It was big dogwood yard, broom sweeping the yard and you didn't see the houses. Didn't see these big houses with windows in. | 6:04 |
Chris Stewart | How long has it been since the houses have been gone? | 6:47 |
Mary Carter Stone | Everything started in the '40s because I know 1935, '38 with a lot of those houses and James City looked like a island. I remember, wasn't it? | 6:50 |
Chris Stewart | What happened in the '40s? | 7:03 |
Mary Carter Stone | Started 1938, '37. Whatever was after the Depression. That would give you 10 years, wouldn't it? Just like this flood. I wonder what going to happen then. | 7:10 |
Chris Stewart | I don't know. | 7:24 |
Mary Carter Stone | It'd be the same thing, won't it? In a way of speaking, but another setting. | 7:27 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 7:34 |
Mary Carter Stone | [indistinct 00:07:34] the Depression, nobody had nothing. Got a big box of matches, 5 cent. Go to store, get one 10-cent piece of cheese. I remember. 10-cent piece of cheese, sodas and all that, 5 cent. And oh, get package of candy, like Tootsie Rolls and another one with seven big squares in it for a penny. Things were so cheap. But people didn't have money. | 7:34 |
Chris Stewart | You mentioned that in the '40s everything started happening, with James City— | 8:11 |
Mary Carter Stone | When they start building that base, Cherry Point. | 8:15 |
Chris Stewart | Cherry Point. | 8:17 |
Mary Carter Stone | And Cherry Point came, then the people could start building houses. There was some houses, nice homes and then some development came along. You pay $1 down and have a house built. It looked like you had the land and you might just get the shell or something, they were finishing, and by the time they finished, that board be already rotting and falling down. I remember tin houses, tin on the outside. Oh, it was terrible. It wasn't all— Outside toilets and traveling, go to get some gas and we couldn't go to the bathroom. People had to stop along and go in the woods, the children and things like that. | 8:20 |
Mary Carter Stone | You think of human treating people like they wasn't human. But [indistinct 00:09:27] what puzzle me that you could always cook for them. | 9:21 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 9:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | Wash their clothes, tend to their babies, their children. What was in a person's mind like that? And then the breaking up of the family, selling people like cows and you hear these old womens tell the story, said "Yes, Mary had a baby and the child was named Emma." Said, "It was just as smart. And you look at this, say that child could talk, could do anything." Said it was so smart, but you look at that child, but you knew that old master was going to sell it. Say, "Two or three days, it'll be dead." They will kill their own child to keep from [indistinct 00:10:23] | 9:31 |
Chris Stewart | That's sad. | 10:22 |
Mary Carter Stone | But I have thought many times and I still believe, there are some Europeans is really afraid of Black people. Like one or two would be by themselves and they come like that. I would too. I'd be afraid they would bring me up poison there and not all. No, no, no, no, no. Not all. | 10:32 |
Chris Stewart | But there are good people and bad people. | 11:01 |
Mary Carter Stone | Everywhere you go. Good people, bad people. Everywhere you go. | 11:02 |
Chris Stewart | Well, I need to ask you your mother's name. | 11:09 |
Mary Carter Stone | Sarah. Sarah Frances. And she was a Pelham. P-E-L-H-A-M. | 11:12 |
Chris Stewart | But her married name— | 11:26 |
Mary Carter Stone | Is Gaskins. | 11:27 |
Chris Stewart | Gaskins. Do you know when she was born? | 11:28 |
Mary Carter Stone | I don't [indistinct 00:11:36] It been so long. Mama was 73 and mama died in '72. | 11:35 |
Chris Stewart | So 1899. | 11:48 |
Mary Carter Stone | 1899. Papa born 1890. | 11:52 |
