Media

Transcript

Interviewer: Patric Diettrich

Narrator: Josephine Anderson


Interviewer (INT): An interview with Ms. Josephine Anderson. Ms. Anderson, could you tell us a little bit about your educational background?

Josephine Anderson (JA): Well, I attended elementary school here in Whaleyville, you know, just seventh grade because it was seven grades in Maryland then and then I went to Flower Street, and that was two years there, and when I went to school at Morris Street, Joseph Purnell, whom you just interviewed, was in my class. He was the salutatorian and I was the valedictorian of the class and there were 14 people in my class. I did have the program, if I had known you were going to ask me, I'd have a commencement program right in hand for you. But we had a good time there, it was—we had just one teacher then.

INT: Mm-Hmm.

JA: That was Jerry Williams, was the teacher and the principal of this whole situation, and the eighth and ninth grade were all in the same room.

INT: And then from—?

JA: From there, I went to Wicomico county after I graduated from Worcester County because they didn't have bus transportation to the high school in Snow Hill. You had to stay in Snow Hill if you went there, I mean, if you went to school. So, while my parents working in Salisbury, all of their children went to Salisbury and went to school. We had to pay to cross the line to go to school. Of the first year, it was like $50 per person per year. Then after that, I think they reduced it to maybe around $15. So, I finished Salisbury High School from Salisbury High School, went to Bowie, at that time it was Bowie Normal, and three years there, and then graduation, and I taught one year in Worcester County in Stockton area. School was called St. Paul, and they closed the school that year. It was a one-room school, so you had grades 1 through 7, and after that they wanted to start a four-year class at Bowie, and so they contacted different ones who had good standing and I was one of them and it was 14 of us that went back and started the four-year class, with a degree. So, we were the first group that wore caps and gowns from Bowie's, within Bowie State University, and that was in 1941.

INT: In '41. And that, was it in '41 that you started at the Germantown School?

JA: No, I started at Germantown School in 1940—the school year of '47 in Worcester County.

INT: And what did you teach that school? What was it like teaching in that school?

JA: At Germantown? Oh, at Germantown School? It was interesting. It was this two-room school. I went there as the principal, but I had the first, second and third grade because it was a lady, Misses [pauses briefly] Reed, Mrs. Reed was there, and she was teacher for fifth and sixth grade, so they let her teach, stay in that room and teach that, that year. But then at the end of that year they retired her, and I moved over in that room and I had the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade until the school year of '53. At the end of the school year '53, they closed the school. It was no more Germantown school.

INT: Why did they close it?

JA: Well they closed and used the two rooms there as a supplement to the Flower Street Elementary School. But they needed space, and I guess because of the number of kids that were going out. Oh, I had a letter once and I looked and I looked and I looked, says that they closed the Germantown School, tried to find that letter because I don't know what it said in that letter, why they were closing, or what. I cannot remember.

INT: It didn't have anything to do with the Brown decision, because I know a lot of the Rosenwald schools closed—

JA: No, not to my knowledge. All I can assume is that they closed it because they wanted to consolidate and make that one school, Flower Street, be the main school in the area because it wasn't that many kids there then. They had, right, either moved out or whatever.

INT: What—Can you tell me something about the curriculum, what it was like in the school at the time?

JA: Well, I'm still puzzled as to how we were able to do what we did, did it not? Was talking about this just last week to some people. Like, for instance, I had three grades. You taught all the subjects: math, science, reading, spelling, English, history, geography, phys. ed., music, to each grade every day, to all three of the grades, and how did we get that in, during a period of a day? That's been puzzling me and I talked to several people who worked on those years, and I say, "How did we manage?" But we did. You had three grades, and you taught each grade all the subjects each day, and then and then when I was at a one room school, I had seven grades and I taught each grade all the subjects every day. How you manage to do it, I do not know. They couldn't do it today. And, of course, the children in the classroom, it helped them a lot because it might be if you're in the fourth grade and I'm teaching fifth and sixth grade, you learned a lot from them. So, by the time, you know, that you got to that grade, you were really good, if you had that ability, you know. So, it was—it's interesting when you look back, at that time you didn't think about it. The only thing that they really did together was recess, because in those days, you had recess twice a day in the mornings and in an afternoon. So, they had recess together, they had music together, but all their other subjects were separate. Fourth-grade math was fourth-grade math, fifth-grade math, sixth-grade math. I don't know how we did it, but we did.

