Mary Parsons Gray

Published on December 30, 2018

Mary Parsons Gray's word cloud "It, it has changed, the whole thing has changed now. Now it is, I don't think people, they realize the importance of [coal mining], and they realize that people are, um, who live there are like everybody else. And, uh, but I had a feeling when I was growing up that it was, uh, that you had to defend it."

Mrs. Gray made extensive notes on her transcript, and an annotated copy can be accessed in Special Collection.

Chapters

Education in Docena

Mary Parsons Gray describes her experience in the Docena elementary school.

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Race Relations in Docena

Mary Parsons Gray recounts interaction between the black and white communities in Docena.

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The Toothbrush Drill

Mary Parsons Gray recounts the school's daily toothbrush drill.

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The School Building and Music Education

Mary Parsons Gray describes the school building and remembers some of her courses in drama and music appreciation.

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Church Activities

Mary Parsons Gray recalls the activities of the church in Docena.

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Docena Housing and the Town Layout

Mary Parsons Gray describes the company-provided housing and the layout of Docena.

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Medical Care

Mary Parsons Gray describes the medical care that TCI provided its workers.

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Working in the Mines

Mary Parsons Gray describes her father's experience in the mines and recalls memories of his role in her family and the Docena community.

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Home Economics

Mary Gray Parsons recalls the school's home economics program and describes some of the scholarships available to students.

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May Day

Mary Parsons Gray remembers Docena's annual May Day festival.

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Politics in Docena

Mary Parsons Gray recalls politics in Docena, including an incident with the Ku Klux Klan. She also mentions her determination to attend college and her brother's experience in the military.

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Entertainment in Docena

Mary Parsons Gray describes common forms of entertainment in Docena, including a dancing club headed by Mary Dolliver.

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More on Race Relations

Mary Parsons Gray recounts her memories of Docena's African American community.

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More on Entertainment and Community Leaders in Docena

Mary Parsons Gray recalls some other activities for children and mentions some of the leaders in the community.

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Closing Remarks

Mary Parsons Gray makes some closing remarks about common misunderstandings of coal mining families and lists a few of the different church denominations in Docena.

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Transcript

FEMALE VOICE: This is an oral history interview with Mary Parsons Gray, by
Dana Norman.

DANA NORMAN: The following is an interview with Mary Parsons Gray who came to
Docena in 1920 and left in 1944. She is currently living in Atlanta, Georgia
with a family of two sons and a husband. Mrs. Gray, to begin with, can you
explain to me a little about your early childhood education in Docena?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yes, I, first I went to kindergarten for two years because I
was one of the people with a January birthday, and so I attended kindergarten
for two years and then I, um, went to school eight years, finished the eighth
grade there. Uh, yeah.

(recorder interference)

DANA NORMAN: Do you have any recollections of your early school days? What was
your school like? What were the activities that y'all did? Let's start off with
your elementary school.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Well, I think we had very good schools and the older I have
gotten the more I realize that they were good schools. Our fathers paid, I
believe, about a dollar and 60 cents, or something like that a month for us to
go to school. I think now that it must have been for the materials we used at
art and gym and all the things like that. We did buy our own books. We had
excellent teachers and the teachers were, most of them, were from the North. In
fact, I just can hardly remember any Southern teachers, about three for my whole
eight years that I was in school. Ms. Winifred Collins was the head of all the
social work [Director of Social Services] for all the mining villages. She had
been, I understand that she had been trained in Hull House in Chicago. And she
was very particular in choosing the teachers. Our curriculum was... very good.
Every aspect of our lives was, were covered from the books, book learning,
because we had all the subjects. And we had, a great deal of emphasis was put on
writing, Palmer Method writing, we were all, uh, we all write alike today. My
brother and I, write exactly alike, everybody was at school writes alike.

DANA NORMAN: You said, you said that your father had to pay tuition, a
dollar-sixty, a dollar-fifty a month?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Something like that.

DANA NORMAN: Did the company, TCI, did they supplement the schools?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Oh, I'm sure, they paid, I am sure, for all of the teachers'
salaries, and for everything else, that's all we paid. We bought our own books,
which were not very much, I remember. And then we had, our art supplies were
just fantastic. We had more poster paper and paints, and any type of art that
was, that schools were doing at that time, we were right in the midst of it
doing all of it. And as I said, a great emphasis on writing and spelling, all of
it, they, they really emphasized spelling. Grammar was taught. We all, anybody
that graduated from there who went to high school had a very good foundation in
grammar, math. We had an excellent physical education program. We had it every
day of the week. The first part of it was spent in exercises. We had gym
costumes that were really rare, for the girls. There were black sateen bloomers
with pleats in them and a white midi with a tie, a white (unclear) with a tie
that we put on to play. The boys were not allowed to play football. They played
kickball. I don't think it's soccer. It was a kickball. We played basketball,
volleyball, and had excellent teams. You tried out for them. And we played the
other villages.

DANA NORMAN: You did? Why couldn't the boys play football?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I don't know. I think they might have thought it was too
dangerous, because I think-- Or maybe they didn't have the equipment, or, I
don't know. But they played kick- I remember it was kickball, and they, I just
haven't heard of it since. It's more like soccer but they never didn't hit it
with their heads or anything. It was a thing on the ground, you played on the
ground. And we had it in a field that they played, and they would play all
through the year, we would play the other teams. Then we had, at the end of the
year, we always had a, on Saturday, a big banquet and uh, and uh, the, it was a
track meet. We, we all said track meet, I remember I won the 50-yard dash or
something I used to go do. But, uh, we got together and had all of our, it was
like on early Saturday morning and we would have all of our activities through
all the day and gave cups, silver cups for the best in everything. And then we
had a banquet with a lot of decorations, a very good meal and entertainment, and
we sang songs for all of our schools, school spirit, our own schools' songs. It
was a real fun time.

DANA NORMAN: So y'all competed against the other mining town villages?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Right.

DANA NORMAN: What were the activities besides, you had running and...?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: We had, uh, the boys and the girls, the girls had running.
And then we played team basketball and team, uh, volleyball, and by the way we
were very good. And, uh, the boys had broad jump, high jump, um, you know, and
all the races that, uh, 50 and 100 yards, and jumping over hurdles and, and then
we also had the, had the relay races, too, and we used to go, there was a
stadium build in Fairfield, a beautiful stadium, that had a track that we would,
uh, I think that's where we must have held those things, as I recall.

DANA NORMAN: It's still there.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Is it still there?

DANA NORMAN: Uh-huh. I think so.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: But that was one of the things we prepared for all year,
that, but physical, they did, there was a, a lot of emphasis put on physical
ability. And they, and they, some of the children that could not, the other
things they appealed to were very good in those sports. We also, one thing that
I remember too was out posture was such an important thing all through grammar
school. And we had As and Bs, and they were made, they were tags with an A and a
B. And on your report card you got a grade in posture, or some grades, I don't
(unclear). But, uh, it seems once a month they were given out and that day you
wore around your neck, you know, on a string an A or a B, whatever your posture
was, but this was another thing they have a great deal of, uh, emphasis on
posture. We were tested in our subjects, uh, we were given standardized tests
all the time. I guess a State [State Achievement] and I'm sure I.Q., I can't
remember exactly but Achievement and all sorts of tests like that. And I don't
know if that was in with the county or with the state or whatever tests were
required for people of that, you know, they just were.

DANA NORMAN: Did all the, uh, the mining students, I mean all the children who
were mining, uh, children, they went to the same school?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yes. Well there was a white school and there was a black school.

DANA NORMAN: I see, so it wasn't integrated?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No integration at all.

DANA NORMAN: In the track meets did y'all have, was it integrated, the track meets?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No, we had separate ones. They had ones, they had theirs and
we had ours.

