Interviewee: Eva Armstrong
Interviewer: Chasity Evans
Date: October 26, 2017
Accession# EDLP 002
Length of Recording (min/sec): 63:25
Sound recording
Summary
Eva Armstrong was born in Ridgeway, South Carolina in 1929. Her mother was a homemaker, her father a farmer. She was one of sixteen children and attended Fairfield High School in Winnsboro, South Carolina. This oral history interview with Eva Armstrong on October 26, 2017 includes discussion of growing up in Ridgeway, attending Fairfield High School, the Great Depression, an anecdote about dressing for school, riding the bus, race relations, segregated school facilities and text books, integration of the workforce, working at the Uniroyal plant in Winnsboro, and race relations today.
Transcript
Chastity Evans: My name is Chastity Evans. We’re doing this recording as part of our class project at USC, and it’s the study of race relations in public schools in South Carolina. So, that’s why we are doing the study. Can you tell me your full name?
Eva Armstrong: My name is Eva Kennedy Armstrong.
CE: Where were you born Mrs. Armstrong?
EA: Fairfield County. I am the daughter of fifteen children. My mother had fifteen children. So, I’m the daughter. My mother had sixteen children and I am the daughter; I’m the fifteenth child.
CE: Really? So, what year were you born?
EA: 1929.
CE: The year of the Great Depression.
EA: Yes.
CE: How did that affect your family?
EA: Well, really and truly, it wasn’t as bad on me as my oldest. Because when I got of age, things were a little better, but I had enough. I saw enough. But it was a little rough on them. Because after I growed up [sic], things, they got better because my brother went to the Army, he come back and he bought property. And we did not have to live on other people’s land–my daddy was a farmer–and when he went to the service, he saw the condition of things, and he come home and he saved the money, so he bought us a home and things wasn’t as bad. But I went to five schools in Ridgeway… And my last school I went to was Lebanon Presbyterian School. And that’s where I graduated from Winnsboro. And after I graduated from Winnsboro, I came over to Fairfield High School in Winnsboro. And that’s where I graduated from high school there.
CE: What was life like in your family?
EA: Well, we had some ups and downs. Things was…we was a strong black family. We stuck together. Any my daddy was hard working, so we had plenty of food to eat. And a garden, hogs, pigs, stuff like that. So, we didn’t never go hungry…But some things could have been better if we had the opportunity…
We couldn’t go to school, unless you had relatives who lived here in Fairfield County. We had to walk about six to eight miles to school. And that was rough.
CE: Six to eight miles?
EA: Uh-huh.
CE: Everyday?
EA: Every day. From Ridgeway to Lebanon School and on down to Longtown Road. And when we went to school, it would be so cold sometimes–I know you probably done got this story–until your hands would be frozen. And the teacher would have this big pan of water on the stove. We had a wood stove. And you had to thaw your hands out before you could get your lesson.
And… I never rid [sic] a bus until I married…and I rid a bus because my children was driving and I could go out in the yard and they’d pick us up. But I never, never rid a bus!–we had to walk, going and coming. My daddy would pick us up when it was raining and it was cold, when he wasn’t working out in the weather…And when you’d get to school, you had good teachers. They taught us the best they knew how. Of course, sometimes the teachers didn’t have nowhere to stay. The teachers, a lot of times, would come to my mama’s house and stay for two weeks at a time because they had no place–because sometimes they be out of town–and so my mama would just take them in.
CE: So, you didn’t have the same teacher all the time?
EA: No!
CE: So, they came and went.
EA: Yea. Mmm-hmm. I guess I done had…twenty teachers…
CE: Wow! I’m still shocked by the six to eight miles that you walked every day…How long did that take you?
EA: I can’t say; but a long time…
CE: Yeah, I’m sure.
EA: And sometimes they had dogs out. And the dogs would run behind us. We lost our books. Nobody called the dogs. When we passed through Ridgeway, and they had dogs out there and sometimes, there was little children. They was nothing but kids, they would put the dog on you… Because they was kids now–I don’t blame the kids, I blame the older peoples. [sic]
CE: Right.
EA: Uh-huh, and so, we had to run. When we got to school, we was so tired…and cold. And we didn’t get breakfast. We didn’t get nothing to eat at that time, but later on the Governor did provide food for us. They took a room upstairs and we had a cook up there. But most of the time, at that time, it wasn’t nothing but peanut butter and jelly. That’s what we had. And they would make biscuits. This lady would make biscuits for us. But we didn’t have a full meal.
CE: Did all of your brothers and sisters go to the same school with you?
EA: Well, after my brother, some of them I had…a couple of my brothers, when they got older, they went to help my daddy on the farm. So we was going at one time. When they got older, they took jobs to help to provide for the family.
CE: Okay. So what grade did they go through?
EA: They mostly went through the 8th grade.
CE: Okay. Now you went all the way through the 12th grade?
EA: Yeah.
CE: Now you went all the way through to the 12th grade? I heard and interesting story this morning about you got to be the oldest twice. Is that right? You were the first senior class; 12th grade class?
