Emily Tillman interview with Frances Elyea; Philip Perkins; Alan Neely; Tom Branch, III; Hughes Roberts; Caroline Bethea; Lillian Deakins; and Spring Street School students (part two)

The John Burrison Georgia Folklore Archive recordings contains unedited versions of all interviews. Some material may contain descriptions of violence, offensive language, or negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. There are instances of racist language and description, particularly in regards to African Americans. These items are presented as part of the historical record. This project is a repository for the stories, accounts, and memories of those who chose to share their experiences for educational purposes. The viewpoints expressed in this project do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the Atlanta History Center or any of its officers, agents, employees, or volunteers. The Atlanta History Center makes no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of any information contained in the interviews and expressly disclaims any liability therefore. If you believe you are the copyright holder of any of the content published in this collection and do not want it publicly available, please contact the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center at 404-814-4040 or reference@atlantahistorycenter.com. Please note this audio contains racist language. This is the second of a six part recording about Spring Street School in Atlanta, Georgia. This part starts with Philip Perkins sharing two stories from his time as a student at the school. He uses racist language in the first story, which is about a teacher who blew a whistle at misbehaving students; his next story is about a tornado warning. Then, at minute 5:00, he describes school toys, including origami fortune tellers; paper airplanes and footballs; peashooters and rubber band shooters; yo-yos; and darts made of paper clips. He also recalls and demonstrates a game of war played on a piece of paper. Next, at minute 22:03, Tom Branch remembers visiting the Spring Street School principals office and a rumor that spread about a new principal. He also recalls when his class was given a football in the late 1940s, which was the first football at the school. He then talks about the football team at Grady High School. At minute 32:20, Branch describes some of the Spring Street School employees, including the dietician, the physical education teacher, and the nurse. He also recalls illnesses experienced by the students, such as ringworm and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Then, at minute 40:21, he describes pranks his classmates played on their teachers and other games, such as baseball and yo-yo. He concludes his interview by remembering the annual carnival, visits from speech school students, and playing in McClatchey Park during recess. Francis Elyea (1912-1993) was born in Ellaville, Georgia, to Alonzo Arrington (1866-1959) and Bertha Burnam (1872-1940). She graduated from Valdosta State College and worked as a schoolteacher at Spring Street Elementary School in Atlanta. Later she resided in Roswell, where she served as president of the Roswell Historical Society and belonged to the North Fulton Child Development Association, Roswell Womans Club, and Daughters of the American Revolution. She married George Elyea (1903-1995) in 1956. Hughes Roberts (1919-2005) was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to John Hughes Roberts (1880-1946) and Lillian Mitchell Roberts (1895-1988). He attended Boys High School in Atlanta, then graduated from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served as a Captain in the Air Force during World War II, and later worked for Ingersoll Rand. Lillian Roberts Deakins (1921-2019), Hughes Robertss sister, graduated from Agnes Scott College in 1943 and worked for Eastern Airlines. In 1945, she married her first husband, David Miller Deakins (1925-1989), with whom she had two daughters: Lillian Clarke (1949-2023) and Dorothy Chandler (1951- ). In 1997, she married her second husband, John Wyant (1915-2010). In 2012, she married Lloyd Timberlake (1917-2017). Caroline Yundt Bethea (1921-2012) was born in Atlanta to George Yundt (1876-1950) and Caroline Perdue (1887-1974). She graduated from Washington Seminary in Atlanta, and later attended Bradford Junior College in Haverhill, Massachusetts. She married Charles Bethea (1908-1974), and they had five children. Tom Branch graduated from Grady High School, and had one son, Tom Branch IV (1965- ). Philip Perkins, Alan Neely, and Tom Branch III (1936- ) resided in Atlanta. Additional biographical information has not been determined. 00;00;23;19 - 00;00;35;23 Speaker 1 Okay, Philip, you have some stories to tell me and some of the things that you made at spring straight back in. When did you graduate? 1971 year before last. 00;00;36;00 - 00;00;37;10 Speaker 2 Yeah. The little purple. 00;00;37;10 - 00;00;45;26 Speaker 1 Thing. You tell the story about a teacher there that had a whistle. Would you tell that one? 00;00;46;02 - 00;01;21;16 Speaker 2 Yeah, that's Gregory. She'd sit there and lower Boom! Or that was the name of the whistle. It's a real, real big whistle. And anybody get in trouble, she blow it. She had her. She'd go out on your duty, have her flip up sunglasses and on and drive vocals and sit there and anybody get in trouble, she blower to manage this one day, got a had a big fight and she ran up right beside him. 00;01;21;20 - 00;01;42;23 Speaker 2 Guys are beating each other's brains out. She's just blown the whistle. So finally started pulling each other apart and all heart and build strong fight. And so I said, Come on, nigger, hit me one more time. And Bill Strong kissed his fist and decked him. 00;01;44;14 - 00;02;01;18 Speaker 1 And all she did was Laura with. Pretty ineffective punishment, wouldn't you? How about the teacher over there That. Yeah, her punishment was very effective, but it was very unjust. She'd punish people for what they didn't do. 00;02;01;24 - 00;02;24;23 Speaker 2 Miss Myrick, she was just downright mean. Studied African for the whole quarter. Oh, three quarters, really. But any anybody do one thing wrong, you know, like 500 times and I will not do this. And good have to suffer with the bad. 00;02;25;16 - 00;02;32;05 Speaker 1 Oh, and then there was another teacher. They wouldn't punish you at all for anything. Anybody. Why don't you push over, Tom? 00;02;32;19 - 00;02;40;15 Speaker 2 No, she wasn't a pushover. She let you know what you did wrong. She'd think up something for you to do, but wasn't really mean. 00;02;40;26 - 00;02;49;09 Speaker 1 But you boys would get in the cloakroom and have a little club, wouldn't they? With the one that was a pushover. 