Jimmie Sims oral history interview, 2007 July 10

              Office of Oral History at the South Caroliniana Library
Tom Crosby Oral History Collection
Jimmie Sims Oral History Interview
Interviewee
Sims, Jimmie, 1922-2011
Interviewer
Crosby, Tom, 1940-
Date
July 10, 2007
Location
Columbia, South Carolina
ID Number
CROS 014
Use Restrictions
©University of South Carolina. The transcript and audio are provided for individual Research Purposes Only; for all other uses, including publication, reproduction, and quotation beyond fair use, permission must be obtained in writing from: The South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, 910 Sumter Street, Columbia, SC 29208.
Scope and Background Note
In this oral history interview, Jimmie Sims discusses his educational experiences in Union, South Carolina at McBeth, Carem, Poplar Grove, Beaty Bridge and Sims High School, being drafted into the United States Army, attending the Tuskegee Institute graduating with a degree in nutritional dietetics, field trips to Charleston, South Carolina, and Asheville, North Carolina, social clubs, organizations and sports activities at Sims High School. Jimmie Sims was born in 1922 to Ellen Lyles and Willie Arthur Sims. Tom Crosby interviewed Jimmie Sims at his residence on July 10, 2007. Interview covers Sims' education at McBeth Elementary, Carem Elementary, Poplar Grove, and Beaty Bridge Elementary Schools in the 1930s and at Sims High School from 1940 to 1943.
2
Office of Oral History at the
South Caroliniana Library
Tom Crosby Oral History Collection
Jimmie Sims Oral History Interview
Interviewee: Jimmie Sims CROS# 014
Interviewer: Tom Crosby July 10, 2007
Tom Crosby: Today is July 10, 2007 and I’m at the home of Mrs. Emma Jennings and her brother, Jimmie Sims. The two are living together now. And your name again, sir?
Jimmie Sims: Jimmie Sims.
TC: Jimmie Sims and your date of birth?
JS: February 7, 1922.
TC: February 7, 1922, okay. Now your sister has already told me the number of siblings, so you have one brother and one sister. Now what was the name of your elementary school, Jimmie? Do you remember them in sequence?
JS: Yeah, the same as my sister.
TC: The same?
JS: Yes.
TC: So you were first at McBeth?
JS: Until I graduated grammar and then Sims High.
TC: Oh, so now let’s see. Prof Sims was your principal at McBeth?
JS: My principal was Professor Sims, A. A. Sims.
TC: Now do you remember when you graduated from McBeth, the year? I guess you started school when you were six years old?
JS: I didn’t graduate from McBeth Grammar. I went to those other schools, the very schools that my sister attended.
TC: Okay, I see. So who were some of the teachers that you had at McBeth? Do you remember the names of some of them?
JS: Yes, I think Miss Lilly Wood. I think she was my second grade teacher or Miss Euna Kennedy my third.
TC: Kennedy?
JS: Kennedy and my Dawkins was my first, Rosa Dawkins.
TC: Rosa Dawkins, okay. Was Mrs. Pride there? 3
JS: Mrs. Pride was my homeroom teacher at Sims High.
TC: But was she also at McBeth when you were there?
JS: No, she was not.
TC: Okay.
JS: The principal at McBeth was Mrs. Douglas.
TC: Mrs. Douglas, I’ve forgotten her first name but Mrs. Douglas was your principal at McBeth?
JS: Principal at McBeth, yes,
TC: Okay and you left there around what grade level at McBeth?
JS: Third or fourth, something like that.
TC: Okay and then you went to Carem?
JS: Yeah, same as my sister.
TC: Do you remember was that a one-room school, do you remember?
JS: It was two rooms but only taught in one room. One room was used as a cloak room and wood room. And it was an abandoned house. It was not built as a school.
TC: It wasn’t?
JS: No, it was a house at one time, two-room house with a porch.
TC: Now according to sources that I have seen, Carem is listed as being a Rosenwald school so maybe evidently later on they built another school.
JS: That’s a possibility.
TC: And that’s possible, I see. Okay and then after Carem, do you remember the teacher, I assume you already told me it was Tobin.
