Updated July 8, 2010.
Typed from DVD by Sue Fentress Austin in July 2010
Gary: Many of you may have seen the picture in the BEACON on August 17th about the Creeds School Class of 1932. Well, Nita was in there. She is here today to identify those that are in the picture. And now Nita if you would please identify them.
Nita: (Picture is shown of Nita’s 1932 Class) This class that I was in was the class at Creeds and we graduated in 19 hundred and 32. I’m going to identify, and when I identify the girls I’m going to give their maiden names as they were then. And I’m going to start over here (she is going left to right) and this is Lillian Etheridge, and I bet you can guess the other two ‘cause my mother didn’t buy us anything, we didn’t have anything unless they were just alike ‘cause we fought over them if they were different. This is my sister, Adell Brumley, and here I am, Nita. This is Mildred Doxey, Bessie, Everton, Vera Munden, Miss Gladys Bracy who was a teacher at Creeds School as that time, Ruby Halstead, Grace Williams, Mary Ruth White, Rhetta Newman, Mildred Lane and Frances Nosay. Now the boys were on the back. There were twelve girls in my class and six boys. The first boy is Alvah Jones, the next one is Medford Grimstead, Walter Munden, Alvah Waterfield, Harold Jones and Rodney Lane. Now there’s one thing that makes me sort of sad when I look at this big family – and we were one big family. We loved each other, we worked together, and you know we were pretty good children in school. As I look over that picture, I can’t see a student in there who was really bad. We were children, we’d act up, but we were not bad. And the thing that makes me sad when I look at this row of boys, six of them, every one of them is gone to the other place. And three of the girls have gone. And I don’t know why I’m left here, but I’m left here for something. And the reason that I brought this today was because after this picture was put in the BEACON, the names of the students were not listed. And I don’t know how many phone calls I had that asked me to identify the people in the BEACON picture. There were a lot of people that enjoyed That BEACON picture. And some of these students here, had relatives that they wanted to send copies of the picture to, and I spent one day after that answering the telephone to identify these people. And that’s the reason that I brought this class picture this morning. Now this is my class graduating (camera goes to the “official” graduation class picture). Now I’m not going to take up the names here because the names are listed. Now that was put in what they called the Virginian-Pilot & Norfolk Landmark Newspaper at that time. And it was put in there May 31, 19 and 32. We were very proud students when we got our caps and gowns and had our pictures put in the paper. One thing I want to say about that class. At this time that was the largest class they had ever had to finish at Creeds High School – 18 of us! And we were proud of our numbers. I want to say to you that of these 18 that graduated in 1932, seven of us were from KI. And they were glad to have the seven to graduate because it made it sound like Creeds was a great big school and we could get more teachers. And seven of us were from KI. I want to call attention to that because we think of classes now and it’s up in hundreds. Well that was the largest class in 19 and 32 that had ever graduated from Creeds School.
Gary: Can you identify the seven from KI?
Nita: Yes. The seven of us were: Harold Jones, Melford Grimstead, Alvah Jones, Mary Ruth White, Rhetta Newman, Nita Brumley and Adell Brumley. And we were proud to be a part of that family.
Gary: Did you commute every day to school or did you live there?
Nita: Oh no! My generation did have a school bus and we started in 19 and 28. And we had a bus with a starter on the inside. It didn’t have any heater, but it did have a starter on the inside. Now this school bus did not go on the by-roads, it just took the main drag through KI. We took it across the Marsh Road and when I say we went to Creeds School, I don’t mean the one they are using now. It was another old school back of what they call The Creeds Market now. It was where the school was located then. And we went every day. And if we got stuck on what they call the Marsh Road, somebody asked me that question one time. Suppose the bus got stuck on what is called the Marsh Road. Well we knew what we were suppose to do – we all jumped out, except the driver, and we pushed! That’s what we did! In giving the seven of us credit and I do know that I am one - but I do want to give some credit to the children on KI . You know we put in a long, long day at Creeds School. Now we really did. We had to leave early of the morning, go across the dirt road, and be in school all day and sometimes it was nearly dark by the time that we got home. Now I was always a little gigglier in school and things like that. But there was one thing that my parents never had trouble with me doing and I’m going to boast about that. I’d get up my lessons, but I tell you sometimes by the time my sister and I went to school and got back over the dirt road and got to our house on what is Brumley Road now, and my father was working with a club, and we were suppose to feed the horses and feed the animals and get straightened out. And then I said we got straightened out, and got home, my mother would have a little snack of something and we’d go around and do that work. And then we went in and then we’d eat. By the time I got ready to sit down to our old study table that had a leaf that would lift up, that’s where we were suppose to study. We knew where we were suppose to go. But sometimes I was so tired that I didn’t feel like would I ever get my lessons up. But that was one thing that I would do, I guess I was ashamed to go back to school the next day with my lessons not up. And many, you see, the rest of the kids that lived around Creeds, they didn’t have as long a day as we did. So even for us to be able to keep our work up, some of us that, and I won’t call any names, because I don’t mind calling my sister and I, but sometimes people object to some things that you say. But my sister and I had to work when we got home. And some of the others did too.
