Wall detail, Holley Graded School. Photo by Margaret M. Cook, September 2012.
Oral Histories
These interviews present the remembered experiences of alumni of the Holley Graded School. New Histories will be added to this record in installments.
To register as an alumnus, see the Holley Graded School alumni page.
To register as an alumnus, see the Holley Graded School alumni page.
Garfield M. Parker, Jr.Interview by Mary Lamb Shelden, Jul 2011
Photo by Margaret M. Cook, Oct 2011 |
Holley was very important simply because in 1869 right after reconstruction, parents wanted their children knowledgeable. They wanted their children to learn. And there was no place for them to do that. And so when Holley did come to fruition, it was very well supported. . . You had to have an education. . . And so it’s very important that we salvage it, if at all possible. . . But it has deteriorated over the years because . . .[o]ther things were going on, integration, life was happening, people were primarily in the Northern Neck, young people from 1960 on could not make a living on the land, so they had to leave . . . and most of them did. And most left to earn a living, and now what we’re seeing is after this 30 or 40 years have gone by, we have people now coming back into the area, moving back . . . they’re moving back because they really loved the area. They just didn’t want to leave it. So, we have a lot of retired alumni from Holley School now that have just begun living in the area. And it’s very interesting. They’ve achieved. And they’re surprised at the deterioration, but they also remember that they weren’t here. So, it was left in the hands of a few people, who did the best that they could. So, they just need some help right now.
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Harold Blackwell & Stafford ConleyInterview by Mary Lamb Shelden, Nov 2009
Photo by Margaret M. Cook, Sep 2012 |
Stafford: "This was the first place that we got the taste of education. And it just stayed with you. And the teachers were so caring, and they were concerned about us getting an education so that we could get off the farms and get away from the crab houses and fish houses and tomato fields and go on and do other things with our lives." Harold: "[T]he first folks getting educated here, they provided us a step-off point for their own children. They realized the value of an education and they passed it on to their children, so you didn't perpetuate a situation where people didn't have a means to move up. This is really part of the American dream."
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Emma Diggs CarterInterview by Mary Lamb Shelden, Apr 2011
Photo by Margaret M. Cook, Jul 2011 |
Emma: "My father attended way back there. My father was born in 1876, and he was born 11 years out of slavery to a land that was very, very, very impoverished . . . and his mother had 14 children. And education was something to be prized. Something to be prized. And then when a young girl showed some promise, they would send her to Hampton or to Virginia Union, and her tuition would be a crate of chickens, a bushel of greens, six dozen eggs, a basket of turnips, whatever they could get together to help to pay that child’s tuition, and a lot of times, they left home with the clothes on their back and maybe, just maybe, a change of clothes. A lot of times they didn’t have a change of clothes. They were taught when you go home, you take these off and you wash them and hang them up and you get up early enough to press them and you wear them back to school. When that person graduated, it was a hallelujah time."
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Barbara Page RedmondInterview by Mary Lamb Shelden, Jul 2011
Photo by Margaret M. Cook, Oct 2011 |
Barbara: "[T]hat's where we got all our basic learning is from Holley School. And if I hadn't gotten mine from there, my children might not have gotten what they have today. So, I figure it's very important. . . . My oldest one, Sharon, is a detective in New York, in Suffolk County. My next one, Oswald, Jr., he has his own trucking company in Maryland. Sheila, she works for the government in passport services. Duane, he's a contractor. He does government housing. Sonia is at VCU and she does the tuition program for graduate students. . . . Anthony, he's an electrical engineer, which he works with his brother Duane in the housing business. And my youngest one, she works for the government, too."
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Darnelle Thompson SmithInterview by Mary Lamb Shelden, Nov 2010
Photo by Margaret M. Cook, Oct 2011 |
Darnelle: "And what was so unfortunate, the white kids always had a bus. And we didn’t. And we had to walk. And my goodness, children walked eight and ten miles. . . . I look back over my life, and I tell my kids, I say, 'Well, you know, we thought it was hard, but I appreciate what I did back then, those days than what the kids have nowadays' . . . And I said look what we had to do – so cold, and . . . people lived down at the bottom of the road, their dad had to row them in a boat to get to it. And we would put the basin of water on the stove . . . for us to warm our hands. You could have on gloves, and you’d be freezing, some of those kids. We didn’t have to walk that far, but we was good and cold when we got there. And then the children who had walked ten or fifteen miles, you know how they felt when they got there. And that’s why a lot of them had a limited education. Because they had to walk so far . . . in that cold winter, and their parents didn’t have no automobiles or nothing to bring ‘em. It was rough back there then, but I told ‘em, I wouldn’t like to go back where I come from, but I appreciate the little bit that I did get."
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Copyright Mary Lamb Shelden, 1 January 2013