Oral History InterviewMarch 10, 2001Beulah Lassiter Raynor, IntervieweeSuellyn Lathrop, InterviewerDuane Teague, Attendee[BEGINNING OF SIDE 1]BR: (0:00) That right now. I'm sorry, I can't help you. SL: (0:04) No, you're fine. I don't know. I'm just we're gonna test this out, see how it does. BR: (0:08) I'll tell you the truth, I feel like I'm going to talk too much. SL: (0:13) No, BR: (0:15) I think we'll have a good time.DT: (0:16) I think so. This not only shows that you're recording, but your needle and it doesn't necessarily need to be bouncing much.SL: (0:28) East Carolina University archivist. Today is March 10, 2000. We are conducting an oral interview with Mrs. Beulah Lassiter Raynor of Winston Salem, North Carolina. We will be discussing Mrs. Raynor's experiences at East Carolina Teachers College. Duane Teague development officer is also here, Mrs. Raynor, would you please tell us a little bit about your life prior to attending East Carolina Teachers College? What was it like growing up in Rich Square?BR: (0:54) Well, I guess anybody that listens to this will know I've been talking my head off, so I will pick up where I was leaving off of talking about the connection between East Carolina and Wake Forest, as far as I was concerned, and as I was about to say, and we'll begin, I was born in Northampton County, Rich Square on June the 26th, 1910, and I thought Rich Square was about the biggest place in the world, but it wasn't. I found that it wasn't. We didn't, of course, back then, there were no stoplights, and I first remember there was not a single paved street coming into Rich Square, and there were, I'd say, maybe a half dozen businesses. We had a bank, we had a doctor's office, a grocery store, post office, high school, Methodist Church and Baptist Church. And about two miles from Rich Square, where we, place we called the depot, because the train used to go through there long ago, there was a Quaker church. And I started school when I was six years old, just like all the other children, we lived two miles from Rich Square, and there were lots of children on that on that road, and unless it was very severe weather, we walked to school. And of course, I was an only child. My parents thought that I couldn't do anything by myself, so they had asked an older girl to sort of look after me see I didn't get run over by people, or vehicles, and so my school started. And the school was a frame building, and it was crowded at that time, so that the county or somebody, Rich Square didn't do it, had built a teacherage for the few teachers we had, and so my first grade was spent in the dormitory where the teacher stayed. So I didn't really get to the big building until my second year, and if the weather was very bad, my daddy took me to school on a horse and buggy and put me out on the porch of the school, and I didn't get my feet wet or anything. And from the day I started, I loved to go to school. I loved it very much. So I spent my days at Rich Square and thought that I would never get away. Didn't want to get away very much, I suppose. But long about the time I got to high school, my mother and daddy had not had an opportunity for an education. My dad, particularly, we didn't have any money. My daddy had just about as small a farm as you could be. I think what they called it was a two horse farm. He and a black boy did what work was done on the farm. We had cotton and peanuts to sell our money that tobacco had not come to that part of Eastern Carolina, and you got to go back to see, we, I started school or see, about nineteen, six or something like that. I mean, excuse me, 1916 and the war came along. Everything came along. So when I graduated, it was right in the middle of this depression. I graduated in May 1927. Well, I studied hard. I studied very hard. My folks expected me to do well, and I wanted to do well. I wanted to please my folks, my family, my dad and mother, and I wanted to please my teachers, I loved everyone I ever had, they were my good friends. And I don't know exactly when, but I'll say about the eighth grade, people started talking to me and to my daddy about what I would do when I finished high school. It wasn't anything I could do. I probably could have gone to Suffolk, Virginia, and gone to nursing school. The other thing that I knew that I could do, I had relatives in Norfolk, and I could go to Norfolk and take some kind of a business course and do business work. I didn't know anything else when in the first place, I didn't want to be a nurse, and I didn't know what a business course would be, I wasn't that well informed, so I was really anxious. And about this time, now you remember that, I think I'm correct in it, that East Carolina started in 1907. They had their first classes. Well, by the time of 1927 you see, that had been 20 years and I just don't know exactly when, and if older folks were here, they would know exactly when Wake, I�?Tm going to say that all day. I�?Tm going to make a mistake. East