EA: Yes. And my sister, she went to the same school I did but she graduated at the eleventh and then they changed the grade. And then I went to twelfth grade, and I was first–you couldn’t tell me nothing! Yes indeed. (laughter)
Then I come to Fairfield and things was much better then. They had good teachers up there. But the saddest thing about it, I felt sorry for the teacher–like I did at (unintelligible 6:42), sometime the teachers had nowhere to stay. And mama would always tell them, ‘you can stay here’. And I wondered where my mama was going to put them. Because she had a lot of children. I said, ‘I hope she don’t put them in the bed with me!’, you know… (laughter) Mama would put them right in the bed, ‘Get on over there behind Eva!’ And that’s what they would do….they’d pull all the cover off you–the teacher would. They be fighting for the cover just like we were…And…they eat up all your food, and my daddy would say, ‘Eva, y’all get up!’, and he had to take the teacher right along with the children. So, all of us go down the road in that A-Model Ford. And…I’m gone tell you this: now, when I start talking, I don’t know when to stop…
CE: No, you go ahead and tell me all you want to tell me.
EA: Now, I wonder about it…My mama used to put us on stockings [sic]. And we–I didn’t like that. The others put up with it, but I didn’t like it…I would take me a pair of socks–because mama knew how cold we was, so she would bundle us up and put me on these long stockings [sic]. She would roll them up right here. And all the rest of the little girls would have on socks. I’d take me a pair of socks with me until I’d get to this bridge–the bridge in Ridgeway now–and when I’d get to the bridge, I’d go under the bridge, put my books down, and put my socks on–take the stockings off. So, one day, my daddy–when I come back up the road, I’d go under the bridge and I would take my stockings and put them back on. And this day it’s raining, and Mama sent my daddy for us. And I couldn’t get under the bridge to get my stockings, and put my socks back! I said, ‘Oh Lord! Mama gone come here, see I don’t have my stockings on, I’m going to get a whooping…’ And my daddy come, and I couldn’t get on—get my stockings. You know where those stocking are now? If the rats ain’t ate them, they under that bridge!
(laughter)
CE: They are still under the bridge?!
EA: And I wonder sometimes….I would love to go–I told my daughter one time, ‘take me down there to see if those stockings still there’. But I was blessed because when I got home, mama was gone.
CE: And your daddy didn’t tell?
EA: Noooooo. But see, my daddy didn’t know what was going on–you know how men folk are–see, he didn’t know that I had changed my stockings to socks—white bobby socks. So, he said nothing about it, because he didn’t know. When Mama wasn’t home, I said “Thank you Jesus”! Then, I put my stockings back on. I went in my drawer and found me some more stockings and put them on…She never knowed [sic] the difference….Yeah, and we are…and we used to ride the bus–when a white family would ride the bus, and they’d see us, we had to get on the side of the road, because when they’d see us, they’d wind the window down and spit at us. They would spit out the bus on us. And they thought it was funny. And we’d say, ‘here they come! Here they come!’ Everybody would get way over on the side of the road and they would roll the glass down and spit out there on us. And, we just had to take it. Mmm-hmm….
And we got to school and it was cold. All the places we went they had to put wood–The guys had to put wood in the stove, had to go into the woods, cut the wood. Sometimes the parents would bring wood. This father bring a load of wood. Next father would bring wood. And they would pile it out there on the school house. And when we’d get there, we used to didn’t have fire. That’s why we so cold. They would start the fire. And most of the time, if the teacher was there first, they would put this big ole’ pot of water on the stove. You put your hands down in there before you started your lesson. And get your hands thawed out. And before we started the lesson, nobody fussed. They wasn’t nobody upset about nothing. But, that’s what we had.
And I, to tell the truth–and I’m not bragging–I was one of the smartest one that was in the class. I’m cutting up… (laughter) And I’ll never forget it, somebody–when we got our food from the government—from their big truck–and I had to write him and thank him. And my teacher, Miss Ligsby–she’s gone on to be with the Lord–she said, ‘Eva, you gone have to go on and write the Governor. See, you got the prettiest handwriting in the class’. So I thought I was a big deal, with all the stuff I had been through. And her–over all of the class–and I’m writing the governor to thank him for the food.
CE: You wrote the governor?
EA: Mmm-hmm. I had beautiful handwriting–but I don’t no more, because I got arthritis in my hands–so I don’t write like that. But I had the prettiest handwriting in the class.
CE: You were telling me about the facilities…what your school building was like. Was it one room? Was it an actual school building?
EA: I’ll tell you what…it was a building, but in that big building is one room, and they would put a class over here, and a class over here, and sometimes we would have four classes in that one, big, open room. That’s how we did it.
CE: Was it one teacher or multiple teachers?
EA: Nope! We had three teachers. You come, and you know guys–some sit over here, and some sit over there…but they kind of had you divided off.
CE: Divided by grade or–?
EA: By grade. And a big long black board. Your class had half. And the books; we didn’t get new books. We got all the old books they used. We didn’t get no new books at all. So, I don’t know where they was getting those books from, but sometimes they be torn up and sometimes names was wrote in them, and sometimes we had to clean them up before we even used. I don’t know if they got them from another school after other classes had used them, but that’s what we had to go through.
CE: And how did that make you feel?
EA: Well at that time–at my age–I couldn’t see it like I can see it today.
CE: Right.
EA: See, at that time, I thought I was (unintelligible 13:50), but I didn’t like them spitting on me.
CE: I wouldn’t like that either.