00;02;50;01 - 00;02;55;15 Speaker 2 She was the person they were. She was pretty nice. Whenever she'd get mad, her upper lip would vibrate. 00;02;57;00 - 00;02;58;26 Speaker 1 Well, what did you all do in the cloakroom? 00;02;59;11 - 00;03;02;06 Speaker 2 Drank Cokes and listened to the radio. 00;03;03;00 - 00;03;04;14 Speaker 1 But she'd let you do that. 00;03;04;14 - 00;03;05;17 Speaker 2 She didn't know about it. 00;03;05;20 - 00;03;06;21 Speaker 1 Oh oh. 00;03;08;03 - 00;03;08;22 Speaker 2 Two Good. 00;03;09;00 - 00;03;14;22 Speaker 1 How about the teacher that was so conscientious? Even doing an air ride? Would you tell about her? 00;03;15;17 - 00;03;41;27 Speaker 2 Well, one day we were sitting in class and all sudden sky turned green, and he said, we heard over the loudspeaker that there's a tornado real close. And so he had to go down in the basement. That's where the fallout shelter was. And we were done doing it right in the middle of English test. And an English teacher was our homeroom teacher. 00;03;41;27 - 00;04;12;28 Speaker 2 Anyway. And so we ended up taking our books down into the basement and finishing the English test. Never really liked her. She was all work, some fun, you know, She used to collect Bibles from the New Year party. I, I joke in. 00;04;12;28 - 00;04;16;14 Speaker 1 You know, when I asked you before, you said you didn't collect anything. 00;04;16;23 - 00;04;21;05 Speaker 2 We collected bottles, you know, for the end of the year party to make money and sell them to the. 00;04;21;12 - 00;04;45;13 Speaker 1 Oh, you didn't collect anything for individual hobbies and stuff. Let's go to some of the things that you made. Um, not actually things that you made at home or that your mother taught you to make, but things that all the boys, maybe some of the girls were making at school. You mentioned two or three cans of origami toys. 00;04;46;01 - 00;04;49;19 Speaker 1 One was a fortune teller. Can you tell her you said. 00;04;50;08 - 00;05;11;28 Speaker 2 You'd put numbers on it? It opened up, um, when it opened up, by the way, it had like four triangles in each corner, and he'd write a number on each side and then open the flap and write somebody's name or whatever you did. 00;05;11;28 - 00;05;15;18 Speaker 1 Sounds like the cootie cantor we used to have. Did you all have a. 00;05;15;28 - 00;05;16;07 Speaker 2 No. 00;05;16;21 - 00;05;17;27 Speaker 1 No kitty cat? Yeah. 00;05;18;19 - 00;05;51;17 Speaker 2 But we write stuff like you eat from casinos. Then you you'd start out and one guy and you'd pick number two. So he'd go one to the big number and another number eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And each time he opened it a different way, you know, back and forth. And finally it right number five. 00;05;51;26 - 00;06;00;07 Speaker 2 One, two, three, four, five. Then he'd pick number one, open it up and like he from the scene. 00;06;00;17 - 00;06;22;17 Speaker 1 So on the floor. Yeah. Okay. How about the um, the paper airplane that you might remember that when you made it for me, the nose was tucked in, sort of. You said that was to make it front heavy. So I'd fly to the boys in the fifties. Didn't know about that. 00;06;22;17 - 00;06;34;08 Speaker 2 It's just a regular old airplane. Everybody made him out of that fifth grain. It's just something to do to pass the time mean it's hit people in the head with. 00;06;34;15 - 00;06;39;19 Speaker 1 Was this doing clients? Yeah. Did you ever get caught or punished for it? 00;06;39;19 - 00;06;49;23 Speaker 2 Teacher Come on, don't do that. You know, just take care of playing the garbage. It's just. 00;06;51;17 - 00;06;57;10 Speaker 1 Yeah. Didn't you say that one teacher can't you? And in the end, you write a paper about. 00;06;58;04 - 00;07;22;22 Speaker 2 If we ever it's when a whole rash of them when people started talking about the windows and stuff like that. Mr. Douglas instituted the punishment, which was if you ever got caught throwing paper airplanes on the yard, you'd have to go to the encyclopedia and in the library and write the history of aerodynamics of planes. 00;07;23;07 - 00;07;37;23 Speaker 1 Boy Oh, another game. You mentioned that you'd often play during class, I guess when you weren't supposed to. Was that origami football game? Could you describe what the little football looked like? Basically, and how you played the game? 00;07;38;01 - 00;08;12;03 Speaker 2 It was a triangle. It was just got a piece of paper and folded in, folded it until it was about as wide as margin in it. And bent over like you're following up a flag. You know how they do it and all the army things. They then fold it over and make a triangle. Then when you get to the end, you tuck a little bit of in the end, then you thump it back and forth and the person who gets it to the edge and makes it hang over like that and then you can go like that and head it. 00;08;12;19 - 00;08;21;20 Speaker 1 Right? Didn't you say that two boys would put their desks together facing each other and the object was to keep it on one of the desks. 00;08;22;02 - 00;08;38;29 Speaker 2 Keep it, you know, keep it on the desks and try to get it to hang over. But if it went off, you got you get a free kick and stick it on one of the corners and hit it with your finger. And I would stick its hands together, touch the ends of his index fingers, stick his thumb straight up. 00;08;38;29 - 00;08;40;14 Speaker 1 And then do the go. You know. 00;08;40;26 - 00;08;45;08 Speaker 2 You try to get it in between there any way, anywhere in between it up the sides. 