Oral History InterviewBarbara Finch, IntervieweeLeanne Johnson, InterviewerNovember 16, 2001LJ: 0:00 Johnson.BF: 0:00 What's your classification at East Carolina?LJ: 0:00 I'm a senior. BF: 0:00 You're a senior, okay.LJ: 0:04 I'll be graduating in December.BF: 0:07 December, that's great. Congratulations. I have a grandson who's a sophomore at East Carolina, John Finch, and he doesn't live in dorm. He's, his father, my son, owns a home over on Anderson Street, which is right, actually, they're very convenient. So my grandson, John, lives with two other, he and two other friends share, share that house, now. My son has rented it sometimes to girls from East Carolina, one time he had five girls in there. And then another time he had boys, all boys. LJ: 0:44 That's funny.BF: 0:45 And this year, when John Jr. wanted to live there, he said, sure.LJ: 0:45 That's cool.BF: 0:45 Yeah, it's neat. LJ: 0:45 Alright, now if you'll just state your name.BF: 0:55 I'm Barbara Stovall Finch.LJ: 0:59 Okay, and is that your maiden name or?BF: 1:01 Middle name. That was my maiden, I was Barbara Stovall. LJ: 1:04 Okay, good, all right, now just tell me where you were born.BF: 1:09 Okay, I'll tell you, I was born in Stovall, which is in Granville County, LJ: 1:12 Okay.BF: 1:12 And if you know anything about Granville County, LJ: 1:14 No idea where Granville County is.BF: 1:16 Okay, Granville County is north of Raleigh. You ever heard of Oxford? LJ: 1:27 Yeah. I've heard of Oxford.BF: 1:28 Okay, well, Stovall is about 15 or 13 miles north, like you're going to Virginia, into Virginia. In fact, Stovall is probably a little closer to the Virginia line than it is, but it is in North Carolina, very small community. And as I said, my ancestors started the town. Still have a cousin who lives, and he and his wife live in the old home place, which was a beautiful old home. But, and,LJ: 1:53 Now is this a farming community, or?BF: 2:08 Oh, yeah, very. Very much so, agricultural. LJ: 2:11 Did you live on the farm, or? BF: 2:13 Well, now I, my, I'll just tell you about my life. LJ: 2:18 Okay.BF: 2:18 Okay, I was next to the youngest of seven children. LJ: 2:23 That's a big family.BF: 2:25 It was. My mother died when I was five years old, and we were, my family, of course, we, my father did not, well of course, I don't remember a lot of this early part, but my father, after my mother died, we stayed with my father for a while, but he didn't take care of us, and we, my uncles, my relatives, mothers, brothers and sisters, went to court and had us taken away from him, and we were split up and lived, and so I went, when I was actually six years old, I went to live with my aunt, my mother's sister, who lived in Durham, North Carolina, and she didn't have any children, had never had any children, she had been married, but, and I lived with her, and went to school, started to school, well, I actually started in Stovall, went to the first grade, but never, well, I wasn't there long enough, actually, to be, you know, to stay very long. I remember that much back going, but I went,LJ: 3:34 Was the school in Durham a public school?BF: 3:47 It was a public school, yes. It was Edgemont School in Durham, and it, my aunt, of course, took very good care of me, and I'm sure I was spoiled. When we'd go back to visit my sisters and brothers and my other relatives in Stovall, and Bullock is a smaller town down just three miles away from Stovall, and they said that they didn't like me very much because I had all these things, and did a lot of things, you know, that they didn't.LJ: 4:23 Yeah.BF: 4:23 But being, particularly my brother, who was younger than me, when my mother died. And, but when my, when I was in the eighth grade, well, at a part of the seventh maybe, my aunt in Durham died, and so I was sent back out to, actually Bullock, where my aunt and an uncle of mine, my mother's brother and a sister lived there, and some other, and so I went back there, and went, most of my brothers and sisters, you know, being older, were not there, and my brother, youngest brother, was somewhere, he was with another family, another one of my mother's sisters. But anyway, I went to Stovall School, and I was, I graduated from there. And my uncle, who ran a general store there in, the only store in Bullock, sent me to college. LJ: 5:30 And were you expected to go to college, or was it something that you wanted to do?BF: 5:34 Well no, no, I wanted to. I always knew, when I was a little girl, my aunt in Durham said I got out in the backyard and with my ruler whatever, and