DANA NORMAN: I see. Did, when you were coming up, do you remember any racial conflict?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Very little. The white families were located-- See, the town
was built on this square that we all called the parada, P-A-R-A-D-A, which it
was not, it was P-R-A-D-O which later I learned when I took Spanish. And on one
side was the store, which had M-E-R-C-E-N-T-I-L-E written on it, which was-- And
then we had the school on the other, uh, part of the square, grassy square, a
big grassy square, it was an enormous grassy square. And the church was on the
square. And um...

DANA NORMAN: It was a centralized town?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yes, everything went around this, was around the square. Then
the mine, the mine was located, uh, you couldn't see it from any of the houses,
it was farther, you could walk to there but it was farther down on one end of
the, of the community and such. Now, the white people were located in the
streets around the square and the blacks were on the outer edge. In fact, our,
our street, I lived on Fifth Street and in the back of us was Sixth Street, and
there were black families that lived right back there. Our, there was an alley
separating our house from their houses. But they worked for, you know, with, for
us. They did the washing and ironing and worked in our homes. And uh... I
guess I can remember hearing about the boys at times throwing rocks at each
other or stones at each other, something like that, they would get in some sort
of arguments, but I never had any, I don't remember any myself that I was ever
involved in.

DANA NORMAN: So you never went to school with any black students? Is--

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I never did. No, I never did. We liked the people, and later
when I worked in the store, when I was going to college I worked in the store to
help pay my way, and uh, they were, you know, I always felt they were our
friends. But it was like... uh, at the, it was the way people at that time
looked at blacks. Which was probably more prejudiced than we even had any idea about.

DANA NORMAN: But that was the way things were?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Mmhm. It was, that was the way it was.

DANA NORMAN: You were talking about something that you were, it was kind of
funny. It an activity that y'all did with toothbrushes?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Oh! The toothbrush drill. Yes. We, uh, every morning when we
went to school, we, well, someone was appointed to go early to fill up the
toothbrush cups, and we had out in the hall, in the cloakroom hall, a cabinet
build against the wall that was just wide enough for a cup to go in with a
number on the top of it. And it had a glass door and it closed, I guess to keep
dust away. And one person would be appointed to go about fifteen minutes early
and fill up all the toothbrush cups. And we all had to bring our own
toothbrushes that we kept in there. (laughs) They stayed in there all year. But
we would go in, put our books down and the first thing we did was get in line
and marched to music, we always marched to music. This is one thing, no matter
what we did, they used all good music that they could, we heard it. We not only
studied music and did classical dances to music and all that, but everything, we
marched a lot, it was always to music. But we marched out--I can still see
it--cold mornings, warm mornings, any kind of mornings, we marched out, except
if it were raining real bad, I guess we didn't. And, to the, to music we
brushed, and the teacher, the phys ed teacher was in charge of this and she
would stand at the front and she would say "upper--one, two, three, four" and we
would brush the upper one, two, three, four and the lower one, three, four, and
we went through the whole, with no toothpaste. We didn't use toothpaste, but I
guess the idea was to get how to do this, you know, to get it over, and it did
help people that maybe didn't brush their teeth, I guess that was the purpose of
it, I didn't question it at the time because I didn't know any more, that's what
it always would do, toothbrush drill. And then we marched, then we said the
pledge to the flag and raised the flag and then we went back in and that was the
morning, and I believe maybe read the Bible when we'd get back in. And that was
the morning exercises every day.

DANA NORMAN: What did your school look like? What was the inside like?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: The school was a very, uh, very nice building. It was kept
spotless. It was, um... The rooms were large. I don't ever remember any
overcrowding. Everybody had a seat by himself, you know, we had the desks with
the inkwell here and they were just in rows. And they were very light because
there were windows all the way down, big windows all the way down, I can't ever
remember-- And we had, very good paintings were in all of the rooms. I was
somewhere the other day and I said to my friend, "That used to hang--" and I
can't remember the picture, but, "That used to hang in one of the, in my room
one year." I can remember this famous picture. There were janitors. I can't
remember but I'm sure the janitors were there because they kept, it was just
spotless, and we weren't allowed to throw things around and, and to, we were
taught to keep it clean.

DANA NORMAN: Were they extra tall ceilings?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: They were tall ceilings because it was built at the time I
guess that you might have had those. The blackboards were always very good. And
uh... As, I would say it was kept in very good condition, as I remember. We
did not have lunchrooms. We went home for lunch. It seems to me that we had an
hour and at one time it might have been cut to thirty minutes because we didn't
live very far, and I, I just lived very near the school. But it was plenty of
time to go home and eat your lunch and come back.

DANA NORMAN: How far away from the school did you live?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Oh, I would say not even a city block. Less than a city
block, because I, we lived on one edge of prado. The houses around the prado
were I guess most sought after, I would say. I don't know.

DANA NORMAN: Did, when you went to school in the mornings, you went through your
toothbrush drill and you would say the pledge to the flag and then you came in.
Did you have any special activities in music? Did you have a music teacher that
came in and taught?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yes. We had art, well, we had music appreciation and as I
look back over the years, I realize it was all the good things that we should
have had, and also in art. And then we also later had uh, singing. We would
sing, uh, just songs, the old songs like a, out of a... Oh, "In the Gloaming"
and... uh... I was trying to think of, think of some of them. But the one
that's you'd always known. Everybody would sing. And then those who had...
Everybody sang. But those who had special voices might get to do something
special, but-- And drama, we had drama too, we gave plays all the time and
everybody was included in all that too. And on the holidays, as long as I lived
there, there were, we always had Christmas plays and dramas and then Miss
Dolliver, who was the social worker for the community, was very, had been in
dramatics and had, really had thought she would go pursue an operatic career,
but had lost her voice and had not gone into that. So we did have a lot more
music, I guess, than we would ordinarily have had.

DANA NORMAN: What are some of the plays you did?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: It's too long, I can't remember. (laughter) I, uh, (clears
throat) Well, at Christmas it was always to do with the, the manger and the wise
men, all the people of the community were used for these, uh, these plays. And
the school and the community was all one big family--and the church, it
all... I, I never thought of it as being something separate.

DANA NORMAN: So the church and school were integrated together?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Well, now, the church was interesting. Do you know about the church?

DANA NORMAN: No, I don't.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: It was a very nice building, a very, I don't know the type of
architecture it was, but it was a very nice building. It was a large church. And
on one Sunday you had the Baptist minister, and that was the Baptist Sunday. And
the next Sunday you had the Methodist minister. So I belonged to the Epworth
League. My family happened to be Baptist but I went to the Methodist and we, I
belonged to the Epworth League. And on the next Sunday I went to the B.T.U., or
whatever the Baptists call their-- And we all did this. And, uh, when the
ministers came, it, they always stayed all day because they were going to
college, they were all in college at Birmingham-Southern and Howard. And they
would come out in the morning and stay all day and go back. And so that meant
feeding them their meals. And I can remember some of them who had large families
that would bring all their children. And I remember at our house, Mother always
fed them when no one else, it wasn't convenient for anyone to have them, they
always ate with us, because my mother was a marvelous cook. And I can remember
this one minister bringing about six or eight children. I know it was that, it
seems to me there were about ten or twelve of us and, but it was all just fun.
And he happened to be the Methodist minister, but it didn't matter at all, it
was all... It was just a big-- I just remember it as a, as a big happy family
sort of thing. The only thing--and I don't know whether this would come in now
though, but I associate it with school. And it has come back to me over the
years many times. We used to sit in, I can remember sitting in school in the
mornings and we would, someone would see an ambulance, because the school see,
you had to come around the prado to get to the mines. And I can remember many
times sitting there, and someone would spy an ambulance. And then we all sat
there--maybe everybody else didn't--but I sat there in cold terror about it,
wondering if it was my father. And that came, that's something that's been with
me a long time.

