RL00170-CS-0449_01
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Rhonda Mawhood | Have you always lived in Charlotte? | 0:01 |
Dorothy Hayes | Yes, always. Was born in Charlotte and I am still here. | 0:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And were your parents from Charlotte also? | 0:11 |
Dorothy Hayes | Yes. My mother and father were from out in the country, from county Charlotte. And of course my father died when I was three years old so I didn't know him but so long. And of course I had a brother and a sister, and that's all. My mother, and my brother, and my sister made it my family. | 0:14 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you know why your parents moved to Charlotte? | 0:38 |
Dorothy Hayes | Well now, they were living in Charlotte when my mother got married, you see. My mother's — My mother, singly — My mother and her mother were living together and they had — Her mother had two other children and — my mother's sister and my mother's brother. And they were all living in the same house that I'm renting right now. And her mother died. She took — My mother took care of her mother until she passed, and she was the oldest one. | 0:42 |
Dorothy Hayes | And she took care of her until she passed. And then she got married after her mother passed. And of course she — my mother whose name was Addy, she was Addie Davis, and she married Will Weddington, and who's my father, and she had three children. And my brother was Willie Lee Weddington, and my sister was Josephine Weddington. And then Dorothy Weddington, the three of us. I was the youngest of the three. | 1:12 |
Dorothy Hayes | And of course, my mother was a hardworking lady. She did not have much education, and she wanted her children to have an education. Most mothers want their children to have a better life than they had. And she worked in service. And of course, in service, you would go in — She was a very good cook. And she would go in, in the mornings, and usually when she would leave home, especially during the winter, sometimes it would be dark and she would leave to go to work because she had to go and cook for these White people, get their children off to school. But she would always see that our food was prepared before she left home. And she had to cook breakfast, dinner, and supper. It wasn't lunch, it was dinner and supper. And when she would come home it would be dark. | 1:47 |
Dorothy Hayes | And we did not have a car or anything of that sort. You had the street cars at that time. And of course, most times — And the street car track was a long ways from our house, which means she had a long way to walk. But she did, she worked hard, and she was able to — All of us finished high school, we finished Second Ward. And my brother got a job working at the post office. My sister went to nurse — took nurse training in Durham at Lincoln Memorial Hospital at the time. And she worked at — she took — went to nurse training there. And I came out and I went to Livingstone College. I was the first one of the three children to go to college. And of course all of us, thanks to my mother and God — I'll say God and my mother because he gave her the will and the strength to do what she did, which I don't know how she did it. All of us got pretty decent jobs. | 2:50 |
Dorothy Hayes | As I said, my brother went — And he came out, he was working at the post office. And my sister finished nurse training and she worked in — she went to New York and worked in a hospital there. And I was lucky enough to get a job working in — at my first job teaching was in Turo, South Carolina. Then I was lucky to get a job here in Charlotte at Plato Price. And of course, that school is closed now. And from Plato Price I went to Second Ward, which is closed also now. And I left Second Ward, and I went to Coulwood Junior High School. That's when they integrated — they had integrated. They integrated the schools at that time. And I worked there until I retired in 1983. I retired. | 4:00 |
Dorothy Hayes | So — Well, I got married, of course, before that time. I got married in '47 but I mean — Yeah, it was '47. And seemingly God has blessed us all. My mother died in '71 and of course my brother died in '73 and my sister died in '78. All of my family, I would say died at that time. My mother, my brother and my sister. And of course God has left me here for something. I don't know what, but I'm trying to make it. | 4:57 |
Dorothy Hayes | And we were all Baptists. We went to Ebenezer Baptist Church. That's the church that burned. In fact, it has burned twice. The first time we were on 1st Street. It burned one night. I was adult — an adult then because I was married. And the next time it burned was about two years ago. We don't know what caused it. The firemen said that our pastor had too many cords running in his room back there. He had a refrigerator, television, and a lot of things back there. But anyway, it burned. He was out of town. And now we are in the process of trying to build, but we are having service at a funeral home, Grier's funeral home, which is very depressive. You know? You try to think about — try not to think that it's a funeral home when you go to church on Sunday morning, but it's hard not to know it's a funeral home. | 5:33 |