JS: Tobin, yeah.
TC: T-O-B-I-N at Carem.
JS: Was it V?
TC: I think it’s Tobin I’ve heard, T-O-B-I-N.
JS: Okay.
TC: And then after here you went to where, do you remember, after Carem, Poplar Grove?
JS: Poplar Grove, that’s it, Poplar Grove.
TC: I think the principal then was Reverend Thompson?
JS: Reverend Thompson or is it Thomas, Thompson.
TC: I see. And do you remember one of your teachers there other than, well, I don’t know if he taught or not. 4
JS: Yes, he taught the sixth and seventh grade. I was either sixth or seventh, one of them.
TC: And then after there you went to Beaty Bridge?
JS: Beaty Bridge. That’s where I graduated from grammar school.
TC: And the principal there, that was one room too right?
JS: One large room and a cloak room, right.
TC: And the teacher at that time was?
JS: Robinson, Miss Brooks Robinson.
TC: And you went on those trips too?
JS: Oh, yeah. It was another world out there.
TC: Yeah, you had a field trip to Asheville?
JS: Yeah.
TC: And you also went to Charleston?
JS: Charleston.
TC: I see. And you stopped by the great university in Columbia, Allen University?
JS: Yes, we did. Seemed liked, what did we do? Did we drop off a cake?
Emma Jennings: We dropped a package off for somebody.
JS: Somebody at the time at Allen University.
TC: Yeah, I see. That was good that she had these field trips because we had field trips too when I was at Poplar Grove and went out to the airport I remember and the man let us go inside the airport and that was exciting. I remember that. So after you finished Beaty Bridge you went to?
JS: Sims High.
TC: Sims High, eighth grade?
JS: Eighth grade.
TC: I see. So now when I was, after I finished Poplar Grove, eighth grade was down at McBeth School.
JS: I understand what you’re saying.
TC: But things had changed.
JS: Things had changed, right.
TC: Okay and so you started at Sims High School and at that point the principal there was?
JS: Prof Sims, A. A. Sims.
TC: Reverend A. A. Sims, I see. I understand that he was quite a man.
JS: Oh, he was.
TC: In what way? 5
JS: Every way, he was larger than life. (Laughter)
TC: What do you mean?
JS: Meaning that when he spoke you listened.
TC: Really? I see. And if you didn’t you were in trouble?
JS: There you go, you were in big trouble.
TC: So now who were some of your teachers at Sims High at that time?
JS: Oh, let’s see.
TC: One or two teachers.
JS: Professor Rollins, he was the manual art teacher. And there was.
TC: And math?
JS: Math was Miss Baten.
TC: B-A-T-E-N I guess.
JS: Something like that.
TC: I see, she was the math teacher.
JS: Math teacher, the best ever.
TC: She was very good?
JS: Very good. You didn’t fool around in her class either.
TC: No playing around?
JS: Sarah Baten.
TC: Sarah Baten, I see. And you had biology?
JS: Biology under Professor Christie.
TC: Christie, I see.
JS: They were all good.
TC: They were good?
JS: They were good teacher, good black teachers.
TC: If may tell you an article I read that Prof Sims said he had to go out of Union and Union County when Sims High first started to find teachers that had a four-year degree.
JS: Yeah.
TC: So that was one of the things that made Sims High a great school.
JS: There you go.
TC: Because all of them had bachelor’s degrees. Now let’s see, you were born in ’22 and you started to school when you were around six.
JS: In the ‘30s. 6
TC: So you were there, do you remember the year you graduated?
JS: Thirty-nine.
TC: Thirty-nine, I see. Okay and then you mentioned to me earlier that there was a lady who seemed to have been a very demanding and interesting lady.
JS: Pride.
TC: Who was that?
JS: Miss Pride, my homeroom teacher.
TC: She was your homeroom teacher?
JS: Yeah.
TC: I see. So what was that like having her as a homeroom teacher?
JS: Well, she taught on a higher level, on a college level actually, because that’s the graduating class I was in.
TC: Oh, you were in her twelfth grade?