my dolls and I played school, but I had always wanted to be a teacher. And so I wanted to go to school, and so she sent me, and actually I was the only one of my family that did graduate some of the others went, like to business school, one went to beauty school, and they did other things, you know.LJ: 6:06 Yeah.BF: 6:07 And but, as I said, and when I, after I graduated from high school in 1945, and I came to East Carolina that fall, and I had never been on, out of North Carolina or anything, or had been, hadn't been too many places in North Carolina. And when they brought me to Greenville, I thought, goodness knows, where am I going? It's a lot different now than those days, or whatever.LJ: 6:38 I can understand that. BF: 6:39 And I, when I came to East Carolina, my, there was a cousin of my mother's who was a house mother in the dorm, which is no longer there, Wilson Hall. So they, that's where they wanted me to be, you know. So I had a room in Wilson Hall, and I was very homesick. Meal time, or usually about that time at night when it was time for dinner, I would be, I would cry right much, occasionally. But anyway, that didn't last so long, but later on, as I got to know more people, I decided I wasn't going to stay in Wilson, and I moved down to Fleming Hall and stayed there until I graduated.LJ: 7:25 And then what, what did you major in?BF: 7:28 I majored in education. LJ: 7:29 That's what it was, College of Education. BF: 7:31 Yes. And of course, took courses, I did my student teaching or practice teaching, they called it, right down there was a, the school was down there where Wahl-Coates School was, where the theater complex is, you know that?LJ: 7:31 Yeah.BF: 7:32 So that's where I went to do my student teaching, and I remember. LJ: 7:42 What was that like?BF: 7:54 Starting out, I remember the children and, you know, starting out like helping them with reading. We didn't, honestly, I don't remember. I don't have to do any of the things that you all have to do. I didn't remember. You know, I just went through the classes and made pretty good, it's my report, some such subjects were better with me than others, but I didn't have that much trouble. But I know that, and we knew our instructors, you know, there weren't, there was some elderly ladies, Miss Coates was one of them, which Wahl-Coates is named, is Dr. Coates, I guess she was. And sometimes, you know, they'd be down at Wahl-Coates, and we'd sit down and have a lunch together and things like that. But it was just real, I know my daughter teaches, and my daughter-in-law, both are teachers here in Pitt County, and I know what they have to go through, now.LJ: 8:48 They're a lot different.BF: 8:51 Yes, indeed. And of course, that's progress for you as time goes on. But then, and then I, just say I graduated in 1949 and of course, when I came down here to Greenville, as I said, I know when Austin, we used to have movies on Saturday night up in Old Austin, which it was torn down, you know, and they have the cupola now, but we'd have movies there, like on the weekend, not every weekend, but often.LJ: 9:20 Was there like, dating rules for guys to come see you or go there?BF: 9:24 Well, yeah, I mean, you could have, and of course, the first year you could go home for a certain length of time either, I don't know that they even have that anymore, do they? LJ: 9:32 Not now.BF: 9:33 I didn't think so, but we had to be in at ten o'clock. Because that one night I got locked out at 10:00. Yeah, I was there, just a little after, and so I was, had stay on campus, like, couldn't go out or date a couple of weeks or something like that. But anyway, we, and we had a parlor, you know there, because a lot of us were a parlor host, as you might say, we'd sit down there, and when the men, guys would come to see somebody, you'd call or go up to the room or send up for them, they'd come down and had little different places in the parlor down there that you could sit and talk whatever, or you could go out if you, but, and then, in this, after the war was over, you know, some of the men came to, like in 1946, particularly.LJ: 10:33 What was that like? BF: 10:35 And, now that was nice.BF: 10:36 It was nice [interviewer laughs].BF: 10:37 Yeah, things sort of changed a little bit then. LJ: 10:39 Got more guys than girls.BF: 10:41 Oh yeah. And, well of course, at one, and we'd have dances in Wright auditorium down there sometimes, and we'd have, of course, they had basketball games and had other things, not football that I remember, but basketball, we did have.LJ: 