Dorothy Hayes | And we're over there, and of course we are working — We have started building. And we thought we had something going for us. And the man that we had got to do the work for us was doing a beautiful job, we thought. And he said — and now we were — You got money from the insurance and that's what we were paying him with. And when we got the last payment from the insurance, he said, "Well, you owe me so much so you can go ahead and pay me." And the man paid him and we haven't seen him since. He left us in the cold. And our beautiful church is just standing there. And we don't have any money to complete it or anything. So I don't know what we're going to do. We have to do something but we don't know yet what we're going to do. But it's depressing. It's really depressing. But you think that you think you're going to have something and you end up with nothing, so — | 6:42 |
Dorothy Hayes | Oh, yeah. I didn't tell you about when I was coming along as a child. When we got — When we'd been in elementary school we became 11 and 12 years old, we worked out in service. We would go — my sister and I would go and work in people homes, and if they had children we would babysit, you would call it. That's what they call it now. But we called it playing with the kids because we were about the same age as they were. And we would go out and work and whatever we made, we would give it to my mother to help supplement so she could buy groceries and whatnot because she had — The home that we lived in, they owned. My father bought the home where we lived. So she didn't have to pay rent or anything like that. Main thing she had to do was to get groceries and pay tax and of course, our clothing. | 7:49 |
Dorothy Hayes | But at one time, she works for the Efirds, who had a department store down there, downtown. | 8:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | The Efirds? | 8:57 |
Dorothy Hayes | Yes. And the Efirds had three children — oh no, they had four. They had two girls and two boys. And they would give mama clothes for us, and my mother could sew, and if they were too large, she could take them up. So we never had to worry about how we looked or having enough food because we always did. And I remember there was a place down on Forest where Jones dry cleaners is now, there used to be a market down there, fresh market. And I never shall forget on weekends, my mother, my brother, my sister, and I would go down there, and my brother had a little red wagon and we would push that wagon down there, and we would go and they would just load us up with vegetables and fruit and things of that sort. And she would have enough to do up the whole week. | 8:59 |
Dorothy Hayes | And it was just something to think about. I said if my mother was living now with the salaries and — that people are getting, we'd be rich. We would because she knew how to save money and how to use it. And now, I don't know, it's just something. But at least she lived long enough for me to work and try to help her out before she passed. She lived long enough for that. In fact, all of us did. But I was here and my brother, of course — boys do what they can, but boys are not like girls. And my sister was in New York so she would send down, but since I was living here, I felt it was my duty to go out every day and see about her. | 10:02 |
Dorothy Hayes | And I certainly miss — I miss all three of them because all of them are gone. Sometimes you get depressed because you feel like you don't have a family. And my husband doesn't like to hear me say that because he said, "I'm here. What do you think I am?" I say, "Well, I know but you know you think about your mother, and your brothers, and your sisters when you have them." But it's nice. So he's nice. He'll vacuum for me, and if I don't feel like washing some days — in fact, I might feel like it, but if I'm busy, he will put the clothes in the machine and see that they're washing them. He'll take them out and hang them up on the line. And of course, during the winter, we put them in the dryer. But he's a very big help. | 10:55 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Where did you meet your husband, Mrs. Hays? | 11:45 |
Dorothy Hayes | Well, I met him through his sister and — because he was not from Charlotte. He's from Allendale, South Carolina. And his name is Walter. And I met him — I knew his sister. I had met her through her — his — her nephew. And I met him and she invited me out to her house for dinner and we met each other and we became friends, and we liked each other. So we eventually got married. | 11:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When you say "eventually," how long did you know each other before you married? | 12:25 |
