Media

Transcript

Interviewers: Richard Wilson, Donna Messick
Narrator: Ruby Waters
Date: March 18, 2005
Keywords: Germantown, Worcester, One-room schools

[Interviewers chat as camera and audio is set up, interview begins at 00:39]
Richard Wilson (Wilson): Okay. Today is Friday, March the 18th, 2005, and this is the start of an interview with Miss Ruby Waters at her home on Covington Street in Snow Hill, Maryland. My name is Richard Wilson, and I will be the interviewer. This interview is done in connection with the Teaching American History Project of Wicomico County Board of Education. Ms. Waters, would you tell me you—

Waters: Just about one minute, he said Wicomico?

Wilson: Yes.

Waters: Why not Worcester?

Wilson: Because the money that the government gave for this project went to Wicomico County. Now I'm putting in for a grant next year that will go for Worcester and Somerset. But there have been a lot of people who have heard about our project, and they wanted to volunteer to be part of the oral history project, even though they're not in Wicomico County, and that's why we're here today.

Waters: Okay.

Wilson: You told me your full name. Can you tell me how you got your name?

Waters: [Laughs] How I got it?

Wilson: Right. I know that my father named me Richard because he saw that name in a movie somewhere. Is there something—

Waters: No, just, not that I know. My parents never told me. Oh, I guess because a stone, a ruby stone. It's very precious and rare, and I guess they named me for that stone. [laughs]

Wilson: Okay, that sounds good. Where and when were you born?

Waters: I was born September the 3rd, 1911, in Snow Hill Maryland. Are you getting that? Oh, good.

Wilson: Let's go back a little bit. Can you remember anything about your grandparents?

Waters: I remember my grandmother.

Wilson: What do you remember about her?

Waters: I know she was a very strict woman. She believed in children behaving themselves.

Wilson: How did that occur? How did you know that she believed in children behaving themselves, did she have like a board? or a rod?

Waters: Her mouth!

Wilson: Her bible?

Waters: Her mouth, her mouth! [laughing]

Wilson: Was she the oldest member of your family that you can remember as a kid? Were there any aunts and uncles who were...

Waters: My grandmother.

Wilson: Was she the oldest that you remember?

Waters: Yes, I guess so. Let me—that's my mother [points to portrait on wall]

Wilson: Oh.

Waters: Now, wasn't she a attractive woman [interviewer agrees] and that's my father. Now, didn't they produce something? [laughs]

Wilson: They're some good pictures.

Waters: They're old pictures. You notice the frames?

Wilson: Yes.

Waters: But hold on, you see that picture there?

Wilson: Mm hmm.

Waters: What do you think that's worth?

Wilson: Well, I don't know anything about pictures but—

Waters: Antiques.

Wilson: Antiques. But I wouldn't even hazard a guess because it looks like it's quite old. Has that been in the family for a while?

Waters: No. We used to work for a family in Snow Hill. Outstanding white family and too see the older people die and they left this boy. They ransom everything, you know. And I happened to come past his house one morning and that was on [audio and footage skips] So I said, well, may I have it? And he said take it!

Wilson: No, it fits in nicely there, doesn't it?

Waters: I've had several antique dealers wanting that picture, and I won't let it go.

Wilson: I wouldn't either, [inaudible]. Okay, when you were okay when you were a girl, a young girl, did you have favorite games or toys?

Waters: No, my regular—ball! Every day, I lived on the farm and with my brother and older sisters. I mean, just play ball or whatever like that. But we always enjoyed this—or I enjoyed the summer time when the rains would come and I would start—the water would disappear and water, I mean, the dirt would flake up. And I would just love to walk through that and it go through my toes, you know?

Wilson: So you like to play ball. Any other kinds of games?

Waters: I have played dodgeball when I was in school, and that's the only type of game that I have played.

Wilson: Hide and seek? That's something I used to play as a little kid.

Waters: That's what?

Wilson: Hide and seek.

Waters: Oh, yeah, I played that.

Wilson: Everybody played that. When you said you lived out on a farm, were you sort of out of the ways of town?

Waters: Yes, we were about three miles from town and we lived on a farm.