JS: No, eleventh at the time. That’s all that was required.
TC: So you were in the eleventh grade?
JS: Yeah, eleventh grade.
TC: And she was your homeroom teacher?
JS: Homeroom teacher and she taught on a college level.
TC: Did she?
JS: Yeah, hopefully somebody was going to college, right?
TC: Now when you say she taught on a college level, can you elaborate on that a little more?
JS: Well, there were subjects that you didn’t get in high school, you’d get them in your freshman year of college.
TC: Oh, I see. What subjects she taught you? She taught you one year, right?
JS: Yeah, graduating class.
TC: What subject, English?
JS: English Lit, that’s about it, English Literature, mostly Shakespeare.
TC: You had to deal with Shakespeare?
JS: Oh, God.
TC: I see.
JS: And apple tree, we used to go outside, the back window under the apple tree. You’d have to make up sonnets and whatever.
TC: Oh, I see, out by the tree back by the window? 7
JS: Yeah, out by the tree.
TC: You really had to do sonnets?
JS: There you go. (Laughter)
TC: So how did you?
JS: You had to visualize the passages from Shakespeare and draw them. You know visualization? You had pictures all over the wall. And at the time the catch phrase I drew was beyond the horizon there was success. That was mine and I’ve heard it since. I drew a mountain, a sonnet.
TC: It seems very dramatic.
JS: Oh, yeah.
TC: You had to be dramatic?
JS: You had to be and so I visualized in my mind there is success beyond the horizon and it stuck.
TC: Until this moment?
JS: And I’ve heard it, beyond the horizon. It’s changed a little bit but that’s my phrase.
TC: And you had to deal with Macbeth?
JS: Oh, yeah. Please. (Laughter)
TC: What did you say?
JS: Please.
TC: There was no getting around it?
JS: No getting around it. She was dignified the way she talked and the way she talked. And she didn’t have to give you a command; all she had to do was just pass you a look. You read what she meant, you and life.
TC: In other words she had that demanding personality?
JS: Oh, yeah, right, and that was the beginning of my, you know.
TC: Real role model?
JS: Yes.
TC: High class?
JS: Right, there you go, that’s the word.
TC: That’s the word?
JS: Uh-huh, high class.
TC: I see. Now I saw somewhere that she formed two clubs.
JS: Yes, she did.
TC: So I’m right? 8
JS: One for the girls and one for the boys.
TC: Do you remember the names for those clubs?
JS: UPC.
TC: That was for?
JS: The boys. I forgot.
TC: TPC I think.
JS: For the girls.
TC: For the girls.
JS: TPC and UPC.
TC: Were you so lucky?
JS: I was vice president after Malachi Duncan went in service. He was the president and he went in service and I took up.
TC: And they tell me those two clubs were like fraternities and sororities.
JS: Fraternities, they were fraternities, sororities and fraternities on a college level. You don’t hear about fraternities in high school. I don’t think you do. That’s how she taught.
TC: They referred to them as being fraternities for the guys and sororities for the girls?
JS: Right and we had the initiations and what not. I can’t remember what they were called.
TC: On the college level, I mean high school?
JS: Well, not as.
TC: I know. I know. Can you describe them?
JS: We had a paddle.
TC: A paddle?
JS: Yeah.
TC: Wait a minute.
JS: Initiation.
TC: You didn’t get hit with it, did you?
JS: Yes, you did, on your backside, you know.
(Laughter)
TC: The boys would do that?
JS: The boys. No, it wasn’t the girls.
TC: She didn’t come to the meetings, of course?
JS: No.
TC: But she would have meetings with the boys? 9
JS: There you are.
TC: And tell you what is supposed to be going on?
JS: The procedures and how it’s supposed to be done.
TC: Did you have to dress up occasionally?
JS: Oh, yeah.
TC: They guys had to dress up? I don’t mean during pledging time. I mean in general.
JS: In general, you came to school neat, everything in place.
TC: Every day?
JS: Every day. You weren’t sloppy like they wear now. You know where I’m going.
TC: The behind.
JS: The behind showing and all of that. No way. You had your nice little starched this and nice little starched that.