Dorothy Hayes | We didn't know each other too long because he declares it was six weeks, but I don't believe it was that short a time. I don't remember just how long it was, but it wasn't a year I know. It was less than a year. But we've been married now ever since, as I said, '47. And I think that's a long time to stay married to someone. But some people stay married 50 years until they die. And it seemed like that's what we are going to do. Yeah, he's a very nice person. | 12:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When you were growing up, Mrs. Hays, were there other family members around in the Charlotte area besides your mother and your siblings? | 13:05 |
Dorothy Hayes | Yes, I had an aunt who lived with her in the same house that we lived in, my mother's sister. And she had gone to Livingstone College also, but she did not — she went in high school, I think that's what it was then. And she took some type of nursing. She worked for — oh what was this? Doctor Rankins, I believe was his name. And he had an office where the library is now, downtown. And she was a — which was a — it was a good thing because she was a receptionist, and didn't usually find Black receptionist in a White doctor's office, but she was. And she was — I think I have her picture in here. She was — yes, here's her picture. Her name was Eliza Davis and — | 13:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | She's beautiful. | 14:09 |
Dorothy Hayes | And she was a [indistinct 00:14:16], I thought. And of course, here's a picture of my brother, Willie Lee Weddington. And here's my — of course, here's my mother. Her name was Addie. And that's my sister, Josephine. And I had an uncle also, who lived out there, my mother's brother. And this is — his name was — his name was Willie — Willie Davis. He was a veteran of World War I. And that was my family. Of course, I had some first cousins. Now those three fellas that you see there, those were my first cousins. And that was James Weddington, Edward Weddington, and Walter Weddington. Of course, all of them are dead now. | 14:15 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did your aunt help take care of the three of you? | 15:11 |
Dorothy Hayes | Yes, she did. She was very good. She helped me go to college also. You can just lay that down there. And she helped when I was in college, she and my mother. She was very, very good to me. And she was so good sometimes when I was — do things and have to get a whipping, I used to think she was my mother because she didn't have a whip, but my mother did. And so they'd say, "Oh no, she's not your mother." [laughs] | 15:14 |
Dorothy Hayes | And someone is whipping — I don't know if you — kids don't get whippings now, but when I was getting along, my mother was a mother and the father. And she did all she could to keep us straight, which she did a very good job of doing, I think. But she kept us straight. And my aunt and my uncle, he didn't do too much. But sometimes he would help my mother out. But he had his own family. But my aunt never married, our mother's sister, never did get married. But my mother's brother did. He had a family. He just had a wife. He didn't have any children. | 15:38 |
Speaker 3 | Do you know why your aunt didn't marry? Did you ever ask her? | 16:21 |
Dorothy Hayes | I don't know why she never got married. I know — I don't — I didn't ask her why she never married. I didn't know whether that would make her feel bad or not, so I never asked her. Because she was a pretty lady, and she was a very nice person. And she worked at Dr. Rankin's office until he died. No, until she died. Because I think she died first. She had a — I thought it was a minor thing that she had, but she died from it at the hospital over there. Yeah. | 16:30 |
Speaker 3 | When you were growing up, who was it that you looked up to? | 17:02 |
Dorothy Hayes | I looked up to my mother. I really did. And I always said when I was growing up that I wanted — I wanted my mother to outlive me when I was a kid. I really always said that. But that's when I was a kid. When I got older I said, well I guess the younger people are supposed to live and the older people, they have to go out and [indistinct 00:17:33]. But I always admired my mother. I always did. Because I don't know, even though I was a youngster, I still — I looked up to her because I thought she was such a great woman. | 17:08 |
Dorothy Hayes | She was a person that carried herself well, and I didn't think about she was not an educated person or anything like — of that sort at that time because she was a respectful lady and people respected her. Everyone in the community respected my mother because of the way she carried herself. And I never shall forget. We used to walk to church on Sundays, and our church was on 1st Street. And on McDowell Street, people used to hang on the corners, you know. | 17:50 |