00;08;46;13 - 00;08;51;18 Speaker 1 And you would play this during quiet. Yeah. But seems like the teacher would know about that. 00;08;52;14 - 00;08;52;27 Speaker 2 Yeah. 00;08;53;29 - 00;09;03;13 Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay. You also mentioned three different kinds of shooters that you had. Start with a piece shooter. How is that? 00;09;03;13 - 00;09;14;22 Speaker 2 And I knew you really had a peashooter, but we used to take the insides of big pen and make spitballs and shoot out of the pen. 00;09;15;15 - 00;09;18;06 Speaker 1 Out of the cartridge. 00;09;18;06 - 00;09;21;02 Speaker 2 Not a cartridge inside, but outside plastic. 00;09;21;12 - 00;09;27;02 Speaker 1 Oh, right. How about this, sir? Lava tube. Could you describe that? What you. 00;09;27;07 - 00;09;42;09 Speaker 2 That was just mine. I made it up. I got to throw corner of piece of paper around the pencil and then look at it sticks. And that's what I got. It didn't make so long to shoot pencils. 00;09;43;22 - 00;09;47;06 Speaker 1 Shoot. Well, okay, how about the rubber band shooter? 00;09;47;16 - 00;10;07;01 Speaker 2 And that was the most popular. Just put it around your index and roll up strips of paper to the head on the desk and make it sound like you're at a little piece of wood going. Then you'd go back and let somebody have a nice little red will. 00;10;07;29 - 00;10;13;25 Speaker 1 Oh, wow. Didn't you have some renditions of this? What are some of the other. 00;10;14;16 - 00;10;39;08 Speaker 2 You would get the big old male in rubber bands that were like that. You pulled back about as far as you could, let somebody have it where he put the paper rubber bands once come on the newspaper and put them together as many as you wanted to and shoot people. 00;10;39;08 - 00;10;48;05 Speaker 1 Okay, um, how about some of the stuff you made? String like Cat's Cradle? What other things did you have? The string. 00;10;48;05 - 00;10;54;25 Speaker 2 That's about it. Just Cat's Cradle, which is in Jacob's Ladder. It's about, um. 00;10;55;06 - 00;11;00;29 Speaker 1 Okay, maybe you can draw some diagrams of those later. Um, how about yo, yo. 00;11;01;15 - 00;11;08;24 Speaker 2 Yo? We had yo yo just did a few tricks like waterfall and this. 00;11;09;18 - 00;11;11;03 Speaker 1 How would you do waterfall? 00;11;11;23 - 00;11;19;05 Speaker 2 I'd throw it down and let it come back up and flip your wrist and let it go over the top of your wrist again and then pull it up real quick. 00;11;20;25 - 00;11;26;15 Speaker 1 You didn't do Walk the Dog. That was the most popular one in a few days. 00;11;26;15 - 00;11;41;19 Speaker 2 I used to do. And walked the dog or anything like that. But we'd do around the world, throw it out and pull it back and make certain. 00;11;42;00 - 00;12;01;16 Speaker 1 We had the the boys did. The girls didn't play with the yos. Did your girls play with. Yeah, Yeah, I do tell about the strange boar or strange electromagnetic dart invented by a friend of yours. 00;12;01;16 - 00;12;34;23 Speaker 2 Yeah. Used to When had rubber band shooters, you'd put stuff inside the ammunition, paper. Ammunition to make them harder. Like you'd get straight pins or paper clips. And he made that he had about six feet of wire, and he wrapped it around a nail sharp in the end and had a battery. And he threw it and sticking a disc right near a whole bunch of people. 00;12;35;06 - 00;12;45;03 Speaker 2 He'd turn it on it, they'd all clip. Then he pulled the wires and bring back all the paper clips he needed. 00;12;45;03 - 00;12;50;17 Speaker 1 So where the straight pins come in, you mean sometimes he'd pick up straight pins and sometimes you pick up paper clips? 00;12;50;27 - 00;12;57;21 Speaker 2 He used to get straight pins and pull them off the bulletin board. 00;12;57;21 - 00;13;06;02 Speaker 1 So your ammunition in this case was that nail? Right. The nail on the electromagnetic magnet at Dart was this guy's ammunition. 00;13;06;22 - 00;13;27;17 Speaker 2 No, it wasn't his ammunition. He'd just collect stuff to put inside the paper. Ammunition? He get a strip of paper about as wide as the margin. Or read all this paper, tear it all up and roll it up till it gets real, real hard. 00;13;28;18 - 00;13;30;02 Speaker 1 And that's think he. 00;13;30;02 - 00;13;34;27 Speaker 2 Used to put straight pins and paper clips inside of them to make maybe harder. 00;13;35;10 - 00;13;37;26 Speaker 1 But then where the nail coming. 00;13;39;14 - 00;13;42;13 Speaker 2 Out was is electromagnetic Don't. He ripped the wire. 00;13;42;24 - 00;13;47;24 Speaker 1 Oh, I see. But in the other the in the rubber band sheet you would use. 00;13;48;03 - 00;14;01;01 Speaker 2 Used the dart to throw a stick in a desk in the middle of paper clips, then turn it on and get the paper clips, then retrieve the dart by the paper clips and then paint clips and wrap up inside the ammunition. 00;14;02;02 - 00;14;13;02 Speaker 1 I saying. So the electromagnetic dart was a way to make ammunition for the other way of of gear, of stealing ammunition from other guys to. 00;14;13;13 - 00;14;14;08 Speaker 2 Getting material. 00;14;14;17 - 00;14;40;28 Speaker 1 Right for the rubber band shooters. Yeah. And for in some cases, I guess for the pea shooters. Would you ever I mean, the spitball shooters, would you ever. You'd never put a pen inside a spitball? Would it kill yourself? Going back to the stories I forgot to ask you if you ever knew about Berryman's bench. You know that first principle? 00;14;40;28 - 00;14;56;21 Speaker 1 Who had the bench that she would set people out on to be publicly disgraced? The bench was sitting outside of her office and all the kids who walk back and say, See the one being punished. Was this true in the in the six days? 00;14;58;01 - 00;15;11;09 Speaker 2 And it wasn't called Berryman's bench. It's just a bench. Just go out there and sit on your mistress list or do something. And that's what they usually did making this recess. 00;15;11;14 - 00;15;20;17 Speaker 1 But were you publicly disgraced? Could everyone say to let me see my butt ego? 00;15;20;17 - 00;15;29;13 Speaker 2 Wouldn't it? They had they got a new bench made out of wrought iron and put it right outside the door principal. 00;15;29;15 - 00;15;31;09 Speaker 1 So made it harder to sit on. 00;15;32;21 - 00;15;44;06 Speaker 2 Okay. 00;15;44;06 - 00;15;56;20 Speaker 1 Okay. Philip has here a an interesting game that you play on paper, but each side draw those away in battle. Would you explain some of your defenses and offenses, Philip. 