Wilson: So you had to do find your own entertainment.

Waters: That's right. That's right.

Wilson: What do you remember about elementary school?

Waters: I remember about what?

Wilson: The elementary school where you went to school.

Waters: Well, I can well remember that because my mother was a teacher.

Wilson: Did she teach you?

Waters: She taught me from the first through the seventh grade and after the seventh grade I had to go to come in—I call it coming in town—to school. They had up to ninth grade and when I finished ninth grade, I went to, UMES [University of Maryland, Eastern Shore] at Princess Anne, finished high school. From there I went to Bowie, Maryland. They called it Bowie Maryland School, and that's where I graduated from in 1930.

Wilson: Let's go back a little bit to elementary school. What kinds of things do you remember about elementary school when you were six, seven, eight years old?

Waters: I remember reading, writing, and of course, arithmetic, had to get that, and English also. We had other subjects. I used to like to read. We had to have each student would have a section to read and that's about it.

Wilson: Was this a—

Waters: Oh, I have something else. At recess time, which was the longest period we had. It was an hour with lunchtime and the school was on a sort of a sand hill and over on that side was the woods, and during the fall, the children would go teaberrying. You ever heard told of that?

Wilson: Yes, I remember teaberries.

Waters: We'd get ready to go teaberrying, the girls and go one day and the boys would go the next and we come back and we're not supposed to be eating those tea berries in school, we were in class. And then there's another thing that I'd like to mention. Oh. The boys used to wear probably two or three pairs, at least two pair of overalls, overalls if you rather. And they used to, at home, parch corn. You know what I mean by that?

Wilson: Shuck it?

Waters: They'd shell this corn and put it on the stove and cook it, brown it. And they have it in their pockets. And if they start to eat it, you would smell it. So, my mother was a teacher and she had to take [that pocket of corn?] and put it on her desk. First thing we knew, my mother was eating it [all laugh, clock bells ringing]. I always remember that.

Wilson: Was your mother the only teacher in the school, or were there other teachers?

Waters: One room school.

Wilson: One room school.

Waters: One room school. The stove sat in the middle of the room and the pipe ran back to the chimney. That was up about, I guess, 10 or 15 feet up, you know and at one room school we had to warm, keep it warm. We had no water. We had to bring water from next door neighbors, and so we had a bucket in there we're dipping and each child has his had his or her own cup or glass, whatever they brought to drink out of.

Wilson: Well when you came into town to go to school in town, what was that building like?

Waters: We didn't get in town only twice a year. That was Christmas and Easter. We'd come in to see the toys and see Santa Claus. And Easter time we would come in to see the Easter eggs and what have you.

Wilson: And that was in town, I thought you mentioned that when you finished with elementary school, you went to another school.

Waters: I came into town, to Snow Hill, because they had an eighth and ninth grade. You see, I had to take that eighth and ninth grade. When I finished that, I went to UMES in Princess Anne and finished high school at Princess Anne.

Wilson: Okay. The school where you went in town for eighth and ninth grade, is that building still standing? Was it a school then?

Waters: No, it's— they've torn it down.

Wilson: Okay, so then you went to UMES—

Waters: Right.

Wilson: And isn't that quite a jaunt? Did you have a long ride to go to school?

Waters: Well, I stayed on the campus, they had a dormitory. We had to stay there. Maybe at home weekends.

Wilson: So you were at UMES for about four years? Three or four years?

Waters: I went there about four years when I finished there, I went to Bowie and that's where I ended up. That's where I got my teaching degree.

Wilson: Can you tell me a little bit about what UMES was like for you?

Waters: I'll tell you, it's not like it is now. It was a big building, a down and upstairs. My room was on the second floor and they had a few rooms on third floor and there would be at least, maybe three girls, three small bedrooms—beds, and that was our rooming. And we had a matron. I'll never forget her, her name was Miss Brown, and naturally, you're going to talk a little bit in your room, and I can remember her coming up to the door. "Less noise girls." [laughs] Oh, she was something else. So, when I left there. I went to, Bowie. You know Bowie?

Wilson: Yes, I do.

Waters: Okay. That's where I got my teaching degree.

