Oral History Program Daisy Eason Interviewed by Deborah M. George 22 January 2014 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Daisy Eason Interviewed by Deborah M. George 22 January 2014 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The New Zion Community Advocates worked with community members age 80 years and older to have contributed to the history of Ogden city. The interviews looked at the legacy of the interviewees through armed services, work, social life, church, NAACP and educational systems in an environment where their culture was not predominant. This program has received funding from the Utah Humanities Council and the Utah Division of State history. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Eason, Daisy, an oral history by Deborah M. George, 22 January 2014, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Daisy Eason, photo taken at her home on January 22, 2014 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Daisy Eason conducted on January 22, 2014 by Deborah George. DG: We are in the home of Daisy Eason, today, January 22, 2014 to do an oral interview about her history in Ogden, Utah. Would you tell us your full name? DE: My full name is Daisy Louise Eason. DG: What’s your birth date? DE: June 11, 1928. DG: How are we related? DE: We’re not related. DG: So what are you doing now? DE: Now I’m just having fun. I work one day a week at Davis Hospital as a volunteer. DG: Where do you work in Davis Hospital? DE: I usually work in the volunteer office, answering the phone. I used to just take patients out and do a lot stuff, but since I’ve gotten to be this age I just answer the phone for them now. DG: What are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned in life? DE: The most important lesson I’ve learned in life is humility. I just think people learn that you have to humble yourself because you can get a lot by just being humble and nice. Take you a long ways in life. DG: What are you proudest of in your life? 1 DE: My 11 children. 10 daughters and one son. I’m proud of their accomplishments because having 11 children, people go through a lot. I went through a lot, but nothing major like being locked up. So they’ve done well. DG: Wonderful, so how long have you lived in Ogden? DE: I came in 1950. DG: What brought you here? DE: Well my first husband was in the military, I came here with him. Then we separated and I went home. I went back to Mississippi - Brookhaven, Mississippi. I was pregnant and had my baby and then I was working for my mother. My mother had a café and I worked in her café. There was an army base there and I met my second husband there. We got married and for some reason he came to Utah. So yeah I moved back here again just three years later. DG: What was the year when you came back? DE: 1953. I came back and I picked cherries because this city was a base then. Navy base, army base, air force base. So there wasn’t a lot of people here there was just cherry fields. Cherry fields and beet fields, you wouldn’t believe it. The Bamberger train went from Ogden to Salt Lake. DG: Oh really? DE: That’s what we rode. DG: Kind of like a trolley? DE: Yes trolley is what it was. That’s how I went to Salt Lake. I had my children still, but then I got a job at the base, working for the officers there. It was a good paying job and I just kept my job and stayed here, stayed in Utah. 2 DG: So can you tell me how Ogden has changed over the years from when you first came to now? DE: Oh it’s changed. I had a house there on Pingree Avenue, it’s still sitting there. I look at it sometimes now. You know how long it has been because it cost $6,000 for a whole house, 6,000 dollars is what it cost. DG: But at that time… DE: It was a lot of money. I paid the down payment on it by picking cherries, and apricots and sugar beets. I worked out in the fields. My husband said, “Oh you don’t have to do that.” I said, “Oh, yes. I got to get me some money. I’m going to work.” The men would come by for us to go and I’d get in the truck with them and go pick them, make me two or three dollars. That’s all I was making. It was a lot of money back then, it was a lot of money for me. I made $2.50 a day and that was a good deal you know. That’s candy for the kids right now. DG: So what was it like when you first moved here? DE: When I first moved I was just really, really disappointed. DG: How so? DE: Because when I got here I didn’t see no African American people here. There was a few on the base. I saw them on the base, I was so happy when I saw African American soldiers. I just learned to adapt you know because I’d got me a house, my husband was here. He had gotten a job so I learned to adapt by my mother. I don’t know why I come out here there’s no black people out here. My mother was very spiritual, she said “Well, we are all God’s children. So we’re all one.” Humility and kindness…she kept bringing that to me. She says, “Be kind to 3 people and people will be kind to you.” That’s what happened, wasn’t always kind but still I didn’t let it bother me or change my attitude. DG: So what do