Miss Alice with a student's painting of Waters Training School. Another
student's portrait of Dr. Brown is behind her. A reproduction of the portrait
hangs in the fellowship hall of Phillipi Baptist Church in Cofield.
Photograph courtesy of Alice Jones Nickens.

Memories of C.S. Brown School



 Written by Alice Jones Nickens

Part Four

Old Commencement Day 1900 -- 1925

Everybody in town arose with the sun or at least earlier than usual. The housewives did all their work quickly, making sure that everyone in the family of school age had something new to wear that was white. But if they couldn’t get white, it had to be dressy with lace and ribbon.

The people from the outlying communities by eight or nine o’clock in the morning began coming in to town slowly on horses and buggies or mule and carts, and some on horseback, and a few even by oxen and carts. The roads were not paved, and therefore travel to Winton was very slow by whatever means.

The stores in town had stocked up with the extra things to attract the attention of the country people as they paraded in groups from the school to the river on each side of the street, dressed in all colors and styles, to buy and sightsee. The people in town would sit on their porches to watch the crowds go by in the morning.

The campus looked like a carnival or fair ground. People had built rough shelters scattered over the campus to sell country ham sandwiches, pink lemonade, homemade ice cream, or anything they thought people would buy.

Naturally everyone had saved money for this special occasion. Since our school was the largest in the county, commencement was a treat for everyone.

At one o’clock the commencement began promptly. Instead of caps and gowns, the girl graduates wore white dresses while the boys wore dark suits and white starched shirts with neckties. The graduates assembled in front of the auditorium in the old Morehouse Hall, and led by their high school teachers and Dr. Brown, marched triumphantly into the auditorium.

Students in front of Morehouse Hall. It used to be a three-story building, now a
one-story serves as the home of Hertford County's Office of Aging. You'll see some
former Morehouse Hall students having lunch there today. Photograph courtesy of Alice Jones Nickens.

Usually we had an outstanding person from out of town to speak for the occasion, but the student with the highest average through the four high school years also presented essays on topics that were popular at that time.

Our school colors were blue and gold, and a few artistic teachers had spent several hours the day before to decorate the auditorium with crepe paper and flowers cut from trees and bushes nearby.

The people began going into the chapel with tired, sleepy, crying children and babies in their arms. To get a seat they had to arrive very early although the number of graduates was small.


We did not have running water or electricity. We only had outdoor restrooms. There was no air conditioning. The program lasted two and a half to three hours. During this time there was a continual parade of people going in and out with crying babies. When things would get too noisy, Dr. Brown would roar out for order, but quiet lasted only for a short time.

The classes had a class song performed to the tune of some popular song known to all. All classes wore flowers picked by the first year students. The school always had a good music instructor and glee club. Someone from the class was picked to sing a solo, and the glee club furnished music as well. While the commencement program was being held inside, outside the crowd was walking up and down the street and about the campus spending all their money for food and novelties.

Sisters Beatrice and Theora Weaver pose as new graduates under the bunting of Brown Auditorium, built in 1926. It now the C.S. Brown Museum and Cultural Arts Center.
Photograph courtesy of Shawnee Smith Ball

About this time the car was new, and so a few white people who owned cars would charge twenty-five cents to ride to the river on a car. The driver Sheldon would leave Mr. Tom Jernigan’s store, which was across the street, and go to the river and back.

We had an excellent ball team each year and even through the summer. One team that was outstanding in eastern North Carolina was the Red Sox. A couple of the players still live. Mr. Joe Reynolds who lives in Waterbury, Connecticut, is in his nineties, and we hear he is still very active. Some of the others were the Bowen boys, John, Saint, and Wallace; Sheldon Weaver; Will Tuck Brown, Dr. Brown’s son; and James Boone, Mayor of Cofield. After the commencement was over, everyone went to the ball park to see a good ball game. The entrance fee was ten cents.

This was the one day when the girls and boys did a little extra socializing, and each year someone slipped away and married, especially seniors.

Then, after the game, the juniors and seniors dressed in their Sunday best and went to a social in the auditorium. The social for us was what the juniors and seniors enjoyed as their spring prom.

Remember, the school was a Baptist school, and we were not allowed to dance, but we could march with our escorts. We had block ice cream. Dr. Brown would have someone to meet the train from Norfolk, and we were served a real treat of strawberry , chocolate, and vanilla real ice cream because we were special that night.

The next morning, usually a Saturday, all the children in the community got up early and went back to the campus to look for lost money to take across the street to buy vanilla cookies or sour pickle. Then it was back to the campus to help clean the grounds and wait on or help the merchants tear down their stalls for a few more pennies, and then home for the summer to play, work in the fields, attend summer school and revivals, and be ready for a new school year the first Monday in October.


The Popularity Contest

Even after the school was taken over by the county, we had money problems. We were always having to raise money for necessities for our school. The whites and the black schools were supposed to be “separate but equal”, but this was not true. We were far from equal, so we sold peanuts, popcorn, and begged for money every fall. We went to every business place in the county begging for ads to put in our fall booklets. Most of the teachers thought I didn’t mind because I usually could get more than anyone else, but believe me, it wasn’t because I liked doing it.

