Memories of C.S. Brown School
Written by Alice Jones
Nickens
Part Three
Boarding Department
The boarding department started when the school opened in 1886. It was something new to us. although Chowan College at Mufreesboro had one at that time for whites only.
We started out that fall with Mr. and Mrs. John Collins as care-takers for the one building, Chowan Academy, There were about thirty-five; boarding students, but only one three - story building which was Chowan Academy. Some of the students had to stay in reputable homes in the community. The first floor of the Academy consisted of two classrooms, a printing office, and two bedrooms. The second floor was used for a chapel, and the third floor was used for boarding girl students only.
The first faculty of the school were four in number. Dr. C. S. Brown, Principal; Miss Seabird Williamson, Matron; Dr. Manasses Pope and Mr. Joseph B. Catus, teachers.
The second year another two and a half story building was erected. The first floor was used for a kitchen, a dining room, and living quarters for Mr. and Mrs. John Collins who cooked for the students. The upper floors were used for living quarters for the girls who boarded in. Dr. Brown’s office was built in 1888 near where the first Winton church stands now. His desk is still in the C. S. Brown Building. The office was a small white frame building which in later years was moved to the northern side of the campus when the church was built. These three buildings were the only ones on the campus until one burned down after some boys left a flat iron on an ironing board and forgot it. It was very unfortunate that we did not have any running water or fire department to prevent the loss of the building. Since then, several buildings through the years have burned. |
John Collins (l) with his brother Sam and
sister Addie C. Weaver. Sam, Dr. Brown's son-in-law, was an embalmer
for Hertford County Funeral Home. Addie taught at Waters. |
When Chowan Academy opened, the tee to stay on campus was
only $6.00 per month, and parents were allowed to bring meat, vegetables,
or anything usable to pay their tuition. The town students paid one dollar
per month for each child. This did not seem too much since many children
had already been to private schools in homes. A Miss Alice Turner who
lived on Murphy Street had a private school, and many students living
now spent their first school years under her care. She was a tine, capable
teacher.
The boarding students were required to bring from home their own pail, water pitcher, bedding, brooms, lamps, etc. The school did not have any running water and just a couple of outdoor toilets, one for boys and one for girls.
Health
I will never forget the year when we had an epidemic of smallpox in the school and in the community. Whenever we had any contagious diseases we were quarantined. A yellow poster was put on the porch warning people not to go in, and those in were not to go out.
Many of the boarding school students contracted smallpox, so the school board had two small buildings built across the road near the Masonic building. One was for girls and the other for boys. They were put off by themselves, and their food was sent to their door. Every one in my family had active cases of smallpox, and since we had so many members in our family, we were quarantined for several months. Children were not given shots for contagious diseases in those days, and so each year someone would have chicken pox, mumps, diphtheria, measles, colds, whooping cough, and we lost out in many ways. We did not have a doctor in Winton at that time, nor did we have a hospital in the county. It would take all day by horse and buggy and later by train to get to Suffolk to the nearest hospital. Many school children died because many people felt that children should have those childhood diseases and the sooner they had them the better.
Now I must tell you that each summer all children whose tonsils were sore or enlarged during the winter were carried to a clinic in the white elementary school, and their tonsils were removed very crudely. We bore the pain bravely for the promise of a cone of ice cream or a milkshake from Mr. Press Manley’s soda fountain on Main Street.
Finance
Chowan Academy was started with a very slim chance of succeeding because it was a private school, and they had very little money to meet the daily bills. The teachers were being paid about $25.00 a month. It was said that Dr. and Mrs. Brown worked most of the time without pay, and I’m sure that many bills were paid out of their own money.
First Dr. Brown made sure that the school newspaper, The Chowan Pilot, went out on time begging for help. It was published in 1886 and subscriptions sold for fifty cents per year. Dr. Brown was editor for many years. M. T. Pope, J. B. Catus, and J. 0. Hollomon were associate editors of the paper.
Then he organized the Chowan Education Society. He did this through his church, and it was mainly organized to help the school. The Sunday School Convention was organized also for the same purpose. People in the community were also picked to get pledges from people who could spare some. They were called soliciting agents.
Then Dr. Brown and his close friends and faculty begged. He tried to pick key people in different places in Eastern North Carolina.
Reynolds Hall - the gir's dormitory |
And last but best were friends of Dr. Tupper who was president of Shaw at that time. He interested some of his wealthy northern white friends to give. A Mr. Waters, a piano manufacturer, gave $8,000.00 for a building, and the school name was soon changed to Waters Normal Institute in honor of his financial help. Also a Mr. Reynolds gave a large amount, and a girls’ dormitory and classrooms were built. It was a magnificent structure, and they named it Reynolds Hall. Mrs. Reynolds visited our school when I was a little girl. She spoke to us about the topic, “Study to be Quiet”. I have never forgotten her lecture, and I feel we profited from it. |
Some of their friends would send barrels of clothing.