INT: Now, as principal of the school, you were kind of in charge of maintenance and making sure of everything. What was that like in that time period?

JA: During that time, as the principal of a two-room school, if you could not find someone in the community to be the janitor and then if you didn't have children that volunteer to help, you did it yourself. I swept that floor many a time, fixed it far(?) When you didn't have anyone.

INT: What kind of heat did you use?

JA: Wood, coal. Started out with wood, and then they had coal. They had a little building in the back, they had the coal in it and we sent the children to get a bucket of coal and put on the stoves sat in the middle of the floor, in the center of the room. And of course, the whole room was cold, except right around the stove. I mean, you were teaching, basically, you know, you had to tell them to pull the seats up near where the heat was. Now that was hard, because it—one thing, it was hard on you because this heat made you sleepy and everything else. Right. So, I don't know, but we manage and the children then were well-behaved because the parents were behind you. If you punished a child at school, he got punished when he went home, and I can never remember having to send anybody home from school like they do today, or having a parent to come in during the day because of the behavior. Sent a note home, if someone you know, and to me a lot of things with children you ignore, you hear and don't hear some things, you know. Unless it's real bad, unless they're fighting and disrupting the whole class, because I experienced that when I was in the middle school. The children, I noticed a lot of the teachers were always—they would stop the whole class and be fussing with this person. For me, I didn't have any problems at the middle school. If you cut up after my class was gone and they were doing whatever they had to do, then I would deal with, talk with you and if I had to send you out, then I would say after everybody else was too busy doing their work. I didn't stop my whole class to do it unless it was something, you know, you would if it was something real, real serious. But, and that's one of the mistakes I think, that the teachers even today make. They disrupt the whole class, the whole class of 15 or 20, whatever, suffers by you, you know, getting on this particular child when you could get your class going—unless it was, you know, you have to kind of decide which is most serious. So, I didn't have any problems there either with discipline.

INT: What about the supplies for the school?

JA: I bought many of them out of my pocket. Most of them, all of them, really. You had to buy pencils, paper, construction paper, anything that you use, glue, if you anything—if you use crayons, you bought it for yourself, for the children. The school didn't furnish any of that.

INT: How about books?

JA: Well, they had books, by being in the black school your books were never new books, they were old secondhand books from the white school.

INT: How did your kids get to school?

JA: By bus, those that lived a long distance and those in Germantown, children would walk and then see my children came from Germantown and Sinepuxent. The Sinepuxent children rode the bus, the Germantown children walked to school.

INT: Can you give us an idea—what was salary like back in those days? What did you start out at?

JA: When I first started teaching in 1939, $65 at month, $2.20 or $2.80 was taken out before you got it for retirement, and when I was working in the government during the war they were paying like—I was a cleric—$1440 a year, and I came to Germantown and the first year they paid me, I think it's around 11-something, and then they realized, I guess, that I had a degree and they changed my salary. I think maybe I was getting around 12 or something like that, $1200.

INT: 1200.

JA: It wasn't much.

INT: Tell me something about your students, you know what student kind of stands out, good, bad? What were kids like?

JA: It was good. You never—I never had pets in class. All the children were the same to me. There were some who were mischievous, and you knew who they were, and so you know, you talked with them and got along with them. But the students on the whole were good students because they were eager to learn and they tried. During those days, children were anxious to do a lot of learning, and they've didn't have a lot of things to distract them like they have now. They have all those TVs and all that stuff too, you know. But they didn't have all that, and so they were busy doing whatever the teacher suggested for them to do, and they would do it. We didn't have any problems and they were good students. When I—when the children left me at Germantown and went down to Worcester, these are the remarks I used to hear from the high school people: "I know they were in Ms. Clark's room, because you can tell because they are ready," because outside of the books, and this is my thing with even today, they did not teach the basic. They're busy now teaching the tests and they're not teaching the kids. They cannot add, subtract, multiply. They can't read. They can't do any of that today. Am I right?

INT: Well, yeah some do, some don't.