Dorothy Hayes | Men would be out there, and sometimes they would use a profanity and whatnot. And I remember one time, we were going through there and they were out there and my mother stopped and she said, "I have my children here, and I'm going through here, and I don't want hear any more of that cursing when I go through here." And if they were cursing, if they saw my mother and us coming, they would stop. They would stop because she — you know, nowaday, can't do that. Someone might kill you. But she had that much respect, and they didn't even know her. But they respected her that much, and her children because she said she didn't want to hear, and she didn't want her children to get that kind of talk. So she was just a wonderful person. | 18:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When you went to Ebenezer Baptist Church? | 19:22 |
Dorothy Hayes | Yeah. | 19:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you — can you tell me about going to church? | 19:25 |
Dorothy Hayes | Yes. Because when we were coming up, every time the church door opened, we were there. And during that time when we were little kids and my mother had work, she worked on Sunday until after dinner. After — Sunday, they had breakfast and then they would have dinner midday. And she would have to work until she had served dinner. And there was a lady in our community, a Mrs. Selena Williams. And Mrs. Williams would take us to church with her. And she taught Sunday school. And we would go to Sunday school with Mrs. Williams. We would walk to church. | 19:29 |
Dorothy Hayes | But when my mother would get off — during that time, they would have services in the morning and night. And when she would get home, well we would have dinner, and we would go to church that night too. Because she would take us to church that night. And we were coming along, we went to Bible school during the summertime, and on Sundays we would go back to BTU. We had Baptist Training Union at that time at our church. So we would go back to that, and everything that the church had, we would go to. But when we got older, we had to work. And so we were not able to participate in some of those activities because all of us had to work. Because my brother worked too. Now what my mother would do with him, she would let him go caddy because he was kind of weakly. | 20:13 |
Dorothy Hayes | He was never too well. And the doctors had told my mother that he would never live and get 21. But he did because when he died he was in his fifties. But he was always — she said kind of sickly. But we all took care. We took care of each other. That's what we did. We'd all look after each other. And I remember when my mother — there was a grocery store out on Morehead. I think it was Morrison's. I think that was the name of that grocery store, but it's been so long. And my mother used to send him to the grocery store. And the two of us would go with him. My sister and I would go with him because he was the oldest and he would carry the money and whatnot. And we would go with him and walk with him to the store and walk with him back home. | 21:11 |
Dorothy Hayes | I guess mama wanted him to feel that he was doing something. And I never shall forget. One day we were coming back from the grocery store, it was during the summertime, and he fell out down on Baldwin Avenue in front of a lady's name Mrs. Mary Hall. | 22:05 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mary Hall? | 22:26 |
Dorothy Hayes | Mary Hall's grandmother. She lived with her grandmother, Ms. Hall did. Mary lived with her grandmother. And we got him home. And during that time, if you got sick, when the doctors would come out, the doctors would come to your house and they would quarantine your house if you had something that was contagious. And he had — what is this disease when you drink bad water from a well? | 22:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It could be malaria. | 22:56 |
Dorothy Hayes | No, it wasn't malaria. | 22:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Dysentery? | 22:57 |
Dorothy Hayes | No, it was — it makes your heart bad they said. Oh, I can't think of the name of that. But anyway, he had — we had been out to Weeping Willow, which was my mother's home church when she was coming up as a child. And they would have these special Sundays once a year. And when you would go out there, they would set up these tables, and you would take food and everybody else would take food, and they would set up these tables and you would eat out on the grounds during the services after the morning service. And they had a well out there. And my brother — we would all drink water from this well. But he got — the doctor said it was the water that had made him sick. | 23:00 |