you miss most about the way it used to be? DE: I don’t really miss anything about the way it used to be. DG: That’s fine. DE: I don’t miss any of that. DG: Can you think of any of the great characters that lived in and around Ogden, people that just kind of stuck in your mind? DE: Well, there was one person that I kept in contact with that really made me want to stay here was the base commander. I’m a real religious person and it was nothing but God. I was working in base housing and he said to me, “Do you know anybody who can work for my wife or help her out for a while she broke her leg?” I said, “What you want them to do?” He said, “Just mostly be with her and help her with things because she is moving slow since she broke her leg.” So I said, “How many days you want?” He says, “Just one day a week.” I said, “I can do it.” He says, “Can you do it?” I says, “Yes.” He said, “Well I want you to meet my wife. When you get off of work come by and meet my wife. If you want me to pick you up I can pick you up.” So he picked me up and I went and met his wife. I worked for them until they left. Really and truly he said, “Why don’t you go civil service?” I was working in non-appropriated funds. He says, “Why don’t you go civil service?” I said, “Well I put my application in, but they didn’t hire me.” They had a class at Weber State teaching you how to be an aircraft mechanic. It cost $80…it seemed like $8000 dollars! It was $80 dollars for the 4 course. So my husband and I said, “I’m going to take this course.” So I signed up for the class and I paid $15 dollars down. When I went back there was a man there named Mr. Murakawa, he was a Japanese guy. He said, “You shouldn’t have to pay for this.” I said, “Why?” He said, “All these people in class here, I bet you there aren’t three of them that have paid their money.” I said, “Well how did they get in?” He says, “There’s a grant.” Then he gave me a form to fill out, I filled it out and mine got paid. The rest of mine got paid. So I finished the course, I mean I passed it, but it was a nine month course. I passed it with flying colors and they hired me here for the aircraft mechanic. He said, “I’m surprised you did well on that test. You did real well.” I really wanted a good job to take care of my babies. So I passed it, got my job at the base and worked out there until I retired. DG: That’s what you did when you worked? How many years at the base? DE: I worked until I retired. I worked 27 years. DG: Do you remember any great stories or legends about Ogden growing up, anything that you thought was interesting? DE: I went to get my kids, to take my little girl to the movie. I only had two children then. I wanted to go into Ogden to the movies so we took the Bamberger to Ogden. So when I got there and sat down the man came and told me, he says, “You got to sit upstairs.” I said, “Oh, okay.” So they had me go sit upstairs, I couldn’t sit downstairs with the Caucasian people. So people were watching me in the movies, so we left and went back over to take the Bamberger train back. They all got the train and I am not paying no attention you know. We come back all the way to Clearfield and I mean just a little Bamberger track running through 5 that, no freeways or nothing. Some were saying, “Where do all you darkies come from?” One man was just mean to me on the trolley, he was picking at me. So I had my little girl by the hand. I put my hands around her and pulled her close to me so nobody could bother her. I was right behind the driver, he says, “Ma’am listen to what I’m going to tell you. When I stop this train I want you to jump off with your baby and run as fast as you can home. I’m going to keep going.” I got off and I run took my baby home. I looked back, he was taking off, they was all, “Stop this train, stop this train!” He wouldn’t stop, he just kept going. He said, “I can’t stop until the next stop.” He knew they were going to bother me so he went and let me off. I thought how nice he was to do that because he didn’t have to do that you know. He said, “When I stop this train I want you to get off fast.” While he was talking, his head was looking straight ahead but he was talking to me you know. I said, “Okay.” I really got nervous then, but I got out and ran home. Going by yourself was scary, so I didn’t go downtown by myself. That was a bad experience for me you know. I never got over that. DG: Did you have a nickname as you were growing up? DE: Sister. DG: Sister. Okay and how did you get that? DE: My mother and my sister just called me sister. Mother had four girls, just called me sister. I don’t know why they called me sister. They did though. DG: Did your other siblings have nicknames too? 6 DE: No Laramie, they called her Laramie and Josephine and Loraine. But they would always called me sister, they didn’t have one. DG: Who were your best friends? DE: You know Mrs. Isabel Brigham I met her when I came here. From New Zion Baptist Church, you know Mrs. Brigham? DG: Yes. DE: I met Mrs. Brigham when I came here. She didn’t have any children, her and her husband I knew them. I