00;15;57;11 - 00;16;43;05 Speaker 2 Why you get first of all, you have the paper with barbed wire. You know it's the currently Q line that you put little marks all over it to make it look like it's barbed wire. Then you have tanks and tanks or rectangles with circles in the middle with lines coming from the circles facing the enemy. And he had machine guns which were semi circles with lines spacing, and me and howitzers were which were a half of a rectangle. 00;16;43;05 - 00;17;01;07 Speaker 2 So it really is. And then inside it's a large wood, and then inside a smaller one with a line facing the enemy in the axis. Simulate men and you can draw any type of land defense. 00;17;01;19 - 00;17;08;14 Speaker 1 War, rivers and mountains made. 00;17;09;01 - 00;17;09;28 Speaker 2 In minutes. 00;17;10;09 - 00;17;11;10 Speaker 1 By Xs. 00;17;11;17 - 00;17;55;23 Speaker 2 And Xs with lines coming off the top were radioman spotters, and you draw your command post and you generally just got to see who goes first when you start to shoot it, picture and man can kill a man and there's some one man limit to one man. And machine guns can kill only five men at one time and tanks can kill ten men and they can knock out a machine gun. 00;17;55;23 - 00;18;06;25 Speaker 2 This and howitzers can kill 15 men or knock out a tank. Tanks contain three men. Machine gun. This can take to. 00;18;09;17 - 00;18;25;05 Speaker 1 Men in general. The person wins the game. Who has the most sophistication about war. I mean knows the most about, for instance, the difference between Sherman, Tiger, Peyton and in 60 times I. 00;18;26;08 - 00;18;28;17 Speaker 2 Am 60 sort of bets. That's why I got them. 00;18;30;01 - 00;18;48;13 Speaker 1 But when you play this with two guys, was one of them a lot more knowledgeable than the other guys and you learn things from each other how the stuff that you learned wasn't necessarily true in real war or did you just make up stuff? 00;18;48;13 - 00;19;00;18 Speaker 2 M-16s are the best tanks made during the Second World War. There were Sherman and Tiger and Patton tanks and a whole bunch of others. But the tiger tanks were the best. 00;19;00;18 - 00;19;03;17 Speaker 1 Well, how had you learn all this? You've never been on. 00;19;03;29 - 00;19;09;07 Speaker 2 TV and books in the library. 00;19;09;07 - 00;19;22;17 Speaker 1 So what's another example besides the tanks where you'd have, you know, really have to have specialized knowledge about like which types of howitzers could kill the most? 00;19;22;17 - 00;19;25;21 Speaker 2 Man No, all the howitzers were the same thing. 00;19;26;04 - 00;19;29;15 Speaker 1 So it's mainly the different kinds of machine guns. 00;19;29;25 - 00;19;40;07 Speaker 2 Yeah, it was 30 and 40 and 50 caliber machine guns, all kinds of different machine guns. We always had the same shields. And that makes it easy. 00;19;40;18 - 00;19;44;22 Speaker 1 I say. Now, where would your ditches and foxholes come in in the sky. 00;19;44;24 - 00;19;46;11 Speaker 2 Right in front of the barbed wire? 00;19;46;11 - 00;19;47;12 Speaker 1 I see. So they're just. 00;19;47;12 - 00;19;48;20 Speaker 2 Across that easy. 00;19;49;17 - 00;20;18;07 Speaker 1 I say. But as far as playing the game, they wouldn't make any difference. They're just to make the it's not really a grid, but they're just to make the paper look pretty interesting. Okay. Okay. Phillips going to play the game for us and show us some of the sound effects in Do. 00;20;18;07 - 00;22;03;09 Speaker 2 And you can get a man and he'd shoot another man the he's dead and kill a man just black in the mirror and in machine guns would go and they'd kill five and the to in cannons would go and they'd knock out the machine and, and man and all kinds of things like howitzers would go and come and you can knock out howitzers and all kinds of neat things like the howitzers could knock out things and you just end up the person who wins is the person who has the most bit left. 00;22;03;09 - 00;22;17;02 Speaker 1 Okay, Tom, we've got a lot of stories here about principles that spring straight, and particularly one about that first principle who had a bench that she punished kids. That was this bench popular near dog? 00;22;17;27 - 00;22;52;01 Speaker 3 No, I think I remember the stories about the bench that I recall was the one that was in inside the office. And when you were sent to the office to see Mr. Turnbull, who was the principal from the time I was in kindergarten up through, I guess sixth grade, you would go in and you would have to open the door because when you were in kindergarten you couldn't even see in the class part of the door. 00;22;52;01 - 00;23;25;00 Speaker 3 It was open, your head's big or ordeal. Just turn to go in the door because you never knew exactly what the kids and they would see you coming and then they would tell you to sit down on the bench and wait. And the office in Spring Street in those days was not quite so nicely formed. Music now. And the first room you came into, in fact, I guess as you came in, it was kind of a little cloakroom to the left where all the teachers came. 00;23;25;04 - 00;23;31;06 Speaker 3 This that's the room where the bench was. And so they would come to each time, see. Mr.. 00;23;32;10 - 00;23;36;20 Speaker 1 I see. So you weren't publicly disgraced out in the hall in the forties? 00;23;36;22 - 00;24;01;15 Speaker 3 No, but I think maybe I'd almost rather have been out in the hall then in that room on the bench. I can remember maybe four girls in the same way, but I can remember that I had the impression of being in a room with all these ladies coats, and somehow it seemed sort of very personal. Something in our memory. 00;24;01;27 - 00;24;13;17 Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay, Let's go to the next principal. Miss Douglas, you mentioned that there was a rumor that she had been divorce. Was this a rumor, or did you actually know this now? 00;24;13;18 - 00;24;40;07 Speaker 3 I really don't know. I remember. That story is We got it. You had rumors that we had been in for a long time and everybody loved her and was sorry to see you go. She was retiring and we all wondered who the next person was going to be. And we had heard it was going to be a miss Mrs. Harding, who's coming to us from the 10th Street School, which was actually called Clark. 