JA: On a whole, on a whole because they're busy because each school, each county is competing against the other, teacher trying to be the Teacher of the Year and then the School of the Year, get a blue ribbon and all the things that they're doing now, basically, except with computers, in the school, during my 38 years that we did, but it was called something else. I listen and see things they're doing now. I say, we did that, but it was called this, it was called that. And if I—just a few weeks ago, I threw out a whole lot of material, and I said, if I had kept it you would see almost the same thing that they had then, now, repeat. And I worked in a lot of workshops in Worcester County, and Worcester County was always, to me, ahead of other counties. I used to tell teachers, especially new teachers, when they come to Worcester County, the school where I was working, I would say "if you can teach in Worcester County, you can teach anywhere in the world," because supervision was always very, very strict in Worcester County—you never knew when a supervisor was coming so every day you would get on your P's and Q's as a teacher and made sure that you had your plan, and your follow-up work, and your children were working, busy working, and they were on the whole and during those years. But I don't know what it's like now, but I know during the years when I was teaching, before the seventies, and then after the seventies when I went into the middle school, it was altogether a different situation. Oh, the kids were real good, the ones that I had. I didn't have any problems with them because I would pass the office and I'd see, for instance, John sitting there. I say, "John, you were just in my room, why are you sitting in office?" He said, "I was fighting" I said—he says "So and so and so and so." I said, "When you both were in my room," I said, "you didn't even pass a word," he said, "we know better." So, children know where they can cut up. So, I didn't have any problems with children when I was at the middle school or elementary school.

INT: What was the hardest thing you remember about the Germantown School teaching and working at the Germantown school? Or, going to school—you didn't go to Germantown?

JA: No, no, no. I went to (inaudible) school, elementary. Yeah, the hardest thing was that you had to be everything: the teacher, the nurse, the doctor, the custodian and everything. That was really the hardest thing, and when the weather was bad, you had to make sure that you had heat, so the children and you could stay warm and the children had to bring their own lunches. But we had fun, because on Fridays, just about every Friday, we would have—we would even make in the winter, would make soup or cook dry bean soup and I would make a taffy pulls. So, the children had a lot of fun, helping to—you know, you need to have committees just this week will be your time to do it, next week is yours—and we had a lot of fun doing that. But children brought their own lunches to school, except that one day on a week when we fixed soup and whatnot.

INT: What was the funniest thing that happened to you when you were teaching?

JA: Some of funny things that happened with children? There was one little boy I teased him all the time, every time I see him now, he said, does like this [gestures], "Go right on," That's Billy Powell(?). This little girl, well, in our class we did a lot of core reading, which is now the same thing as rap, because I tell kids all the time, we rapped during those years but we didn't call it that, we called it core speaking, and we made to the big old—what is the number—them big cans that you buy vegetables in, what'd they call them, number 2, it was big like this [holds hands apart to show size] and we'd get a piece of inner tube from a guitar, and put it on the top and the bottom and made tom-tom drums. And we would have—we had a, I remember we this little selection about beating on the tom-tom and they would beat these little tom-toms doing the speaking in this core reading, it was fun. And this little boy—we had outdoor toilets—and this little boy had gone out to the boy's toilet, this little girl went out to the girl's toilet. So, when she came back in, she was crying, "Mrs. Clark, Billy Powell(?) showed me his pom-poms," I said, "He did what?!" Just like Aunt Dora(?), I said he did wh—"He showed me (?), he showed me his tom-tom," I said, "Oh, you mean he had one of the drums outside." And every time I see him now he said [gestures] "Go right on, I know what you're getting ready to say," I tease him about it now, he's a grown man, has children of his own, but he gets a big kick out of it, and then we always laugh about it. That was one of the funniest things that I always will remember, Billy Powell(?). But those two children, both of them, Billy Powell(?) and the little girl, both have done well. I think she teaches and he works in the government. I don't know whether she's married or lot, but, we had a lot of little funny incidents like that, you know.

INT: What—was there a lot of fundraising to keep the school running and stuff like that?

JA: Was is it fun?

INT: Well, a lot of fundraising, you have to raise money and stuff like that.