Chris Stewart | You said, when did she die? | 12:00 |
Mary Carter Stone | '72. | 12:02 |
Chris Stewart | Where was she born? | 12:08 |
Mary Carter Stone | Riverdale. | 12:09 |
Chris Stewart | What about your father's name? | 12:18 |
Mary Carter Stone | Samuel Gaskins. | 12:19 |
Chris Stewart | Do you know his date of birth? | 12:25 |
Mary Carter Stone | March the 30th, 1890. Papa were 10 years older than mama. 89. I got the birth certificate— I mean, the information. | 12:29 |
Chris Stewart | When did he die? | 12:46 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, Grace. What did [indistinct 00:12:49] | 12:48 |
Chris Stewart | You said he was about 42 years old. | 12:50 |
Mary Carter Stone | Papa was about— Brenda was six weeks old. 42. | 12:51 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. So you had a sister who just was just born— | 13:02 |
Mary Carter Stone | Hm? | 13:09 |
Chris Stewart | — when your father died? | 13:09 |
Mary Carter Stone | Niece. | 13:09 |
Chris Stewart | A niece. And was your father born in Riverdale as well? | 13:14 |
Mary Carter Stone | Havelock. | 13:18 |
Chris Stewart | Havelock. And he was a farmer. | 13:18 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 13:26 |
Chris Stewart | Landowner. | 13:27 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 13:28 |
Chris Stewart | How do you think people who didn't own land, how do you think— | 13:31 |
Mary Carter Stone | They wasn't counted. They wasn't counted and they were known to be, long way back, [indistinct 00:13:45] they lazy. If you own land, you own something. You have clout. | 13:34 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. | 13:51 |
Mary Carter Stone | And then see, those Black people had plenty land because the son built here. The children, they didn't go away. They community— What's the word for it? If you had children in, your son will build his house there, then the next one build his house there. | 13:53 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, like [indistinct 00:14:14]. | 14:11 |
Mary Carter Stone | If your husband didn't have any land, you would give him a piece of land, would build that. That's the Gaskins homestead. | 14:13 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 14:24 |
Mary Carter Stone | The Gaskins farm. You know that's his children. And the baby boy, that's his home. They always inherited, like that. | 14:24 |
Chris Stewart | What were the names of your brothers and sisters? | 14:34 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, Samuel Williams. Sam Williams. Samuel William. | 14:36 |
Chris Stewart | Samuel William Gaskin? | 14:43 |
Mary Carter Stone | That's my brother. You ready? | 14:51 |
Chris Stewart | Mm-hmm. | 14:53 |
Mary Carter Stone | Next one, Bertha Olivia. But usually they name the after the family. | 14:55 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 15:03 |
Mary Carter Stone | Bertha Olivia, Mary Frances, that's me, Gaskin. | 15:03 |
Chris Stewart | What is your sister— | 15:07 |
Mary Carter Stone | All of us had the same father. | 15:08 |
Chris Stewart | But did Bertha Olivia get married? | 15:11 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yes. Carter. | 15:13 |
Chris Stewart | Carter? Gaskins. And then you, you're the third? | 15:15 |
Mary Carter Stone | I'm the third. | 15:23 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 15:23 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mary Frances. | 15:26 |
Chris Stewart | And then who? | 15:29 |
Mary Carter Stone | Catherine, to pronounce it. Beatrice. B-E-A-T-R-I-C-E. Beatrice Harrison. | 15:31 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 15:44 |
Mary Carter Stone | Charles Monroe. Robert Randolph. | 15:45 |
Chris Stewart | Is it Randolph? | 16:00 |
Mary Carter Stone | R-A-N-D-O-L-P-H. | 16:02 |
Chris Stewart | P-H. Okay. | 16:02 |
Mary Carter Stone | Haggar. H-A-G-G-A-R. She named after my grandmother. Haggar Luretha. | 16:12 |