EA: …No. But at that time, that’s what we had learned. When I got older and (unintelligible 14:03) realized something wrong with this picture. Umm-hmm. But, God blessed us. And I come up to Winnsboro, I didn’t have that; because at Winnsboro High School I had good teachers. And things wasn’t as bad, because we had school and see–in the country, you had outside bathrooms. We had these little outhouses. Sometimes, you had to wait until some children used the bathroom before you could go. They had one for the boys and one for the girls. And we, sometimes, hardly didn’t have toilet paper. The mothers would bring toilet paper to the school for us to use. So, it wasn’t easy… and it wasn’t hard, hard, hard when you got used to it. And sometimes when you’d go to school and come back home, you’d get caught in a storm. And it’s going to rain on you, and you walk six to eight miles…because sometimes my daddy be working with my brothers. Or they will be working, so we just got wet. Sometimes, when we got through school, or coming from school–at home–we had to take off our shoes before we got in the house from getting caught in the storm. But the other classes—schools–had janitors…My daddy was–he retired from the school. And he said, ‘conditions (unintelligible 15:51) school is one hundred percent, what y’all going through’. Because he retired from (unintelligible 15:57) School– in my hometown. And he said, ‘it’s terrible what y’all got to go through’, because they had bathrooms, and they had a heating system, and they had a cafeteria, where they could sit down and eat. And they had fruits and vegetables. Old people back in that day would take sweet potatoes and stuff like that to school to help the school themselves. They would; and they would help the school themselves….It was…it was different, and it wasn’t easy. But we had got adjusted to it. Umm-hmm.
CE: So when you were going through school, what did you want to do after you got out of school?
EA: Well, I wanted to find myself a good job to help my mama, because she sacrificed–my mother was a lady. She instilled in us to go to school. That was all on her mind, ‘Y’all go to school. I didn’t get no education. I want y’all to get some education’. And she said, ‘y’all got to go to school. You’ve got to do better than me. You’ve got to find you somewhere to live. See, I ain’t going to let this stop me ‘cause you be living a long way from a high school’. So, she found my cousin–she’s gone not too many years ago–and she put us there. For…let me see…for two years. We stayed with her two years. And things didn’t go right. This lady didn’t have children, and she just didn’t know the love of children. And my mama didn’t have money, because she didn’t have a job. My mama didn’t have money where she could pay them, but she would get food out of the garden. And she would give eggs, and she did a lot of canning. And they’ll kill hogs. And she’ll kill food, and she’ll bring grits and stuff. But have money to pay them, she just didn’t have it to do–but she kept food at the house. Because we always had food at the house; we were never hungry. Because my daddy was a hard worker, and he supplied for his children the best that he knew how. And we’ll (unintelligible 18:19), but things didn’t go right; she didn’t know the love of children. She (unintelligible 18:22) so we just told mama, we didn’t want to. So, we took a lot. My sister said, ‘we got to tell mama what we going through’. But we–it’s going to kill her. I said, ‘Mama wants us to stay in school. She said that we gots [sic] to tell her’. And we told mama what was going on and how we was treated there. And mama say, ‘well, I’m going to tell her. I’m going to go over there and tell her and thank her for keeping y’all’. So my mama and daddy, they come. He said [redacted by request 18:57],–I know you’ll take that out. I don’t want to call her name– and say, ‘my children was telling me about some things that was going on wasn’t right’. And she said–she looked like she was disappointed—‘I just want to thank you for taking care, because I didn’t come to argue with you’. She said, ‘ya’ll done did well. They done been with you, but I’m going to give you a break. I’m going to move them’. She said, ‘well, let them stay until this term out. I don’t want nobody thinking that I run you away or nothing like that’. So, we stayed there, but we went somewhere else. But the place wasn’t as nice; but it was peaceful. We could go in the frigidaire [sic], and we could eat what she ate. And I just loved going there; even though the other place was nice, but this lady had a heart of gold. And, we got adjusted. And the lady we were staying with said, ‘they’ll never finish school… they going to be doing this and they going to be doing that’.
And… but we finished high school. And my mother a women like this: Mama went to every graduation from her grandchildren…She didn’t care where they went. Them boys had to take her, her grandchildren…And (unintelligible 20:30) masters degrees…One of two of them got their doctorate degrees. A bunch of her children–we got pictures in there now–graduating from school. And that made her so happy. She put her black hat on, and get dressed up like she going– like she going to the graduation!
CE: We’ll it’s a big deal.
EA: I know it!! Uh-huh…
CE: …it’s a very big deal…
EA: We talk about it a lot of times and we say, ‘Mama would love to see this’. See this, see what Mama would think if she knowed somebody coming out here to interview you. Trisha was talking about that last night. They love their Grandmama…Uh huh…I said, ‘she’ll be proud to see this, popping her mouth, ‘Yeah, Eva going and, and they going to tell us something, and she going to be it now’. That’s what she would go over with her children and grandchildren.
CE: So, you’ve lived your whole life in Fairfield County?
EA: Mmm-hmm. Yeah.