Carolina started giving degrees. It started as, you know, as a training school, and then they gave, I don't know what to call it except you went two years and you were certified to teach. And the people I knew, and there were a few from our county that had gone when I got, say, in the 10th grade or something like that, and I knew that Greenville was there, and I knew that you could go two years and you could get a teaching certificate, and I knew very well I was not very active socially, because my mother and dad didn't let me go anywhere unless there were at least four people in the car, that was real, when I got to high school and ready to graduate, they didn't have a car, anybody had a car. So we talked a lot, and it just so happened, and we had, I guess somebody had planned for this, Mr. Wright, Dr. Wright, the president, made our little graduation address. There wasn't about 17-18 in the class. And I don't think it will say anything like I'm boasting, because there weren't enough people in there for us to have anybody else. But I was a valedictorian class, and when I can't wait for us to teach, I found out that didn't mean a thing. You could have a whole room for a class, I mean valedictorians, and just like I was, I used to been in small schools, but this sounds real, unusual, but after that graduation, that night, there were people around talking to the strike, just as informed as we are right now, you know, Bobby like I didn't. I knew I'd forget something when I was in the seventh grade, they built a new high school, and that gave us a lot of room that we didn't have. And I don't care if people read it this way, I know better. So I was in the seventh grade, we moved the last month of the school year so that that class could graduate in new building. So the whole four years I was in high school, I was in the new building. It was small. We had good teachers. I don't think I had a bad one. And so when graduation night came, they they were all interested. They knew the only place I could possibly go would be to East Carolina. And you know this Mr. Wright of that he told everybody that he said, when you put your application problems already, and I don't know about that, but he said, and you come, and we'll see to it that you stay. And I think that very night I must have said to him, and I don't know why, because I've always loved children and prayed for little brother and sister, but I did not want to teach what I could teach with a two year certificate, which would be primary and elementary. So they must I know they had started getting the degree, so you see, that would double the expense if I went four years but I know Mr. Wright said, you come and a place will be made for you. Well, in the summer, we had some correspondence back and forth, and I got a job in the dining room, and the people that worked in the dining room, had to go maybe 24-48 hours earlier. Well, I tell you what, I wouldn't be afraid to get on a plane and go to Russia. That was the biggest thing. I had never been to Greenville. I had to go to Kelford. Now you all may not be native North Carolina. North Carolina, that was about 12 hours. We get on the train and go a few miles and then change trains at a little place called Palmal or something like that. And then the worst of all was that people who had been to East Carolina told me, you know, Mr. I looked his name up there, Mr. Fornes, F-O-R-N-E-S was, I guess he was superintendent of the building and grounds. But he would meet the train and take the trunks, we took trunks, you know, everything, blankets, everything. And then when the time I went, maybe not even my first year, instead of little suitcases, we had what we call hat boxes and they had they were round, and you can imagine that was to walk with them. But they took the hat boxes then we got off the train, and we had to walk from the train station to the campus and the people who had been there before just told us about how terrible it was at Five Points. You know, I just thought all the traffic, you know why, I guess they call it five points, don't you? Where five streets come? Yeah, somewhere between the trains. And I just dreaded that. I couldn't imagine. I'd have been, I would have been half as excited all the way if I were going to New York was far away, and I wouldn't go right away. But anyway, as I said, I dreaded it and my dad and mother that was breaking their hearts too. So, you know, it broke their hearts. They wanted me to go, and did everything they could, but it broke up our home for them for me to go away. So I had a friend, and she she was one of a family of 10, and she got a lot of permission to do things, and she loved me, we were in the same grade, started school together, and somehow she said, Beulah, I'll go with you. So she and I went to the train, and she went with me. And of course, I got there, and it was so big. And somewhere in this decor and that of that 1928 there's just a picture that shows the line of dormitories, and then back