Today is October 24 2005. My name is Cheryl Metz and I'm with the Massanutten Regional Library in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Today we're with Mary Frances Awkard Fairfax. She was born here in Harrisonburg on April the 2nd 1912. [To Mary] So you've been a native of Harrisonburg all of your life?
A native...?
of Harrisonburg?
Yes, I have.
You were born and raised here?
Yeah.
Right here on Gay Street or?
No, I was born on Effinger Street. As I became nine years old, my daddy, moved us down to the corner of Broad & Gay, in one of the houses that he'd built for the family. It's a big white house, that is facing Broad, but the side is on Gay Street, on the corner of those two streets.
What was it like growing up in Harrisonburg? What was Harrisonburg like while you were growing up?
Oh a very pleasant place to live. [Clears throat] We enjoyed it very much. We grew up... I had one sister and two brothers. And I was oldest of all of the four. And my sister's next to me, her name was Leona and next is my brother Joseph, the picture so long ago, and the baby was Fred. Fred Awkard. His picture's over somewhere around here.
Where did you go to school at?
Oh, at first, I went after finishing Effinger high school. I didn't go to Simms. Because Effinger was the first school. And I went to... I finished with my... I graduated with my high school graduation diploma from Effinger Street school. And from there...
Now that school is not here anymore, is it?
No, that's where you see Roses. Down in there is where it was in through there.
Now what about elementary school? Where was that?
That was the same place. The elementary school was in the lower floor, and the upper floor was the high school. So I was there a long time [laughs] everything in one place.
How many students were there in the school?
There weren't too many at that time though. There were plenty too because by having an elementary school in the bottom of the high school that made quite a few, but they only had Harrisonburg here then... Only Harrisonburg students when I was in school. And...
What was your favorite subject? [Mary says "huh?] What was your favorite subject?
Well, I liked history and especially English. I liked English grammar and English literature, both. And I liked simple science. I didn't like chemistry too well. I wasn't too much in love with algebra. But I liked other math and not the higher though you know. And Latin, the professors taught Latin. I have three years of Latin.
That's great.
You ever have Latin?
Yes ma'am. [Overlapping dialogue from the two before Cheryl resumes] Yes ma'am [laughs]
And people said, "Well, you should've had something else." But I'd say to them that a lot of our English words came from the Latin language.
Exactly.
And you can speak it and you can give, for an example, water was aqua and we have aquamarine...
Aquatic...
We have aqueducts and all those things mean water. [degraded audio] ...nowhere after that.
[laughs] So how was being a teenager here in Harrisonburg? What did you do for fun?
Oh, parents were so strict, it wasn't too much fun you did. You came to school and jobs were paying for you to do when you got home. My mother had something for your ironing it was one of those sadirons, if you know what a sadiron is.
Yes ma'am I know, the cast iron ones that you heated up.
Heat on the stove, [Cheryl says "Yep"] and then take a potholder and by the time you got to where you were ironing you had to go back and get another iron to finishing a pair of pants. I had to press and do my sisters and brothers things and my Daddy's shirts or whatever or if the steps need dusting, something was always home to do.
Now living here in Harrisonburg you had running water and...
Well now on Effinger street we had spigots out in the yard, and outdoor toilets at that time. Harrisonburg doesn't have toilets right there now but even when we came to Broad Street to live they still had outdoor toilets and then below King I guess [degraded audio]. My father built one of those [degraded audio] on our back porch with a door and they had a [degraded audio] you just pushed on it and everything went down. It's not like [degraded audio]... it was straight out. They had a name for it but I can't think of the name right now.
Hmm. Well what year was that? Do you remember?
[lengthy pause as she considers the question] Oh, let me see it must have been somewhere in the 20s
In the 20s? And that was when the town decided that you had to have... [the two start speaking simultaneously]
...a spigot out in the yard.
When did you get running water?
We got running water... How soon did we get running water? It might be getting close to the 30s maybe.
30s?
Because we had water in the kitchen then, with Mom & Dad, you know.
And what about electricity?
Well let's see when did we get that? Because I know we use it lanterned chimneys for awhile, you see, because I know my little sister was sitting [degraded audio] next to the old [degraded audio]... and one chimney broke a piece of glass on her little face [degraded audio] how she worked [degraded audio] you know ugly place or... and that must have been [degraded audio]... must have been around 1919. Something like that, maybe. It must've been around that time.