Wilson: I'd like to back up a little bit to your UMES experience. Did you have a favorite teacher or a favorite subject when you were there?

Waters: I think my favorite subject at that time was Home Economics. I like how they used to, get a little—cook little things you know, sometimes you have a chance to eat it. But I mean, I liked them all. I had to, in order to pass.

Wilson: What kinds of subjects did you have to take in order to pass?

Waters: We had math, reading, had history. It was just like in elementary grades but it was a higher level.

Wilson: So you graduated from UMES and then went to Bowie. Tell me a little bit about Bowie, what you remember about Bowie.

Waters: Oh, I sure remember a lot. But I had a lot of friends there, and we used to get together and maybe play cards for a while, until time to go to bed. And as I said the matron would come by and rap on the door. On Sundays we went to church, we had to walk about a mile and a half from church. I mean, from the school to the church every Sunday. And she'd be right along with us walking. So, conduct was very good, very good.

Wilson: Okay, so then you graduated from college and you ended up teaching school.

Waters: Right.

Wilson: Where did you start teaching?

Waters: The school from where I could finish the seventh grade.

Wilson: Here in Snow Hill?

Waters: In Snow Hill, not in county it was in country.

Wilson: And country, right.

Waters: Yeah, I graduated from there, and that's where my first assignment when I became a teacher. Back to the same one-room school [laughs]

Wilson: Wow. Were you the only teacher in the school?

Waters: One room, only teacher and my means of transportation, you wanting to know that?

Wilson: Yes, I'd be very interested.

Waters: It was a horse and a buggy.

Wilson: So every day a horse and a buggy.

Waters: Horse and buggy every day! and there was one stretch of woods we had to go through, and in this wood, water used to stand up. If a big rain would come, the water would stand. But I was on my way to school [inaudible] I had two of my nieces, I carried them to school with me. In about midway, that water the carriage was full—the horse had hands(?), a breast strap(?) rather, something they put around her neck. And this—what do I want to call them—but anyway, trace chains ran down the side were a single tree. And that's, you know, she pulled a vehicle with. But by midway of that water, one of those chains came off.

Wilson: Oh my, oh my.

Waters: And I had to get out in this water, and find this chain and put it back on, get back in the carriage and go on to school.

Wilson: But you get your feet wet, right?

Waters: I got my feet wet and my panties wet. [both laugh] You asked me for it!

Wilson: What a way to start the day.

Waters: But it dried out after I had got to school. Switched around there a little bit. I'll never forget it. As I say, I had my nieces with me and they felt like—they wouldn't let me see them laugh. But, oh, they had a fit, and they'll tease me now about it sometimes. Excuse me you know, (inaudible) don't you?

Wilson: Tell me how you ended up teaching at one of the Rosenwald schools?

Waters: Pardon?

Wilson: Tell me how you ended up teaching at one of the Rosenwald schools, the school out in Germantown.

Waters: What'd you say?

Wilson: How did you end up teaching out in Germantown? I mean, did an opening come open and you just applied?

Waters: Well, I guess I got tangled up with some man.

Wilson: This sounds good. I mean, tell me about this.

Waters: And we courted for about seven years, and he's said, "Now, this is it!" So, I resigned, and I married him. And I still got him. Right now, he's sick in the bed.

Wilson: I'm sorry.

Waters: I hate to say it, but I think he's getting mind—he's getting just a little bit weak at 93. I say God has blessed me.

Wilson: God's blessed both of you.

Waters: I think so, I think so.

Wilson: So I need to know a little bit about the school. How, what was it like to teach in the school out in Germantown?

Waters: Well, it was very similar to—I'm trying to think, did they have an upstairs there? two rooms, wasn't it? Two rooms. It was a little vestibule, I'll call it, in between the two rooms and in there they kept, had the drinking water, what have you, and outside lavatories, as usual. And I think those outside lavatories were there when I left. We had outside—the lavatories at the first school were outside because they have to go out there, and somebody [laughs] some, two people would go at the same time and one would stand at the door so nobody could get in and whatever they had to do if she'd go in, you'd come out. So, I enjoyed it.

Wilson: How many teachers were there with you? Was it—you were by yourself?