Dorothy Hayes | But I can't think of the name of that disease that he had. But they quarantined the house, they quarantined all of us and gave us all shots. But he got all right, though. But they said that that was a thing that kept him not — from being as strong as he should have been. But he never knew that he was not strong as he should have been because no one let on that he wasn't because we didn't want him to think that he was less than a big boy at that time. | 23:48 |
Dorothy Hayes | But you know how the young boys all had — they live in a house was nothing but women. And so we didn't want him to feel funny about being there, you know? But he did all right. He finally got married, had a nice wife, but she died too. She died after he did. And they seemed to have done well for themselves. And I was proud of him because he did so well. And I loved his wife, too. | 24:15 |
Dorothy Hayes | So I don't know. I guess that's why sometimes I feel depressed because we were a very close-knit family. We were very close. And he was the only one here. And we were at each other's house all the time. If he wasn't at my house, I was at his house. And whenever we got ready to do something, we'd always do it together. He and his wife, my husband and me, we would go to dances together. We'd go to cookouts together, we'd go to parties together. We were just together, which made — which makes it even worse when you're so close and then something like passes like that. He died suddenly also on his job. He — as I said, was working at the post office. And they said that morning he had gone to work, and he just fell out. And they say when he fall out, when he hit the floor, he was dead. | 24:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How old was he when he died, Mrs. Hays? | 25:55 |
Dorothy Hayes | I think he was 53, between 52 and 53, something like that. And his heart gave out on him. Oh. He had very diptheria. | 25:56 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Diptheria? | 26:09 |
Dorothy Hayes | That's what it was. Diptheria. I think that's what they called it. And I think they said it came from drinking this bad water. And of course, from that time on, when we would go out, my mother would always carry water for us. So we didn't drink any more of that water. But he didn't want anyone to think that he was weak. And of course, looking at him, you wouldn't have thought he was weak because he never got fat. He was tall and slender and — because that's not bad because my husband is not fat either. | 26:09 |
Dorothy Hayes | He's beginning to get stouter though because he stopped smoking cigarettes, and when he stopped smoking cigarettes — and I was surprised because one day, I noticed him and he had his pants unfastened around the waist, and someone came, and he went to the door. But as he was going to door, he was fastening — I said, "What's wrong with you?" I said, "Your pants are getting too small?" He said, "Yeah, I've got to do something. My pants are getting too small around the waist." | 26:43 |
Dorothy Hayes | Then I looked, and I noticed he was getting a little larger, his legs were getting a little larger and all that. He said — I said, "Well, you need to get out and walk." Because I was trying to walk myself because I gained a lot of weight when I stopped smoking cigarettes. And he was small. He said, "I don't need to walk. I'm not trying to lose any weight." But now he and I both need to get out and lose some weight. That's what my doctor said was good for you to walk. | 27:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When did you start smoking cigarettes, Mrs. Hays? | 27:39 |
Dorothy Hayes | Boy, I started smoking cigarettes when I was in college. | 27:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh really? | 27:39 |
Dorothy Hayes | I think it was my junior year in college. | 27:49 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So 1940s. | 27:49 |
Dorothy Hayes | Yeah. And that was a long time. Because I started in '41, I believe. And now it has been about — I guess it's been about 10 years since I stopped. So that's a long time to smoke cigarettes. But what made me actually stop — now, my doctor had told me I should not smoke cigarettes when I started going so often because my mother died, it was a heart attack. My brother died with a heart attack. My sister died with heart problems. And he said it usually runs in the family. And he said smoking cigarettes was — I didn't seem to have any trouble at the time, but he said smoking cigarettes would not help the situation. And he told me to stop. But I believe cigarettes is — you get addicted just like people do to drugs. Because I said, "All right, I'm going to stop." | 27:49 |
Dorothy Hayes | And I would maybe stop for about a few days and start right back. And it was the hardest thing. But this girl, lady rather, who was a classmate of mine in elementary school and college — not college, but in high school, we finished elementary school together, and we finished Second Ward High together. She had been smoking also. She worked at the post office. She was a nurse out there. And one day, she was getting ready to go to work, and she brushed her teeth. And when she brushed her teeth, she brushed her tongue. And when she brushed her tongue, blood started coming out of her mouth. And she said — when she got to work, she told the doctor at the post office about it, and they looked and they told her to go see — go to the nose, ear, eye hospital and have them to give her an examination. | 28:51 |
