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Cheryl Metz Interview with Mary Awkard Fairfax, 2005 (Tape 2, Side A): Otter Voice Meeting Notes

Cheryl Metz Interview with Mary Awkard Fairfax, 2005 (Tape 2, Side A)

Innovation Services46min

Mary Awkard Fairfax

00:08

She did [degraded audio] and I saw him, and I told you I saw him but you said I didn't." But I said "I knew my daddy—because I'm a daddy's girl, you know how it is. So, Daddy's funeral, my sister couldn't go, she had a nervous breakdown. They wouldn't let my brother Joe come. They said he just went wild because they wouldn't let him come to his father's funeral from the army. Fred [degraded audio]. We buried Daddy; he was sixty-five years old. He was sixty-five, and when he died Mama was fifty-five because he was 10 years older than Mama. Mama didn't marry anymore and in 1952--no, let's see... [pauses] 1955 it must have been, because Mary Ann was born in '52 and...

Cheryl M.

01:25

That's Jerry's daughter.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

01:26

That's, that's one of the girls, that does everything for me now, Mary Ann. And [pauses] that's when Mama died, when she became 65. After ten had passed when she became 65. And both my parents died when they were 65 years old. Mama was sick for, oh about 9 or 10 days clarity and days. She had one of those things where you get blood in the spine. What do you call them things? It wasn't exactly a stroke.

Cheryl M.

02:05

Where you get blood in your spine?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

02:07

Yeah. And I well remember how we'd go- hers was some kind of a stroke, it was some kind of blood thing [degraded audio], I don't know what they call it now. And so they had her in a dark room and the nurses said "Now be careful what you say; she can hear you but she can't talk back to you, or say anything. So we go in and talk to Momma, but we kinda, we were careful what we say, as she couldn't talk to us. So it just got so bad to where—and not being able to talk to Mama—so I decided one day I couldn't do it, I said "I can't take it." So Sunday came, and I said "I guess I'm going today to see Mama. Yes I am." That time Dr. Helbert, Hollen Helbert was our doctor, our family doctor. That Sunday morning the doorbell rang, 'cause the kids and I were getting ready to go to the hospital to see Mama, then Dr. Helms(?) said "Come in children." Well me and all of us, me and Leona, and Fred, though we didn't have Joe—I guess, Joe was home from the army, because the war was over. And he said "Your mother's gone now. Your mother passed away this morning." Oh Lord, there it was again [degraded audio], Daddy was dead, and Leona was sick [degraded audio] me and Joe and we did the best [degraded audio] Daddy's funeral from the church. Well, after Mama died we had no funerals or nothing; for years and years, nobody died. But those were the tough years.

Cheryl M.

02:26

Now? Did you keep the family home? [Mary says "huh?"] Did you keep the family home?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

04:21

We kept it a long time but my sister wanted because after Herman(?) died she said she couldn't keep it up so she sold it and she had already [degraded audio], so we don't have [degraded audio] out there anymore. Somebody else lives there and they're not keeping it painted or nothing, it's going down now. But oh, those were the days, oh I've seen some days. You know, I know that God's been with me, he's been with me through those years, and I wouldn't go ahead and do something against His commands for nothing.

Cheryl M.

05:05

Well you've lived 93-and-a-half years, you've seen... [Mary starts to speak]

Mary Awkard Fairfax

05:09

Just about and.... So that's what I trust in, I trust in God Almighty. And...

Cheryl M.

05:20

What's the greatest invention you think we've had? You've lived a long time you've seen the automobile, the airplane, the computer.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

05:28

Well one of the uh... [Cheryl finishing with "telephone"] Well the one first big thing this was the TV. That let you see people of the world on there. How'd they get them pictures? And at first they were real jumpy and jerky, like the first movies, real jumpy and jerky. I remember down to, the theater was Downtown Virginia Theater, we used to have organ music, plays, and shows, and there were silent movies, and if people were walking jerky like that [Cheryl laughs] we were gonna see the movies. And of course the Black people who went to see the movie have to sit up there in the 'attic room' we called it.

