Pearly Edwards (primary interviewee), Geraldine Boone, and Jeanette Wallace interview recording, 1995 August 10

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Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Pearly Hayslett Edwards, born in Norfolk County in a community called South Hill in Virginia.	0:00
Mary Hebert	And you are?	0:16
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	I'm Geraldine Hayslett Boone, born Norfolk County Virginia.	0:17
Mary Hebert	And when?	0:26
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Ah-ha, you mean the year?	0:27
Mary Hebert	The year.	0:28
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Okay, January 7th, 1936.	0:29
Mary Hebert	Who are your parents?	0:32
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	This is Geraldine speaking. Our parents are Maddy and John Hayslett.	0:35
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Senior.	0:40
Mary Hebert	What did they do for a living?	0:42
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	My mother was a housewife and she took in washing from time to time whenever the family needed extra funds. Daddy worked in a grocery store, he was a real butcher.	0:44
Mary Hebert	He was a butcher?	1:00
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And one of the—Yes.	1:00
Mary Hebert	Would you ever help your mother with the laundry?	1:03
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Everybody had tasks to do and I was like the second mom in a sense. My mother having children like every two years, three years space between, well, there was a need for a lot of help.	1:06
Mary Hebert	And so you helped out with the children?	1:23
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	So I was the one who did the cleaning and some cooking. And my older sister, Marion Hayslett-Richardson, was the dessert maker and the seamstress for the family.	1:25
Mary Hebert	So each of you had a duty?	1:41
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Except me.	1:43
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	She was the baby.	1:44
Mary Hebert	Are you the youngest?	1:46
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	I'm the youngest in the family. This is Geraldine speaking again. So everybody catered to me and I did have little things that I'd do, but I was the baby and they still treat me like that right now.	1:46
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And she really took advantage of being the youngest and it was to her advantage.	1:59
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yes.	2:03
Mary Hebert	Did you get things that your brothers and sisters didn't get? I mean, extra attention, more clothing?	2:05
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	I really don't think so because of the fact that everybody contributed to each other. Love was shared, tasks was shared, getting ready to do homework. And anything that we did, we did basically as a family, I guess I can say that I went to church a lot with my daddy because my daddy was a deacon, very prominent deacon in the church. And most of the things that were done at the church, he was always first there. And I would go running down the street with daddy to stoke the fire in the church. And so I was always gone most of the time with him playing [indistinct 00:02:56].	2:14
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	That's one of the things about our family and our family relationship, we were truly a family, including our immediate family, the mother, father and finally it ended up seven off springs. And we had extended family like our grandparent, grandmothers, aunts and uncles.	2:56
Mary Hebert	Did they live with you?	3:21
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	They did not live with us, but we lived in the same community and except my father's mother, my grandmother lived a little distance, say about a 15 or 20 minute walk to what was called Money Point. So we had love and family togetherness.	3:22
Mary Hebert	Were your parents strict?	3:49
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, they were strict, but I think not overly so, just the right level of strictness. And as we grew and gained experience and learned, I think they lightened up. We helped them to lighten up on certain things. For example, they didn't like playing cards. We'd say, "Well, what's the harm in playing cards?" Game of [indistinct 00:04:19] and pinochle.	3:51
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Pinochle.	4:20
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And they finally said, "Hey, this is all right for the children to do this at home. We'd rather them to have this kind of a leisure fun at home, then stringing out." And so it worked.	4:21
Mary Hebert	Did they try to control who you played with? Were there certain families that you weren't allowed to play with the children from those?	4:36
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	To some degree, yes.	4:43
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	To some degree.	4:44
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	4:45
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Families that had pretty much the same philosophy and values we shared and enjoyed them and we would play over some of the older people's homes as we would grow. They would be responsible for children. It was one of those situations whereby, as we now say, the community helped to raise the child. And this is definitely what was done during that small community. There were two streets up and down, and one cross, everybody knew everybody. And before long, if you had done something that you should not have done, and they knew that this was something that was not allowed at the home, it was known before you got there.	4:46
Mary Hebert	I've had people tell me that and they could never forget how their parents found out so quickly that they'd done something.	5:30
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And there really wasn't all that much of a telephone either, was it Pearl? Just later on.	5:36
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	There weren't telephones.	5:40
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	No.	5:42
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Maybe there was one telephone in the community.	5:42
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And it was a party line, so everybody heard everybody's conversation.	5:44
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	So the children, the young people, respected the elders in the community to the extent that they knew that they had to act a certain way wherever they were, because we knew that if the neighbors saw or heard something, they're going to speak to us and then they're going to speak to our parents.	5:51
Mary Hebert	So they could discipline you or?	6:15
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	By speaking to us.	6:18
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	By speaking, never—Yeah. I'll tell you another thing that might be real interesting, if you were to go down the street, you would have to speak to everybody. Good evening. Good evening. And if you came back, you had to do the same thing now. And if you didn't—Did I see you? Did you speak young lady? But I said, "Oh, I spoke on my way." No, you speak again. So you speak good evening, how you doing? Good evening. And it was all down the street, either way, going and coming. I don't care if it was the same day or within the same hour, it didn't matter. So	6:18
Mary Hebert	You knew everyone in your community?	6:51
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yes.	6:53
Mary Hebert	Would the families help one another out if one of them fell in hard times or?	6:54
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yes, more or less.	6:58
Mary Hebert	Did your father have a garden or—	7:00
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Definitely, yes. And he had that garden until he passed away in 88.	7:02
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yes.	7:08
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	He supplied us with fresh vegetables, corn, butter, beans, string beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, you name it.	7:09
Mary Hebert	And that was for the use by the family. Did he give it or sell any?	7:20
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	He gave it away.	7:21
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	By and large, he gave it away.	7:21
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	He gave it away, he didn't do my selling. Some people would just give him something. But in terms of actually charging any of the neighbors for anything, no. And Pearl, of course, learned how to can things, we would have it stored up for the rest of the year, especially tomatoes.	7:22
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Tomatoes and the green beans.	7:39
Mary Hebert	Did your mother teach you how to do that?	7:42
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, she did. And daddy did a lot of the teaching us how to do the caning too. My mother did some of that.	7:44
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And I don't know whether I'm going ahead of the story, but our mother got ill, she had a stroke, when I was five years old. So then it became more of each other's responsibility to take on things that she normally would've done. And so that's the reason why she learned to do a great deal of things while Mother was doing everything. And then when Mother got ill, she just took it over completely and we took care of her.	7:53
Mary Hebert	And so y'all helped—	8:20
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Each other.	8:21
Mary Hebert	Y'all each had something to do it.	8:23
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Right. But she was a terrific mom.	8:25
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yeah, she was.	8:27
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	She really was. For example, when she was six months old, she had what was called then the double pneumonia. And she was in the King Daughters for about six months. The street cars were the only mode of transportation, we had no car. And the visiting hours were twice a day. And I don't know how mama did this, but I mean, each visiting hour she was there. And that meant when she was with her, but then those of us back home had to be taking care of fed and meal done and all these kind of things. And by that time I was pretty much a teenager. And because how old are you? I'm about 14 years older than you.	8:27
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And so she was a terrific mother and she cooked us three meals a day until she got ill. What am I trying to say? When we were in elementary school, the elementary school was about a block from our house. So every day we went home for lunch, there was no such thing as cafeteria in the school. So she had lunch for us. I don't know how she did, it's three meals a day, but she did.	9:19
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Sure did.	9:51
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And when we left out for school, we had eaten breakfast, a hearty breakfast.	9:53
Mary Hebert	Did you have dessert every day? Was that something she—	9:58
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Not every day, but we had desserts. Homemade ice cream, delicious homemade cakes, pies, cobblers, peach cobblers.	10:01
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Whatever was in season, fruits are in season.	10:13
Mary Hebert	She would cook something up for y'all?	10:13
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Mm-hmm.	10:13
Mary Hebert	And then you had a sister who made the desserts after?	10:18
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, this was by and large after my mother was ill, when Marion took over making desserts. All along she had been the seamstress, making us dresses and whatever.	10:21
Mary Hebert	Did the boys help your father out with the gardens?	10:37
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	I don't think so.	10:45
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Not really, they did not.	10:45
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	They really didn't.	10:45
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	They had that chores, but daddy didn't want anybody messing around in his garden.	10:45
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	He had his own ways of—	10:51
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And he would even—	10:52
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Doing things.	10:53
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Gather it. He didn't want us out there gathering, he would gather it and bring it in.	10:57
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And he would farm until he couldn't even see at night. I mean, being dark. Sometimes he would be out there till 9:30, especially in the summertime, 10 o'clock at night, tending the garden, after he would have gotten home from work, he would head straight for the garden.	10:59
Mary Hebert	Did he own the house that y'all lived in?	11:15
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	11:17
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yes.	11:18
Mary Hebert	What kind of neighborhood was it that you grew up in? Was it mostly middle class or working class? I'm just trying to—	11:19
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Working class.	11:24
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Working class.	11:24
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Working class.	11:25
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yeah.	11:27
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And most of the people did own their homes such as they were.	11:28
Mary Hebert	Can y'all describe the house that you grew up in?	11:37
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Oh, go ahead.	11:41
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	A two-story house with the bedrooms upstairs. And originally we didn't have a bathroom inside, we had what they call an outhouse until later on when that, what is it? The pipes were put in our community, then we put a bathroom in the house.	11:42
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	We had the sewage pipes at first, the plumbing had not been—	12:01
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	That's what I mean. We had to wait for sewage in the community itself, didn't we? And then we got the bathroom.	12:06
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	No, we had had the individual sewage. You know what I'm trying to say? Pipes. It was not connected to a city sewer.	12:15
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Okay.	12:26
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Is my understanding of it, I might be wrong.	12:27
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	No, we had the—What was it? Sewage tanks?	12:31
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	The septic tanks.	12:32
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Septic tank, that's what it was.	12:32
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	That's what it was.	12:35
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yeah, that's what it was. 'Cause see, we didn't have sewage in our community at that time.	12:35
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	So that's why we had to have the individual septic tanks.	12:38
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Septic tanks.	12:41
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	So finally we did get the septic tank and we had the indoor bath and plumbing.	12:42
Mary Hebert	What about electricity? Did y'all have it when you—	12:48
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	We always had electricity.	12:50
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yeah, we always had electricity.	12:50
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Thank heavens.	12:50
Mary Hebert	What kind of stove did you have? Was it—I guess since you had had electricity—	12:57
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	The pot-belly stove, coal stove.	13:00
Mary Hebert	Coal stove?	13:02
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	As children.	13:03
Mary Hebert	And that's what you cooked on?	13:05
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yes.	13:07