11:05 Did you play any sports? BF: 11:06 No, I didn't play any sports. I took a tennis class when I was there, but I don't, never played any sports. LJ: 11:15 So it was like a PE requirement.BF: 11:17 No, it was just PE, you know, you just took a PE class, more or less, to exercise and just in general things, because I know Nell Stallings, who was a famous lady in the PE Department, there she was a real lovely lady, and she believed in, you know, sports and things like that. But, and there was nothing, Greenville was quite different, because, you know, there was nothing over there, across where the dorms are. Now, back, in fact, there was a, like the arboretum down where all the science building is, and Brewster building, and that part, we used to, sometimes later, my husband came, also was there in like, 1947 I guess, and but he didn't, he came for a while, and then he went to Duke for a while too. But he was there, in fact, that's where we met out the back of Fleming Hall one night. And of course, I know you may have heard too, there was a little, which is no longer there, the little dining the dining hall, and a little place where you had you, we called it, we called it the Y Store. It's a little soda shop type thing, you could go over there and you could dance and drinks, and things like that. LJ: 11:17 Where was that at?BF: 12:40 It's no longer there, but it was where, let's see what's there now, over near where the library is now, in that area some, because back when I was there and they, there was like, from Cotton and Fleming and all there, there was a drive that went up and all out in here was like a planted grass and trees and stuff. And up as you circled around, when you got up there and went down around where the Science Department was on that side, and some of the education building stuff, and, and the infirmary was over there too, right on that same, when you made that circle. But as you, up at the top, where, which would be up where, toward where Wilson Hall was then and Austin both, that's about where it circled around, and that was the little building that was a cafeteria, and the place with the post office, and all. LJ: 13:36 So that's where you guys hung out. BF: 13:38 Oh yeah, we'd hang out there a lot. And as I said, we used to sometimes, we'd sometimes, another couple, and my husband and me would pack us a little lunch and go walk over like, where across 10th, across 10th Street, where the, where Darrell's and all is over there, and there was nothing over there, of course, but a little stream land. And we'd take some sandwiches or hot dogs, just roast some hot dogs over there.LJ: 14:06 That's neat.BF: 14:07 Sit down, pitch the blanket down by that little stream that runs, you know. Take a walk and do that. But it was quite different. And then I graduated in 1949 and I went to, I went to Durham that summer. I have two, I had two sisters there then, after I graduated, and had two sisters there, living there. So I went up and lived in an apartment with one of them and some other girls, and I got a summer job with the recreation department, which I enjoyed, too. And but I got a job teaching at the same school that I had attended, Edgemont School. I taught, started teaching first grade there, but my husband, we weren't married, but we got married, that's, we got married the summer after I graduated from East Carolina, and, but we, he, forgot where I was going with that, what I was saying. But we, when, let's see the last thing I told you was where we, he, when I, when we went to Durham and I taught, he was at Duke, when I went there to work with the recreation department. And so I taught, but and we had gotten married after I graduated, that summer, we got married, and then I taught until, well I didn't teach a full year because I got pregnant rather soon after that, and Jim was, we, of course, we lived when we were in Durham there, we lived later on, had moved into, after I, we were married, I moved into, he and I had a room in this lady's house with kitchen privileges, where we lived when I was teaching, we didn't have an automobile, didn't have anything. I rode to my school with another couple, couple of friends of ours and well she taught there at Edgemont, and now that was quite an experience, because the neighborhood, there was not, a lot of children, very underprivileged. There was one little girl I had in my class that, she would come to school and her clothes were dirty and everything, she was dirty, and you'd, the nurse there at the school cleaned her up like and we put clothes