JA: Oh! Well, not the school by itself, but with the PTA, the PTA, the parents. I had a good PTA and PTAs, at that time, were very strong, because their parents would come out when you had your PTA meeting and support whatever, and sometimes they would help you—give you a little donations from maybe their dues. You could buy some of the little supplies that you needed and especially when we did the little cooking, you could buy the stuff that you were going to cook with, maybe that particular month. So they were a lot of help and they were a lot of support because they stayed behind their kids, and during those years when I was in Germantown, the teachers had to go around and take the census, and do all of that and we had to visit the—each family that you had in your school, you had to visit them twice a year and write a report for the supervisor. But it was interesting. It was a lot of work but I guess because you got in the habit of doing it, you never thought of it as being that hard because it became, you know, just natural, you just went on, did whatever you had to do. You didn't complain, you just went on and did it. Once a year, we'd have field day. That was a day that was open and then all the kids, you know, that dedicated school, didn't have any classes and we had fun and they would play games all day long and their parents would come and set up hot dog stands and things like that.

INT: How many years did you teach now?

JA: 38.

INT: So, you started in the forties?

JA: My first year was not the school year, '39, I would say. The school was called St. Paul. That was below Stockton, between the Stockton and the Virginia line. It was a little one-room school, at the end of that school year, they closed it and then I went back to school, and got my degree, and then from there I went into government and in '46 I went to Mt. Westley, it's that public landing, there's a little school there called Mt. Westley, and there I had first, second, and third grade. I was there one year and at the end of that year they sent me, the next school term, which was October '47, I went to Germantown and I stayed there until the end of the school year of '53, and then I went over to Flower Street and stayed until they built the middle school.

INT: What was the biggest change you saw in education in the time that you were teaching?

JA: And now?

INT: Well, just from the beginning of your career to the end of your career.

JA: Well, when I first started teaching it was reading, and I will say reading, writing, arithmetic were the main things. And now, it's a conglomeration of everything and they end up with a majority of the kids with nothing. But that was then, you know, you really—they really stressed reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic. That was very, very important. I don't care how slow the child was, at end of the year they could read. And another difference that I've noticed since, from the time that I started, up until the middle school, you were the nurse. I had kids—all these kids now they put in special ed. I had them in my classroom, and kids used to fall out. Children used to—couldn't control their bodies. Children would get sick. You had no way of carrying them home. They had to wait until the bus came, the parent didn't have a telephone and you didn't have a telephone, so you just made them comfortable. We survived. None of them died while you were doing it, you know, and then I had enough in my, so to speak, in my hospital. They survived it all. And same thing with you, if you got sick at school most teachers at that time didn't have a car. You couldn't go home, you had to stay there. I taught a minute then, and I should have been home in the bed, under doctor's care, I'm sure. But it was hard to get substitutes. I used to substitute. I substituted after my first year of teaching when the school closed before I went back—in between the time to go back to college to get that degree. I used to sub—they paid you 2 dollars and a half a day. I substituted in Washington and between the government—the government was always moving offices—and between if you were working in this particular office or this branch, you had to wait until they called you, you had to go back and take the test again. The civil exam. And I was substitute in the schools in the district. 2 dollars and a half a day. Now I wonder how in the world—because I didn't have a telephone—I'm wondering now, how they contacted me and told me they needed me that day. But I got the message some kind of way. And I also wonder how I got from different places—because I used to do my sub work when I was in this area in Wicomico County: Sharptown, Delmar and Allen. I don't know how I got the message, you know, now you in your mind you're wondering: How did I get that message that I was wanted? And did I get there in time? You know, you question yourself now. At that time, I guess you didn't. But I do now. I wonder how in the world did I make it there, when I got there? So, either way.

[Interviewers briefly discuss topics covered].

INT: You have something you'd like to tell us to give us some insight or a more understanding of what it was like teaching all those years or something that you find really—you'd want people to know about the time that you spent at Germantown, especially.

JA: It was interesting, it was good. In those days, I don't care how slow the child was, at the end of the school year, you were always—could pat yourself on the back because you had that child reading. That child was able to mingle with other children, play with them, talk with them whatnot, and could do basically most of the things that you asked them to do. I don't care how slow they were when they came to you. You really moved them on. The kids were anxious and they just put their whole heart in it and the parents were really behind them. See, the parents did a whole lot with their kids in those days.

INT: Seems to be the key, isn't it?