Gary: What time did you get up in the morning to meet the bus?
Nita: Well, my daddy was working with a club and sometimes we got up by 0430. And sometimes mama would have sportsmen staying there, and we’d have to help her too. We got up mighty, mighty early and you see, we had to walk from our house on Brumley Road, out to Eddie Munden’s Store. We had to walk that distance to start out with. Sometimes Brumley Road at that time, it was a dirt road and that was muddy and it was just a very narrow road like I call a one-horse path, is what I call it. And I can remember a fence on one side of the road, and sometimes there’d be a mud hole over in the road, and I shouldn’t have walked that fence, ‘cause I think it belonged to Mr. Voight Jones at that time, to separate his property and to keep the cattle, they’d run out and take care of situations like that. But sometimes I’d walk that fence, I know I helped to tear it down. But I’d do it to kind of keep my feet dry. But as I said, sometime before, when I was here, when we got to Mr. Eddie Munden’s Store, we found a warm place to stay and if the bus was late in coming, a place where we could prop our feet up and kind of dry them out and get warm. He always looked out for us that way, he made life much easier for us by meeting the bus out there. It was a long day. You boys and girls now, some of you may be listening to me, have no idea of how my generation really fought to try and get an education. It was a pleasure to us to be with our friends. We didn’t go places like you people do and it was really a pleasure to be with our friends. We might have wet feet, we might be cold from a long day on the bus, but it was a pleasure.
Gary: How about the school? How well was that heated once you got there off a cold bus, and you got into a cold school?
Nita: I can say, no it wasn’t a cold school but it was a coal heater. Creeds had coal heaters in the middle. I can see the old auditorium now with that great big old pot belly they call it now. It was heated that way – the coal stoves.
Gary: Of course you couldn’t regulate the temperature too well.
Nita: No, no, no, we couldn’t regulate the temperatures. We had to regulate that by our coats or what we had on. Sometimes what we had on underneath. We had to take care of that kind of thing. But it was inside plumbing, that kind of thing even the old Creeds School was. But that was our life. And as I think back over it, I’ve heard people say, “Oh I wish we could return to the good old days.” I don’t say that. Now I enjoyed my time in those days, but I would hate to go back to them. I couldn’t enjoy it now. But I would know what to do if I had to go back, when some of you people wouldn’t know because you’ve never lived through it.
Gary: How about electricity? Did you have electricity that far?
Nita: Yes, Now some of the places..now I don’t remember how Creeds had lights..…some of them had some kind of outfit of their own …maybe you know what I’m talking about.
Gary: Portable generators?
Nita: Yes, Delco or something like that. Now the old KI School, the three teacher school, didn’t have that. Not when I was there.
Gary: KI didn’t get electricity until about ’46 I think it was – ’45 or something like that.
Nita: Yes, some got it in ’46. Now some of us didn’t because at that time we had built the house in what they call Blackfoot now, and we tried awfully hard to, we had it wired for electricity and we thought we would get it in the summer of ’46. We had bought a stove, refrigerator, and we couldn’t get electricity back there. We tried awfully hard but they told us that materials were limited at that time because of the war. And they had to save materials too because of the service people moving to KI. And we couldn’t get it. My mother and father now, did get it on Brumley Road in ’46. But we didn’t get it until later on when they could go and get the materials. And it was not the fault of the power company but it was just their limitations. And if you lived so far from the main electric “drag” then they couldn’t wire your house. And we understood that. So what we did, we stayed over in our old house, burning the kerosene lamps until we finally got the electricity. And we were so glad to get over there and get settled down and our son was small at that time and it made it so much easier. Both of us were working at that time too so we were mighty glad. That really helped to change KI – electricity. The newer ways of farming really revolutionized the whole KI in a short time. Or to me it seemed a short time because we depended on some of those things and it made it so much easier. I won’t go into that but that would be another whole program on the advances in farming compared to what my father did.
Gary: Now we have some pictures up and Nita will you explain these pictures?