on her. And we finally, the mother, when you send her home with these new things or whatever, the mother didn't take care and they said, finally, you know, we would let, we just change your clothes when she came to school we put them on, when she left, we'd take them off and whatever, and then put on the next morning. But it was something to go. And when I went to her home to visit, a home visit, the mother had just stacks of clothes piled in the floor that she wouldn't use a thing.LJ: 17:14 That's horrible.BF: 17:14 I know it. But, and I had to, my little class had to put on a play while I was there, and everything too. And I enjoyed it. I liked it, but as I said, I got pregnant, and I, Jim was, he decided Duke really wasn't where he needed to be. So we left Durham and he went, he said he needed to go back to school, whatever. But we didn't come on back to Greenville, then he had, we had to go to Wilson and live, there was a little house in Wilson, North Carolina, and live there. And he worked with his uncle. And then later on, we decided we needed to come to Greenville and he needed to finish. So we came to Greenville and lived in a garage apartment up above this house on Meade Street, which is still there, and had no automobile, no anything. We had a little red wagon for our son to carry him in, and we had a carriage, of course, one stroller and all that. But we, so I've been familiar with the campus for a good while, because Jim was there in school, and I got a job, there was a lady teaching out at Stokes that was having a, she was on to take a maternity leave. And I got that job to finish out her year at Stokes. And in those days, and I drove, rode, rode with some other ladies because we didn't have an automobile, but I rode with some other ladies and went every day there. And if days, on days that like, if my sitter didn't come, they say, bring him on. And I'd take John, he was up tottling, walking around and everything, and I'd take him with me, and he'd stay in the classroom and color and play back there, you know, which you don't do anymore, you know. And, but it was all fun and interesting, and I, I loved being at East, being at East Carolina, ECTC.LJ: 18:41 Are you still involved like, in the Alumni Association?BF: 18:47 Oh yeah, in the Alumni Association. Yeah I like to be involved in that. LJ: 19:03 Do you go to football games?BF: 19:31 Oh yes. Went, went last night and sat out there. Did you go? LJ: 19:35 I'm in the marching band.BF: 19:38 Oh you are?LJ: 19:38 Yeah.BF: 19:38 Oh yeah, great. LJ: 19:40 So, I play clarinet.BF: 19:46 Oh yeah. We get season tickets. I don't travel, we don't go that much out of town, we have been, but we go to all of them. And as I said, I have, my daughter teaches at WH Robinson, and she graduated from East Carolina, and so did my daughter-in-law, Pam Finch, who, she teaches at Grimesland, GR Whitfield. So I've seen, been in it. We moved after, we lived in Durham, and then Jim, we moved to Wilmington, North Carolina. Jim got a job with the Atlantic Castline Railroad, and I taught there at Wilmington all the time we were, also. And then we, when we left Wilmington, my husband was, he could either, or the Coastline Railroad moved its headquarters to Florida. So he was offered to, but they were going to send him to Boston or something, you know. He said, no, I'm gonna get out of this. I'm not going to Florida. I'm not going to Boston. So he went to work with an agricultural, sales rep for an agricultural chemical company. We came back to Greenville and built, built this, well, we built a house in Lindale. The smallest house in Lindale belongs to us. Back when Lindale was getting started, we built, and then that was before we moved to Wilmington, because we sold that house and, not Wilmington, we moved to, we left the house in Lindale, moved to Rome, Georgia for three years, I taught down there, also.LJ: 21:27 It's a nice place. BF: 21:28 Oh yeah, loved it. Rome's a beautiful city.LJ: 21:30 I have some uncles and aunts there.BF: 21:32 Really? Oh yeah. We loved it there. My daughter got to go to Thornwood School. LJ: 21:37 That's a great school.BF: 21:38 Wonderful. She, of all my two boys and my daughter, she got the best training there, of course, I know girls might have applied themselves more than boys, but I was so thrilled that she could do that, you know, to get in and go. She got the best foundation, training right there, because this was, like sixth grade, I guess it was, and we loved it. It was beautiful scene. I taught, it, right downtown, Elm, I