Cheryl M.

06:10

'The Balcony' we'd always call it.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

06:12

Well do you know, that's where you see the movies the best? [Cheryl says "Mhm"] [degraded audio] 'cause down on that first floor, you couldn't hardly see anything, but we were up high, and the seats came down like that, and you could see. Oh, I think what I have, have you heard of Harrisonburg Then and Now? From WVPT? [Cheryl affirms] That's--I'm on there.

Cheryl M.

06:38

You are? On--about what?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

06:42

On the tape, on the, one that has the pictures on it; what you call it? [pause] What's the tape that has the talking and the pictures on it? Because a man from... [pause] [degraded audio] interviewed me. I'm on there, Elon Rhodes is on there [degraded audio]... Wilhelmina, you know Wilhelmina Johnson?

Cheryl M.

07:19

Yep.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

07:19

'Cause she was the third social worker long time. She's on there and Red Bundy. [Cheryl says "I know him.] Red Bundy's dead. But, Elon Rhodes and me and Wilhelmena, when people want to know anything, they ask the three of us. [Cheryl laughs] They ask Elon too. They ask Wilhelmina and they ask me. And, 'cause we know more about the things, but Wilhelmina comes from Luray, but she came early in life and lived here most her life, all of her life mostly, since high school days when she married, she married Bud Johnson's son, Edgar, who worked for [degraded audio] for years and years and years. 'Course he's dead now. And all those boys who came along in World War II days are in their 80s, 82 or something like that.

Cheryl M.

08:24

Mr. Bird is--[Mary says "huh?"] Mr. Bird is 84, I think? Wilmer? W.C.?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

08:34

Who's that?

Cheryl M.

08:34

Mr. Bird over on Dawson street?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

08:37

Oh, he's 87(?) now, because he was eighty-something, and [degraded audio] was 80 when he passed away. And my brother Joe is 83.

Cheryl M.

08:49

Is he? So back to inventions. Besides the picture shows? What else do you think has been good? Innovations and inventions, which ones do you think have been good?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

09:09

I would say I know that these others are good, but I'd say that TV kind of opened up the way, because we used to have to play records to get our music, you know? [degraded audio], play records and things. But I think when TV came in, that was the first of the great inventions. Because you could see people from around the world doing things. And the rest of them have improved and improved that one. Even with the internet, all those things they started with TV. [Cheryl says "right"] To me the TV is the best one of them, and these others have been added on to.

Cheryl M.

09:59

That makes sense [Mary asks "What do you think?"] I agree that makes sense.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

10:02

Of course [Cheryl says "or communication lines"], telephone, telephone was wonderful too, but you didn't see anything on the telephone, but you could hear. It was all, you may see a [degraded audio] New York [degraded audio]

Cheryl M.

10:20

It made the world a lot smaller.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

10:25

Yeah but then the next thing that came along was TV. That was really smart. But I think, and then everything else was built away from one of those things.

Cheryl M.

10:39

Now you lived through the Civil Rights Movement. [Mary says "huh?"] I said you lived through the Civil Rights Movement.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

10:46

Yes, Martin Luther King. [Cheryl starts to say "Did you participate-"] Did you see my Martin Luther King award?

Cheryl M.

10:50

Yes, ma'am. Did you participate in any of the movements?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

10:56

There wasn't anything up here to do. Most of the people down south did that, and Rosa Parks and all of them. [Cheryl says "Right."] But no, we had NAACP you know they definitely [degraded audio] ...as in the south, you know.

Cheryl M.

11:19

Did you have many problems here?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

11:22

Here in Harrisonburg? No. We just had our own things, our own restaurants and barbershops and things.

Cheryl M.

11:32

What restaurant? What restaurant?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

11:37

Colonnade--that big tall building down there on... what street is that now? Wolfe Street. It's not there anymore, it's been knocked down. A man named [degraded audio (Mr. Petty Brown?)] built that Colonnade. It was a dance hall, a restaurant, a barber shop [degraded audio] business for Black people. They tore it down during that time that they tore down everything in Harrisonburg that was Black [degraded audio]. People's homes [degraded audio] projects.