Dorothy Hayes | And when she went, they took her a biopsy and they said it was malignant. She had cancer on the tongue. And she said they wanted to take her tongue out. But she said, "I told them I would rather die because I love to talk." Which she does. And she wouldn't let them take her tongue out. So they went in to — on the side to see if they could get this cancer off her tongue. And I don't know. Jeanette, another one of my classmates and I went out to see her. It was on 3rd Street where that hospital is. We went out to see her. And she had a hole in her throat somewhere. She had to put her hand over there to talk. And we tried to tell her not to talk because we just wanted her to know that we loved her and we wanted to see her. But you couldn't keep her — stop — you couldn't stop her from talking. | 30:03 |
Dorothy Hayes | And that next day, her daughter called me, and said she had awakened early that morning and blood was gushing out of her mouth. And they had to go back and operate on her some more, which they did, but they ruined her face, her neck. She doesn't look like the same person at all. But anyway, when I heard that she had gotten this — had this cancer, I stopped smoking that day. I took all of my cigarettes. I didn't ask anyone if they wanted them. I cut them up and put them in the garbage, that I used to buy them by the carton. And I have not smoked a cigarette since. I haven't had a desire for a cigarette or anything. And I started gaining weight after I stopped smoking. | 31:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What did your mother think when you started smoking, Mrs. Hays? | 31:57 |
Dorothy Hayes | Well, I was in college during that time. You look at movies because we didn't have movies then. I mean we didn't have television. But you look at movies, all of the movie stars were smoking cigarettes. And that was just something you did. And I remember back doing the war, World War II, my mother used to buy me cigarettes. She didn't know they were bad for you at the time. And I didn't either at the time. Because I remember one time my mother bought me a package of cigarettes and I said, "Mama," I said, "I'm surprised that you'd buy me a packet of cigarettes." She said, "Well, I saw the line and I got in it." | 32:00 |
Dorothy Hayes | She just got them on the line — | 32:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Because they were rationed. | 32:45 |
Dorothy Hayes | Yeah, they were rationing everything. But after I got a little older, she didn't like for me to smoke, and I tried not to — I didn't smoke around her because she did not want me to smoke. For some reason, she thought it didn't look too hot. But when I was in school, see, she didn't see me smoking, but I was away. But when I got home, she did not want me to smoke. And I did smoke, but I didn't smoke around her. And it was not a habit then. But as I got older, it became more a habit. | 32:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So when you were growing up, you talked about your family and about how you were with your brother and sister. Were there other children in the neighborhood who you played with? | 33:26 |
Dorothy Hayes | Yes, there were. There was one family especially, they were the Hare families. They lived — well, close to us. And it was Mrs. Mamie Hare and her husband. They had 10 children, and they were all older, other than Louise. Louise was just one year older than I was. And the others, I don't know whether you heard of Oscar Hare or not. He lives in Cherry. Still lives in Cherry. And he's a member of this group, but he hadn't been coming to the meetings lately. | 33:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How does he spell his last name, Mrs. Hays? | 34:12 |
Dorothy Hayes | Hare. H-A-R-E. | 34:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 34:14 |
Dorothy Hayes | Oscar Hare. And he lives on Tar Street. Because he was older than we were in my — the children in my family. But Louise - there was Louise and Halsie, who was our brother. And of course, we used to be good friends. Because Louise lives in Maryland now. She got married and moved to Maryland. | 34:15 |
Dorothy Hayes | But all of the others — oh yeah, then there was Mary Francis Jennings. They lived out there for a while. And in fact, Blizelle Legette, he lived down on Tar Street? No, Blizelle lived on my street. Price Davis lived on Tar Street. He's a member about this group. | 34:41 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mm-hmm. Yes, I know them. | 35:03 |