think it was called Elm Street School, something like that, can't remember exactly, but it was the one that was down to, Central Primary, that's what it was called, that's probably still there.LJ: 22:09 Think so, not sure. It's been a while since I've been there.BF: 22:19 Yeah I forgot, yeah. It's been a long, we haven't been, and my daughter dated this young man from, oh, he would come to the house, I won't say they dated that much, that was at school, was a out at Dar- he was at Darlington, and we enjoyed living there. And then came back to Greenville the next, when Jim's, was moved, the company he was in with went out of business, so he joined another one, which he traveled eastern North Carolina and Virginia, into Virginia. So we came back and we built this house out here. Been here ever since, over 30 years.LJ: 23:01 Been moving around a lot. BF: 23:06 Oh, yeah, we've moved around a little bit. There's been good experiences.LJ: 23:13 Yeah?BF: 23:13 Yeah.LJ: 22:18 When you were at East Carolina as a student, did, did you do like, any clubs or anything like that, where you participate in like societies or anything?BF: 23:13 I was a, let me see, let me go get one of my annuals, a minute. I'll tell you. LJ: 23:23 Okay.BF: 23:24 I was in one of the societies.BF: 23:32 [Unintelligible] I was in this for years, society which were, LJ: 23:33 Now what was it again?BF: 23:36 Well, they had, by different, they were just, where's this at, [unintelligible] these are campus society. This was May Day, and Mr. Clark may have told you that I was the May Queen one year.LJ: 23:56 Were you? I didn't know that, no. He didn't tell me that.BF: 24:06 He didn't tell you that?LJ: 24:11 What was that like? BF: 24:12 I told somebody, it's because I, well someone, you know, they had, in fact, I, oh, let's see how many years ago, a couple, anyway, we celebrated the 50th anniversary and the homecoming. I know I was working with Carolyn Thompson on the homecoming events, and at that time she, she said, we talked about maybe having an entry from the, somebody from our group. LJ: 24:43 What group was that?BF: 24:45 And so I, like from our graduating class, there.LJ: 24:50 Oh, okay.BF: 24:50 It was going to be our anniversary, you know, the 50th. And so this friend of mine had a 1947 Willys Jeepster, which was yellow, convertible, and I, they asked me, after they found this out, that she sent the newspaper man out here to interview and talk to me. And of course, I told him, they said something about the homecoming queen. I said, no, we didn't have a homecoming queen, we had a May Day, which was at the end of the year, and you had a queen and a court and all that. And so, they asked me, could I get him, maybe, to bring that car back, and now would I ride in, and we did, he brought his Jeepster down here, and he, and, but,LJ: 24:50 Do you remember what year that was?BF: 24:51 It was in, in '49, because that's the one, I don't have that, that's my annual that I've got that's misplaced. This was the '47 and, but see they have Emerson Society, Poe Society, but this was the May Day. This was another girl who's from, Martha Jefferson, who lives here, she was from Greenville. And of course, these were the girls that were in the court. And as I said, I don't have mine, and, but I did have a [interviewer interrupts]LJ: 24:51 I bet that was neat.BF: 25:21 Picture there, but it was neat to have there. Now, this thing is out there, the,LJ: 26:23 Did you have a parade or anything like that?BF: 26:24 No, no parade. This was just held right on campus out there and see this girl with her father, escort, these were like girls tennis teams and the junior varsity, we had cheerleaders, and see this is in front of, this is the pool out there in front of Wright, there. But, and they had, you know, art club and science and the Chi Chi Players or whatever. I wasn't ever in any of the drama, the plays and things, student government. I don't know what y'all have now in the way of, I know you have an annual that you put your, and of course, the, The Collegians, a lot of times at homecoming, when we, this past year, at homecoming, the group Collegians, not many of them left, but they've gotten some others to come and they played music. A lot of these friends of mine that were in this are no longer living.LJ: 26:25 Mr. Clark mentioned them.BF: 26:25 Huh? Oh yeah.LJ: 27:28 Interested in like, bands and stuff, since I was in band.BF: 27:28 Uh-huh, yeah, in those, but, [unintelligible]LJ: 27:29 I can look it up at school. That was at this year's homecoming, or?BF: 