Were there a lot of cars here in Harrisonburg?
Oh no, not a whole lot. A few people had some of those, what you call reels [?] now I think and they were just sedans you know, and [degraded audio]. I would have [degraded audio] cars or [degraded audio] you know, and there were sport cars that the young people had, some of them you know, a few of the younger people. But parents were strict and you didn't get to go out with boys like they do now, 'cause my daddy would greet him at the door [degraded audio] and ask him, he said "What is your" umm... what was his main words? Umm... let's see here, let's get it straight.
[laughs]
[laughs] "First, what you wanna see my daughter for?"
[laughs]
Yeah he was real strict about that, about his girls, he didn't want anybody to mess his girls up.
Now how did you get around to places? Did everybody just walk or did you have horses?
Most of the time you walked.
You walked? So you walked to school?
Yeah I walked to school, even after I started teaching at Simms, I walked to school. We haven't always had buses. No we haven't. Not in the city, we didn't have buses. Because then they started coming from other places like some came from Grottoes and some came from Linville. Andrew Tampers' [?] children's down in Linvile.
And that's because the schools were segregated back then right?
Entirely segregated schools. Oh they were segregated up until I left Simms as a teacher; up till 1966. That's when I went to Waterman. They were still segregated when I went to Simms, and Bridgewater too and Staunton. Well, here's the funny one here: I finished school--uh, high school in 1930 and my grades were high, you know, and I loved school, I just loved it. And I tell you who was the teacher who taught us to sing. Roberta Webb. To the nursery up at the nice place that's named after... But she--her name at that time was Morgan and she married a man named Revernd Webb, that's where the Webb came from, but she was a Hampton graduate. Miss Lucy Sims was a Hampton graduate. And those women were very knowledgeable. And Professor Harris came from... I think he went to... it seemed like he went to Harvard, but I want to make no mistake. He was very proper. He taught the--he taught the Latin, and the history, and civics. And you know he was still principal when I went to Simms but just for a short time because he was principal when I went to school as a little girl six years old. And when I came to teach under him he always called me little Mary Frances. He could never accept the fact that I was going to teach beside him.
[laughs]
And so one day he brought me a civics paper that he had kept through the yeas. It had my grade, an A.
[laughs]
I like civics, but they don't teach civics anymore.
They do they just teach-
Do they?
Eighth grade I think, instead of in high school now they teach it in eighth grade.
Oh they do? I thought they'd stopped teaching it. I hadn't heard anybody say-- [coughs] Oh I'm sorry, I can't talk good today.
My son had civics when he was in the eighth grade.
Can you understand?
Oh, yes ma'am. So when you graduated from high school in 1930 and you wanted to go to college...
[degraded audio] went to college. Down in New Market, near Mount Jackson, there was no school for Black children. And the people in Mount Jackson places began [degraded audio]. Cause [degraded audio]. And they had an old school building there that they had used some years way back. And then of course [degraded audio] it had a downstairs to it. So, the superintendent, down in Woodstock became worried because the people were so upset. So he called Mr. Keister. Are you from here?
Keister Elementary? The one that...
W. H. Keister. He said "Mr. Keister, do you have anybody that'll come down here and teach these people's children?" Well, my daddy worked with schools in the wintertime because carpenters didn't have much to do in the winter. Because houses like this were built--they had to have plaster walls and those walls had to dry and they couldn't dry in cold weather, and they didn't have-- [coughs] a couple of the apparatuses they have now. And then they come in on trucks that day they'd have to meet and they'd saw the old wood and measure it, and everything and he and his brother of course were carpenters in Harrisonburg [degraded audio]. Well Mr. Keister asked Daddy, he said, "Joe," he said, "What if Mary would go down and work with those children? She's such a stable girl and everything." Dad says, "I don't know," he said, "I'll talk to her mother about it." So they talked it over and they said if I wanted to try I could, and if I didn't they would tell him no or something. So I thought maybe I will try this. [degraded audio]. [coughs] See I would've been 18 years old. [degraded audio] He said, well he'll take Mary and her little sister and brothers down in my car and take it down to Woodstock and see this man, but first I went by to see the school. Well, windows all broken up, floors holes in them, blackboard hanging off the wall all ragged. I said "Hmm, I don't think I want to be down here. Coal house all broken up, toilet falling down. So [clears throat] so when I went to see him I told him I said "I was told that you wanted someone to teach the Black children." But I said this place up here that you have I said "There'll be no way I could go in there." I told him what all was wrong with everything and then they had a great big... the place had water in a spigot. [degraded audio]. And I said the stove's no good for winter. Well, he said "Young lady," he said, "If you will come I'll get this thing fixed up for you by November, and I'll write and tell you. Well, I waited around and I was just doing little jobs here and there at the [degraded audio] high school. [clears throat] One day the letter came and said the school was ready. Well, then we went back down to see. New blackboard all the way across the room, new floors, new stove.
