Henry Donaldson (primary interviewee) and Laura Donaldson interview recording, 1993 July 16

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Rhonda Mawhood	You were telling us about work that you did as a brick mason?	0:00
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yes. I'm a brick mason by trade, and from 1946 through 1950, this is what the kind of work that I did up and down the East Coast. When I came out of the Army, I was discharged on the 5th of February of 1946. This when I resumed my masonry after coming out of the Army. Construction work were scarce around here, so I went to the Marine base in Jacksonville, North Carolina and worked a while for $1.50 an hour. That was top wages in 1946 for brick mason here around North Carolina, and especially in this area. Then we got a $.25 raise, went to $1.75 an hour. About this time, the work began to get scarce on that Marine base. I left Jacksonville and Wilmington and went to Gadsden, Alabama. It was the 1st of 1947, but then we made big bucks, $2 an hour.	0:05
Henry Teman Donaldson	That was the top wages at that particular time for masonry on that end of the road. During this time, Black brick masons and White brick masons did not work together on the same building. It was a housing project being built by the federal government. During this time—Well, in North Carolina, we worked together even though they had better breaks on the job, they could take a break, but we could not. But on this particular job in Gadsden, Alabama, we would all go to work. Blacks and White would go to work at 8:00. About 9:30, the Whites on their building, they could take a 15 or 20 minute break for coffee or drinks or whatever not. But the Black brick masons could never have a break.	1:25
Henry Teman Donaldson	We worked from 8:00 until 12:00 for lunchtime. We had 30 minutes off for lunch. The only time that we could possibly get a break is when we'd go to the privy as they call it, and we mustn't stay more than five minutes or else the foreman would come by, knock or tick on the door, "You're not sick in there, are you?" "No, everything's all right." "Well, get back on the job." Then he would go home. We'd go back. We worked hard. Full eight hours every day. Maybe I'd say about 10 to no more than 15 minutes for period of time. But during that time, we were making a lot of money and I had a real nice room where I boarded and my room and board was $10 a week. We got breakfast in the morning.	2:19
Henry Teman Donaldson	We had two sandwiches for lunch, and then naturally we would have very nice dinner, supper, we'd call it. During this particular time in Gadsden, the Black fellows could never get used to—They had, what do they call this thing, a curfew hour. No Blacks were to be on the streets of Gadsden, Alabama after 8:00 at night.	3:23
Henry Teman Donaldson	You had to be off of the streets. Well, we weren't used to that around here. I mean, it was tough with us. We would like to look around the foot of the mountain and see this, and then sometimes we would run over. But then there was always a law officer and all of them weren't dressed in uniforms. In other words, if he had a White face, he was an officer. In other words, they called them auxiliary cop. But then you must be off of the streets by that time. Even on where you groomed and you boarded, you must be off of the front porch or inside of that building by 10:00. You had to be inside. In other words, this was to keep the peace of no disturbance, anything of the kind.	3:58
Henry Teman Donaldson	Finally the time that we lived down there, I got used to it because I didn't want to be locked up and you would be locked up. One of our fellows, he sort away laid one night and they put him in jail, roughed him up a little bit, let him know that, "Nigger, you're supposed to go by the rules and regulations. You from up north. You don't do that up there, but we do it down here to keep these Niggers in line." He had to stay in the balance of that night, half of the next day, believe that was Ed Thompson. The supervisor from our break job had to go and get him the next day at 12:00. They wouldn't let him out. This was to teach him a lesson and all the other fellows not to be on the street, but we got used to it and we stayed there until this job finished. Then we moved, the same company, which was Alginar and Bev Construction Company. They moved to another project in Atlanta, Georgia.	4:55
Henry Teman Donaldson	Well, it was Oglethorpe, Georgia, but we lived in Atlanta. This project was centered around Oglethorpe University. To me, someone would take you there. If you had seen Duke University up here, the buildings look almost alike and whatnot there. It reminded me a lot of the buildings, those dormitories and whatnot, it's built out of stone and it resembles Duke University a whole lot. But we were building this project there and it was built out of brick. Well, we had practically the same restrictions there working together. We never worked together. This was intimidating at times when we went there. The foremans was from Birmingham, Alabama, and they called the Black brick layers, Black scabs, "You Black scabs get on this building over here." We were unionized at a union, but the White controlled it. We could meet in the same building on Union nights, but we didn't have the same privileges as the White bricklayer.	6:05
Rhonda Mawhood	What union was that, sir?	7:32
Henry Teman Donaldson	Huh?	7:32
Rhonda Mawhood	Do you remember the name of the union?	7:32
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Brick mason union.	7:32
Henry Teman Donaldson	It was a brick mason union, but I don't—See, they all had numbers like Brick Mason Union Number 11 of Atlanta, Georgia. Number 10 of Birmingham, Alabama. But this was—I don't remember the number of that union. Okay,	7:33
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you. You were unionized, but they called you scabs.	7:58
Henry Teman Donaldson	Scabs, that's right. Black scabs or nigger scabs. That was a word that there was frequently used on the job, in the street or anywhere when you would see one of them, "I know that old nigger boy there, he works on the job out there." You had to accept that and go on.	8:03
Rhonda Mawhood	The reason why I ask about it is because the scabs are usually—They're non-union workers who are breaking a strike.	8:24
Henry Teman Donaldson	Right. They're non-union, but you see, that was the ignorant part of that. They used that. In other words, to degrade you. We were union. We had to pay those union dues. We had to pay those dues to work. They made sure each Friday when we got paid off on Friday evening around 3:00, then the White union leader would come through where we were working and get our name and our assessment and we met once a month. That union hall was on Peachtree Street. It was somewhere in downtown Atlanta. But we would go to meeting, all the Whites would sit up front, the nigger scabs had to sit in the back. We would state our name and how much we had paid. In other words, they checked on each other.	8:33
Henry Teman Donaldson	When they would send this, they would call this man to come through a shop steward. He was White. Whenever he came through and collected the dues, it was all cash. We would never get paid in the check. Everything was paid off in cash. To make sure that he turned in the right report to them, we would have to state how much we paid. Say if I paid $2, I paid Mr. whatever his name was, $2 on Friday evening, whatever day, then they would check that against what he had turned in.	9:30
Rhonda Mawhood	Did the White men also stand and declare how much they had paid?	10:04
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, no, no. They didn't have to.	10:07
Rhonda Mawhood	Just the Black man.	10:11
Henry Teman Donaldson	Just the Black ones. They didn't have to. Whenever they would read out what was going on, see, they would correspond with different local unions, say in Florida, say in Birmingham. They would always make it known about these other jobs. See those unions, they worked together. If they needed brick masons in Florida, then they would check with the job, the union in Atlanta. But it was always noted—Well, if there's a big job going on in Florida, they wanted only White bricklayers. Black bricklayers was never supposed to go to Florida. Never. No nigger scabs in Florida and they were paying $1 more per hour in the state of Florida. Florida always have led in salaries and they would always state no nigger scabs was supposed to come, but they wanted so many White brick masons to come down to work on the special jobs. We were never to go that way. In fact, the first time I ever been to Florida, I was always skeptical of it that we went to Disney World with Cory.	10:12
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Was Cory? Was Brad.	11:43
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, no. It was Brad. Our older grandson.	11:43
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Oldest grandchild.	11:44
Henry Teman Donaldson	We went to Disney World and that was my first time.	11:45
Laura Shepard Donaldson	That was about 20 years ago, I guess now.	11:47
Henry Teman Donaldson	That's my first time ever going into the state of Florida. But never to go that way to work because they always warned you against that.	11:47
Rhonda Mawhood	Did any of the Black brick masons protest this—Well, this name that they were called for example?	11:55
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Never.	12:01
Henry Teman Donaldson	No. No. You better not.	12:05
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Not if you wanted a job.	12:06
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, and if you wanted to live. I'll tell you, one of the most hurtful things, my experience on the job there in Atlanta, they had all White was in charge of everything. Even we had a White foreman. He stood over us, but they—The labor foremans were White. Believe me, they couldn't spell their name if they saw it in letters big as a brick.	12:09
Rhonda Mawhood	Right.	12:39
Henry Teman Donaldson	Their word was nigger this and nigger that. Well, the labor foremans, they would—I think we found out that they were getting something like about $.75 or $.80 an hour. They took care of the loading of the scaffolds, seen to that done with Black labor, building scaffolds and whatnot. But what would hurt me—Now here I am, a brick mason working on the corner. Here's a labor foreman come up not even knowing how to pick up a brick hardly. He would come up, "Nigger, you're making a lot of money." I wouldn't say anything because it intimidated me and I'm trying to work. It was during summer, it was hot like it is now. We had one on the job, he just didn't like me because you see these khakis I have on, I've always liked to wear these because they're cool and they're clean and everything. I'd always go clean on the job.	12:39
Rhonda Mawhood	In khaki trousers.	13:41
Henry Teman Donaldson	I like this until today, it's cool.	13:44
Rhonda Mawhood	White t-shirt.	13:45
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. He said one day, he said, "Every time I look at you, you don't look like you working hard." Say, "You're sweating, but you're not dirty." I said, "Why should I be dirty?" I said, "I came to work and I can't stand all this body odor thing." I said, "I wash every day."	13:46
Henry Teman Donaldson	What he did, I was building a corner and he's so stupid, now when you're laying brick, it has to set up before you can get hard. He took his foot and put it up on my corner and knocked it over. Well, right then, I just got upset. I said, "Man, what you doing?" I said, "You tearing the corner down." I said, "The other brick mason will be over here and I won't have nothing." "Shut up, nigger and build it back." The supervisor came by and he looked, "What's going on over there?" I said, "This man come over here and kicked my corner down." I said, "This laborer come over here and kicked my corner down." You know what the supervisor say? "Go on, boy, and put it back. Hurry up. The gang will be over here after a while." Well then, I got upset. I really did. I said—I walked off and I walked I guess about six or seven paces and the superintendent, "Boy, you want to work?"	14:06
Henry Teman Donaldson	He came to me all a sudden, "Well, I'm down here. I need to work. I've got to work." I told him, I said, "Yes, I want to work." "What?" "Yes, I want to work. Yes, sir." I said, "Yes, sir." I went back to my corner, but I'm telling you that thing really got next to me. Now, here was this little old labor foreman and they were funny to me. Every one of them would close their eyes, one eye and all of them chewed tobacco. I hated that stuff. They'd be—Spitting all over. They spit all over your work, on the brick. I had to pick up—You had to pick them up and lay them, but you couldn't say anything about it. You better not if you want to work. This fellow here, just seemed like he just wanted to intimidate me all the time.	15:08
Henry Teman Donaldson	But I had to swallow a whole lot of time because I was from up north. That's what they call North Carolina, up north. But I stayed on there on that job until it finished. But this is the thing that we had to put up with. If you wanted to work, you had to stay there. I remember once one of the Black bricklayers from—His name—It's a funny name, Algandy or something, George, he was an older man. He couldn't work as steady and hard as we did, but they gave him a fit on the job. Finally, he had to leave there because one of the supervisors said something to him.	15:55
Henry Teman Donaldson	They were teasing him about being an old man and about his girlfriends you got. This, that, and other, just running on teasing. He told his supervisor, he said, "Well, the first place I got a wife and I'm too old to have any girlfriends, so to hell with that." He slapped him. This old man, this was a much younger fellow, this White fellow. But he slapped him, bap, "Don't you say that to me." That man had to hurry up and leave there because they was going to hang him up. They told him. We knew what that meant from hearing this, that and the other. When they said they were going to hang you up back during this time, you better get.	16:44
Rhonda Mawhood	He left town?	17:27
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yes, he left. He went on back. Because perhaps if he had stayed there—I mean, that day, he had stayed there maybe a day or two later, we probably missed him. But they were pretty tight down around Alabama and Georgia. Now that was '47 and '48. We had a job in Marietta, Georgia that we would work on weekends. That was outside of Atlanta. Now this was in 1948.	17:32
Henry Teman Donaldson	Black folk had to leave out of Marietta by 5:00. That's Marietta, Georgia. I would almost hate to see the weekend come because this foreman of ours, he had this little job, what he called subcontracted. He wanted his brick layers to go over there and work only on Saturdays. But we'd be over there at 7:00 Saturday morning and 5:00 Saturday evening, we had to get board that truck and get out of Marietta. People there was a little more ignorant or stupid, I call it because it was right in the little town. The sidewalks go right by the job and White people would come by, young ones and the old ones. There wasn't anything on that job. He used the Black bricklayers to do it. He paid us the $2 an hour, but they'd walk by and they'd be making all kind of nasty like to remarks.	18:09
Henry Teman Donaldson	But other than that, we got along fine. This is the only place that my wife—We had the oldest child there. She came to Atlanta and spent a summer with me while we were down there. Let me tell you about her. She got all riled up. I told her about all of this kind of stuff before she got there. Well, Laura always have been a loving wife and mother and everything else. So Laura and Joyce came to Atlanta and I went down and I met them. I think they were down there Easter, but she always had kept Joyce spotless. That was where I had [indistinct 00:19:59] Street. We went down on Peach Tree Street. Laura, what was the name of this big store you'd walk across?	19:20
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Rich.	20:07
Henry Teman Donaldson	Rich. There was a lot of departments store there. Rich's Department Store. We went down one Saturday. She loved to go shopping and looking and whatnot. Joyce, she was what we called her pretty little girl. She always had been knowledgeable. She didn't meet any strangers. She was just spotless, clean and everything. We went in this store and Joyce was running around playing. One of the sales ladies came over and Joyce was just talking to her, just jabbering away. This sales lady told another one, "Isn't she a cute little nigger baby?" She said, boy, she liked to had a fit. I had to get my wife out of there before we all got killed. Laura got so mad. She was just jerking like that.	20:08
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I'm the one with the temper.	20:55
Henry Teman Donaldson	She wanted to go and get on this lady, but she would have been put in jail the next second and beaten, too. So I got her from downtown in Atlanta. We went on back out on Auburn Avenue where we stayed in this place. In other words, I was used to that. I mean, she could have said it with me, if Joyce would've been me, and I would've kept going, but boy, she burned up. It's like, she said, "Oh, isn't she a cute little—"	20:58
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Mothers are like that.	21:23
Henry Teman Donaldson	"She's a cute little nigger baby. Look at it, it's so clean." Boy, my wife—I had to grab her and get out of there right quick. It just tickled them because they were used to that kind of thing. But that was the incident we had with her.	21:24
Rhonda Mawhood	The saleswoman didn't—I'm sorry, the saleswoman didn't speak to you, Mrs. Donald, directly?	21:41
Henry Teman Donaldson	No. She was just talking about Joyce.	21:46
Laura Shepard Donaldson	She was talking to my baby.	21:48
Henry Teman Donaldson	Talking to Joyce, "Cute little nigger baby." She blew up. Said, "Girl, you can't do that down here. They'll lynch you. They'll hang you." We got out of there. I got away from there. Finally, I calmed her on. But every time she went shopping, I made sure that I was there with her because that one had a temper. But it went so far. Then the next thing, we never did have any—Been traveling from here to Atlanta and Augusta. I worked in Augusta.	21:52
Henry Teman Donaldson	We traveled by bus. I didn't have any car or truck or anything. We traveled by a bus and wherever the bus would stop, there was never no restrooms. Never no place to get water unless they had a pump, had a pump handle outside. But if you had to go to the restroom or something, we'd have to go out around the bus station over in the woods. If you were hungry, you'd have to go to what they call the hole in the wall. I guess you've heard of that. That's where you'd go and stand there and wait until somebody in the little cafe would come over and probably sell you a hot dog. But that's the way we would have to eat. But most likely whenever I would leave here to go to Atlanta, she would fix me a lunch enough to last me until I get down there.	22:27