of that the dump, that one line, whatever. Can't think of the names right now. But anyway, then that was the dining hall and I think we had a outdoor tennis court. I know we had a basketball court out there. And then, I think it was in 1925 they had built what was known as a Y hut, and that was a social you had to sign up to go there. But that was pointed out to us early on, that when our parents came to see us, we could use it, but there was just It was big, I thought, all those dormitories, you know, I couldn't imagine what it's going to be like to sleep one place and get up in the dark and go eat somewhere else. That was just something I couldn't imagine. But anyway, I got there all right. And the woman who was head of the dining room was a Mrs. Geeta. She was a great, big woman, and she could be a little rough at times. And the girls I had known, one or two that had worked in the dining hall, and they tell me how Mrs. Geeta would fuss at you, all of this. But I really don't remember my very first encounter with her, but I do remember the first time I cleared my tables. Now you want me to tell you this? SL: (17:40) Sure, yeah.BR: (0:54) [Unintelligible] but, you know, we had three tables, we had six people each table, you know, students, and we had to take, we go down a line like a cafeteria, and they would serve our bowls of things that we had to take to our table, people back of the counter, and we'd go out there, and we'd have to make about four or five trips, because on a tray, if they say, if they serve a bowl of grits, I'll say, well, and they put three bowls of grits on my table. I mean, on my tray, then that was all I could take to the dining hall, well, it wasn't that far, but anyway, I struggled with that, and got along fine, I liked the girls, but then what we had to do after we served the meal was, we had to clear the tables and we had to wash the silverware and the glasses, and we had a little table, and we kept the silverware in the little drawer, and I guess the glasses we must have kept on there, but anyway, we had to do that. We had to change the tablecloth. We had to see that everything was well. The first thing that I did was wrong I guess. I was trying so hard. And so Mrs. Geeta came along, and I was straightening the tablecloth after we had taken all everything off, and there were crumbs there, well I don't know what in the world, I guess we'd had an oilcloth tablecloth at home, I don't know. So, you know, I was brushing the crumbs into my hand off the edge of the table and she said, now, little girl, never put, never put your hands on the table. She taught me how to do it, and I think I was supposed to take a plate, because they didn't have what I had laid on at my house, a little pan with a brush. But anyway, I was to take a napkin and brush crumbs and put it in the plate whatever. Well, I got through that all, she didn't fuss, did well, but she would come around and look at those glasses and look at that silver and better not have spots on it and all that. It was hard work, but then there's always a better thing on the other side. When we finished, we had tables, and we sat back there to be served, and then there was a nicest black boy there, and he served the girls that waited on the table. And he would save the best of everything for us, we would always get the best food. I don't know how many tables, obviously, six of the table. His name was Pearly, and so that was a real good part. We got real good food. But I had to get up early and to go and get ready for breakfast. I went out a lot of mornings, and the stars were shining. And you know, when I left home, I don't suppose I'd ever been out at night unless I had somebody we can certainly not walk from one dorm toward to the dining hall. But this went on for a year, and until the end of the first quarter my sophomore year, I had done so well, I can brag now, I done so well that Miss Morton, who was the Dean of Women, ate in the dining room, of course, and she had about four people at her table, and then she had another table that some of the faculty and house mothers sat, but that was not a big table, I think. As I recall when Mrs. Geeta told me that Mrs. Morton wanted somebody that would be able to take care of guests when they came and things like that that she had thought I might be the one, so I got to serve Mrs. Morton.SL: (17:40) That's quite an honor.BR: (17:41) Yes, it was, and they're just as good to me as they could be. And I didn't have as much silver to wash, as many tablecloths to change, but you had to be a little bit more careful. I mean, they got little special treatment, for example, but we had grapefruit when I was serving tables Pearly or some other person in the kitchen just cut it in half and put it on our trays. But when I served Mrs. Morton's table, I had to get there early enough to cut it, you know, so you could eat it in sections, and that meant we had to go a little earlier. But I love to do it for them, because they just praised