Interview with Doris Green

Source Notes and Transcripts

Interview Date:  March 20, 2006                                          By:  Maria Armada

Present:  Doris Green, Maria Armada & Katherine Dooley for first half of interview

Subject:  Doris Green and her experiences attending the Coketon Colored School

Interviewee:

Doris Edith Green                              (304) 355-2707

51 East Hampshire Street

Piedmont, WV

Identical Twin Sister:  Dorothy Jane Twyman

They were referred to as:  Spot and Dot

Parents:  Robert and Louise Redmond

1 Brother and 2 Sisters

Oldest brother:  Roger

Lived in Davis, WV attended school in Coketon about 3 or 4 miles away. 

Born in Davis, WV in a log cabin. 

Father was a coalminer, her mother died when she (Doris) was 4 or 5.  Her father remarried and she was raised by her stepmother.  Year or two before Doris started school her mother passed away.  Started school around 1939. 

Coketon School Teachers:  First teacher was Eileen Brown, and woman in her 30’s who left when she got married.  She taught until Doris was in the 4^th or 5^th grade.  She was from Piedmont, WV.  The next teacher was Alicia Stewart.  

First day of school:  was a little scary and exciting.  Some kids from outside of Coketon and Davis attended school.  Building was a large, two room schoolhouse.  One room was the schoolroom and the other was a type of reading room with a kitchenette within.  This is where they ate lunch.  In the first years everyone brought their lunch, but by her 3^rd year some lunch items were provided:  powered milk, coco, fix sandwiches.

Classroom was divided by grades.  Younger grades on one side of the room and older grades the other.  Every so often someone from the “White School” would check in with them to see what was needed and how they were getting along – they supplied the books.  Subjects:  reading, history and arithmetic.  In the mornings they would have one subject such as reading and maybe the afternoon would be spent on arithmetic.

“It went to the 7^th grade, and then if you wanted to go higher you could, most of them would leave or go to Elkins or Clarksburg - Piedmont had Howard High School.  Closest colored high school was Elkins, WV and would have to go there and work, get a job, so they could afford living arrangements and clothes”

Attire worn to school: “Oh we wore dresses, we didn’t wear slacks or anything like that.  In the wintertime we put a snowsuit over, and bought us snow shoes and one piece snow suit.” 

Travel to school:  “We lived up on the hill.  We would walk to the bottom of the hill and a taxi or bus would pick us up and take us to Coketon, and take us as far as the B&L store, and we’d walk about a ½ a mile to get to our school.” 

(Did you like taking the taxi or bus?)  “We was just glad to get there, it was exciting which ever way they sent us.” 

Holidays:  “Well we put on little plays and then sometimes we were allowed, our teacher would take us up to the school in Thomas and we would put on the play for them.” (Xmas pageants)

Attitudes/Segregation:  “I don’t remember them ever saying why we weren’t allowed,  (white schools) we just didn’t go there, we had our separate schools.  The principal would come down from the school in Thomas and check to see if things were alright.”  (Reference to the white public school in Thomas, and it’s principal, who supervised the colored school) 

Church:  “There was, we had a pastor up there, Rev. Baumer he lived in Davis.  He was a Baptist preacher and he taught us Sunday school they had a Baptist church in Coketon for awhile, but I think that burnt down.”  

Coketon School closed:  “I think it was in the early 40’s because, uh, I know it was closed when I come to Piedmont.  Pete Baumer, he was the last one that went to school up there.  He was a baby when I was, but Pete got to go to the High School in Davis I think.  I don’t know whether he started there…I think he attended Davis High School” 

(K. Dooley interjects with question to clarify closing date)

“I’ll say around 42 or 43 someplace around in there”

“Wasn’t that many children left to go to school then, not many blacks left”

(Why did the black people leave?) “Well you know most of em was coal miners and the mines closed down” 

Where did the black children remaining go to school?  

Betty went to Clarksburg, and….that just left Pete and most of the blacks who had children had left.  The McCullough’s went to Cleveland….” 

How many students at Coketon when you attended? Twenty?

“Oh no, lets see, the Redmond’s, Ellis and Paul and Minnie, all in that family.  Betty and sister June, and Dorothy and Roger and I.  Never no more than that” (8)

Did most kids go on to high school?  “Uh uh, yeah, most of them did.  Most of them had relations or knew of a place to send them.  So they had to move away from home to attend high school? “Uh huh, yeah.” 

Memories of school:  “We all got along.  We would have recess and go out and play by a creek right by the school and wade in it or catch tadpoles until they rang the bell to come back in.” 

“And the teachers were educators and they would teach us things like how to tap dance and show us how to put on plays and we were well taught” 

M - Did you have windows in the school that you could look out, what did you see when you looked out the windows there, can you remember?