00;24;40;07 - 00;25;02;08 Speaker 3 Our school was on 10th Street and we had heard lots of rumors about being very mean. But when she showed up at Spring Street School, her name was Mrs. Douglas, and she had gotten married in the meantime, held against her husband and also when when she showed up, she had a sprained ankle or her leg of some kind. 00;25;02;08 - 00;25;27;02 Speaker 3 She had a big ace bandage wrapped all around. Ironically, the story about that was she was wandering through her new house, which was under construction and step through a whole or something got hurt. A lot of people thought she got it chasing some bad boys and I never did know where the shooting came. And of course, you know. 00;25;27;12 - 00;25;31;07 Speaker 1 Miss Dunwoody was a Spencer one. She mysterious. 00;25;31;07 - 00;25;52;23 Speaker 3 And I used to see her for years after she retired. She lived at about Peachtree and 16th and the apartments there. And she used to run the bus downtown. And the years when I was at Grady High School, run the bus route. And even after that, I remember when I was first working down the road, the bus, a couple of times, she might be on it. 00;25;53;29 - 00;26;03;13 Speaker 1 So Miss Douglas was just a disgrace. Her divorce was compared to Miss Dunwoody Virgin Virgin reputation. 00;26;04;09 - 00;26;26;24 Speaker 3 Well, we Yeah, I think that. But it was it was more a matter of her anticipate meanness, because we knew some boys who went to the 10th grade to 10th Street school and they all had names. You she would really keep you and give you a. 00;26;26;24 - 00;26;32;27 Speaker 1 Yeah. Tell a story about Miss Douglas present to the seventh grade. 00;26;33;17 - 00;27;08;12 Speaker 3 Oh, you know, I remember at that time. I love them. Proud of it. Number 248 or Carl Rochelle, University librarian. And Mrs. Douglas lived across the street. She and Mrs. and a new guest house that was in back of Mrs. Carriage House. Miss Kerry's grandchildren went to spring from school, and she called me over there one day just before school started and said that she had prayed for us. 00;27;08;14 - 00;27;27;29 Speaker 3 She gave us football, which was the seventh grade to use, and it was a nice little football shirt that at one end it was all worn out, the rubber bladder, it stuck out through this hole trying to keep it up and all. But we did work exactly what we did, use it, read it. 00;27;28;27 - 00;27;29;29 Speaker 1 All through high school. 00;27;30;14 - 00;27;55;12 Speaker 3 Well, know all through seventh grade. And then we left it there. It was the seventh grade. But yeah, it was. We were the only place that had a football football. And we got frowned on by the Atlanta Public Schools. Just released a grammar school. All you had were volleyballs. In fact, I guess it was only when I was in the seventh grade that they put up our first basketball go for that. 00;27;55;12 - 00;27;56;19 Speaker 3 We didn't even have basketball. 00;27;57;21 - 00;28;11;23 Speaker 1 I see. Well, this would explain partly why organized sports seemed to be so much more take up so much more of your time and handmade toys and things that the people made in the twenties and. 00;28;11;23 - 00;28;51;02 Speaker 3 Thirties in the seventh grade, for example, we really began our first grade Y through college into organized football and basketball. And it's right interesting that the teams we played against were mostly all in the Northeast in Maryland, and particularly with Inman. We had a big rivalry and then we all went to Grady High School and the same guys who played against each other on those two teams on Spring Street and ended up playing together at Grady in our senior year in high school. 00;28;51;17 - 00;29;23;27 Speaker 3 Some of the same fans we played against in seventh grade football playing together, state championship football, and Jeff Davis and Pete Brandt, for example, from Spring Street School and Harry Harris largely, and Sidney Reese and Mike Trotter, who go to 10th straight, which we. 00;29;24;19 - 00;29;34;13 Speaker 1 Did. Miss Dunwoody or Miss Douglas. Look at these. The sports is part of the academic, you know, the school curriculum or were they a little wary of this? 00;29;35;08 - 00;30;08;16 Speaker 3 I don't know. It was I think they were concerned about getting into it because they didn't want anybody to get hurt. But then when the YMCA sort of came in and ran that, I think they considered if anybody got hurt. It was the YMCA age problem this well. Harry Evans and you know it was lesson we played and never forget the funniest things are so we had played the high school basketball games at the North Avenue Presbyterian gym which is very small and the gym that serves around here. 00;30;09;03 - 00;30;27;19 Speaker 3 And the girls instead of being sent in from the walls, were nailed up right over the doors. And Harry in Love playing tackle in high school, as you can imagine, was great. Being ready for it. He went in to shoot a basket and just as he went in to shoot that, the girl was right over the door on the wall. 00;30;28;07 - 00;30;45;06 Speaker 3 Somebody not knowing the game was going on inside opened the door from the outside and Harry went running through the door and fell down a flight of steps and I think made the basket. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure, but didn't know it because it was a landing. 00;30;45;24 - 00;31;07;15 Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. I guess the one reason I think that Miss Douglas might have been a little wary of sports, football and all these things is that when I asked Ms. earlier about it specifically, I asked her the names of some of the coaches, you know, the PE teachers who were men. And she said, you know, I don't know any of their names as long as they were there. 00;31;07;24 - 00;31;14;16 Speaker 1 Seems to me that the PE teachers were mostly men are all men, and the rest of the teachers were women. 