27:30 Let me see what this is, becasue this, it was in a, [papers rustling] yeah this is it, this is was in, what was in the, what is this called, the alumni, because that's what this is. Let's see, this is the, this was the parade, LJ: 29:15 Oh wow!BF: 29:16 And here, here I am here, and this was the car. LJ: 29:20 That's awesome. BF: 29:22 And he had this friend, Melton, had the picture in my gown on, he had it on the sign.LJ: 29:30 That's so neat.BF: 29:32 Yeah, it was quite exciting. You know, it's in, in the little thing in the paper that I finally, here, Barbara Stovall Finch finally gets to give the queenly wave. Because, you know, we didn't have anything like that. LJ: 29:57 That's neat.BF: 29:57 They didn't have any candidates down there.LJ: 30:04 You were still picked, though.BF: 30:05 Yeah. This was, after I gave this picture to, this was when I was a student, and these boys, this boy was a judge here, and he was from Oxford, and this was like a picture, we were, I really didn't have to change the tire, but they took, LJ: 30:23 [Interviewer laughs]BF: 30:24 Took it like I was helping. But going home, when I'd ride home, LJ: 30:27 So cute!BF: 30:28 With these boys from Oxford, and I remember we had a lot of pictures that night, when we had our band quit, our dinner and everything,LJ: 30:35 [Interviewer laughs]BF: 30:36 Over Mendenhall, LJ: 30:37 Yeah.BF: 30:37 And they had a lot of pictures that day, because a lot, and Virgil was, and Abe Manning, who's also here in town that was a student there, yeah.LJ: 30:48 How did you meet Mr. Clark?BF: 30:51 How'd I meet him? Well, I-oh this was the porch, and,LJ: 31:00 Oh, that's a pretty dress.BF: 31:04 Where I grew up. It was my cousin's, here was the, this was the May Queen out there, they had to stand, and one of these little boys here in the front is one of the Tabb men around here in town, in the family, they were telling me who all of them are, I forgot, see we had like, a maid of honor a court, or something like that. You had two other and then these were, LJ: 31:37 These are great pictures. BF: 31:39 Yeah, I thought so I had my picture and the guy, they sent a man from The Daily Reflector out here at my house and took a picture. But it was never, that picture was never, it must not have turned out well enough so that one wasn't ever in in the paper, which is fine, it didn't matter to me if it didn't, it was an article, but, but I was glad I had kept my picture so that they could make other copies.LJ: 32:12 So they did an article about your May Queen in The Daily Reflector?BF: 32:16 They did, yeah, they ran an article. They did write about it, and how, I've forgotten now what exactly, what it was, but, but that was in, in working with Carolyn Thompson with the alumni, she's one that more or less asked, you know, would, I, would we, could we do that, and we got it worked up and everything. But it was a great weekend. It really was. I enjoyed it. But the days at East Carolina, I mean, I had a great time, and all behind the school. It's a wonderful school. LJ: 32:59 Did you say you're in the Emerson society, or? BF: 33:02 I was in Lanier.LJ: 33:26 Lanier Society. And what, can you spell that? Because I don't know how to spell that.BF: 33:29 L, A, N, I, E, R.LJ: 33:30 And what kind of society was that?BF: 33:12 Maybe like a, I guess they're called literary, or something like that, let me see [unintelligible]. We had girls that were marshals. We had a, we have a dance, March, June, let's see what it says. Oh yeah. It says during this the year of '45-'46, in order to promote more interest and appreciation of Poe and his works, we have been collecting all information about him, that's what I was talking about, they are literary societies, that's what they were, that's what it for.LJ: 33:43 So you are a fan of Edgar Allan Poe?BF: 34:14 What, honey? LJ: 34:15 Were you a fan of Poe's work?BF: 34:20 Yeah, I liked some of his work, yeah.LJ: 34:22 He was a great writer. BF: 34:24 Yes, indeed, he was.LJ: 34:28 Emerson or the [Laniers], are you in together then just talk about whatever, works and stuff, or did they do, like fundraisers?BF: 34:47 I really don't remember whether we did fundraisers. I'm sure we must have done something more than that, but I'm not sure exactly what, I guess, it's maybe more like a, well, not, maybe it was a beginning of sororities and fraternities and things like that. LJ: 34:47 It's more of a social.BF: 34:58 Sure it must have been, but it was a social, I think more, then it was, yeah, and if there were some events going