Chris Stewart | Luitha? | 16:21 |
Mary Carter Stone | L-U-R-E-T-H-A. | 16:22 |
Chris Stewart | That's a pretty name. What's her married name? | 16:26 |
Mary Carter Stone | Marshall. Dora Lee. My other grandmama named this one. Heidi Rebecca. But wait a minute, but she changed her name since she was 22. | 16:30 |
Chris Stewart | Who changed her name? | 16:49 |
Mary Carter Stone | The one that I was going tell you. She said she couldn't walk around and rest her life with that name hung on her. | 16:51 |
Chris Stewart | Her grandma's name hanging on her? Heidi Rebecca? | 16:57 |
Mary Carter Stone | Her name Heidi Rebecca. She changed it to Sarah Elizabeth. | 16:58 |
Chris Stewart | Oh my. She changed it to her mother's name. | 17:07 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah, but listenv | 17:09 |
Chris Stewart | Which do you want me to put down? | 17:11 |
Mary Carter Stone | Put them in parentheses. | 17:13 |
Chris Stewart | Which one? Sarah Elizabeth or Hattie— | 17:15 |
Mary Carter Stone | Heidi Rebecca. | 17:23 |
Chris Stewart | You want that in parenthesis? | 17:27 |
Mary Carter Stone | Uh-huh. | 17:28 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 17:28 |
Mary Carter Stone | Heidi Rebecca. She was [indistinct 00:17:29] | 17:28 |
Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:17:29] | 17:28 |
Mary Carter Stone | Now. | 17:28 |
Chris Stewart | So does— | 17:28 |
Mary Carter Stone | She changed it to Sarah Elizabeth Miles. M-I-L-E-S. | 17:31 |
Chris Stewart | What about Dora Lee? What's her married name? | 17:36 |
Mary Carter Stone | No, she's the only one that not married. | 17:37 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 17:40 |
Mary Carter Stone | Now. Next is Grandmama named this one after her. Dolly Elizabeth. See, both of those got Elizabeth. Dolly Elizabeth Garold. G-A-R-O-L-D. | 17:45 |
Chris Stewart | Is Dolly I-E or Y? | 18:06 |
Mary Carter Stone | D-O-L-L-Y. | 18:08 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 18:10 |
Mary Carter Stone | And the baby Alliegray Dove. | 18:11 |
Chris Stewart | Ooh, that's a pretty name. Anna Gray? | 18:14 |
Mary Carter Stone | Alliegray. | 18:16 |
Chris Stewart | How do you spell? | 18:19 |
Mary Carter Stone | A-L-L-I-E-G-R-A-. G-R-A-Y. | 18:20 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, that's a pretty name. Dove. | 18:25 |
Mary Carter Stone | She graduated age 45 from Morgan, honor. | 18:29 |
Chris Stewart | What? | 18:33 |
Mary Carter Stone | No, that's all right. | 18:37 |
Chris Stewart | Do you want— | 18:38 |
Mary Carter Stone | Alliegray Dove. D-O-V-E. | 18:40 |
Chris Stewart | Is that her married name? | 18:42 |
Mary Carter Stone | Uh-huh. | 18:51 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 18:51 |
Mary Carter Stone | Now how many children there? | 18:51 |
Chris Stewart | 11. | 18:51 |
Mary Carter Stone | That's it. | 18:51 |
Chris Stewart | Very good. Very good. And your son's name? | 18:54 |
Mary Carter Stone | William H. Carter, Jr. | 18:56 |
Chris Stewart | When was he born? | 19:04 |
Mary Carter Stone | February the 9th, 1946. | 19:07 |
Chris Stewart | Where was he born? | 19:13 |
Mary Carter Stone | New Bern, North Carolina. | 19:15 |
Chris Stewart | You said you have three grandchildren. | 19:18 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 19:20 |
Chris Stewart | Do you have any great-grandchildren? | 19:22 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-mm. | 19:24 |
Chris Stewart | You're waiting on that one. | 19:24 |
Mary Carter Stone | I'm waiting on that one. | 19:25 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. Well, now we're to your residential history, places that you've lived. | 19:28 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh gracious. I— | 19:37 |
Chris Stewart | You started out in? | 19:37 |
Mary Carter Stone | North Carolina. | 19:38 |