met Mrs. Clydis Finn and Mrs. Bina McCowan. I met them after I had been here about maybe 7 or 8 years. DG: So what were they like, your good friends? DE: They were nice because we went to the same church. I was at New Zion Baptist Church. As a matter of fact, all my children was baptized at New Zion. DG: So what did you do for fun? DE: We used to go to houses. Mrs. Burton’s house was one we used to go to her house and my house. On Friday nights we’d go to a house and make the food and play dominoes or play Chinese checkers. Sure did. On Friday nights it kept me from being out so we had children you know. So we had little house parties and that was really good. DG: Did you bring your children with you or you had babysitters? DE: I used to take them with me but when they got a little bigger my oldest daughter used to keep them because we’d got grown enough to get a black and white TV. They would stay home and watch TV you know. We had us a black and white TV 7 and some of the kids would come over to look at TV at our house. Yeah, that was fun. They enjoyed it. DG: So what are some of your best memories from your elementary, junior high, high school days? DE: Oh I went to school in Mississippi. I had some fun memories back there in Mississippi. My mother used to make all of our clothes and she would dress us so pretty because of school. I’d look forward to getting my new dress to go to school. Just to go to school with my friends because I could put on clothes like they could put on. It’s important when you’re little. My mother said, “I’m going to learn how to sew so I can sew for my girls,” and she learned how. She started making us things. I remember that so well when she made that first dress. I thought, “What is this?” It was a little skirt, but it was good. Times was hard you know. The fun time things I remember doing is my mother raised all her vegetables. She never bought store bought vegetables and she’d bottle those vegetables. So one time we had her bottle of vegetables in jars, you know those mason jars? She had a place out in the back, a little storage house and it was just full of food that she’d bottled. We always had plenty. She would grow it and she would bottle it. When I first came here I used to make preserves because I had all these apricots and cherries. I used to make preserves, but I got tired when the kids got grown. I said, “No more of this. No more of this, I’m tired.” But my mother used to bottle all her vegetables; I thought that was so neat. We were never without and always had plenty of food to eat. 8 DG: That’s good. So you kind of talked about how you met your husband. Were you meeting in the café? DE: My first husband? DG: Well whichever. DE: My first husband I met in my mother’s café. My first husband, we came out here but we divorced. DG: And your second husband, how did you meet him? DE: At Hill Field Air Force Base, my last husband. DG: This is when you were working there that you met him? DE: Yes. He would come down where I worked. There were three girls that worked in the Mechanics shop I was working in. There was a Spanish girl, a white girl, and a black girl. I don’t know how we all came to be there. We used to call ourselves the United Nations, we did. We were young then and go around together. They were good friends, shared our lunches. We shared everything, it was just really good. They were the ones that really made me notice my husband. They say, “He keeps looking at you, girl.” I say, “I’m not looking back at that man.” She says, “He keeps coming out here looking at you. You should go with him to the cafeteria.” So finally he got up nerve and asked me to go to lunch with him. I went to lunch with him and struck up a conversation. We exchanged phone numbers and he started calling me. I told the girls I says, “Once he find out I got these 11 children he going to turn and go the other way.” I told her that and she said, “I don’t think so Daisy.” I said, “I bet he does.” But you know, he didn’t. My baby was only seven years old and he asked me to marry him and built me a 9 house over in Layton for me and the kids. However, the big girls was working and kind of buy their own stuff at the time. Three of them in college at the same time and so I had that part-time job at Job Corp on weekends. He said, “You really don’t have to do that no more.” I said, “But I want too. I want my kids to go to school.” I said, “I’ll let them graduate and get a nice job and then they have to start jobs to pay back college loans.” That’s not good. I’d like for them to go to school without having to borrow money. So he said, “Okay, if you’re going to work on weekends than I am too.” So he worked at Job Corps on the weekends, too and we got the kids through school. They all graduated except my last children who were identical twins. My last husband raised them and they finished high school. After their graduation, they went out with their friends out to the woods. And they came and asked us, “Is it okay that we’re leaving tomorrow at 8:00?” I said, “Where are you going?” My husband caught his chest I