Mary Norwood Jones

BG: I wanted to ask you about the football team, what you remember about the football team.

MJ: I remember Mr. R. 0. Kornegay was coach of the football team. He coached all athletics. He was my first basketball coach.

BG: So he coached boys and girls.

MJ: Boys and girls basketball and he coached football. He was the type of person to take senior students to the junior colleges and all around. I think he is the person who was before his time. In other words, he did all the things we'd like to see teachers this time and day. He always believed that students should go further to continue their education and he would see to it that they went to the different campuses and universities. He would try to introduce them to the coaches and he officiated some of the games. Leahy was his special coach. He always talked about the coach of Notre Dame.

BG: He modeled himself after him?

MJ: Yes I think in many ways. He once had a teen center right over in Hargraves Recreation Center where the Holmes Day Care Center is now. He operated a teen center and he was always working for the youths, and that's the kind of thing that is so much needed this time and day. I don't think enough is done for the youths of this particular day and especially during this particular time. He was just that type of person. For his wife, I don't think he ever got a chance to see his wife. He would be in school all day. She also taught elementary school. He would stay after school for basketball practice. He was involved with all of the athletics here at the school.

BG: He was a busy man coaching all the sports.

MJ: Yes, he coached all the sports. During the summer, he would take us over to what is now North Caroline Central University and he had us run track. Some of the girls ran track. I used to go over there when I was in high school.

BG: How did you get over there?

MJ: He would take us and then sometimes he would take us to play softball games. We would ride in the back of a truck and go over to Durham and play softball. He was just all for the youths. He was very involved with youths.

BG: Did he ever follow any of his students after they went on to college?

MJ: Well, he did when they were close by. Even when they went to college he would sometimes post their names or the names would be posted or the picture would be posted. I remember when I was in high school that was a great incentive for people to want to go to college because we would pass by a board out here in front of the principle's office and there would be pictures of those people who went off to college. This school was like a family. I always refer to people if we were not blood kin we were family, and that's how close the people were in this school. They felt close to the teachers. We felt close to the students and the teachers and it was just wonderful. I wish I could see more of what went on at this time and day. Incidentally, we just had a meeting with the Governor's Board last Thursday. The Governor's Board had a community meeting over at Hargraves Recreation Center and some of these same things, you know, there were good communications and people didn't have telephones during that time. Many people did not have telephones but there was better communications during that time.

BG: From the teacher to the student?

MJ: Yes, than we have now.

BG: What is your perception of what we have now, Mary?

MJ: Well, there is a lot to be desired. First of all, I think that any person who comes to this community to teach in the school system should have a tour of Chapel Hill prior to teaching so that they will know where the different neighborhoods are and what the neighborhoods are all about.

BG: What was the band like under Mr. Pickard?

MJ: Well, we were getting started and what happened then was that Mr. Pickard would put all of the instruments out on tables and people would go into the room and choose the instrument that they were interested in playing so that everyone would know all the different instruments and that is not done this time and day. Some students are way up in high school before they know all the different instruments. He put them on display. When I came along I was very interested in the trombone because it looked to be hard to play and I couldn't understand how you could just slide an instrument and make notes. I chose the trombone, and I told Mr. Pickard, "I don't think I would ever understand how to play this." He said, "Why don't you take some lessons on it?"

BG: Who gave you a lesson?

MJ: Mr. Pickard did.

BG: Did you have to purchase the trombone or was it school property?

MJ: It was school property.

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.

Mary Norwood Jones (MNJ): Well, not at Northside. It was Orange County Training School and this school became Northside in 1951. My class was the last graduating class to attend this school and graduate from twelfth grade. At that particular time it was named Lincoln. The name of the school was Lincoln.

Bob Gilgor (BG): It became Lincoln in 1949?

MNJ: No. The name was changed to Lincoln. It was Orange County Training School and this school was named Lincoln High School and then they built the new Lincoln down on Merritt Mill Road and the class behind me attended that school to complete twelfth grade.

BG: So you left here in 1951?

MNJ: ’51, and the class of 1952 attended the new Lincoln High School on Merritt Mill Road.,

Mary Norwood Jones shares her memories of Santa.

To hear more from Mary Norwood Jones, listen to her full oral history "Mary Norwood Jones - On her experiences at Orange County Training School."

“First of all, I think that any person who comes to this community to teach in the school system should have a tour of Chapel Hill prior to teaching, so that they will know where the different neighborhoods are and what the neighborhoods are all about. They should know where the historical places are, not have to read them in the paper and then wonder where they are and what happened.”

- Mary Norwood Jones

This interview is part of an oral history project called Southern Communities Listening for a Change: Mighty Tigers—Oral Histories of Chapel Hill’s Lincoln High School. Mary Norwood Jones is an African American woman who graduated from what was then called Orange County Training School in 1951. Jones reflects with Bob Gilgor on her experiences playing basketball and being a member of the drama and band clubs at Orange County Training School. She goes into depth on her experience as an African American and female athlete, and she boasts about the positive influence her teachers, coaches, and parents had on fostering a healthy community within Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

Mary Norwood Jones is a Chapel Hill Native that attended Lincoln High School while it was still Orange County Training School. She discusses her childhood in the Chapel Hill area around the time of World War II and how the community was close knit. She then goes on to talk about the school and how her senior class of 1951 was part of the renaming from Orange County Training School to Lincoln High School due to their admiration of President Lincoln’s work on emancipation. At the time, teachers came from areas outside of the school zone to teach and were a major reason why so many of her fellow students were able to graduate and go on to attend college. After discussing how the school used second hand textbooks from other schools and the materials from the school were all passed down through the school, she talks about leaving the Chapel Hill area for forty years to teach in both Courtland, VA and Washington D.C. where she won teaching awards, coached women’s basketball teams, and participated in specialized federal programs for juvenile delinquency.

This interview is part of an oral history project called Southern Communities: Listening for a Change: Mighty Tigers--Oral Histories of Chapel Hill's Lincoln High School. The interviewes were conducted from 2000-2001, by Bob Gilgor, with former teachers, staff, and students from Chapel Hill, N.C.'s Lincoln High School, the historically black secondary school that closed in 1962 when a school desegregation plan was implemented. Interviewees discuss African American life and race relations in Chapel Hill, as well as education, discipline, extracurricular activities, and high school social life before and after integration.