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	No, we always had the—Okay, the coal stove heated the house, that was in the dining room, downstairs where we sat. And we had this little outlet at the top in which the heat rises, so it was warm upstairs. And we always had what was called an oil stove for cooking, the kerosene cooking stove.	13:07
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	That was in the kitchen.	13:35
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I remember, for one period, we did have that coal cook stove, but by and large we had the oil cook stove for the most part.	13:38
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And we remember ironing from the cook stove, the iron stove—	13:49
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Flat iron.	13:54
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Before electric irons came out. Say hello this is—	13:55
Mary Hebert	Another sister's joined us. Could you state your name for us so that the person who transcribes this tape will be able to recognize your voice?	14:02
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	14:09
Mary Hebert	Okay.	14:10
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I'm Jeanette Wallace. And you want to know where I live?	14:11
Mary Hebert	That's fine. And could you tell me when you were born or about?	14:17
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh yes, I was born February the 19th, 1930.	14:20
Mary Hebert	And where do you live now?	14:28
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I live right next door to my sister Pearl.	14:29
Mary Hebert	Here in Norfolk?	14:32
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes, Chesapeake.	14:33
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Right in Chesapeake.	14:35
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Chesapeake.	14:35
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Chesapeake. My address is 615 Leonard and hers is 619 [indistinct 00:14:43].	14:36
Mary Hebert	Okay, if you want to, you can just have a seat. And we'll—Talking about the house that you grew up in, do you have any memories of it that you'd like to add?	14:43
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh, I just want to say that they are all very fond memories. I'm one of the middle children, and it was just so much fun growing up in a large family with seven sisters and brothers. And our house was an especially musical house because there was always a piano in our living room. And therefore, all of us, all of the girls especially, took piano lessons. And I was just very, very thrilled at the age of about seven or eight when I was able to go to my grandmother's house where my uncle lived, and there I took piano lessons for the first time and I was able to walk down the street. We lived at one end and our grandmother lived at the other end. And so I was able to walk down the street with my first new piano book and take piano lessons. And this was just one of the thrills of my life. And music is now an especially important part of my life. It always has been, and it always will be.	14:56
Mary Hebert	Was your home a musical home? Did y'all gather around the piano and sing and play it night and things like that?	16:12
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	It wasn't so much gathering around the piano as we were children, because we all practice individually, but we now do that, myself, Geraldine and Jeanette made our living being music teachers.	16:18
Mary Hebert	Oh, okay.	16:32
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Okay. And we also play for churches, I personally sing for Virginia Opera, so music was a big part of our life. And it was our uncle who was the music teacher on those streets. He taught everybody with the exception of maybe a few music. And in our community, everybody had a piano in their house.	16:32
Mary Hebert	Really?	16:54
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Every house had a piano. And that was real interesting to note.	16:55
Mary Hebert	What was your uncle's name?	17:01
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Clyde Johnson, that was my mother's brother.	17:03
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And he played in the various bands or orchestras of his time, the Clint Turner Band and the Ben Jones Band.	17:08
Mary Hebert	Would he travel around?	17:21
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well in this area. He played many of the instruments, saxophone, clarinet, piano.	17:22
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Trombone.	17:31
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Trombone.	17:32
Mary Hebert	Was your mother musically inclined also?	17:35
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Now, that was one of her ambitions to be a musician. And she always told us how her father had planned by her an organ. She really loved organ. And grandfather Johnson, her father had promised to buy her an organ so she could take organ lessons. However, he died before that was accomplished.	17:37
Mary Hebert	Did your parents ever tell y'all what it was like when they were growing up? How they had to struggle? Or just what they did for fun? What their parents told them about?	18:05
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, they had a pretty nice start in life. My mother's father worked in Money Point, and that's where all the factories were booming at that time. And this is what drew my grandfather to the area. And he and my grandmother married and they had these seven, eight children, and they grew up in a nice big house, two story house, four—	18:17
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Four bedrooms.	18:53
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Four bedrooms, four rooms there, and four rooms—	18:54
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	With a huge porch in the back.	19:00
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes. A porch upstairs and downstairs. And he died, my grandfather died at a young age, he was 40. And I hear my mother, I can hear her now saying when my father died at 40, that was considered being old, 40 years old at that time was considered being old. And at the time that he died, it was my grandmother who was really ill. So when it was indicated that the hearse was coming up and all of this, everybody thought my grandmother, but it was him. And grandmother survived to be about 80 or 85 years old.	19:01
Mary Hebert	And that's the grandmother that y'all knew?	19:54
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Right. We knew [indistinct 00:19:58].	19:56
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Very well.	19:58
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Both our grandmothers, but neither of our grandfathers, we don't know them. It's just hearing my parents talk about them. So they had a pretty good life. And my grandmother was able to maintain the home with help and—	20:08
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	A pension she had—	20:19
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Pension.	20:20
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	From some sorts.	20:21
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	So by that time, let me see, my uncle, Uncle Milton was in the Navy and she got pension through him. And that helped to keep the family going and they did as we have done, everybody worked and pooled the little finances.	20:22
Mary Hebert	So it was a close-knit supportive family?	20:42
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Definitely.	20:44
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Definitely. That was the only way they could do that. Let me say one more thing about Mother, Mother would play music all the time. There was always some music going on, either somebody playing on the piano or the radio. Our first experience, for example, with opera was through my mother. She would play it every Saturday.	20:45
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	The Bell telephone.	21:04
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And the Bell telephone, [indistinct 00:21:07].	21:05
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And Erisa Steven.	21:06
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Erisa— (laughs)	21:06
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Was in our phone.	21:07
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yes.	21:11
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Every Saturday evening.	21:11
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And we learned all of the tunes, we didn't necessarily know the words because of course it was in a foreign language, but we loved it just because we heard it and we were familiar with all of the operatic tunes, that was just the way it was.	21:14
Mary Hebert	And that's where you developed your interest in Opera?	21:28
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And there you go. It paid off, yes.	21:30
Mary Hebert	Do you have to go now?	21:35
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yes, I've got to go. I have five more minutes.	21:36
Mary Hebert	Okay.	21:38
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	I have somebody whose going to call me.	21:39
Mary Hebert	We'll just have your son [indistinct 00:21:41].	21:40
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And I can keep talking.	21:42
Mary Hebert	Okay. Did your parents value education? Was that important to them?	21:43
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Oh, totally.	21:47
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Education was very important. Extremely important.	21:50
Mary Hebert	Did they insist that you go to school every day?	21:53
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Every day. And we accepted that, and we wanted to do that. We did not have to be pushed out of the house, go to school.	21:55
Mary Hebert	How did your educations compare to your parents?	22:03
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Let me see, Mom went to what grade?	22:09
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Fifth or sixth, wasn't it?	22:11
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	22:12
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And Daddy went one more grade, I think?	22:12
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	About seventh.	22:12
Mary Hebert	Okay. What schools did you attend? Starting with elementary school.	22:16
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	South Hill Elementary, Providence High School.	22:22
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Okay, I went to South Hill Elementary, this is Geraldine speaking, and graduated from Norfolk County High School.	22:28
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	This is Jeanette speaking. I went to South Hill Elementary and then to Providence High School, from there to college.	22:39
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And our elementary school was a forum school.	22:48
Mary Hebert	Did it have a wood stove or a coal stove?	22:51
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Definitely.	22:53
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes it did.	22:54
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And two grades in a room, and sometimes three, right?	22:55
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I was in a third and fourth grade classroom. I remember that distinctly because we had spelling bees and all those kind of things. And it being in third grade, I could spell a lot of the fourth grade words. And I'll never forget the word, any. And the fourth graders couldn't spell it. And so the third-grader, Jeanette spelled it for them, A-N-Y. They said I-N-Y, E-N-Y, everything.	22:58
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	And also, let's go with this before I leave, because I want to make sure that you all give her some indication how we got our education from beyond high school. My oldest sister, Marion—If I forget something, chime in. My oldest sister, Marion, wanted to go to college and she worked for a while enough to get enough money for one semester, she went to Elizabeth City, it was called State Teachers College—	23:32
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	No, she went to—	24:04
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Where did she go first?	24:07
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	It wasn't [indistinct 00:24:08] State.	24:07
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	[indistinct 00:24:08] Union? Mission?	24:07
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	No.	24:07
Mary Hebert	Union division?	24:07
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Virginia—	24:07
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	What was it called? [indistinct 00:24:09] what it was called?	24:07
Mary Hebert	It was a division of Virginia State, wasn't it?	24:10
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	It was, but before that it was—	24:11
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Norfolk Mission?	24:13
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	No, Norfolk Mission, that's about 20 years before her time.	24:13
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Okay.	24:13
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	God, really? That's—	24:13
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Okay well, I wouldn't know that.	24:13
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Just say a division of Norfolk State.	24:23
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yeah.	24:25
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	But that's not what it was called. It was something else.	24:26
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	So she went there first. Go ahead.	24:28
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yeah, she went there for the first two years.	24:30
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Okay.	24:32
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And after the sophomore year, then she went to Elizabeth City.	24:33
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	But she had to work first, but she probably worked about a year.	24:40
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	She did that.	24:43
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	She worked a year and was able to save her money so that she could go to finish her last two years. But she only had enough for one semester. All right, so now here's the scenario. My older brother, Johnny dropped out of high school, right?	24:44
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	24:59
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Pearl went to work, James went into the service, and all of the money that they pooled was sent to her. If Pearl bought a dress, she would buy two, keep one for herself, send to Marion, my oldest sister, so that she would have something in college. And, of course, that's the way we got it together. And how our family got the first person in the entire community, as far as I can remember, whoever finished college.	25:00
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	That's right, first person.	25:30
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	We led the way for that.	25:31
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I mean, after Marion's graduation, then I was next.	25:32
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	It was understood.	25:40
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I had been out of high school almost four years, but I entered Virginia State College, now Virginia State University. That was the first time I had lived away from home. So I did that for four years, then Jeanette was next.	25:42
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	That's right. I entered Virginia State College, 1948. My educational background at that point was quite interesting though, because when I graduated from high school, my uncle Milton wanted me to come to San Francisco to go to college. His wife was a music teacher, she had a very fine piano studio in San Francisco, downtown on Subtle Street in San Francisco. This piano studio comprised of an entire floor.	26:03