JA: Yeah, that was the key.

INT: Still is when you spend time and do a lot with your kids, I think.

JA: So, I enjoyed working in the school system when I was teaching those 38 years. I don't know any year that I hated it, I enjoyed it. And then since I retired, when I see different children now, like Barbara, and different ones, I get a big kick because we can communicate with each other now as adults. And one of the boys said one thing, “We couldn't say that when we were in her class. We couldn't talk to her like this. Here comes Miss Clark!"—some call me Miss Clark, some call me Miss Anderson—"Oh, here comes Miss Clark!" said, "I know she's got a joke for us" or "she's got something to tell us" you know, and they laugh. They said, "Now, we couldn't have said that when we were in your class or when you were teaching," and they get a big kick out of it. You know, I have pictures of the children that I kept when I left Germantown School, I had all these pictures up. Let's see them?

INT: Yes.

[Josephine Anderson gets up from her chair, chatting with interviewers. Footage/audio cuts, interview resumes 29:34]

INT: Miss Purnell, what are those? I'm sorry. Miss Anderson, what are those?

JA: Pearl earrings.

INT: And where'd you get them?

JA: The children at Germantown School. Did you hear that? We closed the school. They gave me these. Oh, they gave it—they all came to school with two or three cents or whatever it was. And one of the children, I guess, one of the parents must've went out and bought this and they brought it back to school and gave me these pearl earrings, because they knew I wore earrings.

[interviewers looking at photos and talking]

JA: Yep. Cause now my ears are pierced so I don't wear them, but I keep them. I have several things in the house. You know what kids gave me when they're at school. That eagle up there, a little girl—over that door—a little girl from when I was at middle school. As children ask me past weekend and where they come from, I cannot think of the little girl's name, I don't know if I would even know if I saw her, but she gave it to me one Christmas. She lived, you know, right on Main Street in Berlin, before you get to the railroad track, and she lived in a house along there, I can't even think of her name.

[Miss Anderson, the interviewers continue to look through photos, talking amongst themselves. Begin discussing Germantown School's layout at 31:53]

JA: Oh, my. This was my room, the first year I was here. That's where Miss Williams was, but then the next year I was up on this end.

Unidentified: And those windows on the back divided the classrooms, right?

JA: It was a little room between—the cloakroom. Was it a little stove or something in there?

Unidentified: I don't remember it because somebody—they, they keep telling me that there was a kitchen on the back. I don't remember a kitchen—

JA: That's what I'm talking about. See, like somebody told me that, but I can't remember it either. Because when we fixed the soup we did it right on the potbelly in the room. Well, someone else has told me that.

Unidentified: Yeah, but when Tina(?) And them going, I think they made soup. I think they said Pearl Miller(?) and them had soup back there. Maria White(?) made soup and that kitchen is where you got water and stuff, but I don't remember that.

JA: That the pump was outside down near the coal house. The pump and the toilet.

Unidentified: Right? Oh yeah, back there in that corner.

JA: Right, on this far end.

Unidentified: So that's it.

JA: It was fun, those days. I look back—I sit down sometimes and look at those pictures, look at the different children and see how many of them that I can recognize and how many of them that basically, you know, I see at times and those that are still living, and many of them have done very well.

[Josephine Anderson and interviewers continue looking through photos and reminiscing, interview continues at 00:36:38]

JA: I still have the, the little book that Alfred Darling(?) made and I saw him about 10 or 12 years ago and I said, "I'm going to give it to you" and I can't never think to look for it. I was cleaning out things the other day and it wasn't in that box of junk but I still had—it’s in another box somewhere, it must be upstairs because I don't go up steps anymore. So, it must be up there. Did this finger painting in there, we took shellac and then we made it a little book.

Unidentified: Oh, because I remember I used to do a shiny, baking soda sleek-like.

JA: They wouldn't do that down in art class, well that was our art.

Unidentified: And then when we had morning devotions.