Chris Stewart | In North Carolina. At Riverdale. Okay. You said that was till you were about 15 years old? | 19:38 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 19:49 |
Chris Stewart | Then where? | 19:51 |
Mary Carter Stone | To New York, Brooklyn, New York. | 19:51 |
Chris Stewart | For five years, didn't you say? | 20:00 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah. | 20:02 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 20:02 |
Mary Carter Stone | And from Brooklyn, Norfolk, Virginia. | 20:10 |
Chris Stewart | How long were you there? | 20:20 |
Mary Carter Stone | 24. | 20:21 |
Chris Stewart | Oh, you were there for [indistinct 00:20:23] | 20:21 |
Mary Carter Stone | That seemed like home. | 20:22 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 20:23 |
Mary Carter Stone | Baltimore, Maryland. 10. Now all the rest of the time, I can give you the state, which were working. | 20:27 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 20:49 |
Mary Carter Stone | But I worked from Baltimore to New Jersey and from Jersey over to Pennsylvania, right across the bridge. From [indistinct 00:21:06] to Pennsylvania. And Maryland, Jersey to Pennsylvania. California, Texas, Florida. And that's it. Back to North Carolina. | 20:49 |
Chris Stewart | Boy, that's enough. | 21:49 |
Mary Carter Stone | [indistinct 00:21:53]. | 21:49 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. | 21:52 |
Mary Carter Stone | I worked at [indistinct 00:21:55] and Bahamas. Well, [indistinct 00:22:05] Nevada, out there. Nevada, Texas. | 21:54 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah? | 22:10 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 22:10 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. What about your education, your schools? The schools that you attended? Starting from the very beginning. | 22:13 |
Mary Carter Stone | The very— were Riverdale. | 22:21 |
Chris Stewart | Riverdale Elementary? | 22:29 |
Mary Carter Stone | But there's one thing about— Oh yeah, don't have no high school. | 22:29 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 22:32 |
Mary Carter Stone | I think the children in the South used to start in school when they started walking. | 22:34 |
Chris Stewart | Oh yeah? | 22:45 |
Mary Carter Stone | Because wasn't no babysitters. | 22:45 |
Chris Stewart | Right. | 22:45 |
Mary Carter Stone | They can't carry them in the fields, so the [indistinct 00:22:47] little children, they going to sit up in school too. | 22:46 |
Chris Stewart | Wow. So— | 22:49 |
Mary Carter Stone | Wasn't no daycare centers, so the children— I was going to class, I would carry my little brother, little sisters. | 22:49 |
Chris Stewart | Did the school go till seventh grade? | 23:00 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah. | 23:01 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 23:02 |
Mary Carter Stone | Eighth grade was high school. | 23:02 |
Chris Stewart | And then where? | 23:04 |
Mary Carter Stone | New Bern. | 23:06 |
Chris Stewart | Did you go to West? | 23:08 |
Mary Carter Stone | West Street. | 23:08 |
Chris Stewart | How'd you get there? | 23:16 |
Mary Carter Stone | They had a school bus. When I went to school, they had a school bus. Isn't that something? | 23:16 |
Chris Stewart | That's really something. | 23:20 |
Mary Carter Stone | Because they usually didn't have no school bus for our school. So very few people got to go to high school. | 23:22 |
Chris Stewart | Well, who was it the gentleman who was talking in— | 23:29 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mr. Brown? | 23:33 |
Chris Stewart | Yeah. He grew up in Vance— No, the other gentleman who was talking about the school bus. | 23:34 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, Dawson. | 23:40 |
Chris Stewart | He grew up in Vanceboro. | 23:41 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah. No school, they had to go— So they had been to [indistinct 00:23:48] I don't know how many miles that were. | 23:44 |