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And in there she had pianos and various equipment that she needed to do piano lessons, private and group. And it was quite a large piano studio that was going on. Now, they did not live here in town, they lived out towards the Navy yard. And I also remember the address that I lived in San Francisco, it was 10:62 Innes Avenue. And this is where my uncle built his home, after having traveled all over the world and having been in the Navy for most of his young life, he finally built his home in San Francisco, close to the Navy yard.	26:41
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And here I was a 17-year-old, the most excited person you'd ever want to see graduating from high school. And I went to San Francisco when I was 17, and I thought I was going to go to college there. However, it did not materialize, only because his wife died about the 1st of September. I arrived there in—Let's see, I arrived there about the end of June, and his wife died. And therefore my mother and her sister came to California for the first time because they thought that a 17-year-old girl, it would be too much for me to be out there with just an uncle.	27:34
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	A male person too.	28:27
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	So therefore, they came to California to pick me up. And this was my mother's first long trip. And can you imagine a family like ours that had say, more than $300 to go out of the house for? First of all, for me, when I graduated from high school, and then for my mother to come to San Francisco to get me and her sister to come with her, all of the money was just about used up during that time. And so this is Jeanette again, when I came back home, I was not able to go to college that year because so much money had already gone out of the house and out of the family. So therefore, I stayed out of school for one year and I worked at the theaters and I worked just various places. But it was a marvelous experience.	28:28
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And I especially enjoyed working at a theater right here in Berkeley that was called the Ritz Theater. And I met so many people, including my husband, and it was kind of real growing up experience for a 17-year-old. And so it did not deter my determination to go to college. And with having, I had two sisters already who had graduated from college, you know that my determination was to complete my college education was very, very high. And I kept that. And when I finished working at the end of that year, I had enough money to go to Virginia State, Petersburg also.	29:35
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Let me, say—Because I got to go now. I just want to say, so I want to make sure we don't leave this out, even though all of the girls went to college.	30:22
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yeah, I was going to [indistinct 00:30:34] right now on that. Go ahead.	30:31
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Go ahead, that's all I wanted to make sure [indistinct 00:30:35]. Okay, even though all of the girls went to college, and of course the one who had finished college helped financially, brothers were helping financially, et cetera. The brother who got out of high school in order to help my oldest sister, and then of course Pearl went to night school and he finished high school [indistinct 00:30:54] Washington High school, night school. I had James, my other brother as a result of being in the service. When he got out of the service, he was able to—	30:34
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Take advantage of the GI Bill.	31:05
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Yeah, but he hadn't finished high school either?	31:07
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	No.	31:09
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	'Cause he had his high school with me.	31:09
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	He had to go to high school and then he took advantage [indistinct 00:31:12].	31:10
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	He had to go to high school. He drove a school bus, in fact. He drove the school bus to the high school in which he was attending. He finished high school and then he took advantage of GI Bill. And of course the brother that was nearest me had it a little better. And of course I did too because everybody helped me and helped my other brother Milton next to me. And you can go from there.	31:12
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	All right.	31:31
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	Got to go. I enjoyed it, I wish I could stay. Bye-bye girls.	31:31
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Bye.	31:31
Mary Hebert	So the boys actually did get to complete their education?	31:31
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	They did. Milton, the youngest brother, also completed his college education through the use of the GI Bill. The two brothers graduated from Howard University and the one who dropped out of high school then completed high school, night school, did some further study. But he never acquired college university degree. However, he has been very successful in that he became the first—Wait a minute, the first Black—	31:41
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I wanted to say that he worked at the Navy yard, isn't that where he worked during the war? And this caused a lot of extra money to come into our house.	32:27
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yeah, you did an interview of [indistinct 00:32:40], so she might have this on Jackson.	32:37
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes, all right.	32:42
Mary Hebert	No, we talked mostly about her life though, and not his at all.	32:43
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh, yes.	32:46
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	All right then.	32:47
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Well, he did. He worked at the Navy yard during the war, and he made a lot of money, which meant that now this is a lot of money coming into our home. And he didn't—Well, let me see. How shall I say it? Okay.	32:48
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Go ahead, keep going.	33:11
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	All right. I'm trying to get my brother Johnny in there and how much he helped the family, also. Because he really did. As he made quite a bit of money, he helped out in the family finances too, which was very, very important. After the Navy yard, then he went to the post office. Isn't that the way it was?	33:12
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes. And I was just getting to the point that, this is Pearly speaking, getting to the point that he became the first Black rural male carrier. And he finally, before retirement, he was supervisor in the post office. So even though he did not graduate from college or university, he—	33:40
Mary Hebert	He did have a successful career.	34:03
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Right.	34:05
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	That's right.	34:06
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	He furthered his education.	34:06
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Had very good jobs.	34:06
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And did courses through the post office and things of that nature.	34:08
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And he loves politics.	34:12
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	He's into politics.	34:14
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	He loves politics a great deal. And right now he is like the—	34:15
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	In the redevelopment and housing—	34:20
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Housing board.	34:22
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Board.	34:23
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And he's quite proud of this.	34:24
Mary Hebert	What was that trip to California like for you as a 17-year-old going across country? How was it?	34:27
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh, it was just the most exciting thing that there could have been. One of my uncles, my uncle Clyde, the one who's the piano teacher, he went with me. The two of us traveled together and we traveled from here, in Norfolk, to Cincinnati, Ohio, and from Cincinnati, Ohio to Chicago. And when we got to Chicago, we had to change and get on another train. And oh, it was the fastest train and everything, and the most beautiful, the most exciting, the most everything. But it took three days and three nights and a half for us to get to San Francisco. And it was just the thrill of my life.	34:35
Mary Hebert	Did the segregation of the train end when you got to Ohio? I mean, the segregation of the train car and that type of thing.	35:27
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I don't think that I particularly paid any attention to it. I guess at that age, I just wasn't into that kind of thing at all. And I do believe that everybody sat on the train car at different—Together. Aha, we were. We were in the same train cars as anybody else. And we didn't use a sleeper though.	35:36
Mary Hebert	Right.	36:04
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	36:05
Mary Hebert	Going back to you all, going to school, did either of you have a teacher that really influenced you or the school principal that influenced you?	36:08
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, this is Pearly speaking again, the teachers were our mentors, 'cause these are the professional people that we interacted with or that we saw. We knew the teachers, we knew the preachers, we knew the doctors, our family doctors. So I would say that, yes, one of my teachers, I was really so impressed with her in elementary school, and her name was Mrs. Lancaster, and I think she played a role in my wanting to be a teacher. And I'm the one who did not pursue a musical career, but I ended up being classroom teacher and my last 18 years, guidance counselor in the junior high school.	36:18
Mary Hebert	Did the teachers play favorites?	37:20
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, the students had a tendency in elementary school, yes to say she's the teacher's pet. If you were always got your hand up, know the answer. I was called the teacher's pet, but really I was not, I just knew my lessons.	37:23
Mary Hebert	Did y'all work on that at home? Did your parents insist you do your lessons when you got home from school?	37:41
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Daddy was the one that helped with say the arithmetic. He was good at that. So if you needed any help, he was there.	37:46
Mary Hebert	And did you help the younger siblings?	37:56
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh, definitely. I knew so much when I went into elementary school, most of the students my age went to elementary school a year ahead of me. And I had to stay home because I was born February and I was totally upset about having to stay home and not go to elementary school with my good friends. But when I went to school, it wasn't a good month that my teachers—They put me into the same classes with all of my friends because I already knew everything that they did.	37:58
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And I kept up with them and a lot of times went beyond what they could do still because of the attention that I really did receive at home. And they knew a lot. And the people, my sisters and brothers, they taught us a lot. I know that I knew a lot because of what they taught me at home. So it wasn't necessarily one teacher that inspired me so much as my sisters and my brothers, my family. And I had already had a love of going to school and being—I just loved school.	38:32
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	One of the things that I would like to get into this session, this is Pearly speaking, it's in reference to one of the struggles that we had in obtaining a high school education. We had no transportation, no bus transportation for us, I'm referring to the Black students. And the high school in North County was the Providence High School, which was about three or four miles from where we lived in the South Hill community. So in order to go to school, we either had to walk or our parents had paid someone. So by and large, for the most part, we walked and my parents were able to secure the service. One of the gentleman who had a car, and he work nights, so days, morning, he was getting off from work. So on rainy and snowy days, he would take us to school.	39:12
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	So we were determined enough to get our high school education that we didn't mind walking. And it turns out that that was really a healthy thing to do because everybody's advocating how healthy it is to walk now, but it wasn't so healthy to do no snow and rain and all of that.	40:25
Mary Hebert	Did you have to pass through any White neighborhoods—	40:44
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Definitely.	40:46
Mary Hebert	To school?	40:46
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh yes, the Portlock School.	40:46
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	The buses—	40:48
Geraldine Hayslett Boone	She did.	40:49
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	School buses went by us and drop them off like a mile or less, but we had to pass by that. And we found a shortcut, which was called going through—It was called a government yard. But what it was, it was woods really. But there were some paths through there, so we did that shortcut, sometimes. But I would be afraid the children have to do that and we were fortunate, no one was harmed or anything.	40:49
Mary Hebert	Would the White kids on the bus tease you, taunt you, throw rocks, things like that.	41:20
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I never experienced that. I really didn't.	41:26
Mary Hebert	But that White school was closer to your home than Providence High?	41:28
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, we could have walked that in about 10 minutes or less.	41:31
Mary Hebert	What were the books like?	41:37
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, traditional.	41:41
Mary Hebert	Were they used books?	41:43
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Used books for the most part. And then here again, the parents had—We had to buy our books. They were not say free books or rented books, we had to buy them. So our parents would buy them from the students of the previous grade. And that way we always had our textbook. Mom and Daddy got money somehow.	41:45
Mary Hebert	And would you pass it on to the next—	42:10
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	To the next, right.	42:15
Mary Hebert	Brother or sister?	42:15
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yeah.	42:15
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Or seldom to, if we didn't have a sister, brother coming into that class, we'd sell them to somebody in the school who had brothers or sisters coming into that class, so that's how that worked.	42:16
Mary Hebert	Did Providence have a library?	42:25
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes, very small though. Very small. The principal's office was kind of like in there and everything. And—	42:37
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Appointment, conference here at my house right now. I can't talk to you, yes.	42:41
Mary Hebert	Okay, so the principal's office was in the library?	42:46
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes. I'm trying to decide now if we were in there or close. Where was it? Was it right in the library? It was right down that hall?	42:50
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	See, the principal also taught.	42:59
Mary Hebert	He taught too?	43:01
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	43:02
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	He sure did. Reverend Nance. He taught, I don't remember in office at all. Maybe—	43:02
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Well, that must have been where he would be most of the time in the library, when he wasn't doing his classes.	43:11
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Probably.	43:18
Mary Hebert	I need to—	43:20