D - Well we didn’t see very many cars, you didn’t see very many people.  There was one family lived close to the school.  They raised chickens and everything.  We would go out and chase the chickens but there wasn’t much to see.  There was a bridge and you go across the bridge and you go up into I think it was Benbush or Hamilton one. 

Was Coketon a black community?

D - Uh, at one time I think it was a good many blacks lived there in Coketon, it was mixed, there were a few white families, like when we would travel goin down to school, there was that was what was next to our school, a white family.  The next house from that was a black family, the Green’s, Mr. Henry Green.

Did you know why they had the black school there in Coketon as opposed to someplace else?

D – No I don’t.  I always remembered that there was a school there, I don’t remember who all went there, I can’t remember whether my Daddy and all of them went to that school or whether they had other schools to go to or not I never heard them

Do you remember when we talked to Miss Mamie and she talked about the large number of black people in Coketon?

D – that might have been but that was before my time.  I remember the McCullough’s, Payne’s… Mr. Stewart Payne and them, I don’t know whether he went to school up there or not but he became a principal, I don’t think he was the principal at our school but I think he, he moved away someplace because he became a principal.  They had more sons and they became musicians and you know different things. 

Did you ever hear anything about a teacher named Carrie Williams?

D – that name stays in my mind, but I don’t… you know when they were talking about it and everything just seem like her name was in the back of my mind for something, something I’d heard about but I just don’t know if she’d taught up there or what.

M – Do you know of any other people still living that went to the school?

D – Yes, there is Betty Scott, she lives in Pittsburgh and uh…. her name was Betty Barner at the time and let’s see, I think Ellis Redmond is still living, he lives in Youngstown, OH and my brother Roger he lives in Washington D.C.  I remember the McCullough’s, their Mother Margarette Robinson, Mother married Delmar McCullough, I guess Delmar and all of them might have went to school up there, it’s just they were grown up when I remember anything about them.  Jimmy Watts, he went to school with us up there, he was Miss Mamie’s grandson and I guess his Mother Viola, she might have attended school up there (she has passed) and Eileen and Evelyn Green (Mr. Henry Green’s children) would have went to school there.

M – Was there another black school that other children could attend an elementary school or was this the only one that was in the area?

D – That’s the only one I know unless they went to Elkins, I think that would be the closest place, they couldn’t go to Parsons, or any place like that, that was all white schools.

M – But you said the community of Coketon was mixed, black and white.

D – Yes

M – But you remember people getting along?

D – Yes we got along.  My Grandmother, her neighbors were white people, and a few doors down you would see another black family, they all got along.

M – Do you think there were immigrant families there?

D – I don’t know where they were from but I know our closest friends, the ones that lived on the street with us we were just like, raised like brothers and sisters, most of them were Italian.  That was in Davis and Coketon too.

(More to enter here from side 1)

TAPE SIDE - 2

D – and they would make us little sun suits

M - But they would use the material from the flour sacks

D – yes, money was very scarce in them days, coalminers didn’t make that much so they had to most of us had to get our clothes made

M – clothes passed down a lot too

D - oh my yes,

M- Learn how to patch them too?

D – but I remember some of the scraps from those sacks, my sister Dorothy weren’t very large at the time and we would take those sacks and hand stitch the seams up and wear them as a skirt or blouse

M – What did you do for shoes?  Did you make little leather shoes?

D -  You know, in the summer time we went barefooted most of the summer anyway.  We had a pair of shoes we had for school.  They would buy that at the Coffman Fiches or over in Coketonburg near our school, there were stores, I can’t think of the names of them, up in Thomas, there were shoe stores and things like that where they would buy us shoes.

M – Was it a big deal to buy a pair of shoes?

D – Oh yes, cause we didn’t get them that often.

M – Do you remember going to the store and being able to pick them out or your Mom would show you what you were getting?

D – They would pick them out, we would try them on, but they would pick them out.

D - Stockings, I’ll never forget the stockings, we had these like cotton stockings, they just had two colors, brown and black, and we loved the brown ones but hated the black ones. 

M – Why?

D – We thought of old people, made you seem like you were old with the black stockings on. 

M – What other ways did little girls try to dress up back then?

D -  We weren’t allowed to wear make-up, that was one thing I could never understand and parents didn’t allow the girls to wear slacks or anything.  We wore dresses, I know for our 13^th birthday, my sister and I, a lady Eileen Barner, bought Dorothy and I, this make-up had come out at the time, like a pancake makeup, you know what I’m taking about(?) and she bought my sister Dorothy and I that for our birthday.  Oh we were so proud of it, it had lipstick and pancake makeup and eyebrow pencil and we took it home and showed it to our Daddy and he opened up the stove door and threw it in the stove.  He did not want to see us in makeup. 

M – I’ll bet that broke your heart though….

D – Oh it did, they laid him out and everything, but it didn’t do no good. 

D – But one thing we weren’t allowed to do, our step-mother didn’t allow us to cook, we could go in the kitchen and wash the dishes and everything, but we couldn’t get near the stove, we couldn’t do any cooking.