Nita: (picture of pre-Parsonage site school) Yes. I have said something about this school in another time I was here. And I asked if there was any help out there…any pictures? Well Love Etheridge was good enough to give me one of a picture she had. The picture that she had of this school, she found it in her mother’s things after her mother passed away and she doesn’t know when the school picture was taken, or who took the picture. But she did hear me speak about it and she sent me a copy and I wish to thank her for sending it. (Now camera shows a group of probably 20 young children, standing in front of a school building) Now these children in this picture is a class that, I told you about in one of the earlier times when I was here, how my sister, Adell, and I started at this school in 19 and 20. And why we were in the same class together because I didn’t go the first year from Casons Point Road because I had to walk. Now I don’t know where I got this picture. I don’t know whether it was in some of my mother’s things and you know I don’t file things, I’m not too nice about keeping things and I don’t have them organized. And in digging through some of my materials, I found this picture. Of course I know where it was taken, and I know the group whose in it, but I don’t know where I got it. I wish I did. Now this was taken at this old school building , it was built in 1908. And my class left this school building in 19 and 25 and went to the new building that they are using at the present time.
Gary: What the location? I don’t think we mentioned where the school was.
Nita: The schoolhouse was, this old school was built where the Parsonage is now.
Gary: The Methodist Church?
Nita: Yes, the Methodist Church. Now one thing I’d like to know about this old building is – and I was away for about 10 years after I finished high school and I can’ t recall some of the things. I don’t know when this building was torn down. And I don’t remember how it was torn down. Now somebody at the Methodist Church might could tell me about that. I would like to know what year they took this down. And now I say this is covered with the Methodist Parsonage. But I do know it was built in 19 and 8 and, when we left the building it was in 19 and 25. Now this group of kids down here – I’d like to name the children that are in this group. Now this picture was taken in this area of the old school. I don’t know who took the picture, but I do know it was taken sometime in the Fall of 19 and 24 or Spring of 19 and 25. In other words, the last year my class was at the old school . Now I’ll start with this young man here,(1st Row, left to right) Julian Ansell, Alvah Waterfield, Gladys Waterfield, Harold Jones, my sister, Adell Brumley, Raymond Grimstead. (2nd Row) Mahlon Wade, Arvell Arkerson, Dunreath Smith, Merium Waterman, Rylan Waterman, (3rd Row) Doris Waterfield, Agnes Waterfield, Melford Grimstead, Meridith Williams, (4th Row), Lucille Bonney, Nita Brumley, Nelson Morris, Teacher Mildred Brody, last two boys Nita unable to recall their names. First boy stayed with Mr. John Jones’s family, and the last child, stayed with Mrs. Susie Litchfield. I don’t remember their names. Now Alvah Waterfield was living on KI right then. He also moved to Creeds and graduated in the class, in my class when we graduated from high school. I wish I knew who took this picture. Could somebody out there, hearing me, tell me who took this picture, just to satisfy me. You may say that’s a silly question. It’s not because at that time we did not have cameras very often on KI. They were rare things . And when I look at the framing of this and the way it was put on this it looks like what would be called professionally done at that time. I can’ t remember who made this picture, and I sure would like to know. And we had, this picture right here (camera goes back to picture of pre-Methodist Parsonage school) of the old KI School, it’s the same thing, who took this picture? What did they take it with? And that’s one thing to satisfy myself that I would really like to know.
Gary: (camera goes to a group of young children, Nita’s class) So you think that’s a class picture?
Nita: Yes, and some of these children I can name, you take Raymond Grimstead was killed in an automotive accident and you take Harold Jones, he died out here on the Bay in a gunning accident. And as I look down through these children, I can place things with them. Now as I said, this one, Meridith Williams, you might say, somebody might ask the question how did he get in that group? Down here at the KI School. Well at the time that he was young, the children at the north end used the KI schools. But during the time, for some reason, they got dissatisfied, wanted to send their children to Creeds. Well being that some of them lived in Virginia, then Virginia had to put on a bus to transport the children from the north end to Creeds so then that explains why Meridith was there. He wound up going to Creeds School after awhile. And that’s the reason why.
Gary: Was this just one school on KI at the time?
Nita: Yes. I did not go to the one teacher schools. And this (camera goes to the pre-Parsonage site school) ,at that time was the only public school on KI. Now I have been told and some of you out there might remember of a building being across the road of what is the KI Market at this time. There was a little building I can remember that and that was suppose to be one of the one teacher schools. But when this school was put up (camera shows pre-Parsonage school), this was the only school. In other words, when people finished the materials they had here, then that was the end of their education unless they went somewhere else. And in another series that I gave here I talked about Mrs. Pauline Munden and different ones that had to leave KI to be further educated. I won’t go through that because somewhere in these tapes you will find the information that I gave. This was the only school.