Mary Hebert	All right. Did the principal take an active interest in each student's education? Would he have parent-teacher conferences, have conferences with the parents and things like that?	0:00
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I think if needed, but we were nice.	0:13
Mary Hebert	What about the teachers? Did they take an interest in each student's education?	0:21
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh, yes. The teachers were—We felt that they were outstanding, very good, and they knew us very well and they wanted us to move as much as we could, and I was, this is Jeanette again, I was still rather ambitious, and I do remember when new teacher came to the school and I would always have my hands raised trying to answer some questions, and I think he wanted to give some other students an opportunity, and so he would overlook my hand and that did bother me for a while, but now I understand what he was doing. As a new teacher, I understand what he was doing, I really do.	0:25
Mary Hebert	So he's trying to let the others answer?	1:18
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	1:20
Mary Hebert	Were y'all active in clubs or organizations in school?	1:21
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	There were very few clubs and organizations in elementary and high school during my time. See, my birthday is May the 28th, 1922. I am presently 73 years old.	1:28
Mary Hebert	What are your memories of the depression? What was it like for your parents or for you as a child during the depression?	1:51
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I guess you can say that we were poor but we didn't realize we were poor because we had the necessities. We had a home, house, which was really a home, We had plenty food.	2:00
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Our father liked to—He had a garden, large gardens.	2:15
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	We got that in.	2:20
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh yes.	2:21
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Okay.	2:22
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	All right.	2:22
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And then as I mentioned, we had a sister who sewed, and we had an aunt in New York, and there was another dear friend of my mom's living in Plainfield, New Jersey, and they sent us boxes of clothes and that was like going shopping.	2:23
Mary Hebert	So y'all didn't have to do much shopping for clothing?	2:46
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	No. And the depression, well, it was an impact on our lives, but not to the extent that we suffered.	2:48
Mary Hebert	Do you—	3:06
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And one of the things that I do remember that was really a historic event, and that is that President Roosevelt came through our little community. He drove down Bainbridge Boulevard and we got to go out there and see him and see that, so that's something that was really interesting and a thrill.	3:06
Mary Hebert	Did your father admire Roosevelt?	3:32
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Oh, we did. Yes.	3:34
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Definitely.	3:36
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yeah, definitely.	3:37
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And our father was a—	3:37
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Democrat.	3:39
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Into politics.	3:39
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, he was.	3:39
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	He was into politics a great deal.	3:43
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	He was civic minded. And we have talked about the family and the community and the school, and we don't want to forget the impact that our Christian Church relationship has had on our lives.	3:44
Mary Hebert	What church did your family belong to?	4:01
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Okay. We belonged to the Baptist Church, first Baptist Church up in South Hill for X number of years, and then we moved our membership to First Baptist Church, Berkeley Avenue.	4:07
Mary Hebert	What was the minister like? Was he an important figure in the community?	4:26
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, the minister always.	4:32
Mary Hebert	Was he civic minded?	4:35
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yeah. We had several ministers now during our growing up. Trying to think back. How involved were they, civics.	4:37
Mary Hebert	Did they have to work, the ministers, or were they full-time ministers?	4:53
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Let's see. All the ministers that I can recall did not work in full-time ministry, and some of them were very intelligent and challenging and capable, some of. I remember one who was not.	4:57
Mary Hebert	Would the church get together at Sunday School and go to the beach?	5:14
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Definitely.	5:22
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	That was the highlight of our travels.	5:22
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Very fond memory.	5:28
Mary Hebert	What would y'all do at the beach?	5:31
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, there were games and swimming, and definitely the eating.	5:34
Mary Hebert	Would y'all make a basket of food at home?	5:39
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Fresh chicken, deviled eggs, potato salad, you name it. Soda—	5:41
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Cakes, pies.	5:46
Mary Hebert	How would y'all get there?	5:49
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Buses. Now, very early on we did what was called the hayride.	5:51
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes, we did.	5:56
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	It was way back there but I do remember that. And later on, we got to be a little more sophisticated. So we had the chatter buses.	5:57
Mary Hebert	So the hayride was in the back of a truck or was it in a carriage?	6:06
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes, in the beginning, yes.	6:08
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	At least our children don't know anything about hayrides.	6:08
Mary Hebert	Did people have house parties on the weekend for fun?	6:17
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Not a lot, but the men in the families, they would get together sometimes. My father and his friend, Mr. Finn and Turner, they would visit each other a lot, and they told a lot of stories and tales and we would sit around and listen to all of the stories and tales that they would tell and that was a fun time in our lives too, to listen to the men talk about things that had gone on. And then sometimes they would just tell ghost stories and things like that.	6:23
Mary Hebert	Can you remember any of the stories or the subjects of any of the stories?	6:58
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Not really, but I do remember that they told ghost stories sometimes about things that happened in big old houses and walls creaking and those kind of things.	7:04
Mary Hebert	Would they scare you?	7:15
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	7:16
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And this is Pearl speaking again. You're mentioning that brought to my mind neighbors, Mr and Mrs—	7:19
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	John Turnage.	7:27
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	John Turnage, and Mrs. Molly Turnage, was the lady's name and they owned this big fine house on the corner from us and they had no children initially. They had a car, they had a telephone, so that's where we would go when we needed to make a telephone call. They traveled up north, New Jersey and places, Atlantic City. So Mrs. Molly would come over to our house and we would sit around and she would tell us all of the—Give us all the details of her visitation to Atlantic City and New Jersey, different places, and that instilled in us the desire to want to travel. So when we became able to do that, we have traveled to the extent that we have been to Europe, I've been to Europe twice, and we've done much travel in this good old US of A.	7:30
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	We have traveled to the islands. I've done three island cruises. We've gone to Canada several times. So there are people, there were people who influenced our lives and started us on the way to wanting to do great things, wonderful things, enjoyable things. We didn't have time to be mad with the world and be mad with the insensitivities and the negative things.	8:43
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	That's really true. That's why I don't remember about the train.	9:16
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Right. We focus our attention on the positive and the good.	9:20
Mary Hebert	So y'all never really let the Jim Crow laws play a major part in—	9:25
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	We had—Go ahead.	9:33
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	It did to the extent that my father wanted us to have better schools, and he was very outspoken about the fact that he wanted us to have better schools. And I can remember when the Providence High School moved over to—What's that place where in Norfolk County was?	9:35
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	It was—	10:02
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Something over there in the Cavalier Manor section.	10:07
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Right. That section.	10:10
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	That's where Norfolk County had a school, and my father still was not very impressed with it and felt that we should have better schools, and he went to all of the school meetings and everything, and at one point, my father stood up and told everybody that we don't want any more old schools, we want a new school, and I think that, at this point, this is when the first Black high school was really given to the Blacks because of what our father really stood up for, and this is when Crestwood High School came into being., But my father was the one who stood up before all of the people and said, "We don't want any more old schools." Because we had just moved out of the old Providence High School into the old Norfolk County High School in the Cavalier manor section.	10:11
Mary Hebert	Which had been a White school?	11:12
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And that's right. And this still wasn't the idea of what my father thought was the kind of school that he wanted his children to go to, and so he really stood up for a new school, and so I think at that point, that is when we really did get the Crestwood High School.	11:13
Mary Hebert	Did he fight in other ways against the system of segregation, like, say, refusing to go to a store that had a segregated lunch counter? That's just an example, things like that.	11:31
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I think, basically, he fought more and he was more into what he wanted for—	11:44
Mary Hebert	His children.	11:51
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	His children, and he fought for to get better schools and whatnot because—	11:52
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And Mrs. Pearl is speaking. As I mentioned, we have been the kind of people, and we still are, who try to work within the system, therefore, as each one of us became, now 21, and we are adults, 21, but as we became, each one became 21, my daddy took each one of us and paid that dollar and a half whole tax fee and we became registered voters as we became 21. Then our parents, mom and dad, both said, "Stay in school, get your education, be prepared." And they always said to us, "You are just as good as anybody. Hold your head up and don't let any negatives create an evil feeling within you." So we have lived by that. If you walk around with an attitude, we did not walk around with an attitude and a chip on our shoulders looking for problems.	11:57
Mary Hebert	You mean you were as good as anyone else?	13:12
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	That's right.	13:14
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And plus our mother sent us out to school looking so nice with those—The kind of clothes that people gave and everything, she would take them and starch them and wash them up really good, and when we would go out to school, we were looking as good as anybody else too, and we didn't feel anything about how we looked, even though we might have had clothes on that someone else had won. They were looking so good until we had a sense of pride in how we were going to school and felt good about it.	13:17
Mary Hebert	You mentioned that your father made sure that y'all registered to vote. Did you have to take any kind of exam?	13:54
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	No. It was just a matter of filling out a form and paying the one dollar and a half poll tax. And so we have voted ever since. I have not missed—	14:00
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And I have not either.	14:12