Waters: At the first school I has, I was there for seven years, one teacher.

Wilson: Now, which school is this?

Waters: That's Taylor's gate.

Wilson: Okay. Because that's not one of the Rosenwald schools.

Waters: That's not Germantown, not the one you want to talk about. That's where I finished school. Elementary school. And as I said, my mother was my teacher.

Wilson: Right. So, when you went to teach at the Rosenwald School, there were two classrooms.

Waters: What'd you say?

Wilson: When you taught at the Rosenwald School there were two classrooms. What did you call the school? Germantown.

Waters: Germantown.

Wilson: Okay. Let me get the words right. I'm sorry. When you taught in Germantown, there were two classrooms?

Waters: Yes.

Wilson: How many teachers?

Waters: Two.

Wilson: One for each classroom?

Waters: At the time.

Wilson: And what were the grades.

Waters: I had from first to fourth, and the other teacher had a fifth, sixth and seventh. Wilson: What was your biggest challenge, do you think? What was the most difficult thing about teaching in those days?

Waters: I really can't think of any real problem I had.

Wilson: It doesn't surprise me.

Waters: Huh?

Wilson: That does not surprise.

Waters: Why not?

Wilson: Because I think that you probably had everything under control [Ruby laughs] What was the thing you liked most about this school in Germantown?

Waters: The school?

Wilson: What did you like most about it?

Waters: At Germantown?

Wilson: Yes, ma'am.

Waters: Well, I liked— the people around there were very, very, very friendly and I knew her [points off camera] mother and father at that time. And the people with whom I boarded with, they were very nice people, just nice all around. They're still nice and everywhere I go [audio/video skips] "Hi Miss Ruby! Hi!" [laughs] that's all you want.

Wilson: Oh, yeah. I was wondering about that. You actually lived in Germantown? You boarded in a house? In Germantown?

Waters: No, no, no, no. I lived here in Snow Hill, out in the country on the farm. I was married then, I married a farmer. So even when I came home, we had—we grew tomatoes—you know all this, but I'm going to tell you what I had, what I went through. Oh, we had a farm and of course, we have tomatoes, and my job when I got home from school was to drive the truck through the field while, men loaded them on truck and I'd be driving through the field [audio glitches] like that. But I had a good life [audio glitches again] and after I left Germantown I was sent down to Girdletree, no, been to Mt. Wesley. In Girdletree, they were one-room—two-room schools.

Wilson: What do you remember about the materials that you had in the schools? Did you have books and?

Waters: Yep.

Wilson: Things for science?

Waters: We had math, spelling, arithmetic. Oh, I said math. Math, history, geography and reading and we kept those books covered in order to keep them to be presentable for the next class to follow. They were our books. The Board of Education did not furnish any paper or anything. We had to purchase our own pencils, paper or what have you.

Wilson: Did any of the students board in the area of?

Waters: Did I have the what?

Wilson: Did any of the students live in houses?

Waters: In that area? Oh, yes, I lived in that area but there was a family that lived right across from the school, but the rest of them probably had to walk one or two miles in order to get to school. So, that was a way of life.

Wilson: The Cripper’s house—Crippens—you stayed there when, how long?

Waters: I boarded there after we stopped it, so much warming(?) I boarded with a Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Crippen, and they just about, not a fourth of a mile from the school, how far would they live? Just a skip and a hop down the road. I'd stay there from Monday 'til Friday and come home. Very, very, very good people. In other words, they're longtime friends until they passed.

Wilson: About how many students did you have in Germany and Austria?

Waters: Oh, Lord, I wish I'd known this when [laughs] oh, when I had the seven grades out at Taylor's Gate. I would probably have one child in a class. I never had over four in a class. So that's how I divide my time.

Wilson: I see, don't have to worry about too many students.

Waters: No, of course, we had a paddle if we needed it. You ever heard of the tell of paddle?

Wilson: Yes, I can. I've heard of that.

Waters: Well, why did they have a hole in it?

Wilson: It made it worse!

[First recording ends]

[Begin second recording]

Wilson: Doesn’t it make it sting worse?

Waters: Huh?

Wilson: Didn't it make it sting worse by having a hole in it?