TC: Starch?
JS: Yeah, people starched stuff. Mama used to starch my stuff.
TC: And did you have to wear a tie sometimes?
JS: Oh, yes, there were times you had to go formal, so called formal. We would have, Prof Sims would call them socials. That’s what we called them, socials.
TC: And they would teach you how to maybe to walk?
JS: Yeah, whatever. We got the (unintelligible) you know.
TC: When you say Prof Sims would have a dance, that was open to everybody?
JS: Everyone, student body.
TC: But now did you guys have some activities only by yourselves like where you had a dance and you invited, you know, a girl?
JS: Off campus.
TC: Off campus?
JS: Well, yes, sure we would, the clubs, you know. UPC would.
TC: And TPC?
JS: Would complement each other. One would have, you know, and you would reciprocate.
TC: What were the criteria to get into that, the guys’ club?
JS: Well, you had to have a certain scholastic standing.
TC: Certain average?
JS: Average, that’s the word I want. And you would conduct yourself in a proper manner.
TC: As a young gentleman? 10
JS: There you go.
TC: Did you have to have let’s say a B average at least or you don’t remember?
JS: I don’t remember but it didn’t hurt. You don’t be falling below B.
TC: (Laughter) It didn’t hurt?
JS: You know you don’t be falling below B. I wasn’t in that category, B up.
TC: But now could you get put out of the club?
JS: Oh, yeah, you do something that wasn’t appropriate you would get.
TC: Get ostracized?
JS: There you go. The president and his members but we didn’t want to do that, with the approval of Mrs. Pride.
TC: What were some of the things you had to do or some of the things that were expected to become a member? I know you mentioned you had to have a certain average.
JS: Average and conduct yourself in a certain manner. I’d say just being a nice young man, a nice young lady, that kind of thing. Those were the days of the morals situations.
TC: Would they make you dress a certain way other than, you know, with a tie? To get in when they’re inducting you in the process to become a member?
JS: Well, we had caps. It all depends on what you decide you’re going to represent. Some had jackets but my class had ties and caps, yellow and gold.
TC: I see. Yellow and gold?
JS: Uh-huh, with UPC on it.
TC: On the lapel. I see. You were vice president at one point, right?
JS: At one point, yes.
TC: You were never president?
JS: No, I was gone before I made president.
TC: I see.
JS: I was inducted.
TC: I see. So what were some of the kinds of things, activities that went on when you were vice president? Did you put on a program or?
JS: Yes, that’s what I was going to say. We put on programs and we would have socials, not on campus, not at school, in individual homes.
TC: I see, homes, never in a building out somewhere?
JS: We were chaperoned at somebody’s home.
TC: You were still chaperoned at somebody’s house?
JS: Yes, in what you call the company room. 11
TC: What?
JS: Company room, special room that you entertained company, your dressed up room. And you have your little refreshments and whatnot.
TC: No beer? You were not supposed to?
JS: If you were brave enough you would sneak one.
TC: I bet you sneaked one, didn’t you?
JS: How about that?
(Laughter)
TC: Now, of course, you wouldn’t have any white lighting?
JS: Well, you know, seniors going to do something, you know, seniors think they know everything, do them things, you know.
TC: Now did somebody sneak some whiskey in occasionally?
JS: Well, I can remember one time somebody spiked the punch. (Laughter)
TC: Spiked the punch?
JS: Spiked the punch. Not spike, spike.
TC: They put a little in there?
JS: Put a little in there.
TC: Usually in that club would be about how many members per year, would you say?
It wasn’t a very large number?
JS: No, it not large. Okay, the student body I can remember the number of students there when I graduated. It was fifty-something.
TC: There were fifty-something you say?
JS: Yeah.
TC: Okay, we had a little pause here. There were about fifty when you graduated in the class?
JS: Yeah, I mean student body as a whole. But the UPC, I guess it was fifteen or twenty.
TC: You graduated in ’39, right?
JS: No, I graduated in 1943.
TC: From Sims High?
JS: From Sims High.
TC: Okay and you think there were only fifty students in the student body?