Cheryl M.

12:23

They tore down their homes?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

12:24

Mhm. Mason Street had some homes, the people named the Tolivers [degraded audio] built a beautiful brick home. Just blow 'em up, but they pay you for it, paid you for it. They didn't pay a good price, but that's because it's gonna make the city bigger. [degraded audio] ...on Mason Street right down there near Mason Street. Those homes [degraded audio] back in there, 'cause everybody owned their own place.

Cheryl M.

12:55

And they just took them away?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

12:56

Took them away.

Cheryl M.

12:58

Eminent domain?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

12:59

They said they had a real nasty man over at the city there. He wasn't a mayor, [degraded audio] [Cheryl says "Housing-?"] Housing Authority [degraded audio]. And he saw to it that their barber shop, and everything they had, except [degraded audio (Ricky's?)] shop, and the stores and, they had a little place called--what people use today to dance and have a good time. And, so they wanted to take our house. My name was in the paper: that Mary Awkard fought for her home. I didn't miss a meeting. And I knew that they were going to have a meeting. [degraded audio] I made my reasons openly for me to be there. [degraded audio] I said, "You all are not going to have my home, 'cause my daddy built it." And I said, "It's not for sale." And I said, "Y'all don't need no house," because I said, "It's not on [degraded audio] Street, it's on Broad Street. Y'all said y'all were taking Gay Street, and Mason, but this is Broad Street [degraded audio] it was facing, and it's not going out of here." And then they talked around, to the city and they finally- they told me I had to do it. And so they gave me a check for $9,000. At that time the house was beautiful. And so I talked to my brothers and to one of my sisters, I said, "Listen, I'm going to give it back to them." I said, "They're not going to do that to us." So the next time they had a meeting, I said "I brought y'all your money back." I said, "My brothers know, we grew up [degraded audio] and here's your money." I guess he left me alone after that. The house's still standing there. But you see, you gotta be- look I wasn't being nasty [Cheryl says "right"], but I was telling 'em through the teeth, that you're not gonna have that house, because my daddy built it. His [degraded audio] was that house [degraded audio] you're not gonna have it.

Cheryl M.

15:22

So where did they- [Mary starts to speak again, but then stops and says, "huh?"] Where did they expect everybody to go?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

15:27

They wanted to get us to come to projects. [Cheryl says "projects?"] Projects, 'cause they've got a few of 'em there, you know out on West Water Street and around-- up in this area up on Kelley Street they still got those projects, you paid rent to the city you know? [Cheryl says "Well that just doesn't make a lot of sense"] and then a lot of those Black people, some of them got themselves something built somewhere. That's how Broad Street got rebuilt again, because people started buying lots in there, and they had their houses built and then Black churches in that area, because they took our church too, on Wolfe Street, they took our church [degraded audio].

Cheryl M.

16:12

Well what was their reasoning for taking it, though? I don't understand--

Mary Awkard Fairfax

16:15

[degraded audio], and it was the longest kind of time before [coughs] before anything was built on that Mason Street [degraded audio] seven men came over there. Those lots were vacant for years; and then after a while this tire company came over there. And then the [degraded audio] company came over to Rock Street because [degraded audio] was downtown. I mean, number four. He's over there, over on Rock Street, up on Rock Street. So they had this thing called "Harrisonburg, Then and Now," and that's what they--I don't know- where's is that tape uh... do you know where it is uh... Heather? [Heather replies, "Yes ma'am?"] [degraded audio] Do you have one of those machines? I forget what it's called.

Cheryl M.