me, you know, and talked about how wonderful I was. While I worked over there, I found a little card that said something, I'll show it to you, says something back to the girl that makes Christmas every day, something like that. It was just a wonderful experience. Well, I worked the rest of that year, which was my sophomore year, serving the teachers, and Mrs. Morton, and it was just real, I mean, they were so good to me. I had been an only child. I was used to people making over me, and then I had a terrible decision to make. One of the people that sat Mrs. Morton's table was the librarian. When I went, she had an assistant, but she had been in the library a long time, Mrs. Gray, Helen Gray, and so she couldn't hear well, that's one of her troubles. But anyway, she was one of the sweetest, finest people, and she, in turn, after I had served them, you know, that year or so, she decided that she like to have me go over and work in the library. Well, they paid the same. Whoever worked on the campus got exactly the same.SL: (19:30) Do you remember how much you got paid? Just for comparison's sake.BR: (19:34) You know, I really don't, but I believe that it was almost nothing, because that we got paid half of our tuition and board, and that includes your books, you know, I mean your examination pads and everything. And my daddy, or somebody, had to pay half. I don't believe he had to pay, but $16 than I have, but I may have that mixed up. And the reason I know very well that whenever I missed serving a meal that I had to pay the person that worked for me 16 cents a meal. And that might have been, that made 40 it made 50 cents. I guess all day. That may be what I have. But I'll tell you one thing I know, and prices were very low that first year, and the eight years following, my dad tried really hard to have a bale of cotton picked so he could have the money to send with me. And I don't know, $35 or something like that. And you see if I got half of it, but I don't remember the exact amount, but I know one thing,SL: (20:46) A lot different than the students now who work on work study and different things in campus.BR: (20:52) Well, there'd always be somebody that would wouldn't mind working. Because I think now I could be wrong about this, but I think when a substitute came in and worked for you, she got her meals too, and that was something to consider, because there weren't, there weren't a lot of wealth there. There were people that had a whole lot more than I did, but it was not a rich man's school by any amount of news, and that is the reason that I have such high regard for East Carolina. Have I told you about Rich Square?SL: (21:28) Yeah, and we've moved on and, BR: (21:30) Well I didn't know anything except the church and the school, and when the activities my father, mother all my dad particularly wanted me to be in everything. And if we, as I grew older, we had a boot practice at night, mom would say, well, it's just too much to drive a horse out there, and maybe we had a car. Think that was in eighth grade and but my dad said, oh yes, we'll go. And I ought to tell you this, when the roads got so bad, told you how bad they were, that my daddy, more times than one, took me to school on a horse and buggy, and actually stayed until I finished school. And there was a man selling horses there, and he rented a stall. One year, the road was so bad he went there so often that he ran to stall, put his horse in, because he he just loved his horses, and that ought to be told too, because he helped me. He did everything. And we had a house that had, it's an old fashioned, all country houses were built that way. He had a door, and then you had two little side windows on either side. And my mama said that whenever it was real bad and snowing and carrying on, that I would go to the window and that little door and press my nose against it, and said they'd go look at when the tears would be going down my cheeks, because I was so disappointed. And he just go, it was all possible he would go hitch that horse, and I really ought to tell you that, but my life was pretty normal, except that my mama was always afraid for me to do anything. I could play basketball at home, but I couldn't go with a team because something might happen to me coming home, things like that. But it was rather normal, but it does tell you that I was really an isolated person and didn't have much. I guess maybe when I was in high school, might have gone to Raleigh for a day. I know we went to Norfolk. By that time, the assembly line of the Ford plant was so interesting that they, if you made good grades or something, they they took you. I don't mean they took the class, but they take several people in a car. I had done that and having had relatives in Norfolk. I never went to Norfolk to visit relatives, though, until I was fourth, fifth grade or something. We just didn't go. There wasn't transportation, anything, and my people. We had everything we needed, but we just didn't have