Archive Record
Metadata
Accession number |
2005.008 |
Catalog Number |
2005.008.002 |
Object Name |
Transcript |
Date |
23 Mar 2005 |
Scope & Content |
Transcript for oral history interview with Meverlean Moore Oral history interview with Meverlean Moore at her home in Princeton, La. on March 23, 2005. Interview conducted by Pam Carter (Carlisle) with Ann Middleton also present. Oral History Interview: Meverlean Moore March 23, 2005 An oral interview by Pamela (Carter) Carlisle, Ann Middleton with Mrs. Meverlean Moore at her home in Princeton, Louisiana Tape 1, Side A [Pamela Carlisle] To start off, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but what year were you born? [Meverlean Moore] May 8, 1921 [Pamela Carlisle] Here in Princeton? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, by a midwife. [Pamela Carlisle] Is that how most of the babies were born here in Princeton? By a midwife? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. [Pamela Carlisle] Was there one midwife in the community or were there more? [Meverlean Moore] Well, there was Susan Booker was the midwife that delivered me. But we had some others. There was Lula Walker, Ida Jones and I don't remember the others. [Pamela Carlisle] I am interested because I am working on an exhibit on the history of medicine here in Bossier Parish. Do you know... did they get their training by observing the other midwives? [Meverlean Moore] They were supposed to be working under Dr. Tucker, down in Haughton. He was the only doctor we had. We didn't have birth certificates. We would send them in, 'cause I had to get a delayed birth certificate. All of us had to get the delayed certificates. [Ann Middleton] My mother tore a page out of the family Bible, and they used it. They accepted it. [Pamela Carlisle] Wow. Did Dr. Tucker have an office there? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. He had an office in his home. He was the only doctor. My momma told me that she (unintelligible) the whole nine months that she was carrying me. She had two other children, two girls older than me. My daddy left going hunting before I was born and didn't come back, and she moved back down to Grandma, to her mother. When I was born, she said I was just big enough to put a doll's dress on. I weighed less than three pounds. [Ann Middleton] Oh my goodness. [Meverlean Moore] … and every doctor I would go to would have me get up and trot all the way around. They can't believe that I only weighed that much when I was born. They said you could me in what they called a molasses bucket at that time or a coffee pot. Said they could put me in that and close the lid because I was so small. They didn't have incubators. [Pamela Carlisle] Oh yeah, because you weren't in a hospital or anything. [Meverlean Moore] Well, like I said Blacks had a hard time. They couldn't use the same hospitals that the Whites used. Because when I had my first one, I couldn't. That was in '38. They had a special little room onto the hospital that may be on the outside that you had to go into. You couldn't go under the roof of the hospital [Pamela Carlisle] Which hospital was that? [Meverlean Moore] That was the charity hospital in Shreveport. It was at the head of Texas Street.. [Pamela Carlisle] So if one of the kids hurt themselves or was sick, would you get to go see Dr.Tucker, or would your mom just take care of it? [Meverlean Moore] They had home remedies. I had never seen a doctor in my life, I had heard of Dr. Tucker, until I got pregnant with my child, my baby. That was the first doctor I ever been to in my life. I don't remember anybody and my grandmother had five children and one of her daughters had died leaving and mamma had four children. If we ever got sick, they would use a home remedy. None of us had to go to doctors, not even then. [Pamela Carlisle] Do you remember what some of those remedies were? [Meverlean Moore] In the winter time, when it first started getting in the Fall of the year, she would give us what she called blue mass. It comes in like a little gum. You just pinch off a piece and make a little pill and according to your age is what size the pill would be. They would line us up and give us one of those pills to take and spoon full of castor oil behind it. [Pamela Carlisle] Wow, at school? [Meverlean Moore] At home. [Pamela Carlisle] At home. [Meverlean Moore] Um hum. That was our fall medicine, she said it would clean all those green plums and things we had been eating all summer long, cause we did. There was plenty plum trees and we would really eat plums and pears. Sometimes we would slip and get green pears and eat. She said she was cleaning our system out. [Ann Middleton] Laughter [Pamela Carlisle] Laughter. Wow, so what was that, blue? [Meverlean Moore] Blue mass. They called it blue mass. [Pamela Carlisle] Do you know it was made out of? [Meverlean Moore] No, I don't know, but I remember it came in a little box about so big and so wide. It was a gumlike substance, and they would pinch it off and roll it and make a little pill and give it to you. [Ann Middleton] And you had to swallow it with the castor oil? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, you would take that and when you get through going to the restroom you were really clean. (laughter) [Pamela Carlisle] Wow. [Meverlean Moore] She said it would keep you from getting a winter cold. And if we did get a cold 'cause we would have to wade water and mud trying to get to school, they had what they called tallow. They would get a flannel cloth and put on your chest and put that tallow on it and you had to wear that on your chest as long as you had that cold. When they would take it off… when the cold goes then they would take it off. Sometimes you had to wear it the whole winter. You couldn't wash that because you would wash the tallow off. [Ann Middleton] Was it like Vicks salve? [Meverlean Moore] No, it come from the fat from a cow. [Ann Middleton] Oh, I get it. [Meverlean Moore] They would put it in a jar and use for medicine. [Pamela Carlisle] That is amazing. [Ann Middleton] I have heard of the castor oil, but I never heard of the tallow. [Meverlean Moore] It wasn't the kind of castor oil that we have now. The kind you have now is distilled. This was yellow castor oil. I don't know where they got it from. It would really do the job. [Pamela Carlisle] Did it taste really bad? [Meverlean Moore] Oh Lord, yeah. (laughter) Sometimes they would put a little salt in it to keep it from being so fresh and then give it to you. We would cry, but we had to take it. I never did cry, I would just open my mouth and go on and take it. They wouldn't give us the spoon because sometimes my cousins wouldn't take it. They would hold it in their mouth and then spit it out when Mom gets through it. (laughter) She would hold the spoon, have you open your mouth and hold your head back. [Ann Middleton] So you had no choice. [Meverlean Moore] No. We had some cousins that would grit their teeth and wouldn't let her get the spoon in there. [Pamela Carlisle] That was once a year. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah and in the spring of the year with the children going barefoot, like on a warm day, we couldn't do it. After Easter my grandma, we had to get water from the spring, would have you put a wash pan, they call then was pan, at the steps down there with some cold water in it. She called it cold water because it came out of the spring. Each child would go there and wet their feet real good in that water. They didn't let grass grow in the yard like we let grow now. They kept the yard scraped. And let you walk to the gate and back in that dirt and come back and clean your feet off and put your shoes and socks back on. This was after Easter. You could not do that until after Easter because she said the earth was full of the winter coldness and would give you a cold. When your feet touched the earth, then she said that cold come up through your feet and go into body. That is what we had to do. And when it got real warm we could go barefooted. We didn't get sick. [Ann Middleton] But you would have had to waited until Sunday this year. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. Un huh, before you could wet your feet. [Ann Middleton] Oh my gosh! [Meverlean Moore] But you had to put your shoes and stockings back on because they were not making socks then anyway. There were those 10 cents cotton stocking that would burst if you walked hard on them. (laughter) [Pamela Carlisle] Would you go barefoot going to school too? [Meverlean Moore] No. We couldn't go barefoot going to school. Our teachers were real particular about what children looked like when they come to school. We didn't wear our Sunday clothes to school, but we had to wear decent clothes to school. Now my momma couldn't read or write, but you could get a catalog and show her a dress that you want one made like. Well the material wasn't but 10 cents a yard, and momma could whip up that dress and cut out what you wanted to wear. [Pamela Carlisle] Wow, just from a picture. [Meverlean Moore} And they would make those clothes. But the one that grandma and momma have on in those pictures up there, they made them. And I learned how to make those side pockets. Grandma showed me how to make those side pockets that you just slide your hands in. She wore those long aprons that had slide pockets in it. She showed me how to make them. She taught me how to make buttonholes. And I just learned how to make the tailored buttonholes before I left home. But at first you have to do that briar stitch around that hole, cut that hole and make the briar stitch. But she taught me how to make the tailored ones, tailored buttonholes. [Ann Middleton] Do you still sew? [Meverlean Moore] I had to stop sewing and everything because of arthritis. When I cut out, I even learned how to make Vogue patterns. Like I said, I made all my child's sorority initiation clothes. The only thing I bought was a sweater, and my supervisor on the Base told me I had to have a Johansen sweater and I went to a swap shop in the Heart of Bossier and bought a Johansen. I think it was $23 for Johansen and the last one I bought, but I made all her initiation clothes myself. I couldn't afford to buy all that. [Ann Middleton] My mother could do that. She could look at the picture and cut a pattern. [Meverlean Moore] Um hum, I learned how to do it too. [Ann Middleton] Like you, she had to. I mean, they did not have any money either. [Meverlean Moore] Soon as I bought a cutting board, that is when I had to stop sewing. My cutting board is still in there. (laughter) I bought tins and cutting boards and all that stuff, you know, and my poor little sewing machine and sit here at this table and sew. But when I cut out something, I would not go to bed until I got it down to the handwork. [Ann Middleton] Oh my goodness. [Meverlean Moore] And that is why my athritis and my ankles would bother me so bad. But I finally gave it to Goodwill. I still have the attachments here though. [Pamela Carlisle] How many children did your mom have to make clothes for? You had two sisters? [Meverlean Moore] I had two sisters. I don't think she made them for her nieces that she raised there in the house, because they were sort of different. Her sister Bertha sewed for them cause she would use patterns. [Pamela Carlisle] So you grew up with two sisters and five cousins. She raised five of your cousins? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah and my grandma and my step-daddy was at the house. We had twelve people. We only had three bedrooms and a kitchen. But we had large rooms, had two double beds in each room. [Pamela Carlisle] So did you have brothers too or just… [Meverlean Moore] I just had one brother, and he is younger than me. But he had to sleep with the girls. [Pamela Carlisle] Oh. [Meverlean Moore] We had an outside toilet when we moved out here. [Pamela Carlisle] So you grew up with your mother and then it was your step-father. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, yeah. [Pamela Carlisle] And did they have a farm and did they…. [Meverlean Moore] No. After grandma died, she sold all her cows and horses and wagons after grandpa died. She was real modest. My grandma was a cute little old lady. (laughter) I think she was about five feet tall and wore a size six shoes, no larger than a seven. When she would open her trunk it was like a holiday. We would put those clothes on and style. The coats were below the hips on these suits. Grandma had all that in her trunk. Okay, she had real leather boots and those leather granny shoes with the heels on them. My grandma was a fancy dresser, had nice hats and everything. We would just have a ball, you know, just trying on those clothes, styling. But her trunk, her favorite boy when he died or when grandma died he took the trunk and put it in his house which was on the place. And after his second wife died, he still kept it. His third wife outlived him, and she moved out of the house and left the trunk over there. [Ann Middleton] You didn't go get it? [Meverlean Moore] We did not know she had moved. [Ann Middleton] Oh. [Meverlean Moore] We didn't know she had moved until I went to Benton to try to see about our land over there. We were supposed to have 80 acres, and the receipt I had had 70 acres on it. I went up there looking through the books and everything. I told the lady there there were supposed to be 80 acres, and she said she had no record of it. Said if I could find a receipt or anything they would have to restore sit. That is when I found out she had moved and left the trunk over at the house and it fell down on it. [Ann Middleton] Oh, what a shame. [Meverlean Moore] We had no way of knowing about it. But the county seat, oh what you call it… the parish seat was in Bellevue at that time. Now, I have some 1819 receipts that I want to show you. [Ann Middleton] Oh, good. [Meverlean Moore] Now, that old trunk in the garage is just full of 1800 stuff. That is my great grandmother, Louisa's trunk out there in the garage. Her nephew, before he died, he wanted me to have it. He brought an old abstract that I have lying over there concerning the land. I don't know what an abstract is but you can take it back to the library and do whatever you want to do with it. Cause my children won't be interested in it. See, my grandmother came from Bellevue. Her home was in Bellevue. I remember going up there after I got a car. I was able to see the house that she told me about, the old slave master's house. It had a hall down the center. I would always sit around grandma's feet and listen to her stories. She said she was eight years old when they freed the slaves. But when she was a little girl, her oldest sister and I guess her mother worked in the big house. That is what they called it. She would go, they had this thing they turned to get the water up out of the well and she would go out and get the water to bring in to the kitchen. They couldn't come in the front door, they had to come in the back door. She said her momma would slip and give her a biscuit, but she couldn't let the old master's wife see her with the biscuit. There was a big, huge oak tree. Well, the trunk of that tree is still laying up there. That tree will never die. It is down, but it is not down. That trunk is still there and it will live on. It had a hollow in it, and she said she would take a bite off the biscuit and put it in that hollow, go get the water, come back and get her another bite and go into the kitchen. [Ann Middleton] Augh. [Meverlean Moore] Uh huh. So, that was her mother. Grandma Louisa working in the kitchen. The older sister, Liza, I got to see the spinning wheel, I don't know what happened to that. It stayed on that porch for years and years and years. She would, what you call it… loom or what. She would weave the cloth to make clothes. They would take cotton from the field and they would have vat to get the seeds out. She would take this stuff and put it on the spinning wheel. [Pam Carlisle] Carding? [Ann Middleton] To make the cotton into the fabric. What is that word? [Pam Carlisle] Is it spun to make the thread? [Meverlean Moore] I thought that is the word. She would put it on that spinning wheel. [Ann Middleton] Yes it is a spinning wheel, so they must have spun on it. Yeah. [Meverlean Moore] Then she would make the material. But all the material was in stripes or solids. You could not make a floral. They would get the bark off the trees to dye the different colors. I do remember the red oak bark that they would boil in a pot and they would dip the material in that to get a red piece. But I forgot, I don't remember what the other colors, where they got the blues from sort of berry and they boiled that berry and then dyed the material from that. But how they got it together in stripes, I will never know when there was striped material. But I remember seeing the spinning wheel but I couldn't [ ] it because my grandmother and her brothers fell out. They had… when they freed the slaves they gave you 40 acres of land, a team of mules. Okay, grandma was a girl, but first let me say this. Those slave masters would have children by the slave woman and they would have more field hands. And grandma said her mother, she called her ma. She said her ma had only two children by her pa. All the rest of them was the old master's children. And she was one of them. So she come up hating white people. She hated all her life. She didn't like them. When she got grown enough to get away from there, by marrying grandpa Bob Ely. But they were slaves come here from Texas. And she had 300 acres of land up there. Her oldest bother borrowed money on the land in his name after her daddy and momma had died and left all his sisters' and brothers' name off, so that is how they came into possession of the 300 acres of land and that is why my grandmother fell out with him. I remember the day they had Uncle Peter's name was Peter Marshall had his funeral and people put chairs in the back of the wagons to go to the funeral. [Ann Middleton] Uh hum. I have seen pictures. [Meverlean Moore] Grandma was fussing the whole time she stepped up into that wagon. She did not want to go to the funeral. She was just fussing, cussing, cussing, fussing. 'Cause she said she did not want to be buried there, at the Haughton cemetery, where the whole family… I had the family tree from up there, but I gave it to a cousin of mine. She was going to do the Marshall side and I was going to do the Ealy side. After she died her son took the material to Chicago with him. One of her nephews went around to every tomb up there in that old Hawkin cemetery and told me who it belonged to and when they died and when they were born. And I had all that down on paper. [Ann Middleton] Awh. [Meverlean Moore] I had all on grandma's side. [Ann Middleton] He wouldn't give it back to you if you asked him? [Meverlean Moore] Every time I asked him about it he says it is in Chicago. He come every year but he never bring it. So I can't get it. [Ann Middleton] It would be so easy to make a copy. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, but he won't do. [Ann Middleton] And where is the Hawkin cemetery? [Meverlean Moore] It is at 157 at Bellevue. [Pam Carlisle] So your grandmother, did she grow up on a plantation in Bellevue then? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. It was the Marshall's plantation. They were slaves on the Marshall's plantation. I have some notes over there I just found. They were slaves under the Marshall's up there. But her mother and her two brothers were slaves that came up on a ship. Let me get this . . . [Pam Carlisle] Can I get it for you? [Merverlean Moore] It is on a little yellow pad over there. I just found that. [Ann Middleton] Now let's see, these were the grandparents on the Marshall plantation were from Texas, did you say? [Meverlean Moore] No, no, no. The Elys was from Texas. [Ann Middleton] Ely. [Merverlean Moore] Ely, but the newer way to spell it was to put an "a" in there. But everything was Ely. [Pam Carlisle] Like the chapel at the church was the Ealy chapel. [Ann Middleton] Oh, that is where you all went. [Pam Carter] Yeah. [Merverlean Moore] But the original name was Ely. (studying something) This is about the church. I have gone on something else over here. [Ann Middleton] Did I just bring a stack of it over? [Merverlean Moore] I guess. [Pam Carlisle] So your grandmother's mother. [Meverlean Moore] Her name was Louisa. [Pam Carlisle] So she came on a ship? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. I have it down on a paper over here. I am fixing to get it. [Ann Middleton] I brought everything. [Meverlean Moore] Thank you. [Ann Middleton] Un huh. Were there some more things here? Or are there some more things? [Meverlean Moore] I don't know. I just put it where I could get it. [There are background sounds of moving of things.] [Meverlean Moore] This is the abstract. I don't know what you can do with it. [Ann Middleton] How interesting. [Meverlean Moore] I have (indecipherable) The lady that fixed it over for me did the best she could. It was so old it was just crumbles. [Ann Middleton] I think she put it back together. [Meverlean Moore] She was working at the paper mill at that time. She put it back together some way. [More background noise] [Meverlean Moore] This is her deed, where she sold the land to the School Board in 1911. Grandpa died in 1910. She sold this one acre of land to the School Board and the School Board still owns it. They don't want to sell it back to us. But grandma loaned it to the church, but she sold it to the school. I guess she was needing the money. They gave her a big old $35 for that. I questioned this… about all this handwriting and I asked them "are these original deeds here?" The book supposedly got burned when Bellevue got burned out. She said "Bellevue never got burned out." If Bellevue never got burned out, why is all this handwriting here? Well, it seemed like the original to me. And they left off so much stuff. This is where she bought the land. She always told us she gave Bill Cotton a year until she paid for it. [Pam Carlisle] Bellevue didn't burn, did it? A lot of the records went missing. Isn't that it? [Ann Middleton] That is my understanding. Because you know our (two people talking at once). [Pam Carlisle] Wouldn't the contrast be between where …. [Ann Middleton] Mr. (what was that man's name) [Pam Carlisle] … said that [Ann Middleton] He was telling us whose wagon it was that was used to carry the records from Bellevue to Benton. Was it Mr. Baker's… some of his grandparent or something? [Pam Carlisle] I am not sure. But did they move the records or didn't they hide them or get rid of them because there was some animosity. [Ann Middleton]] This gentleman this morning… Corley. Mr. Corley told me this morning that, I think he said that Mr. Baker's, Mr. Louis Baker's great grandfather's wagon and horses were used to transport the records from Bellevue to Benton. We could ask him, but I thought surely that is what he said. [Pam Carlisle] But were some records … [Ann Middleton] Some of them went missing. [Pam Carlisle] Yeah, but I don't think it was because of the fire. [Meverlean Moore] She said it was down by the fire. But grandma paid $150. It was supposed to $150 for 80 acres, and now up there it says 70 more or less and on this it said 70 more or less. [Ann Middleton] Well, you never proved that you had the 80? [Meverlean Moore] But see when they put that less they could do anything. [Pam Carlisle] Yeah. [Ann Middleton] What is the date on that? [Meverlean Moore] I can't see it. (paper shuffling sounds in background) [Pam Carlisle] 1897. [Ann Middleton] When did they move from Bellevue to Benton? Do you have Cliff Cardin's other book about the history of Bossier Parish. I see you have his headstone [book]. [Meverlean Moore] That is his headstone [book] there. That is all I have on Bossier Parish. [Ann Middleton] He writes about the courthouse being moved from Bellevue to Benton. I made a copy of it, and I read it… but it went out of my head, you know. [Meverlean Moore] 1883. Our cousin typed it out in California and sent it back to me, but it wasn't 1883. [Pam Carlisle] So is that what you are looking for? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. My grandmother's mother, Archie and Kenneth. They had no last names but used the slave master's last name. That would be their last name. They came over on the slave boat from Africa as small children. [Pam Carlisle] So this is your great grandmother, Louisa. [Meverlean Moore] Uh huh. She was just a girl. [Ann Middleton] We could look her up in that data base. [Meverlean Moore] Carried her to Alabama, it says here. That is where they were split up. Put them on different… different people bought them. They were sold to different slave masters. But they finally made it to Louisiana. My great grandmother Louisa was sold to Louisiana and was sold from Virginia to Louisiana is where it was. To the McDade family and later the Alford family. She carried the name of Louisa Alford. They was the slave master's name. [Ann Middleton} McDade first and to whom? [Meverlean Moore] Alford. [Pam Carlisle] Was this in Alabama then? [Meverlean Moore] It's in Alabama. You know, when you get there on that boat, they put you on that block, that auction block. [Middleton and Carlisle] Right, right. [Meverlean Moore] And see if the woman had a real dark and wide mark from her navel down it said she was a good breeder and then they would get the highest bidders for them because they could have more children. A lot of children. They would auction them off there. [Pam Carlisle] So the McDade and Alford plantations… where were they? [Meverlean Moore] The McDade's was right up here off 157. I guess the Alfords were in Bellevue or Benton. Had to sleep on dirt floors if the little shack they lived in didn't have floors. They would sleep on the floor and the men had to sleep in their clothes so when they ring the bell for the field they would already have their clothes on. They wouldn't have time to get dressed. If they were late, they would get a flogging. You know they would ring that bell and if they were late getting to the field… so they would just sleep in their clothes on that dirt floor. They worked from sun up to sun down. They had no churches to go to. They would slip down in the woods, grandma said, and have their prayer meeting and singing down there. The ones with the loud voices would hide the voices when they would get ready to pray. So