.
Mrs. Tennis Whitehead (1904 - 1991)
Mr. Severn Whitehead ((1905 - 1988)
Interview recorded April, 1982
TRANSCRIPT PORTION
INTERVIEWER: Where did you say you went to school at?
SEVERN: Place called Rabbit Knaw.
INTERVIEWER: Rabbit Knaw?
SEVERN: Uh huh....
INTERVIEWER: How far was that from where you lived?
SEVERN: Where I lived? About 4 miles.
INTERVIEWER: You had to walk?
SEVERN: Yeah, you’re dag gone right. Get out there some days and have to walk back in the snow and freezin’ and sleetin’ and stuff. Just about 4 miles we walked to school.
INTERVIEWER: Was it one teacher that taught everything?
SEVERN: One teacher taught. And I think there at one time she had right close to 50 head in there. Yes, that one room would be all in the school. It had an old wood stove in there, and that one teacher done it all. That one teacher done it all.
INTERVIEWER: What did she do for discipline? Like if somebody did something that they weren’t supposed to do? Like for punishment?
SEVERN: They had to stay in for 2 or 3 well sometimes, she’d keep them in for a week. Every recess, every dinnertime, they’d have to stay in. And then the father he’d take over, and he’d punish them, when he got home. The father would punish him, in those days, they don’t do it no more. You let some child do something in the school and he find it out and he’d punish him. Sometime put a little spankin’ on him or somethin’ like that. Wouldn’t let him go no place for a right small while. And I’ll never forget one of the teacher’s name was, one of the teacher name Cleo Wilgus, and her boyfriend used to come see her there sometime. And it was snowing and raining out there, so while she was out on the outside talking to him, some of them got out and locked her out, and like never got it open while she was standing in the rain. Let’s see, that’s about all the good news I know. In them days, they didn’t have no dancin’ and get togethers and all that kind of stuff. They went to school and they studied. When you went to school 9 o’clock of a mornin’ you stayed there til recess, one little recess mornings had for dinner, and then you went, I think on about 15 minutes for that and then you come, went back to school and stayed til ‘bout 3 something and then you’d have another 15 minutes until 4 o’clock. But no dancin’, they used to all sing and say their prayers and stuff in there of a mornings, but now then they have everything else, but that. There out, it seems like out on the fround more than they are there. You didn’t get a chance to get out. That one teacher had that many children, you know, she had to be right there all the time to them, and they used to have a field day, used, they’d all hook wagons and horses and go from Rabbit Knaw to Stockton. When they all met there and then maybe next year, I think one year they drove from a place called Rabbit Knaw, just below Stockton, they all went in horse and buggy. Up the field, up to Snow Hill for what they call Field Day. Everybody get together and go up there. We used to have them sticks, that run and jump, who would jump the highest, who could run and jump the furthest, stuff like that. But when it come to dances, such stuff as that, there wasn’t nothing like them in them days. Maybe they were too busy teaching. Didn’t get but very little time to play, just maybe 15 minutes, that would be all they’d have for their recess, but when they got in there at 9 o’clock, wasn’t nothing else til dinnertime, eat their lunch and then right back teaching again. And about 3, somewhere in around there, two-thirty, 3 o’clock we gave another little recess, they’d run out and stretch their legs and go back and stay in school til 4. Lot of times we’d stay in school til 4:30, quarter til 5, before she ever got through her work. You know, teaching them all.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of stuff did she teach you?
SEVERN: Well from first grade on up to about 8 or 9 grades, I think it was, she had to teach. I think first grade, I think maybe. I know they went to about 8, or rather 7, I mean 9th grade I think in them little schools. That give one teacher all she could tend to.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of music did you listen to?
SEVERN: None.
INTERVIEWER: None?
SEVERN: No music, no music. Didn’t have no music in to ‘em. All them give you to sing, but there wouldn’t be any music into it.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever go to listen to a band or anything?
SEVERN: No.
INTERVIEWER: Army band or anything?
SEVERN: No, no Army band, went nowhere. Schools had nothing like that in them days, no bands. They’d all get together and most of the singing in school in them days was hymns. Most them days would be hymns, would be no cut up stuff in the schools. You’d all sing pretty hymns and all that kind of stuff. There wasn’t no bands or horns or nothing like that in them days. Where I went of. It was mostly good times, the teachers was strict, you had to do what they said to do, didn’t you’d have to stay in, for dinner and sometimes they were real mean. Then they’d go home and then the parents, they’d punish them. Kinda put a little switch around the legs and then, back then, standing on the corner home there, I stood on the corner lot of times, yeah, stood on the corner a lot of times.
(Recollections Past continues with a new interview next Saturday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye.)
Rabbit Knaw is located on Route 12, south of Stockton and about 1 mile north of the Virginia state line. It is approximately the intersection of Big Mill Road and Rabbit Knaw Road. The late Robert (Bob) Barr was perhaps the most famous resident. Bob was the father of Colleen Barr and Connie Barr. Connie married Eddie Plank, a Maryland State Trooper who was murdered just south of Princess Anne on Rt. 13.
Your friend,
Slim
(WGMD)
The Worcester County Commissioners elected Commissioner Theodore J. Elder to serve as president and Commissioner Eric J. Fiori to serve as vice president of the board.
(View news story:)
Worcester County Commissioners Elect New President and Vice President – WGMD
Somerset County Public Schools is excited to announce its 2024 holiday concert schedule, showcasing the incredible musical talents of students across the system!
