Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / Oct. 22, 1992, edition 1 / Page 3
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"...They didn't want to hear me crying about the snakes and worms in the field, so they sent me to the house to do the cooking". , . - Mary Blackburn Voice From The Past 95 Years Of Living... Loving... Teaching By SHERIDAN HILL Chronicle Assistant Editor Mary Haywood Blackburn dis- j covered early in life how to turn her * fears into an advantage. She grew up in the country, and was expected to work all day on the farm beside her three brothers and sisters. "I was afraid of snakes and worms," she says, "and they didn't want to hear me crying about the snakes and worms in the field, so they sent me to the house to do the cooking." - Blackburn's rural roots did not prevent her from completing her education, all the way to receiving her M.A. Ed. from the University of Minnesota. She has seen many changes in the 44 years she taught full-time and substituted in the High Point school system. From 1929-1976, she taught full-time and substitute taught. For the past year she has lived in Knoll wood Hall nursing home on Shat talon Drive. Her comfy room is filled with letters, plaques and ' mejfhentos from grateful students andtpublic organizations. One of her legs was amputated three weeks ago, but the surgery hasn't seemed to slow her down very much. She talks about the let ters she must write today, and cur rent issues of Time magazine are stacked by the bedside. "Yes, I read them," she asserts. "I watched the debates, too. I'm going for Clinton." At 95, her memory of dates and events is still impressive. Blackburn was born in 1897 in Spead, N.C. She can recall her childhood with vivid clarity, especially the diffi culty she experienced in getting an early education. "My father had his own team of horses, and he sent me to school. It was eight miles into Tarboro to the school, and my cousin would drive me in the wagon. The (white) peo ple in cars would drive real close to us and toot the horn and scare the mules. That's just the way it was." Through 5th grade, she attended a one-room school heated by a pot-bellied stove. Her father went into the woods, cut the wood to heat the stove and often stopped by the school early in the morning to stoke up the stove so the school would be warm^when the children arrived. Today's teachers might not be thrilled with the way class size fluc tuated 70 years ago. "She had to teach everybody that came," said Blackburn. "If it was 50, she had 50, of all ages and jl sizes and grades." Many students couldn't come every day, because they were needed on the farm to work. Neither her father nor mother could read, except for the Bible. Even people who could read nothing else could read the Bible, she remembers. "God was directing their lives. They lived by principles, by the ten commandments. God was just with us." Listening to Blackburn recall the way things were not too long ago, injustices of the past are brought painfully to mind ? as well as the knowledge that some things haven't changed much at all. "Wherever the whites went to school was so superior to ours, a ^>lack could never attend or teach there. The white man had every .. thing: cars and farms, huge farms with hundreds of acres. Most of the county was owned by four or five - white people, and they had Negroes tending it" she says. "They had chil dren by theNegro women. Now i-'m just telling you the way it was. If they wanted a Negro woman, they took her. Most of the children around Tarboro had white fathers. The husbands, they couldn't say nothing, didn't say nothing.*' Her family lived in a two-story, four-room house on a farm her father was buying. They made their own clothcs from coarse cloth they wove on a loom in the house. She remembers eating well. When she was old enough to attend high school, North Carolina had three "normal" schools for black children: Winston-Salem State, one in Elizabeth City, and one in Fayetteville. She went to Eliza beth City. By 19^20, she returned to Tar boro to teach in the same one-room school she had attended. Her monthly salary was $75. Five years later she took the train from Tarboro to Dunn, N.C to take a teaching position there. Two teachers met her at the train station, both nice men, she recalls. One of them, Victor Blackburn, fell in love with her immediately^ Later that year they married and moved to High Point. She substituted in the High Point schools for four years, then in 1929 was hired as a full time teacher. Things were different then, she Single Copy 75* Mail Subscription Rates (ptyabto wHtti order) In County 2 years $40.95 1 year 30.72 6 mos 20.48 3 mos 10.24 Out of County /Stat* 2 years $45.95 1 year ! *35.72 6 mos 25.48 3 mos 15.24 ? Yes, please send me the Chronicle, Name Address City St. Zip. Check endosed tor ? 