money. [Phone rings] Excuse me a minute. [Pause in Tape] I'm back.SL: (24:13) Just for the record, what were your parents names?BR: (24:16) Well, my daddy's name was James Edward Lassiter. It's interesting to note that as small as the post office was that there were three men who got the mail at Rich Square with J. E. Lassiter. So my daddy signed his James Ed Lassiter, and we got with James Edward, I guess. Anyway, he signed it James Ed, and they called him Ed. And then my mother's name was too, it was Gussie, G-U-S-S-I-E, and that was a shortened form of something Gustava or something I don't know what it was. But anyway, it was Gussie and Ed and I called my mom Gussie until I started school, that's all I knew, my daddy called her Gussie, but I never called my daddy Ed. I had backtrack, I had gotten to East Carolina, told you about how I got there.SL: (25:17) And you were getting ready to possibly work for the librarian.BR: (25:20) Yes, that's right, so that, I'm back to the end of that anyway, SL: (25:24) Okay.BR: (25:24) Because that things were smooth sailing and I did mean to say because the decision I had to make, see the money was insane. But even I wasn't very old, but I felt like, yeah, I want to go there, because I'll be with books, and I thought maybe that I might be able to study a little while I worked. But it didn't turn out that way. But I never regretted it, because what turned out it was better to work in the dining room, because nobody was doing things at mealtime, then you worked in the library, mainly at night or some in the afternoon, and that's the time other people were studying, and there was no time ever because we had plenty of books, but they were always on reserve, and they gave me the pleasure of having the key to open that library so I know students at that time done it, and we opened, we closed meal time, and when they had special assignments in these reserve books, it was just like people sitting there waiting for football tickets or something. It was just a grand rush. But I was always real busy in the library. Was very happy, though, and as a matter of fact, I had taken courses so that I could have doubled up a little bit and finished in 11 quarters. I guess it is whatever, but I chose to stay that last quarter for two reasons. I didn't want to leave the library. The second reason was I wanted to graduate. I wanted to be there when the graduation came, so I had a lighter load, but I, it was a very happy thing. And I can't remember now that Mr. Wright knew me from anybody else he might have, but I'm sure he told everybody that really wanted to go, you know, to come on, because I don't know how many I couldn't find out how many students were there when I went. And I know,SL: (27:20) I didn't look it up. I should have.BR: (27:23) It wasn't very many.SL: (27:24) Right.BR: (27:24) It seemed like a great crowd to me. And while I was there, they did build what they call the new dining room, which was, it was, well, they the old dining room faced. It was almost behind Austin Hall, not just right in that general area. I know, you know where Old Austin Hall used to be, and then the kitchen back there, and the new dining room, the kitchen, it went out this way toward the courts, and it was, I never, well, I did eat in the dining room, some of course, I didn't work in that dining room, but I always ate an the old dining room unless I just wanted to have a meal with somebody. And I got along real well. And what I want to say about East Carolina is that at that time, they taught us what we needed to know. I went out to teach in the public schools, and we didn't have many papers and things to do records like teachers do now, but we had what we called a register that we had to keep on every student every day, and at the end of the month, you had to file to turn in a sheet that showed about it, then at the end of the year. I never taught with any teachers and lived in the home with them. I mean, you know, we were that, we didn't have a dormitory. Nobody had been taught in college when they went to college how to keep that as we call it, that darn register. That's what everybody called it, and that's just one example. And we had practice teaching, and they still have practice teaching, but we were told we we were taught exactly what we're going to teach in the high school. Now, the reason I came to Wake Forest was to start with way, way, way back, not to teach. I got smart enough to know that East Carolina was teaching me English and French that I would probably be teaching myself for the most part. Now, more in English than in French. We did a lot of reading, but I felt like that I had not had what we call advanced courses. I just felt it so I got myself ready and really early on, I came to Wake Forest for a summer school. I wanted to see if I could, if I could really pass English courses that were designed, I guess, for people that were going to teach you those. So I got satisfied about that, and then I told you it was all