Henry Teman Donaldson	Seldom ever, I had to go to the hole in the wall to get anything. I'd always carry enough sandwiches to last me until I get to my boarding place. If we had to go to ourselves in the bushes, we'd have to go around the back of the place. They always—There was wooded areas somewhere, but I lived through that and I never was once arrested or beat up because I always tried to adhere to their laws and whatnot because I heard so many different tales about people being lynched and hung and the people that we would always stay with. Each time, the Black bricklayers would go say to Augusta, we would go to the YMCA to find the best place in town for us to live. God blessed us through those times because everywhere I've ever gone, I found a nice place to live.	23:19
Henry Teman Donaldson	We'd always go to that YMCA every time we would go to a different town. When we went to Atlanta, we went to the YMCA and they found us—They would tell us where the best place to live and the places that you ought not to go. Atlanta, this Decatur Street, at that time, that was, oh, my land. That was a rough place and we weren't supposed to go there. I belonged to Ebenezer Baptist Church here in Wilmington all of my life. When I got to Atlanta and got this particular room, I wasn't too far from the Ebenezer Baptist Church there. The Sunday that Martin Luther King Jr. preached his trial sermon, I was as close to him—I was on the front pew as close from here to the stairway. The little young fellow walked up on the roster and his father came.	24:20
Henry Teman Donaldson	He was the minister there at the time. He was telling people about his son and how God has changed him. He's going into the ministry and he's going to do his—They called it trial sermon, but naturally it was the initial sermon. He stayed up there about 30 minutes. He read some scripture and he taught. Well, to me it was just another young preacher going into the ministry. As the time went on, I never did think or dream that I was looking at or as close then around one of the—Well, the world's most noted persons.	25:25
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Pardon me to interrupting you, I thought while you're on King, you might mention the fact that where we lived was just about a block and a half. We could—As we walked in the gate, the little yard space had a little fence around it and you looked directly on the King porch.	26:08
Henry Teman Donaldson	Front porch.	26:24
Laura Shepard Donaldson	We used to see Mother King, Alberta King, sitting on the porch	26:25
Henry Teman Donaldson	With all the children. They were all small during that time, bit of thing.	26:29
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Right. Just a block and a half from their house. We were on Hogue and Hogue runs directly into Auburn.	26:33
Henry Teman Donaldson	This was—	26:42
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Irwin was between.	26:43
Henry Teman Donaldson	—I think it was Irwin, Irwin Street. In other words, the old King homestead. It was a two-story building.	26:44
Rhonda Mawhood	Yes, I've been there.	26:52
Henry Teman Donaldson	Two-story building. But I'd attend church there, Ebenezer the whole time we were there. Then after I left there, I worked my way on back up this way. I stopped in South Carolina and then I worked in Virginia. This is whenever he started all these set-ins and walk-ins and whatnot down on that end of the road. Today, there's a church, Shiloh Baptist church over here on the north side of Wilmington here. Reverend Vaughn, I met him here. But during the time when King was doing all of this, marches and whatnot, this Reverend Vaughn over here was working with him just like Abernathy. Reverend Vaughn over at Shiloh Baptist Church. Often we'd sit down and we talked about all of those things, but I was away from there then. Reverend Vaughn, until the day, he likes to talk about how he assisted the young man in these marches and things to Alabama and all these kinds of places.	26:54
Rhonda Mawhood	You said, Mr. Donaldson, that Decatur was a rough place and you weren't supposed to go there.	28:05
Henry Teman Donaldson	Decatur Street.	28:11
Rhonda Mawhood	Decatur Street.	28:11
Henry Teman Donaldson	Right.	28:11
Rhonda Mawhood	All right. Not Decatur, Georgia. Decatur Street.	28:12
Henry Teman Donaldson	Right.	28:14
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you know any Black men who did go there?	28:15
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yes, I do. One of our bricklayers went over there and liked to got his head knocked off. There was a section on Decatur Street, and there's one in Augusta, Georgia, too, that—There was a White guy had a large department store and he only hired the fair Black women to work there. Now if a Black man would go in there and get out of line with one, say like, "She's pretty and I may want to say something to her," you weren't allowed to do that.	28:19
Henry Teman Donaldson	This fellow, he's dead now, his name was Gus Mickens. He saw this girl in this department store and he went over there and he was getting what they called smart with her. He wanted to know her name and whatnot. This man that owned the store, he hit him with a blackjack and liked to knock his head off, "Nigger, get out of here. That's my woman. Get out of here." And Gus did. Bill Boykins went over there and came back all beat up. In other words, our landlady told her said, "Don't go on Decatur Street for nothing. Stay away from there. Anything you need to have, go anywhere else."	28:58
Rhonda Mawhood	Now your friend, Gus Mickens, was the woman who he spoke to was a light-skinned African American woman?	29:34
Henry Teman Donaldson	Light skinned working in this particular building. She was one of the sales ladies.	29:41
Rhonda Mawhood	The White man who owned the store said, "That's my woman?"	29:47
Henry Teman Donaldson	That's my woman. There's a place on Gwinnett Street in Augusta, Georgia. When I had a room there, the lady told us, said, "Don't go to that drugstore down there for anything. All those girls that work in there, they're mistresses to this," whoever this fellow that owned it. I didn't ever go that way. I was always afraid. Didn't ever go that way. They would pick these pretty, what we call our pretty girls, and that was theirs. You just didn't say anything to them. Another Black man, no, better not because they'd hang you up in a minute or beat you up. There was nothing never done about it. When Gus got hit, oh, he got a little upset about this, say he went in the store to buy something and this man walked up and hit him with the blackjack.	29:49
Henry Teman Donaldson	He told the cop and policeman told him, "Boy, you need to learn how to stay in your place." That's all there was to that. The landlady told us, said, "I warned you, told you, don't go down there." But I was always a little timid of those kinds of things even though I had feelings, but I never would go. I was just afraid anyway to participate in any of those kinds of thing. But back during that time, the '30s and the early '40s, all the way through the '40s, it was rough there or throughout the south. In other words, if you came from North Carolina, you came from up north, you was branded. In other words, all the people up this way, the nigger, they're supposed to have been listed as smart. You go down there, they put you in your place, both of your places hanging on one of those trees, beat up or dead somewhere.	30:46
Henry Teman Donaldson	But in all, I was blessed. I didn't ever have get arrested or I wasn't ever beat up or anything. When I came from down that way, I think we have been through there about once or twice because the first year our oldest daughter was in college, she went to Talladega. I persuaded her, with her not to go down there because she was a little mama's girl around the house and she's never been out. But Joyce's first year to Talladega, that ended because the middle of the year, the Ku Klux Klan ran through and they set the buildings a fire there at Talladega College. They had a White lady instructor there and something happened. This is when the Klans paraded across the campus and the officials there notified us not to come down there. Joyce would call, she would cry, but we could not go to Talladega to see about Joyce.	31:50
Henry Teman Donaldson	She would let us know what was going on. Long as she stayed in the building, she would be all right. At the end of that school year, we went and got Joyce. Joyce didn't go back that way. She went to North Carolina Central up here in Durham. That broke off Talladega. Well, Joyce, that was supposed to have been handpicked college as they call.	33:06
Laura Shepard Donaldson	She gave her that scholarship.	33:32
Henry Teman Donaldson	She had a little scholarship to go there and nothing could go there unless they, what you call it, the academy, the record was high. Joyce's fitted that, so they gave her a scholarship to come there. But at the end of that year, we didn't have no more worry with Joyce about Talladega. She came back here and went to North Carolina Central University.	33:33
Rhonda Mawhood	Around what year was that?	34:01
Henry Teman Donaldson	That was—	34:01
Rhonda Mawhood	Fifties?	34:03
Henry Teman Donaldson	Wait a minute. [indistinct 00:34:08] I left here with—	34:04
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Would have been '62.	34:08
Rhonda Mawhood	Excuse me, '62.	34:10
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. Yes, sir. Some kind of book, Talladega, oh, Lord. She got everything out of there.	34:10
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Well, '62 then.	34:23
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. This is pictures of the college. Laura, where's all the information was in there?	34:24
Laura Shepard Donaldson	She probably took it out.	34:24
Henry Teman Donaldson	Joyce probably come inside, just left the book back, but that's the school.	34:35
Rhonda Mawhood	Building, right? A beautiful building.	34:37
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. This, they had one White—	34:38
Laura Shepard Donaldson	[indistinct 00:34:45] experienced so much pain.	34:38
Henry Teman Donaldson	This, they had one White instructor there. She was a doctor somebody and the Klansmen didn't want her on that campus teaching or something. They started all this rigmarole. They shot into some of the dormitories and the kids could not come out.	34:46
Laura Shepard Donaldson	They couldn't go shopping unless one of the instructors went with them.	35:06
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yes. They definitely told us not to come down there. Your parents, stay. In other words, anybody from North Carolina, don't go that way. Naturally, we suffered here until it was over. But I hated it happened like that. But I told Joyce, I said, "Now, baby, I have been on that end of the road working and they call you nigger, they'll kick you, they'll do anything. They'll spit on you and you can't do anything back." "No, Daddy, I got my scholarship and I want to go down there and they have high standards." I said, "Well, you're not going to like it." Sure enough, it came to pass, she didn't like it. Wasn't a thing that we could do about it. She left there once and they took so many of them from Talladega and carried them to Atlanta to some conference thing they had there. But they were pretty well guarded.	35:07
Henry Teman Donaldson	She went back. But that's the only time. Joyce left Talladega that first year that she was there. I was so glad when it was over with, when they did tell the school was out, we could come and go. But we went on down. We picked her up and we got on away from there. After that, then that was down in there. But anybody from North Carolina that was from up north, smart, this, that and the other. But it was rough during that time. I came up on this end of the road. I went to Washington D.C. in 1950 and I worked up around Maryland laying brick in Bethesda, Alexandria, Virginia. I lived in the district room. She didn't ever come up to me then. At that time, our other two children were born, so she stayed at home with them.	36:11
Henry Teman Donaldson	In 1953, I worked in Norfolk, Virginia and being up and—I call it up and down the road and living in other folk houses. I just got tired of staying away from home. I told Laura, I said, "Baby, I'm coming home. If we don't have but $.05, we going to enjoy that together. I'm just tired of rooming and working on jobs," and work was slow around here. I couldn't hardly make ends meet. This is why I worked up and down the road. But I came home in 1953 from Norfolk, Virginia. At the time, things began to look a little brighter around here so far as working conditions. In 1954, this waterfront here in Wilmington, which always have been a port city shipping. Then things escalated up and I went to the Longshore Association. They were wanting men to work. They even sent to South Carolina.	37:18
Henry Teman Donaldson	This is when they opened up this ammunition depot on the waterfront over here in Brunswick County. Oh my land, this is when we started—I started leaving. I went and I joined this union, ILA, International Longshoreman's Association. I was paying $110 and I went to work there on the ships loading and unloading ships. I made more money then than I had ever even dreamed of. They were paying $4 an hour. Now, brick masons, at that time wasn't getting but $2.25 an hour. They had gone to 2.25 an hour here and whenever you could find a job. This just suited me. I laid my trowel down aside. Of course, I've never put it away because right now, I lay a few bricks once in a while after retire. From 1954, I went out and I started loading ammunition. They started sending to these war zones and from time to time we got periodic raises.	38:43
Henry Teman Donaldson	From 4.54 at different times at different ammunition, we would load over there. I have made as much—I'm not exaggerating, on particular day, $104 an hour. I worked one day, six hours. Now this was handling this poisonous gas that the Army would use. See, this was dangerous work. All of it's dangerous. This is why they paid so much. But on this particular project, that's as much as I've ever made. I guess they don't be talking about that too much, but the fact they was getting rid of some of this gas, the Army, and this is what they paid. We were all backed down and this, that, and the other, gas masks and whatnot for our safety. They sent that stuff away from there. But we would get paid during that time, whatever your hourly rate was, after 5:00 in the evening, you got double time, or if you worked at night.	39:54
Henry Teman Donaldson	The highest I made one week that I would work. I didn't work long hours because—For my own benefit, but you could make $2,000 a week if you wanted to work that long.	41:10
Laura Shepard Donaldson	He didn't see many of those days.	41:30
Henry Teman Donaldson	No. I wouldn't work because when I would get tired, I was jittery of that work because it was so dangerous. You could stumble and fall and get killed just that quick. But when I get tired, I come away from there. One week, I worked enough to make $1,500 in, I believe it was three and a half days. This particular year, I made $41,000 in about five months. Now this wasn't working every day. Didn't need to do that.	41:31
Rhonda Mawhood	In the 1950s.	42:10
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. This was in the '60s.	42:12
Rhonda Mawhood	Sixties.	42:13
Henry Teman Donaldson	This was in the '60s. I made good salaries down there and saved and when this war started over here—What do you call it? The Gulf War?	42:15
Rhonda Mawhood	The Gulf War.	42:24
Henry Teman Donaldson	Some of those fellows made $150,000.	42:27
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Sam was not in there.	42:32
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, I was there then. No, I retired at 1988.	42:32
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	42:36
Henry Teman Donaldson	I made 32 years and nine months from 1954 to 1988, I worked down there and mostly I made on that waterfront and money had $41,000. I'd always average around from 20, 25 and 30 and 35. Now, I could have made far more than that had I pushed myself, work night and day, but I wouldn't do that. A lot of the fellows, I noticed they would work until they'd fall out. Some have strokes, some had heart attacks, just working at all that money. But I didn't ever do that.	42:39
Rhonda Mawhood	Mrs. Donaldson, did you worry about your husband doing this work?	43:21
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Yes, I did.	43:26
Henry Teman Donaldson	Whole lot. More than she should have.	43:27
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I guess I was his guardian angel and to me—But now, bear in mind, these large payrolls were not a weekly thing.	43:33
Henry Teman Donaldson	No.	43:48
Laura Shepard Donaldson	You didn't do this every week.	43:49
Henry Teman Donaldson	Do that every week.	43:50
Laura Shepard Donaldson	When you average it out on a yearly basis,—	43:53
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yearly basis.	43:55
Laura Shepard Donaldson	—it was nothing like that amount. But it was just that hourly, the pay was very good, but it didn't come every day.	43:57
Henry Teman Donaldson	Every week.	44:05
Laura Shepard Donaldson	It didn't come every week. That made a difference.	44:06
Henry Teman Donaldson	But it was so much farther, more than I had ever made. Whenever I would, we would put it to what we call good use.	44:10
Laura Shepard Donaldson	He had his brick masonry job to fall back on—	44:22
Henry Teman Donaldson	Always.	44:26
Laura Shepard Donaldson	—at the time when there was no work on the front.	44:27
Henry Teman Donaldson	Now during that time, they had some awful strikes. Ships didn't sail. Sometimes. I remember once we had one that lasted three months. Well, during that time, I would go back to my brick laying job. The fellows that didn't do anything but work on the waterfront, they suffered. But I always had something to fall back on. This was something else, too, of my people, they're some of the darndest folk there is in the world, I'll put it that way. They're jealous. A lot of them are hateful and they don't want to see—When you hear the word, they're like a lot of crabs. You ever been crabbing and see—You catch some crab and put them in a bucket and one try to get out and one just pull it down. This is the way it was on that waterfront. The guys hated to see you excel and they would do everything they could to pull you down, in other words, to get you not to have anything.	44:29
Henry Teman Donaldson	Alcoholism is one of the main menace it is down there. A lot of those guys. They'll go out and say, they'll make a thousand dollars this week. They'll spend the biggest of that drinking and whatnot, especially during that time. I didn't ever fool with drinking with them too much around me because I knew how treacherous they were. Then they put a brand on me, "Well, you think you more than anybody else, you don't associate with us." But I couldn't put up with the things that they were doing because—	45:31
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Hen pecked.	46:10
Henry Teman Donaldson	I was always looking forward to one day retiring and having something that I could feel proud of. They always give me the heart in to go. Finally, as God would have it, I worked and stayed there and I took all of that because I knew one day that if I retired, this would be good for me. Finally, the last 10 years that I was there, I worked up to be what they call a header, which is the supervisor over them. Then they had to adhere to me then because they wanted a job. I could hire them, but I always would treat them like I wanted to be treated because—	46:11