JS: I mean to graduate.
TC: Oh, fifty graduating. I’m sorry, I misunderstood you.
JS: They usually dropped out but they started. I don’t know how many started with us. People would drop out here and there. 12
TC: I’m sorry, I misunderstood. Okay, now here’s a picture. I’ll tell you what, let’s look at it later, okay?
JS: Okay.
TC: I see. So it was strict, it wasn’t easy to get into that club?
JS: No, it was not.
TC: Okay and the same was true for the females?
JS: The same, yeah.
TC: Now after graduating from Sims you went to Tuskegee Institute?
JS: No, I went in the service. I was drafted.
TC: Oh, I see. And then eventually you went?
JS: After I came out of the service.
TC: You went to Tuskegee and what was your major?
JS: Commercial dietetics.
TC: Commercial dietetics? What is that?
JS: Food preparation and nutrition.
TC: If I may ask you, did you work in that field?
JS: I did.
TC: As a career?
JS: As a career in New York City, health foods.
TC: Did you stay in one particular area of commercial dietetics? In other words, did you maybe work in a hospital?
JS: I did work in a hospital but it was food preparation, health foods.
TC: For a number a years?
JS: For a number of years.
TC: Was it a hospital?
JS: Hospital, schools, colleges.
TC: So you worked in hospitals, schools, colleges, I see. So you made sure that the items were appropriate?
JS: There you are.
TC: Not too much starches?
JS: Right, diets, at the hospital.
TC: So you made sure I guess for certain patients would get certain kinds of food?
JS: Right, right. 13
TC: Got to have a little protein.
JS: It had to be balanced.
TC: And then you have to throw a little carbohydrates in?
JS: Yeah, all that.
TC: I see. And then you had to look out for the fats, all those kinds of things. Okay. Now if we may go back to Sims High a little, how would you describe the teachers? You talked about Mrs. Pride and maybe one or two others, but in general how would you describe the faculty, the teachers as a whole?
JS: They all were good. They had degrees and they knew what they were doing. That’s who Prof hired, teachers with degrees and that’s why at that time it was such a high standard.
TC: In the state?
JS: Right because you could leave Sims High School and go to any college in the world.
TC: Are you aware that Sims High was one of the first accredited high schools in South Carolina?
JS: Yes, I am. That’s what I was trying to get to.
TC: I see. Do you know the year that it became accredited?
JS: No, that I don’t know.
TC: Okay, well it was in 1929 that there were three high schools in South Carolina that were the first black high schools to be accredited. They were Sims High School in Union, Booker T. Washington High in Columbia, and Mayo High School, M-A-Y-O, in Darlington. Those were the first three accredited high schools in South Carolina, black accredited high schools. And you know Booker is in the middle of the state, then they got Mayo in the Pee Dee area I think it is. Sims is in the upstate. So obviously Sims High was the first accredited black high school in the upstate.
JS: I wasn’t aware of that.
TC: Got accredited in 1929.
JS: Nineteen twenty-nine, okay.
TC: If I may give a little personal here, I did my student teaching at Booker T. Washington High in Columbia, which was the first black high school in South Carolina to be admitted to the Southern Association.
JS: So you learned to use your slide rule?
TC: Yes, I did.
(Laughter)
JS: I had to add that.
TC: You say I learned to use my slide rule?
JS: Yeah. 14
TC: No, I don’t know what that means.
JS: Geometry. Did you take geometry?
TC: Yes, but what does that expression mean when you say I learned to use my slide rule?
JS: You know what you’re about.
TC: Oh, I see. Well, I had the slide rule, my teacher was Miss Janie Glymph Goree.
JS: I knew her, Miss Glymph.
TC: From Carlisle.
JS: I knew Miss Glymph.
TC: She was the mayor of Carlisle till two or three years ago. She’s in a, what do you call it, assisted living facility in Columbia. But she was at that all classes’ reunion last fall and she would have been, that was the class of 1957 Sims High, they had a reunion last weekend or weekend before last and she would have been there. I think her mind, you know, is, I’m not exactly sure what it’s like, whether it’s the same each day or what, you know. But I understood she wanted to come but unfortunately she wasn’t, I guess you would say she couldn’t get someone to bring her. But you remember ( ) Baptist Church.