going to run together. Right now is the time to tell you that the reason I'm in Wake Forest to start with, when the war came along, I was teaching in Virtue County, which is not very far from Rich Square, and most of the young men who were principals were asked to, you know, go into service of some kind. And they asked some of us that could they thought, go get a principal certificate. So if it got too bad, you know, we could serve as principals. So I came to Wake Forest to get the certificate, and I got it, but I've never used it. I've never been back to high school since I came so I don't think it's bad to put that in there. SL: (30:58) Yeah, that's right.BR: (31:02) I was just trying to not tell everything on the face of the earth. I can't think of anything very outstanding that I need to tell you, except I felt like I was just getting really good training in East Carolina because the teachers, we didn't have many of them, I didn't think. I knew almost all of them. Today I looked at the list of teachers in 1928 and I knew almost all of them, not counting the critic teachers. Now the next thing that I don't remember very well, I can't remember, I think I'm sure, and you all are too young to know. I think at that time, they had a training school on the campus, maybe the high school students. I know I had to do my practice teaching in the high school. And the reason that came to me today and made me remember what was there almost half the teachers listed in that list of teachers in that annual were critic teachers. And then I thought, yeah, of course they were, because they had the training school, and they had the principal the training school and everything. And that was really interesting, too. And that didn't make a great impression on me, I guess, until I just realized, because you see, I was in high school, and I did my practice teaching, and I think it was already been named Mr. Rose or not. But anyway, it was high school. I think he was still living, but I believe it had been named for him, but I know he was living, gosh, I saw him after, after I come to Wake Forest to teach. But anyway, that's where I did my practice teaching, and that was a fine experience too. Except I always said, I believe it that doing practice teaching gives you a certain feeling for the classroom and everything. But in my opinion, it's like going in somebody else's kitchen and cooking. You don't cook just like you do if you're in your own kitchen. And I found out that teaching was a lot more pleasant than practice teaching was. Man my English practice teaching, I had a wonderful woman, and the one I had for the critic teacher and for the French, that was her first and only year there, and I didn't fare so well, not nearly as well as I did then, but then French was my minor anyway. Course, I knew most all the teachers for the simple reason that I had worked in the dining room and then in the library too, and they called us by name. I just don't believe we had more than about 300 people there, but I might be wrong. SL: (31:03) I don't think it's much more than that.BR: (31:50) Because I read somewhere, I don't know the date, though, but anyway, they went from 300 to 1,300 over a period of years. And I from the date that I saw in the history I was reading, I think that the 300 range might be more nearly right.SL: (32:33) For the time period you were there.BR: (31:30) Let me tell one more thing. You know, if you live to be nearly 90 years old, I'm going to be 90 you know in June, you do see a lot of changes. If we were to try to tell the students here that we were going to do something that was really, I think very different, they wouldn't hear to it. They'd have more protest and everything else. Do you know that when I was at East Carolina, of course, we couldn't go home on weekends except a certain number and all that, we had to stay at that college for Thanksgiving day. SL: (33:11) I didn't realize that.BR: (34:28) That was the first thing that broke my heart. They had a, you know, big dinner, and they had, I guess, we didn't have any boys, but we had basketball games, but I wasn't but we did something that day outside. And, of course, I was working in the dining room that first year. I thought that was the first, first thing that could be the first worst thing that could happen, not be able to go home for Thanksgiving. But you know what I did? I took one of my weekends, and the day after Thanksgiving, I went to that train station and got on the train and went to Rich Square. I got there that middle of the day on Friday. But most part, I thought it was a good place to be. I enjoyed it, and always homesick, because I love my mom and daddy and home in Rich Square, but it was wonderful. And the point of this whole thing is that if it hadn't been for East Carolina, I would probably be sitting right back there right now at Rich Square, which wouldn't be bad, but I wouldn't know the good life I have had all right, now.SL: (36:07) Can you tell me a little bit