From joyful choral arrangements to festive band and orchestra performances, the concerts promise to spread holiday cheer and highlight the hard work of students and educators. Families and community members are invited to attend these free events and celebrate the season with SCPS.
(View the schedule:)
SCPS 2024 Holiday Concert Schedule | Somerset County Public Schools
Newark, MD, December 3, 2024– The Maryland State Department of Education released its annual update to the Maryland Report Card website today, containing performance data for every school in the State, including eleven schools in Worcester County.
In Worcester County, nearly 91 percent of all eligible schools earned a four- or five-star rating, a concentration well above any other school system in the State.
(View full announcement)
WCPS has Highest Concentration of 4- and 5-Star Schools in State | WORCESTER COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
View the winning entries in the parade at this link:
Winners 2024 | Christmas Parade
Worcester official-
"We're definitely keeping an eye on things. It's not looking good."
(View WBOC news story:)
Some Eastern Shore Counties Voice Concern Over Upcoming State Budget | Latest News | wboc.com
An archived edition of the Pocomoke City newspaper for 100 years ago this week was not available. The following is from this week in 1934.
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Mrs. Tennis Whitehead (1904 - 1991)
Mr. Severn Whitehead ((1905 - 1988)
Interview recorded April, 1982
TRANSCRIPT PORTION
SEVERN: ... And I remember when Jim Clogg, it’s been run by the Duncans the last few years, but I remember when that was built. And I think that was built, ‘bout long ‘bout 1917, ‘18, when the Model T started comin’ out.
INTERVIEWER: Did a lot of people have Model T’s?
SEVERN: Yeah, and one, one bunch went there and bought 12 at one time. But you never could go there (audio not clear) Model T Edsel til the first of the year. You couldn’t buy a car in them days til the first of the year. And the old Model T’s would come in there and you had to crank them, and they’d rope them off so you couldn’t get up close to them. And the old fountain set there where people used to water their horses, and birds used to go there and try to drink their water. And I remember the old ferry come in. I thought of his name til now, and I can’t think of the old fellow’s name. He was the first one to walk off the gangplank. The captain of the ship was the first man walk off the ship. I was a youngster, I used to go down there and watch him. And I don’t know what year that was. Now when they built the last schooner here, they built the last schooner, right there by Adkins Mill yard. That was a full-masted schooner. When she went off the runway, she went cross, went all the way cross and got stuck up on the mud on the other side. They had to have someone come in here and pull her off. I think she made, she went out and was makin’ one trip and she got broke in half out there in the ocean somewhere. And the boat was coal, but I forget now what year that was, but it was back in the teens. But that’s about all I can remember right now, so…
INTERVIEWER: Did they used to bring everybody across the river when the train stopped?
SEVERN: The train used to come down far as the river bridge and that was as far as it come and then it went back. Used to come down right where the old wooden bridge used to be. Used to come down where the old wooden bridge used to be and that was as far as it come until later years. And then when they put the new railroad through here, that went on. I remember when part of that was running down through VA. The new railroad that they got now.
And see now, where I can go now. That’s about all I can remember on my mind right now. When I was a youngster, we used to raft timber up and down the Pocomoke River. There used to be a basket factory here. I forget their names. And we’d raft, and raft timber from way down the mouth of the river, way up the river. Down here to Pocomoke. And get gum to make baskets out of, pea baskets and all other kinds baskets, and I even forgot what year that was now. Sometime, one time we got ice bound, up river. We couldn’t get back with our raft of timber, so we had to go up there. Big raft together and had a gasoline boat and we pulled him down and we had to stay in the boat there for about a night and a day, before the ice would let us down through here. But they were good old days.
INTERVIEWER: Is that what your dad did for a living?
SEVERN: My father, he was a waterman, and his, my grandfather before him was a waterman, had a big sailboat, and they used to go all up and down the coast with this big sailboat, and my grandfather died when my father was 15, and he took the sailboat over and he sailed from then til 1914. That’s when he come up here and start farming.
INTERVIEWER: What kind of stuff did he farm?
SEVERN: Growed spinach, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, beans, such stuff as that.
INTERVIEWER: Was it just for you or did you sell it?
SEVERN: Well for sale. Yeah for the market. Sold it for the market, and….
INTERVIEWER: Where did you keep your food at? Where did you keep your food cold?
SEVERN: We used to, if it was milk and stuff, we put it in a big bucket and put it down the well. Put down the well with a cord and then we wanted a drink of milk we’d have to go pull that out of the well, and have a nice cold drink of milk, and then in the fall, in the fall we’d kill a bunch of hogs and then, round the dead winter time, you’d put it in the smoke house and salt it down, smoke it, and then we had meat all summer. That’s the way we kept meat in the summertime, was smoke it. Take myrtle and ashes and wood and kept a low fire in the smokehouse and that was filled with smoke and that was the best meat we ever had. Fill up with (audio not clear) and sausages, full of good flavor in that meat and we had meat all the summer. So I guess that is near about all my day is now.
NTERVIEWER: Did you have, were your bathrooms outside?
SEVERN: Outside, yeah outside. Go out in the cold, outside.
(CONTINUESS NEXT SATURDAY HERE AT THE POCOMOKE PUBLIC EYE.)
Here's Watertown's official forecast:
(Shore Daily News)
(WMDT)
Earlier this year, Worcester County law enforcement and public school officials clashed over concerns about school safety. The tides, however, have turned, according to school and law enforcement leaders.
(View news story:)
Collaboration between Worcester Co. law enforcement, educators is "better than ever" - 47abc