they wouldn't hear them up to the big house praying. They would be there late at night. They made up their songs. That is what we called 'negro spirituals.' These songs that we call negro spirituals, now the slaves made those songs up. If they wanted to communicate with a slave or another, they would do it through songs so they would know what was going on. They would let them know what was going on. The same way … [Ann Middleton] I never heard that. [Merverlean Moore] If a girl that would like, they would sing… make up a song and sing it loud so that girl could hear them from other plantations so they would know that he would like her. And when they married, all they had to do was jump over a broom backwards. Didn't have a ceremony. They would jump over a broom backwards, that is where the words jump the broom comes from, came from. I couldn't hear nobody pray. I was way down yonder by myself and couldn't hear nobody pray except this old negro spiritual. They would have their head down in a pot. [Ann Middleton] I thought that was what you said. [Meverlean Moore] Said they couldn't hear nobody pray. [Pam Carlisle] They would have their head under a pot to muffle the sound? [Meverlean Moore] Uh Huh. A Way Down Yonder is way down in the woods by myself and I couldn't hear nobody pray. [Ann Middleton] They were not given Sundays off? [Meverlean Moore] There were no Sundays for slaves. Later on around 1870s or 69s they would let them come and sit in the back of their church, if they wanted to. [Ann Middleton] The back of the white church. [Meverlean Moore] Uh Huh. And then later on, they started letting them have service in their church in the evenings. That was all up around 1870. The CME church was founded in 1870 and they had allowed the blacks to use their church, so some of churches out here said they were founded in 1871, but the CME church was not found until 1870. [Ann Middleton] Are you concerned about that cemetery there on East Texas right before you get into Bossier. I think that the cemetery has been moved. It is CME cemetery, and it seems to me that I think that maybe Clif Cardin told me it had been moved. But it looks bad. I am concerned about it. A lot of the headstones are knocked over. You know which one I am talking about. You know there where the Donut shop is. [Meverlean Moore] Oh, New Hope Cemetery. [Ann Middleton] That is it. [Meverlean Moore] They still use it. [Ann Middleton] But it looks bad. [Meverlean Moore] But they still use it. They can't have one over there in Shreveport. [Ann Middleton] They can't? What was that one they were talking about moved to that old site? [Meverlean Moore] It was already there. It was already there. That was an old slave place too. [Ann Middleton] Well, who maintains that? [Meverlean Moore] I guess… [Ann Middleton] The church does? [Meverlean Moore] The church, they still own it. They have a marker up there. [Ann Middleton] But I think it has fallen down. When we go back that way, we will look. Because that is the way I go to work. I pass that cemetery every day. [Meverlean Moore] That was Plantation. The church was called Plantation. I don't know who all. There was row of little red houses, all along where there is trailer parks. If you pass that church on that side, there was red shanty houses there. There was little slave houses back in the back. [Ann Middleton] In the 1940s? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah… [Pam Carlisle] The buildings were still there. [Meverlean Moore] Where it is BPCC all that was plantation when I came here in 1947. All the little shanty houses back over there. [Ann Middleton] Who owns that? [Meverlean Moore] That was… now let me get that right. There were no slaves. They called this the hills and that was the bottom. Everybody was on their own up here. Odom??? One plantation was named Odom and the other one was Bean (Beene??). I think that was Bean over there where it is BPCC and Odom on the other side of it. I am not so sure. I can't remember. Because the only way we got to see a cotton field was to catch the cotton truck and go down there and pick cotton on the plantations. We had our only little stuff up here. And the land was so poor you couldn't buy fertilizer and our little cotton couldn't get no higher that that. My uncle's little cotton. But Beene and Odom, I know, was down there somewhere. I think Beene was over there where BPCC and I don't know about… now Mrs. Beene, one of the widows was still living, was running a second-hand shop there in Bossier somewhere, but I don't think she is still. She might not even be living now. All the Willis-Knighton and all up in there was nothing but plantations. All on Stockwell Road and all that ridge and all that was slaves. [Ann Middleton] Even in the 1940s. [Meverlean Moore] Um hum. [Ann Middleton] Wow. [Meverlean Moore] Some of the girls (indecipherable) were living down there. [Pam Carlisle] So people were still living there. [Meverlean Moore] Black folks were still living in them. I mean they were still living there because they had nowhere else to live. They were no slaves at that time, but their husbands were working for those people who owned that land. You know, taking care of the cows, the fields and whatever they had. [Ann Middleton] Sharecropping? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah and as you go under the underpass on Highway 80, that underpass as you [get] to the racetrack, when you get to that big house down there, that was the Wheliss plantation. They had slaves down there. But grandma said she wanted her land to fall from one generation to the next because she don't want her blood living on white man's place. That is why she bought that land. Now we have a few of her grandchildren wanted to sell it. I told them to do whatever they wanted to do. I was having no part of it. Taxes run $65 per year, so what are you worrying about. She said everybody having her blood in them needed somewhere to live, she said let them live there. At one time there was twelve houses over there, on her place. Everbody had their own little garden and own little everything. It was just as pretty as a picture. [Ann Middleton] I'll bet. [Meverlean Moore] My momma's house, my uncle's houses and all my uncles and aunts houses. Everbody had a house. [Pam Carlisle] Where was this? [Meverlean Moore] On the Ealy place. My grandmother's place. [Pam Carlisle] Where the church is now? [Meverlean Moore] No, no, no. The church moved out. That is back over. It is logged in with the Sandidges, the Rusheons, the Watsons, the Johnsons. These people who just bought in the later years, well I understand where they have their (indecipherable) is where my uncle's house was. I can't get my people to understand that we need to survey the land and put our own stakes down. [Ann Middleton] Go to the courthouse. It will tell you exactly. [Meverlean Moore] Well, they go by this little deed here. That is what they go by up there. [Ann Middleton] But surely they have surveyed it since then. [Meverlean Moore] (indecipherable) This lady up here, a friend of mine, she told me her (indecipherable) I bought up here is extended back over to a big oak tree, and that big oak tree was in her uncle's yard. I sent somebody over there to look and he said the stake is by the old oak tree. So that is where they say their land is that they bought from Aunt Mary. Her name is on this family tree here. That same uncle married her daughter, and that was all her land. All from then on was black folk up to you get to Jakes. I learned that the (indecipherable) we talked about our church, it was on the Dakes place. Thea Dakes place is right down here on the side of the road before you get to the church. That last trail on your right before you get to the church. And I just found my notes that I had hide, and it said Dakes place. My sister always said it was on Drakes, but until I found these papers. (indecipherable) down here. The road didn't have a name. It was just on the side of the road. [Pam Carlisle] It was on the Drakes? [Meverlean Moore] Yes, it was on Drakes Road. Cause that was the center of the community. Drakes place was the center of the community. Grandma Drake was not the center of the community. Momma was saying to me or having someone write to me while I was away. She said when they have a revival meeting at the church over there on grandma's place, there were people coming through there waking up the people. Waking up the white people at night, and that is why the church moved, Mama said. So it wasn't to get better transportation, because they were making too much noise. [Pam Carlisle] So that is why the Ealy Chapel was… [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. The principal was named after Mr. J. W. Prince. I just found this note. I think I have him on the original history that I put behind on that corner stone. [Pam Carlisle] Do you know who he was? Do you know anything about him? [Meverlean Moore] No. [Pam Carlisle] You were talking about… Do you have any photographs of that rural house you were talking about? I guess it was about the Ealy place. [Meverlean Moore] Do I have any pictures? [Pam Carlisle] Un hum. [Meverlean Moore] The only picture that I have is of my daughter Valmarie, who came on a visit. Setting in the yard with a sandwich in one hand and an arm around my momma's puppy. (laughter) I think I put it in that book over there, if I didn't I put it in another book. I been busy trying to get all my pictures put together. But I don't have a picture of the whole house. It was a log house. Everything was hand built, even the fireplace is made out of mud. Mud and straw. The shingles… they go down in the woods and cut trees down and make our own shingles. Everything was handmade, the blocks and everything was made from wood. Every Sunday morning a spark of fire would get on those old shingles and set that old house on fire, and we had to run to the spring and make a chain out of ourselves. Pass the buckets on and put the fire out. EVERY Sunday morning, it seemed like, we would be getting ready to go to church and a house would catch fire. [Ann Middleton] Every Sunday? How strange. [Meverlean Moore] The shingles were so old. I seen them, cut with those broad axes and everything and smooth them off. And those old chimneys, they would only do for about a year, made out of that dirt. We did not have red dirt, we had sand. Well sand had been red dirt all out there but we had sand. Now this was a map that Mr. Samuel (indecipherable) made me move my house. SIDE B That street is right up there where they built that new road. And this is my two acres here and my three lots here. And this goes on up that direction, but the survey is made from this direction. This where our house… [Ann Middleton] They must have been drinking some of Dr. Lebetter's …. [Meverlean Moore] Ahhhhh I don't know. But we got it straightened out. I didn't have to move. He was kind enough to go to one that signed their names or didn't keep it. [Pam Carlisle] You had been saying earlier that you had organized a group of people here to buy the land so that it wasn't made into a subdivision. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, I called the principal, Mr. Martin, and he called a meeting at school in the gym. Everybody met down there, and after we explained everything to them Mr. Martin (indecipherable) because that was his two lots. He signed up for two lots and a lot of people signed up, but I helped pay for some (indecipherable) were people signed. But everybody signed to get a lot so I wouldn't have to move my house. They signed up all these lots in one night. [Pam Carlisle] Wow. [Meverlean Moore] Then I called him and told him they were sold. [Ann Middleton] That must have been a shocker. [Meverlean Moore] Yes. But he told me if I could sell them, then sell them. [Pam Carlisle] Wow, that is amazing. [Meverlean Moore] Well, Mr. Martin would call and meet me any time. The church and school always worked together and the community. The first little cottage was built there… when the school that Mr. Martin came to straight from college to the Rosenwald school. That was all we had. [Pam Carlisle] So he started that, cause we have a collection of Mr. Martin's things. [Meverlean Moore] And, we had trustees. [Ann Middleton] We read about those. [Meverlean Moore] The trustees built their little cottage there for the teachers and principal to live in. They were rooming out over the community and they had to wear galoshes to wade water to come to school. So the trustees got together and built that little house there so they wouldn't have to room out in the community. They would have to walk as far as the children had to walk to get to school. They were not getting but $25 per month or less and the principal was getting $50. I think my sister said when you graduated from seventh grade, her class was the first class. I think she said Miss Spike was the principal. I thought that was what she said. It was either Miss Spike or Miss Grant was the principal there. But Miss Grant and Miss Spike and Miss Mettie was teachers down there. And she came out in the first class. She has a picture, but her son carried it back to California. They was looking good. Nobody was looking all tacky and everything. They were looking good on their