JS: Right.
TC: Okay, she was there last revival Sunday, August of last year. She was there and she was normal. She has Alzheimer’s. Yeah, so I had her for geometry. I had Mrs. Sims; I told you about her earlier and that D+ so I had her and oh, Mr. Rollins.
JS: Prof. Rollins?
TC: Yeah, he didn’t teach me but he was over the cafeteria. He was taking up the money in the cafeteria. So the thing about him personally, if I may, I think lunch at that time when I was in high school was only fifty cents or a dollar and he was taking up the money in the cafeteria and I lacked a quarter or fifty cents and I said, Mr. Rollins, I’ll bring it tomorrow, and he wouldn’t do it.
JS: No, you won’t.
(Laughter)
TC: He would not let me through that line.
JS: I believe that.
TC: And I’ve never forgotten it. Anyway, other teachers, I had Mrs. Williams, Mrs.
Glymph, and Mr. Sims. There was a Glymph from Newberry, from Gaffney. She taught English or social studies, Mrs. Glymph. She may have not come to Sims when you were there.
JS: Right, after.
TC: Now we come to the athletics at Sims High School. Did you play any sport?
JS: Yeah, baseball.
TC: Baseball? 15
JS: Yeah, I was a small person and football.
TC: Was a little too much for you?
JS: Yeah, I was too light weight.
TC: Who was the first coach you remember? Sykes?
JS: No, Casey, Professor Casey.
TC: Was a head football coach?
JS: Head football coach and basketball and I think Christie helped him, Professor Casey. He was my freshman homeroom teacher.
TC: I see. Now do you remember a Sykes Williams?
JS: No. He must have come after or maybe before.
TC: Yeah, he was the first football coach.
JS: No, I wasn’t there.
TC: I see. Now you graduated from Sims in ’43?
JS: Forty-three.
TC: Okay, three years later was the year, excuse me, let me ask at this point, how was Sims in football during the time that you were there? Were they pretty good?
JS: They were pretty good, yeah.
TC: Pretty good, okay, and Prof Sims was at the helm of the school?
JS: Oh, yeah, of the school.
TC: I see. Well, three years later was the year that Sims High started its football winning streak.
JS: That’s after I left.
TC: Yeah, 1946. Did you know Mr. Clayton Jeters’ son, T. B. Jeter?
JS: T. B. Jeter, yeah.
TC: You knew him?
JS: Uh-huh.
TC: Okay, well I found out recently that he was on that team in 1946 when Sims High started its winning streak.
JS: He was?
TC: He was on that team.
JS: T. B. Jeter, yeah.
TC: And someone asked me, maybe I have to look in this paper here to see Johnny Gossett may have been on it too. But anyway, Sims High played ninety-six games without a loss.
JS: Under Professor Moorer? 16
TC: Most of it was, yes, because Moorer came there, I think Moorer came there in ’46. He became football coach in 1946.
JS: That was after I left.
TC: And they did not lose a game until.
JS: That was Moorer.
TC: Yes, they did not lose a game until October 1, 1954. Our other arch rival in the upstate beat Sims High on October 1, 1954 and that school was from Spartanburg.
JS: Spartanburg?
TC: Sterling is Greenville.
JS: Yeah.
TC: Now who’s in Spartanburg?
JS: Carver High.
TC: Carver High stopped the streak. Yeah, Carver High stopped the streak. And that record still stands in South Carolina, having played ninety-six games without a loss. Now there were four ties though and one of those ties I found out about a month ago, he is the contractor for renovating Chappelle Administration Building at Allen. Sanders High School in Laurens, do you remember that school, Sanders High?
JS: I’m not familiar with it.
TC: Okay, so and you played baseball you said?
JS: Yeah.
TC: And who was your coach, do you remember at least one of them?
JS: I called his name.
TC: Casey?
JS: Yeah, he was athletic director.
TC: He was? You don’t recall his first name?
JS: No, I’ve forgotten his name. That’s way back.
