Gertrude Nunn

Darius Scott (DS): So, before you married Mr. Nunn, you were living over on Rogers Road?

Judy Nunn Snipes (JS): Yes.

Gertrude Nunn (GN): Exactly.

DS: And at that time, it was still the wagon trail?

S: Yes.

GN: Yeah, uh-huh.

DS: And could you talk a little bit about ?

GN: I know nothing about a car!

DS: [Laughs]

JS: [Laughs]

GN: why we called it a wagon road.

DS: A wagon road.

JS: Yeah, um-hmm.

GN: W-A-G-however you spell it. [Laughs]

JS: G-O-N.

DS: right. [Laughs]

GN: Horse and buggy.

DS: And what was your daily life like living on Rogers Road?

JS: Rogers Road, yeah.

GN: Good! My mother we had to gather all the vegetables in the field, set up half of the night, shell those beans and peas, and my daddy would go to sell them in Durham.

JS: Yeah, we talked about that already.

GN: And so I...

JS: Tell him, well, like as ten children, what it was like then.

GN: Okay. Well, anyway, my mom cooked on a wood stove.

DS: Okay.

GN: a bit more know nothing about no electricity, no lights. know nothing. We had lamps.

JS: Lamps, oil lamps.

GN: got one right there, keeping it for memory. I keep oil in it, in case the electricity goes out now. [Laughs]

JS: Goes out. [Laughs]

GN: But anyway, she would cook on an iron cast stove. And she kept water boiling on the stove to make the coffee.

“I just have to say it was two proud families that basically loved the land and raised their families and contributed to the economy. There were lots of talents on both sides of the family- there was nothing her brothers couldn’t do.”

- Judy Nunn Snipes

This interview is part of an SOHP project called Rural South: Backways: Understanding Segregation in the Rural South. The interviews were conducted in the rural piedmont region and eastern North Carolina about the often hidden forces of structural and institutional discrimination that have outlasted the victories of the civil rights movement. The project explores space, place, and identity and examines issues like poverty, crime, and racial segregation. Mother, Gertrude Nunn, and daughter, Judy Nunn Snipes, are lifelong residents of Chapel Hill, N.C. Born in 1921 to the namesake of Rogers Road: Freeman Hollis Stone Walter Jackson Rogers, Nunn discusses her childhood and young occupational experiences that came with growing up on a truck farm. Gertrude and Judy discuss their family experiences and the changing physicality and nature of the Rogers Road community. Through their words on the relationship between the Rogers and the Nunns (a family into which Gertrude married), a rich account of the Rogers-Eubanks community's history and formation is outlined. The account situates the presence of the Rogers Road landfill as a particular hardship for the community. In the interview, a once relatively pristine environment of Rogers Road is detailed alongside stories of the family's century-long relationship with the land. They discuss struggles with the local Orange County government to protect the land and combat environmental degradation precipitated by the landfill. Gertrude and Judy reflect on the lives, occupations, and land inheritances of some of their relatives.