DANA NORMAN: When you were in school, your parents, your father and mother, they
were centered around the mining work. You would get up in the morning and you
would, your mother would prepare you for school.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: At four o'clock my mother had got up and
fixed my father's breakfast to go to work. And he didn't come home until dark
many weeks, and when he worked seven days, which he did at times, he didn't see
the daylight for a long time. We got up later, the children got up later in time
to go to school mother would fix our breakfast and all that, and we would go to
school. But we would always see Daddy at night when he came in, because it would
be, if he went at four, he wouldn't, he would usually get in at, if it, it might
be dark at six o'clock or something like that, five-thirty or six and in the
winter it is dark at that time. But, uh, we always waited until he came to have
dinner at night. And I had a very loving family and a very, I think unusual, my
mother was a very unusual woman. She was the pillar, one of the pillars of the
community, in the church and in everything. When people had, were in trouble,
they came to my mother for her prayers, and um... We had to go to
church--every time the door opened we were there, my brother and my mother and
daddy and I were there. That was just, that was just part of it, you know, you
didn't question it, you went to church. And that was one of the social things.
Another interesting thing that I can remember happened about my school time but
maybe that would come in entertainment. About the movies we used to have? Shall
we wait on that?

DANA NORMAN: Oh no. That is part of the activities.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Well, the church-- This was when I was in grammar school and
this is before all the mechanization and all this came. Well, it was silent
movies, it was that long ago. (tape change) I can remember on Wednesday nights
and that's why, you know most prayer meetings around the country are on
Wednesday nights. I don't know if you know this, but in our community, it was
always Thursday night because the movie was on Wednesday night. That's when the
movie, the movies were taken to all of the communities. And it was like Charlie
Chaplin. And you paid fifteen cents and you went to the movies on Wednesday
night. But it stopped when the, when, when silent movies were over because I
guess they didn't have all the sound things to bring every time back then. So we
didn't have it after that. But we did go for fifteen cents, to the church, and
the church was the only place that had the lock, that was suitable for doing
this. We had, uh, we had a clubhouse there, a huge clubhouse there that we had
all sorts of parties and things like that, the library was located in there, but
the movies were at the church, which didn't do, some of the people didn't really
like that too much but we always got our fifteen cents and went, I remember that.

DANA NORMAN: So, the church was the center of activities.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yes, uh-huh, the center. There were lots of, we had, the
ladies had their organizations for the church. The ladies' auxiliary for the
Methodist, I guess, and the ladies' auxiliary for the Baptist church and then we
had G.A.s, whatever that was, for the Baptist church activities. And then we,
uh, the church always had, they belonged to all of other church activities for
the state and the cities and all this. So we would have, they would have group
meeting with other, uh, churches, not particularly just the other mining towns,
but what, say they would go to Ensley to meetings, that was the nearest city, I
guess you would call it, from us, four, I guess it was four miles over there.
But the church was a very important part, and the people who took part in the
church and, and ran the activities in all the churches were, as far as I can
see, the most, as far as, when I look back on it, seemed to be the people that,
uh, were the most important in the community.

DANA NORMAN: The leaders?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Mmhm. The leaders of the community. I really think so. The
church was very important. And the teachers stayed at a teachers' cottage there.
When they came, there was a cottage built and at one time, it was next door to
us, to my house. And my mother was very, very good friends with them and they
were in our home and we were, we would go over there. Then they later built a
new one, a larger one, and each one, they were beautiful, beautifully decorated
with, uh, lovely rugs and, and furnishings and everything.

DANA NORMAN: Was this, were the rugs and furnishings supplied by the--

MARY PARSONS GRAY: The company. The company did it all, all that. Now the
minister was paid by the people, and I'm sure it was not very much. It couldn't
have been too much.

DANA NORMAN: Did he have another job besides? Well, he, he was--

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Some of them did but they were trying to go to school and I,
I don't know whether they did or not. But I, I think most of them were going to
school and, and they would use this to help pay the way. Because back then it
didn't cost too much to go to college, you know.

DANA NORMAN: And you said the houses, the teachers' cottage especially was very
well decorated. What kind of, what was the style of decoration?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Well, um, I'd say traditional. Uh, lovely... Well at that,
let's see what time that was and I can probably tell you more. Well, like the, I
remember a beautiful grand piano in the living room. It was huge, the living
room. I don't know if the rugs were oriental or not, but they were very lovely
rugs, and the furniture was, uh... I can't exactly remember, but it was
a... I can't remember if it was Duncan Phife or what it was but it was, it
was good. It was really attractive and, and well done and then they had this
huge room and then a huge dining room and then a huge kitchen. And they had
people that did the cooking for them, and they had separate rooms, I think.
Maybe they had roommates, I don't know. I used to go there, you know, I would go
there at times with them because we were always very close to the teachers. And
they did many things for me, the teachers did, took me to things, to plays in
town and to a lot of nice things that I would not have been able to do. One, one
reason that community was so well-contained, the only way you could get out of
there, there was no public transportation except a "jitney" as everybody called
it, which, this man [Mr. Cushion] had an old car that that he went to Ensley
every 'bout hour in, you know, back and forth, he was a jitney and you could
ride with him. It was all broken down and we used to all get in there, the kids,
you know, we would get in and act really silly. It's a wonder he let us even
ride. Or, if someone had a car, and everybody didn't have a car. For instance,
we did not own an automobile until I started to college and they bought one for
me to drive to college in. So you, you had to almost get your entertainment
there. We went on hikes, oh, we did a lot of walking. And we skated. We skated a lot.

DANA NORMAN: Roller skating?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Roller skating. We had tennis, a huge tennis court that we
played tennis. And when they were going to have something special, they would
lock it, they would fix it all pretty and lock it up so we weren't, couldn't get
in, and I can remember climbing over it, a tennis fence is high. Climbing over
the tennis fence and getting in there so we could, we would play, we'd get up at
four o'clock in the morning to play sometimes. (laughs) But, uh, all kind of
sports were really encouraged. And baseball teams, they had, in the summer they
had wonderful baseball teams.

DANA NORMAN: Who did the baseball team compete with? Inner, inner village or...

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Uh, I'm trying to think. Maybe later, and my brother was a
very fine baseball player, and I'm trying to think, later, if they played with
a, if they belonged to some sort of a league. Maybe, did they have the Little
Leagues back then? They belonged to something that they played like that, I
don't know, but they always had a championship team because they were good athletes.

DANA NORMAN: Did they play with other villages, against other villages?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I don't remember that as, I'm trying to think who they did
play. I don't believe it was the villages. I think it was more of a, like the
Little League, of just baseball teams that they maybe would join the league.

DANA NORMAN: Mmhm.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: And play. But this, this went on even in, in, when I went
back later during the war and taught there.

DANA NORMAN: If you were standing, this is about the, how the town was situated.
In the middle of the town square facing the church, how were the buildings
situated around the square?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: (clears throat) Well, let's see.

DANA NORMAN: Fences, little things, like the--

MARY PARSONS GRAY: There was a fence. The prado did have a fence. I remember
that now with, I wish I knew distances or if I could tell you how big that is.
It was an enormous square. It wasn't a tiny town square. It was, it was a--Maybe
my husband could tell you. But, but it was a large square. The church, let's
see, if I wasn't standing in the middle of the square, the church would be...
Oh I remember something! There used to be, there was a fence because there were
gates, green gates... with revolving lattice work partitions--(quietly) oh I
hasn't thought about that in a long time--at either end, I believe, of the, of
the prado. There was one walk, no there were two walks to it. There was one walk
the long way and one the short--two walks. Let think about this a minute, cut
this off.

DANA NORMAN: Oh.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I'm trying to see how, see that-- (recorder turned off)

MARY PARSONS GRAY: That was right in front of our house.