00;31;14;22 - 00;32;00;04 Speaker 3 Well, I can recall the first recreation figure I can remember in Spring Street was someone who the city sent over for the afternoons, and her name was Quinn. Quinn Johnson. Quinn Hicks. She got married in between. I can't remember. Her married name was Johnson or Simms. Hicks or vice versa. But we used to call a miss Hicks from time to time and Hickey was another couple and she was real nice, sort of attractive young girl, I guess, fresh out of college and all the other teachers seemed to dislike her because she was younger and prettier than they were, but it was kind of hard for her to stir up a lot of enthusiasm among boys 00;32;00;04 - 00;32;05;17 Speaker 3 for things like football and basketball. When she was trying to teach us a session like Girls Room. 00;32;05;25 - 00;32;17;20 Speaker 1 You know? Well, let's go to some of the other authority figures in the school. You mentioned, Ms.. Bergen. Was she she was the dietician. 00;32;17;20 - 00;33;00;21 Speaker 3 Was, yeah, she was dietician and aptly named because she was known as woman and she probably wanted hundred pounds or at least seems to mean something smaller. But she prohibition in the tune of 23. And it was kind of interesting because she had a daughter who was on stage in New York and the daughter had to change her name from Big M, spelled B M to Bingham, so that people in New York, women referred to as Ms. became. 00;33;00;21 - 00;33;25;06 Speaker 3 We used to see pictures of her. And I remember she was a pretty blond haired girl that didn't look at all like mother. I remember one other time when the mother brought to school some bouquet of flowers all crushed and about half dried. Someone had given the daughter some particular stage success in New York. You know, this was in the moment of the day. 00;33;25;21 - 00;33;35;23 Speaker 3 She was always bringing the newspaper clippings and lines about or as far as I could tell, she never did make a tremendous success in the nation. So. 00;33;36;01 - 00;33;43;07 Speaker 1 Yeah, well, at least the dietitian. Yeah. Socialized with the students, which I guess is more than some dietitians would. 00;33;43;09 - 00;33;43;20 Speaker 3 Yeah. 00;33;44;18 - 00;33;52;23 Speaker 1 Oh. Oh one teacher that is Proverbs you've spoken of is Ms.. Adams. And did you all have her? Oh. 00;33;53;06 - 00;34;23;07 Speaker 3 Yeah. I never had Mrs. Adams as a teacher, but I remember and I'm so delighted I didn't. She was probably a very fine woman, good teacher, but she was older, seemed to be older than any of the other teachers there and had so. Well, she was reputed to wear a red wig. Actually, it was kind of hard to tell whether that was wearing or her hair was dyed, but it was an unnatural head of hair. 00;34;23;07 - 00;34;49;16 Speaker 3 And she used to wear what was sort of standard uniform, I guess, for teachers in that you should always wear a suit which would be comprised of a skirt and a coat, much like a man's suit and some sort of blouse and a heavy look. She was she was very big also on order and all. And not just from class, but most in when she came to the earth. 00;34;50;10 - 00;35;18;27 Speaker 3 I think I told you we were talking before the favorite picture or the most vivid picture I have of us was standing on the landing of the stairs from the basement level up to the first floor and having her class all lined up and two lines, boys on one side, girls on the other side, and making the absolutely quiet for legged return to class, which was on the top floor. 00;35;19;12 - 00;35;21;09 Speaker 3 So either from. 00;35;21;09 - 00;35;21;15 Speaker 2 The. 00;35;22;12 - 00;35;53;10 Speaker 3 Cafeteria, from the restroom and there was another thing that I forgot to tell you that disappeared sometime while I was in school there. But it goes back to physical education. They used to be big on form exercises and they would take you out on the playground and you would go through some ridiculous exercises that really test or strain any muscles at all, You know, were just sort of little maneuvers. 00;35;53;29 - 00;36;35;24 Speaker 3 It was sort of bending halfway over and touching your toes and things like that. But they also had little boxes built around bottom post on the bottom of the stairs as they went down to the basement. And these little boxes were filled with wooden sticks which were used in this exercise program. And you would take those things and hold on to them and you would them over your head and all that was kind of like going through a series of exercises with barbells, except that with my weight to it, you know, just sticks. 00;36;35;24 - 00;36;44;25 Speaker 3 I think they got rid of them because people probably used them to beat on other people. 00;36;44;25 - 00;36;49;00 Speaker 1 How about the school nurse? Was she a dreaded figure? Oh. 00;36;49;22 - 00;37;19;03 Speaker 3 Well, of course, we didn't have a nurse who stayed there all the time, but one came once, twice a year and she would always give you an examination and some examination. A very simple test and all. And it was always kind of annoying to have had to roll up your sleeve and display your vaccination scar. But the worst was when she would poke around through your hair, trying to discover lines or ringworm or something like that. 00;37;20;16 - 00;37;31;24 Speaker 3 That was about the extent of the examination. Unless you listened to your heart or took your blood pressure. Anything significant like that, checking to see if you're carrying a book. 00;37;32;27 - 00;37;35;04 Speaker 1 But she never knew of anybody who was this? 00;37;36;12 - 00;38;10;24 Speaker 3 I can remember two or three people there having ringworm while I was at school was always a great moment of interest because they would shaved their heads and make a real stocking cap and there was plenty people. I can't remember anybody actually having lice. I guess the most exotic disease I can remember anybody having when I was there was a girl and girl who lived in this house named Whitman, and I was moving. 