Mary Hebert	That's something that he taught you?	14:13
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	He did.	14:15
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes, it's that.	14:15
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And I remember one of my professors at Virginia State College, Dr. Luther P Jackson, that was his thing. "Pay your poll tax and vote." And so I remember that and I have not failed to vote at any election.	14:17
Mary Hebert	Would he talk about politics at home, your father?	14:38
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, he did.	14:41
Mary Hebert	Did he register as a Democrat? Was that—Because that was changing in the thirties with FDR coming in. Prior to that, African-Americans registered mainly as Republicans and that shifted later. I was just—	14:46
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, we've always gone Republic—I mean a Democrat. There's one family member, that's Johnny, my brother, he is staunch Republican.	15:00
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	That's right.	15:10
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And we said, "That's fine."	15:11
Mary Hebert	He's exercising his civic duty.	15:13
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Right.	15:15
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Sure.	15:15
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And individual differences. That's fine. We still love him. We're all together. Couldn't break up the family togetherness.	15:16
Mary Hebert	Did your father belong to the NAACP?	15:27
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes. I'm sure he did.	15:31
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes. And I do. I keep my NAACP membership up. And this is another thing that I do. This is Pearl speaking. I mentioned about how my sister, Geraldine, was at King Daughters for some six months, and we believe in giving backs to the system, supporting what has been available and what is available to us, so every year I make a donation.	15:33
Mary Hebert	Is that a charity type hospital or is it—	16:07
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	It's a children's hospital.	16:12
Mary Hebert	It's children's hospital.	16:14
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And—	16:14
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	It's connected with Norfolk General Hospital.	16:15
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes. Eastern School of Music at Eastern Medical Center.	16:17
Mary Hebert	Okay.	16:23
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	It's not a charity hospital now?	16:23
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	No.	16:25
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Not by no many.	16:26
Mary Hebert	I just—	16:27
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	But during that time, and even now, they won't turn anybody away.	16:27
Mary Hebert	Okay, because I interviewed some people who said that they were so poor that that's where they went and I didn't know if—	16:32
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	It's for they will take people.	16:37
Mary Hebert	[indistinct 00:16:40]	16:40
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Right. And even more so back then, because there's no way that my parents could've paid for six months.	16:40
Mary Hebert	Let's change the subject a little bit. What were some of the gathering places in your community where people would gather to talk or—	16:55
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	We had a place called a Carline, C-A-R-L-I-N-E. Only they didn't say it like that. What did they say? Carline, something like that.	17:04
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Carline. [indistinct 00:17:16].	17:12
Mary Hebert	Bainbridge?	17:18
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And the street cars used to run it. It was the main street, but the street cars wouldn't run through.	17:19
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	There were some jukeboxes and a restaurant. Ms. Temps restaurant.	17:25
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	17:38
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I've forgotten all about all of these things.	17:39
Mary Hebert	And what would y'all do for fun on the weekends as, say, teenagers?	17:46
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh, we went to the theaters, to the movies.	17:50
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Because we went to church and Sunday School.	17:54
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh yes. Oh definitely.	17:58
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And we had to go to Sunday School and church.	18:00
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And BYPU also.	18:00
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	18:02
Mary Hebert	And what's that?	18:02
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Baptist Young People's Training, and my father was the head of this particular—Yes.	18:03
Mary Hebert	And what did they do? What did you do there at the Baptist Young People's Training?	18:11
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	We studied the Bible. We continued to study the Bible and sang, sang a lot, and it was another way that young people got together in the afternoon, and that was an important thing, I think, was for young people to get together and do things. And we did programs at the church and things like that.	18:20
Mary Hebert	Your father was active in the church?	18:45
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Very active. He was a deacon.	18:46
Mary Hebert	What theaters would you go to? The ones in Berkeley?	18:52
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, the Ritz Theater, and the one in Norfolk also. What was that?	18:54
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	The Regal and the Booker T.	18:59
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Booker T. Yes.	19:01
Mary Hebert	So y'all go all the way out to Church Street?	19:03
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	19:06
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	19:06
Mary Hebert	Where would your family do most of the shopping, say, for groceries?	19:10
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	At the store where my daddy worked, Morrison Grocery Store.	19:15
Mary Hebert	Was that owned by a White family?	19:20
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	19:21
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	19:21
Mary Hebert	A Jewish family?	19:21
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	No.	19:24
Mary Hebert	Were there many Jewish business owners in your neighborhood?	19:27
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	In the Berkley Avenue.	19:31
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes, in the Berkley section.	19:32
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Not in South Hill.	19:34
Mary Hebert	South Hill was mostly African-American?	19:36
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Well, South Hill was African-American, and then the Portlock section was the White area. And South Hill, it was where the Black section was, was like three streets, and then the White communities are all around.	19:38
Mary Hebert	How were the neighborhoods divided from one another? Was there a street and you knew that one side was White, the White section, the other side was a Black section?	19:55
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	No.	20:04
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Not really. See there's South Hill, you would go up Middle Street, make a U way down there at McKinley Street and come on down Hill Street and that would take you right on out to Bainbridge. Make a right turn and here were the White communities, and cross Bainbridge, White—	20:04
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	So there wasn't any dividing line or anything, it's just that we—The Black people were in those three streets right there in the middle of the Portlock section.	20:25
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	It might have been a little more than three streets. There was a Texas road, where the Texas are. It in Banister, and don't forget Park Road.	20:36
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	So four and a half—Two more half streets now.	20:44
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Park Road and McKinley Avenue.	20:49
Mary Hebert	And where do most of the people who lived in the South Hill area work ?	20:52
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, at the Texas Oil company that I just mentioned, and [indistinct 00:21:08] Box Factory. What else? And later on the Navy Yard, Navy Air Station.	21:02
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Some of the factories in Money Point probably.	21:20
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yeah. Right. Okay. Money Point had a lot of fertilizer plants. Smith and Douglas was one of the main ones. One of our schools was named after Smith and Douglas, [indistinct 00:21:44] for that company because he pulled a lot of money into that, and of course that started out as a segregated White school.	21:22
Mary Hebert	At Oscar Smith?	21:55
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	22:00
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Oscar Smith, but after integration, it became integrated. And then Oscar Smith is a state of the art school, moved down in the [indistinct 00:22:03] Bridge area.	22:00
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And this is the high school that my daughter and my son attended.	22:04
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And my son too.	22:08
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I was very proud of them going through Oscar Smith High School.	22:09
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	22:12
Mary Hebert	Did you want them to go to an integrated school?	22:14
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh, definitely.	22:16
Mary Hebert	Is that important?	22:16
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh, very definitely. It was very important by then. It certainly was.	22:18
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And one of the things that we did, this is Pearly speaking, prior to integration, we had decided that we had better advance our credentials by getting our master's degree, because this is how we were thinking we may have to move north, and so we went to Columbia University Teachers College and I got my master's degree in guidance and counseling, and so did my sister, Marion, and she got hers in music.	22:26
Mary Hebert	Was there a fear that you'd lose your jobs once they started closing Black schools?	23:11
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes. That was in our thoughts.	23:15
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And all three of us went to Columbia University at the same time. I went one summer before they did, and the next time that we went, all the three of us went and we had fun going to New York. We would go to New York on the weekend and register and come back home because all of us had very young children, and we would stay until the 4th of July and then we would go, leave and go back to New York on the 4th of July and be there for classes on the following Monday. And, see, that helped out with the time that we were away from our children, and in between, our husbands would come to New York and bring the children.	23:18
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	[indistinct 00:24:06].	24:05
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And to visit with us and we would probably come back home one other time, and then our six weeks of study at Columbia University would be over, and I must say that that was another wonderful part of my life because I still love school, and once I get in the atmosphere of learning, then it's just something about it that lifts me to another level or something and I just thoroughly enjoyed it. And so four summers at Columbia University in the music department was another thrill of my life.	24:06
Mary Hebert	How did y'all decide to go to Columbia?	24:44
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, okay, the state of Virginia paid for us to go out of state. They didn't want us to go to the University of Virginia, so we accepted that stipend and we went to Columbia.	24:46
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	It was called Virginia State Aid.	25:01
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	That's right. That's what it was called.	25:03
Mary Hebert	Rather than integrate the graduate program.	25:04
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	That's right, yes.	25:06
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes. But they did us a favor. We look at it positively. It gave us another experience and we learned that, hey, we're staying down south. Think it's better here [indistinct 00:25:24]. I think in some respects, they thought they had an integration.	25:07
Mary Hebert	But they didn't.	25:29
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	That's it.	25:30
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Some respects,	25:31
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	25:32