Chris Stewart | I think somebody told me that some citizens, some private people gathered the money together to get— | 23:52 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh yeah. Money to get a bus to go to school. But if anybody would go, people used to do that. If you could get one in the neighborhood, everybody— The little children put in the five penny, 10 cent, what they could do, try to send the child to get an education, to come back [indistinct 00:24:16] And that one child teacher had [indistinct 00:24:21] and everything, everything [indistinct 00:24:24] | 23:59 |
Chris Stewart | Then when you were done with high school, then where to? | 24:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | Peter Ambrose Stenography School. Oh, I was in school like in New York. | 24:42 |
Chris Stewart | Right. What did you say the name of it was? | 24:43 |
Mary Carter Stone | Peter Ambrose Stenography School. | 24:45 |
Chris Stewart | That's in New York? | 24:51 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 24:52 |
Chris Stewart | New York, New York. How long a program was that? | 24:52 |
Mary Carter Stone | That was two year. | 25:00 |
Chris Stewart | Two year? And then where? | 25:01 |
Mary Carter Stone | From there, I had on-the-job training at Hecht's in Brooklyn. A dental assistant. | 25:07 |
Chris Stewart | Oh that's right. How long was that training? | 25:14 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh— | 25:31 |
Chris Stewart | You said it was on the job. | 25:32 |
Mary Carter Stone | Mm-hmm. | 25:32 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. | 25:32 |
Mary Carter Stone | Then, let me see now where, when I left from there, from the dentist [indistinct 00:25:51] Then in Norfolk, went to Virginia State. | 25:39 |
Chris Stewart | Is Virginia State in Norfolk? | 25:55 |
Mary Carter Stone | Yeah. Yeah, Norfolk— Petersburg, I mean. | 26:08 |
Chris Stewart | And how long did you go there? | 26:17 |
Mary Carter Stone | Two year. | 26:19 |
Chris Stewart | How long? | 26:19 |
Mary Carter Stone | Two. | 26:21 |
Chris Stewart | Two years. Did you get a nursing degree? | 26:21 |
Mary Carter Stone | LPN. | 26:24 |
Chris Stewart | LPN. My mom went a two-year nursing program as well. She liked it a lot. Okay. | 26:28 |
Mary Carter Stone | And then from that, I started— From that, this is Virginia. Then by the time I finished up from there, I went to Baltimore and I went to Catonsville. I went to Greater Baltimore Medical Center and that's when I started taking the special courses. | 26:35 |
Chris Stewart | Okay. Okay. Is there anything else you'd like me to— | 27:36 |
Mary Carter Stone | Then I worked at that for years, with stroke and Parkinson there. And in between, I would take what I needed to take. Even when I was at Greater Baltimore, I went to Catonsville and I would take special courses at Catonsville College. | 27:37 |
Chris Stewart | What's Cainsville College? | 27:58 |
Mary Carter Stone | C-A-T-O-N-V-I-L-L-E. Catonsville. | 28:00 |
Chris Stewart | What were these college courses towards? | 28:08 |
Mary Carter Stone | Oh, that was biology, sociology and those courses. | 28:12 |
Chris Stewart | So is this this to get a bachelor's of some sort? Or the reflexology— | 28:17 |
Mary Carter Stone | No. The reflexology, I went to the National Institute of Reflexology in Philadelphia. | 28:25 |
Chris Stewart | You sure went to a lot of different schools. | 28:30 |
Mary Carter Stone | [indistinct 00:28:36] Philadelphia, National Institute of Reflexology. And I took colonic irrigation at [indistinct 00:28:53] That's where I went to study the colon. | 28:36 |
Chris Stewart | What was the name of the school that you went to there? | 29:08 |
Mary Carter Stone | [indistinct 00:29:14] Lord have Mercy. Let me see. With that, let me go look. | 29:17 |
Item Info
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