Henry Teman Donaldson	Didn't have cigarette money.	0:01
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you see a lot of that, Mr. Donaldson?	0:02
Henry Teman Donaldson	A whole lot of it. A whole lot of it. Some of them would buy automobiles but the average one would not buy a home. And, in 1973, when we built this home here, when I say we, my wife and I, we built a brick mason. That was what I wanted. And they really skinned up their nose at me then. "What do you want with such a big house? You're not going to stay in it." And this day, right here, this is the 16th day of July, we moved in this house, and another thing to it, the 16th day of July in 1973, we had it completed, we moved in, my wife had all the furniture here, everything paid for, and we moved in this house and this day, right here, make us 20 years right here in this house.	0:05
Rhonda Mawhood	Happy anniversary.	0:57
Henry Teman Donaldson	Thank you.	0:59
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Thank you.	0:59
Henry Teman Donaldson	And I'm saying this is our year of the Jubilee, like the Israelites used to have. They went so 50 years Jubilee. And, at the end of that time, they wasn't supposed to owe anybody anything, all their debts was forgiven and whatnot. What I'm saying, this year is our Jubilee year.	1:02
Laura Shepard Donaldson	We did have an older house we had bought and remodeled. I've always been a tomboy. If it was something that I wanted and then—Don gets on me now about wanting the best but we bought an older house and we remodeled that. And—	1:20
Henry Teman Donaldson	Sold it.	1:42
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Sold that and we came here. And, together, with—	1:43
Henry Teman Donaldson	Put that in this.	1:46
Laura Shepard Donaldson	With his brick masonry and with my father having done brick masonry and carpentry.	1:48
Henry Teman Donaldson	But Her father didn't do any break masonry on this.	1:54
Laura Shepard Donaldson	No, no, no. No. He was dead long before then because he was dead—I had neither parent when I married Don. Both of them died when I was just a child. Both my mother and father.	1:57
Henry Teman Donaldson	But what she's trying to work up to is she learned how to do a little carpentry work and she helped carpenter on the little things that she could do.	2:07
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Put down most of the hardwood floors and made all my drapes.	2:18
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah, she did all of her sewing.	2:18
Laura Shepard Donaldson	All over the house.	2:19
Henry Teman Donaldson	This house, if I had contracted it out to real estate, they wanted, at the time, $50,000 to build this place. By me knowing and what we wanted and how it's supposed to have been done, do you know we got in this house, in $100 of being $30,000. 29,900. We were in here and staying like we are now. And, now, they have the tax value on this house as $150,000.	2:24
Rhonda Mawhood	It's a lovely house. Have many rooms.	2:52
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. The second floor up there, that's our living quarters. Had four bedrooms up there and the large walk-in closet. We have two and a half baths here, half downstairs and two full baths upstairs. It's just a comfortable place but, I'll tell you, it took a lot of work to do it. And the guys' prophesied that I wouldn't stay in here two years but now it ended up, this day, 20 years. And we hope to continue.	2:55
Rhonda Mawhood	Mrs. Donaldson, where were you living when your husband was working through Alabama and all those other places?	3:29
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Staying behind, being lonely. But I'll tell you—	3:37
Henry Teman Donaldson	She lived in the projects. The housing project.	3:41
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Lived in Hillcrest.	3:46
Henry Teman Donaldson	Hillcrest. Then, we left Hillcrest after we moved out there. Now, this is where I was working and running up and down the road and she was living in Hillcrest at the time and, from there, when I came in, we built this housing project there on Eighth and Dawson over on the south side of town. This is when we bought our first home on the north side of Wilmington [indistinct 00:04:17] and we paid—During that time, work was so scarce, I paid $3,700 for that house. It had three bedrooms. A living room, dining room, kitchen.	3:47
Laura Shepard Donaldson	We remodeled that completely.	4:32
Henry Teman Donaldson	We remodeled that completely. I paid $3,700 for the house in 1971. We sold it cash for $10,500. This is what launched us this way, over here. We sold out, got out, and we stayed with a friend one year and—Not quite a year.	4:35
Laura Shepard Donaldson	In November 19—	4:56
Henry Teman Donaldson	The last of 1972, I came out here and I put the foundation, the blocks, in for this house.	4:56
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And it snowed.	5:04
Henry Teman Donaldson	It snowed. Had two big awful snows, the last of 72, and around Christmas, and then I got a carpenter to come and frame it up, put the top on and we took it from there.	5:05
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Did all the interior. Yeah.	5:20
Henry Teman Donaldson	I had friends to help me. Her brother sprayed these ceilings and the fellow that was working with him put up the sheet rock. She painted every wall in the house and she put down the floors while I was—That's marble out there in the foyer there. I laid every bit of that. I basically work around the house. I just knocked off.	5:23
Laura Shepard Donaldson	In the meantime—	5:48
Henry Teman Donaldson	I was working on the waterfront at that time.	5:48
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I was laying away furniture, so that when we moved in, we had paid for everything in here. That was no problem. With his working and with my working, we were able—And my thing has always been, if you want something badly enough and you're willing to work for it, all things are possible, especially when you have a strong faith and faith is what has sustained me down through the years because I was only 10 when my mother died and, when I was just short of 17, my father died and there was a brother who was younger than I, that I had sort of had to mother him ever since my mother died, and for over the last three or four years, she had breast cancer and didn't have the medications to control that as we have today.	5:49
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I've never really had time to be a little kid. It has always been planning, working and, even now, the younger brother who was little when my mother died, I not only had to mother him, but I've had to be the mother of the whole family. The others were grown and gone. It just fell my lot to step in. Maybe when I get to heaven, I can deal with kids.	6:54
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah, through it all, we came through. But God has blessed us until this day to come back, come through all of that, and to come and to just sit down and just wait. That's all.	7:31
Rhonda Mawhood	Did you have other family members here, Mrs. Donaldson? Aunts or uncles?	7:48
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I had brothers and sisters here but, bear in mind, during the forties, if you were Black, unless you were one of the fortunate ones who had had the rare opportunity of a college education, if you were a woman, you worked in Miss Anne's kitchen and that paid little or nothing.	7:55
Laura Shepard Donaldson	This was the era that I came to Wilmington under. But, at home, after my mother died, the few years that my father was there, he had taught for a long time in their early marriage. He was also a brick mason and carpenter, so that made a little easier. I knew nothing about the farm life because I had not seen cotton until I was 16 and, at that time, I thought I was looking at a large field of okra.	8:21
Laura Shepard Donaldson	We went to Steve's Ferry, which was a few miles from Wilmington, to visit one of my old teachers and I told my Daddy, I said, oh, look at the okra. I've never seen so much okra in my life. And he laughed. A few minutes later he said, baby, what did you call it? I said, okra and a few—Just a little—Baby, what did you call it? And, by that time, I was getting sort of exasperated with him. I told you okra. He said, baby, that is not okra. That is a cotton field. But there was cotton growing within two miles of us but it was on some White person's farm. My uncle farm, but he did not raise cotton.	8:59
Rhonda Mawhood	And where was this, ma'am?	9:49
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Verona.	9:50
Rhonda Mawhood	Verona.	9:50
Henry Teman Donaldson	That's just this side of—	9:53
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Jacksonville.	9:53
Henry Teman Donaldson	Jacksonville, North Carolina up 17.	9:53
Laura Shepard Donaldson	It's interchangeable with Jacksonville now. But, anyway, remembering from his childhood days, he said that he would rather for a man to spit in his face than to ask him to let one of his daughters work in the cotton field. Even though we were that close to cotton, I never saw cotton because he would not allow his daughters to work in the fields. That meant that I knew nothing about it, and I've told my husband and I've told my children about my first time seeing cotton. And it was just one of those things, that he did not allow us to go that way.	9:58
Rhonda Mawhood	Did your father pick cotton in his years?	10:45
Laura Shepard Donaldson	No, not to my knowledge. But his was a hard life. I never saw either of my grandparents on either side of the family. But his father died when he was small. And my grandmother, of course, had to work in the fields because my daddy said, I don't know the—And this is something that I regret. I don't know—Not having seen either of the grandparents, and I'm curious about the past, but there was no one really to fill me in on the things that I really wanted to know.	10:48
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But many times he told us that he was so small my grandmother would take him to work with her. He could not do anything. But he said that the—And, bear in mind, this was right after the turn of slavery because he was born in 1880 but grandma would take him to work with her and the plantation owner would put him on the horse and tell him where to go. He couldn't work but he could take messages. But they wouldn't send him walking to take messages. They would put him on the horse. You go down the road and you stop at the first house this side, wherever they were sending him, and he would take the messages to the people the next place.	11:34
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But this determination to learn was there. And, as he grew older, even after he married my mother, yes, my mother, you have to get married, he said that this burning desire was in my family to learn. And, bear in mind, that, right after the turn of slavery, especially in the rural areas, there was not the opportunity to really go to school. Maybe you went a few months out of the year but that desire to learn was there.	12:33
Laura Shepard Donaldson	He said that the principal of his school told him, shepherd, I've taken you as far as I can go. But he still wanted to learn, so he kept pestering. I want more, I want more. So he told him, if you are that determined, there is a school. I don't know the name of the school but it was in Syracuse, New York. And he said, if you want more, I've carried you as far as I can go and, now, I dare say you know more than I do. But if you want more, I'll give you the name of this college in Syracuse, New York. He did and he took this correspondence course. Upon completion of this course, they sent him crepe paper. Do you know what crepe paper is?	13:15
Rhonda Mawhood	Yes, ma'am.	14:10
Laura Shepard Donaldson	They sent him his cap and gown made out of the crepe paper. He called all the neighbors, got them all together, and the house was too small for the gathering. They built this big bonfire out in the yard. From that, I know it had to be in the fall when he had his graduation, built this big bonfire and they were all out enjoying themselves and congratulating him on having completed this college course. The wind blew a spark which lighted his cap and gown and he had to beat a hasty retreat and pull the thing off to keep from being—	14:11
Laura Shepard Donaldson	This, with me, has been a strong thing, to see that my kids got an education and I worked hard. While Don was working, I was working also and we succeeded in getting all three of them through college. And, to me, this is the crowning achievement of my lifetime because I could not go as far as I wanted to go with both my parents having died. But this thirst for knowledge was there and to see that my kids got it was the most important thing in my life, so thank God we did it. And when they wanted more, we were there to see that they not only got the basic college education but they went on.	15:01
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Lana and Joyce both has their masters. Jerome, he is a minister now. He's working otherwise because, at this point, in time he does not have a church. He has little computer business of his own. And, with the crunch that has come about lately with computers and with the family, he can't rely just on his computer business, so he's working with another firm but he also keeps his little business going because he, too, has three children that are going to have to have an education.	15:58
Laura Shepard Donaldson	As I've told them, if you do nothing else, see that your children have an education. The oldest daughter has only one son and he, as my husband told you, is a graduate of Harvard and Jerome's Cory will be 16 in August, and she is a very good student. But, even before my children could sit, they didn't know what I was talking about, but I was reading to them. They knew the pictures and to them it was the pictures because, before they could sit, I was pointing out pictures to them. Lana loves books better than anything in the world. They came up—I said I breastfed them with milk but their main diet was books.	16:39
Rhonda Mawhood	And they're librarians now. The two women.	17:37
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Yes, yes. But that was very important because, in the country, when I was growing up, when you're living out in the country, there's nothing to do but go to church or the children to play. But there were books and more books. You read books. You didn't look at the book and put it—You read books in my house and, sitting by the fire at night, the long winter nights, my parents read to us. The thirst for knowledge has been there and, as I tell them, I cannot accept—I can't do. It's I will do. It has paid off and I can look back now with no regrets at having tried to be the best mother that I possibly could for them.	17:39
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And, the little ones, they think that I'm the greatest grandmother who ever lived. But it hasn't been easy. But I'm grateful that we have had family, and when I look around and see so many others, it's not from the standpoint of boasting but, as I told my children, just because you don't have everything you want, I can't give you everything you want, I can't give you everything I want you to have, but I can see to it that you have the basic tools, that what I can't give you, you can give yourself. There was never a question about not going to school. It was you will go to school, you will learn.	18:35
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I am grateful that they listened. And as I told them, I'm not asking you to do this for me but do it for yourselves. And, a lot of times, I would tell them, like when we moved in here, five years before Don even agreed to build this house, Mr. Sutton down here, Sutton Council will tell you, I was laying with friends, he said, baby, I can't do it, I can't do it. We've got these children. That's why we got these children. They're not responsible. We have to take care of these children. But there's also something for me.	19:30
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And I can remember when I was just a little kid growing up in the country, two of my uncles—Three of my uncles, one of them died before I was old enough to remember him, but his house was directly across the road from our house. They had two-story houses. And, when we would go to visit my uncles, my mother had no problem with me because I would climb up and down the stairs, and I can remember when my legs were so short that I couldn't get up to the—I would have to hold on to the little spokes in the stairwell there. I would have to hold on because, if I tried to raise my foot on my own, I would tumble, so I learned, if I held onto the side—When we went, this was what I did the whole time up and down the stairs, up and down the stairs, so my mother didn't have to worry about my going to sleep when I got home. My little short legs would be so tired.	20:09
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But this was my dream. And I told Don, he said, don't lay away on our furniture, girl. Don, I'm going to get my house.	21:17
Rhonda Mawhood	Two-story house, you wanted.	21:27
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And this house we bought over there, every once in a while, I think about—Do you like poetry?	21:31
Rhonda Mawhood	Yes, ma'am.	21:37
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Oh, I love poetry. I even write a little poetry. It may never get published but it's a very dear thing and, the long winter nights, that was something we did at home when we were—I remember my mother reading and my father reading to us, and I loved to hear them read poetry. I do the same things with the grandchildren. I did it with my children. I like writing a little poetry. It may never get published but I have the satisfaction of knowing that I can put a verse together and we would sit and read.	21:39
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And even after Joyce has been grown, when she would come home, she'd say, mother, just read to me like—You are a woman now. But I just remember when you used to read to us, so read to me now.	22:14
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But this house over there, we bought it and Don said, baby, we can't make it here. Don, we can. We can do it. So we got in there. I don't mind working. You can see from my steady fingers that I must've done a lot of work, but we knocked out all that old plaster walls that was in there and we put up sheet rock. Then we had someone to—The walls. We got the hang of it somewhat. And we got in there, we did that, and I did the painting. Every room in this house I've painted and the sheet rock, when we were putting this up, we just paid the man to do the framing.	22:30