Waters: [Laughs] They told me that’s what—nobody never spanked me in my hand with it but they said it draws your flesh up.

Wilson: Yes. It makes it—I have been paddled with a paddle with a hole in it.

Waters: Then you know what I'm talking about.

Wilson: I do. Let's go on to something else.

Waters: Did you ever get a paddling?

Wilson: Yes, ma'am, I did. I was very active. Matter of fact my first grade a teacher brought a piece of rope in one day and she tied my legs to the chair.

Waters: Did what?

[Door opens and slams]

[George Waters, Ruby's son stops by on his way to work. George, Ruby, and the interviewers chat about the interview's topic, Germantown School, among other things. Interview resumes at 04:34]

Waters: I was saying that we adopted him at ten months old, put him through a school. He's been in service, and now he's back home. He's given us two fine grandchildren. My grandson is a captain in the Air Force and I think I told you that though, didn't I?

Wilson: I don't think so.

Waters: Oh, I was telling somebody else. Well, he's a captain in the Air Force, and my granddaughter works UMES in the library. So, I'm very fortunate to have those two children and their mother.

Wilson: Well, let's go back to the Germantown for just a minute, how long did you teach at Germantown School?

Waters: I don't know.

Wilson: Four or five years?

Waters: Four or five years. Let's see. Were you there when I started?

Unidentified: No.

Waters: You haven't started, but were you there when I left?

Unidentified: No.

Waters: Uh-oh.

Unidentified: I probably wasn't born.

Waters: Well, I'm trying to think.

Unidentified: I think it was in the '30s.

Waters: I think I tell you who— what was her name? Henry [footage cuts] right across from Clifford's. The Henry's and they had two boys.

Unidentified: Susie Henry?

Waters: Huh?

Unidentified: Susie Henry?

Waters: Right. You remember them? I was trying to think about how they were. They're still living, aren't they? My goodness. They grew up, went away. Well, that's all right back then. What you want to know now?

Wilson: Why did you leave the Germantown School? Did you leave and go to another school?

Waters: When I left Germantown.

Wilson: Right.

Waters: I went home.

Wilson: Okay. So, you didn't.

Waters: I went home. I did some substitute teaching. But, I mean, I don't talk about that. But as I say, I went home and I drove a school bus.

Wilson: Sounds like fun.

Waters: Huh? [Richard Wilson repeats himself Ruby laughs] My husband had a school bus, in fact he had two. And he was hiring somebody to drive one, but he didn't pay me anything. But I drove one and I had good conduct on there. I pat myself on the back. The children were beautiful, beautiful. I am quoting what a white lady told me. She said, "I'm so glad my children are on your bus, I don't know what to do. Do you see how they're cutting up on that other bus with a white driver on there, these white children?" See, I had the blacks. There were two busses, and she told me two or three times, "I'm so glad they're on there, I don't know what to do."

Wilson: Did you ever do any more teaching after you left Germantown?

Waters: I might feel—oh, I forgot one thing.

Wilson: Okay.

Waters: I taught commercial cooking in high school.

Wilson: Commercial cooking?

Waters: Training children for commercial work, going into restaurants and what have you.

Wilson: Where did you do that?

Waters: What'd you say?

Wilson: Was that a part of the school where you were teaching, or was it?

Waters: Yeah. Uh-huh. And I would do this, when they drive the school—the bus to school and park that go on in school and teach the class, and then when the afternoon time come, go home, I went on out and carried them home.

[Unidentified person comments on her answer]

Waters: What'd she say?

Unidentified: Worcester High School?

Waters: Worcester High School. Yeah, it was under Worcester High School.

Wilson: Do you know, was that a segregated school, or was that an integrated school?

Wilson: So was that the last time you ended up teaching was at German school?

Waters: Right. I finished up there.

Wilson: Okay, just a couple more questions. Do you remember the depression, what it was like, the Great Depression back in the thirties?

Waters: When do I remember what? Depression.

Wilson: The Depression. Because a lot of people we talked to, especially people who live on farms and things like that, it wasn't as big a deal as those who lived in towns.