about what living in the dorm was like, and the restrictions and, BR: (36:12) Oh, my land! That is the thing that I should spend a lot of time on. That's another thing. I didn't do much at home, so it wasn't so bad on me, but I don't know where to start. One thing was that freshman, now, couldn't leave the campus to go up to town except once a week that was on Monday afternoon, and you wore hats and gloves and good shoes. Then on Sunday, if you had quiet hour, I know I told you about quiet hour. I don't know when it started, but ran till 4 o'clock, and I don't care where you were or who you were if you happened to go home for a funeral, which I did one time, and the transportation got you back to the campus. Say, at 3:15 you couldn't get in the dormitory. I remember very well when I went there. Austin Hall was the main building, everything was in there, and they had the auditorium where we went to chapel and everything. And I remember going to Austin Hall and sitting in the chapel until, it was kind like [unintelligible] in the dormitory. And I thought that was, they didn't, they just didn't believe in making many exceptions to the rules. And if your parents came to see you on Sunday, if you didn't make plans and arrangements and get permission and all that stuff to stay out for lunch, a lot of people, I did myself, my parents didn't go much, but you could reserve that Y hut that had just been built in '25 and you could, they could bring a picnic lunch, but if they came to see you after whatever time the quiet hour started, which I think might have been two o'clock, seems like it was two hours they didn't get to see you until four o'clock. And of course, having a date, the date could be there four o'clock, but he left at a quarter to six, because everybody, everybody had to go eat breakfast and everything else, and they don't seem so bad to me. Look at it the way people do things now, I guess, oh yes, of course, the lights went at 11 o'clock. And you get restricted if you set up in the bathtub to study.SL: (38:50) People sat in the bathtub to study?BR: (38:52) Oh yes, SL: (38:52) Okay.BR: (38:54) Oh yes. You know, the light stayed on. SL: (38:57) Oh, okay.BR: (38:59) And that was a good place. You see, if you sat in the hall, some of the dim hall lights stayed on too, but you couldn't see by the light that they left on, but the bathroom lights, but you, if you got caught, you would be restricted. SL: (39:15) What kind of punishment? BR: (39:17) Well, you would have to there, for something like that, you'd have two or three weeks that you weren't allowed to leave the campus or anything. You couldn't go anywhere except to class and to eat little things like that. Now, if you did something bad, like smoke a cigarette, SL: (39:35) Oh, okay.BR: (39:36) You were a goner, if you got caught, I mean, and leave the campus, which some of them did, sometimes. And the worst job I had while I was East Carolina, and I wouldn't do it again, I let myself get elected to be what they called a house president, and that meant you sat on the student council. And that meant that you're supposed to report any irregularities that you saw, and I didn't like that. I didn't like to report and I had a roommate. Just happened to have one. Something happened to my roommate, didn't come back, and I just withdrew her. And it's one of the things in my life that I regret to this date, and I would regret worst if I hadn't. I think she trusted me. I never told her that I would report her. Wouldn't report if she did anything. So she didn't bother to tell me. But it came very evident to me that on occasion, that she, I don't remember, that she ever came in late because she couldn't get in. Her doors were locked, but she'd leave the campus at night, and I knew she'd be a week night or any night and in, you know, she was supposed to sign out if she went anywhere further than the bathroom almost. You know, you had to sign out everything, what you did. The only restriction or any punishment that I regard to East Carolina was, I think we had three weekends that we could take to go home.SL: (41:08) That's what I read.BR: (41:10) and we were supposed to sign out when we left. And sometimes, one time, I don't know what was going on, who took me, or what might have been at the end of the year even carried over to the next year, but I forgot to sign out when I left campus. And what she did Mrs. Morton just did that herself. And she said, well, the lightest thing I can give you is to take one of your weekends away from you and see if we had three. That meant I couldn't have but two. But, you know, I didn't ever feel like that. I had committed a great error because I forgot I should have done it because it was a rule then and the girls now, when I used to work over there on the campus before I got married, and even when I was an advisor, undergraduate advisor, when I talked to people, and I'd say something, you know, it dates you to say when I was in school, so and so, and I'd say when