CE: So, what was your life like after high school?…After you got out of high school?…
EA: Well, after high school; let’s see…what did I do after high school?… Oh, I got out of high school in ‘49. And I got married in ‘50 and had a baby in ‘51….And I’m going to tell you another amazing thing. Now, you put down what you want about this. I took care–I’m going to tell you how strange this is–I took care of a little girl, and–I’m not going to call her name—and, she three years old. I would leave school, to go by her house and keep her in the evening. Okay…she the sweetest little thing; she loved me, and I loved her. And, so later on, after I got married, I depart from the family. And her mother–we wasn’t like a maid–Christian lady–we was like sisters. We had got tight and close together. I lost touch with her. And she said–every time she would come into the house she said, ‘Mama, what happened to this Eva you talk about’? She said, ‘I don’t know…I heard that she got married and got children of her own’. She said, ‘I would love to see her’. She said, ‘maybe one day [redacted by request 23:02], you might get to see Miss Eva’. So, that was years after that… She was grown up, and had children. And I was in A&P store, at the time, and Miss [redacted by request 23:19] walked up on her mother Mrs. [redacted by request 23:21] and she say, ‘Hey Eva! Now I’ve got an article in there that would make you proud!’ [redacted by request 23:30] wrote an article and put it in the newspaper about our lives together. Now, she say, ‘Hey Eva’, and she come ‘round the corner–she thought somebody was going to do something to her mama—‘Mother, who is this’? She said, ‘This Eva’. ‘This is not the Eva that kept me?!? Eva, come here!’ After all those years. She said, ‘Mama I’m going to talk to…see, we got a desk at the house. I won’t let nobody touch that desk’. She said, ‘because under that table, are big word ‘Eva’… She done got down on her knees and wrote your name’…. I’m going to tell you something else–and she said–well she just hugged me. And she went to the jewelry store, and found a spoon with ‘Eva’ wrote on it and she come out here and took a picture. And she took my picture and her mama’s picture. And I started back helping her mama until I got married and had children and stuff, and then I had to quit. …and find somebody else but that didn’t work. And so, when the article came out in the paper about me making her welcome, it got to her and she saw it and he called me the other day and she said, ‘we done met again’.
EA: Uh huh! Ain’t that something?
CE: Mmm-hmm!
EA: And she said, ‘Eva, I’ve got to come’. She said, ‘I’m so proud of you’.
EA: Umm-hmm. Three years old! And we done run up on each other twice….It’s amazing, ain’t it?
CE: Yes, it is amazing.
EA: And she said, ‘I’ll be out there’, and we gone on from there….I said, ‘my daughter done looked you up anyway’. She said, ‘well you tell your daughter that I say I don’t live in that big house no more. I’m down to a smaller size’. She said, ‘Eva, I never will forget you’. I went to North Carolina with her, and she talks all the time…Now, I’m not going to call her name–I don’t know if I’m supposed to or not anyway–and she say, ‘you remember that time we went to North Carolina?’… We had to use the bathroom, and I went upstairs to (unintelligible 25:57) with her. And I said, “Your father said, ‘you and Eva go to the bathroom’.” She talk-talk-talk all the time. So me and her went down in the woods to the bathroom. I thought it was over with and she say–after she got back and got in the car—“Daddy, Mama! Did y’all know Eva had to use the bathroom, too?” I said, ‘why didn’t you keep your mouth shut’? You don’t supposed to–I said, ‘you don’t remember!’ “Mama told me…’ Yeah, so she said, ‘I cut your picture out, and I got it after all these years’…
And I told her about this too: I don’t care if you suppose to–At that time, I was making three dollars a week for keeping (unintelligible 27:00), but that was a lot of money at that time. Three dollars a week. And I would take one dollar of that money, and get my hair did. I would take the other dollar–it cost fifty cents to catch the bus going to Ridgeway—I’d take that dollar, and I’d use it going and coming. And the other dollar went to Mama. Mama was happy to get that dollar. That was big money at that time. And all the black girls at that time–we had little kids. And we would take them down the street, and we would fix them up real pretty and dress them up. (unintelligible 27:40) They have to put bows in their hair. And down to the corner, we’d sit up on that rock wall. And we’d be having fun, and laughing with our kids out there. It was such a happy time. So, something good come from it.
And I told my daughter, I said, ‘Patricia, keep in touch with [redacted by request 28:04). I said, ‘she’s a sweet girl. You don’t know who you might need. And she know things. She’s a very smart girl’. I said, ‘you might need to know something about a doctor…And your daughter is going to college this year; she might could tell you about a good school’. She said, ‘Mama, you don’t have to tell me nothing’. And when I talked to her, I know she was good. ‘Sweetheart’, I said, ‘well don’t lose that now. I’m gone be gone, and you going to need somebody to lean on, and that might be the one’. I said, ‘she done come in my life twice. So, she might help you too’.
CE: What do you remember about race relations when you were going up? You told me about the spitting. Were there other things or places that you were not allowed to go?
EA: I got plenty, and I could talk to you all evening about it. But, it’s not about the school. It’s down there where I worked. Well see…it’s two different things.
CE: Right. You can share some of those if you want to.
EA: Okay, well, if you want to even listen to them…
CE: I’m happy to listen!
EA: Are you?
CE: Absolutely.
- EA. I ain’t boring you are I?
CE: No m’am!
EA: When they integrate Uniroyal–this is sad, here—‘cause I cried on my job…When they integrate Uniroyal: Wasn’t no blacks in there, unless you was cleaning the floors or bathrooms. So, it was integrated, it was still hard to get a job. The office would be like this just trying to get a job. And I happened to get hired. They didn’t want us down there–I’m going to be honest. They did not want to be working with us. Because that’s the one where they was prejudiced; because that’s the only job in this city, that you could make a little money. But I happened to get in there, and I got in there, and he put me with certain peoples. He said, ‘I want you to work with them’. And sure, they are telling me yes. It was skill work.