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Don would hold up a piece of sheet rock and I would go up the ladder and nail it and, while he was getting another piece in place, I was coming down the sides nailing, because you got to nail it all the way down, I was coming down the side of the ladder, nailing it down. I pity a person who says I can't because, if you want it badly enough, you can. This is the story of my life. Believing that it can be done. And, if you really want it and you have the faith in yourself and in your God that, if you try, that he's going to help you see the fruition of your dreams. It happens. It happens. Don, many a night, he would say, baby, we can't make it. Ever since we started dating, he started calling me baby. Baby this, baby that, hey baby this, hey—Don, we can do it. No, we can't.	23:15
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And I love antiques. The sofa that I bought for this house is out there in the garage because this type of thing you don't see anymore in the stores. I bought this—	24:22
Rhonda Mawhood	It's like a love seat.	24:32
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I bought this and had it reupholstered because it wasn't what I wanted. But this is how we have managed in 50 years now. 50 long years. But, when you look back, it seems like just yesterday when we were holding hands, and we still hold hands.	24:34
Henry Teman Donaldson	That was Neil.	24:54
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Oh, yeah?	24:55
Rhonda Mawhood	Mrs. Avon.	24:57
Laura Shepard Donaldson	She was a very sweet old lady and I have a bracelet upstairs that she gave to me. It's sterling silver. But she used to call me her daughter. And, during the lean years, I used to make all of my clothes and all of the children's clothes, all the girls' clothes and it was, where did you get this? Where did you get that? In addition to working, I did a lot of sewing to help get the things that we wanted. And once I was ill and she called me and she said, what's wrong? And I told her, I said, I'm sure you can barely hear me because I'm so hoarse. She said, get off the phone, daughter. Get off the phone.	25:00
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And she said, I'll be there, I'll be there. And I've never felt so humble or so elated. She lived about two and a half blocks—Actually, about three blocks, all told, from where we were and, a few minutes after I had hung up the phone, here she was, the doctor's wife, one of the oldest doctors in town. She came in. Daughter, you just lie right there in that bed. You just stay right there.	25:51
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I had gotten up and given the children their breakfast and sent them to school. Don had gone to work but I was too sick to do the dishes. I was going to do them because I hate dirty dishes but I had gone back to bed and I said to my—Who and the devil is this? As badly as I'm feeling. Went to the door. And here she was. Daughter, just get right back in the bed, get right back in the bed. She came in my house and washed my dishes, put them away, got the broom and swept my kitchen and there I am with a temperature, about 103, and she's back there.	26:30
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I have never felt so elated but, at the same time, so humble to know that she thought this much of me and she told me about a lot of her experiences as a doctor's wife. They were very fair people. She and her husband. Dr. Avon came from Southport, wasn't it, Don? Somewhere over that area. But she was just a wonderful person and she told me about when he started his practice.	27:06
Laura Shepard Donaldson	She was a nurse in Philadelphia, so she met him while he was away in medical school. But she told me, when they came back, when they came to Wilmington, that they were so poor, he could not afford an office, so there was this little shack that they fixed up and this is where he started his practice.	27:47
Rhonda Mawhood	Where was that located? Do you know?	28:10
Laura Shepard Donaldson	On Red Cross Street between McRay and Ninth on Red Cross Street. It's a large two-story brick building on the—If you're going toward downtown, it would be on the right-hand side of the street. Right across from that, diagonal, is the Shelton's home. But, back during that time, I think hers was the first Black family. They were not Black. They were not even teasing tan because, if you saw her or him, their complexion was just as fair as yours. But, because they had that—The eighth or whatever of Black blood in them, they were still considered Negroes or Blacks. But, if you saw them on the street, you would not have known the difference.	28:12
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Her hair was a brighter color than your hair and so was his. He had the green eyes. I mean green, green eyes. But, they knew, if you had that grain of Black blood in you, no matter the complexion—They were not racist. The point that I'm making is that they too were of the Black race but they were those folk who tried to make a difference and they encouraged others to try to.	29:07
Laura Shepard Donaldson	They only had one child and Sarah is still living. She's somewhere in DC. Her husband died not too long ago. She became a teacher and her husband went back to school and became a lawyer. He was a lawyer there in DC. They had one son who is a doctor now, he's practicing somewhere in Pennsylvania. But they were just people who were trying hard to reach back and pull someone else along the way to help them. In other words, they were progressive people who wanted to see the race move forward rather than to stagnate, so I count it a blessing to have known them, and certainly I will never forget the day that she came and washed my dishes and swept my floor and dared me to get out of bed.	29:49
Henry Teman Donaldson	Were there some questions that you had maybe in your mind that you would like to ask, that we might be able to elaborate on?	30:55
Rhonda Mawhood	There are some things I'd like to ask. You've told me so much that we haven't asked. It's wonderful. But you did mention having gotten together in high school and I was wondering if you would mind telling me about how you met and a little bit about that. If it's not too personal.	31:09
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, it's not all that personal. When she came to Wilmington, I got a glimpse of her but, in high school, during my younger days, I played football and I was one of the, what they call during that time, dapper fellas on the campus. Now, I was a good sportsman and, naturally, all the girls, they went for those kinds of things, so I had a string of girls. But, anyway, when she came to Wilmington, the first time that I saw her, I saw the little—We all call them country girls and I thought, she was the cutest little thing that I'd ever seen. It used to be I would've my way, what I wanted with whoever it was or else I just didn't be with them but she was a little different.	31:30
Henry Teman Donaldson	And it's because she just come out of the country and she was afraid, that's the only way I would put it. She wasn't all that shy but she's afraid of different things. So I would play around with her and I took up some time and, naturally, during that time, I was a sexpot. If I went out with you, then that was it. But that—No. No, no. As the time went by, I would take her to the movies and whatnot. That was my next subject. I'd just leave you alone. I had other girls, and that was my thing. I didn't pay too much attention to it but, after a while, it began to yearn on me. She's going to cut your dick off [indistinct 00:33:26].	32:24
Rhonda Mawhood	Do you want me to leave that on or turn it off?	33:19
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I don't care.	33:19
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	33:19
Henry Teman Donaldson	I'm going to get me some of that. Yeah, I'm going to get me some of that. And I just sit down and we talked about it and she says, no, I can't afford no children. If we ever would get married, then I'll be yours but, until that time, no. Me being the progressive guy that I am, I'm get you some of that. She can say what she wants. And she still held out. If we ever get married. I come to conclusion, yeah, we'll get married. All the other girls—Because I had my way with them. I wanted to, anytime I wanted to, it just didn't matter. But, whenever I talked to her, no. Okay, he's this and he's that. My family was of a poor family and, at the time, I was considered, the little girl's, handsome.	33:31
Henry Teman Donaldson	And I didn't ever have any money but I just had that mouth, that glib that she called it. Not rude. But it isn't rude, that. And, finally, that day came around. We got married and then she was mine and it scared the devil out of me after we got married because the first time we had sex—Oh, my land, I thought I had killed her. She bled like everything. And we went to the doctor, the same old doctor over there, Dr. Bernie. Man, my wife is bleeding, and he sit there and he listening to me and looked at me and he started laughing while I'm all upset and everything. I don't know what's wrong with my wife, man.	34:24
Henry Teman Donaldson	He said, boy, you found a cherry. I said, what you talking about, man? I didn't know. He said she was all right. She'll be all right. Just handle her easy. And, from that day until this one, yeah, I married a virgin. She [indistinct 00:35:26]. I never had that experience with none of of them because they knew what it was all about and I didn't and, being young and foolish, I didn't ever know.	35:08
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And my friend used to teased me. Laura Shepherd, I would hear the girls talking about went this place and did this and did that. And they started this thing about—Laura Shepherd is just as scared of a man as I am a bear. But, see, this was—I used to hear my mother talking to my sisters who were much older than I, I didn't know what she was talking about, but she would tell them about "always be a lady." Always be a lady. I knew I was supposed to be a lady. Then, as the sisters were gone by the time she died, but this thing about being a lady just grew up in me and then Don was really the first serious boyfriend that I ever had. You talk about this is my boyfriend, all the boys will say, this is my girlfriend.	35:36
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And the only other person that I think I possibly could have married, of the people that I have known, he and Don became good friends. He used to tell me, you just wait until you're 18 and I'm going to marry you. And we corresponded when he was in the service but, when he went overseas, this was before I met Don, even after he went overseas, I heard from him. Then, suddenly, there was nothing. But when he came home, by the time he came home, I had married Don. I didn't know what had happened because he—Just suddenly, there was no more letters and there was no answer. I didn't know if he was POA. I just didn't know.	36:36
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And you heard so much about prisoners of war. POW. I said POA. I didn't know if he was a prisoner of war. I just didn't know, and I couldn't afford to run back to Jacksonville all the time. I went occasionally. But, after I started dating Don, I didn't go as frequently as I had gone. When he came home, Don and I had been married about three years or more because, by then, we had our first child. And he went to my sister's house, and my sister was devilish. She wouldn't tell him that I was married. She told him where I lived and he came and when I went to the door and opened the door, he was so glad to see me. He just picked me up.	37:28
Laura Shepard Donaldson	He said, oh, here she is. And Joyce said, put Laura down and take me up. Put Laura down and take me up. And I'm pushing him away. And I said, Vitus. He said, I'm so glad to see you. Now, we're going to take up where we left off and we are getting married. I said, Vitus, wait a minute. I'm already married. What? And I said, I'm already married. How in the world could you do this to me? You know I told you, ever since you were a baby, I was going to marry you. And I said, I didn't hear from you. And, after all this long time of not having heard from him—See, almost six years had passed. I had gotten an occasional letter from him when he was overseas but—And I still have a picture of him.	38:22
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But, when I started dating Don, I realized this is it. And so, I had told Don all about him and the fact that I wasn't actually going with him because my daddy didn't allow me to take company. And I came here while Vitus went in service. It was just one of those things. But we were best of friends. And he and Don became best of friends, and Vitus had two wives after then, but he did not marry until after he came home.	39:14
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But he—And the first wife left him. And the family all said that she told him that she—I knew that he was a good guy and, had it not been for fate, I probably would have been his wife but the bottom line was he had the same values that I had and there wouldn't have been any problem. Just like there was no problem with Don once we started dating. And I let him know the ground rules. You can kiss me, you can hold my hand. Thus far and no further. With him, it would have been the same type of relationship.	39:58
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But after he came back, I told Don that he had come and I wanted him to meet him, but he went on back to Jacksonville. We went up to Jacksonville to see him. He and Don became the best of friends. When he was doing his long illness, we would drive up to Jacksonville and see him. When he died, it's been about three months ago now, hasn't it?	40:47
Henry Teman Donaldson	About three months.	41:10
Laura Shepard Donaldson	They called me. We had been to the nursing home to see him several times and Don was always—And sometimes he would say, let's go see Vitus. We haven't been to see him lately. There was nothing. My life is an open book so far as romance is concerned. Don knew that he had nothing to fear from Vitus. By the same token, Vitus knew that this is a closed chapter. They got to be very good friends, so when they called us, Don was getting ready. I was cooking breakfast. Don was getting ready for Sunday school, and I told him, Don, Vitus is dead. He said, oh, no. He said, I've got to go to Sunday school but get ready. We got ready and went to the funeral. If there had been anything amiss, he would've said, no, but I'm going to Sunday school and you just go ahead and get ready and we'll go on up there, so we did.	41:12
Laura Shepard Donaldson	When I look back, my life has been a sort of Cinderella story, in that Don is my Don, Laura is Don's Laura and that's it. There is no inbetweens. It has just been the two of us. And when football—In the country, I knew nothing about football. I'd read about football but I knew nothing about it. And he would say—First time he wanted me to go to a game, I had to work. The person that I was working for said, aren't you going to the game? You [indistinct 00:42:53] you know I've got to work. He said, no? I want you to go and see the game. Don was playing football and Don was elated when I told him that I was going to get off to go to the game.	42:11
Laura Shepard Donaldson	When the game was over—The football field was across the street from Williston. We were at Williston. Football field was across the street, so when the game was over, I just walked on across the street because you know how, when you're coming out of a game, everybody is all mixed up? And when he came, he said, where were you? You didn't wait for me. I said, wait for you for what?	43:05
Henry Teman Donaldson	She was a stupid little thing.	43:33
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I wanted to walk across the street with my girl and I couldn't find—But I didn't see any big deal about walking across the street with him from the game. But he had to go down in the basement and change clothes. I had gone on around the front and he's looking all over for me.	43:38
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah, she was a typical little country gal. I guess I fooled around with her about two years before this time ever come and, finally, I settled down and that was it. It's been ever since. In other words, we're married 50 years but, about pretty close to two years, I wouldn't fool with her. Just go on out, do my thing and come on back. But it has been sort of rough at times but we made through. To this point, we made it through.	43:56
Laura Shepard Donaldson	The only separation has been when he was working away and that wasn't a legal separation, it was just that his work took him there. But, wherever he was, he managed to come home at least once month. At least once a month. And he will tell you, proudly, in all the years that he worked away, he has never once called home, no matter what hour it was, when I didn't pick up the phone on the second or third ring. And no matter how intimate the conversation might have been, he knew plain well that, as modest as I was, that I would not say the things that we would say to each other had there been anyone present.	44:43
Laura Shepard Donaldson	That's the way it has been down through these years and, this late in the day, there's nothing out there that I'm looking for and there's nothing out there that's going to tempt him at this late date. On that, I'm sure. It hasn't been all roses, when I say that we were from poor families, but the standards have been high and we have expected high standards out of our children.	45:27
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And, a lot of times, when Don would say, we can't do, Don, we have an obligation. We got these children. We are going to equip these children for life and we do that by seeing that they get the education that we didn't have the opportunity because I would like to have gone further. But when you look back and you've got a clean record behind you and you have reared three children and no one has a child before they are married, you've got to have done—	46:07