on, like the marshals or different ones, we'd, we'd take part and, I really don't, don't remember too much about all of that, but that is one of the things that I was in and they were very good years. LJ: 35:43 That's good. Do you have any like, stories or memories that you're fond of that you want to talk about from?BF: 35:51 During the time there?LJ: 35:52 Yeah.BF: 35:52 Well, so there were a lot of times, there were a lot of, met a lot of people, and some of them really did some, as I say, said, the night that I was, came in, you know, I never did things wrong or whatever. But one evening, we several couples went downtown. There was a little cafe down there, whatever, and just walked back, and I didn't have any idea I was late. I hadn't even paid any attention to it, you know. And then the doors locked, and they had the, house mother had to come and unlock the door. And then, of course, as I said, I was not supposed to do any, go off campus or anything like that and so, but that was, that was all right, I could stand that. But, and we had girls that would do things like sneaking out and come, somebody would push them back in the window, they'd go off, wherever, somebody push them back in the window. LJ: 35:53 [Interviewer laughs]BF: 36:06 You had things going on, like some things, maybe nothing like we have now, but there were some of those things going on then. LJ: 37:00 Yeah.BF: 37:02 But it was, it was small, a small school, everything right there on campus, I can remember going to the movies like on, we would have them in Austin Hall on Saturday nights or something, I know, I'd go with some friends, or whatever. I wouldn't have a date, and you'd hear, they'd call somebody's name, you know, they'd have a phone call or something you know, or the date, somebody you know was, had arrived, they'd call their names during the movie, and I'd think, I sure wish somebody called mine. LJ: 37:46 Aww.BF: 37:50 But, and I don't know, I guess your relationship with your teachers was probably more different then too, because I remember with a lot of mine, and of course, this was art, and I enjoyed art classes too, when they did. I remember this little, when I was working with students down at Wahl-Coates, there was a little fellow that I was helping read, and his face where he'd washed it, it was like this, around here was clean, the rest was dirty around his ears and on the edge of his face like that, but he was a sweet little fellow. [Barbara coughs] Excuse me, I need to get a drink of water. Do you want anything? LJ: 38:45 No, I'm fine. Thank you. BF: 38:47 Different, of course, and as I said, nothing all the development, Greenville is such a city now.LJ: 38:56 Was there any particular reason why you chose ECTC?BF: 39:02 I well, I had had, I had, a cousin of mine had graduated, Thornton Stovall, and actually he met and married his wife, she was from Winterville, and he had been here, and I guess it was just understood that I would go. We really, at that time was, I knew Duke, Duke was in Durham, because I had lived there as a youngster and, but I really didn't know, like you didn't know about all of them, like my daughter, went to Meredith for a while, for one year, actually, she went and enjoyed it and other schools. She had applied at Queens, also at different ones, but East Carolina was the only one that I applied to. Never thought about going anywhere else and no one, of course, but as I said, I had a cousin, you know, who was one of the house mothers at Wilson Hall, it was then before it was, and it was where I stayed for a while, when I came down and, but it just never was any, I knew that's what I'd probably, when I graduated from high school, I knew I was coming to East Carolina, and you know once, when my, and as I said, my uncle ran the general store, and you know that I paid each cent, paid my tuition, and one time they called me and said that the check wasn't any good, so I called him. He said, tell him to put it, run it on through. There'll be some money there. You know, he sent some to the Oxford Bank, which there wasn't one in Bullock, and so they did. And next time, I mean, it went and it was all right after that, that was only time it ever happened. But there was at one time.LJ: 41:05 Was there, did your uncle just decide that he wanted to help you go through college? Or did he help your other brothers and sisters?BF: 41:11 He helped. Yeah, he helped. He helped a lot of, he, he sent my sister to beauty school, one of them, and she was a beautician. And the one, gave, sent her to business