17:21

I'll watch it; if I can take it with me I'll watch it. [Mary says "huh?"] If I can take it with me I'll watch it.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

17:27

Now will you be careful--[Cheryl says "yes, ma'am"] I don't want that [degraded audio]. I gave it to that preacher and I said, "Listen, [degraded audio], I said "I want that back." Now what they did, there was four people that I named to you, but WVPT had this program. They were selling these tapes for 75 dollars. They gave them to only four of us, and they gave each one of us a tape for, y'know, being-- giving the news. Mine was about how the Black people were treated during that time. Red Bundy talked about how he had [degraded audio] to go to the movies. And I think Elon Rhodes talked about the black [degraded audio] how they were done, because he was a barber. And Wilhelmina, she talked about some of the things, then-- then we talk about the "now" things, how things have changed. And then I talked about the "now" things, how Black people were coming back, and how things were at the school and everything. But they have my picture, I'm on there talking, right in this room like you are [Cheryl says "Mhm"] and they had the same kind of-- their machines were bigger than yours. And I wanna say it was three hours long [degraded audio.] And they tell me [degraded audio] that they come back with [degraded audio] [laughs]

Cheryl M.

19:18

I think the library can order a copy, I'll see if we can order a copy.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

19:22

They might have it, but that there, that's the recent one right there. And [degraded audio], she taught at... which one [degraded audio] schools? It wasn't Spotswood [degraded audio]. She talked about things that happened in Harrisonburg and about their school and different things and I said um... we talked about what we've talked about. And Julian, he's dead and gone now too, well he talked about the police force when it happened. He was on the committee, they had different committees, to talk about different things, they happen to--one time, you know, down the way you pay your water bill. That was a school once, that was a high school elementary.

Cheryl M.

20:31

That was?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

20:31

Years ago, yes.

Cheryl M.

20:34

For white people?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

20:35

White. And then the downstairs elementary appeared at Effinger. And upstairs was the high school, 'till they built it [degraded audio]. There used to be a racetrack right there, when I was a little girl, [degraded audio] And so that's why the high school was built out there now. Because that new one [degraded audio]. That's the old one. Now, the older school was one of them, built in 1912. [degraded audio] teacher at that time; it was just an old-fashioned school. But...

Cheryl M.

21:30

How do you think- how do you think education has changed. You taught for... 34, 40--

Mary Awkard Fairfax

21:37

42 years.

Cheryl M.

21:39

42 years?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

21:41

It was 35 in Harrisonburg, 35 years there.

Cheryl M.

21:45

How has education changed, do you think?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

21:48

Well at that time, education was good. You had dedicated teachers, where they weren't there for paychecks, right? You know what I'm talking about [Cheryl says "right"] The generation now, they want paychecks.

Cheryl M.

22:04

Right, it's not a vocation anymore.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

22:06

Like when I was at the Simms school they started getting some of those folks coming in. Someone said to me one day, they were [degraded audio (rushing?)] on payday. And the, the school board was sending checks up to our school for somebody, and of course you had to go to the principal's office to get 'em Some of them would wait and wait as soon as they thought that [degraded audio] they'd look and see if they had their checks. So then there was somebody in there who said "Oooooooh, here comes Mrs. Moneybags." I said "What do you mean with that?" "Well, we don't see you in the office to get your check." I said, "Let me tell you something. If you got one, I got one." I said "I don't have to peep." I said, "If your check is in that box in there, so's mine. And I go at the proper time when school's out, or if the principal wants to come to the door and give it to me, whichever, but I don't have to peep, to see if it's out here. [starts laughing] So they--[laughs harder] they left me alone after that.

Cheryl M.

23:21

And you say that started at Simms school? And you said that started at Simms, that kind of attitude? Where teachers were more worried about pay than...

Mary Awkard Fairfax

23:32

Oh only a few those newcomers, who didn't last very long; first thing we knew they were gone, but the ones who had been there, they didn't bother going around looking for their check, because they knew that they would get their check. Wasn't too big you know, let me see how much was it? It was... $600 a month [degraded audio] I first came to Harrisonburg. Mr. Keister, promised me $100 dollars a month, because I came out of Bridgewater, $50 a month; Staunton, $50 a month. And I was at Bridgewater four years, and the superintendent didn't want me to leave, and he was gonna try to up it but, Mr. Keister, Mr. Keister said "Boy don't, I'm taking Mary home now." [Cheryl laughs] And that's when I came to Harrisonburg and Simms school. He brought me on in.