said, “What’s wrong with you?” You know he caught his chest like he was going to pass out. He went in the room and sat down he was so disappointed because he had raised them like his own little girls. He said, “Why are they leaving?” I said, “I don’t know why they’re leaving, but they’re leaving. They going in the Air Force and they won’t kill them in there, they’ll train them.” They went in the Air Force and did very well. DG: You kind of answered my next question, but I’ll ask it anyway. How has being a parent changed you? DE: It’s just marvelous. You know I enjoyed my children. We didn’t have much, but we were always close together. It really hasn’t changed me, just made me 10 stronger - made me a strong woman. My husband died 25 years ago, I’ve been by myself ever since. It just made me stronger being a parent. DG: You told us you were an aircraft mechanic. As you were growing up before you became a young adult what did you think you wanted to be when you grew up? DE: I always wanted to be a mother. Always wanted to be a mother. I used to tell them, my mother say, “What you going to be when you grow up?” I say, “A mother.” She said, “Why do you want to be a mother?” I just want to be a mother and I don’t know why but I always wanted to be one. DG: Now your husband was in the military. Was he involved in any wars? DE: No. My last husband wasn’t involved with any military. DG: So as you look back over your life what lessons do you think you’ve learned through all this? Leaving Mississippi coming out here to Utah? Utah’s been your home for quite a while. DE: You know, this is what I learned. I learned that people are the same everywhere you go. Everywhere, I don’t care what town you’re in or where you go, you’re going to find good people and you’re going to find bad people. I don’t want to say bad, but that’s what they are. I want to say people who don’t know any better and that’s the way they act. They think that’s really the way you’re supposed to act, but it’s not. Kindness rules the world, I learned that it’s the same everywhere you go. Pretty soon you’re going to find the same situation. You’ve got good people over here, wonderful people over here, and you got these little devils over here, like a bunch of crawfish. I’m down here and I want you to be down here with me. Everybody needs to have their own personality, their own strength to make it in 11 this world. Know what you want and go after it. That’s was my philosophy and I told my kids, know what you want to be now work toward that goal. Be all that you can be in that project. Don’t care what job you’re on, it’s not going to be a bed of roses. There’s going to be problems on every job you get, always going to be problems, but you got to cope with them with humility. I just believe that love and humility just goes hand and hand and you can move mountains with that. DG: Well is there anything else you’d like to talk about that we didn’t cover? DE: Oh, no. DG: Those words you gave us were just great. DE: I wanted to say this, I had 11 children and I’m very proud of my children, I lost two. DG: Have you? DE: Yes, I lost a daughter at 20, but she had a birth defect. She was in Ogden. My second husband was stationed in Alaska and then he retired in Alaska. So she died in Alaska, aneurysm. They told me that Friday and I got there Saturday morning before day. That was one shocking trip, I didn’t tell nobody I was coming, they just told me your daughter’s in the hospital and she’s very ill. Her girlfriend called me. I didn’t tell nobody I was coming, I just got me on a flight. Told my husband I got to go, she’s sick I got to go. He goes out and gets me a ticket and said, “You leave at four o’clock,” and it was about 12 then. I just threw stuff in a suitcase and took off to be with my baby. I got there and she was in a hospital in Anchorage, she lived in Fairbanks. I got off the plane at Anchorage and didn’t know nobody, it was about three o’clock in the morning. I thought, 12 “Why didn’t I tell somebody I was coming?” So I’m standing up in this airport by myself that time of morning and I met people in there - that was God again. This military guy walked up to me. He said, “Ma’am are you lost?” I said, “Not really lost, but I didn’t tell nobody I was coming.” He said, “Well, who are your relatives?” I said, “You know AWB?” Because that’s my son-in-law’s business. He said, “AW? I worked for AW.” I said, “No you don’t.” He said, “I do.” I say, “His wife is in the hospital.” I didn’t tell her name, “His wife is in the hospital up here at Anchorage and I don’t know how to get there.” I said “All I have is 200 dollars and I don’t know what the cab would charge me to take me there?” He said, “You don’t have to get a cab. I’ll take you.” I said to myself, I don’t know who you are but looked to God, praying. He said, “Miss Jenny is in the hospital?” When he called her name I knew he knew her. I said, “Yes, she’s in the hospital.” He said, “Oh, no I’ll take you.” So he took me up there. I walked in and my son-in-law said to me, “Mama, where did you come from?” I said, “Man, where are