DANA NORMAN: Okay. So, the fence was all, it was around the prado?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Probably to keep out animals or something, I guess. And I
can't remember how long that gate, that green gate was there, I just now can see
that. In fact, I hadn't thought about it in all those years. It was a green
gate. This really wasn't a square. It was a rectangle I would say, because it
was long and as you would go, let's enter it from one of the green gates, on the
left--and the sidewalks were brick, brick sidewalks. On the left would be, was
the church. And you would walk straight up the sidewalk... and the school was
next, and it, there was a great, great distance between them. It wasn't just
next door, it was--I don't have any idea about distances, very difficult for me
to. But the school, this prado sort of went, had a slight rise to it, and the
school was up on the left. Later the teachers' cottage was put over past the
school. Then you could walk from the school, on a brick walk, straight across to
the store. It was on the other side, the store was on the other side of the
church and the school, up on one end, sort of the middle, I guess. Outside of
there, down from the store was an ice house made out of the same kind of brick
that we could go, that we could get ice-- Oh, we also had someone who came
around on the ice wagon, who brought the ice around up and down the streets. And
you would go the door and tell him if you wanted 50 pounds or 40 pounds and then
he would come with big hooks and put it in your icebox, one of those wooden iceboxes.

DANA NORMAN: Oh, really?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: He always came around to the back door of the kitchen, put
that in your icebox. And all the kids would go try to hop on the wagon as it
went around--the boys--hop around the wagon and everybody knew they were going
to be killed or something, you know, but they, that was one of the things they
liked to do.

DANA NORMAN: In your home, you were telling me that the homes were, um, nicely decorated.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No, the homes were very modest. I believe we paid $14.00 a
month to rent the house that we had. And it had a living room. I don't know the
size. I would say about like the living rooms today, probably. Because it wasn't
real... It was, it was ample for guests. We had a dining room and a kitchen
and then we had two bedrooms and a thing we called the sleeping porch. During
that time, it got very popular for everybody to have a room on the house that
had no heat in it. It had something to do with tuberculosis, and I don't know
that. But you were supposed to sleep cold, where it was real cold and I can
remember the sleeping porch. Once, I remember the doctor came to see me while I
was ill and he said, "If you don't get her off this cold porch, (laugh) she is
going to die with pneumonia." But it, it was just, it was all windows, too, the
sleeping porch was all windows, and... But everybody--that was the thing to do,
to get a sleeping porch on your house.

DANA NORMAN: It wasn't heated?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No! It wasn't heated at all and it was cold out there. In the
summer it was very nice but I can remember it being in the winter and, and it
was really cold but that was supposed to be good for your lungs and good for
everything, I don't, I think that's gone now, but that's what, well, all but, we
still have rela- friends who raise all the windows. (clears throat) But, uh, the
houses were, there was no bathrooms, at all. And uh, um, there was water. We
had, we had a sink in the kitchen.

DANA NORMAN: There were no bathrooms?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No bathrooms. You had to wa- the bath, the only thing that
you had was a toilet down, right at the edge of, you walked, had to go outside
and go down to the, you know, there's an alley in the back of the house. And
these were on your property but right at the back of there, the alley. And there
were no bathrooms. There were no telephones. No one had a telephone. Let's see,
the tele- the only people who had telephones, the doctor had a telephone...
And the, I suppose the manager of the store had one, and the superintendent of
the mine probably had a phone, and the teachers' cottage had a phone. And that's
all the phones there were. Down at the mine there were phones, I guess, where
they were working all in there. But nobody ever had one in their house.

DANA NORMAN: Uh-huh. Was, was there a hospital?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: It was a dispensary. Down... As you, as you would go on
the road down to the mine, on the right there was a huge clubhouse that at one
time, and this was, I was very young, and I don't remember very much about it.
But it must have been sort of a clubroom. At one time there may have been
billiards there or, you know, or pool tables there for people to go like that
for the men. And I remember there was a wonderful soda fountain there and candy
and all because my dad would stop by and bring us things at night, you know. And
then you, as you proceeded on down to the mine on the left, there was, we called
it the dispensary. And it was a, uh...hos- well, it wasn't a hospital, but it
was where the men were brought who were hurt in the mine and it was also where
we could go for, uh, any... to see the doctor. He stayed there all the time.
And I think we paid a flat amount to the doctor a month. A dollar or two,
something like that and we got all this, you know then we went any time we had
anything. Now we did have, I guess with school we were examined every year and
we were given the tuberculosis test. Back then, tuberculosis must have been very
prominent, more than it is now because I remember we were given the test the
test every, every year. They also came, the dentist came one time, like they
would come one month and check our teeth and then they came once a year and
repaired all our teeth. They came and brought the chair and everything, set it
all up, did all that.

DANA NORMAN: Where were they set up?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: At the old teachers' cottage. They kept the old teachers'
cottage for meetings and to use just for what they wanted to, the one next door
to us, and dentists would set up a chair and all in there and fix our teeth. And
then we had a dentist also located who lived out there, that we could go to. Now
I think we might have paid. I don't know if we paid for that or not. But that
was, he was there all the time for you just to go to the dentist when you wanted
to. And you could go to the doctor when you wanted to. The doctor would come to
your home and make home calls if you were ill and not able to get out. We had
good health care that way.

DANA NORMAN: It sounds like the company just really took care of the people.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Well, they took care of practically every need, uh... And
to the hospital, you went to the TCI hospital over in Fairfield when you were,
when the doctor thought you had, you know, you had bones broken, or you had to
have, an illness that was uh, worse than that. You were only, the only people
who lived in the houses were people who worked there and if someone died or was
killed, they had to move away, I remember that.

DANA NORMAN: If a worker was killed?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Mmhm, or for some reason stopped, because it, the houses were
only for the people who worked there in the mine and if you were not,
uh... working there then, then somebody else needed it. Because I don't think
there were enough maybe for people who wanted to live there.

DANA NORMAN: Did they have any benefits for the families who lost, uh, the provider?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: They must have had something that I just don't know about,
because I didn't have anybody close to me that ever had to... But I-- Wouldn't
Workman's Compensation-- I'm sure they had that back then.

DANA NORMAN: Um.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Did they?

DANA NORMAN: I don't know. I really don't know.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Because I remember that the only time that I even came in
close to that was when-- Well, they had insurance.

DANA NORMAN: They did have insurance?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I think so. Yes. They always had insurance, I'm sure.

DANA NORMAN: Was this before or after they, well, were the unions strong then?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I don't know. I don't think so.

DANA NORMAN: Did you hear anything about any union men coming in?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: The only time I can remember, well, I know my daddy did not
belong. As I recall, many of the black people belonged to the union, but I don't
really know anybody else that belonged when I was real young. Now, there came a
time that everybody had to, I think felt that they had to belong some time, but
this was after, this was a more recent, you know, it was more recent. Uh... I
sort of, I put it in my mind about the time that all the mechanization and all
this other stuff came along. That's what I think but I'm not sure.

DANA NORMAN: Do you remember what the men, or the problems of the mines were?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Well, the pay was very low. (recorder problems) Uh... I
don't know about the working conditions because my daddy was a very quiet man
who never brought any sort of problems like that home. And he, uh, I think he
liked what he did, and I have only come to that conclusion the last year or two.
Uh, we always, I just felt so sorry that Daddy had to go down there every day
and I shouldn't have now as I look back on it because I'm sure he enjoyed what
he did. He was always a foreman or something and he, I think he liked what he
did. He was the, he liked the people that worked for him and they liked him. And
uh, I would, I would say this has come to me in the last five or ten years.
(recorder problems) I really don't know how far he went in school, he could have
gone much farther. He was the only person on either side of mother's family or
his family that had ever been connected with mining.

DANA NORMAN: Your
father read a lot?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: And he, and he read a lot. And he was, he liked history and
biography and everything we would bring in, and magazines, we always took
magazines, you know, at home. And I know he was, anything to do with history or
anything to do with biography, he liked. And he read a lot about his work too.
There would be, they had tests they gave in there for different jobs and he
would study those and bring them home but he was always very tired at night. He
went to bed rather early. And one of the wonderful things I remember about him
is that one of the things that the young people in the town did, and we did have
a lot of fun. We, we had a group of about twenty people, about my age, and on
weekends there was nothing to do but go to each other's houses in groups. We
were at the age, you know, twelve and thirteen, back then you were, you wanted,
you were together with, you wanted to be with the other sex, but you wanted to
all be together. It was just a fun thing. I can remember that he never once--
And our house just seemed to be where the people congregated. They liked to come
to our house. He never once, no matter how noisy or whatever said one word about
it and I know that we might, must have kept him awake at night, but he never
said a thing. Because the walls weren't probably all that thick. Now my mother
was, could wallpaper, and we had our house wallpapered more because every two or
three-- you know, it was dirty. (recorder turned off) My father had so many
friends (laughs) because he listened to other people I guess, instead of trying
to do all the talking.