Cheryl M.

24:44

Now there's a lot of talk today about children too, and Attention Deficit Disorder--[Mary says "huh?"] There's a lot of talk about children with Attention Deficit Disorder, and all these HDD, ADD. Did you see much of that, when you were teaching? [Mary makes a sound indicating "no"]. What do you think has caused that?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

25:09

Well, you can't correct anybody now, [degraded audio] but it was parents' fault(?) and administration's fault(?) too, because now you'd like--little Johnny would come to you, and little Johnny is five years old, six, little Johnny has a stomachache. Well sometimes if he's crying, you might take little Johnny up on your lap, and pat him on the head; and [degraded audio] a little medication for him, and you can't touch him. And little children love to be touched. Well that makes a hard child(?) he's hard you know? And the whole time I worked at Waterman, I could touch him. not for any kind of ugliness, just pat him on the head or something like that. I'd just pat him on the shoulder or take him by the hand or something like that, or "You'll be alright honey." Especially those children that'd be coming to school for the first time and want to go back home to their mothers; and the mothers'd make 'em stay and wait, and they'd cry. And I'd bring them up to my desk, or [degraded audio]. And often they'd stop crying, and start playing with the other children. But, you're not allowed to do this and that and other, and the children know it. [degraded audio] they'll tell the principal to call 911 on them. Can't even spank your children at home. They'll call 911 on you, and have you arrested. [degraded audio]You know? And, but if you tell the parents what they do--"Oh no, my boy's not doing that. No." And now see my niece came out of teaching here this past year. Mary Ann taught fif- no taught... 30 years in Richmond [degraded audio]. And then she had a master's, then she went to... what's the name of that--Chesterfield, Chesterfield. And that's where she retired to here. And she said "I..."--she was teaching middle school. She said "All those children want to know is about sex and stuff." And she said, "You can't hardly teach a thing. And she said, "I'm coming out. I'm not really sure what it [degraded audio]." She said "Just because you taught 42 years, don't think I'm gonna last as long." She said, "As soon as I make my 30 years, I'm coming out." And she did. She quit this year, retired. She said, "I know enough computer and things like that, that I can get a job. Be in a doctor's office, be a secretary for somebody, or just work in a store," but said, "They're making me sick, they're making me have a backache." Said, "When school starts, that's when my back starts aching. Because I know they gonna get on my nerves so bad," and said, "I want them to learn what I'm teaching." And she was an excellent teacher 'cause she had my ways

Cheryl M.

29:01

Now you're not allowed to discipline them anymore either. Did you ever have to discipline children?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

29:06

Not too much. I didn't have to be whacking them to do it. Because we did--one thing, I had so many things for them to do [degraded audio] because they could sing, they could [degraded audio] and they had a lot of activities and [degraded audio] high school music. We tell them that if you don't want to sing, we're not going to make you sing if you don't want to; well everybody wanted to. So that's the reason we had 62 children in our choir. Mr. Moore, was the director and I played the piano. Miss Hackman was the school supervisor of music, and she did music at the [degraded audio] high school. Well then she knew I was doing music at Simms, and she come, and we worked together, and we'd have a concert with the community. Miss Hackman would play the piano. And we'd get an organ from [degraded audio], and [degraded audio] didn't charge us, they would loan it to us as advertisement to them. I'd play the organ, and Miss Hackman would play the piano, and we'd practice together. Then we'd do the group, then we'd have the concert. She was on piano—I've got picture of 'em somewhere, and not the picture you saw, but another one—and I was on the organ; and believe me, those children could sing. Oh Lord, we had a Christmas concert, little Christmas tree, well they had candles, and the boys in the shop would make stages so they'd look like that. And the bravest people would stand near the top, and do the Christmas carols, not just any junk, because Mr. Moore didn't allow junk singing, the stuff had to be like "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and all the songs that [degraded audio] things that meant something to people, and good hymns, like um... like I said, "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Ave Maria" and stuff like that. We didn't have no trashy music. And he has a nice, gentle voice. When he sang, "Like A Bridge Over Troubled Waters," the tears would run down your face. "Like a bridge"--do you know that? [Cheryl says "Yes I do"] "over troubled waters, I will lay me down." I'm thinking about those days.