2 years ? 1 y ?*r ? 6 month# ? 3 month* Mail to: Winston-Salem Chronicle P.O. Box 1636 Winston -Salem, N.C. 27102 The WinatonSislem Chronicle is published every Thursday by the Winston-Salem Chronicle Publishing Co. Inc., 617 N. Liberty St. Mailing address: PO Box 1636 Winston-Salem, NC 27102 Phone: (919) 722-8624 FAX: (919)723-9173 Second class postage 051 paid at Winston-Salem, NC 27102 The WlnetonSelem Chronicle is a member of: ? Audit Bureau of Circulation ? National Newspapers Publishers Association ? North Carolina Press Association , ? North Carolina Black Publishers Association National Advertising Representative: Amalgamated Polishers, Inc. (212) 069-5220 recalls. v "Teachers and mothers worked together. And we prayed in school. You could whip children then. After integration, we couldn't whip them." Whippings or no, many stu dents are grateful to her for her teaching methods, judging by the mementos in her room. A plaque from the Carl Chavis YMCA in High Point commends her for her volunteer work teaching night classes. A framed letter from High Point businessman and power bro ker Robert Brown notes that she touched and influenced uiany lives in High Point, and thanks her for her attention, patience and caring. She was recognized by a former student with a mock report card which thanks her for being a "posi tive role model, seeing talents and gifts in us we did not know we pos sessed, motivating students to strive for excellence, and exposing us to an appreciation of the arts and reli gious-values* ** * ~ ? Other than her friend a{$d fel low resident. Marge Jordan, Black burn's most frequent visitor is Patri cia Jeffries. Jeffries volunteers her time with Knollwood residents through her church, and she has ? Income particularly attached to ftlackburn, whom she calls "such a beautiful lady." Blackburn plans to keep up with politics and world events from her corner of the world. She also reads the Bible and several religious magazines. "I read the Bible," she says, "and honey, I'm sticking with it." Vote Tuesday Nov. 3rd If we build together - change will come ANN ESCH Republican State Senate Paid for by "grassroots" contributors Sex, Drugs, ? ? & Rock 'N Babies 20% 30% 40% Percent Reporting Use 50% 60%* Sexually Active 1 | Not Sexually Active C ' ex, Drugs & Rock N Roll may be a popular punch line, but when you look at the problem of teenage pregnancy, it's no joke. Our survey of 1 ,269 youths in Forsyth County found that maybe we need to change the line to read, "Sex, Drugs & Rock 'N Ba bies." Sexually aqtive teens are more tha r\twice as likely to use and abuse alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana and cocaine than teens not having sex. PREVENTING TEEN PREGNANCY IN FORSYTH COUNTY Funded by THE KATE B. REYNOLDS CHARITABLE TRUST Presented as a public service by THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH SCIENCES OF THE BOWMAN GRAY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE OF WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY * * V I ? ? T U E S DA Y, NO VEMB I R 3RD Mel Watt US. Congress (12th District) Eva Clayton U.S. Congress ( 1st District) Ralph Campbell State Auditor Bill Clinton A A1 Gore ? Terry Sanford - U.S. Senate ? Jim Hunt - Governor ? Dennis Wicker - Lt. Governor Ralph Campbell - State Auditor it Rufui Edmisten - Secretary of State ? Mike Easley - Attorney General Jim Graham - Agriculture Commissioner, it Harlan Boyles - State Treasurer ? Harry Payne -?- Labor Commissioner Bob Etheridge - Supt. of Public Insthictfon Jim Long - Insurance Commissioner ? Sarah Parker - Supreme Court ^ , it And all your Democratic Judicial Candidates ? ITS TIME FOR A CHANGE We Need Bill Clinton, Terry Sanford . Eva Clayton, and Mel Watt Working In Washington Putting People First. tMVt kw 1?V N?irlh ('.irttlliu '>"2 I h tm* r.?m ruinlliMlrtl ('.imiMign. ,ir<4ma IX-mgi r.tlw P.iriv t
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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