M – Why not, did she not want you touching the food or what?

D – That was the way her Mother brought her up, she did the cooking and all and so that was the way we were brought up.

D – When I met my husband down here, he came up from Davis to visit, and the one time he brought me down here, and the first thing they asked me was if I could make potato salad and I told them yes, I was scare to tell them no. 

M – But did you?

D – No

M – So what did you do?

D – When I went back to Davis, the next day, I went over to the lady Eleen and had her to teach me how to make potato salad. 

M – Of course, they didn’t have any room for Home-Ec classes or anything in that school

D – No.

M – Did they teach you in school, would they teach lessons like how to count money and things like that?  Did they give you like this would be a nickel? 

D - Yes they taught us that.  That was one thing that we liked, arithmetic and spelling, we loved, we would have these spelling bees.  You know that’s what was some of the books they would bring down from up to the other school, they would be the spelling books, we were so glad to get them, because they would let us take them home and we would learn how to spell all the words and we all enjoyed that.

M – They would let you take the books home?

D – Yeah, you could take them home as long as you took care of them and brought them back the next day. 

M – Now was there electricity in the school back then, do you remember?

D – I don’t think we had electricity, I don’t think so.

M – Since it mostly during the day I guess it wouldn’t matter, but some days it would be dim I think, but did you have some kind of kerosene lamps?

D – Yes, kerosene lamps and they were heated by the coal stoves, like these potbellied stoves, I remember the teacher she would take care of it and as the boys got older, she would teach them how to take out the ashes.

M – So did the boys have to do some of the, did they help fix up the school whatever, did they teach them anything like that?

D – Yes, they taught them how to keep the school clean and have to help shovel the snow to get in and out. 

M – Did you have a chalkboard?

D – Oh yes,

M – Did you have to clean the chalkboard sometime?

D – Oh yes, take the erasers out and dust the chalk out of the erasers.

M – Did you go what would be considered the normal school year now would it be from Sept to June?

D – I don’t think we went as many went all that long.  I think our time was cut off some when the weather got bad.  I don’t think we started back as early as the other schools did. 

M – My grandfather said that he use to get out of school a lot early, he would get out in April or so because they had to help with the farm.  So a lot of times they wouldn’t go to school in the Spring because they had to start working at home. 

D – I think that is what we did, I don’t think we went as long as the other kids did.

M – Do you remember any big events happening during the school year, like anyone getting hurt or anything like that.  

D – No I don’t remember any of us, anybody getting hurt in school, like headaches or something.  The teacher would make a palate on a bench for us or put some chairs together, we would just lay down on it until it was time to go home and they would send us home.  But I don’t remember anybody what you call getting hurt or really sick. 

M – But a teacher would make a bed for the kids to lay down if they felt bad?

D – Yes.

M – I just remembered scarlet fever and things like that going around back then so that is why I wondered if you remembered any kids getting sick or like that..

D – I don’t remember anyone having any bad sickness or anything like that.

M – Did you do prayers in school?

D – Oh yes, she told us to pray, we would pray when we go in and they would never let us eat until we said our prayer.

M – So that was at the beginning of the day and before lunch?

D – Yes.

M – Do you remember what prayer you use to say?

D – I think we said the Lord’s prayer in the morning and then at dinner time we would say God is Great and God is Good and we thank thee for this food, by the hands we are fed, give Lord our daily bread. 

M – OK, is there anything else you can think of or would like to say about the school?

D – It wasn’t like the other schools and all, but it was where we got an education, just always glad it was there for us.  My sister Dorothy and I took the word, our father said he wouldn’t let us go away from home, it was two of us and like say you could go and work you know, school hours you would go to school and that evening you could work in restaurants and everything but he just didn’t want us away from home so we just took the same grade over and that was, you know, the further we went, we didn’t get to go away to high school or anything. 

M – You didn’t get to go away to high school?

D – No, he didn’t want us to leave home.

M – Was your Dad kind of controlling?

D – Yeah, he was very protective of us.

M – Of the girls?  How about the boys?

D – Oh Roger left early, well him and my step-mother really didn’t get along that well.  He left up from there, I don’t know whether when he left, if he went to school or whether he just went on in service because he went to service and then when he came out he didn’t come back up there to stay, he went on to Elkins for a while then he went on to D.C. 

M – Then if you had a protective father, how did you meet your husband then?

D – He come up there with some more of the people coming up, a couple of men had got out of service and they come up there, they had some relations (relatives) up there, so they come up there with them and that is how we met.

M – He had just gotten out of the service?

D – Yes, he had just gotten out of service. 

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M – OK, now so we can keep a record of the tape.  We just spoke with Doris Edith Green, her maiden name was Redmond, it’s March 20, 2006 and we were at 51 East Hampshire Street, which is her home in Piedmont, WV.