DANA NORMAN: He really liked what he did?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I think he did. I didn't know then that he did but later I
just came to this conclusion myself over the years, because mother, to the day
she died, talked about how hard it was and, for him. Always, "poor daddy" she
would say and, and they were, they were very devoted to each other. And I really
had a very happy home life and uh... that wasn't true of everybody who lived
there, because there were lots of different kinds of people who lived in a group
like that. The people were mostly white, white, the ones I know were white,
Anglo-Saxon Protestants. We had three Catholic families in the whole, that I
recall, in the whole town, and one Italian family who lived not in the village
but out, who did truck farming. They were mostly Scotch, English, and Irish who,
who lived there. And uh...

DANA NORMAN: Did your, did your father always work for, for the did, did he
always work for the mines?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: As, as, as far, as far as I know, he did. Uh... And he
started rather young.

DANA NORMAN: What age?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I believe maybe in his teens. And he worked until he retired,
He retired before my sons were born. Uh... so it was a span of maybe, what?
Forty-five or fifty or more years. Maybe even more than that. He worked until he
was, until he was 65. Well, from 65 till in the teens was when he worked. Now he
did come, he did come out in his later years, he uh... had asthma and
uh...bronchial trouble and so he worked out, outside at a, they called them
the fans, it's the thing that puts the air into the mine which was an easier
thing, you know, an easier thing to do. The last few years he did that. But he
always liked to get with the people and talk about what they were doing on what
section and what level, and, and all that. You know he was a church- he went to
church. He was a churchgoer, and I'm trying to think if he had any other...
He just worked. I can't remember any... The garden, oh, he loved to garden.
And gardening and uh... Everybody had a garden and he always had a real
beautiful one. And every year, you know, there was a prize for the best garden
and the prettiest flowers and mother's won the flower prize so many times. And
once a year there was clean-up week and everybody had to, who wanted to, could
work on the outside and fix their yards up pretty and then they had people that
came out and we judged it.

Oh! I'll tell you another thing about school that was important. We were given
home economics three years, the girls, and the boys had, I don't think manual
training, I think agriculture, I'm not sure. Now this home economics was not
like some of the home economics I have seen in the schools I have taught. That,
that I've been teaching in. It was really important because they felt that some
people would never probably get farther than that [the eighth grade]. So we had
it in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. We studied nutrition, you know, we
went into nutrition and, and planning meals, and what to eat and all that. Then
we were taught, we actually cooked it. Were these beautiful, uh, with tables,
home economics, that had the latest of everything. And, and someone came out,
this, Ms. McClevie, I think her name was, went to the different places and had
the home economics, I don't know how many times a week we had, maybe two times
or three times, but we gave beautiful dinners with, with lovely, uh, we had a
dining room there.

DANA NORMAN: Was this in competition?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No, no. No, we had this every, every time. This was part of a
system. And we had beautiful cloths to put on the table, and were taught to set
the table properly and always flowers and we invited guests and it was a, it was
a thorough, very thorough course, and it counted--the grade was just as
important as any other grade. And sewing. We had cooking some of the year and
then we had sewing, and we then we made, we had to make, they had things set up
that we had to make all year. But, uh, and I can remember the year we graduated
during the Depression. It was 1933, when I got out of high school, grammar
school--eighth grade. We made our own dresses and I remember the material cost a
dollar and 50 cents. It was very difficult to get the dollar and 50 cents but we
all selected this material and then the color of, class colors were pink and
green. And we had to get, we made pink and green gro- grosgrain ribbons, I
remember, to go around, because our, our commencement was an important thing,
and everybody came to the commencement. Not only just the people who had
children that were graduating, but I can remember all the people in the
community, that was a very important thing to do and uh... and they came. And
then we had scholarships. They had a, one scholarship for eighth grade each
year. I can't remember the amount of money it was, but I remember I was a
candidate. I did not get it; a boy from Wenonah got it, which was the ore mines.
And he was at Birmingham-Southern when I was there, and his name was Parson too.
But uh, it had at first been maybe four thousand dollars or maybe it got down to
one thousand or something like that. I can't remember the details. I don't
remember but it was, uh, for college.

DANA NORMAN: I've seen a picture of him.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Of Cecil?

DANA NORMAN: Yeah.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Have you?

DANA NORMAN: Uh huh, I saw it yesterday.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I wonder what he is doing now?

DANA NORMAN: I don't know.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: He was at Birmingham-Southern and he was very, very smart.
His name did not have an "s" on it. But he, uh... he was there the four years
that I was there. But I, I, he was, I thought maybe he was going into writing,
but I'm not sure what he finally did. But he, he won the, that's the year I
graduated from grammar school. Was that year.

DANA NORMAN: And when you graduated from grammar school you went on to high school?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Went to, went to Minor, four years. And then out of the
graduating class at Minor [90 students, in 1937], my husband Herb and I are the
only two that went to college. Or finished college, graduated.

DANA NORMAN: Do you, uh...

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I didn't go with him then, though, until we were in college,
not, I was out of college when we started dating each other. I didn't go with
him in high school or college. [He attended the University of Alabama and I
attended BSC.]

DANA NORMAN: But you knew him?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I knew him, but I didn't see him very often.

DANA NORMAN: It seems like there are so many things right now that we-- We have
just covered just the first part of your elementary life and the elementary
school years.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: And we're getting (unclear), aren't we? [29:17]

(Recorder turned off)

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I'm just in the seventh, sixth and eighth grade, so I don't
know the total of all this.

DANA NORMAN: This was the May Day.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: On May Day, about that time. And the big theme would be, I
mean, we'd get the theme of the May Day, which, I don't even remember what one
was. And then they would take each school and, uh, like if you were the
shepherdesses, maybe they would say that Docena had to have a group of
shepherdesses and a group of dancers with scarves or whatever. And they made
these beautiful costumes. I can remember dancing in this silk that was tie-dyed.
They'd do, now, it was beautiful with all the colors. I just don't know how much
the costumes must have cost, but they, they were very expensive. The parents
didn't make them. I don't know who made them, I can't even remember who made
them, but I didn't take it home for mother to make or anything like that, so
they were made by somebody else. But they were just beautiful costumes and, uh,
every year it was different. And the, we would go, we would practice in our own
schools, (unclear) the dances or whatever we were to be. Then about two times or
three times before the May Fete, we went all over to Fairfield to that stadium
and the way we went was on the train. There were trains that used to bring
people, I don't know, to work. From where I don't know, Pratt City or somewhere
I think. And so we would, we would go stop by Docena and we would all get on a
car and then they'd stop and get Edgewater and start and get on over and
(unclear) and they would take our lunches and we would have a real good time.

DANA NORMAN: All the mining towns did that?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yes. And we would practice over there together. And then
there would be the day of the big Fete. I believe they took moving pictures of
that. I don't know where they would be.

DANA NORMAN: Oh! That would be nice.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Because you can imagine all these schools, this was really a
production and the costumes were authentic, they weren't just, I, I remember
the, one costume, I don't, the only one I really remember that I, that I wore,
that I loved so was this--was the scarves that were so beautifully painted and
all, and we did a dance with a huge scarf and I think it was to "The Skaters'
Waltz" or something. It was one of those beautiful...

DANA NORMAN: But it was all original costumes. They were...