you getting my nickname from?” Because my son-in-law call me mother too. He said, “I got her at the airport. You didn’t come to pick her up.” So as they were talking, I said, “I’m going to see Jeannette.” So he took me up to see Jeannette. I sat by her bed until she took her last breath. She died that Sunday by 4:30. I went up to her room and I thought, “My baby she don’t even know who I was I don’t think.” Doctor said she did know who I was, she had a stroke, an aneurysm on the side of her face. The face was kind of twisted. He said ask her to squeeze your hand; she’ll squeeze them. I said, “Jeannette I’m mama will you squeeze my hand?” She did, so she knew I was there. I sat down by her and she died. 13 It was so weird because I was up there that summer, she died in October. I was up there I think in June. When I came home like in July she called me said, “Mother I want you to do something for me.” I said, “What?” She says, “If anything happened to me will you make sure that Trina (her baby girl) finishes college?” I said, “Make sure she finishes college she’s planning on quitting? She said, “Well no, I don’t think so we’re just wanting her to keep going.” I said, “I will baby she has got to finish.” So I thought when she died a light went off in my head what she had told me. I said, “She didn’t know she was going to die, did she you know?” She told me that so I got on Trina. I said, “You have got to finish college.” She had one named Trina, Gina, and Destiny. She had three children, three girls. But she finished, she’s in Atlanta now. She called me last night as a matter of fact. I spent Christmas and New Year’s with them in Georgia. My life has been interesting here in Utah, very good. I remember one time I was living in North Ogden. My twins was in like second or third grade, they were little. I didn’t marry my last husband until they was about, well they might have been in first grade. They were little bitty things. So I think it was in the first grade and so I was dating him, but I hadn’t married him. So I was at work and I said, “I didn’t give the kids their lunch money,” so I call the school and told the school I didn’t give my kids lunch money I said, “Could you give them lunch today?” So my supervisor looked up from his desk and I didn’t want him to know what was wrong, you don’t want nobody to know your troubles you know. So I kind of turned around and I said, “Will you do it this time please?” “Well this one time we’ll do it,” but the school secretary’s voice was just real ugly. I got up from my 14 desk and my boss said “What’s the matter Daisy?” I said, “I’m okay.” He said, “No you’re not.” So I went back out on the line and started working. He came out there and got me and said, “Come in my office for a minute.” “What is the matter?” I don’t know if he knew or what. When the phone rang he sent a secretary to get me. He said, “Come back in my office.” He said, “How many children do you have?” I told him I got 10. He said, “You got 10 children?” I said, “Yeah.” He’s sitting at his desk just looking at me. “And you have to pay lunch tickets every Monday?” I said, “Well yes.” “Well you don’t have to pay no more.” I said, “Well I have too.” He says, “There’s funds for people with big family. You don’t have to do that.” I said, “Well I had to fill out this form. He told me my income was on the border line and they couldn’t help me.” He said, “What?” I told him again they told me I was on the border line. He said to take leave, “Here, I want you to go to the school board and talk to this man. Tell him what you just told me.” So I said, “Okay.” When you get through come on back to work. He said, “That’s a shame, I got four children I can hardly make it and I make twice your money,” because he was my supervisor. He said, “I can hardly make it and you got 10 children and they ask you to buy lunch tickets.” So I went to the school board and I just told them and they said, “You must be Daisy,” and I say, “I am.” He said, “Well I’ve been expecting you,” because my boss had called. He was mad that’s why I said there are good people everywhere you go. So he said, “Do you have one of your check stubs with you?” I said, “Yes I do.” So I showed him my check stub and he said, “How many children you got at home?” So I told him, “They all are at times. Two of them are at college and the rest are home.” 15 He said, “Don’t send another penny to the school. I’ll handle it from here.” They handled it and I never paid or bought another lunch ticket. He told me, “You go back to work and finish taking care of your kids. Many people with this many children would be on welfare or doing something next to nothing. You are working taking care of your own kids.” No, this is not fair, but the man at the school wasn’t a very happy camper with me. They must have really went into him some kind of way. When he saw me again he said, “You didn’t really have to go to the school board you could’ve just come to me.” I said, “You don’t know what your teachers are doing in the school. He was the one who told them to charge me because he once said we had