graduation day. She said… they didn't have valedictorian but she said she was head of her class. At that time when you graduate from seventh grade you could be a teacher. [Pam Carlisle] Really! [Meverlean Moore] Well, that is all they had down there teaching them at that time. [Ann Middleton] They couldn't go anywhere after that? [Meverlean Moore] College??? They didn't have a high school. They would teach then what they need teaching. She could have taught, if she had wanted to. I think our first teacher was Miss Susan Edwards. The first teacher was Miss Susan Edwards. Momma said she would put a fork on the fire, and that was how she would do your hair. With that heated fork. [Pam Carlisle] Laughter [Meverlean Moore] The school was in the white people's church. They would use it for a school. [Pam Carlisle] Really? Now, which church was this. [Meverlean Moore] It was up there at Fillmore, wherever it was. Cause we had no church at that time. Kontony Ealy was a teacher up there. I wrote that down on something, when she told me, but I don't know where I put it. But anyway, you could teach out of seventh grade. When I graduated out of seventh grade, I was fourteen years old. They had built Bossier Parish Training school… and a high school over there in Shreveport. That is the one I went to. [Pam Middleton] Okay. [Meverlean Moore] Central. Central High School. [Ann Middleton] How did you get there? [Meverlean Moore] We had a boat over there with my step-auntie. Stayed with her and came home on the weekends. Central taught until twelfth grade before we passed training school and taught until eleventh grade. I went to Central in the eighth grade, and the next year my step-sisters did not want to go and my step-daddy wouldn't let me go because they did not want to go. So I had to stay out and pick cotton to get me some school clothes, so mama could make me some school clothes and buy me a winter coat before I could go to training school. You couldn't go until after all the crops were in, so I didn't get to go up there until October. Okay, when I get up there the books I had studied in eighth grade at Central, they had them in the ninth grade at Benton. [Ann Middleton] So you had already had… [Mevelean Moore] I lost interest. Every time the teacher would leave the room, the principal would have to teach the class to us. Mr. Strong was the principal. He came straight out of college. That was his first year. Every time he would leave the classroom I would have to take over. He called me Hampton… my maiden name was Hampton. He would say, "Okay Hampton…" He married the girl that he was going… they had what they called stiles, they had steps that you walked over the fence. [Ann Middleton] Oh, I know what you are talking about. [Mevelean Moore] And he would see these three girls… I think all them had the same first name of Catherine or Gertrude. Anyway he would go out like this, you know, have him take over. Go out and help the girls over the steps. Then the other children in the class, I was really doing their work for them, when I wasn't doing his work. So I just lost interest and this boy I married wrote mama a letter, he was in Alabama at that time, and told momma, momma said he told her that I said I would marry him. He wrote me and asked me, would I marry him. I said, "ask momma." Instead of asking momma, he was telling momma. [Ann Middleton] Oh my gosh. [Mevelean Moore] When I got home for the Christmas holidays, my momma was crying, she was crying, she was crying, she wanted me to be a teacher. She wanted me to take music, she wanted all the best for me, you know. She was not making but $2.50 a week washing and ironing. I tried to explain and every time I would open my mouth she would shut me up. She said no, you are going to marry. You wanted so and so, you are going to marry him. You had no business telling him that. So, I then had to go getting prepared to marry. I was only 16 years old. We never did explain it to mama after that because she was getting ready for me to marry. So when he came back for Christmas, well then we got married. I didn't go back to school. [Ann Middleton] It must have broken your mother's heart. [Mevelean Moore] Um hum. That is why I bought this piano. Music was 10 cents a lesson. She was not able to give it to me, but she always wanted me to have music. When I was living in Kentucky I bought this oldest girl a piano and I left that up there because I just brought three children and my clothes when I came home. That piano looked just as good as the day I bought it. It is still sitting there at the baby sitter's house. The baby sitter is gone, my granddaughter. I told her she could have it. I went to visit in 1994 up there and I said, "Well, momma wanted me to be a teacher. I couldn't do that." When I got my GED in 1960, I was ready to take the test in 1956 and I got pregnant again. Okay, so I couldn't take it then. In 1957 I got pregnant again and couldn't take it. So after the last child I went back to school because everything left me. When it was all fresh and I was just making A's and B's you know because everything was coming back to me. When they gave me the California Achievement Test I missed three questions on it. [Ann Middleton] Oh, my gosh. [Mevelean Moore] They said I was in the twelfth grade. So then I went to taking twelfth grade work. I marched in 1960 with my oldest son at Princeton High School. I went to adult school and got my GED. At that time they let the class march with the children. [Ann Middleton] That is amazing. [Meverlean Moore] I was tall. My son was tall. So we marched. We were on the last end and we marched together. I have a picture, not of the march but of us getting ready to march in. But I just (indecipherable) got in the car with my doctor and I did not even realized I had just had a baby the year before. When he came in there, I was in labor… at time he could deliver babies in the Doctor's Hospital. Didn't have Bossier Hospital then. He said Neverlean, he did not put the M on it he just put an N. He said Neverlean Moore, no more, no more. [Ann Middleton] Laughter. Good for him. [Meverlean Moore] He clipped my womb. You couldn't get hysterectomies then. He clipped my womb so it would not hold any more. I didn't even know that I had just had one. That was it. [Ann Middleton] Well, that was good. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, but after that I had some tumors and had to have a hysterectomy then, some years later. But, he said, no more. [Pam Carlisle] So how many children? [Meverlean Moore] Seven. [Pam Carlisle] Seven!!! [Meverlean Moore] And five miscarriages. I have been pregnant twelve times. [Pam Carlisle] Wow. [Meverlean Moore] That was too much. And trying to work too, trying to work on two jobs to keep my two girls in college. Two children in high school and two children in college at the same time. [Pam Carlisle] Where were you working? [Meverlean Moore] On the Base. I worked out there from 1947 to 1991. [Pam Carlisle] Did you…. [Meverlean Moore] I have my 20 year certificate. I have my 30 year certificate and my 40 year certificate. [Pam Carlisle] Wow, and what did you do at Barksdale? [Meverlean Moore] I started out working at the Officer's Club, taking care of the guest house. You know guests come from all those countries overseas. I will set the room up according to what country they were coming from. [Ann Middleton] That must have been hard but educational. [Meverlean Moore] Yes, and then the flowers, I had to put whatever flowers growing in their country. The hostess at the club was raising flowers. They had something like a… it wasn't a basement at the Officers' Club. It was something like a cellar that she raised the fence in. I had to keep the rooms clean and decorate the rooms and take care of the ladies room. They called it the powder room at that time. They did have a lounge at the Officers' Club where you could sit around and eat snacks. I had to keep that dusted and cleaned and everything. I graduated from that at $16 per week and they raised me to a big $21 per week. I graduated from that and went to the nursery and kindergarten. I was at the kindergarten for 16 years. I would clock out at the kindergarten and clock in at the nursery. [Ann Middleton] So you really were a teacher. [Meverlean Moore] No, I wasn't. I was a teacher's helper. [Ann Middleton] That was your mother's dream. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, I had to ride the bus and pick up the children and deliver the children. The kindergarten children, we would pick up on Base in the morning and pick up off Base in the afternoon. All on Benton Road and everywhere. All the military people. [Pam Carlisle] Were the nursery and kindergarten on Base? Were they integrated? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, I have a picture of that. I think I have the year it was integrated. It was real segregated. I have the first black child that went to school there. That teacher… I still have a tray she gave me for a Christmas present, that child did. Set that child at the end of the table. She could not touch a white child. She had real silky hair. And her little braids would come loose and she would call me to go in the bathroom and fix that child's hair because she did not want to get that on her hands. [Pam Carlisle] What year was that? [Meverlean Moore] It is on that thing I have in (indecipherable). So that was the first one, first child. By the time the 60's got there, Hooks came here in service. He was stationed out there. He lived next door on Dee Avenue, right near the kindergarten. So his middle child was younger enough to go in the three-year old class. Karen Ann, I still call her my girl, went to school there. The baby was too young and the oldest was too old. Okay, so he went to Building to try to get kindergarten off Base… nonsegregated. They sent him all the way to Iceland. [Ann Middleton] To where? [Meverlean Moore] To Iceland. Got him off that Base and sent him to Iceland. {Ann Middleton] Why? Because he was black? [Meverlean Moore] Because he tried to get the schools integrated. And tried to get kindergarten off Base because we had no kindergarten on Base. They sent him to Iceland for I don't know how many years. By the time he got back, they had integrated. My youngest daughter, the one born in 1957, went to kindergarten on the Base with me. You see any employee's child could go. She went out there and graduated. My first grandson went to school and he graduated out there. When we first started it, started integration… I guess it was the parents, the black child couldn't set on the seat with a white child. Cause my grandson would set on the seat with me. When this little blond would get on the bus, she was the last pickup we had to get to school in the morning, Terry would just slide down his seat. He was just like to have goose pimples all over him. He had a crush on that little girl, just four years old. (laughter) Every time he would see that girl come to the door and get on that bus, he would just slide down and see his hands over his face. He was just blushing down. He just could not sit on the seat with her. All our teachers… my supervisor was from Boston. Well, you know she was not prejudiced, and they did not like her for that reason, you know. When I got pregnant with that last baby, she told me to just come to work and she would have my cousin next door at the nursery come and do my work for me and ride the bus for me, cause I need the money to keep the kids in school. (indecipherable) would come and put a stool under my feet and we had a big chair like this. Merverlean you just sit right in that chair all day and keep your feet on this stool. And I got a check every payday. [Ann Middleton] Good, good for her. [Merverlean Moore] But after she left we got one in there that hated me from inside out. That was in 1966, my church made me a delegate and go to Miami, Florida. I got my sister to work in my place. She asked me, who is going to pay your sister, the church? I said, "she will get whatever I was getting." Okay, I had annual leave at that time, you know, but she didn't want to pay her and she said let the church pay her. So she messes around until one of the meetings when I got back, I had no job. One September I went back to work and I had no job. We were drawing unemployment in the summer and going to work in September. She wouldn't fix my paper work out for unemployment and she let me out. Okay, I go to work and she had hired her house maid in my place. I knew all the colonels and the Base commander and everybody else so I called them. They told me it was my job, go on back to work. So I did, so she hated me from then on. So after the NCO Club hired me up there, then I told her she could have the job. So, they found out then that I was doing their work. They were riding me, so they found out after I left what they had not been doing. They all dipped snuff and they would go in the restrooms and leave the toilet seats all dirty and everything. She would call me in there to clean it up. I didn't dip snuff. They finally found out after I left who was dipping snuff. Call me in there to clean it up. But that was okay, I made it. [Ann Middleton] Until 1991 [Merverlean Moore] Yeah, I walked out when we got a club manager there that