MARY PARSONS GRAY: They were made--

DANA NORMAN: It was for the people that they--

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yes. And they were, they, I wonder what happened to all of
those because, oh there was a great deal of money spent on those and it was
really a production. And then we got to see everybody, you know, that we might
have known. And it was, it was a fun day too. To ride that train, and that was
really fun, to get to ride the train. So we really, uh, looked forward to all that.

DANA NORMAN: (unclear)

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I don't know.

DANA NORMAN: Were there any political speeches?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Mm-mm. No. It was not, there was nothing political. I just
can't remember anything political. The only politics I remember was when I used
to work at the polls when I was teaching. Now that's all I remember about it. I
don't remember any politics. I remember people talking about, everybody was a
Democrat, I guess, a few, but uh... I just, I can't remember anything about
politics. I remember one thing, I was talking to my maid about it the other day
and I don't know how, why, or when, but I remember one night at church, I was
sitting in church. And all of a sudden the door opened in the back and the Ku
Klux Klan came in and, and made a line down one side and a line down one and
whoever was the major dumbo (laughs), he came down the middle and he put
collection in the plate. Then they all turned and walked out. And I was
absolutely terrified and that's all that I remember about it. I don't remember
any talk about it before or since about it. You couldn't do, know who anybody
was, who, whatever but they gave money, and I, now I wonder, you know, after I
got grown and knew more about the Ku Klux Klan, uh... I wondered, I don't
know if they gave to churches (laughs) I don't know. I just don't know what,
what it was all about.

DANA NORMAN: Were they active, did you know?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No, I didn't know anything, no. I didn't know anything about
it, if it was active or not active. I never did know anybody that belonged or
anything or any-- It was never talked about. I don't remember it even being talk
about much. I had heard of burning crosses somewhere, but I don't know where
they burned them. [I believe they burned a cross in the front of a family's home
who were suspected of making whiskey.]

DANA NORMAN: Let me ask you. Was there a strong sense of citizenship of the
people in town? Did they, was the voting turnout high? Did they care what
politics discussed at, at the meal, church or in the town square?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: The, the meal, the... I don't remember politics discussed
at church at all. At school we were taught, you know, in Civics and our classes
like that. And I don't know if we had elections like the kids do now and vote,
you know how they would do in the classes now.

DANA NORMAN: They did have open elections?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Well, I don't know, but we did, we had presidents of our
classes that we all, and we were taught all of that I know. But I can't remember
any agitators or any, coming into town, I can remember nothing about that if
they, if they had it I don't remember it. And I don't--

DANA NORMAN: People were content with the mining town, with the things like they were?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Oh! Everybody griped, I guess, you know. They would gripe
about this and that and the other. I, I can... I'm sure. When your house
needed something, you know, repaired, all, they would all go down, you could go
down and put in your complaint. And everybody thought they [the company] were
slow doing that and... They painted the houses and I think you might have had
a choice in the color of the paint. I'm not sure if you did or not. But, uh,
there was no, the heat of a house either, they, they were either, now, the, the
three houses that the, the better houses, you know, that the su- [the
superintendents' houses], I think they had a furnace. But now, we, the rest of
us didn't. We had a stove. Uh, we had fireplaces in every room that we used
sometimes, but we had a heater, one of these heaters that would put out the heat
around your home [a circulating heater]. That's the--

DANA NORMAN: Coal?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yeah. That's what, that's what we had. And I can remember
when mother cooked on a... on a stove like that. And later she got a,
uh... a better, whatever was going around, then, I guess kerosene or
something, I don't know what was going around but she had that. But she was, she
could, she was a marvelous cook on whatever she had to cook, to cook with or
cook on. But mother... You know, I'd often wondered as I look back. Miss, Ms.
Dolliver tells me that my life has been a fairytale--my friend Ms. Dolliver, the
social worker. And I suppose it has but I don't... I have often wondered what my
parents had that just, that must have been special. To put-- You know, I knew
that I was, I, I was going to college. Everybody didn't go to college. That just
was not one of the things like high school. Everybody went to high school, but
everybody just didn't go to college. But I always knew I, I was going to
college. I mean it was just something taken, taken for granted in our house. [It
was a great sacrifice for my family to send me.]

DANA NORMAN: All the children?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: And, and I-- And other children didn't have that.

DANA NORMAN: Did your, uh, did you have brothers?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I have one brother. My one brother graduated from high school
and started the University of Alabama and when he was nineteen, World War II,
they had them all, everybody joined the--something that they were going to let
you finish school, but they didn't do that. And at nineteen, he was taken into
the Army and fought with Patton all the way across from Ireland to
Czechoslovakia, at nineteen, which was terrible. He came back and went to,
uh... Birmingham, uh, went to Alabama for two--I believe he said he had three
years in all, but he finally just, he never did finish. Never did finish. And
uh, he's a very smart person and has (recorder turned off) (quieter) done well
in his work. Let me see if I've got any other thing. I think I just told you
about everything I have on here.

DANA NORMAN: You don't know how (unclear)

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Well, I, uh... Some things I just don't remember you know?
(pause) Of course, I talk pretty fast, so I get a lot in.

DANA NORMAN: Well. (laugh)

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Our Girl Scouts was a great Girl Scouts troop. There's a lot
about that that's important.

DANA NORMAN: That is what I want to finish off on today.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: And let's see what else I wanted to say... Another thing that
was real important that I don't know who might have, to have that, is uh, is the
things that, as we were growing up as teenagers, that, uh, that Ms. Dolliver,
uh... was so important in. Because when a bunch of teenagers are just...
in a town like that, um, there's a lot of time. We couldn't work, nobody worked
back when I was real young.

DANA NORMAN: The teenagers didn't work?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No! There weren't, there weren't any jobs to work. There was
nothing you could get to work. When I was a, well I was in college before I
could get any work to do. Now later when my brother came along, he was four or
five years younger than I was. He worked in the stores, you know, the stockboy
and all that. You see, that, a lot had happened by that time, in about five
years, but I don't remember any of the young people, when I was like thirteen,
fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, well, sixteen all in there. I can't remember people
working. You couldn't get any job. There just weren't any.

DANA NORMAN: What did y'all do?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Well, uh... I read all the time. That library, I just go
down and get a stack of books each day, I would read them from Monday, I think
we had three days a week. I would just read, read, read. I read a lot. We also
got Ms. Dolliver to, this group of us, there were a group of us, and I think it
was around 20 of us, boys and girls.

DANA NORMAN: Ms. Dolliver was the social worker?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Mmhm. We got her to-- We all wanted a place to go and dance.
We all were just getting the age that we wanted to dance, you know, the Big
Apple and all those things were coming in.

DANA NORMAN: The "Big Apple"-- what is that?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: It was a dance. In fact, they talk about Betty Ford in it
today in the morning paper. It was a dance that you stood in a circle and
everybody did something and then I don't know, it's kind of like the Alley Cat.
An old-time version of that, something like that. But, uh, we got her to, uh,
once a week we had a club and I'm trying to think of the name of it and I just
don't know it. Once a week, one night a week, we, um, met for two hours. The
first hour we had games I think like bridge and, uh... you know, games like
that. The last hour we danced. And we learned to dance. She played the piano.
She was a marvelous pianist--still is. And we, uh, that's where we learned to
dance. And then once a year, we would have a formal and everybody had on a long
dress, and uh... You know, and we'd have a, we had a formal and we had
refreshments and we had a real nice thing, we did. But that really meant an
awful lot to children that age because I think then I was in the, I was about
thirteen. Twelve, about thirteen and fourteen, like in there. And uh, you know,
then you had your boyfriend to walk home with if you had one and if you didn't
have one, everybody was just, walked home. It was very safe to walk anywhere you
wanted to. I don't remember it being unsafe and we had an awful lot-- The place
was well-lighted at night, it wasn't like going where it was dark. But, uh, it
was just a nice thing to keep, uh... It was run well and everybody had to
stay inside, you couldn't go out and--

DANA NORMAN: You don't remember any trouble in the streets?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No. I don't remember, I don't remember any trouble in the
streets. The only thing I do remember that was on Saturday nights, always some
of the black people were shooting each other or doing something like that but
the, you know, we would hear about it later. I would, you may hear a gun shot or
something and you think "What's happened?" But I don't remember of anything,
uh... you know, in our little group. See, there, even a town of 200, I can
remember I took the school census one year and I think there were about 200
white families, I believe. I, that's what I remember. And uh... You know, you
weren't, you know, I knew everybody in that town. I really knew everybody that
was white. And I knew a lot of the black people, and I, I liked them and, and
then, and I remember walking, I used to walk a lot, and I remember walking and
just stopping and talking to those people. I don't know what we talked about as
I look back on it.