When you come from washing dishes, taking care of children, cleaning houses and they put you on a skilled job…the work is so hard and the work so fast, you don’t know what they done did. You’ve got to be patient to train somebody. And I did want to learn. So, when I went there, he put me with this lady and he said, ‘train her now because we need some more’. But she fooled him like she was ‘gone train me. But as soon as he turned his back, she would do it so fast–I couldn’t see what she did. She had been their 30-something years, and this was my first day. And I couldn’t see, and it looked like she– She say, ‘you ain’t going to stay here. You ain’t. You not going to learn this job. You ain’t going to do this and you ain’t going to do that’. As soon as the boss man come over, she act like she’s helping. But she thought I didn’t have sense enough to see. I said, ‘Lord I ain’t going to learn this job’…And I talked to my sister-in-law. She said, ‘Eva let’s say the Lord’s Prayer….Nah, the Twenty-Third Psalm. I know you want the job.’ And I wasn’t hungry, and my husband, we had a house. A fine house. We had somewhere to live and he had a job. You know. It wasn’t like we was hungry. But I had kids that I wanted to go to college. I wanted to be able to help them. And I seen what we need to do to prepare our home–Still do—But, I wanted to help him, and this lady–everything she saw that she could do, and did all of us like that, to keep us from learning those jobs. And I would try to say the Twenty-Third Psalm—before I turned to her and said some bad words… My sister told me what to say, but I wasn’t saying them, because they wasn’t getting me nowhere. I would actually go to the bathroom and cry. I said, I’m going to have to give it up.
But I got faith in the Lord and that’s why I have faith today. (long pause)
He sent this old lady, from Georgia, up to me and she had on these boots. And she say, ‘Eva, how you doing’? I said, ‘not good’. I said, ‘I’m quitting’. She said, ‘don’t quit. ‘What’s your problem’? I say, ‘I don’t know my training or what’. I said, ‘I need this job’. She said, ‘I know you do’. She say, ‘I need mine’. And she followed our job from Georgia up here. And got her a place. She watched the boss man, and he wasn’t good at all. And she watched him, and when he went in there…She knew that spinner! She could spin. Blind… She said, ‘put that end up again’. There is a little trick to it. Some yarn, you put it up, you pull it down. But when you get it down, you got to twist the end. But, you can’t see nobody twist it, unless somebody tell you you gotta twist it. And that’s why I lose my speed, and that’s why I couldn’t learn. She said, ‘put it up’. Sometime it would catch and sometime it wouldn’t, but I didn’t know what was doing it; I thought it was me! And I put it up. She said, ‘you’re doing it sometime, and sometimes you’re not’–she kept watching for him now–and so she say, ‘I can’t believe this’. Sometime I going to put it up, and I didn’t twist the end and lay it up. And it would have never sticked in a hundred years, but they didn’t tell me. It wasn’t nothing but the Lord now. So, I did it again and it stayed. And she say, ‘do you know why it stayed’? She said, ‘you twist that end that time. See, if you don’t twist the end and put it up’, she say, ‘you will never learn’. She said, ‘I’m surprised that her didn’t train you like that. She ought to be ashamed of herself’. But boy, when I learned, I was twisting them ends off and sticking them so fast. Everybody was looking. I would reach down in that box–Nothing going to stop me now. (laughter) Ain’t stopping me now. I’m running my job. He had me helping other people, and it wasn’t nothing but that old lady that God sent to me….And I stayed there twenty-four and a half years. And I retired from there. I say, ‘anybody come in this door, I see if determined…I ain’t going to fool with you if you don’t want to work and don’t half come’…I say, ‘I’m going to help them’. And he saw how good I was doing and he put everybody with me. I said, ‘look, I’m going to tell y’all something. This job ain’t as bad’. But now, sometimes you didn’t have time to get a drink; and you’d look at the water fountain and you didn’t have time to drink. And you had to eat your food and throw the (unintelligible 35:43) get back on your job all in eight hours. I say, ‘if you let me learn this job, when I get my training, I’m going to help everybody who come through the door’. And I did that. Time they walk in there, ‘Eva I can’t (unintelligible 36:00)’, and I showed them one trick. And it didn’t take them as long because I took time and showed them. I got a lot of peoples. I say peoples took time with me. That lady left her job and come over there, and I’m going to take time with them. And that’s how we got through. But that was one of the prejudge places I ever worked for in my life. [sic] It was harder than school. It was. Because things was like, ‘I want it!’ You can’t have nothing if you don’t work for it, but I wasn’t getting the training.
CE: Now did your children go to school here in Fairfield?
EA: I had one daughter to finish school from Winthrop College. And then I had another to graduate and at University of South Carolina. And then I had another boy to graduate from college…Benedict. And then I had another boy to graduate from college. Then I had, Midlands Techs (unintelligible 37:18 )…
CE: How many children do you have?
EA: I had 7. A set of twins.
CE: I always wanted to have twins.
EA: Well, I wanted twins too, until I found out if you don’t have—(laughter) It wasn’t a problem birthing them, but…they don’t look alike. They ain’t no use of having no twins if they don’t look alike. Jean, would you go up there and bring me my pictures. Boy and a girl.
CE: So they don’t look alike?
EA: No!…(laughter) (unintelligible 37:50 ) Look on the piano, Jean. Yeah!…So, but I love them to death. Patrick and Patricia.
CE: Now, did they go to an integrated school? Or was that before…
EA: No. …yeah!…let me see…the kids…Yeah…No- (aside to other person present at interview) Yeah my kids we did integration–sure did! …And I had so many children, scattered around. But… they come out alright…
CE: So, they didn’t face the things that you faced, growing up?
EA: No…they saw some stuff…
(Explanation of photos by Jean.)