stayed on me all the time and watched me over my shoulder. I was cashier. Okay, we had ROTC to come in and set up a banquet. After the line had closed. He came to me at that time and you pay for your food first and the cook would bring it out to the table. He paid me for seven hamburgers. I rung it up. Okay, when she brought it out, she had the tray up like this where I couldn't see on it, but I did see and she had French fries on it. I said to her, "You did not tell me they had French fries." Yes I did, yes I did, she said. I go out there to the table and say, "Excuse me, I did not charge you for the French fries, did not get the money for the French fries." So, I got back in there and come to find out they were double burgers. I said, "I am not going back out there and ask for another dime." The next morning when I came in, they came back to her and whispered something to her. They first called the cook and had them up in the office. Okay with me. Next they got her, the one that fixed the hamburgers, they got her up there. Next they come back and got me. I didn't know them. You setting up there on that stool and no a brain in your head and not charging the people what you are supposed to charge them. Me and Linda was eating lunch at the same time that they were getting their hamburgers and they were double hamburgers. He came to my register and told me "hamburgers" and that is what I rung up. And I didn't know he had French fries until I happened to see them, and I went out there and got the money for that. Didn't know that he went back and ordered another burger and that made eight. And she fixed that and took it out there to him. And they had the tape from the cash register. And you did not even charge for the ice tea. He was looking on the tape. Okay, this was the largest store he had ever been over, and we had an assistant manager that who wanted to be manager, but you know she was one of those persons who would go to bed with manager that came there. That was the way she was working her way up. So she was mad because she did not get the management job. So he sat there ripping me up and down, up and down. She said "amen" to everything. I said, "The club would go broke going around (indecipherable) that is why I put your cashiers out there on the soup line at noon. So you could watch the soup. Okay, the soup and salad was all you could eat, soup and salad bar. But he wanted me and Linda to be limiting the bowls they got, but I couldn't do that. So he talked about me and talked about me, so I said, "I tell you what, give me a piece of paper here so I can sign out of here. I am going to hit the clock and go home. You can give this job to anybody you want." Cause the girl that made the burgers had a family and buying a house. Okay, this old house was paid for, my children wan grown. I was carrying my great grandbaby to the baby sitters. I was making just enough to pay for gas and get away from the house and pay the daycare. They were fixing to put her at night for 20 hours a week and leave me in the day with 40. Before this happened, I told them she need the money more than I did. I was already drawing Social Security. I said I will take the 20 hours and let her take the 40 hours and keep us both in the daytime. So that is what happened. I was only working 20 hours a week, so I told them this 20 hours you can give them to anybody you want to. [Ann Middleton] Yeah, it wasn't worth it. [Meverlean Moore] I hit that clock, I hugged that assistant manager, I told her, "I love you, but you are as wrong as two left shoes." I went back in there to hug the girl that went up talking about me behind my back. I said, "I love you but you are as wrong and two left shoes." I hit the clock at 10 o'clock in the morning and I haven't been back since. So I put in for my retirement. But see when you draw your Social Security, you could not put in to your retirement. It would mess you up. So I went on and put in for my retirement and come on home. So I have not missed that job, and since then the Club has closed now. There is no club there. So she is doing day work now. The same one that was talking about me, she is doing day work now. Trying to make it. Cause she started drawing social security at age 62 because she had a minor at home and the minor was getting a check. When the minor got 18 and had a baby, that was the end of that so she had to go back to work. She did not help herself at all by snitching. That assistant supervisor got fired, the club manager got fired. All those retired chiefs was calling here and calling here trying to get me back, trying to get me back. Everybody that would hear about it they were calling me to go back. I don't want to go back. Well, we can get you back, don't worry about that. So both of them got fired. The manager and the assistant manager got fired. So now there is no club there. Got nothing now, just a building. [Pam Carlisle] So this was in 1991 that that happened. At the NCO Club? [Merverlean Moore] Yeah. Cause J. W., my husband, had retired already and I know good and well I couldn't stay here at this house so I was just doing this to get me and the baby away. That was my great grandbaby that I had raised from birth. She just left here when she got 10 years old. She was born in 1989, and before that when I raised her mother and kept her until she was 10 years old. And then she went to live with her mother. So I was just doing it for the kids, you know, and myself to get me away from. So that was it. They could have the job. [Ann Middleton] I looks you have done plenty since you stopped working there, anyway. [Mervelean Moore] My husband wasn't exactly nothing. No improvement. He had no friends come to his house. He did not have nothing at his house. He never wanted to improve or fix the outside. I have a picture of what it was looking like out there. He just do not want to improve. Same all broke down furniture, same old everything. This dining room, I bought it. He said he was buying it for me for a Christmas present. He paid one $16 on it when Penneys was in Shreve City. He paid one $16 on it and went and went and got his mother to show her what he got me for Christmas. If it wasn't for that it would be broke down. The chairs need replacing, but they have to stay here. He never wanted to improve. So I have to do what I can do and I am just praying to the Lord to let me stay here to help the children. Because if the children would come to him and ask him to loan them something or they would need help, he wouldn't do it. When they come to me, I do it. I just paid off credit cards for this great granddaughter. [Ann Middleton] Oh, my goodness. [Mervelean Moore] My granddaughter not my great granddaughter. With my savings that I had at the Credit Union. He had nothing in the Credit Union out there. He worked on the Base too, he had exactly zero. So I paid them off and let her lower her payments down so she could have some money left over. [Pam Carlisle] So she is paying you now. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. I go direct to the Credit Union. I don't trust (laughter). Now, my oldest daughter I had with him, she and her husband separated. The oldest daughter I had with this second husband, she and her husband separated. He never paid a penney of child support with two children. They went all through high school and everything and left her with big bills. Now thousands of dollars of credit card bills. I paid that off. She lacks three more years before she will be through with me. But this last one with the $5,000, it is only taking her three years because she is a better manager than the daughter. So I said maybe that is what I am left here for. Maybe that is why I am here. [Ann Middleton] Maybe, but I think you still have a lot to do. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. [Ann Middleton] You know so much and you know so many people and you do so much. [Meverlean Moore] Well, I can't do what I was doing now at my church, because they won't let me. We had some people move back here from Dallas and they know everything. We are antique now, we are nobody. The church is too small. When we built the church, we had a small membership and we built it for the membership. We didn't build it (indecipherable) house. We paid for it in four years. [Ann Middleton] Do the same people still go to church there? [Meverlean Moore] The ones that didn't die yet. We had about twenty something die since the church was built. But we still love our little church. Now two people can't come… Water come down from a school under the church and it was a hole down there big enough for me, you and her, all three to get under there. You know, where the water keep it washed out under there. So it would eventually have fallen down. [Ann Middleton] So, it would have fallen in. [Meverlean Moore] So we just had all that sand moved out and had some more dirt moved in. [Pam Carlisle] Can we go back to the school and was it your grandmother that sold land for the Rosenwald School? [Meverlean Moore] First school, not for the Rosenwald. First School was off her place. Here is the deed, where she deeded the School Board one acre. She sold it, one acre. [Pam Carlisle] What year was that? [Meverlean Moore] 1911 and the school moved out before the church. The church moved out in the 40s but the school moved out for the Rosenwald. Mr. Rosenwald came through getting the school for all the black folks. Built one at Bellevue, one at Princeton, one at Haughton. Just all around. Down there at Ida, he didn't build one down there. They still had schools in the hall down there, since I been living here. Down Highway 71 they had a Rosenwald School, back down on some plantation back in there. But (indecipherable) Mary School. It was four rooms. [Pam Carlisle] This is the one on your grandmother's property. [Meverlean Moore] I don't know how many rooms over there. But Reverend Marston, when our deceased minister said he taught over there on grandma's place and he was only 16 years old. As I was telling you they could let them teach at that time. I don't know who else taught over there. But Mr. Collins was the principal down here at Princeton at the Rosenwald School. Let me see I had his initials here somewhere. But he is founder and owner of the Shreveport (indecipherable) Sun. [Ann Middleton] Really!!! [Meverlean Moore] Yes, that Collins. And the Shreveport Sun was founded in 1920. So I don't know when he started teaching out here. He was the principal, Mr. Collins. I had his initials on the back of and envelope but I don't know where I put it. [Ann Middleton] The Shreveport Sun began in 1920. [Meverlean Moore] Yes, 1920. He name was M. L. Collins, Sr., founded the Shreveport Sun in 1920. I don't know what years he taught out here. He was the principal. [Pam Carlisle] So, is this now the Rosenwald School in Princeton that you are talking about? And it was a four room school? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah and it was four rooms when Miss Martin came there and they raised their vegetables… had a little garden out there. That was when they started having some cooks down there. They would cook from that garden for the kids. When I was going to school, we had to bring our sack lunches. [Pam Carlisle] Were the vegetables sold to raise money for the school? [Meverlean Moore] It was not sold, it was just used to cook. [Pam Carlisle] To feed the children. Lunch or did they board there too? [Meverlean Moore] That was their lunch. They would eat the vegetables. [Pam Carlisle] And then they went home. They did not board there. [Meverlean Moore] Yes. We had to walk on the railroad track to get to school when it was raining because it was so muddy on the roads. We would get on the track. We had to come from this end of the track and the children that lived on the other end, they would come on that end of the track. I was telling my cousin, Sunny, about the track bridge is called trestle. We got on that trestle one morning coming to school, had our books, and the train…we heard the train blowing. Books went everywhere. You see you can't run down the side of a trestle, because that is a bridge. So we had to make it to where we could slide down on the dirt to get off that track before the train got there. The train did not stop at time for nobody. But that was the only dry place we had to walk. [Pam Carlisle] So you all made it okay. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, we made it, but books would just fly everywhere. We had to use used books. All our books were used books. We had to get the books from the white schools. They would be so dirty, momma would have us get paper sacks and newspapers and cover the books. My great granddaughter brought a book here, I don't know where they found it but I sent it right back. It was so filthy and it had enough names in there to go 20 years where children had used that book. They book was supposed to be discontinued, not be handed out. So I sent it back. [Pam Carlisle] And this was when she was in what school? [Meverlean Moore] Pratt School. My great grandbaby. It was just a few years ago. Ashley, her little white friend, he father would not let her bring the books from school. They found out what kind of books they were teaching and they would go and buy that child books. They never let her bring a book home from school. They bought her new books, cause the books were germy. Too many hands. But that was the only one I sent back cause all the pages were out and everything. [Pam Carlisle] What year was… so the four room Rosenwald School, did you go there from first grade? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. [Pam Carlisle] Until seventh? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah [Pam Carlisle] And that is how far the school went? [Meverlean Moore] That is how far they went. [Pam Carlisle] Do you know what year it was built? [Meverlean Moore] I don't know what year it was built, but I graduated there in 1934, I believe it was. [Pam Carlisle] And do you remember… [Meverlean Moore] 1934 or 1935. I was 14 years old. I was born in 1921. It must have been in 1935. You didn't go to school until you were 7 and graduated at 14, if you were not behind. Now I had grown children in my class. At time Signory Carter was the principal. Mrs. Mitchell was the visiting supervisor. [Pam Carlisle] Charlotte Mitchell? [Meverlean Moore] Yes. Miss India Lewis was my first grade teacher. Vanny White was the sixth grade teacher, and I can't remember what other teachers were there. There were no men teachers there. I can't remember what other teachers were there, but I know Signory Carter taught a class and she was principal. [Ann Middleton] You mentioned the Bossier Parish Training School that taught to the eleventh grade where the one in Shreveport taught to the twelfth grade. Where was the Bossier Parish Training school? [Meverlean Moore] Where the… I don't know… I guess they call it Middle School now or what. I know they cut it down to an elementary school when they cut out the high school. When they integrated, they cut out the high school and I think they had the elementary school there. It is on 157 going in to Benton. [Pam Carlisle] Was it Plain Dealing? [Meverlean Moore] No. It was not at Plain Dealing. No. It was not Carrie... It was a Bossier Parish Training School just before you get into Benton, before you get in the heart of Benton. Miss Mitchell's house was across the street from it, in front of the school. [Ann Middleton] That very building, is it still there? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, it is still there. I don't know but they changed it up to something else. [Ann Middleton] Was it part of the Rosenwald funds. [Meverlean Moore] I think they had Rosenwald there first. [Pam Carlisle] Well, remember Rosenwald was not for high school. [Ann Middleton] Yes but there were funds later on that were used for higher up, you know, past elementary. [Meverlean Moore] I don't think so. [Pam Carlisle] Not directly, I think. But many of the teachers in Rosenwald Schools had gone to that school since it was the only one that went that high… that many grades. [Ann Middleton] Oh, okay. [Meverlean Moore] They named it something else. I don't know if it is Career Center or some kind of something, but it is still there. It is a big building. But they closed… just like Princeton School, when they integrated the schools they discontinued high school down here. Everybody had to go to Haughton. [Ann Middleton] Was that like busing? [Meverlean Moore] My child that graduated in 1970, that was when they integrated the schools here, they came back and had their prom down here at their school. Those buses, I am sorry to tell you, they let the white children off on the front of the school and the black children off on the back of the school. I am not telling you what I heard. I am telling you, I put my best clothes on and went down to see for myself because my child was telling me about it. They could not get off that bus in the front of that school. They couldn't load up at the same time the whites loaded up. They had to set on the back of the bus and they had to set at the back of the classroom. I kept getting calls on my job. Mrs. Moore, Marilyn's dress is too short. I took my tape measure and measured it. It was supposed to be so many inches from the floor. Okay, they kept calling me about that until finally I just got fed up. I come home and that Monday morning I got up and put on my good clothes. I put my fur coat on, I put my leather gloves on and I put my heels on. When the principal got there, I was already sitting in the office, no I was sitting in the secretary's room. She asked me who I wanted to see and I said I want to see Mr. Holland, the principal. Well, he has not gotten here yet. Okay, I will wait. She didn't give me a seat, I had to stand there. I stood there at the door watching as they come in. The teachers' lounge was upstairs and down the hall. Every teacher that came in would look over there and see me and then rush on upstairs. The assistant principal rushed on upstairs. So, okay I folded my arms, I will wait. So finally they stayed in the lounge until they got tired and Mr. Holland had to come down. He finally called me in the office. He asked me what I wanted. I said I came to check on Marilyn. I have been getting calls on my job talking about her clothes and how short her skirt. I said her sisters are taller than Marilyn. Yesterday Phyllis had the same skirt on. Phyllis was tall and did not have nice hips and thighs and that is what made it be a little shorter on Marilyn. Phyllis was real smart and worked in the office and all that kind of stuff and they liked Phyllis but did not like Marilyn. Marilyn was popular with the boys. So Mr. Bodine's, my bossman, son was in Marilyn's class (TAPE IS BLANK) TAPE 2 SIDE A He said who is my child and I said Marilyn Moore. He said Marilyn, I can just look out my window and see her walking across the campus. He couldn't stand her. So okay. One teacher had called me and said Marilyn had brought a piece of paper to put in the trash can and she threw it over there and missed and hit the floor. I said did you tell her to pick go pick it up and put it in there. No. I told her I would call her brother-in-law in here. I said wait a minute, her brother-in-law is her brother-in-law at home. Coach Moore is her principal here at school. I don't want you referring to him as her brother-in-law here at school. So that is the real reason I went. So that is the teacher I wanted to talk to at first. So finally, he let me talk to her. When I got through talking to that lady, I was talking just like we are talking now, tears were on her, but she never said she was sorry. She was the counselor. I said did your parents send you to school (she was not the counselor) but when I talked to the counselor I said did your parents send you to school for a college education to measure hems? I don't think so. I say believe being a counselor calls for a little bit more than that. I said I am tired of you calling me on my job by measuring Marilyn's hems. I don't be there when she is dressed for school but I said I think you can find something else to do. So when I got to the second one and got through talking to her, she was the one that tears… It might have been the counselor, I don't know… yeah it was the counselor. So when we got through, Mr. Holland was going to give each one… you know how Mr. Holland asked me if I wanted to talk to one else, I said no. I don't think I need to. I came home and my friend drove the school bus, well she was on the black school bus driver. She had more black children on there. She got home and called and said, Meverlean, those children when they got on the bus said all of them were clapping their hands and clapping their hands. Mrs. Meverlean had been down to the school. She said, I don't think you have to come again. They were so glad that you came down there. Said things are going to be changed now. [Ann Middleton] Somebody had stood up for them. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. They was so happy that I came down there. You see, I was the president of the PTA down here, vice president, and we stayed on top of everything down here. But down here PTA was mostly a club. When you are needed (indecipherable) Mr. Bodine was president of that little club. I am not used to clubs. I am used to PTA where you all meet together. And they had the PTO at Platt's and PTO at the school behind Platt's, T. L. Rhodes. A teacher/parents organization with just a few people running it. So I didn't go to the meetings. I didn't even join. I didn't want to join. But anyway, they learned to respect me. [Ann Middleton] Did you get any more calls at work? [Meverlean Moore] No. Where is Mr. Holland. Mr. Holland bring meals on wheels on Saturday to that man across the road over there. When he is not at home, they bring it over here. He is a different person. He finally got God in his heart. He is bringing it from his church. [Ann Middleton] You ever asked him if he remembered? No, you wouldn't, would you. [Meverlean Moore] Let him go on. If the Lord use him, let him use him. (laughter) Mr. Montgomery, he is a friend of mine, he is Senator Montgomery now. I can call him for anything I want to call him about and he will see about it. But he was principal, Mr. Holland. We had a hard time but we made it. Marilyn got pregnant when she got 18 and had Leep and Donna anyway. Valmarie was teaching at Huntington in Shreveport. She had school over there and that is where she graduated from Huntington over there. She never would have made it at Haughton being pregnant. Put her blue jeans and tennis shoes on and (undecipherable) I was not used to that, you know. I was used to put your left foot first and march, you know, by a certain tune. I haven't been to nothing down there. They turned me off. Uncivilized, just running out someone's door… just boom. [Pam Carlisle] Something special. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. And she was football queen one year. I went to that and I said I would never go again. You know I think they were doing that because of the integration. I don't believe they had been doing that all the time. I just can't believe they were doing that all the time. I don't believe it. [Ann Middleton] What year was that? [Meverlean Moore] I don't know. [Ann Middleton] When she was football queen? [Meverlean Moore] I don't know. I got pictures and that is all. They got a little bit better because our pastor, Reverend Caples, was with us for the commencement. He was on that. I run across that program since I been digging out. So they did get a little better. But they had a white minister and a black minister. [Ann Middleton] And every year after that, they had a black minister and a white minister? [Meverlean Moore] I don't know about every year because I lost [?], but they did, whenever graduate school, (indecipherable) was a minister and Mrs.Grid's son who was a minister. Mrs. Grid over on 157. They both came, I think, came out the same year. And they had two of them at the same time down there. They were the two young ministers that they had. They graduated from Haughton. [Ann Middleton] Maybe that helped. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, I think it did. [Pam Carlisle] You were telling me once that when you were at the Rosenwald School, was it called the Princeton School or what was it called? {Meverlean Moore] No. It was called Rosenwald. Yeah, Princeton Rosenwald. Yeah. [Pam Carlisle] That you had to share chairs. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, we sat two to a seat. We had those desks with the tops on the desk and two children had to set on the seat together. [Pam Carlisle] Because there were not enough space? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, there was not enough space. [Ann Middleton] That was a bit of disappointment. I would have thought that Rosenwald would have seen to it that there were enough desks. [Meverlean Moore] He just build the building. I guess he probably bought the desks too. But he had so many to do. And they had those ink wells on those desks where you dip your pen and sometimes that stuff would spill. [Ann Middleton[ I remember those. [Meverlean Moore] Most of the time we had never had nothing. They never had ink. The had to use my ink. [Pam Carlisle] You had to use which? I am sorry, you had to use what? [Meverlean Moore] That liquid ink in a bottle and those pens that you dip in your ink. But whoever was sitting with me, they never had any to bring and they would use mine. Of course, I did not mind. [Pam Carlisle] Oh, I see. So, the whole time that you were there that there was a shortage of desks? [Meverlean Moore] Um hum. [Pam Carlisle] Do you know how the money was raised to support the school in the community? [Meverlean Moore] All I know is that the trustees were responsible for whatever was needed at school. They would either put on progams, singing programs at church and different things like that to raise money to do things what were needed. [Ann Middleton] That the African American community raised most of the money. [Pam Carlisle] And that is what you are talking about. That the black churches would… [Meverlean Moore] Yes, they would have programs and contests and stuff like that. And the teachers would work in with the church. The teachers would teach Sunday School. They came to Sunday School there. They were just like a member there. [Pam Carlisle] At Ealy? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, at Ely. [Pam Carlisle] You had mentioned that the school and the church worked closely together. Can you tell me more about how that works? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah. Whatever we asked them to do, they would do it. [Pam Carlisle] Like if the school needed… [Meverlean Moore] And they had the well-baby clinic in our church, after so many years before we built this church and since this church. The nurse would come once a month and take care of the well babies and the pregnant women and keep up with the blood pressure and everything and give shots. [Ann Middleton] Those were all women who came to do that? [Meverlean Moore] They were women nurses, yeah. That is how… right now the gas from Princeton School is our church is hooked on with it. That is what they gave us as honor for using the church. We have never had to pay a gas bill. [Pam Carlisle] For the well-baby clinic? [Meverlean Moore] Well when they were short of classrooms, they had classrooms in our church. Well they thought when we built this church that they would change it, but they didn't. They kept it on there. When we were trying to find… they had me trying to find… call into the gas company to have the gas cut off so they had to tear the old church down. Couldn't find the records of Ealy Church, so after the man searched and searched and searched, I found that update. And I don't know where I put it. He said he was on the school board and he gave me the number of the meter and whenever I called about anything concerning the gas, I know who to ask for. Okay, so we have a little fast custodian down there. He thought we were stealing gas from the school. He goes out there and cut it off. He goes to Benton… that was before Mrs. Smith got up there… and told them we were stealing gas from the school and he cut it off. They told him to go back and cut it on as fast as he cut it off. (laughter) So we had no more problems since then. But they always have worked together and they told us as long as we did not interfere with the school activities, we could park anywhere. That was before they put fence for the playground out there. We would park anywhere over there. But they fenced in, that narrowed our parking area down but they told us we could park in front of the school, anywhere we wanted to park on the front up there. All except Wednesday night prayer meeting. I said what prayer meeting? We don't have prayer meeting on Wednesday night because most all our ministers live away and at that time was living in Shreveport. I say if we do, it won't be that many. You know that would interfere with whatever is going on at school. It is in writing. As long as it doesn't interfere with school activities. [Ann Middleton] So do you still not have Wednesday prayer meeting? [Meverlean Moore] They have it the first Wednesday before the first Sunday. But that fence you see down there, they had fenced it in to the back corner of that church. A fire truck could not get back there. I went up there and talked to the principal, Mrs. Langston, she told me that she had been down there on Sundays and on Wednesday nights and other times and she had never seen enough cars down there that would need more parking space. I said but we don't have enough room for a fire truck to get behind the church. The fence is too close to the church. In fact, they had it hooked on to the church. So she did not want it done, but I got it done. The man that talked with me and told me they would put the fence wherever I said put it. Where the fence is now is where I told them to put it. [Ann Middleton] And there is room for a fire truck now. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, he said tell Mrs. Moore wherever she wants the fence, put it there. They tore that fence down and redone it. Like they had it the kids would come all down back of the church down there, and they had no business down there. Well, what else. [Pam Carlisle] That is all except that we would like to hear a little more about the CCC Camp. (laughter) [Meverlean Moore] Oh, have we finished with the schools, everything about the school. [Ann Middleton] I wanted to ask if you have any idea how many of those Rosenwald schools still exist and are still being used. [Meverlean Moore] No, no. The parishes took over and built schools. The schools that the plantations had, like Spikes, that school was on a plantation, okay they moved out. It is on 71 now. [Ann Middleton] They moved the building? [Meverlean Moore] The school had to come off the plantation. They built a new school that is still named Spikes. But at one time… who is Spike. Cardinals going around the doors at Spikes. You open the door and the Cardinals would… that was while they were still farming. The school was still on the farm. They don't have the same building. I don't know if it is still in the cotton field. But, there is no more Rosenwald. I don't know… here it is a picture hanging on the wall of all those schools. I don't know what happened to the pictures. The community started a canning center down there. Each family in the community, I think, paid $25 and they built that canning center and meat processing by the school. By the principal's house and my uncle worked in there. He cut the meat up for people when they killed. [Pam Carlisle] What year was that? [Meverlean Moore] Oh, he did this since I been back here. In 1947 he was doing it. They had cans… I guess the government furnished the cans. They could can peas, soup and all the vegetables at the canning center. They had those great big things down there. [Pam Carlisle] And that was in Princeton? [Meverlean Moore] It was right there at the school. It belonged to the community. But the School Board took it over. They took the house over. They claimed the house. The school board house that the trustees had built. And that was the school board center, canning center. They took that over. But now it is at Belevue. The processing plant at Bellevue does not have canning but it is meat processing. But they didn't build it. They didn't own it, but they took over. The cottage was not theirs, but they took over. [Ann Middleton] Well, that cottage actually belonged to the community, like you said. [Meverlean Moore] Um hum and the canning center too. Now the Fullers let them build for free on the Fuller place, that first high school. Mr. Martin, the principal, was a friend of the Fullers, so he talked them into selling land. Selling land a little at a time until they got it all on this side of the track. [Pam Carlisle] I am sorry, what was about? [Meverlean Moore] The Fullers? [Pam Carlisle] Um hum. [Meverlean Moore] They let the Rosenwald build they school for free. The Rosenwald school, but after they discontinued Rosenwald school and building school, they just gradually got the land from the folks for a little of nothing, you know because they were old people. They just talk them out of it. Gave them what they wanted to give them for it. I think this (indecipherable) with the principal. [Pam Carlisle] Were the Fullers an African/American family here? [Meverlean Moore] Um hum. They lived across the track in a great big house. [Pan Carlisle] And that was for the Princeton School or a different school? [Meverlean Moore] That was for the Princeton. Professor Kerr was the superintendent at that time. He was real nice. Up there where (indecipherable) Canaan Church on 157, there was a school, I don't know if it was a Rosenwald School, I mean Bellevue had a school. [Pam Carlisle] That was McKenon? [Meverlean Moore] Professor Kerr deeded five acres of land where the school had been to Mount Canaan Church. He gave it to them. He deeded it to them. So they own more than any CME church in this area. They own five acres. Well their school was back down in the woods, not the school, their church is back down in the woods, but the school was there where Mount Canaan Church is. Mount Canaan owned five acres now because Kerr signed it over to them. But I didn't think to ask him to sign that acre back over on grandma's land. I didn't think about it at that time. [Ann Middleton] Yes, you think about things later. [Meverlean Moore] Um hum, but he gave it to them. [Pam Carlisle] How do you spell Mount Canaan? [Meverlean Moore] C A N N O N or something like that. Now what else you said I need to tell you? [Pam Carlisle] CCC Camp [Meverlean Moore] Oh, in 1933, I believe it was. That was when Barksdale was built. Because my step-daddy did the runway on his knees out there. You know, had those concrete things with your hands, you crawl on your knees and do it. He did the finishing work on those runways out there. Wasn't as many as they have now. I think it was around '33, '32 or '33. It was barracks on the Base. It didn't use to be houses on the Base, well it was all barracks. Well all barracks out there behind (indecipherable) Church. All that was barracks out there. They had the canteen, they had the kitchen, they had everything over there. My step-daddy would go over there and help the man that who was over the kitchen and he would give him commodities, you know, to bring home. A whole gallon cans of smoked sausage and all rolls of bologna and stuff like that and cheese, and canned stuff. I think he really belonged to it, but he stayed at home. He didn't live over there on the camp. At that time, all parents who had a lot of children and small income or no income, one out of the family would have to join what the CCC stand for. [Ann Middleton] Civilian Conservation Corps. I had an uncle in it. [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, and they joined that. They got $40 per month. That is what we got after we got married. You had to send $20 home to the parents, so we lived on $20 and sent $20 home. [Ann Middleton] $20 home to who? [Meverlean Moore] To his parents in Tennessee. [Pam Carlisle] So when he worked on the runway at Barksdale, that wasn't when he was in the CCC was it? [Meverlean Moore] No, no, no that was my step-daddy that worked on the runway, John Toliver. But he… No. He was in the barracks. But the work that they would do. All this Sandidge land back here, they would keep all the underbrush cut. And they laid terraces where the forest could hold moisture for the trees. And they had dips where they dipped cows in the oil to keep the ticks off them. Then the cows would roam all in the woods everywhere but the old ticks would get on them. Those pretty berry vines, we would just all go over there and pick berries because there was no underbrush. But they only did that on the Sandidge place. They did not do that on other places, because Sandidge is the one that let them build that camp. They had a CCC pond that is still back there. Mr. Gray owns it now, but it is still called old CCC pond. They built a pond back there for the cows to get water from. Oh, yeah I didn't tell you about the syrup mill. My auntie that was renting the land adjoining my grandmother's land, which was her mother's land. They had a syrup mill and they would have horses to grind that cane. They would go around and around and that juice would go one way and the horse would go the other way. Then they would take it off and cook it until it got syrupy, and they would put it in gallon buckets. I remember that real well. [Ann Middleton] Laughter. I lived in South Louisiana a long time where they grind the sugar and it was in the Fall when they would grind it. Nothing smells so good, but you didn't want to get behind one of those sugarcane trucks. [Meverlean Moore] There were no trucks over here, just wagons. Then the Fullers had another down on Mr. George Fuller's place. They had a syrup mill down there. [Pam Carlisle] So the syrup mill was here in Princeton? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, it was over there on the Johnson place, next to my grandmother's land, off 157. My auntie was renting that place for her family and her husband. After he died, she just stayed on up there [Pam Carlisle] Aunt ?? [Meverlean Moore] Eula, grandma's oldest child. [Pam Carlisle] So she rented the farm and the land for the mill? [Meverlean Moore] From the Johnsons, that is where she lived but she farmed the land. They built terraces over there too. They set out fruit trees and kept that pine straw raked up in the forest and all that. That is the kind of work they were doing. [Ann Middleton] Are any of those fruit trees left, you think? [Meverlean Moore] No. [Ann Middleton] And they planted irises. Laughter [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, we had a trail in the back of my house, back over to grandma's place over there. You could walk through there, but now you can't because they put houses back there now. Mr. Gray got a house back there. [Pam Carlisle] So who owns the syrup mill? [Meverlean Moore] The Platts, Amos Platt and his family and my auth Eula, my grandmother's oldest daughter. [Pam Carlisle] Did a lot of people work, have jobs. [Meverlean Moore] No, they were just family. [Ann Middleton] And where did you say the other one was? There was two. [Meverlean Moore] On George Fuller's, that they call Fullwood's place. They changed to name to Fuller but it was Fullwood. That is when he went in. Now some of those names we talked about, those slave masters. You are going to find them in some of these receipts here. [Pam Carlisle] My goodness. [Meverlean Moore] I could never… That is Edward, grandma's oldest brother there. That is the one that took the land, she said. But they had pretty handwriting, that is all that I can say. [Ann Middleton] You can't read it, but it is pretty. [Meverlean Moore] You see me in bales of cotton, one bale of cotton for $42.55. [Pam Carlisle] Wow, where did that… [Meverlean Moore] They hauled it to Bellevue, because that is where would gin it. There is where the gin was. [Pam Carlisle] Was this in your grandmother's Louisa's trunk? [Meverlean Moore] Yeah, now this is one of my grandmother's nephews made this. They had good knowledge, you know. They could look at something that they would like to have and set down and make it. He made this little purse here. And all his little stuff is in here. It has got his little straps and stuff on there. They were gifted for making things. [Ann Middleton] They had to be. [Meverlean Moore] Un huh and I don't know… it look like soup there. I don't know what that is. These stoves were in Bellevue. Okay, the same kind of stoves was in Princeton before Princeton got burned down. They had a hotel in Princeton. They had dry goods, groceries and hardware and jewelry in Princeton right after you get around that curve, after it straightened out there was a row of things there. [Ann Middleton] How did it get burned? [Meverlean Moore] There came some kind of great fire through there. But my sister said an oil boom came through and that is when all these stores came into existence. After they got burned down, they did not build them back. The Watsons, Mrs. Opal Watson and I don't remember her husband's name now, she was one of the people who had stores there. Their land ran into grandma's land back behind her house. The Rushings, their place was adjoining grandma's, well they fenced in a lot of her land for cows. But anyway, my uncles wouldn't let us go and see about it. The circus animals in the Rushing's pasture and pastures in winter… [Ann Middleton] Did you say Russia like Russia? [Meverlean Moore] R U S H I N G. [Ann Middleton] Oh, Rushing. [Meverlean Moore] And the train would pick up the mail. Before they got burned out, momma said they had a nice post office there. After the post office and everything got burned down, they had to hand the mail sack on a pole and the train would come there and snatch it off. [Ann Middleton] Oh, for goodness sakes. [Meverlean Moore] And they would throw off the sack of fresh mail on the ground. Mrs. Rushing had to let the post office be there in her store. And grandmother had Box 54 Princeton, and I still use Box 54 Princeton. [Ann Middleton] Do you really? [Meverlean Moore] I don't get my mail on a route. I want grandma's box number. [Pam Carlisle] Oh, bless your heart. That is wonderful. [Meverlean Moore] Now this is a receipt signed by the McDades. We said something about the McDades, didn't we? [Ann Middleton] I have seen that name on lots of stuff. [Pam Carlisle] Well store that said Warren and Company. Was that any relation. [Meverlean Moore] To who? [Pam Carlisle] To you. [Meverlean Moore] No that was slave time. [Pam Carlisle] That long ago? [Meverlean Moore] That is right. That was in 1883. Indecipherable [Meverlean Moore] Out of that trunk out there. [Ann Middleton] But, can you read it? I can't read it. Can you read it Pam? [Meverlean Moore] I thought it said soup. [Pam Carlisle] Yes, it does look like soup. And down below, does that say bridge ticket? [Ann Middleton] That is what I thought it said. [Pam Carlisle] Did you have to pay to cross the bridge? [Meverlean Moore] I don't know. [Ann Middleton] William Marshall. [Meverlean Moore] Now I have an old Sears and Roebucks book. (indecipherable) Keep it over to her house. Way back in the 1800s. I wish I had it here to tell me the prices that tell me where grandma got all that nice clothes and shoes from. [Ann Middleton] She ordered them from Sears? [Meverlean Moore] I don't know where they ordered them from, but they did not have to pay much for them. I left it over there for keepsake but now I can't find it. Now this is where he got some stuff on credit here. [Ann Middleton] William Marshall sold to G. B. Abercrombie one bale of cotton with numbers. I don't know what that means. $42.55 Less hauling 75 cents, November 1983 [1883?] $41.80. [Meverlean Moore] Well, they couldn't read or write and the people with the pencil would pencil them in. Could never read, they just had to take their work for it. This was 1878 here. [Ann Middleton] You don't think that or are you sure that there is no connection between those white Moores and your family? [Meverlean Moore] No, I married a Moore from Benton. I don't know what slave master they was under up there. I don't know. [Ann Middleton] Taxes, let's see 1907 received from Peter Marshall. Now tell me who Peter Marshall was again? [Meverlean Moore] That was my grandma's nephew… no it wasn't… he is her brother. He was her oldest brother. [Ann Middleton] Peter Marshall is your grandmother's brother. Okay, $9.43 he paid on his taxes, but it only says Ward 6. It doesn't say where it is. [Meverlean Moore] I found Bellevue is Ward 6, because that is where they were living. [Ann Middleton] That must be, because I was looking at some stuff in Ward 5 yesterday that wasn't Bellevue. [Meverlean Moore] The Commercial National Bank was the only bank they had. [Ann Middleton] He had a vehicle in 1907. Well I guess they did, cause they charged him a vehicle tax. Would he have had… [Meverlean Moore] laughter. Nothing but a wagon. [Ann Middleton] And that was a vehicle? [Meverlean Moore] I guess. Like I said, they could do anything they wanted to. [Ann Middleton] Yeah, that is right and that is not right. [Meverlean Moore] Anytime you can't read for yourself. Now I had planned to go out there in that trunk and get some more stuff, but I did not get up enough courage to do it. [Ann Middleton] Now here is Walter Marshall. [Meverlean Moore] I don't know who that could have been. And now I don't have anybody living to ask, but grandma did not have any brothers named Walter. [Ann Middleton] Well, all he paid was $1 per capita tax in 1907. So he must have been living with Peter. Would Peter have paid the taxes on your grandma's land? [Meverlean Moore] He had succession of all the land. All those siblings… he cut them off and he put it in his name. They were automatically cut out. [Ann Middleton] That is right. That is what you told us. [Meverlean Moore] Last night I was going through this and I had more than this. I thought I never would get through with it. [Ann Middleton] (indecipherable) Very, very precious. [Meverlean Moore] I don't know what else. Those grand boys of mine went out there and pulled this out. How they kept it this good, I don't know. But that handwriting those people had, that is what fascinated me. But now, Walter Marshall, I never even heard that name called. [Ann Middleton] You know what, you could look in the 1900 Census and see who he was. He would have been in 1907. Well, no, in 1910 who would have been head of household on your grandma's property? [Meverlean Moore] Well grandma was over on Ealy place at that time. [Ann Middleton] But Peter Marshall was… [Meverlean Moore] Peter Marshall was over there in 1907. [Ann Middleton] So Walter would probably have been living the Peter. [Meverlean Moore] I don't know. You got all this? [Pam Carlisle] So, if Walter was paying taxes, then he would have had a household somewhere too, right? [Ann Middleton] Paid on just per capita because he had a head, I mean you know what I am saying? [Pam Carlisle] Oh, I see what you are saying [Ann Middleton] His child or each person in your household. [Meverlean Moore] I will tell you like J. W., my husband, white person could put anything they wanted to on that paper, cause black persons could not read. They could put any name the want to on there. They would say thank you boss and go on out. [Ann Middleton] I shudder to think how many people have been taken for those reasons. [Meverlean Moore] Um hum, now I did some adding up on some of these things and they did not add up to me. [Ann Middleton] Don't fold them. That is not good. I am sorry I can't… [Meverlean Moore] It is not good? [Ann Middleton] No, it is not. It causes them to break apart. [Meverlean Moore] One barrel of meal is $0.65. Is that a barrel or a bushel. Had to be a barrel. That is meal there $0.65. I know he didn't get a barrel of bacon. [Pam Carlisle] That is pound, I think, because that looks like a pound symbol right there. A pound of bacon. [Meverlean Moore] $0.10 and here is a plug of tobacco here $0.20. [Ann Middleton] Peter Marshall, he was doing all right because, I don't know what year this was, because I can't read. He had $255.00 in his checking account. [Meverlean Moore] There is something on there where he had made a deposit, a big deposit. But that was from the whole place. That was not just his, that was for the whole 300 acres. [Ann Middleton] Here it is, I guess, please list each check separately. What was this George W. W. Who was that have been that would have paid him $879.11. [Meverlean Moore] That is a bank receipt there. [Ann Middleton] It looks like the check was from this George W. W. and then Peter Marshall took $50 cash from it. [Meverlean Moore] That must have been who was doing the transaction. Who was doing the writing, I guess. That is probably who was doing the writing. [Pam Carlisle] That who was? [Meverlean Moore] That W. W. You know those people that use that Commercial National Bank over there as long as they lived. My grandma sent me over there, she had a leasehold on her land and had a check go to all her children. Her daughter that lived in Oklahoma did not get hers for two or three years. When I came home, she sent me over there to Commercial National Bank to see about it. In fact, they financed that Fiat for me. I went over there and got acquainted with them and everything because I didn't have credit down here. I get in that bank and all those had those black folks picture on that wall with cotton sacks on their back, dragging that sack. That was what it was decorated with, I said I am not coming back here no more. [Ann Middleton] Which bank was that? [Meverlean Moore] Commercial. I said I was not going back there, but I had to go back because I wanted to finance my Fiat and I went back. But grandma sent me over there to check on the… some of the lease checks that didn't get where they were supposed to go. She had leased land to somebody… some oil people… and they would send the check as long as the land was under the lease. She had one sent to all her heirs, her children. The one in Oklahoma had not been getting hers, and grandma asked me to go over there and check on it. I went over there and they wrote it down for me, and they all had been received and cashed. But what it boiled to was that my step-daddy had been the one that was getting Aunt Pearl's checks. They just hushed it and didn't say nothing about it because they didn't want to offend, so Aunt Pearl said to leave it alone. [Ann Middleton] Somebody yesterday told me about who I was working with, a researcher, I think it was Mr. Washington that comes in. [Meverlean Moore] Here it is that the Ealys were slaves under the Ealys in Texas, President Johnson's ??? maiden name, I believe, was Ely. I think that is what I was told. [Pam Carlisle] So, you think that the Ealys who came here had been slaves for President Johnson's wife's family? [Meverlean Moore] I was told that her maiden name was Ealy. I don't know how true it is. [Pam Carlisle] A friend of mine works in the LBJ archives. She would probably know off the top, but I don't know how you would find out, to trace slaves back. It would be easy to find out her maiden name. [Meverlean Moore] All the black folks used their master's last name. I have a friend… my daughter has a friend and her daddy got tired of using old master's name and he said when he got grown he was going to give himself a name. And when he got grown, guess what he named himself? [Pam Carlisle] What? [Meverlean Moore] Nervous and all the whole family all everywhere that is what they used, Nervous. [Pam Carlisle] How did he spell it? [Meverlean Moore] Just like any other way you spell nervous. [Ann Middleton] Oh, my goodness. [Meverlean Moore] And I said that was a pretty good one because he was nervous and tired of that name. (Laughter) He be all nervous. The name that he was using wasn't his, so he just gave himself a name. I am going to use the bathroom right quick. Silent Remainder of Tape - Side A - Tape 2 |
People |
Baker, Louis Booker, Susan Cardin, Clifton D. Carter, Signora Edwards, Susan Lewis, India Osborne Marshall, Peter Marshall, William Montgomery, Harold (Sen.) Moore, Meverlean H. Watson, Opal White, Vanny |
Search Terms |
Barksdale Air Force Base Bellevue Benton Bossier Parish Community College Bossier Parish Courthouse Bossier Parish School Board Bossier Parish Schools Bossier Parish Training School Commercial National Bank of Shreveport New Hope Christian Methodist Episcopal Cemetery New Hope Christian Methodist Episcopal Church Plain Dealing Rosenwald School |
Interview date |
2005-03-23 |
Interview place |
Princeton, La |
Interviewer |
Carlisle, Pam Carter |
Inventoried date |
2024-04-22 |