I was in school, we couldn't do so and so. And they just thought that was the worst thing. I can't right now, probably think of something later on. I can't think of anything so great. I ought to tell you one other thing, though, and that's about the how well taken care of we were, of course, all colleges, but I knew that then, I didn't know there'd be an infirmary that I could go to and see a doctor, let a doctor do whatever had to be done. But better than that, the person who was head of the infirmary was the nicest, kindest, sweetest person you know, you'd have thought, well, I think I got as good attention. Not gonna have to go to the infirmary very much. But, you know, everybody has to go and stay a day or two now then. And my mother wouldn't have really helped me much better. She might have hovered more than they did, but I never did like be hovered over anyway, but they were just as good. And I can't remember anybody that was not that way. And of course, I was there at a good time and maybe a bad time. Wait a minute, turn that thing off a minute. I can't right now, think of any outstanding thing that isn't covered by the fact that I said I was well trained. I was ready to go to the job. I felt like I had good training. And then I'm going to tell you that left East Carolina and I went to teaching in the Depression. Graduated in 1931, and the Depression no jobs, we had a placement office at Wake Forest and - at Wake Forest, please excuse me! - at East Carolina and Dr. Meadows looked after the English majors, and in the late summer of the year, after I graduated '31 I had gone to Norfolk to be with relatives, to try to get a job doing anything they had lived there all their lives, and I had been there, I think, went on Sunday and Monday, I got a call from Rich Square that East Carolina called and told me that there was a vacancy in Bladen County at a place called Tar Heel. Well, you know that day and time we sent telegrams if it couldn't call, because telephones weren't very, very plain. But anyway, my cousin, I was living in Norfolk, and I worked real hard trying to get in touch with somebody some way. Tar Heel couldn't be reached. The only way to go and see about that job was to get in the car and go. So this cousin near ,she was more like a sister to me. She was about 10 years older, and she had worked, and they happened to have a call that would go, I don't know what time of day we got the call, but she I called her to office, she came home, and we didn't leave Norfolk that night, but we called my folks, and I don't know what time we left Norfolk to go to Bladen County. And you know where it is, way down there, between Fayetteville and Wilmington, when the sun was rising, we were driving in my daddy's yard, and my mama and daddy, wanted to go with us, and we took it well, you know, I lived in the country all my life, but that was countrier country that I had seen, and the principal of the school was sitting on a box and playing checkers in the only little store there. And, of course, I found him and and then he talked to me, and this is going to be something that you just can't really realize. He said that at that time, the state was paying six months and if school went in along that the county had to pay it to somebody. But if they could keep their enrollment up the first two weeks of school, the state would hire another teacher, and I would be that teacher. So he wanted me to stay two weeks so he could ride me around and say, this is a new teacher we'll get if you send your child to school. So I did go home to get some stuff to get ready to come back stay, but I stayed. I don't know how I managed to do it. I think I had probably brought the things with me that I had in Norfolk, and it was still in the car. but I, before we actually started that day, I had to go to Fayetteville, get on the train, go to Weldon, have somebody meet me at Weldon. If you know anything about that section you know, what I'm talking about. And then I got my trunk and everything ready, and went back to teach. So I got the other teachers, got their pay six months, and Beulah got hers eight months. All right, all of $80 I think $80 or $90, because when I left there, I taught out of my field one year, and I didn't make but $60, so I don't know whether it was $80 or $90, but that was big money, real big. But I taught there two years, and then they did some more consolidation. But finally I taught there two years, and then jobs hard, hard to get, and the only thing I could get after those two years was in Northampton County, the principalship of a two teaching grade school, elementary school. So I served there faithfully for a year, and then I went to Lewiston Woodville in Bertie County, and I stayed there 10 years. And then one of those years, I decided I wanted to get up in the world, I went to Kannapolis and taught, and only place I didn't like that I ever taught, and it wasn't that the school wasn't all right in fact, principal or something [END OF SIDE 1]