JA: Oh, yeah, I forgot that we had morning devotions, every morning. You know, that was a lot of help. And when I was in the middle school, we didn't have devotion. But during the Black History Month, I would carry out music from black bands and things to school and when my kids would—and Paul Laurence Dunbar selections, and when my class would come in the first 3 or 4 minutes, I would either play the music or read something from Dunbar or tell them about somebody and then the kids were ready to work. And I remember one year, each class that came in and I would say to them, "Don’t tell the other class now, what we're doing." When they came in, I taught them how to do the twist. And I had—what's the name—Chubby Checker, I had his record and so when the class came in, I said, "Now everybody stand," we would stand, you know, and I played it and I showed them how to do the twist. I said, "Now when you leave, don't tell the other class," you know, they were bubbling over to get out the door to tell the class waiting to get in there. And I did that for like a whole week and I got around to all my classes. We had a lot of fun. I used to do the same thing over at Germantown.

Unidentified: Remember—I'm trying to think [if] it was Germantown or Flower Street, we used to, schools used to go to Pocomoke and be on the radio?

JA: Dawson Clark(?), he had a radio station. It was Germantown.

Unidentified: Oh, I used to go down there and I remember that in Flander's field, the poppies grow.

JA: I forgot all about [that] we did that.

Unidentified: Something, row on row. I was thinking about that one day, and I was trying to think what was—what was it, the occasion, what was it but it seemed like every so often you would go down and you would be on the radio with—

JA: For 15 minutes.

Unidentified: Yeah, and you'd have—you recite a poem or you sing or, you know, you do something to take up that, that length of time—

JA: I forgot all about that.

Unidentified: —and go down on the bus.

JA: That's true. And then another thing, when I was at Germantown, I started what we would call the patrol. Bus patrol. And I would tell the children, oh, every one of their first or second games that the Baltimore Orioles had, they had patrol day and I would take these children to Baltimore to the opening game. And they had a little patrol belts on, you know.

Unidentified: Right, right.

JA: I forgot that when I was talking—and then when I went to Flower Street, [I feel like I got over there?] and she pry let me do it with the kids over there. And then we got so—we had enough children, we'd take a busload of children, because I always think about Gary Oliver. I could've shook him to death. You know, we gave all these instructions, "You don't do this, you don't do that, and if you go to the restroom, you three go together, you three go together," so we got, and I had my list, and we got up in the stand, I look, I do not see Gary Oliver. With all these thousands and thousands of children at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, and here was one of my children, but I wouldn't even tell the other kids, I said to Gatlin, "Lord, I don't see Gary Oliver," I said, "you're going to stay here," and I saw some people I knew from other counties that knew me. I said, "if you see a little boy" and I told them what kind of sign he had on, I said, "Please stop." I was inside, I was crying my heart out, because I just knew I lost that child. And I looked for an hour, so someone said to me, "Go back to the entrance and start all over." When I went back down to the entrance, in this line getting a hot dog was Gary Oliver. I could've shook him to death, oh! I was never so glad and so mad. I grabbed him, I said, "You forget about this hot dog." Oh, I was so mad with him. But he didn't leave anymore, he stayed right—the rest of the day—he stayed with me and when he wanted to go to the restroom or go get something to eat, he had to ask me. Yeah, but I tell you, oh! It was a terrible feeling and I looked around, and I didn't see that child.

Unidentified: One of your sheep were gone.

JA: And I told the guys that were with me, I said, "Don't even tell Spry(?)" and We didn't tell her until they closed the school.

Unidentified: Is that right?

JA: She said, "You all were really loyal to each other," and another day, I looked at the—I believe it was the same little boy—when I was, yeah, I was at Flower Street, and we were doing it. He would—he lived on Maple Avenue, and so, he would—because he walked to school, he would help to load the busses when they came up to pick up the children after school. So, this particular day he came up, he said, "Miss Clark, Miss Clark, there are termites all on this step." I said, "Where?" He said, "On the step as you come in the building," I said "Call home!" He looked at me, he said "What do you mean?" I said, "Call home!" He said, "We don't have a telephone." I said, "Home is the name of the exterminating company." [laughs] It's more fun getting kids with jokes. Yeah, I said to him, "You call home." I can't think of any other real funny things.

INT: No, those were funny!

JA: But I tell you, every once and a while, funny things come up, you know, and I just sit and laugh, just like it was just happening, you know?

Unidentified: And it's easy to do.

INT: Well, thank you very much. Let me turn this off and get my other camera. Get a couple of stills.

[Interview Ends]