Waters: Yeah, it wasn't too bad. On the farm where we had most of our vegetables, what have you. I can remember seeing my father dig a big hole and he'd put cabbage in there, he had took big heads of cabbage and leave the roots sticking out. The heads down in the ground, they made this hole and they put shats under there, do you know what shats are?

Wilson: Pine shats? Yes.

Waters: On the dirt and put this cabbage in there. And also, they used to bury sweet potatoes, and when we wanted sweet potatoes, they open that opening to go in there and get what potatoes out you wanted. Or turnips, raised our own hogs. So, we lived pretty well.

Wilson: Pretty well, right.

Waters: Yeah. I'm proud of my life.

Wilson: It's nice that you can say that. One more question. There was—for much of your life, you lived in segregated schools where blacks were in one place and whites were in another. Do you remember when they began to come together?

Waters: I remember, but—

Wilson: Was it a big deal?

Waters: Pardon?

Wilson: Big deal, was there?

Waters: No, it went very smoothly, I thought, very smoothly. I remember. I have—I'm bragging on myself now—I've been respected very much in the community, both by black and white. Right today, if I go out to the market and I see somebody in there and they they see me, they've got to come speak to me, hug me, do something. And these are white people, more so than blacks that do that. But everybody in Worcester county knows me, everybody, black and white.

Wilson: That's great.

Waters: Huh? Well, I try to live the life. I try to take care myself well. Went with this one man, seven years, until finally he said, "this is it." [laughs] "either we do or we don't." [laughs] And I've been with him 65.

Wilson: That's great.

Waters: 65 years.

Wilson: My wife and I have been married 40 years.

Waters: 40 years? Good. How about you?

Unidentified: 31.

Waters: How long you've been married?

Unidentified: Not married.

Waters: Not long [laughs] oh.

Wilson: That was enough.

Waters: Been divorced almost that long [laughs]

Wilson: Do you have any questions you might like to ask Ms. Waters, anything I've forgotten?

Unidentified: I was just wondering again about the civil rights period with Thurgood Marshall or Martin Luther King, all those activities, how they affected the local area? If there was a lot of interest locally about what was going, or if that seemed to be far away in the big city.

Waters: Well, it wasn't a whole lot done but I meant. I mean, no partiality. Everything went smoothly as far as I know.

Unidentified: In Worcester County? That's wonderful.

Waters: You know, any things that happened during Martin Luther King's time that would affect us or anybody?

Unidentified: I was trying to think.

Waters: Right now, would they have celebrated once a year over in Salisbury, you know, the banquet they have for him, I guess, it's 50-50, 50% white, 50% black. Do you live in Salisbury?

Unidentified: Yes ma'am.

Waters: Have you ever been to one?

Unidentified: I haven't.

Waters: This is the first one I missed. I just didn't feel up to it. But everything just went left they had black and white speakers and it just seems to be [clears throat] Excuse me [clears throat again] things to me seem to be going pretty smoothly.

Unidentified: How did you feel when the schools were integrated when Mr. Marshall won in the Supreme Court case with Brown versus Board of Ed, did you have any feelings about that when integration started to come? Do you think it was a good thing or a bad thing?

Waters: Well, I didn't give it too much thought.

Unidentified: You weren't teaching then, were you?

Waters: And that—what year was it, when was that? What year?

Unidentified: Well, the case was won in '54, but I think it took a good ten, fifteen years before it really started becoming integrated around here.

Waters: I guess I didn't do too much thinking on that because I tried to treat everybody right and people have treated me resp—fine. And there's not a time I go out to the market now that I don't see some white person, they don't come hug me [laughs] it used to be a time they'd be afraid of you, you know?

Wilson: No, I don't.

Waters: No, you're too young [laughs] but that's about [clears throat] excuse me, all that I have to say that I'm proud of what I did and how I have gotten along with people. I think that young lady can speak well. The people in Berlin were beautiful, and of course, they had to be here in Snow Hill.

Wilson: Well, thank you very much. We appreciate all the time that you've given us in these reminiscing, and these recordings will be in Salisbury University in the Nabb Research Center for people who want to come listen to people like yourself who have some things to say about what life was like. Thank you very much.

Waters: Thank you.