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	So a lot of people who are up north now are coming back this way.	25:34
Mary Hebert	Did teachers support the desegregation of the schools? Is that something that, in general, they wanted?	25:39
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I think most teachers supported it, but there are some teachers who are very staunch still, who feel that segregation has not—Integration has not been the best thing for Black boys and girls, but I feel that it has been extra good because I wanted my son and my daughter to go to an integrated school because I felt that they could measure up to anybody and that they could do as well as anybody and they were very well prepared for integration, and so I feel that it has been a very important thing.	25:48
Mary Hebert	And.. Go on.	26:32
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	The thing about it is, we want opportunity for ourselves, for our children. We want equal opportunity. We want the same thing. We want to have a chance at it, and it's up to us to strive, to struggle and to reach the heights that's possible for us.	26:33
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Well, I want to say how proud I am of the accomplishments of my son and my daughter. My son is Michael Wallace and he graduated from Oscar Smith High School, and from there, my husband encouraged him to go to Virginia Tech because he wanted to become an electrical engineer. Now, he wanted to go to the University of Maryland, but my husband couldn't see that we would be paying out of state fee for our son to go to the University of Maryland when here, in Virginia, we can now go to a very good school that can offer what he wanted, and so we talked him into going to Virginia Tech and he enjoyed being at Virginia Tech, received an outstanding education, and when it was time to get a job, he wanted to work for AT&T in Richmond, and that's where he has been for the last 13 years.	27:02
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	He is now a senior electrical engineer for AT&T. In the beginning, his job was right there in Richmond, but now his job takes him all over the country and all over the world, and I'm exceedingly proud of my son's accomplishments, and also my daughter. We sent our daughter to the University of Virginia. She stayed there for four years and she was determined that she was going to graduate in four years and that she would not spend any extra money or extra time being in college and that's what she did. She was able to get into the business school at UVA and graduated in the four years, and after graduation, this school helped her to find a very fine job, a really fine job. She works in Atlanta, Georgia. She works for the bank that's called Wachovia and she is downtown at the bank in Atlanta, Georgia, and she has achieved as high as an assistant—What is it? Assist—What?	28:04
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	National representative, I believe.	29:29
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	No, that's not it. No. Assistant vice presidents.	29:31
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Oh, okay.	29:34
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes. And so she has done very well with her job also. At this point, she is raising her family and she has decided to go into personnel at the same bank, Wachovia, and she has been there for almost seven years and done a really fine job, and so I'm exceedingly proud of the accomplishments of my two children. Jeanette, [indistinct 00:30:05].	29:35
Mary Hebert	Did you two both go into integrated schools, teaching in integrated schools once they finally desegregated them?	30:06
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes. I went into Western Branch Junior High School in 1969 as guidance counselor, and prior to that, we had six weeks into desegregation seminar at Norfolk State University, and the faculty was composed of university professors from University of Virginia, ODU, Norfolk State, and even some of the personnel from the school system. So that prepared me, to some degree, prepared us, to some degree, for entering into the desegregated school.	30:14
Mary Hebert	How did that help you when you got to the school? Did it help at all?	31:18
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	It did, because the desegregation seminar was integrated. There were White and Black professors and students, so it did, it helped a great deal. And my supervisor was one of the instructors and they had made some connection with the faculties in the schools prior to our going to the schools saying, "Hey, we integrated and we want everybody to be treated however, professionally and all of that." So I really had a good relationship and I liked my school.	31:27
Mary Hebert	So you didn't have any problems there?	32:08
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I didn't.	32:11
Mary Hebert	Did you have any problems with the parents not wanting you to be there?	32:11
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Not to my knowledge.	32:14
Mary Hebert	Okay. Yeah. I just talked to teachers who had parents pull their White children on classes.	32:18
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, I was a guidance counselor, but I don't recall any parents pulling anybody out of a teacher's class, asking that their child be taken out of a class for that reason. Maybe they could have had it as a hidden agenda but I don't recall.	32:23
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And I have taught elementary school music and I want to say that my first experience with integration was when I first came out of college, 1952, because I was the only Black music consultant to go into the elementary schools in Norfolk County, and therefore, when it was time for a music department meeting, I was the only Black person in the music department meeting and I was, once again, proud because I was invited to come to all of the music department meetings with everybody else. We had a outstanding supervisor. His name was Mr. WC Duval, and I will never forget going to my first music department meeting at Northview High School. And due to the fact that the band director who was Black, due to the fact that he was ill that particular day, I was the only Black person who walked into that meeting and I felt very comfortable.	32:43
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I wasn't uncomfortable at all about it. Everybody was very nice and I was just comfortable about it. It wasn't any big deal. After—Most of the time I taught in the all Black schools music and I was known as an elementary music consultant, the first one.	33:50
Mary Hebert	You'd travel from school to school?	34:13
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	That's right. And I liked my job. It was—Everybody thought that music was very important, all the teachers and parents and everyone, and so I was very well received. And it was probably about 1972 before I started going into integrated schools, and I did. I went into North Collins Elementary, which is right down here on Indian River Road, and I felt that I was very well received, I really did. I felt that, well, it could have been that it was my area that I worked in, but I felt very comfortable all the time, whether it was an integrated situation or not.	34:14
Mary Hebert	Did y'all feel that as teachers you were expected to be a role model for your community, especially during the period of segregation? Or were teachers viewed as role models?	35:04
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, [indistinct 00:35:17].	35:16
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh, we were.	35:16
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	35:16
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	We were role models.	35:16
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Because as we mentioned earlier, my sister was the first person to graduate from college in our community, and since that time, there have been numerous young people who have gone to college from South Hill and have made it successfully, and many of them have said that it was because of our family members. There was a Dr. Hubert Tims who taught at Elizabeth City College. He was from South Hill. He got his PhD and he was a scientist, he was in science, and he told us that he used our family as a model to his students at Elizabeth City's, saying how we pulled together, helped one another and struggled and got through college. So yes, we were role models and we still are, even though I'm retired since 86.	35:18
Mary Hebert	Those are about all the questions that I have. Is there anything that you want to add to what we've discussed?	36:24
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I was looking at something on this sheet. Jeanette mentioned about her young people, her children, and I know we can't give a detail of everybody, but I would like to say that I have two sons as well and I could give a long dissertation on them. I'm proud of them and they accomplished too. However, I would like to say that we do have, in our family, such careers in business, computer science, dentistry, education, music, industrial technology, engineering, and fashion, among many other things, and we have family members who have contributed to the military stability of this country. We have retired people in every area of the different services, the US Navy, the US Army, and the US Air Force, and they rank on up to Lieutenant Colonels.	36:35
Mary Hebert	Wonderful.	37:36
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And that's because we've struggled and we've loved and we pull together, and we still do that.	37:38
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Can I say that we have had some wonderful husbands too who supported us and gave us the kind of support that we needed to go out and do our jobs, and they really stood behind us. We had family members who helped to take care of our children, and also, the support of our husbands, and I think that's very important.	37:44
Mary Hebert	So the family members would take care of your children while you were at Columbia and—	38:14
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	That's right.	38:17
Mary Hebert	Would they take care of them while you were at work?	38:19
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Mm-hmm. While we were at work.	38:21
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I had an aunt who took care of my children, and she would come to the house. I didn't have to bone them up and carry them up. And my mom, and even though she was a stroke person, it's amazing she would change diapers when we weren't around, and she did it right too.	38:23
Mary Hebert	This is something that we ask everyone that we interview. Did you ever feel like you were treated as a second class citizen because of the system of Jim Crow?	38:46
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I refused to let it make me feel that way.	38:58
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	There were some times when we were and we knew it, like when we had—We traveled to places like Chicago to conferences and things like that and we could not just go to any hotel and check in and stay over a night if we wanted to and things like that. We were aware of it. There were—It was quite a bit of a awareness that we could not go certain places and so we just didn't, but we would like to have.	39:01
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And I refuse to let it make me feel that I was second class. If somebody else want to say I'm second class, okay, that's your problem, it's not mine.	39:34
Mary Hebert	And did you try to change it by working within the system? You mentioned that earlier.	39:44
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Definitely.	39:48
Mary Hebert	So you used your vote?	39:49
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	That's right.	39:51
Mary Hebert	Did you use economics as a way to influence it too? Like I mentioned earlier, not shopping at certain stores because of—	39:52
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh yes, we used that.	40:01
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I've done that.	40:02
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I'm sure we used that when WG Swartz and all of them were downtown and had—	40:04
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	We closed down a few stores.	40:11
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Sure.	40:12
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	WG Swartz and L Snyders, the Blacks closed those stores there.	40:13
Mary Hebert	[indistinct 00:40:17]	40:16
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	That's right.	40:16
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Because we were all teaching and we stayed in those stores all the time. We loved going in them and once the desegregation issue came up, well, it wasn't anything for us to do but to support that.	40:18
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	L Snyders, I think, was the one that moved the—Was it L Snyder or was Swartz that moved the lunch? They had a lunch counter and then removed the students. So you couldn't sit at the counter. So then, yes, we stopped buying there, and it wasn't long before they had to close down.	40:36
Mary Hebert	Did y'all—	40:54