Dorothy Hayes | And Will Earl, of course, lived there. And up the street from us there was Robert Phillips. The Phillips were there. And Janelle Walker, who was a good friend of ours, and Frank Brown. Frank Brown is still living, but he lives way out of the country somewhere. He's something like a loner. He doesn't bother people too much. But he's married and has a family. And oh, let's see who else. There was the Andersons that lived on Main Street. | 35:04 |
Dorothy Hayes | Let's see. There were just a lot of them out there. But when we would go to school, we went to Second Ward. There was a creek where the Charlottetown Mall is now, there used to be a pastor down there, and there was a Thompson orphanage. And Will Earl's father worked for Thompson Orphanage. And down the low there, there was a — they used to have a bridge that we would have to cross to get on the other side from Cherry to Brooklyn. And we used to walk across that all the time. And at one time, it was kind of — you'd get on it, it would kind of swing. And the boys would get on there and swing it when the girls would come across and frighten everyone to death. | 35:46 |
Dorothy Hayes | But I don't know what happened to that. Eventually, when they Charlottetown, when they got this, the orphanage moved. And that chapel down there on — what's that 4th Street? 4th Street was a part of that orphanage. I think that's the only building that's left that was a part of that orphanage. But I have some good memories of those things, those days. Even though they were frightened — frightening, but they were some good memories because we used to have a lot of fun going to school. And I never shall forget when we got ready to go to school, everyone would meet and walk together, going to Brook — going to Second Ward that lived in Cherry that was going to high school at the time. We would all go to school together. When school was out, we'd all get together and walk back home. And each of them would go their separate way when he got to his home. | 36:40 |
Dorothy Hayes | But we had a lot of fun. Everybody was so nice to each other. And I feel sorry for the kids today because they don't have that. And when one person would have a party, everybody was invited to that party. And your aunt — now my aunt loved to cook. Because you were look over that picture. Tell at that time. She was the — I call her stout at the time. And all of us were small at the time. And my mother would make some of the best cakes, and my aunt could make good punch, and she could make good hamburgers and stuff like that. And I don't know, at that time people have grills now, we didn't have any grills. They would make a — dig a hole, make a fire in it, and you would have a coat hanger, and you put hot dogs and marshmallows on the end of it, and you're talking about something good. Boy, it would be good. | 37:40 |
Dorothy Hayes | And then my mother would make that ice cream, and my aunt — my mother would make cakes too. And my aunt did, too. And everyone would just have a good time out in our little backyard. And at that time, I thought we had the biggest backyard. But it's small compared to what you have now. But to me, it was a big backyard. And everyone would come, and my aunt always would have a music box for us. And we would play music and oh, just have a good time. | 38:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Like a record? To play record? | 39:15 |
Dorothy Hayes | Yeah. Played records. | 39:17 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kind of music did you listen to at the parties? Do you remember? | 39:18 |
Dorothy Hayes | Well, at that time, anything fast. Because I loved to dance, but I didn't like slow music, and I wanted something that was pretty fast. But as you got older, you started liking slow music. But when I was going along, I did not like slow music. And we would play music and dance, just have a good time. And some kids would have pianos at their home. And then there was one fellow, I'm trying to think of his name, who could play a piano. And we would go to — and he would play the piano and we would dance. Oh yeah, Maddie — it was Maddie Pops. | 39:21 |
Dorothy Hayes | She was coming up at that time. Rosina Adams. They lived back over that way. Rosina lived on Baldwin Avenue and Maddie lived on [indistinct 00:40:18] Street, I believe they call that. That was street down below our house. And she lived with her aunt. She had a brother. And we always called him June Fox. I never knew his name until he got grown. And he was Walter Holmes. He's still living, but Maddie's dead. She married and went to Washington. She died up there. But we would have a lot of fun. | 40:05 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did the children from the different neighborhoods come to these parties together? | 40:48 |