CE: You have a beautiful family.
EA: Thank you. Here’s the twins.
CE: They favor a lot.
EA: You think so? They fusses. [sic] (laughter) Let me tell you a little joke: When I had them, the boy the boy come out first–No, the boy was the last one to come out…The doctor told me, ‘Eva they’re twins’, he say, ‘but they’re not going to be normal…’. And at that time, I was so tired. I didn’t care what they were! ‘I wish you’d go ahead on, and let me sleep. I done had two children, and you tell me something about–I say, ‘I’ll think about that later’. They come out and he say, ‘we going to have to keep the eye on the girl’. He wouldn’t—wouldn’t pay this boy no attention. He was telling me, ‘she going to be retarded’. I got over it and at that time, I didn’t hardly care. And so, when they start off, Patrick say, ‘Trisha retarded…talkin’ about me!… She retarded. She the one retarded! They ain’t nothing wrong with me! Didn’t the doctor said it’? They tease each other about that now. (laughter)
This son, he is a minister, right here. He’s a preacher. …and (another son) he work for… (aside to Jean about her son’s employment) …I talk to him all the time about that…I told you, I had so many, I don’t know where they work!… But this one right here, worked at Allied Chemical. He’s down there now. Remember Allied Chemical? It’s Shaw now. It’s in Irmo.
CE: I drive by it every day. I live maybe a mile from there.
EA: Really? This one right here, he’s with mental health. He’s got a good job.
CE: My 6 year old goes by Shaw every day and he always asks if he can take a tour, “I want to go tour the plant.” He’s fascinated by that.
EA: Bless his heart! …and my husband…He used to work at the veneer plant right here in Winnsboro…and that’s my family…
CE: You have a beautiful family.
EA: Well, thank you. I’m planning on having all of them up here Thanksgiving.
CE: That’s nice…A lot of work.
EA: Well, I’m having it all catered.
CE: Well, there you go. That’s helpful.
EA: We going to cook but one or two dishes. That’s why I told them to get the yard straightened up. Depending how the weather. If it don’t, I’ll make room in here. We going to have tables on the outside. We going to have the whole spread. We going to have all of them come up here. I haven’t did it in so long!
CE: That will be good for you and for them.
CE: Well I only have a couple more questions. What do you remember about the civil rights movement?
EA: Let me see about the civil rights movement. Oh, that man got killed; you know, I’ll never forget that. And Martin Luther King was out there fighting for us, to get things changed for our life. And how he got killed. And I know how he was beat; and how they put dogs on him. Locked him up in jail. And how those black folks down in Spartanburg had a sit in, because they wanted to eat—Oh!—and let me tell you something else: Right here in this city right here, black folks couldn’t even get a Coca-Cola. They wouldn’t sell them to you…Jean, you don’t remember that do you?…You couldn’t buy them. They wouldn’t sell them to you, at that time….they had that back there for them. You could get any other kind of soda, pop soda, or orange juice, but Coca-Cola was for the other race. I remember that and I thought that was real sad.
CE: I agree.
EA: But…it was a drug store–well, let me tell you about that: My same boys, that couldn’t buy a soda, well their brother couldn’t, but they could–things had gotten better. Both of them worked there, and they got the money, and (unintelligible 44:56) they were treated excellent good.[sic] And, them boys got their start there. Things begin to change. And the man that they worked for, he would ask me about my oldest boy. He said, ‘Eva how is Mike doing’? I say, ‘he is doing good’. He say, ‘I wonder about that boy’. He say, ‘I always saw good in him’. He say, ‘I hear he’s at the courthouse’. So, things change’. He say, ‘I know he was going to be somebody’. He say, ‘I never doubt him, but now your other boy, I’ve got to work on him’. He turned out to be good too. I’m truly blessed. Through it all, I’m blessed….mmm-hmmm…And I had a good husband. (unintelligible 45:54) Overall, he was a good father. He was a good father. He was a good man…We was poor; we didn’t have nothing. But I didn’t work until my twins got a year old. So, it was pretty good.
CE: So how do you feel about race relations today?
EA: I thought one time we was doing good, but now it looks like it’s getting worse! What’s wrong with them? And that’s all you hear on TV all the time. Every time you turn the TV on, nothing good. It ain’t getting no better, now…I can see. Every time you turn the TV on it’s something, something, something, all the time. It’s no love. We don’t have the love we ought too. And I hope one day– but I don’t know…I just don’t know…It’s getting worse.
CE: I don’t know either. It makes me sad.
EA: Yeah.
CE: It makes me sad for my children that they are growing up in that.
EA: It’s something. I hope it will get better, but I don’t know. I hear it this morning. Things ain’t looking good at all. And some of that stuff could be eliminated. All that will have to happen. It’s bad.
It looks like now–even though we’ve went through stuff back in our days–but it’s worser now. When I was coming along–the stuff I’m telling you–it’s getting worse now. I don’t know what these young children are going to have to go through. They can’t go nowhere: there’s shooting and killing… And robbing…old folks….Babies…Shooting peoples in cars…It look bad. I think about my grandchildren having to come up, and what they got to go through….We’re just going to have to pray and trust in the Lord.
CE: Yes ma’am. Do you have any questions for me?
EA: I can’t think of none. That’s about it….Just soon you leave, I be done think about something.
CE: You can always call me.
EA: Your a good listener.
CE: I like to listen.
EA: That’s how you learn.
