TRANSCRIPT

WM - Wilma (Miller) Morrison, interviewee / LR - Lyn Royce, interviewer

LR: Now, there, in these school pictures, right back from the grandmother's 1 too, 'cause we have that, the, the, there, there are only the 1, maybe 2, black faces in the pictures.

WM: Mhmm, mhmm.

LR: There, so, it... was normal for them, I mean it, it was obviously kind of a school for the community, but they just kind of...

WM: Well all of the schools were, in , in spite of the fact that in 1850 this, this uh, Common Schools Act had been passed, I guess, I'm, I'm reading um, uh, this book by Fred Landon, well stories that Fred Landon put together, um, and from what I can gather, uh, blacks refused to go to the sep, the separate schools.

LR: Okay.

WM: Um, and, and for the most part, it would have been really expensive to run them within the communities. I think that's the reason uh, for the whole thing being ignored, was because, the same as slavery, it wasn't economically feasible to keep someone for 12 months of the year and you could perhaps get 8 months or 9 months work out of them.

LR: Right.

WM: So it wasn't that, you know, the Anglo-Canadians, so to speak, were uh, so magnanimous, it had, it had to do with money...

LR: That's right.

WM: ...as everything is. And so with keeping the schools, uh, the whole Common Schools Act didn't come off the books until 1964. Uh, I think there as a school up near Windsor that was separate, but it sort of had a 2 way street in that it had black teachers and they were sort of reluctant to make the change because they were pretty sure they wouldn't be hired within the system. And, you know, because sort of the Human Rights things came in in the late [19]'50's and stuff like that. So, uh, yeah, we all went to school... I, most of the schools I attended, I was the only black in the school. And...

LR: So, most of you when you're talking, you talk about the neighbourhoods you grew up in as being very mixed.

WM: Mhmm. Yeah, mhmm.

LR: And that you weren't the only black, um, family in that neighbourhood...

WM: Yeah.

LR: ...and yet, in the school pictures, there is only kinda 1, maybe 2. Is that because of grades or is it...

WM: You know, I don't know.

LR: ...ages, or...

WM: I really don't know, because I, I know... But then most of the schools I attended, I was the only black in the school. Um... And yet, there were a lot and, and the area, there were a lot of uh, blacks in the, in that area... I don't know, uh, maybe. But there was a place I was in London um, the, the picture that you saw of Mr Cromwell and me.

LR: Yes!

WM: Well, that was the house that we lived in up until, well just until after she, Mrs Cromwell died and he went away, um... But in Kindergarten, I went to this Aberdeen School.

LR: Mhmm.

WM: Where EVERYBODY went to Aberdeen School, on the street, I thought. But when I was in, yeah, I went to Kindergarten and then, that was when I began to...

LR: And they switched you to theother school...

WM: ...to hate separate school. Yeah...

LR: ... 'cause yeah, we have that story. Yeah.

WM: ...'cause I lived on the other side of the street. And so, you know, I, I think I told you the whole story...

LR: Mhmm.

WM: ...the whole business of the teacher and I not getting along and so mother said, 'Well, you know, the only way you can get, get rid of her, she don't like you and you don't like her, so you have to work hard and pass, that's all.'

LR: That's right.

WM: But she gave me a present when I came home, after I had passed, and she had rented a house on the other side of the street so I went back to Aberdeen with the rest of my friends. Um, yeah, but... And Aberdeen School had, there were a number of black families that attended, but I was still the only 1 in whatever class...