Laura Shepard Donaldson	—most of the time. And when he does it, when the song Nat King Cole did about, what was it, "Lord, I pray that you'll listen to my plea, keep her close to you till she comes back to me, and calls me baby." Well, he has called me baby down through the years. About the only time that Don calls me Laura is in an introduction. But other than that, it's, "baby this, baby that." Well, right away, I started calling him Don. Henry is okay, but to me, he was more than just Henry. He was my Don when we started going. His name being Donaldson, I just shortened the Donaldson. Instead of saying Donaldson, I started calling him Don.	0:01
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Now, practically everyone else calls him Don, because I called him Don down through the years, but it has been Don and Baby for all these years. If he gets to Heaven, and I'm already there, he's not going to come around looking for Mrs. Donaldson, or looking for Laura. He's going to look for Baby. Somewhere around the throne, I hope he'll find Baby. And if he goes first, that's what I'm going to go looking for, Don.	0:53
Rhonda Mawhood	I'd like to ask you just some questions. We have forms that we try to fill out with all of the people whom we interview, and it's just family information, mostly, so that we can have the same kinds of information for everyone. We ask about the names of your parents, and church memberships, and things like that. We'll try not to let it take too long. Would that be all right?	1:26
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yes, that's fine.	1:47
Rhonda Mawhood	The envelopes have sealed, but the heat —I'll open this up, and I'll do one for each of you. Maybe I'll ask one of you a question, and then, the other, and try to do it efficiently. It's not as romantic as what you've been telling me recently, but we'll try to get through it. Okay. So, Mr. Donaldson, your last name is Donaldson. Do you have a middle name, sir?	1:48
Henry Teman Donaldson	I have one, but I've never used it.	2:18
Rhonda Mawhood	Never used it?	2:19
Henry Teman Donaldson	The middle name is Teman, T-E-M-A-N.	2:20
Rhonda Mawhood	Teman.	2:24
Henry Teman Donaldson	But I never used it. There's nothing on any of my correspondence, or anything. Henry Teman Donaldson.	2:24
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay, I'll note that you don't use it.	2:32
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah.	2:34
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. And your address is 4821 —	2:38
Henry Teman Donaldson	Gordon.	2:41
Rhonda Mawhood	What is the ZIP here, please?	2:49
Henry Teman Donaldson	28405.	2:54
Rhonda Mawhood	And when your name appears on the tape, Mr. Donaldson, and on the transcript, how would you like your name to appear? Henry Donaldson.	2:55
Henry Teman Donaldson	Henry Donaldson.	3:04
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	3:05
Henry Teman Donaldson	Very few people know about the middle name. Very, very few.	3:08
Laura Shepard Donaldson	They all use my name for him, Don.	3:12
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. Mrs. Donaldson, do you have a middle name?	3:17
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Leola.	3:20
Rhonda Mawhood	L-E —	3:22
Laura Shepard Donaldson	O-L-A, Laura.	3:23
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. Laura, that's pretty.	3:26
Laura Shepard Donaldson	My maiden name was Shepard, and mine was S-H-E-P-A-R-D.	3:27
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. Your address is the same. And how would you like to be known on the printed materials, Mrs. Donaldson?	3:32
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Laura. Because Don is the only one who calls me Baby.	3:41
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay, I won't put Baby on.	3:48
Laura Shepard Donaldson	During that time he called me Tangerine a lot at school before. So it was Tangerine, and then he narrowed it down to Baby.	3:49
Rhonda Mawhood	Why was it Tangerine?	3:57
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I guess it was that popular song that was out there.	3:59
Henry Teman Donaldson	And I liked them so well.	4:01
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Tangerine. He loves Tangerine, yes.	4:03
Henry Teman Donaldson	I tell you, used to love those things. If there was one anywhere, I get one, and eat half a dozen. I love tangerines until this day, so I guess that's why I —	4:05
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I started out as Tangerine, but as time went by, I became Baby.	4:15
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah.	4:17
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And Baby I will die.	4:19
Rhonda Mawhood	Do you want to be Laura Shepard Donaldson, or Laura Donaldson?	4:22
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Well, you can use the Shepard. I'm proud of that, too. All right.	4:26
Rhonda Mawhood	Now Mr. Donaldson, could you tell me your date of birth? You told me a minute ago.	4:42
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yes. 8-22-23.	4:46
Rhonda Mawhood	22-23. Okay. And you were born in Wilmington, sir?	4:49
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, I was born in Brunswick County.	4:58
Rhonda Mawhood	Brunswick County. Not far.	5:00
Henry Teman Donaldson	Winnabow Subdivision, Lebuck, L-E-B-U-C-K. That's where I was born. But out from the little headquarters of Winnabow, North Carolina, that's in Brunswick County.	5:05
Rhonda Mawhood	How do you spell Winnabow, please, sir?	5:17
Henry Teman Donaldson	W-I-N-N-A-B-O-W.	5:17
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you.	5:17
Henry Teman Donaldson	And then, right out from Winnabow, just jot down Lebuck, L-E-B-U-C-K. That's me, raised right outside of Winnabow.	5:26
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay, thank you. You're married with spouse, okay. And your date of birth, Mrs. Donaldson?	5:34
Laura Shepard Donaldson	7-1-23.	5:41
Rhonda Mawhood	And where were you born, ma'am?	5:45
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Gray Town. No, I was born in Verona, but the little community that I was born in was called Gray Town. My mother was a Gray prior to marrying my father, and it was such a large family. They called it Gray Town, G-R-A-Y, T-O-W-N.	5:47
Rhonda Mawhood	Have you been back there recently?	6:06
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Oh, yes. I can't. They bought up our property for the Marine base. A lot of our property, we had 120 acres back in there. During the '40s, when they were building the Marine base, up at Jacksonville, they took over this. Actually, they changed the name. The whole area became known as Jacksonville, but there's still a little marker there, and the little depot that says Verona. And in our neck of the woods, back down on the river, it was Gray Town, because there were so many Grays. One of my uncles had 23 children. This was about two wives. The first one died.	6:08
Rhonda Mawhood	I was feeling sorry for the wife. I feel better, now that I know there were two.	6:54
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Yeah. The first wife died, so the second wife took up with the first wife, and there were 23 children in his family. And Uncle Sam had about eight. But this is where it is. If you look, if you blink your eye, you'll miss it. But there's a small marker there that says Verona. And we were born, our place was back down in the area. Because there were so many Grays down there, they called it Gray Town.	7:00
Rhonda Mawhood	The 120 acres your family had, was that from your mother's family?	7:35
Laura Shepard Donaldson	When my parents married, they had, my daddy bought this 15-acre plot. When the first child came along, this, of course, was all before my time, He bought a second plot, and then, in the latter years, he bought this additional 80 acres of land. To show you the change in things, from then and now, both of them were dead, when the government took over this property. When we went to settlement, for all of that property, we got less than $1,000 for all of this property.	7:41
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Well, my daddy, after he stopped teaching, he did a lot of building, and he also had a blacksmith's shop that he did a lot of —Well, I think we were about the only one in that area who had what is known as a forge. Some called it a bellows. He turned this thing to make the flame, and he used to shoe their horses, and repair their carts and wagons, and things like that.	8:44
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Well, we didn't have money. But I would say that, because of his having taught for so long, and with his being such a needed person in the community, if it were a chimney, he knew how to lay brick. If it were a mechanical thing, like needing a tire repaired, the rim on the cart, or something, this metal thing that goes around it, he had this forge that he could do, weld this thing, and put it back on. He was just, well, as the Bible say, he was well known in the gates, because he was a person who was needed in the community. So looking back, it was an interesting time.	9:28
Laura Shepard Donaldson	It was a painful time. Because, as I told you, my mother died when I was young. And then, suddenly, he was killed just before the takeover of this property. The lady's name is Mrs. Renie Griffith, he was standing by the side of the highway, and she veered off the road, and struck and killed him instantly. This is how Don got his baby, because I came to Wilmington with my sisters. But looking back, some of the memories are painful, like losing both of them. But when we went to settlement, this was before I married Don, we had to go back to Jacksonville, because the government was taking over all this area.	10:24
Laura Shepard Donaldson	They started at Camp Davis, then they moved on up into the Verona/Jacksonville area and took that in, for the Marine base. So I was in school here then, and I had to get out of school, and go to Jacksonville about this property, because all the heirs were supposed to go. I remember this lady's name, Miss Allen. But when we went, they wanted, for all of this property, to give us $200. And I said no. My brother was trying to shush me up. Because if you were Black, back then, they didn't call you Black, unless they did it in a derogatory way.	11:22
Laura Shepard Donaldson	You were a Negro or nigger, which I didn't like. I accepted the classification of Negro, but I could not abide nigger. But in most instances, you got called this. But my brother, when I stood up, the judge said, "What?" And I stood up and I said, "I refuse to accept this." He said, "Girl, what do you mean, you refuse to accept this?" I said, "I refuse to accept given away the property that my father worked so hard to leave for his children, for $200, when we have over 120 acres of land back there."	12:13
Laura Shepard Donaldson	He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "I just told you." So my brother's pulling me over to, "Sit down, Sis." He called me, Sis. "Sit down, Sis, sit down." And I said no. He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "And I resent you telling," what's this lady's name, Miss Allen, she was White, "this lady has a big farm, and her husband is dead, and left her with all these children. And you're going to tell her that she can only have $300 for her farm?" My brother said, "Sit down, Sis, sit down." He said, "Well, what do you know about property?" I said, "I know that my daddy worked too hard for it. And I know that Mr. Allen worked too hard for his."	13:01
Laura Shepard Donaldson	So he said, "Well, we'll call a recess." This was the first time we had played with —in our community. It wasn't as racist as some. We had grown up playing with the White children, and we were used to them coming to my house, where we were living in the country. But this was the first time that an adult White person had ever embraced me. I was afraid she was going to drop some of the snuff. She dipped the snuff. It was brown stuff. But she grabbed me, and she said, "Honey, thank you so much. Thank you so much. I didn't know how to talk to him like that, but thank you so much, and the Lord's going to bless you. Because I didn't have nobody to talk for me, and I couldn't afford a lawyer, but thank you so much for telling him, for me."	13:53
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I don't know how much she got, but when she came out, when we went back, she was happy. I didn't know what we were going to get. They notified us months later by letter, but he got up off the little bit that he was offering, and we came out to about $1,000, which still wasn't enough, but it was more than we would've gotten. But my brother, with him being older, being the oldest one in the family, and he knew about Jim Crow. I was too young, really, to know, because we had not been exposed. We younger children had not been exposed, as he had.	14:49
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But with my daddy's background of having taught, I can remember when the White people, because of his educational background, if they had a business letter that needed to be written, they would come and ask him to write it for them. As time went by, I can remember them coming under cover of darkness. Because, as I grew older, I could imagine how humiliating it was, that here is someone you consider beneath you. But because they had the perseverance to push forward, and to learn, you have to come to them. But on the other hand, they were friendly with us, in a lot of ways, because we kids played together. They thought nothing of it.	15:32
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But when it comes down to, you've got something of importance that has to be attended to, here, you have got to come to someone you consider beneath you to do your correspondence. But so be it. This is the way it was. But I never felt superior. By the same token, I did not feel inferior, but I felt that we are equal. This was the way that my daddy, he always told us, "You are just as good as anyone, and don't ever let anyone tell you that you are not just as good as the next person." So I grew up with that feeling, that I was just as good. And even though they were with me for only a short time, I appreciate and pass on to my children the things that my parents taught us. End of story.	16:27
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you very much. It's a wonderful story.	17:38
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay, Mr. Donaldson, could you tell me your mother's name please, sir?	17:41
Henry Teman Donaldson	Blanche Brinson Donaldosn.	17:52
Rhonda Mawhood	And her first name, is it C-H-I-E, or C-H-E?	17:56
Henry Teman Donaldson	C-H-E.	18:00
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay, and her middle name? I'm sorry, I don't know how to spell it.	18:00
Henry Teman Donaldson	Brinson, B-R-I-N-S-ON.	18:03
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	18:03
Henry Teman Donaldson	Brinson.	18:03
Rhonda Mawhood	Was Brinson her maiden name, sir?	18:10
Henry Teman Donaldson	That's right.	18:11
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	18:15
Henry Teman Donaldson	Do you know your mother's date of birth, sir?	18:15
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah, let me see. No, but I can get close to it. Mama was 53 years old in 1948, when she died.	18:20
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay, so she was born about 1895, I think.	18:30
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. Yeah, something like that.	18:40
Rhonda Mawhood	That be right? Okay.	18:42
Henry Teman Donaldson	About 1895. She was 53 years old, when she died the 13th day of December, in 1948.	18:43
Rhonda Mawhood	Wasn't her birthday in May?	18:48
Henry Teman Donaldson	It was in June.	18:53
Laura Shepard Donaldson	June, June.	18:54
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah, it was in June. June the 6th, I remember that.	18:55
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	18:58
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. And my daddy was born in 1882.	18:59
Rhonda Mawhood	When did your father pass on, sir?	19:10
Henry Teman Donaldson	He passed the 5th of January, 1939.	19:11
Rhonda Mawhood	Where was your mother born, Mr. Donaldson?	19:20
Henry Teman Donaldson	Columbus County, Chadbourn, North Carolina.	19:22
Rhonda Mawhood	For her occupation, what should I write, sir?	19:32
Henry Teman Donaldson	Well, Mama was a teacher, and I say that was, she went to school, here in Wilmington, to the eighth grade. During that time, they could go out to what they call a Rosenwald school, and teach from the first through, I think it was the sixth grade. And this is what she did for a while. I don't remember the year. But there came a time that teachers had to be certified, they had to get a certificate, and they would go ahead to this federal, state, it's federal/state now, but they call it federal, some teachers call it.	19:35
Henry Teman Donaldson	But anyway, and it was $300 to go get this course. Mama didn't have the money, so she had to come out of the school, and go into the White people's kitchen to cook for them. That was a great milestone for them, about "being a nigger school teacher to cook for me." Anyway, Mama taught from the first through to sixth grade, over in Brunswick County, over at Winnabow. It was a Rosenwald school, as they call it.	20:15
Henry Teman Donaldson	At that time, oh, teachers made a lot of money. I think it was something like about 60 cents a day, and they was in school, and school didn't last as long then, as it did now. I think it was three months out the year, for something like 60 cents per day, that they got from teaching. She taught all of her children, except my youngest sister. All of us went to school. Mama, she was the only teacher at that time, over in that section. I don't know whether it was the county, or the state, or who it was, who built this little one-room building and all the classes. It was about half as, say from there to there, this little narrow place. He was sitting in the middle of it.	20:47
Rhonda Mawhood	The Rosenwald school?	21:37
Henry Teman Donaldson	The Rosenwalds, right, what they call them.	21:37
Rhonda Mawhood	A man named Rosenwald, who was the President of Sears Roebuck, who dumped a lot of money—	21:43
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.	21:49
Rhonda Mawhood	He was a Northerner. But they didn't have money for—	21:49
Henry Teman Donaldson	That's right.	21:50
Rhonda Mawhood	African-American children in the South.	21:51
Henry Teman Donaldson	They named a school after him, Rosenwald. That's right.	21:56
Rhonda Mawhood	And what was—	21:57
Laura Shepard Donaldson	They say there's one, right out here on Market Street.	21:57
Rhonda Mawhood	On Market Street? I've heard about it. I haven't —	22:00
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And then, the Hampstead—	22:01
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, it's at —	22:03
Laura Shepard Donaldson	A little further up.	22:04
Henry Teman Donaldson	Camp Davis area. Those tall buildings.	22:05
Laura Shepard Donaldson	The outbuilding, in the Scottsville area?	22:10
Henry Teman Donaldson	No.	22:10
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Is it down in —	22:10
Henry Teman Donaldson	Out of the way now.	22:10
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Yeah, out there beyond Nick, where Roland lives.	22:12
Henry Teman Donaldson	Is that one of them?	22:19
Laura Shepard Donaldson	That's one of them.	22:19
Henry Teman Donaldson	I know they talk about that.	22:19
Laura Shepard Donaldson	That's one of the Rosenwald schools, that has the high, high walls.	22:22
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah.	22:23
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I think it has a marker on it that says Rosenwald School.	22:24
Rhonda Mawhood	Mm-hmm.	22:26
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Go out, right out here to the end of this road, and —	22:29
Henry Teman Donaldson	Well, she would never find it, love, because all that building around there, she'd just see another little building.	22:33
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Well, shush, if you have time, we'll jump in the car, and run you down, and let you see it.	22:38
Henry Teman Donaldson	Probably.	22:41
Rhonda Mawhood	If we have time when we finish with the forms, I would like to.	22:42
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah, well —	22:44
Rhonda Mawhood	But I know how to get to—	22:44
Henry Teman Donaldson	I got to be at some meeting, too, sweetheart. I got to do the meeting, too.	22:44
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Well, I'll run down there with the right face, if you don't.	22:44
Henry Teman Donaldson	You couldn't even find it. But anyway, [indistinct 00:22:55].	22:44
Rhonda Mawhood	I know, I know how to get to Market Street from here.	22:55
Henry Teman Donaldson	Okay. Well, go ahead.	22:57
Rhonda Mawhood	But I might be able to look for it on my own, or [indistinct 00:23:02].	22:58
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Do you know where White Bridge is? This exclusive neighborhood, down —	23:02
Rhonda Mawhood	No, I don't.	23:07
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, I don't.	23:07
Rhonda Mawhood	I don't know any exclusive neighborhoods in Wilmington.	23:08