Cheryl M.

32:12

Now at Waterman, did you get to do as many programs like you did at Simms?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

32:16

No, those teachers didn't do as much. They had one [degraded audio] because I had a doll show at Simms school. And we had different kinds of dolls. And we had Indian dolls. I had a group do an Indian dance. The children themselves, or if they had Chinese, they would do a little-- some would have little stuff like that. [degraded audio] We had the dolls in chairs. And the children would dance for 'em. Well, we had that one year I think. I don't know. They wanted to get home, they didn't want to be bothered with that kind of stuff. So I didn't have to work as hard up there as I did at Simms school. They were more [degraded audio]. They did a good teaching job, I'm not saying that, but those extra activities--but they had May Day, though. They had May Day and May Pole winding and things like that. [degraded audio]

Cheryl M.

33:37

They don't have much anymore. How did you teach children to read? Using phonics?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

33:48

Phonics and, some of it was... well, I didn't like too much of that. Memorizing, I didn't like much of that. But I would sometimes draw things on the blackboard. Maybe I would have a [degraded audio] and have words printed on the [degraded audio]. See who could go up and get [degraded audio] or something like that. Most of my games that we played, well they were reading words. Or if we had a lesson, we'd make a spelling lesson out of the new words, have a spelling bee, and have them stand up and I had flash cards. That was more like phonetics, and...

Cheryl M.

34:37

'Cause now they teach them sight context or something like that?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

34:42

Something like that, I don't know how to teach any of that.

Cheryl M.

34:44

It doesn't work, it doesn't seem to work.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

34:46

Lot of children can't read so well now. And we wouldn't let 'em go—if couldn't read—to the next grade. We'd keep 'em, keep 'em another year to be sure that they could read. Because I told the children that if they couldn't learn to read, they wouldn't be able to do anything else that well. I said "Even your math problems have to be read sometimes." And I said "Reading is the most important." And I'd tell that to the little children, and I had big children sometimes. Your English grammar is most important to that too. Because you have to know descriptive words which would be your adjectives, your adverbs, your prepositions, and all those words, you're going to have know what your diacritical marks are, like periods, commas, dashes, quotation marks, and all that kind of stuff. And those are some of the things I insisted on when I went into any high school children that I'd have to tutor sometimes. And science, well you could read that. And of course the science teacher would have you do experiments, and taking things to pieces and taking pieces out of fish and frogs, and all that kind of business. And then, civics, when I got into high school you have to learn civics and your community, how it works, how it operates, and all those sort of things, and what democracy was; and you had to learn the Articles of Confederation. All your presidents and their vices, and sometimes their wives, like that. And part of Lincoln's... address, you'd have Lincoln's--you'd have Lincoln's address...

Cheryl M.

36:10

Gettysburg Address.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

36:27

Gettysburg, you had to learn that one. By memory. You had to learn your timetables from 1 to 12. You had to recite them.

Cheryl M.

37:15

I had to do that, second grade.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

37:17

[degraded audio] Up here. And some of those things I'm saying [degraded audio]. But you really had to put that into their heads. I told my first-graders and seconds, "You have to know these things" I said, "Because something might happen to your parents, and you might not get to go to school. And you will know something about something. So I just want you to pay attention. Because I'm gonna give you everything that I've got to give. And we had—because I had Latin three years—had Latin. And of course I said, "That's the basis for a lot of our English words. Right? From the Latin. And so I had three years of that. Professor Harris taught it, because I think he went to Harvard for his school I think, and he was a real, real college professor. But he taught to high school. And then we had good science teachers. Had to do a lot of drawing in there, lot of children asked me to draw pictures of fish or animals or whatever I could draw. My brother Joe, well I thought he was gonna be an artist because he could draw anything. He could draw [degraded audio]. It was--it was interesting. The work was very interesting. But you had to really keep on some children to get them to do something. And some children would be late coming into school, because [degraded audio] polio or something like that; and it wouldn't--and then after a while, they had teachers go into the [degraded audio] on Saturday, teaching children. [degraded audio] then I went to teach who had something like polio or something like that. And the school board would pay you, for teaching them. You didn't get much [degraded audio] and that went with that. But mostly I thought of- sometimes I would, like on the days of that long Spring, I'd teach after school, but then other times I'd go on Saturday. I know one child now that I didn't teach, but Mrs. Hollands() had him; and that boy would [degraded audio] Oh, he was a big boy, and [clears throat] he became a big-time minister in Washington D.C. at a big church.