[laughs] Well, that's wonderful.
New everything. New coal house. Stuffed with wood and coal. Toys, new toys for boys and girls. And then I started. And I worked with him two years, but you had to go on a permit because I ain't ever done any work before. Well what I did, I taught from the first to the sixth grade [degraded audio]. Because some of those children were in older childhood, some of them were 18, 19. I had at that time longer hair and wore them all in the back. My mama showed me how to fix it.
[laughs]
So I worked with them two years.
Where did you stay?
I stayed with a family in the community.
A Black family or...?
Yes [degraded audio]. Well they just had the one daughter. She was just a little bit, well, she might've been five years older than I was but I didn't teach her, cause they'd had--they'd had school once before but for some reason it had gotten worn down. Well then the New Market children came to school and they may have brought them down in the car. First I was staying in New Market. I didn't like it there.
How come?
Well I just didn't like staying there for some reason. It was kind of like a void and I just, I didn't like it. And [clears throat] so [degraded audio] had this one daughter. She must've been about in her 20s and we all she and I had an entirely good time. And then there's other people in the community that have us down and we [degraded audio] the house and do things, you know, for fun. Then I started playing for the churches. They had a Methodist church [degraded audio] and a Baptist one on the other side, and they would have service one Sunday at the Methodist Church and then another Sunday at the Baptist [degraded audio] and they had a community, a beautiful [degraded audio]. Well, then, when my time was up they wanted me to stay, you know, but I couldn't and then that... [clears throat]
How much were you paid for teaching there?
$50 a month.
Well that's pretty good.
Was a good amount in those days.
Yeah!
A whole lot of money [Cheryl says "yeah"] it got me some clothes and I gave Mama some. They had stores there and one dress shop. And I get me something and pay on it you know [degraded audio]. So that's when I decided I wanted to be teacher.
Did you get to come home at all during those two years?
Some.
Some?
Sometime the nurse would come and get me, cause I was playing the organ in my church and he wanted me to play you see, so I told him I'd come home most of the weekend or sometimes I might get to the little bus down there. They wake me up cause it's not comfortable, walk up Wolfe St., turn the corner around to come to Broad Street. I stayed out in Bridgewater those two years and then came back.
In Woodstock you mean?
Yeah we taught at Mount Jackson.
Mount Jackson. Two years?
Now Woodstock had a two-room school. The Black children in Woodstock had somewhere to go. And the children in Strasburg had a school. But it's just the Mount Jackson children, and the New Market children, that didn't have any schools. They had a white school, but no Black school.
So you taught them for two years and decided you wanted to go to college?
Well, I decided that I did... well being a poor family, you know, my people worked but you know, you didn't make much. Mama couldn't make but $7 a week if she [degraded audio] to work with somebody. And the only job that you would get would be a cook or something like that, or you would be a nursemaid or something. And we just didn't have very good jobs you have to do except to do house work or laundrey for people. And my mother was a seamstress. So she did a lot of sewings for people. And then she did some laundry work. She would mend shirts and things for rich people, you know? Well, she said, "I don't know how you're going to school, we don't have any money." I said "I know, Mama," but I said "I wanna go so I can be a teacher." And so, at that time my brothers and sisters they were coming along down the lower grades of Effinger. We had only one brother that went to Simms, and he went only one year to Simms his last year in high school. So I said "Mama," I said, "Miss Royal taught Leo and Joe," I said, "maybe she'd let me stay up there, on Petersburg." So I wrote to Mrs. Royal, and Mrs. Royal said, "Oh," said my mother, "It'd be so great to have you Mary." Because she didn't teach me. She said, "I have sisters going over to Virginia State, and they walk over as day students," and she said "you can stay with us." Well I had a grandmother that was living with us, she used to, she and my grandfather lived in [degraded audio] You know where that is I assume, if you're from Harrisonburg. They had a farm, but when granddaddy passed away, Momma was the only child and Momma said "I don't want my mother [degraded audio]. And she brought her to Harrisonburg to live with our family. We went to stay with Mrs. Royal's family. Oh I loved it there. My grandmother would send me loose change, loose pennies and change. Or she sent me a box of food like cookies and different things that I'd share with this lady's girls. And we walked to school. It was two miles. We walked those two miles every morning going from up on where they lived to Virginia State.