Gary: About how many rooms were in this, how many classrooms?
Nita: Three room school.
Gary: Three room school for three grades, seven grades?
Nita: No, I think they went just through the seventh grade, but sometimes that’s a hard question to answer because sometimes these older schools used the materials they had and when they did that it was not graded like we have it now. You finished with this school and you don’t come back the next year. And that’s when Pauline Munden, Mamie Harris, Belle Cullipher, their parents had to board them away from KI. And then in another tape, I gave the growth of how some of our children left the Island in an old car after Belle Cullipher and all boarded. Then the next was an old Ford Group, there were five of them, and the next group was a little school bus. It had a crank in the front and you cranked it. And then the next transportation was the school bus that I was on and we did have a starter in the school bus. But we didn’t have a heater. And that was in 19 and 28 when I started my further education from KI going to Creeds. We were very fortunate, we had a bus. We had a dirt road all the way. And it had some improvements on it. Some of the people had worked on it.
Gary: So what, the school had a certain amount of material and once you had finished the material, there wasn’t anything else to offer so you were finished with school?
Nita: Yes, that what I have been told about the ones who went to the one room schools. I didn’t go to them. Now when we got into this school, (the pre-Parsonage school), it was a little bit improved but we didn’t have library books, and all that stuff. And we had a very limited number of school books. They were sort of passed around and that kind of thing. We didn’t have a whole lot of books like they have now. We just used them over and over. What was left at the school, I don’t know how they got there, where the parents bought them or what. Sometimes if a child didn’t have, or needed a book, the child was given a book.
Gary: Did you have to buy your own? Or were they provided?
Nita; No, you bought your own. And that answers part of it. People at that time found it hard to buy books, very hard.
Gary: You would buy a used book from the class before?
Nita: Yes. Now that’s one thing that we did. We would speak ahead of time for a used book if we thought we were going to be in it the next year. And you see when I left this school, it was getting more of a graded system then it was before this school was built. Well, in other words, there was a first grade, and there was a second grade, but even at this school, sometimes there’d be a first grade and second grade, and maybe a third grade but some of the classes would be combined and maybe I would be in the first grade but I’d be having some classes, like health classes maybe with some children who had been there two years or in the second grade. And even when we went to the brick school, now the one that Mr. Knapp had, the year that I was in the sixth grade there, see we moved there when I was in the fifth, 19 and 25. The year that I was in the sixth grade, we had the sixth grade and that year they taught the eighth grade at KI. That’s the only year I ever remember of them having the eighth grade. But what happened, I found out she was a very important educator here – Maude Newberry. She was a supervisor. They gave us some tests, parents didn’t ask questions then like they do now and so forth, and it seems like to me there were two that might have been in the seventh grade. But when the tests were given, they combined them with the sixth so I was in the classroom under Miss Steele in the sixth grade and no seventh and the eighth grade. You see it is confusing, think of that. And then the next year, you see, there was a sixth and seventh grade in the room and those that were in the eighth grade had gone on to Creeds School. Now there is some of them still living. It was a mighty small class, I think about seven or eight in the eighth grade is all we had. It is confusing when you still think of it in that way. It is like I said before, education is not graded it just big jumps ahead. It’s taken by small leaps and bounds. And all of this we went through with was working on to something bigger and something to be proud of. Just look what we have on KI now. What a nice school, a nice gym and all the things that other people have, and sometimes I think we might have a few more.
Gary: The school is all computerized over there now.
Nita: Oh yes. Sometimes I say when I go to think about myself, coming here to you, I feel like an antique in the modern world of technology. And you see I have been out of teaching long enough that I didn’t keep up with all that. If I had stayed in it, I would have had to go to school to workshops to keep up, abreast of things. But I haven’t done it. Now I say this is an interesting picture (camera goes to the classroom picture of Nita’s young group) and I wish I had known where it came from. It may have come from some of my mother’s things. She had a lot of our things in that old house at that time and as we got married she tried to get rid of some of her old junk. I guess I got it from my mama, saving things. Since some of these things have come up, like facing you today with these pictures, I found things in my own junk that I didn’t know I had! And they’ve been stored away and I’ve taken good care of them. And I’m not sure but this picture came from my mama’s things.
Gary: That’s not junk anymore. It’s very valuable and a lot of memories. We’d like to thank you for the pictures we have seen today and hope that we can continue this.