Mary Norwood Jones - On her teachers at Orange County Training School (clip)
Interviewed by Bob Gilgor on January 29, 2001
BG: What was your involvement in sports here at Orange County Training School?
MJ: Well, they had different clubs and I was a member of just about every club in the school. My favorite was playing basketball, and I started playing basketball when I was in the sixth grade, Mr. Judas Scales was my teacher during that particular time. And incidentally, in fifth grade, I had Mrs. Thomasine Kirkland Burthey who was from Chapel Hill. We were her first class after she graduated from college.
BG: What was she teaching?
MJ: She taught me in fifth grade so she was my fifth grade teacher and so we had many subjects that she taught us. I remember a little song that we used to have. She had us set up a store in the classroom and we learned to count money and things like that. We made up a little song about the store. It went something like this, "Come buy at our store" and there were other words in it with things that we were selling items in the store and what not. It was a very learned situation. We also had operettas during the time we were in elementary school and all the way through high school. Many times if a parent could not attend the parents of some of the youths would go to a child when the parent was not able to attend and greet that child before that parent came to someone else. In other words, they could have their own child there, but the went to greet the child that did not have a parent and that's how thoughtful parents were.
BG: Very supportive.
MJ: Yes, very supportive.
BG: That goes along with comments on the last interview about how everyone parented in the community.
MJ: Yes, everyone parented, and they were given permission to parent youths in the community. They could take off a belt or get a little switch or something and then during the time I was in elementary school teachers could send you to the cloakroom and in the cloakroom that's the room we hung our coats and pants and things because during that time girls could not wear pants. Girls could not wear pants to school. They could wear them to school but they had to take them off.
BG: Couldn't wear them to class.
MJ: No, couldn't wear them in the classrooms.