00;38;10;24 - 00;38;37;22 Speaker 3 It was Jane. We had Rocky Mountain Spotted Flea tick, and according the story, all her hair fell out. You know, I never saw her with her hair missing. She came back to school the next year. She missed about a year. Yes. And of course, for the rest of the time I was on Spring Street School, my mother took about ticks and not going in with No. 00;38;37;26 - 00;38;49;05 Speaker 1 The boys thing about sixth grade boys seem to have a fondness for their hair and how they looked like when the photographer came in. Like. 00;38;49;16 - 00;39;00;21 Speaker 3 Yeah, I can run along in there sometimes. I started using wild root creams and he very much would have a look. 00;39;01;00 - 00;39;05;24 Speaker 1 Yeah. Did that photographer comb your hair before the pictures or. 00;39;05;24 - 00;39;32;05 Speaker 3 Some did, some didn't. The guy I remember particularly, I guess four or five times kind of noxious. He would get you to look at the camera. And of course you didn't want to look good. Do flashback as the big points manager. And this guy would say, look over here and he would hold up the plate. I guess the fair what it was the cameras. 00;39;32;22 - 00;39;43;29 Speaker 3 And then he would involve him to take his plate by himself on the head with it, which of course, make you laugh. And then he flashed flashbulbs there. Would the blind. 00;39;44;14 - 00;40;06;14 Speaker 1 You know, I was just interested to see whether he'd have a communal comb. You wouldn't think it would work. And all that was gone mad. But Mrs. Bedi swears that the dental inspector had a communal toothbrush and a Camille spittoon that became legendary. And that's how they, one of the mothers discovered this and got rid of dental inspection. 00;40;06;14 - 00;40;21;00 Speaker 1 Inspiring straight. Oh, you also mentioned some kind of a teacher who was notoriously, like you mentioned, the class clown playing prank phone or would you tell that story? 00;40;21;00 - 00;40;52;09 Speaker 3 Well, I'm not sure the lady was dumb. She probably was very bright. And this was a miss Marshall. And it was sometime out just within two or three years after the Second World War. And she had just resigned or otherwise been discharged from the waves. She had the naval officer during the war and I guess for a few years, actually, and this was her first year back teaching. 00;40;52;09 - 00;41;18;18 Speaker 3 She had taught at Spring Street School before going in the Navy and then had come back to teach after the war to probe the mission statement. That was true. But since she was apparently relatively young and bright, they gave her a split class that was half sixth grade and half seventh, and was supposed to have all the bright students when I was little more. 00;41;18;18 - 00;41;47;09 Speaker 3 And she approached the other teacher and they said, and so we played a lot of friendship. Group one The class clown, Alan Cochran, particularly liked to do things like hide from her in the classroom. She would call on him to answer some questions. You turn around to go to the blackboard to write his answer on the board, and he would hide either under his desk or behind the curtains, I guess, was the most effective place. 00;41;48;02 - 00;42;08;15 Speaker 3 I remember one day at the third or fourth time he had hidden from me in a situation like this. And she came out and she looked under the desk and he wasn't there. And then she went back to the pink room and he went back there and he was actually hiding behind the curtains. And she looked around the curtain and she starts screaming and yelling. 00;42;08;27 - 00;42;45;04 Speaker 3 And I know you hear I know you did. And then she walked out and went to get Mrs. Douglass and then got out from behind the curtain set back under the desk and was doing was can you see us? And there was called Everybody Lounge. How they didn't know what room Marshall was talking to. You couldn't imagine what she was doing was I remember to put our heads down on our desks. 00;42;45;23 - 00;43;16;11 Speaker 3 We would turn to the school and she would let us know shortly and she then what she did was to take the seventh grade and she swapped the seventh graders to get all the seventh groups out of our room, put them in with about half of the original seventh grade ones who were supposed to be in a nice, good student out of the existing seventh grade. 00;43;17;07 - 00;43;24;26 Speaker 3 Sixth had. And these your situation right Ms.. Marshall And that's the next you. 00;43;25;17 - 00;43;31;21 Speaker 1 Asked me well this wasn't punishment this division of the classes was a punishment for that one incident. 00;43;32;00 - 00;43;54;28 Speaker 3 Well, we bought some sort of stigma and then being the bad seventh grade that goes that's funny. That one has. That was just what brought it all to a head, I think because the lady was pretty well distraught. It was shame for the whole year. 00;43;58;02 - 00;44;12;14 Speaker 1 When I asked you about things that the kids made at school, you said you couldn't really think of very many, but that not only tore you remember playing with really is the yo yo. Do you remember any kind of tricks that you played with? 00;44;12;22 - 00;44;37;12 Speaker 3 Oh, you can play all kinds of tricks with yo yo. I remember some Filipinos were apparently on the dock in yo yo style and they would stay up on the ropes and drugstore, which on Perkins Pharmacy up there. And there would usually be one or two of them there every afternoon once a year for a period of about a month or six weeks. 00;44;38;05 - 00;45;01;16 Speaker 3 And they could do all kinds of tricks, but they also could Car of the year. These were playing wouldn't yo yo about these plastic things to see today. And they would carve elaborate designs on the pocketbook and they would go in your name or your initials and let go of parts and designs and all. And that went with the price of the yo yo you just played the yo yo. 00;45;01;16 - 00;45;34;13 Speaker 3 And then the guy would cover it for me anywhere you wanted, which you could do all kinds of things. It was a trip. Go around the world on loop de loops, baby, and walk the dog and all those. The sleeping beauty and forget the names of the church. We would have yo yo contest. And I remember. I guess I know when you're you kind of just because I was a super yo yo, but the string broke during the contest and I was doing around the world. 