DANA NORMAN: Did you play with any of the black children?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No, never played with any black children.

DANA NORMAN: Any black children--

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yeah! When they came to, when their mothers brought them to
wash, to wash or something, we did. You know, the yard, wash out in the backyard
with a rub board and, and the kids would them, you know, they'd bring their
children sometimes. In fact, I remember one, uh, woman who used to bring her son
all, her son all the time. And I remember he used to peel the sugarcane and all
that and fix and build, make things for me, build things for me. But it was a
ma- it was a, it was somebody working for somebody, situation. In fact I, I
really... Since Herb and I have been here, there was, during this time, and
he is, his job is Vice President of Corporate Affairs for the Southeast. We
have, and for the first time, come into contact with well-educated blacks, and
we are with them a great deal. We, uh, he knows everybody. And, uh, we go to all
the, to, we, we've taken them to things and we go to their, uh... Uh...
Well, like Hank Harra's cocktail party, things like, you know, we're part of all
the community things. And Herb is also on the Board of Engineering at the
University of Alabama and also the Board of Engineering at University of Florida
and he's working, and Westinghouse is working with, uh, getting high school
black people ready to be able to take engineering when they go to college. And
they're now, have begun a project with girls. They also have been paying tutors
to, to stay in the dormitory and tutor these people, to keep, so they can be at,
some of them are almost at the top of their class now. Westinghouse, uh, does a
lot of things. They do a lot of minority...

DANA NORMAN: Well, did the companies do anything like this back then? Did they
have top black education?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Oh, they had everything we had. They had everything we had.
They had all the equipment we had, they had all the, the, they had all, uh, I
don't believe, I think they must have had a May Fete too. They had everything we
had. They had their own basketball, they had their, all their, uh, track and all
their stuff just like we did.

DANA NORMAN: But it was completely separate?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: But I never saw it. I don't remember ever going to anything
like that. Uh... But it was, it was completely separate. Yes, it was just, it
was separate. But everything was separate, there was nothing together then. It
didn't matter whether you, where you lived. There were no black people at Howard
College either or Birmingham-Southern when I went. And that's not long, that,
that's a long time, but it's not that long.

DANA NORMAN: Uh-huh. Uh, were the, could the blacks go to high school?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yeah.

DANA NORMAN: After eighth grade?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: They went to, a lot of them went to Parker High, which was a
very, you know, a very good high school there in Birmingham, but I don't know
where else they went. They, they did go, a lot of them didn't get to go of
course. They had to quit. I don't know what their jobs were. I don't believe
they had the, I never knew, back then one that was a foreman or something like
that. They may have had them, I didn't know them. Those were the best jobs, you
know. I can't remember, uh...

DANA NORMAN: Did you have any black foremen, leaders?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I don't know if they, they may now, I don't know. But they
didn't back then I don't believe. Uh, everything we had at school they had.

DANA NORMAN: I see.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: And, uh, I don't think the company gave, they, they had good
teachers, and I think they had, uh, I believe they had, I believe it was exactly
like ours, but I don't know this.

DANA NORMAN: Were the teachers white in the black schools?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No. They were black.

DANA NORMAN: Um... Getting back to the activities, I want to hear about your
Girl Scout activities.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Well, Girl Scouts was a fine Girl Scout troop. In fact, I was
a Girl Scout for, until I was too old and then I was a leader. I, I was there
forever and then didn't even have a girl. Somebody said "you going to have her
in Girl Scouts?" I said "no, I don't have any daughters." Uh, we had a real good
Girl Scout troop and we took part in everything that, uh... We were always
going to town, to Birmingham to take part in whatever was going on. All the
things we took part in. And uh, we went to Camp Coleman, that was, Camp Coleman
was our camp, and we, I remember I went there one summer and then I think I went
to Winnataska one summer I was a leader there. And, um, but we had all these
merit badges that we took, you know, and we really went, went out for all that.
And we had hikes and we studied nature, and uh... We just had a very good troop.
And signing and join- Ms. Dolliver, whatever it was in, we were in it, all of it.

DANA NORMAN: Did y'all have regular meetings?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Oh yeah, oh yeah, I think it was once a week and, uh, our
Brownie Scouts--that's when Brownie Scouts came along and I remember, uh, she
organized that. See, she had everything, (drop in audio quality) everything that
was not, she came to school and did some things too, like she taught me music,
piano at home [for 50 cents a lesson] and uh... Then she had the music,
singing at school, but she was responsible for everybody's entertainment in that
city, or town, of Docena. And she was, uh... And anybody that needed any kind
of help or encouragement or if, if there was a death or... She was, she was
on, she was in on everything. That was her job. She had a month's vacation a
year in the summer that she went way and other than that, she was on duty all
the time. She was not supposed to use her money, but she used her money lots of
times when it was needed, I know.

DANA NORMAN: Did the people depend on her for a lot, uh, when they needed help?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: They did. Mmhm, I'm sure they did, and then she was one of
the first people that the Red Cross asked to go to Iceland in World War II. And
then she was head of all the Red Cross, uh, um, entertainment and all over in
Europe during the war. Later, she went to Oberlin as the, as the Dean of Women
because the president of Oberlin had something to do with that recreation and he
got her to go up there.

DANA NORMAN: Are there any of the people of the town, uh, who may, are still
living that you know? Uh, that live in the southern area, Georgia or Alabama?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Do you mean does anybody still live there that was living
there when I, you know, as I was living there? You mean old, any old timers?

DANA NORMAN: Uh-huh. Or maybe the pastor, um, some of the young pastors?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Well, see the pastors were just so-- They didn't stay long.

DANA NORMAN: Uh-huh.

MARY PARSONS GRAY Because you know the Methodist moves everybody around anyway
but when they got out of college, they always got a better deal, you know, than
that, and they didn't even come-- I don't know of a pastor. Well, yes, I do.
That McAfee, Dr. McAfee [Dr. E.L. McFee] I think, who is, uh, at, uh, over in
Homewood, it's that great big church, Methodist church there. What's the name of
it, on the left, I know where, I can see it. I think he's still there, and he
used to come out there. But I think Dr., there's a Dr. Tingol, and I think he's
dead. Who was, and, and, I don't, um... I was trying to think if any of the
other people that, uh, or if they're all dead. Let's see, uh... Some, there,
there is one lady there, Mrs. McCord has been there all my life, uh... And
Mrs. Bonds lived there a long time and she still lives there.

DANA NORMAN: Mrs. Bonds?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yes.

DANA NORMAN: What is her full name?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Mrs. Erskine Bonds. Her name is Lois, mmhm, Bonds. And Mrs.
McCord, Mrs. Porter McCord. I think she still lives there and she was there when
I was, I mean, as long as I remember, she was there. Her husband has died, and
her children, of course, aren't there but she, I think still lives there.

DANA NORMAN: Was Mrs. McCord's husband a miner?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Mmhm. Well, he was an electric, he did, he was an
electrician, I guess you'd, I don't know what you call that. I don't know if he
went in any. I don't know if he did it inside or outside, I don't know.

DANA NORMAN: Did the people who worked on the houses, uh, who did the, who kept
the community up like the...

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Carpenters? There were carpenters and bricklayers.

DANA NORMAN: Did they live in the community?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: (pause) I have to think about that. (pause) I remember one
carpenter who didn't. He lived at Crumly's Chapel, you know, which is just a
little town right outside. And I just, I can't remember.