Cheryl M.

37:17

So he was thankful.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

40:22

He retired not long ago [degraded audio] and she taught him at home till he was able to come to school. That's the kind of work we did, especially because community mothers, because Ruth never got married but I did, but Ruth didn't. She stayed a maid, till she died. [degraded audio] somebody would say well, Luther(?) would call me, "Miss Awkward, would you play for this person's funeral? They don't belong to any church." I said "Okay." They had one of them, some kind of organ [degraded audio] it had two keyboards, I know that; and I said [degraded audio] and I liked it pretty good; so I would play for funerals. My church, sometimes [degraded audio] wouldn't have nobody, I'd play for that church and the church didn't have a program, didn't have nobody; and I said "Well," I said "You know I have to play at my church first, but if I have some extra, I don't mind helping." And all those things you do, you would get somebody to [degraded audio]. And they didn't bother me either.

Cheryl M.

40:40

Yeah and now you see the ads in the paper for a church organist.

Mary Awkard Fairfax

42:13

Well now you can't get anybody. Nobody plays, nobody takes music, they're probably out there singing something wild, you know. That nobody ever heard of before. Those good old hymns, like... do you see my keyboard over there? [Cheryl responds "Mmm hmm, I saw it."] My two brothers—the one who's dead and the other [degraded audio] for me for my birthday one year, 'cause I know that they paid over $100 for it. And then I got another thing in there that my one brother gave me about five or six years ago, that I keep in my room in there. I don't play that. I play my tapes and my CDs on there and other records all the time. But I have some good brothers that love me. And um...

Cheryl M.

43:10

Well, what would your advice for the future of the world be? If you could send a message to the world right now, what would it be?

Mary Awkard Fairfax

43:17

[pause as she thinks] Have some one-to-one talks with the children. Have them to--teach them to like each other. You know, have things together. Talk about good things, then try to keep them away from the evil things. Have as many good things for them to do, because some children really want to learn. And the ones that don't want to learn, well, just kind of give them all the [degraded audio] you can, because they're not going to do anything that's good, but don't let them stop others who want to learn. And sometimes some children will want to stay after school together. I would do that. And give them some one-on-one. Children do better on one-on-one. Now one time, since I retired, and Red Bundy's wife, and... let's see [degraded audio] do you know him? He's part of the [degraded audio]. Amelia Jones—she lives down at [degraded audio] now—she was a high school secretary, and a gem. Well when the integration came, they just sent her out to the white high school [degraded audio]. But we were the ones they depend on because Amelia had everything ready. When they wanted to know something [coughs] about something, they would get Amelia. [degraded audio]. Amelia told me, she said, "You know, we got some black student that don't have the right attitude up here. And they're not taking part in anything, and so they're not doing any singing, they're not doing- they're not being in plays," and said "We oughta have--we need to have some counselors up here." And said, "Could I ask a couple reliable people, that I know who are reliable [degraded audio], to come up here and talk to these children?" Well, what they wanted you to do is bring a whole bunch of them. And I told the principal, "No. One-on-one is what they need. Because," I said, "They don't want to talk in front of the other children." And I said, "I can draw more out of them if it's one-on-one." And that's [degraded audio] one-on-one. And I said "Well what's your problem?" "Well they don't like me." I said, "Well, do you like them?" I said, "Love's(?) a two-way street." [tape ends]

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