We eagerly looked forward for the barrels to come, because the clothes
were given to the poorer families and larger families, and we were able
to wear the New York styles. My were we dressed up!
As a student around 1920, James
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The Dining Hall The boarding students were given three meals a day. The big bell on the campus would ring, and everybody would hurry, taking chairs from the classrooms and bedrooms at first. They sang a grace before they took their seats. They were given about five minutes to get in, and then the doors were locked. Many parents brought meat, meal, canned vegetables,
potatoes, molasses, etc., to help pay their children’s board
and lodging. My father’s sister, Delilah Jones Brown, was
the cook when I first remember, and she would slip food out the
back door to us (my father's children) sometimes. She would tell
us that she didn’t want Eff’s children to perish. (Eff
was my father's name.)
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When people could not pay for their children to board on the campus, they would place them with reliable people in town to help the families and to provide the students with a little pay. Dr. and Mrs. Brown always had several students who worked for their board and lodging. Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Weaver always ran an advertisement in the school newspaper offering to keep not only out-of-town people, but students as well. It was our only Negro hotel or inn called the School-View Inn. Their home kept many visiting dignitaries who visited the school and community in those years. Mrs. Zilphia Moore had a restaurant where you could get food. It stood on the corner where Mrs. Albina Hall’s house now stands. |
J.R. and Claudia Weaver's School-View Inn housed guests and students. J.R. was a former teacher at Waters. Courtesy of Shawnee Smith Ball |
Our Books My father, E. R. Jones, had the franchise for Roanoke Chowan community to sell the state books for school children. He bought them from the North Carolina school book depository in Raleigh. The books came to Coffield by train, and my father would send for them by a horse and cart. I still have some of the canceled checks my mother sent to pay for the books. In many large families, the books were handed down from one generation to another, and I think because our parents had to buy our school books, we were taught to take much better care of our books than students do now.
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The author's father, Eff R. Jones, had multiple businesses and was a deacon at Pleasant Plains Baptist. All of his ten adult children attended college after finishing at Waters Training School. Courtesy of Alice J. Nickens |
About 1916, Mr. Johnnie Shaw who had a general
merchandise store on Main Street, wanted to sell books. My father was
asked if he would give permission for another merchant to sell school
books. The North Carolina book depository gave my father a very large
Websters dictionary for his family. They gave him the gift because they
appreciated his sharing the franchise.
My father soon died, leaving my mother with ten
children to rear and educate. She continued to keep the business of the
store going and sold books until the state began giving the school books
free.
We prized our books because we did not have any school library or public library in the early years of the school, and we were taught to take care of them so they could be handed down from one child in a family to the next.
Discipline
It was no big deal to keep your students quiet and orderly. Most parents disciplined their children well at home, and when they reached school they understood. If the Teacher had to punish them, they would be punished again when they reached home, and you know no one wanted two whippings just for talking back to a teacher. How different things are now.
The worst punishment was to be whipped with a switch. Many times the teacher would ask you to go bring the whip. Naturally you picked one out that would last for only a couple of licks.
Children were kept at school thirty minutes after the others left for home or kept in at recess while other played out in the fresh air. I have seen a few teachers use the dunce stools where you may be made to sit for an hour or two with a dunce cap on your head, but really that was fun. One punishment that nobody liked was to be put in a dark closet under the stairway. There was one in the room when I entered school. As the students went on to high school they were made to work as punishment or were given demerits. When you had about ten demerits you could be sent home, or your parents might come to school and whip you themselves before your classmates. And occasionally Dr. Brown would whip older students in morning exercises. This could be very embarrassing to everyone. I never remember being slapped but once at school. We were practicing for a commencement program. I was in a drill and you had to walk in a straight line and make a right angle turn at the corner. Well, I swung around the corner, and the teacher swung around my legs. I cried a little, but I listened more carefully and learned to turn a square corner.
We as teachers always had cooperative, appreciative parents. They would not attend a PTA meeting, but it seemed as is they left everything up to the principal and faculty about how to care for their children.
Teachers were often asked out for dinner by parents of their pupils. and this was another way they showed appreciation to the teachers. Now in the eighties we have teacher appreciation week, secretary appreciation day, times set aside to say thank you, but I feel the old way was just as sincere.
We did not have any lockers for our books. We hung our wraps on nails along the wall in my first classroom. When it was time to go out for recess or home, we had to line up and pick our wrap. Sometimes there were so many alike you would find yourself at home with someone else’s coat or sweater, and then your mother would embarrass you by sending a note to your teacher.
Our school furniture many times was just plain long benches around bare wooden tables. As time went on we were able to have some wooden desks with wide board. We have a few in the school storage buildings. We have been promised some to put in Brown Hall when the restoration of Brown Hall is complete.
Our classroom walls were bare except for an old dusty picture or maybe some pictures cut from an old catalog or a photograph of a governor or president. At first we did not have decent blackboards. We knew nothing of bulletin boards.
["Memories..." continues in the October, 2006 Edition]
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