Mary Hebert	—those kinds of things. You mentioned y'all stopped going to L. Snyder's and Swartz's. Was that after the sit-ins started taking place?	0:02
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	0:13
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, that was during the sit-in period.	0:13
Mary Hebert	During the sit-ins?	0:13
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, as I recall it now.	0:13
Mary Hebert	Did y'all support those students and what they were doing?	0:17
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh yes.	0:21
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	In what respect? You mean—	0:22
Mary Hebert	Morally?	0:24
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yeah. Morally, yes.	0:24
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	0:25
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Oh yes, yes. Sure, sure.	0:27
Mary Hebert	How did the civil rights movement impact Norfolk?	0:29
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, one of the things that it did, it shut down the Norfolk schools in South Norfolk, allowed the Norfolk school students to come to Smith. That lasted about a year, I think.	0:34
Mary Hebert	So the White students, they shut down the White schools?	0:54
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yeah, they shut down the schools, period. So the White students were allowed to come to Smith. The Norfolk students were allowed to come to South Norfolk, to Smith. So that was a terrible time.	0:56
Mary Hebert	Did the Black students still go to Booker T. Washington?	1:10
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	What did the Blacks do?	1:14
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	You know what? The Blacks didn't go to school. They set up some centers where some of them could.	1:16
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yeah.	1:23
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Some of them went to other places.	1:23
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	The church centers.	1:27
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	1:27
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	And other places.	1:28
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	But in general, the schools closed.	1:31
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	It actually was a terrible time. That was a dark day.	1:35
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	It was.	1:36
Mary Hebert	Was there every violence in the Norfolk area surrounding the movement?	1:39
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I don't remember any.	1:47
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I don't recall either.	1:47
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Shooting and street mobs. We didn't have that in this area. There were people who left this area and went on the marches, Martin Luther King marches. We had busloads that did that type of thing.	1:55
Mary Hebert	So like the March on Washington?	2:13
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	2:16
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	2:16
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	But so far as any of that being in this area, I don't recall any of that.	2:18
Mary Hebert	I didn't ask about World War Two and how that impacted this area. Were there like air raid drills and—	2:25
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	2:32
Mary Hebert	—things like that?	2:34
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	2:34
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Definitely. Mm-hmm. We would sit around wherever we were at.	2:34
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I remember that.	2:34
Mary Hebert	Were y'all afraid?	2:38
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes. We were afraid.	2:38
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And my husband was in the Army in World War Two.	2:43
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Daddy was—	2:47
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Clarence Wallace.	2:48
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	What you call it, wardens, they would walk the streets during the blackouts.	2:50
Mary Hebert	Your father was—	2:58
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Mm-hmm. I think they called them civil something, wardens.	3:00
Mary Hebert	To make sure everyone was in?	3:04
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yeah. Right.	3:07
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And our brother James was in the US Marines during World War Two. We remember when he came home from Iwo Jima and that was just one really happy day.	3:09
Mary Hebert	Did he ever tell you what it was like to be in Marines? I mean, with the segregation within the armed services?	3:26
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh yes. He started out in the Navy. Didn't he?	3:34
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	He did the Navy basic training.	3:38
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes, but they needed Blacks into other areas of the service. So very quickly, they sent him into the Marines.	3:40
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	He did in Marine basic training.	3:50
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	3:52
Mary Hebert	Did your parents warn you against dating Army or Navy men who were in town or stationed here? I've heard some stories where parents warn their daughters not to go out with these.	3:55
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Well, Pearl and my oldest sister, Marion, they did go out with the Navy men. And each of them married a Navy person. (laughs)	4:09
Mary Hebert	So you weren't warned against it?	4:19
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Well, they might have had some talk.	4:21
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	We were picky and choosy. We didn't just do out with any and every.	4:24
Mary Hebert	Did you go to the USO?	4:31
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, we did. Marion and I did.	4:37
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	I wasn't old enough.	4:39
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	[indistinct 00:04:40] too young.	4:39
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	But I heard about it. I would sit around and listening to them talk every evening when they come in.	4:39
Mary Hebert	So what went on there? Dancing?	4:43
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Dancing and socializing. Soda drinking and whatever. I'm not a strong drinking whiskey and those mixed drinks. So I never did and I still don't.	4:47
Mary Hebert	So you got to meet a lot of people from different places.	5:00
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, that's right. Sure did.	5:03
Mary Hebert	Did they have Black bands coming into USO to play or entertainers?	5:06
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I guess I—	5:15
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Maybe not the USO, but there were other places in town. What was that place off of Center Theater that had—	5:16
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I think [indistinct 00:05:24] had the juke boxes in the USOs then. But anyway, well, we did have some dance places where we went, in which the big name bands came. Called it Palace Royal.	5:24
Mary Hebert	That was on Church Street?	5:38
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Ransom and Church Street. And the big name bands came there like Count Basie and Billy Eckstine and Duke Ellington and that caliber of people. And yes, we went to those dances.	5:40
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And I listened to my older sisters talk about it.	5:54
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	By the time she got old enough—	5:57
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	They had torn the Palace Royal down when I was old enough.	5:59
Mary Hebert	Would y'all go to other shows along Church Street? I heard there were a lot of vaudeville type shows?	6:05
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I didn't frequent any of those. No, the movie and the Palace Royal. That was about it. I don't know anything about the vaudeville.	6:10
Mary Hebert	It's probably before your time. I was talking to someone who was older than you who mentioned those types of entertainment. Did you do much shopping along Church Street?	6:19
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes, we did. L. Snyders, Altschul’s, [indistinct 00:06:38].	6:33
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	6:34
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Let's see. Have them to hold your purchases on them and pay a dollar down and a dollar a week. $5 down and $5 a week until you finish paying and then you take it out.	6:40
Mary Hebert	Were you allowed to try on clothes at these places?	6:53
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes.	6:56
Mary Hebert	What about shoes and hats?	6:57
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	We were allowed to try on the shoes. Now some places had a little white tissue cap that they would put on your head before you tried on the hat. But not all places. Some places did.	7:00
Mary Hebert	When you shopped or your father did most of the shopping, grocery shopping?	7:16
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Oh yeah. Yeah, he did grocery shopping.	7:21
Mary Hebert	What about, have y'all ever experienced going into a grocery store and being forced to wait until the White customers were waited on before they waited on you?	7:24
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	It might have been some isolated incidents, but not—	7:39
Mary Hebert	Not regularly? Do any of you belong to any of the voluntary associations or clubs, organizations?	7:44
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	But I'm on the Chesapeake City Post Board. That's a not-for-profit organization. I belong to Demo Women's Club. That's political. Virginia State University alumni.	7:57
Mary Hebert	Have you always been active in those types of civic organizations?	8:16
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	I've always been active in something, yes. Several, my sorority.	8:20
Mary Hebert	What sorority did you belong to?	8:25
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	National Sorority of Phil Delta Kappa Incorporated.	8:26
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	And I assist with the mental health group in Chesapeake as a volunteer. I belong to the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. We are a public service group and we try to do many things for young people.	8:35
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	[indistinct 00:09:01] Area Musicians for both of us.	9:01
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	9:03
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	That's a not not-for-profit. And we give scholarships, help the young people develop their skills.	9:05
Mary Hebert	Do y'all help disadvantaged children or is it just any young people who are interested in music?	9:16
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh yes. Any young people who are interested in music, who will push themselves enough to [indistinct 00:09:31] Yes,	9:22
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Did you put down Virginia State—	9:31
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Alumni?	9:31
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	[indistinct 00:09:37] Alumni, right. We give scholarships.	9:36
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes, I belong to that too.	9:39
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	But we don't do programs to give those scholarships. The alumni take the money out of their pocket.	9:42
Mary Hebert	And give scholarships?	9:48
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Yes. We don't give dinners and ask people to supply the money so that Virginia State Alumni can give a scholarship. We pay the money out of our pockets	9:48
Mary Hebert	And give the scholarships.	10:02
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Right.	10:03
Mary Hebert	Did y'all grow up learning about Black history? People like Booker T. Washington?	10:04
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Oh yes, definitely.	10:10
Mary Hebert	That was taught in school?	10:11
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	Yes.	10:12
Mary Hebert	What about at home? Did your father and mother—	10:13
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Well, I tell you, we were a little lacking in books in the home, and you can understand why, economic reasons, but we always had the newspaper and the Journal and Guide. So that was the [indistinct 00:10:33]	10:17
Jeanette Hayslett Wallace	The Journal and Guide is the Black newspaper.	10:33
Pearly Hayslett Edwards	Right.	10:35
Mary Hebert	Well, I finished with the questions. I do have to have you sign a—	10:35