Laura Shepard Donaldson	They got rocks that live back in there. But it has this little sign there that says, White Bridge Community. But this is just before you get there, and it's on the right hand side of the road. The building is almost as tall as a one-story building.	23:10
Henry Teman Donaldson	They were the one [indistinct 00:23:32] bodies at Camp Davis, up there where we built the big pile, the big white brick house, where Liletta Mae taught?	23:31
Henry Teman Donaldson	The building's still there, right in the yard of Mount Holly Church. That's where you're talking about.	23:42
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But this one, over across from Mount Holly?	23:45
Henry Teman Donaldson	This is one, the one, that's where you're talking about. But that's way up there at Camp Davis. You've forgotten where it is.	23:51
Laura Shepard Donaldson	No, that's before you get insults.	23:55
Henry Teman Donaldson	Okay. Well, then, okay. We—	23:57
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Never mind. But we know where we're talking about.	23:59
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But we know where we're talking about.	23:59
Henry Teman Donaldson	But if you go take her out there to Scotts Hill, you're not going to see no Rosenwald school.	24:01
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I know it when I get to it. It's on that road.	24:06
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah, well it's all at Camp Davis. But go ahead with your questions.	24:07
Rhonda Mawhood	Well, we don't work tomorrow, so maybe some of us will take it.	24:11
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah.	24:14
Rhonda Mawhood	We've been taking tours around Wilmington, looking at older places, so —	24:15
Henry Teman Donaldson	Okay.	24:18
Rhonda Mawhood	And what was your father's name, Mr. Donaldson?	24:20
Henry Teman Donaldson	Leonard, M-A-R-S-L-E-N-N-I, Marslenni, Donaldson.	24:22
Rhonda Mawhood	M-A-R?	24:37
Henry Teman Donaldson	S.	24:38
Rhonda Mawhood	S.	24:38
Henry Teman Donaldson	L-E-N-N.	24:39
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you.	24:40
Henry Teman Donaldson	Where that derives from, I don't know. Never have heard him say.	24:42
Rhonda Mawhood	Interesting. Where was your father born, sir?	24:47
Henry Teman Donaldson	He was born at Winnabow, in the same Lebuck section. Mama met him when she went over there to teach.	24:51
Rhonda Mawhood	And what was your father's occupation, sir?	25:07
Henry Teman Donaldson	He was an old farmer, a plow and a mule.	25:09
Rhonda Mawhood	Did he own his land, or did he rent?	25:16
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah, he owned his land, and it came down through the family, and he had about 80 acres. It was handed down from his grandfather, and then his daddy lived there.	25:18
Henry Teman Donaldson	Actually, he was the oldest one, so it came down to him. He divided that between the other brothers.	25:34
Rhonda Mawhood	And Mrs. Donaldson, I forgot to ask you, in what county Gray Town or Verona is?	25:45
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Onslow.	25:49
Rhonda Mawhood	Onslow? Thank you. And what was your mother's name, please, ma'am?	25:50
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Mary Alice Ann Sylvania Gray. Just put Mary Alice Gray, because back then, when the baby was born, everyone said, "Name of this, name of that," So she got tagged with all these.	25:56
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But Mary Alice Gray was the maiden name, and my father's name was Edward Willie Shepard. And I was S-H-E-P-A-R-D.	26:11
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. Do you know your mother's date of birth, ma'am?	26:30
Laura Shepard Donaldson	February 5th, 1880. My dad is September the 19th, 1880. She had him by a few months.	26:35
Rhonda Mawhood	And your mother passed away in 1933?	26:49
Laura Shepard Donaldson	September the 19th, 1933, 11:19 at night.	26:53
Rhonda Mawhood	11:19, '93?	26:53
Laura Shepard Donaldson	No, I said at night.	27:02
Rhonda Mawhood	At night? Oh, my goodness. I'm sorry.	27:02
Laura Shepard Donaldson	That time is burned indelibly in my brain.	27:09
Rhonda Mawhood	Sure, yes. The time of my father's death is, too. We remember these things.	27:12
Laura Shepard Donaldson	One does.	27:19
Rhonda Mawhood	Your mother was born? In Gray Town?	27:21
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Yes.	27:22
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	27:23
Laura Shepard Donaldson	It was better known as Verona, but on the postage, I mean, on the address it fit Verona, but Gray town was in Verona.	27:26
Rhonda Mawhood	And your mother's occupation, ma'am?	27:37
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Just housewife.	27:39
Rhonda Mawhood	Your father was a teacher? And was your father born in Verona?	27:43
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Yes, he was.	27:48
Rhonda Mawhood	Mr. Donaldson, could I ask you the names of your sisters and brothers, please, sir?	28:00
Henry Teman Donaldson	All right. I'll start at the oldest sister Thelma McFadden. That's her marriage name.	28:06
Rhonda Mawhood	And if you know the years that they were born, if you remember, then I'll put those down too.	28:16
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yes, Thelma, I need to go upstairs and get the Bible, but we can figure it out right here. Thelma is seven years older than me.	28:21
Henry Teman Donaldson	She'll be 77, the 6th of August, and I will be 70, the 22nd of August. Now she's seven years older, so I was born in '23, and seven from 23 would be what?	28:31
Rhonda Mawhood	16?	28:46
Laura Shepard Donaldson	16.	28:49
Rhonda Mawhood	1916. Okay.	28:49
Henry Teman Donaldson	All right, that's Thelma. Now the next one, brother, Leonard James Donaldson. There's two years between our age.	28:51
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Excuse me just a minute.	29:01
Henry Teman Donaldson	So you figure from that.	29:04
Rhonda Mawhood	He's older than you by two years?	29:06
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, he's older than me by a few years. When I say that, it's two years different between his age, and Thelma's age.	29:09
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. So, 1918?	29:17
Henry Teman Donaldson	Right.	29:17
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	29:19
Henry Teman Donaldson	Okay. Now there's another sister that's two years younger than he.	29:22
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	29:28
Henry Teman Donaldson	Sadie Muhammad. She turned Muslim on us.	29:29
Rhonda Mawhood	Oh, and where does she live now?	29:34
Henry Teman Donaldson	She lives in Federal.	29:37
Rhonda Mawhood	Oh.	29:38
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah, she went in New York, stayed a long time, got with Muslim guy there, and came back with a new name. Sadie Muhammad, M-U-H-A-M-M-A-D. She lives in Federal.	29:38
Rhonda Mawhood	How did the family take that, when she came home with her husband?	29:51
Henry Teman Donaldson	Well, we didn't like it too much, but we've never discussed it too much. We just busted it off as one of those things.	29:54
Henry Teman Donaldson	Then there's another brother that's a couple years younger than Sadie, Laverne.	30:04
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	30:09
Henry Teman Donaldson	Then comes me.	30:19
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	30:21
Henry Teman Donaldson	Born in '23.	30:21
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	30:23
Henry Teman Donaldson	Then the youngest girl's sister, Ernestine, she's couple years younger than me. She's 68 this year. Ernestine James. So that's the family. Three boys and the three girls.	30:25
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you. And Mrs. Donaldson, if I could ask you the same question, your brothers and sisters?	30:47
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Percy Gerald.	30:53
Rhonda Mawhood	That's Percy Gerald, okay.	30:56
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Percy Gerald Shepard. Harvey, no middle name, Shepard. Roy Edward. Mary Ellen.	30:57
Rhonda Mawhood	Does she have a married name?	31:13
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Armstrong.	31:16
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you.	31:21
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Annie Louise Sellars.	31:23
Rhonda Mawhood	How does she spell her last name?	31:28
Laura Shepard Donaldson	S-E-L-L-A-R-S.	31:30
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you.	31:31
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Victoria Jane, J-A-N-E, Wells. And Lowell, L-O-W-E-L-L. Lowell Edsell, E-D-S-E-L-L, Shepard.	31:35
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I'm between. Well, he's the youngest one.	31:52
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	31:56
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And I'm Laura Leola.	31:58
Rhonda Mawhood	One question you have in common is your children. So if I can have the names and the dates of birth of your children?	32:04
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Well, just Lenora.	32:08
Rhonda Mawhood	Is that L-E-N-O—	32:12
Laura Shepard Donaldson	O-R-A.	32:14
Rhonda Mawhood	A? Okay. And her married name?	32:15
Henry Teman Donaldson	Adam.	32:22
Laura Shepard Donaldson	A-L-L-E-N.	32:23
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. When was she born?	32:27
Henry Teman Donaldson	March the 10th, 10/19/44.	32:31
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	32:35
Henry Teman Donaldson	We got married in '43, and she was born in '44. All right? Edward Jerome Donaldson.	32:43
Rhonda Mawhood	J-E-R—	32:46
Henry Teman Donaldson	O-M-E.	32:47
Rhonda Mawhood	O-M-E? Okay. I saw you looking at Mr. Donaldson, to see if he would get the birthdate.	32:49
Henry Teman Donaldson	He was born March the 14th, or 19th, was it '40?	32:54
Laura Shepard Donaldson	'49.	33:01
Henry Teman Donaldson	'49.	33:01
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. Yeah, Alexis	33:05
Henry Teman Donaldson	Lana was the one you probably talked with.	33:08
Rhonda Mawhood	Lana?	33:08
Henry Teman Donaldson	8/20.	33:10
Laura Shepard Donaldson	A-L-E-X-I-S, Lana Alexis.	33:15
Henry Teman Donaldson	Her birthday is May 20th, 1948.	33:19
Rhonda Mawhood	1948? So she's between —	33:21
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, no, she's the youngest.	33:27
Rhonda Mawhood	She's the youngest? Okay.	33:28
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. Then Jerome was born, Lana was born in '48. Jerome was born in '49, right?	33:29
Laura Shepard Donaldson	No.	33:37
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, wait. No, no, no. Lana was born in '50, 1950.	33:38
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Okay.	33:40
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. '49 and '50, that's right, because I was working in Washington, DC —	33:42
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	33:48
Henry Teman Donaldson	When Lana was born. I keep thinking about Mama's death in '48, Lana was born in 1950, yeah.	33:48
Rhonda Mawhood	And they were all born in Wilmington?	33:58
Henry Teman Donaldson	All of them were born in Wilmington.	33:58
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. How many grandchildren do you have?	34:04
Henry Teman Donaldson	Four. Three little girls in the world. Grandson belongs to Joyce. His name is Arnold Bradford Taylor. That's the grandson.	34:07
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Joyce has been married twice.	34:23
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah.	34:25
Laura Shepard Donaldson	The oldest three girls are Corey and Michelle. You weren't taking [indistinct 00:34:40].	34:33
Rhonda Mawhood	You could say them for the tape. I haven't been writing down people's, their names. It's like, Corey and Michelle?	34:40
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Dominique Sharday.	34:50
Henry Teman Donaldson	Hart and Caree.	34:50
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Angel Face, Lauren Caree. L-A-U-R-E-N, C-A-R-E-E. They convinced my first name, and her other grandmother's first name.	35:01
Rhonda Mawhood	Hm. And the young man who just graduated from Harvard?	35:12
Henry Teman Donaldson	Arnold Bradford Taylor. Brad Taylor.	35:19
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Okay.	35:30
Henry Teman Donaldson	Due to the economy, he hasn't landed off us yet.	35:30
Rhonda Mawhood	Well, I hope he'll find something sooner. I know what's hard these days.	35:35
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah.	35:38
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. Now Mr. Donaldson, where did you first go to school, please? I'm going to list the names of the schools that you've been to.	35:44
Henry Teman Donaldson	Well, the first school was the Rosenwald School, over at Brunswick County.	35:51
Rhonda Mawhood	Right. Where your mother taught, right. Okay.	35:59
Henry Teman Donaldson	From there, I went to Brunswick County Training School at Southport, BCT, Brunswick County Training School. That was a high school, only Black high school in Brunswick County.	36:04
Rhonda Mawhood	In Southport?	36:10
Henry Teman Donaldson	In Southport. Then we moved to Wilmington in 1933, which was Williston Industrial High School.	36:11
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay, so you started there in '33, and when did you finish?	36:28
Henry Teman Donaldson	No, we moved into Wilmington in 1933, which, I didn't go to school that year.	36:32
Rhonda Mawhood	Oh, okay.	36:38
Henry Teman Donaldson	I was out of school about two and a half or three years. In other words, three school years, I was out of school. This is what made me graduate later, I mean, in the Class of 1943.	36:40
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	36:51
Henry Teman Donaldson	We had the Depression during that time, and they just couldn't afford to buy shoes for me, for school. So I stayed out.	36:55
Henry Teman Donaldson	But school was on my first year, I think it was 1936, my first year there in Williston. I went from then on, until I graduated, and this way, I took up the trade of big masonry.	37:04
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. Mrs. Donaldson, where did you go to school?	37:24
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Town Creek.	37:27
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	37:31
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I was at Verona. Then I went to Georgetown High, in Jacksonville, ended up here at Williston.	37:32
Rhonda Mawhood	And when were you at Williston, then?	37:55
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I came to Wilmington in '44.	37:58
Rhonda Mawhood	'44? No, Baby, you're thinking '41.	38:00
Laura Shepard Donaldson	'41.	38:00
Henry Teman Donaldson	Your daddy died.	38:05
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Skipping ahead. Yeah, I came to, went to Williston. That was my first year at Williston, '41.	38:08
Rhonda Mawhood	And you finished there in '43?	38:16
Laura Shepard Donaldson	In '44.	38:18
Rhonda Mawhood	'44? Okay.	38:20
Laura Shepard Donaldson	One in '43? I said '40.	38:20
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. You remarried.	38:24
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay, and Mr. Donaldson, I took notes while you were speaking. You worked as a brick mason from '46 till '54?	38:32
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Right.	38:42
Rhonda Mawhood	And a longshoreman from about '54, to about '88?	38:42
Laura Shepard Donaldson	'88, right.	38:46
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay. Okay, so I have that, and I'll write that, I'll fill that in later. Mrs. Donaldson, what work would you like me to list for your work history?	38:46
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I worked as an office nurse for Dr. Upperman.	38:57
Rhonda Mawhood	Dr. Upperman? We're interviewing him.	38:59
Henry Teman Donaldson	32 years, and how many months?	38:59
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Many months. He put 35 years, because I had worked occasionally when someone was out, prior to that. So he left all the years together.	39:17
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	39:28
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Yeah, 35.	39:28
Rhonda Mawhood	When was it that you retired?	39:30
Henry Teman Donaldson	Right.	39:32
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Let's see, it's been two years now.	39:32
Henry Teman Donaldson	Is there anything on the papers?	39:32
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay, so nine years.	39:32
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Yeah, babe, it's right there.	39:39
Henry Teman Donaldson	June 28th, '91.	39:43
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you.	39:45
Henry Teman Donaldson	He gave her a plaque.	39:46
Rhonda Mawhood	That's very nice. I'm sure he appreciated your work.	39:52
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Well, it was a pleasure working with him. He's one of the kindest, most unassuming people one could ever hope to meet. To see him in the street, you would never think that he had the credits under his belt that he has. But he's just a down to earth person, and it was a privilege to work with him, a privilege to know him. I worked there so long, he treats us like family.	39:56
Laura Shepard Donaldson	We're just a family, so to speak. His daughter was here from California. She had her husband to see us Sunday. He often has said to me, "Miss D," Donaldson is too long, so he calls me Miss D. He has said to me many times, "Miss D, I never had a sister." So we have just been family. He lost his son a couple of years ago, and they kept up with me. Anytime they would call, and anytime Linda calls now, if he doesn't sound right, she'll call me. "Well, I talked to Daddy, was he sleepy, or was he not feeling well?" So it's just a wonderful relationship. Wonderful.	40:33
Laura Shepard Donaldson	In all the time we work, he has never yet yelled at me. He has never scolded me. He has always treated me with due respect, in every sense of the word. I count it a privilege to have had the opportunity to work with him, for the many years that I did.	41:26
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you.	41:44
Rhonda Mawhood	Are there any offices, such as church offices, maybe, or awards that you would like me to list, either one of you, on the sheet?	41:50
Henry Teman Donaldson	Well, you could. I'm a deacon over at Ebenezer, at Missionary Baptist Church. I'm a Sunday school teacher.	42:01
Rhonda Mawhood	Oh.	42:16
Henry Teman Donaldson	I'm chairperson of the Judge's Nursing Home Ministry for the church, Ebenezer.	42:25
Rhonda Mawhood	The Judge's Nursing Home?	42:29
Henry Teman Donaldson	The Judge's Nursing Home, of Wilmington. Yeah, Ebenezer sponsors that ministry there.	42:37
Rhonda Mawhood	For people who can't get out, to go to church?	42:49
Henry Teman Donaldson	Can't get out, that's right. So I go first, third, and the fifth Sundays, we go over, and I have service with them. Also, I'm a volunteer for Mother Hubbard's Cupboard. We feed the hungry.	42:50
Rhonda Mawhood	Certainly.	43:09
Henry Teman Donaldson	They're all new offices.	43:19
Rhonda Mawhood	And Mrs. Donaldson?	43:24
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I'm on the Deaconess Board. For many years, I had a Sunday school class, and a BTU class. For about 40-some years now, I've been in charge of doing the announcements for the church, welcoming the visitors, and doing the announcements.	43:26
Rhonda Mawhood	You have such a nice voice, too, for that.	43:55
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Thank you.	43:57
Rhonda Mawhood	So you are Baptists?	44:12
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yes.	44:15
Rhonda Mawhood	And you both are members of the Ebenezer Baptist Church?	44:16
Henry Teman Donaldson	Right.	44:17
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	44:17
Henry Teman Donaldson	We've been there over 40 years.	44:24
Rhonda Mawhood	Were you a member of any other church before that?	44:32
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yes, Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church, in Brunswick County. It was my childhood days. My dad was a deacon there.	44:35
Rhonda Mawhood	And Mrs. Donaldson, your past church membership?	44:58
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Okay. I am currently a member of Ebenezer.	45:03
Rhonda Mawhood	And for first church?	45:04
Laura Shepard Donaldson	First church was Cedar Grove Baptist Church, in Verona.	45:07
Rhonda Mawhood	We're almost done. Besides the ones that you've mentioned, are there other organizations that you belong to?	45:10
Henry Teman Donaldson	Masonic, Masons.	45:30
Rhonda Mawhood	You're a Mason.	45:33
Henry Teman Donaldson	Went as far as the Shriners, and the Masons were —	45:36
Rhonda Mawhood	Which lodge are you a member of, sir?	45:41
Henry Teman Donaldson	Deer Bloom? Well, no, might not put that down, because I'm not affiliated now.	45:44
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	45:48
Henry Teman Donaldson	So don't write that down.	45:48
Rhonda Mawhood	In this case.	45:48
Henry Teman Donaldson	Because I'm not affiliated now.	45:48
Rhonda Mawhood	When were you a Mason, sir?	45:52
Henry Teman Donaldson	This was from 1946 through '61-something. I belonged to the Blue Lodge.	45:55
Henry Teman Donaldson	I'd give them Lodge Number Two, and then, I went to the Shriners, of that same organization. But then, I—	46:07