Dorothy Hayes | Well, if you invited them. Now, I remember when we were in — when we got — we were large children then. And at Ebenezer, I never shall forget, they had a junior choir. And as I said, everything revolved around the church. And there was a Mr. Hazel Miller who was in charge of the music at Ebenezer. And I wanted to be a member of that choir. And Mr. Miller said you couldn't become a member until you were — I believe he said 11 years old. And you had to be baptized no matter if you did come to church, you had to get baptized. | 40:52 |
Dorothy Hayes | So my brother and sister were already members of the choir, the junior choir. And I wanted to be a member. So I went up and got baptized so I could become a member of that choir. And my birthday is December the 8th, and my sister's birthday was December the 29th. So when we would be out of school for the holiday, my mother and my aunt would always have us a birthday party. And they would invite our friends, the choir members, and of course the church was in Brooklyn. So the children that belonged — most of the kids that went to that church were from Brooklyn. And I think we were the only ones from Cherry that went over there other than Mrs. Williams, who took us to church. | 41:38 |
Dorothy Hayes | No, we had some more people because Geraldine Poe, who lived with her grandmother, Ms. Williams and Rudolph Tarr, she was a Tarr. They were Tarrs since then, you may have heard of Rudolph because she was a policeman for a long time. They lived with their grandmother, Mrs. Williams, for a while. And we would all, as I said, go to church together. But when they would have these birthday parties, we would invite the children to come out to our party, and they would come. And they were from Brooklyn. And — because when we went to high school, we made friends at — see, Second Ward was the only school at that time. Most Black kids had to go to Second Ward. So we met kids from Belleville and Greenville and different sections of town. And we would invite some of them out to our house to parties, too. So we just had a conglomeration of friends. | 42:27 |
Dorothy Hayes | And that's another thing, most of them have left Charlotte, are dead or — it's just something. I try not to think about it, though. But there are a few of us still living. Now have one — I have one friend who was a classmate. I met him in high school. And he lives in Detroit, Michigan. And he has a family here. And every summer when he comes home, he always come over to see me. He looks me up. And he was a good football player when we were going to Second Ward, very good football player. And most of the football fellas used to come out to our house. | 43:32 |
Dorothy Hayes | And I never shall forget, there was a piece called Cherry and we lived in Cherry. And so they would play that piece and we would just dance away. Yeah, have a good time. | 44:14 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you play with any White children when you were growing up, Ms. Hays? | 44:29 |
Dorothy Hayes | No, other than when I was working for them. And when I worked, the children that we would babysit were White. They was probably friends of the people that my mother worked for, and we would go over, and they would want us to babysit for them, and we would babysit for their children. But other than that, that's the only ones we came in contact with. | 44:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And what neighborhood was it that they lived in? | 45:00 |
Dorothy Hayes | In Myers Palm. | 45:02 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Myers Palm. | 45:02 |
Dorothy Hayes | Over in Myers Palm. And you see, we were right off of from Myers Palm, Cherry was right off of Myers Palm. In fact, it has been said that Mr. Myers had the place for all of his service, but I don't know about that because I don't think everybody — I know everyone in Cherry did not work in service. Because we had a Mr. Phillips. And Mr. Phillips was a barber, and he worked downtown at a barber shop. | 45:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did he have — was it a White barber shop or a Black barber shop? | 45:36 |
Dorothy Hayes | I'm not sure whether that was a White barber shop or not. But he passed. But he still has three children — four children. Robert, the youngest one who came along with us, and he was not the youngest because Howard was the youngest. She lives in Gastonia. And Robert is in Maryland, I think. And Mildred and Edward are still here in Charlotte, but they were older than we were. But I don't know whether that was a White barber shop or Black barber shop, but I know it was downtown somewhere. | 45:37 |
Dorothy Hayes | So he was not working in service. But most of the people that I knew worked in service. Some of the men were yarding and by my uncle, when he came home from the service, he was — I don't know what you'd call it, but we called it the butler. During that time, people would have butlers and they would chauffeur for them, the people that they worked for and — | 46:16 |
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