to have a border line somewhere.” I said, “You remember you told me you had to have a border line somewhere and that’s why you couldn’t help me. Remember you told me that?” DG: Didn’t have anything else to say did he? DE: No, he said, “Well I’m sorry.” That was the worst encounter I’ve ever had going into schools. I was up there and mine was the only ones in school, in North Ogden. They was the only ones in school at that time. My children had encounters in every class. So I told them I wanted to be part of the PTA. Every time I would leave my job at Defense Depot (it’s not the Defense Depot any more) and go pop in at the school to have lunch with my girls. One day the principal told me, “You just can’t come in whenever you get ready.” I said, “Well why can’t I? I have children here. I’m not doing anything but having lunch with them. What’s wrong with that?” I guess he thought, “I better leave her alone, she may go to the school board again.” But I never would have done that, my boss 16 was the cause of it, telling them how wrong they were to make me pay and the funds were there for large families. But I made it. It wasn’t easy raising my children, but I think they did better because they were in Utah than they would have anywhere else I think because I had to smother them. Got them raised - I was always afraid somebody may bother them so I was just overprotective of them you know. Some bad things happened like that but I just shook them off and got over them and kept on moving. I said, “That’s the way you have to get along in this world. You have to ignore some things and use humility you know otherwise everybody be ranting and raving and carrying on.” DG: Those are all the questions that I have for you. We just thank you because I learned so much. DE: Oh thank you. DG: Do you have anything? LR: I have just one question. It struck me, you talked about all you wanted to be growing up was a mom. Was there a role model that you had like your own mother? DE: My mother. LR: Why is that do you think? DE: She was strong. My father left my mother when we were just little children. We had a milk cow, you know it was on a farm. He sold the milk cow and left my mother with these four girls. She was a go getter, she worked and she raised us. She said, she was a very good cook. So she used to make things for people’s parties and that. “Can you do this for me Mary Lou for this party and this party?” 17 So she’d make them and then they would come and get them and pay for them and take them the food. She had an idea one day—all my kids say I’m just like my mother—she had an idea one day that she could run and have her own café. So she started out in the part of the house, had two little tables there. She start selling meals at the Blue Flame Café. It expanded, she’s very thrifty. I guess I got that from her because I’m very thrifty, too. My mother always said, “I’m going to buy me a café.” So she bought this café and it just boomed. It was called the Blue Flame Café in Brookhaven. Everybody knew my mother. I remember I came home to surprise my mother. I was getting in a cab and this guy driving the cab he says, “Who are you visiting here?” I said, “I’m visiting my mother.” He says, “What’s your mother’s name?” I said, “Mary Lou.” He said, “Mary Bird, Blue Flame Café?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Well everybody knows Ms. Bird. I’ll take you right there.” We got there and I said, “How much do I owe you?” He said, “Oh you owe me nothing, I’m going to have Ms. Mary get me a sandwich.” He wouldn’t even charge me. He just wanted to go in the café and get him something to eat. He said, “I brought your daughter home.” I don’t think I told her I was coming. I used to always fool her. DG: Those surprise visits. DE: I always surprised her yes. We took a tour of the south, me and two of my girlfriends. We just got in the car and just driving through the south. I said, “I want to get to Brookhaven, we’re going to leave early.” We were in New Orleans—no we was in Alabama. I said, “We’re going to leave early so we can get to Brookhaven by 10 o’clock. We going to go into church and surprise my mama.” 18 She said, “Why you want to do that for?” I said, “Just doing something to her.” She was in the choir singing. DG: I bet she stopped mid-song. DE: I told the lady I said, “Is Mary Bird at church?” She says, “Yes she’s in the choir.” I didn’t know she was singing in the choir. She saw out of the corner of her eye she said, “I knew them people.” I know it was funny. She stayed there until she got through singing but she made a beeline to me after she got through singing it was good, it was funny. She said, “Why didn’t you tell me you was coming so I could’ve cooked you a big meal?” “Oh, you don’t need to cook we’re just passing through.” “Passing through? Where you going,” she said. It was nice though to surprise her like that you know. LR: That’s great. That was my only question. DG: Well we just thank you for letting us come in your home and answering these questions. We want to capture this history before all our seniors are gone. 19