Laura Shepard Donaldson	—Mrs. Donaldson?	0:01
Rhonda Mawhood	I was a member of the Jepa Chapter Order of Eastern Star for a long time. I'm not active now because working as I did and working in a Black community for the longest kind of time, my office hours were split night and day. So the meetings were at night and I couldn't continue as a member of faculty because of the office hours that I had to do.	0:03
Rhonda Mawhood	That was the only thing, the Easter Star.	0:32
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Approximately what years were you a member, ma'am?	0:39
Henry Teman Donaldson	From 40 about—	0:46
Rhonda Mawhood	40—	0:50
Henry Teman Donaldson	50 through what? At least it's whenever Papa took me into the life. Truists up until late '60s.	0:58
Rhonda Mawhood	'60s, uh-huh.	0:58
Henry Teman Donaldson	Late '60s, something like that.	0:58
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you. And is either one of you a member of the NAACP?	1:07
Henry Teman Donaldson	Oh yes.	1:08
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Oh yes, I was member of the NAACP. I used to be secretary of our local chapter of NAACP.	1:09
Henry Teman Donaldson	Now that you mentioned it.	1:12
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Until my work kept me away from that.	1:15
Rhonda Mawhood	You were the secretary of the local chapter in the 1960s, 1950s?	1:20
Laura Shepard Donaldson	That was in Papoose Bay. That was back in the '50s.	1:22
Henry Teman Donaldson	In the '50s, yeah we used to.	1:23
Rhonda Mawhood	And when did you join the NAACP?	1:34
Henry Teman Donaldson	Oh Lord, years ago, years ago.	1:38
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Because I used to take the kids when they were little, to the meetings.	1:41
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah, remember. See, Josh is 49 now. Say about, you joined when you first come here.	1:48
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Way back.	1:56
Henry Teman Donaldson	Shortly after that.	1:56
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Way back.	1:57
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. You were there when you was paying those 10 cents. But you could.	1:57
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	1:57
Henry Teman Donaldson	In other words, if you are will Estonian, you had to belong.	1:57
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	2:15
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah.	2:15
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	2:15
Henry Teman Donaldson	Had to stand for the right.	2:15
Rhonda Mawhood	Did the teachers bring membership forms to class?	2:25
Henry Teman Donaldson	Oh yeah. Yes, sir. Yes indeed. Yes, sir. If you had 3 cents, a penny, it's for a cause. In other words, that's just something that has gone in our lives. Since there has been one.	2:28
Laura Shepard Donaldson	When you mentioned that, I thought about the other day I was going through an old bag of pictures, box of pictures that I have. And back then the kids bought the stamps. I gave, what were they? I have my 10 cent book, I think, and my 25 cent book that I was never able to fill.	2:47
Henry Teman Donaldson	That was for World War II.	3:11
Laura Shepard Donaldson	World War II.	3:11
Henry Teman Donaldson	We were buying those saving stamps. They would keep it so long, they would amount to something. But they introduced—	3:15
Laura Shepard Donaldson	It was the Junior War Bond. We couldn't afford to buy the War Bond. But you bought the little Stamps for Victory. Had a 10 cent book and a 25 cent book and that—	3:19
Henry Teman Donaldson	But that NAACP, that was a must for every child that went to Wilson. Yes.	3:33
Rhonda Mawhood	The pictures and things that you've been looking through, Ms. Donaldson, are there any of them, which I don't want to keep you now, but at another time before we leave in a week, would it be possible for me maybe to look at some of them with you? And see, would you be willing to have some of them copied to go into the archive?	3:43
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Don, I think I had your class group. And most of these are just family pictures of during that timeframe.	4:05
Henry Teman Donaldson	Family pictures.	4:16
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I have no objections.	4:17
Rhonda Mawhood	Maybe once we finished with this, I could see when I could come back too.	4:17
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Okay. Well, I'm usually here practically every day. I run to the mall. Right now I'm in the throes of preparing for this 50th anniversary.	4:21
Laura Shepard Donaldson	So other than that, usually I'm a homebody. I don't care much for—I like church, and Don stays so busy now we haven't been to a movie in ages, but I like movies. But I don't mind sharing with you.	4:31
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you so much. What I'll do is I'll get back to this. One of our team members is making appointments for us today. She's trying to, she's calling people. So I'll get in touch with Sonia and ask her, if she hasn't blocked me off, when I'm free, and give me a couple of times and then I can get in touch with you about when we'll be convenient.	4:50
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Okay. Well, I'm usually here.	5:07
Henry Teman Donaldson	And you want some pictures of certificates of things?	5:17
Rhonda Mawhood	Things like that, sure. Pictures of your family. Maybe you could look through and see which ones you might be willing to share, and then I could go through them with you and see which ones would be—	5:17
Henry Teman Donaldson	Appropriate for—	5:25
Rhonda Mawhood	—to go into the art archive. The last question that I had to ask you, I got all excited when you mentioned that, was if there is a favorite saying, or a quote, or Bible verse, or hymn or something like that, which you would like to have associated with you, that you'd like me to write on the sheet.	5:27
Rhonda Mawhood	Sometimes people have a verse of poetry, or they want me to write the name of their favorite hymn or something like that.	5:50
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Which is my thing. I didn't mention to you, I like writing poetry.	5:56
Rhonda Mawhood	You did mention, actually.	5:57
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Yes.	5:59
Rhonda Mawhood	Do you have any of your own that you would like to quote a little bit of?	6:00
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Offhand, I couldn't quote, but I have quite a bit that I have, and I have thought about, I've toyed with the idea of perhaps seeing about getting some of it published.	6:06
Laura Shepard Donaldson	A long time ago, the Crisis Magazine, I sent some of my poetry to Crisis Magazine, way back in the '40s for publication. Being an orphan, I was not able to buy the book, and they were not generous enough to give me a book of the poetry. But somewhere there are probably some of it published in the Crisis Magazine, because they sent back to me that they thought it was very good, but they wanted me to buy the book. But I could not because of financial circumstances.	6:17
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But even now, sometimes I will jot down a line or two, so I'll pull out some—	6:57
Henry Teman Donaldson	And you speaking of scripture, my favorite, the 27th Psalm and first two verses, "The Lord is my light and my salvation. To whom shall I fear."	7:07
Laura Shepard Donaldson	"I will lift up my eyes into the hills from whence cometh my help." That's my favorite.	7:17
Henry Teman Donaldson	121st.	7:17
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Yeah. I love that 121st Psalm. Because I've had to do that all my life. "I will lift up mine eyes into the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help comes from the Lord." That's not all of it, but that's enough to give you an idea, but that that is my daily thing.	7:19
Henry Teman Donaldson	Yeah. When I was out there in that world, I used to have to be afraid of some of the fellows, especially when I was down the road. But after I found him and I came in, and he reassured me I didn't have anything to fear. And then I can look back now, I didn't even have them to fear, but I just didn't realize that then.	7:48
Rhonda Mawhood	Of course.	8:07
Henry Teman Donaldson	But now I'm bold, ever since that day.	8:07
Laura Shepard Donaldson	"—my salvation, whom shall I fear?" Those are my two favorite passages. "The Lord is a light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?" And I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.	8:17
Henry Teman Donaldson	That's the 127th and the 121st Psalms. We dwell on those.	8:22