Where was that at? You said Petersburg, Virginia?
Petersburg, Virginia. It's still there yet, it's expanded now but it wasn't as big then as it is now.
What's it called now is it still called Virginia State or...?
They call it Virginia State University. Well I stayed [degraded audio] people until Christmas. Christmas time that first year went [degraded audio]. The Dean of Women saw me one day. She said, she said "Your name is it Mary Frances Awkard?" I said "Yes ma'am." She said, "I see you girls coming and you not from here, and I thought maybe you'd like to come up on the campus." And I told her then I said "Well," I said "I can't go up on the campus because I don't have the money." She said "You know how to work?" I said "Yes ma'am." She said "I could let you come as a work student, and bring you up on the campus." So I asked my Mama. She said "Well, I'd like to have you, but see you have to keep your grades up there. If you get a job you have to keep your grades up." Well I said "I can do that." And so I told Mama about it and my Mama said "Well, whatever you want to do. We can see how it goes."
And I went and I told Miss Royal. Of course the girls cried about it. You know they didn't want me to leave. But I told them [degraded audio] would be easier for me. So I went and the first year, most of the first year, I mopped halls, [degraded audio], cleaned bathrooms, and did things [clears throat]. And you had to get up early in the morning cause you had to be on time for school. And so I worked hard, kept my grades up. So then she said the Dean of Women said, "Well, summertime's coming" and said "These lady school teachers come over here don't want to wash that floor, their room, and do all the things they supposed to do, and sometimes they give the girls a little money to clean for them. And said if any of them want you to wash the floor, go ahead and do it, and they'll give you something to keep doing it for them, a quarter something like that. So I said "Well I have to ask Mama if I can stay this summer." She said "Well you write and ask your mother, can you stay." And Mama said yes I can stay. And we had a bunch of girls, Lord it was a bunch of us. And so we have to clean beds and go from dormitory to dormitory to clean for the next session, you know, the next school session. And they had a little room up on the third floor with a piano. And we girls would get to work and [degraded audio] sing and dance. Of course there weren't any boys there. The boys' dormitories were way over somewhere else. Well, I was still working, and that summer I worked in a--there's a group it was a organization from the government that paid for youth who--to work if they didn't have money and you put in the office in school if you want to draw some of it, okay. Well just leave it in there. I left mine in there. And the next thing Miss White did--that was her name, Dean of Women--she said "You know, the men can't go to the women's room to bring them the clothes from the cleaners and they like to have somebody to go around and collect up the clothes and, and bring them downstairs and give them to 'em." And said "You're going to get a little comission... since they'll give you a little something to collect the clothes." She said, "I'm gonna get some of the girls do that. Would you like to do some of that? I said "Yes ma'am Miss White." I would go around knock on every door [degraded audio] because it was the nature of things. I'd get them up and take them down and give them to the cleaners and they take them back to their room. And the women would give me a little tip you know for doing it because that way. That went on that first year and then the next year, Miss White didn't have any kind of [degraded audio]. [degraded audio] professional two years teaching. The next I did my practice teaching. They came up and I was still having the job carrying letters to put [degraded audio] on the door of the students. [degraded audio] office and she said "Now Mary," she said, "You don't have to clean this year, I want you to carry mail for me and do errands for me." And then at the same time I made such a good grade in English over there that the English teacher had me to check her freshman papers, and she paid me something to get me my stockings and stuff that a girl needs you know. And then my mother made me some clothes. She made me skirts and things. And I was one of the honor students [degraded audio] honor students, and I was allowed to be an usher. For we have our devotion at certain days of the week. And I was one of the usher girls and Mama would have me wearing a blue Navy skirt and a white blouse to be like the other girls and [degraded audio] so that when the end of the school term came I went before that [degraded audio] we took another almost a half year or so of the teacher training in the class room.