Item Info

Title:

Pearly Edwards (primary interviewee), Geraldine Boone, and Jeanette Wallace interview recording, 1995 August 10

Date:

August 10, 1995

Creator:

Contributor:

Hebert, Mary

Description:

Name: Pearly Hayslett Edwards; Date of birth: 1922-05-28; Place of birth: Norfolk Co., VA; Occupation(s): educator; guidance counselor; teacher; Residence: Chesapeake, VA. Name: Geraldine Hayslett Boone; Date of birth: 1936-01-07; Place of birth: Norfolk Co., VA; Occupation(s): educator; music teacher; singer; Residence: Chesapeake, VA. Name: Jeanette Hayslett Wallace; Date of birth: 1930-02-19; Place of birth: Norfolk Co., VA; Occupation(s): educator; elementary education; music consultant; Residence: Chesapeake, VA
Informant ID: 1006; Informant ID: 1008; Informant ID: 1007; Interviewed by: Mary Hebert.

Occupation:

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-1301
RL00170-CS-1302
11c47b03-5dfd-4ea6-bcc0-29f58f40e5e8
behindtheveil
d69bc917-2c71-4aed-8368-b138aadf87c1
ark:/87924/r4qf8wt9z
d69bc917-2c71-4aed-8368-b138aadf87c1

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4qf8wt9z

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Pearly Edwards (primary interviewee), Geraldine Boone, and Jeanette Wallace interview recording, 1995 August 10

Transcript

Item Info

1. Pearly Edwards slides: Family reunion, group photo with names, Norfolk, Virginia, 1980

2. Pearly Edwards, Geraldine Boone, and Jeanette Wallace administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Pearly Edwards (primary interviewee), Geraldine Boone, and Jeanette Wallace interview recording, 1995 August 10

Transcript

Item Info

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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