Laura Shepard Donaldson	The side's name was Jordan, J-O-R-D-A-N, Jordan Gray. And of course, he was a slave, but the family that he worked for, the spouse had died and he left a widow. Then as now, there were those people who did not think that a woman could do certain things or could have certain things, and with her husband having left her with the farm, they were not a wealthy family. So, granddaddy worked for them. And after the turn of slavery, she was still struggling with the husband died. So she told my grandfather, the men of course, wanted the land that she owned. These were other White farmers in the area. They wanted the land that she owned, but she was determined that she was going to keep it because this was something that she and her husband had in common. This was something that they had worked for.	0:00
Laura Shepard Donaldson	So when he died and left her a widow, she told my grandfather if he would stick with her, that upon her death she would give him his freedom. So granddaddy took her up on this. There was one other condition that should she die before she wanted him to take her home. She had told him, I don't remember the area for sure because there were so many places I heard my parents speak up during that time. Of course, this was before their time. But anyway, she had oxen instead of horse. She was one of the poor ones, and she did not have horses, but she had the oxen and cart. So when she died, my grandfather took her home. She promised him some land and his freedom. So he would drive by day and stop the wagon and build a bonfire at night to keep the animals away.	1:18
Laura Shepard Donaldson	There were no street lights during that time because there were no streets except the dirt roads. But anyway, she kept her promise in leaving him property. This is how the Grays came in possession of so much property.	2:38
Rhonda Mawhood	And she died before emancipation or after?	2:54
Laura Shepard Donaldson	After.	2:58
Rhonda Mawhood	Okay.	2:58
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But anyway, granddaddy, Jordan stayed with her. When I say stayed with her, he kept the farm going for her. Well, she freed him. So this therefore meant that he was still in slavery, but on her death, he was given his freedom and some property. But the sad part and the loyalty, maybe this is where some of my loyalty comes from, but he was loyal to her and he kept the promise to take her home, wherever home was, I don't remember because I was young, but I remember hearing my parents discuss it.	3:00
Laura Shepard Donaldson	So he was given this large track of land. I'm not sure how many acres, but she left him a large track of land. Grandfather married an Indian woman, a full-blooded Indian. I'm told that her name was Elithia.	3:53
Rhonda Mawhood	How would she spell that, ma'am?	4:15
Laura Shepard Donaldson	We spell it E-L-I-T-H-A, Elithia. Hence the high cheekbones. But I'm sorry I wasn't around to get more of the family history, but my grandfather had several children. A lot of them died before my time. But my mother, uncle Sam, uncle Tom, uncle Bob, also known as Uncle Robert aunt Hesta, aunt Fanny, which they called big sis. And one of the brothers was John was called Big Buddy. And Uncle George, I think my mother said, was called little buddy.	4:17
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But anyway, this is just a part of the family history. But the sense of loyalty in our family goes way back. And even though it was a life of servitude, the fact that he had the fortitude to keep a commitment has meant a lot to the family, down through the years. If you make a commitment, keep it. So I'm proud of that part of the heritage. Yes, I regret very much the fact that he lived his life or the greater part of his life in slavery, but I'm very proud of the fact that he had the fortitude to remain loyal to his promise to her.	5:18
Rhonda Mawhood	You were talking about your grandfather and about the mix in your family, and you had mentioned your mother's hair. What was your mother's hair like, Mrs. Donaldson?	6:12
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Long, jet black, coarse, the typical Indian hair that you would think of.	6:24
Rhonda Mawhood	Straight, wavy, curly. How was it?	6:32
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Very coarse and soft. The texture was coarse, but yet it was a soft coarseness. But it was long and in a lot of times she wore it in two braids, like you see the Indian hair.	6:35
Rhonda Mawhood	So you were aware of your family's background when you were a child growing up?	6:59
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Oh, yes, yes. They never held anything back to us. And these were the stepping stones that you crossed in order to know that you must be the best that you can possibly be. And this was a strong thing in our family. On my father's side, I did not see either of my grandparents, but my grandfather on my father's side died when he was quite small. I think I told you in the interview the other day about the fact that he was too little to work, but he was able, the landlord or the person for whom they were working would put him on the horse. He was too little, of course, to get on the horse, but he would put him on the horse and give him a note and tell him, "Go to such and such a house, stop at the first house or the second house, or whatever."	7:05
Laura Shepard Donaldson	I think this was a part of my father's desire to learn because as I see it from the things that they told me, it had to have been a lonely existence. There were two aunts, both of whom died young from what he told us. The oldest one must've been like about 12 when she died, and the other one was even younger. So we never saw the older children. Of course, I was way down the line, but none of my sisters or brothers saw either of my father's sisters. There were three children, he was the only boy, and there were two sisters. But with them having died so early, they never saw them. But the memories were there. And I'm grateful to my parents that they shared so many memories with us. I'm very grateful to them.	8:15
Rhonda Mawhood	So am I.	9:24
Laura Shepard Donaldson	It's important to know from which you came. This way, one can appreciate where they are today, so I'm very grateful for that aspect of our lives.	9:27
Rhonda Mawhood	I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about hair and taking care of hair in your family. Did you and your sisters all have similar kinds of hair or was there a range in your family?	9:43
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Victoria, the sister who is still alive, hair was very soft. My mother's hair was very long and Indian coarse. She did nothing to her hair, but wash it and comb it with a little grease, but it was very thick and very long. My sister Mary's hair was mid shoulder length. I think she had the longest hair of any of the sisters. Victoria's hair, the sister who is still alive, her hair in contrast was very, very soft and it was shoulder length. Of course, now that she's growing older, it is shorter than it was when we were growing up. My sister Annie's hair was just shoulder length, about like mine when I let it down. To me, I like my hair up and I wear it that way a lot. I've always liked my hair up and I still wear it that way.	9:58
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Now, another thing, on Sundays, I wear it down because we were taught never to go to church without a hat. So in church I always wear a hat. So unless it's a beret or just a little skimpy hat that I can push on the back of my head, I always wear a hat to church. I never go to church without a hat. If it's just a business church meeting, I will go without a hat. But if it's a regular church service, I never go to church without a hat.	11:12
Rhonda Mawhood	So did any of your sisters straighten their hair? They did. Okay.	11:48
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Vicky, the sister who is still alive, in contrast to the coarseness, the Indian coarseness of the rest of our hair, her hair was quite soft, which was just the—and then I might add, in addition to the Indian mix, there was also the White mix. So we are a triumvirate. We are Black mixed with Indian and with the Whites. So it's just a mixture. And none in my family are very dark. There are no Black people in my family, per se, in my immediate family. Most of our skin has the tinge of the Indian redness in it or the trace of the White race. Our beings are very prominent, as you can see.	11:54
Laura Shepard Donaldson	And this was from one of those traits, I'm not sure which. But all of my family, we have the very prominent things and we are more or less direct people. We were not allowed to look down regardless of who it was. My daddy said, "If you can't look a man in the eye, you're not worthy to speak to him." So we were taught to be very direct and to focus on the person to whom we were speaking. You didn't bow your head, you held your head high. And the most important thing, we would be a shepherd. And if you are a shepherd, there are certain things that you will not do.	13:00
Laura Shepard Donaldson	So this was one of the yardsticks that we were reared by in my family, and I'm proud of that. If you can't look a person in the eye, then you aren't worthy of being the person that you should be. So it has grown up. Even now, I often talk with my children because I want them to know as much of the family history as I can recall. And I have been blessed with a pretty good memory that I'm able to remember the things that we were taught and things that we did and the things that we did not, dare not, better not.	13:52
Rhonda Mawhood	I have one last question, which is, who did your hair when you were a little girl?	14:46
Laura Shepard Donaldson	For the most part, I wore braids, and it was longer than it is now. As time went by, father time has taken its toll, but in the country you did it yourself or the cousins got together and you do this ones and that one will do yours. And this is the way we did it. There were no beauticians in the country. You did your own or a relative did it for you, and you in turn did the relative's hair. And in families where there were several sisters, they got to do each other's hair. And if you were not fortunate enough to have a sister at home, you did your own. And if you were fortunate, you had a straightening comb, which you heated and you washed, you dried, you heated the comb and pulled the comb through your hair and you did your own hair.	14:52
Rhonda Mawhood	Did your family have such a thing, Mrs. Donaldson?	15:48
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Yes. And the best piece of furniture was an old Victrola. This was the talking machine. You might have heard of it as the talking Machine. Now you call it, what is it called today?	15:52
Rhonda Mawhood	The record player?	16:12
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Stereo.	16:12
Rhonda Mawhood	Stereo.	16:13
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Stereo or the record player. We had the old fashioned Victrola that had the dog with the megaphone on it, and His Master's Voice was—	16:14
Rhonda Mawhood	The RCA.	16:22
Laura Shepard Donaldson	But this was the most prominent piece of furniture in the average home. And there were many homes who did not even have such a device. And you had the old, old records. And you bought one every now and then, it wasn't often. But you guarded that collection of records like one guards the Mint.	16:26
Rhonda Mawhood	What kind of records did you buy?	16:49
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Oh, well, there was Bessie Smith. She was back during my day. She was one of the popular ones. And for the most part, the older folk, like the religious ones. But you have to remember, we are talking back, I'm 70 now, so we're talking about 65 years of memories because I can remember distinctly back to when I was about four. And I was a sort of family pet because I was small, very opinionated, very active, also a tomboy. I could climb the trees with the best of them.	16:51
Laura Shepard Donaldson	So it was one of those things. Albeit, it was not what life is like today. But looking back, I think I'm grateful for the experience because I know what it's like not to have. I know what it's like to have the desire to have. I also know what it's like to have the fortitude and the determination that if someone else has it, I too can have. As one of my cousins used to say, "I want some of just as good as God's got." It wasn't the best grammatical form, but this was her expression. And I have sort of used that as a guide to the things that I want. If you want some of just as good as God's got, and you have the determination to work for it, it's yours.	17:35
Laura Shepard Donaldson	So I have used that as a part of my learning tree. And as my daddy used to say, "Whatever you are, be a shepherd. There are certain things that a shepherd will not do, and there are certain things that a shepherd will do, so be a shepherd." So by the same token, my mother could very well have said, "Be a Gray," because she was just as determined as he was. And they always put us first. And I guess that just about sums up the story of my life.	18:35
Rhonda Mawhood	Well, thank you so much. Mrs. Donaldson. Is it all right with you if I append this tape to the rest of the interview that you did with your husband?	19:16
Laura Shepard Donaldson	That's all right.	19:25
Rhonda Mawhood	That's all right, thank you.	19:27
Laura Shepard Donaldson	We have nothing to hide, fortunately.	19:27
Rhonda Mawhood	Well, thank you very much, ma'am. I appreciate it.	19:31
Laura Shepard Donaldson	Well, thanks for letting me share a little of my history with you. And I hope that perhaps if it does not inspire someone else to be the best that they possibly can be, at least they will know that there was somewhere someone who against all odds, tried and made it.	19:33
Rhonda Mawhood	Thank you.	19:55

Item Info

Title:

Henry Donaldson (primary interviewee) and Laura Donaldson interview recording, 1993 July 16

Date:

July 16, 1993

Creator:

Contributor:

Mawhood, Rhonda Lyn

Description:

Name: Henry Teman Donaldson; Date of Birth: 1923-07-01; Place of Birth: Winnabow, NC; Occupation(s): longshoreman; mason; Residence: Wilmington, NC. Name: Laura Shepard Donaldson; Date of Birth: 1925-12-10; Place of Birth: Graytown, NC; Occupation(s): health services; nursing; Residence: Wilmington, NC
Informant ID: 189; Informant ID: 190; Interviewed by: Rhonda Mawhood.

Occupation:

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-1999

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

Interview number: 1188
c0121e11-22c2-4a0e-8bdc-687969f5f4d0
behindtheveil
btvnc07013
ark:/87924/r43n24v3m
e6a22820-3fc7-4f82-80ad-1d8df47f0caa

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Henry Donaldson (primary interviewee) and Laura Donaldson interview recording, 1993 July 16

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1. Henry Donaldson and Laura Donaldson administrative file, 1993

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Henry Donaldson (primary interviewee) and Laura Donaldson interview recording, 1993 July 16

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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