Now where did you do that at, on campus?
On campus, it was a campus school there. And we had to do our practice. They called it practice teaching. Make these charts for children to read. You had to make up the stories yourself. You have to have also have control of the classroom. So the girls, excuse me, the girls who were with me would say, "Mary, how can you make your children behave and do and teach and do all this stuff?" I said "Mmm mmm, secret."
[laughs]
They said, "There's something funny about this." They said, "We don't ever get some of those grades. And the children don't listen to us. And you come down here and you're just like [degraded audio] who we work under." And then I told them that I had taught in a one-room schools when I was 18 years old. They couldn't believe it. And so that went on and I finished the two years and got my... what was I talking about, the...?
Teaching certificate?
Yeah, teaching certificate.
So was that four years total? Or
No, two.
Two years total? To get a [Mary says "two years"] teaching certificate.
And my [degraded audio] and my mother came and we stayed overnight at the college. And she was so proud that I had gotten that. And the first job I got was Staunton, Virginia.
Was where?
Staunton.
Staunton?
The first job I got was Staunton.
Where was that at in Staunton?
It was at the [degraded audio].
Did they--didn't have the Simms school then?
No that was over in--Simms was here in Harrisonburg.
But it was here then?
No this was up there in Staunton. It was a Thomas C... umm... [stands up] Walk over there to get that. Oh, TC Edmunds School. It was [degraded audio] the high school they had up there. It was a high school—was higher up on the hill—on Johnson Street. If you ever been to Staunton [Cheryl affirms verbally] you know about Johnson Street. It looks like you'd fall and break your neck coming down that street. But Mrs. Edmunds they lived right straight across the street because her husband, Mrs. Edmund's husband, had been a principal for that school for a long time; and when he died, they named the school after her husband.
Now this was in 1934?
That was in 19... [pause] let me get that [degraded audio]. Yeah, something like that.
34. Now, had they already built Simms school in '34?
No.
No?
Simms school wasn't built 'til 1939.
Oh, okay. So you got to teach in Staunton.
Well I was in Staunton. After I was there two years, or maybe when I was on my third year there, I got married to some fella who was a teacher in Harrisonburg, but he [degraded audio] me too, too good or something or other. So, after a time, I got my divorce. But when a young teacher got married at Staunton, you had to quit anyway.
No!
Because to the young mother, you'd be a young mother sometimes, and have to miss too much time from school. But an older woman could get a job there, as long as she wanted to; but see I wasn't but 26 years old, and so, that meant I had to stop when I got married. Well then after that marriage, I had to get another place to teach. And so Bridgewater came up [overlapping dialogue from Cheryl and Mary] down to a one-room school. I taught first through seventh grade again.
Ahhh.
I stayed in Bridgewater four years, and as I said about the teacher's certificate I had. Well, Mr. Keister said to Daddy... Back then he worked for Mr. Keister in wintertime, repairing school furniture and things... "Here he is on me again." [Cheryl laughs] He said, "I want Mary to come home now." Said, "She's been to other schools," and said, "I can have a place for her up at Lucy Simms, the new school. [Cheryl starts to speak but Mary continues]. Well, at that time, one girl named Jean Frances, she had quit, she got married and she quit there and was going to school going to Washington DC, Maryland to live, but she stayed a half year of the year that I would have had, but Mr. Keister said he didn't want nobody else to get it. So my, my youngest brother had married a girl from Staunton. She was pregnant at the time, only slightly. And she took that half a year that was left in the second semester. Then when the school opened the next year, and I was in, [mic interference] for years.
You were up there for 24 years?
Yes at Lucy...? [Cheryl interjects "At Lucy Simms?"] I went in there in 1942/43 came out in 1966. That's when they closed the school. And I was there longer than anybody. Because Ms. Lucy Simms, never taught up there. She was dead before that school was built.
But they named it after her?
Because she taught 50 years [Cheryl starts to say "Here in the community?"] at the old school.
The one that you went to?
At Effinger. Well she taught down there over there at the place they called, um... [degraded audio] what was the name of that place it was um...
Cedar Run?