The booklets were sold at our fall rally or popularity contest. Mrs. Althea Avant started the idea of selecting a king and queen from each class, and a couple of teachers would sponsor the student picked to see who could raise the most money. This usually took place in the fall because the farmers harvested their crops in the fall and had more money. Parents baked cakes to be auctioned off, or they sold tickets for them. Mothers made sandwiches to sell, and teachers got really angry with one another, but the money rolled in.

We had our own popcorn machine. I popped bushels and bushels of popcorn to sell along with candy apples. I could candy 30 apples in 30 minutes. The money was raised to buy almost anything such as activity buses to take our students on trips to the circus, to a show, or to see airplanes, etc. This was great until integration. Then suddenly all the money we had worked so hard for was divided between the high schools, and we never really enjoyed the fruits of our tireless efforts.

May Day was another big day at school even in the 20’s. We always looked forward to May Day and the May Queen. She was always dressed beautifully, and the May pole was beautiful.

We had many good music teachers in the history of the school, but I think Mrs. Aileen Weaver was the greatest we ever had. She played by ear, but she could play anything. She was just gifted. She was always very good at training children for operettas, and the programs were enriched by her playing.

For many years we were very eager to get a real gymnasium, but the county commissioners claimed they could not find the money, so we begged for that. I traveled to Newport News, Norfolk, and Portsmouth one week to ask former students and friend for money which they gave freely. A building which is still standing on the campus was about half finished when a storm passed, and what had been put up fell down. The building stood in this condition for several years before the Board of Education decided to get the taxpayers to finish it to be used as an agriculture and home economics building. This is now being used by the Board of Education for storage purposes. In the meantime the Freeland gym was started , and it is a beautiful, useful addition to the campus.

One of the lovely students at Waters Training School/C.S. Brown was Althea Weaver Avant. Like her father, J. R. Weaver, Althea taught at her alma mater. Her sister, Dicie W. Smith, ran the Hertford County Undertakers Union in Winton. Althea's baby brother was Dr. Joseph D. Weaver.

One of her early students was T.W. Jones, who in his eighties, once called from
behind her, "ALTHEA!" She turned, T.W. grinned and said, "I always wanted to call you that." Photograph courtesy of Shawnee Smith Ball.

The building that will always be dear to my heart is the Masonic building across the road from the gym. This is the building in which I spent my primary years. It was a very dark, dreary place with few windows, a big pot belly stove, a wood pile outside, and a dark closet that the teacher would put students in for punishment. Because there was no indoor toilet, we used an opening under the outside stairway that was not enclosed for our toilet. Until the indoor toilets were built, we used outdoor ones on campus. We couldn’t always get there in time.

When I grew up and started teaching at age eighteen, I was put in that same building with Mrs. Rita Echols from Pheobus, Virginia. She was a great help to me. She was a graduate of Hampton Institute, and she gave me many valuable lessons in how to teach and love children.

Another instructor I will never forget was Mr. James Clark. He organized our first marching band. He could play any kind of instrument, and he would rise with the sun and play reveille that could be heard ahalf mile away. Mr. Clark was the first instructor to really make math clear to me. Before that I really could not add two and two. He was a romantic teacher, and after awhile, he broke a few hearts. He married Nettle Beverly form Tunis, North Carolina. After he left C. S. Brown, he went to Norfolk and made a name for himself in the school system there. He joined the Peace Corps after retiring.

After integration, the first two years they allowed any students to go to any school that was convenient for them. This was called freedom of choice. Some of our very best students left and went to the formerly white school because their parents knew the schools were better equipped for their children to learn. For example, at our school some teachers were crowded with two classes in one room. Our biology and science classes were being taught in the auditorium of Brown Hall. The white schools in Ahoskie and Murfreesboro were well equipped in the science rooms. You can understand , thereforewhy our students were handicapped when they entered college, and yet they made good grades.

 

High school students opening the May Pole around 1959. Photograph courtesy of Shawnee Smith Ball.

Photograph courtesy of Shawnee Smith Ball

After two years the Board of Education divided up our high school students and transferred them to the formerly all-white high schools in Ahoskie and Murfreesboro. The next year they took the junior high students, so now we are left with only kindergarten through sixth grade, but we are still doing a great job.

After the school buses began bringing students from all over the county to the larger schools, small one-teacher and two-teacher school were closing. Our boarding students were few, and finally the school had to close its boarding department.

The Normal School 1923 - 1925

Dr. Brown and the Board of Education saw a need for the teachers to be better trained since most of e local teachers had only had a high school education. When school officials decided to add a teacher training class, most of the teachers in the area attended the classes. The training school lasted about three years. Both my mother and I took the course. She graduated from the normal school the same year her baby son, Dr. Rudolph Jones, graduated from high school. A Mrs. Jones from New Jersey was our instructor the first year. and the second year the course was taught by Miss Lucille McLendon. She stayed in the community and was a person we will never forget. She lived among us until her death and is buried in the Weaver cemetery which was her dying request.

 

["Memories..." continues in the January Edition]

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Story Copyright by Alice Jones Nickens.
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