DANA NORMAN: Is it now called McDonald's Chapel?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No, there's, there is a McDonald's Chapel, but there's a
Crumly's chapel.

DANA NORMAN: Is there?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Yeah, and that's uh, on the, uh... That would be like you
were going down Jasper way. It was right outside, it was about two or three
miles over there, I guess. And that's where I think all the white children, when
they closed that school there all the, or when they did whatever, I think all of
the white children went (unclear) went over there to Crumly's Chapel or
something because Ms. Deaver taught over there.

DANA NORMAN: Mmhm. Um, did you, uh, were... (pause) I was going to ask you
about... Oh, a while ago you mentioned something about Camp Coleman, uh, the
Girl Scouts. Did they, did they go there once a year? Or was it, did...

MARY PARSONS GRAY: It was a summer camp. And you could go, it was all summer and
then you could go and, uh, stay a week or two weeks or something. I can remember
going and staying one week.

DANA NORMAN: And just staying at the camp?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Uh-huh. We also did a lot of camping ourselves. We used to go
to a place called Edwards Lake, I remember, and we had to, Ms. Dolliver would
make us plan the food and buy the food and divide up in committees. We worked
like kick. And then one time we went to, we used to go to Florida, several times
we went to Florida, and in this old Bob Jones College down there, and uh...

DANA NORMAN: Bob Jones College?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Uh-huh. It was an old, it was empty. It was old, it was at
Panama City, I believe. And I remember going down there and we had to plan that
food for a week and carry all that stuff we would carry and I guess we bought
some of it but the cooking details and all, I remember I had it one day, my
group, and somebody else had it one group. We had to cook it and serve it and,
for all--I don't know how many went. There were a good many, I would say. I'd
say 25 people, maybe, I don't know. But, uh, we really worked. And then at night
we always had our camp stuff, you know, and our songs--oh, the songs she taught
us. And the funniest thing, all these things we go to now, we go to things all
over the country and it's really funny to me that all the people about my age
know all the same songs (unclear). And all the, we all played the same games,
and all living everywhere we've lived and all that, (unclear).

DANA NORMAN: What games did you play?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Oh, like, Go Sheepy Go and told ghost stories out on the
steps at night and, and uh... What was that game about, Red Rover? And dodge
ball and we used to play that in the streets at night. That was one of the times
I look back on as being real fun at twilight, at night, I mean in the evening,
it was getting, you know, kind of late, if you ate din- if you ate your
supper--it wasn't dinner, we called it supper--you had supper about five o'clock
or something, five-thirty and there would be some time and I can remember how we
all used to get on, on our, we had, all had, seems like all houses had a lot of
steps then, I can, I remember steps. And we would sit on the steps and tell
ghost stories and just scare ourselves half to death and then play Red Rover
and, uh, just sit and talk, you know? As kids. Uh, I think I had a happy life,
but I always knew that I was going it change it. It was not going to be like it
was. I don't know when I started thinking that, but I knew that, uh, I had to
do... I had to go to college and then I guess that I was a social worker
because, probably because of my background.

DANA NORMAN: Did many of the people want to leave the village? Did the fam-
like, did your dad want your son to work in the mines?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: I would have said that mother, mother never had any idea,
never wanted him to and never thought he would ever, and I thought that of my
father too because I, we were, we were told that, I mean, we were led to believe
that that was just not what you were going to do--ever. And my brother, uh, did
not really get involved with the inside of the mine until the last, um, probably
10 years or longer, something like that. And I thought that my daddy was, would
be terribly against it and all, but as I look back now... He and Daddy were
closer [after that]. Daddy then was getting old. Daddy was 79 when he died, and
uh... I think that they probably became closer after my brother did get
associated with it. And my brother never had to do the work that my father did,
the hard work. It was another different thing then, and the salaries, now they
make such good salaries, it is not like it used to be. And it doesn't probably
have... I realized all the time I grew up, do you still have that on?

DANA NORMAN: Mmhm.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Oh! I realized all this time, there was a... I don't know
what, I'm trying to find the word, but there was always, I always felt that
people didn't understand, uh, our lives. The people who were not--did not live
in the mining villages didn't understand and that as a whole, miners were, I
felt were looked down on. And I can even remember when I was in college at
Birmingham-Southern, one time a minister said, now he was comparing the books
that you would find in a person's home, and I remember he said, "Now you take a
farmer," he said, "that's much different from a coal miner's home." He said,
"you take the books you've seen" and you now, I didn't speak up and correct him
because he didn't know what he was talking about.

DANA NORMAN: Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: And later he came to be the minister of one of these, I think
he's died now, but I think he was minister of one of the largest churches in
Birmingham. And he had a lot to learn. But... I think we thought we had to
defend it.

DANA NORMAN: Yes. Was a miner proud that he was a miner?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: (pause) I don't know. Because, see, I always thought just
thought it was... Those poor souls, it was just so bad. I don't know, I
really don't know. Uh, I, I think they must have been and I didn't know it. I
think I led a real sheltered life, too.

DANA NORMAN: I'm proud of my grandfather.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Mmhm.

DANA NORMAN: Very proud.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: And I, but it... It, it has changed, the whole thing has
changed now. Now it is, I don't think people, they realize the importance of it,
and they realize that people are, um, who live there are like everybody else.
And uh, but I had a feeling when I was growing up that it was, uh, that you had
to defend it. Now I don't know where I got it. [Not from my parents because it
was never discussed.]

DANA NORMAN: People--

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Now not at high school. Not at school and not with my friends.

DANA NORMAN: Because everybody was a miner.

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Everybody was alike. Not alike but I mean, we all had the
same... problems and all like that. And, and, but, see, I had all my
relatives who were not there, who, who lived other places. And that might have
just been something personal I felt. I'm sure it could have been. But, uh...
I don't feel like that anymore. But I b- I know that I felt like that when I,
uh, was growing up. I had to defend it. And I don't know why. I really don't
know why. And maybe everybody didn't but I think as a whole the public and, and
just people as a whole just didn't, uh... they didn't feel about it like we
do. (recorder interference) (quieter) Now this is not the Methodist and Baptist
I was telling you about. Later, uh... I suppose in high school, my high
school times that I first heard about the Church of God, or first knew about the
Church of God, which is called a Holiness church, I think by some people. There
were, they would have brush arbors, in the summer they would put up a brush
arbor and have a revival and all of us would go down to, the young people, you
know, there was somewhere to go to listen, to see because it was different from
what we had been used to and all.

DANA NORMAN: Was this set up for the mining community?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: No, no. This was just the people who did it themselves, who
wanted to, to, who were-- This would maybe be another, a minister would come and
then people who were interested in that church would go to this revival, which
would be outside of town, usually, on the edge, you know, in the woods
somewhere. They would survive and we'd, we'd go and watch them because it was so
different. They would talk in unknown tongues and, and their services were
different from the ones we were used to. And then later, they got a good many
converts and built a church outside of the community but in the vicinity of the
community, the community and people. I think it got to be a, uh, I don't know if
it's still there or not, but it got to be, uh, pretty important to the people
who belonged to it and went there, and I think that, I think it had a good many
converts. I don't know if they were all from the community or I don't know if
there were outsiders that came or not but that's the only other church that I
remember having any. There was no Catholic church. People went to Ensley to St.
Anthony's to church that belonged to the Catholic Church. And that's, uh...
Oh, then there was a time that the Mormons, uh... Had, uh, came there because
there had been someone people who families had been Mormons for many years and
they came and uh... met in homes and some of the people moved on out to
uh... let's, uh, Utah and are still there, and are still there with the
Mormon Church.

DANA NORMAN: These were mining people?

MARY PARSONS GRAY: Mmhm. But I believe- And the one family that I recall... (whispers)

(recorder turned off)

Audio Information
Attribute	Value
Interviewee	Mary Parsons Gray
Repository	Samford University Oral History Collection
Accession	SUHist/TCI/002