CE: It is how you learn. Through this process, I’ve been learning a lot. In some ways it makes me a little sad.
EA: Yeah. It makes me sad. I got full up, just a while ago.
CE: Because there is so much that I didn’t know, and it’s like you can’t… It’s like, ‘why didn’t I know’? ‘Why didn’t anyone tell us’? Some do, but the stories that we read about in our history books in our schools…they’re not all true.
EA: Yeah!…And why they wouldn’t teach you about each other instead of way over there in another nation?… We don’t need to know about all that…’this place, and that place’. Let’s talk about home. What’s going on here? What can we do to help each other here? How can we change things? And you don’t have to stay at nobody’s house. You ain’t gotta be calling each other. But, be on good terms.
CE: Absolutely.
EA: And treat peoples right….
CE: But, why can’t we go to each other’s house?
EA: I’d love coming and eat your food up…
CE: You are welcome to come and eat my food, but I probably won’t cook it. I’ll have to cater it. We’re a little busy, but uh…
(laughter)
EA: I’m just teasing.
CE: But if you want to come to my house, when you see your son who works out there at Shaw, you tell him to bring you on by. I just live about a mile down the road.
EA: Let me show you the one who works at Shaw (gets family photo album out)….that’s my oldest.
CE: What’s his name?
EA: Hawthorne….He’s a sweetheart, now.
CE: And he lives in Irmo too? Does he live in Irmo? He might live in the same neighborhood as me. You never know.
EA: What neighborhood do you live in?
CE: I live in Coldstream.
EA: Oh no, no, no. Not that.
CE: Do you know which one he might be in?
EA: Kennerly Road. There it is.
CE: Yes, I know right where that is. But you have lots of stories to tell and people should hear your stories. They’re important. We can’t change the future if we don’t know the past and we don’t recognize the past.
EA: That’s right. They like to keep that hid.
CE: They do.
EA: And there’s some good stuff in the stories.
CE: Absolutely!
EA: I’ve learned a lot. Makes me closer to people. Makes me want to do something for somebody. And to help this person. You’ve got it going on for yourself. Like, if I find a good job, I’m going to tell somebody about it. But, when I went to Uniroyal, I had friends down there working. And they didn’t want to tell me how they got it, what I need to do, or nothing! Really and truly now. I wouldn’t lie to you. But by me seeing this stuff, and I saw where I could be a help to others. That’s why I got a many and a many person down here. [sic] Because I know they need the work. I had went in the office and had a– my supervisor was prejudiced. And I’ll swear on a stack of bibles, if you tell that.
But I got a girl down there. She need to work–she bought this house—now you start me talking! (laughter)—she had bought this house, and she was making fifteen dollars a week. And–the word was she couldn’t pay for it–her husband was ailing at the time. She was poor like me. And I saw that she needed to work. She kept saying, ‘how’d you get down here’? I told her I was blessed, because this lady told me don’t tell. “Don’t tell nobody how you got down here”, but I didn’t tell it… So the supervisor walked up to me one day and said, ‘Eva, you a good worker’—‘worker’ is what he called me, he didn’t say employee–he say, ‘you a good worker’. ‘You know anybody who needs to work?’ I say, ‘I sure do’. “You do?” I told her name. He say, ‘Well, you think she will work’?
I say, ‘she can work, and need to work, and willing to work’.
He say, ‘oh that sounds like’.
I say, ‘Now she a little slow–not crazy–but she’s slow by learning’.
He say, ‘Oh we can handle that…You can handle that’.
I said, ‘I’ll put up with her’. I say, ‘sure I will. I’ll do all I can.’ (unintelligible 53:49 ) She liked to run me crazy because she’s a good person. (aside to Jean) I’m trying to tell her what to do. I called her name. I said, ‘look’, I say, ‘you can’t do this’.
‘Why’?
I say, ‘you can’t do this’, I say, ‘because (unintelligible 54:15). We slipping using this knife’. I say, ‘you sure to cut me’. I say, ‘if they see you with that knife, it’s a danger to them’. I say, ‘(unintelligible 54:28)
‘Them white folks over there doing it’.
I say, ‘baby, you can’t do it!’ I say, ‘you know it’s prejudice down here’.
“What they’re doing, I can do’.
I say, ‘no you can’t!’ I say, ‘you’ll be out that door’.
She say, ‘look over there’. She thought she could tell me. She’s using a knife. I say, ‘okay then, I’m not going to tell you’. So, she did get scared. So, she stopped using it. So, he hired a white girl, and–she used to work there in Beaumont, but, I don’t know where she at now…Listen, I done trains her. I’m talking easy because I look like big ole here… I had done trains her. (Redact name 55:17) Because I’m telling all their business. And I got her going. And I was so happy. Because she had that house to pay for and she had children. And she had done learned. All full learning pay, and had been getting a full check, just like me. Happy as she could be. And had to get rid of one person. You know, sometimes they have too many and work gets so…And so, my girl, that I learned, she had learned.[sic] Getting a full check. This girl just come in, and he had to cut one back; and guess who he picked? I say, ‘Oh, I ain’t gone take this’.
He called–she come to me with tears in her eyes and she said, ‘I won’t be here tomorrow’.
I say, ‘where you going’?
She said, ‘I’m fired. Not fired…he say he’s got to get rid of some people’.