school, my oldest sister, Esther, and he would help. Well, they actually he, well of course, he did just wonders for me. He did more. And of course, he helped my brother, youngest brother too, but, and we had other, and at first, you know, some of the other, like, an uncle, another uncle of mine helped with some because we had a brother, one of our brothers, Hunter, was crippled from birth, and when he was, and his, he was born with his legs up, I mean, he couldn't straighten his legs. But when he was about 12, my uncles got together and sent him to the Shriners Hospital, and they had did the surgery on his legs so that he could, his legs were straightened, but, you know, he didn't, he couldn't move them. He walked on crutches all his life like, and he lived with my aunt and my uncle, Willie, who sent me to school. He lived with him and this old maid aunt who my uncle took care, he, he took care of so many out of that one business he had. He was such a wonderful man, and he's now deceased. In fact, all my mother's family, we had an uncle that died back in July, the only surviving one and, but they took us in, as I said, after my aunt in Durham died, and I came there to live, he just took care of me in every way, and said he wanted me to go to school, which I did. I just loved him and appreciated it so much, all that he did. And you know, I know, when our family, and we do get together, and Hunter is dead, the crippled brother, the others are living. And we, every summer, we go down, have a, rent a place at the beach, and we get together, a sister who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, one, she comes, and we don't bring family or children, just the brothers, the one brother and the sisters and their husbands, and we have the best time. And you know, we've been so close, I said, maybe closer than others. I guess it was because of the way we were separated for such a long time. But it's wonderful, a large family. Now, we went through some rough times, I'm sure, which I don't remember that much of those, but a lot of times, my sister, who, the oldest sister, tells us a lot of these things. But I'm just grateful to, and thankful for him for doing that, and for the other aunts also. But he was financially, he was the one that did it.LJ: 41:16 When you were going to ECU and the veterans started coming back, was there any kind of, like, 'welcome home,' kind of, things for them, or anything that you can remember?BF: 44:42 I don't remember that that was what they had. Of course, they had a veterans group or whatever then, and I don't remember that they had, I'm sure there may have been something, but I just don't remember that.LJ: 45:02 And how did you meet Virgil Clark?BF: 45:06 Well, I guess, I really didn't know Virgil when I was at school, we met here through, I guess through his family. I know my my grandsons have played ball on teams that his sister, and that, we did, I know we met him because too, because his sister, one of his sisters, married a man, Molt Massey here, who was in real estate, and my husband and I, when we came here to look for housing. We like, we had to rent a house at one time and things like that, when we, and I may have gotten to know Virgil that way, because I knew a lot of his family and we've just been friends since then, but particularly after, you know, when the children were and my, his sister and some his, his sister, Carolyn, had some daughters who were my daughter's age, as you know. So I've known him through that connection, but he's a fine man.LJ: 46:15 Yes he is.BF: 46:17 And really dedicated to East Carolina. LJ: 46:20 Oh, yeah, definately.BF: 46:21 Yeah.LJ: 46:21 [Pause] Let me go back. [Interviewer laughs]BF: 46:22 [Barbara laughs] Okay.LJ: 46:29 Oh yeah, the dorms, was it just you in one room, or did you share rooms?BF: 46:33 We had a roommate, I had a roommate, yeah. And we had, like, twin beds, nothing like refrigerators in your room and things like that, like. LJ: 46:44 [Interviewer laughs]BF: 46:45 I have a granddaughter who's a freshman at State, LJ: 46:47 Yeah.BF: 46:48 And I know it wasn't like that at all, but we had it and, LJ: 46:55 Did you share bathrooms?BF: 46:57 And the bath, one bath at the end of the hall. LJ: 47:00 Oh wow.BF: 47:01 Yes, the shower, yes, that's right. LJ: 47:03 That'd be rough.BF: 47:04 And when you had, if people would come to bring things, yeah, "man on the hall, man on the hall." LJ: 47:11 [Interviewer laughs]BF: 47:12 So you wouldn't be running out without your clothes on or whatever [Barbara laughs]. [END OF SIDE 1]