00;45;34;13 - 00;46;04;26 Speaker 3 We were standing on the stage in the auditorium. This was in the old auditorium, which we before we did. The old auditorium used to be in about the middle of what's now the second floor and was just a big room which covered both sides, covered the whole floor, not not in the end, but side to side. And it was a lot of classrooms up there, but mainly because of story and stable wooden stage. 00;46;05;23 - 00;46;23;26 Speaker 3 And it was around the world track. You throw the yo yo straight out from, you get to the end and string. It's been around and wouldn't come back and then you would swing the whole string around your head, the big arc, and then you get the full yo yo and you had to throw the yo yo. Very hard to make no spin. 00;46;23;26 - 00;46;50;24 Speaker 3 Hesitate in destroying it, threw it out, the string broke and yo yo went to the back of the auditorium, bounced off the wall, which promptly ended the yo you can just getting back to our sport sports. I mean, one of them was Clifton, a sixth grade teacher who later became principal of James O'Keefe. School was very big on athletics and all kinds of unusual things. 00;46;52;04 - 00;47;22;28 Speaker 3 All year long we've been playing softball and she had promised promises of class picnic. When we went out to Grand Park, we could play baseball and throw the baseball over instead of having for something one day. So we lined up, played baseball. We had boys and girls on the team, have not seen an album called Them Again. Same guy who later became close the next year was the pitcher, young pitcher. 00;47;23;25 - 00;49;30;01 Speaker 3 And on the first pitch of the game, he wound up and being the guy right in the head. And that was the only overhand pitch anybody ever got through the baseball Spring Street School, as far as I know, because from then on the rest of that game, which that's okay. 00;49;30;01 - 00;49;49;27 Speaker 1 Tommy, you mentioned some wise that this folklore at Spring Street might have been spread or or posed some people who might have even started some of these traditions. She said that there was a teacher in Ansley Park or babysitter names like Park who introduced the moron jokes. Would you tell about her? 00;49;50;05 - 00;50;32;13 Speaker 3 Yeah. There was a lady, Mrs. Watson, who had tremendous amounts of people, and she babysat for us folks. Almost everybody lived in from more general places too. But to entertain the children she would babysit for, she would do tricks of one kind. But also she was big on telling jokes. She was the first one. I can remember telling Gilmore on jokes and she would gave me a little more on joke book called The She was sure one and she almost all the more on jokes made the extremely. 00;50;33;10 - 00;50;41;17 Speaker 1 Asked Do you know of any other ways that some of these traditions might have been spread from class to class or. 00;50;41;17 - 00;51;19;03 Speaker 3 Well, there were a couple of things. I think we didn't talk about this before, but I think that probably the Springfield School Carnival was one thing that did this because of what homecoming is to a college carnival was the Spring Street School, because I know for the first two or three years I was out, it was always an appropriate thing to do for the recent graduates of Spring Street School to go back over to the carnival and you would even see folks who were well older than school and even high school seniors going back to the spring school. 00;51;19;20 - 00;51;57;19 Speaker 3 So that's one thing I think probably was sort of tradition perpetuated. Another thing was that two things that and age to Spring Street School. One was the age among students. One was the relationship school had with the junior state school, which was really located at about Pershing Hall and some place else. And we had several deaf students who were in our classroom as friends from school. 00;51;58;09 - 00;52;19;22 Speaker 3 They would be there for the most part, either a few days a week or half a day or something like this each day, and would go to the speech school for half a day or a few days and really could be traced because they were generally older, because they had who's got a late start in learning how to talk. 00;52;20;18 - 00;53;12;07 Speaker 3 And this was when we would have seen the sixth grade. I would have more, I guess you worked 12 one in the sixth grade or your level of school, and we had a 13, 14 year old boy was in there and we had a lecture for a year or two over the. And another thing I think was that with Oak High School within the junior high school, at least up until the time I was in the sixth grade and frequently had people coming back on the afternoon playground, there also was another thing in the playground there and in McClatchy Park, you know, you have to remember the country park has been the traditional playground, Spring 00;53;12;07 - 00;53;24;13 Speaker 3 Street School for a long time. There's a lot of interaction between all ages, the classroom park, and it's very interesting. The playground move after. No transcript exists for this recording. Professor John Burrison founded the Atlanta Folklore Archive Project in 1967 at Georgia State University. He trained undergraduates and graduate students enrolled in his folklore curriculum to conduct oral history interviews. Students interviewed men, women, and children of various demographics in Georgia and across the southeast on crafts, storytelling, music, religion, rural life, and traditions. As archivists, we acknowledge our role as stewards of information, which places us in a position to choose how individuals and organizations are represented and described in our archives. We are not neutral, and bias is reflected in our descriptions, which may not convey the racist or offensive aspects of collection materials accurately. Archivists make mistakes and might use poor judgment. We often re-use language used by the former owners and creators, which provides context but also includes bias and prejudices of the time it was created. Additionally, our work to use reparative language where Library of Congress subject terms are inaccurate and obsolete is ongoing. Kenan Research Center welcomes feedback and questions regarding our archival descriptions. 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