I say, ‘why you’? I say, ‘you more seniority and you done learned. And you on full pay’. I say, ‘this girl just come in here, and she ain’t quite learned’. I said, ‘uh-uh, that ain’t right’. I say, ‘look, do you want me to talk to him’? Everybody was scared to go in the office, but I wasn’t scared. I’ll go right, and I’m going to know what I’m talking about when I go. I’m not going to talk to you ugly, but I will tell you how I feel, with love. I ain’t going to go screaming and hollering at you in charge, like I got it made down here. I said, ‘do you want me to talk to him’? She’s nice. She had a lot of pride. She was too proud to say (unintelligible 56:57). She say, ‘if you want to’. Some say, ‘don’t pay her no mind’. Some say, ‘go’. So, she turned around and left. Say, ‘If I don’t see you this afternoon when we get off, I’ll see you around somewhere’. And that just fulled [sic] me up. So, dog gone it! I’m going to his office.
He was so mean. He didn’t want you to open the door and come in. You had to ‘boom!, boom!, boom!’. Then, when he opened the door, he sat, he say, “Can I help you?”
And he opened the door, ‘can I help you’?
I said, ‘yes, you can’.
“What’s your problem?”
“I don’t got a problem, I got a concern.” I say, ‘you asked me, to find you somebody–that you needs a spinner–and I did that.’
You asked me, ‘Reckon she’ll work’? I told you ‘yes’, and she done did it’. I said, ‘she’s telling me tomorrow that she’s not coming in, because you done let her went’.
“Well, she couldn’t spin.”
I said, ‘Look, I’m not going to tell you that you lie, because you my boss-man’. I said, ‘you my boss. But I’m woman enough, and got heart enough to come in and tell you, you wrong’. I said, ‘you can take it from there’. I said, ‘you know you wrong!’ I said, ‘you’ve got a girl here, already trained, on full pay, and you, and you firing her to keep this girl’. I said, ‘you know that ain’t right. That’s not right. How you think you going to get by with that?’ I had enough nerve to tell him. I say, ‘now, and how you going to keep her, and this girl got more seniority, and you are let her go and keeping one that don’t? She ain’t finished learning.’
He says, ‘well, that’s why I’m here’.
I say, ‘that’s your problem’. I say, ‘when you go in that office,’– I called them ‘white’– I say, ‘those white women’, there’s two of them–and sometimes three—when that girl get behind, they keep her up and help her. They look and see him, and help keep her going. ‘I sees’, I say, but I didn’t say nothing. I says, ‘but this girl you’re letting go, she helped me all day long. And I told her, go back on your job. Go back on your job now because they watching you. She say, “Well, you think everybody watching you”, I say, ‘everybody do. Go back up on your job’. I say, ‘I appreciate you, but I want you to hold this job because I know you need it, like I need mine’. She went on back on up there, and I told everybody. Now I said, ‘when you go in this office,’–I know the name because I’ve been there long enough–I say, ‘they come help her, soon as you go in the office, or go out for the day. They keep her going’. But I say, ‘this girl didn’t need it, because she come and help me. She knows what to do, and you going to let her go?’ I say, ‘now, you my boss’–I didn’t say ‘you could fire me’, because I wasn’t going to go that easy (laughter)–I said, ‘but you can do what you want to do, but you wrong, and I’m here to tell you. And I say, ‘one more thing that I’m going to tell you’. I say, ‘if you can sleep tonight, tell me about it when you come back tomorrow. If you sleep tonight, me and you need to talk. I want to know how you slept’. I didn’t slam the door, I pulled the door tight. And he say, he dropped his head, and later on that day, this girl come to me and say, ‘I’m going to be in tomorrow’. I say, ‘what?’ She say, ‘yes. He told me to come on back in’. I say, ‘okay you coming back in. Look here. Work like you always have worked, and stay on your job because they after you now’. I say, ‘because he’s trying to save the girl’. I say, ‘stay on your job, come to work, don’t be late’. She said, ‘no, I ain’t going to be late, because my ride’s going to be on time’. I say, ‘and don’t mention it when you go out the door’. I said, ‘that crowds thinking you ain’t coming back in tomorrow’, I said, ‘don’t tell nobody. You told me and that’s enough. And she said, ‘okay. I’ll do what you say’. I say, ‘yeah, come back in here and get to working’. I say, ‘work a little harder. Keep it up’. And so, when she got in that morning, we got that that great big ‘ol door–it take two people to open it. When she walked in that door, and they saw her…Now, let me tell you what he did, and why I know he prejudiced. Now I’ll look in your face and anybody else faces–Don’t you know, he kept that girl anyway… He kept her too. Now, if he could have made a way to keep her then, he could have kept her at first. And then that girl quit on him. That girl stayed down there twenty-some odd years. She left there when the door closed, right along with me. I don’t know if she ever appreciated it, but I don’t care. That’s why the Lord blesses me.
CE: That’s right.
EA: That’s right! I got her on that job. But now, he was something to handle. “I’ve done told you, and told you, and told you: I’m going to let you go. I’m going to let you go. I’m going to let you go.”…
I’m going to quit talking. Jean, you know me. I told you before y’all sit down here, that I can talk. (laughter) You know now I’ll start another conversation.
CE: I’d stay here all day. I really would. I actually wish I could bring my children and let them hear some of these stories. But thank you so very much.
EA: And thank you for stopping by!
CE: It has really been a pleasure for me…
EA: Well, thank you…that makes me feel good…
CE: That’s quite a story you have to tell.
EA: And the thing about it: every word is true…Every word is true; ain’t putting none in, ain’t taking none out.
End of Interview.