TC: Yeah and he was the athletic director at least in 1943 or ’42, because that’s when you graduated, right?
JS: Yeah, in ’43.
TC: So the athletic director around ’42, ’43 was Casey?
JS: Yeah, ’40, ’41. I forget those years. I went there in ’39.
TC: Yeah and so when you went there he was the athletic director, you mean ‘39?
JS: Thirty-nine, yeah. 17
TC: That’s something that I had not found out yet. I’ll tell you what I’m doing when we finish this interview here. Okay, so after Sims you went into the Army and then after that you went to Tuskegee Institute.
JS: Tuskegee, yeah.
TC: And your major there was?
JS: Commercial dietetic.
TC: Okay.
JS: Specialized in health foods.
TC: So how do you think Sims prepared you for college?
JS: It was the basic foundation. It was everything. Had it not been for those good black teachers, I couldn’t have gone to Tuskegee.
TC: And they gave you what was needed to do well there, Sims High did?
JS: Well, my career, I retired from it in New York City.
TC: So evidently Sims High did an excellent job.
JS: Yes, a perfect job and Beaty Bridge was the foundation of the basics under Miss Brooks.
TC: Yeah, and we shouldn’t overlook that. The very basics started at the elementary level.
JS: Yeah.
TC: And those teachers did a good job all the way through?
JS: Oh, yeah.
TC: I would say that Tuskegee must have done a pretty good job too.
JS: Well, you had to even get there, Tuskegee.
TC: You just didn’t walk in there?
JS: No, sir.
TC: It had to be some good background.
JS: Oh, yes.
TC: I see. Now I’ve forgotten the year that Carver passed. He wasn’t around there at that time?
JS: No, Dr. Carver was gone when I went there but the museum, I was on campus, you know, some part of it burned, some of his implements.
TC: Instruments?
JS: Instruments, yes, ignited. It wasn’t all destroyed. I was on campus when that happened.
TC: I see.
JS: Some of the chemicals that he used just lying dormant.
TC: Yes. He made dyes and those kinds of things too. 18
JS: He made everything.
TC: I saw it and he also did a good bit of work with plants other than from the, you might say, pharmaceutical.
JS: Yeah, pharmaceutical work and in canning vegetables.
TC: The process?
JS: Yeah, all of that.
TC: Yeah. Okay, do you have any comments you’d like to make maybe with reference to something that you said, do you want to say more about it or something that we haven’t said in general with reference to Sims High School and so forth?
JS: Well, not really but Sims High gave me the insight of what education was actually all about and I wanted to be a part of it and I wanted to go further and I went as far as I possibly could and that’s the way it was.
TC: It has served you well.
JS: Yes.
TC: May I ask one last thing? What foreign language or languages were taught at Sims when you were there?
JS: At the time French.
TC: French.
JS: I didn’t learn it.
TC: Excuse me?
JS: I didn’t take it.
TC: You didn’t take it? Okay, how about no Latin?
JS: No.
TC: Didn’t have Latin?
JS: I don’t think we had Latin classes. I was tied up with English, you know, verbs and adverbs and all that stuff. That’s the best I could do under. (Laughter)
TC: Pride?
JS: No, not Miss Pride. The English teacher was, I can’t think of her name now.
TC: But she had you working?
JS: Oh, yeah.
TC: Had to diagram those sentences?
JS: That’s right, proper places and all.
TC: But one person you will not forget is Miss Pride?
JS: Miss Pride. 19
TC: There’s no way?
JS: No way.
(Laughter)
TC: Okay, well I certainly have enjoyed talking to you and I’ve learned a lot.
JS: Same here but a lot of that stuff I’ve forgotten. Well, I’ve had time to forget it.
TC: Yeah, and a lot you haven’t forgotten though.
JS: Well, yeah, some stick in your mind and won’t go away.
TC: Certain things about those certain teachers they remain.
JS: Remain, yeah, will always be there.
TC: Yeah. And have been very helpful to us.
JS: Oh, yeah.
TC: Okay, well I certainly thank you for your time and your interest.
JS: Thank you.
End of interview