No, it wasn't Ceda--Zenda. [overlapping dialogue] Really called Zenda. [overlap ends] Is it still Zenda?
Well, I know the person researching. I'll tell you about that later.
Well anyways, she taught at Zenda. Then she taught--then she came to Harrisonburg. And of course the school [degraded audio] Effinger, because they didn't have a high school and things like that.
How do you spell that? [Mary asks "Which one?"] Effinger?
E-F-F-I-N-G-E-R. It was named after the street. I think a man named Mr. Effinger must have owned the street like there's some of those people like the Grattans, like Margaret Grattan's mother, you heard [degraded audio] and see old houses and we lived in Miss Grattan's house and my daddy said "Well," he said "I'm not gonna be paying this woman rent. And he [degraded audio] over on Broad Street, just a corner lot. And he bought that lot and built that house that's still standing there now.
Your daddy was a master [Mary says "the big white house] master carpenter? Your daddy was a master carpenter?
Yeah they were builders, he and his brothers, all of them were builders.
And you said he was part Irish and part Native American?
Part Irish and Indian, yes. [Cheryl starts to say "What"] You saw his picture over there?
Mhm, I saw his picture. Do you know what tribe he was with?
I know his mother was Irish, because his sister when she got older, I was the only child that saw her, because she was bedridden then, she was real old, and my father's sister was taking care of their mother. All of them, all of them looked like white people. The sisters, a whole bunch of them, they all were, all of them, very fair-skinned ladies. And my daddy thought mama was peaches and cream [both laugh] and she was a good woman, a real good woman, good Christian woman. She was the one that taught me my first music.
Your mother?
My mother went to school in Staunton, Virginia. She'd go to those schools [degraded audio]. They didn't have but one child, and her father told her he wanted her to get the best, so he sent her to Staunton for school. And so after that, when I came to Simms, well, I was a musician for the school then; I'd had more and more music, take more everywhere I could get music, I would get it you know. I wa-- [clears throat] I was up there, had first grade, and sometimes, first and second. Well I just loved those little kids and those times were hard for older Black people. They didn't have very good jobs. The men, if you couldn't work on the city, you know, pick up trash and stuff. That's what made my daddy and them special. They could do carpenter work but some of the men could just do common street labor or digging ditches and stuff like that.
You talking about in the 40s or... in 1940?
Well let me see when was that now? Yeah, during the 40s. And then my brother Fred--well his picture's around here somewhere--he was, around 18 and it was time to go to the army, and both my brothers had to go. But my daddy went to Newport News to work, so he could have some money to send mama to stay at home during that time. [degraded audio]
You were talking about it's hard for the men here in town. They didn't have any jobs.
No jobs much. Nothing much to do [degraded audio]. And, so then I came, as I said, to Simms to teach. And we have had a lot of nice activities going on. Operettas, some of the most beautiful operettas you have ever seen. We used the stage [degraded audio] and they'd say "Ask Miss Awkard over there." We had "Peter Rabbit and Farmer McGregor." We had "Around the World," where we had different nations, and we did the dances. We had one lady at our math school had been to uh... I don't know if she went to Hampton or where, but she knew all those foreign dances. And we'd take--when we had our [degraded audio], we use children from the first through seventh grade, because the high school people had their own things to do. Then you had one operetta a year when you have one out really a year. We had "The Kitchen Clock" one year, and we get these catalogues and I go through 'em to see which music I thought that children could do best, and I would work with the music, and the other elementary teachers would work with speaking parts, and then I get to design. I could draw and make stuff, and I'd sometimes draw pictures of the costumes and the teachers up in domestic science... What do the call it where they're teaching cooking [degraded audio] [Cheryl says "Home Ec"]. She'd send me some girls down sometimes as one of my other teachers would take my other children out for recess, and I'd show the girls how to make those paper hats like [degraded audio] and rosettes and all kinds of hats, and my mother would make some of the costumes and some of the other women in the community would make costumes, and you'd send a picture home. And then when they when they have this, this operetta, oh my goodness. And then I had to do May Day, wrapping the May Pole and May Queens and stuff. I did all the music for that, and all of the musical commencements. In fact, I did music all year round. And you have a picture of my choir there didn't you? [Cheryl confirms] All of these things happened at Simms, and those 24 it was almost my [tape ends]
