03709_0115: William and Corneal Jackson

FL-18 995

January 20, 1939 William and Corneal Jackson (Negro) #14 Eaton Park. Lakeland, Florida (Phosphate Miner) Paul Diggs, writer (Negro) Veronica E. Huss, reviser

WILLIAM AND CORNEAL JACKSON

At Eaton Park, six miles from Lakeland, Florida, off the Bartow road #2 and across from the Ruth Alderman Airport, I found the Negro quarters of the Southern Phosphate Corporation. At one time this section of the country was the heart of the mining activities, but now operations are located at Sand Gully, beginning on the outskirts of South Lakeland.

Situated in the center of the high mounds left by the process of phosphate mining, and partially surrounded by miniature lakes made by these same excavations, were 28 houses, including one for single men. Similar in construction, painted white and trimmed in green, they faced both sides of the road entering the quarters.

Guarding the main entrance off road #2 were two filling stations. Behind the one to the right was a small weatherboarded building, harmoniously painted white and green and serving the dual purpose of school and church. A small space of ground on the south side of the school was used as a playground. Near the front door a heavy piece of iron was suspended between two posts. When struck it resounded loudly, calling children and adults alike. The interior of this building was not ceiled. The blackboards, made from painted beaver-board, were nailed to the walls. The teacher, Edith McFall, used a homemade desk and bench. The day of my visit she had borrowed a chair to use, stating that the bench made her back tired when

1113

-2-

she had to sit on it all day. She pointed out that even the rickety chair was wired together.

Down the road from the school, men and women loitered in the sun before the doors of their quarters talking and laughing. Other women were bent busily over wash tubs, while their men sat nearby or cleaned and trimmed lawns. One man burned dead grass off a small plot in preparation to making a garden. The sound of chattering tongues filled the air. One woman who bent over her wash tub gossiped with a neighbor on a front porch across the road: "When my husband come in this mawnin he had changed his color." This brough hoots of laughter. He was sitting by her side when she called to her friend, and I noticed that his complexion was as dark as it had ever been. Later I discovered that the men had been called out the night before to stand in water as they mended a 12 inch water line, a possible reason for his color condition.

Then the woman across the road looked up, placed her hands on her hip and yelled: "Child my back is so stiff from pickin dem strawberries. If I could catch Polly (meaning the bolita) I wouldn't pick another berry." This brought more laughter. Then I heard the washer-woman exclaim: "Great Lawd! I thought I was washin a table cloth. Bless goodness, if dis here woman ain't gone and tuk a table cloth and made a dress out of it." This brought the other women clustering about, including her friend from across the way. Exclamations were made and opinions passed concerning the idea and color of the dress in question. Then I heard the woman who was washing say: "My husband better not buy me no table cloth, or I'se gwine to do that same trick. Dis here white woman has gone and larn me somethin."

Further along the road I observed several men around a Model-A Ford,

1114

-3-

so I stopped to talk with them. I asked for William Jackson whom I wanted to see, and they told me he was under the car fixing the front spring. From his position, he yelled up that he would be out as soon as he finished.

He emerged in a few minutes, and as he lived diagonally across the road from where he was working, he invited me to the house to talk and visit.

When we arrived at the little weather-board quarter house, William called his wife Corneal, and introduced us. Like William she was small in stature, but. I found her pleasant and neatly dressed.

Inside the house she invited me to come in the kitchen where she was busy making a house coat, adding that she had moved her sewing machine in there to be near the warmth of the kitchen stove. She proudly showed me the pattern she was copying from a catalog, and held up the bright material for me to admire.

"This will be pretty when it's finished," she said. "You see it calls for 16 gores in the skirt?"

William excused himself, after heating a bucket of water by submerging an electric heater in the bucket for five minutes, and retired to the next room to take a bath. Corneal explained that bathing was accomplished done in a galvanized tub because they didn't have a bathroom.

While we were waiting for William to finish, I explained to Corneal the reason for my visit, and asked her how she learned to sew so well. She said: "My mother was a seamstress, and when I was small I started to sew. Later on in life after I finished the grammar school I worked for Mr. Adderly, who ran a tailoring establishment on North Florida Avenue in Lakeland. There I learned how to tailor under his instructions, and now I make nearly all the clothes for the neighbors here in the quarters, and

1115

-4-

sometimes for the people in Lakeland. Oh! I like to sew and make pretty things."

As Corneal talked I noticed that her brogue speech was that of a Nassau native, and I ask her where she was from; she told me Key West, which explained accounted for the matter brogue, as many Key West Negroes are emigrants from Nassau.

Corneal then said: "Don't you want to know about my family too?" I admitted that I did and urged her to continue.

"You see, I was born in Key West, February 17, 1908. My mother, you know her? Mary Ellen Wallace, well she's seventy years old now. Then there is my sisters, Bloneva, Flossie, Elvita, and Mercedes, the latter was taken into the family when she was four years old. Blovena, she works in a dress factory in New York City. Flossie is a nurse in the Morrell Hospital in Lakeland. Elveta is a student at Tuskegee Institute, in Tuskegee, Alabama. And Mercedes is in the eleventh grade at the Washington Park High School in Lakeland. I have two brothers, Leanrod, who lives in Washington, D.C.—I don't know what he's doing there. Then there is Elmore C. who works in the Dietitian Department at the Colored Veterans Hospital, Tuskegee, Alabama. Now don't you think I should be proud of my family?

"Father has been dead some time now, but all of us childrens have looked after mother and we own our own home on Orange Street in Lakeland."

A call from the front room interrupted Corneal. William had finished his bath and wanted me to relate his life history. Corneal followed me into the front room, bringing her sewing along. She seated herself on a bench in front of the dresser while William talked.

"I was born November 28, 1903 at Ocala, Florida. My parents names

1116

-5-

was H. J. and Corine Jackson. My father come from Queensboro, Mississippi, and my mother from Arlington, Georgia. My father was a turpentine worker in his early days, but later began preaching and selling. Father is dead, and my mother lives with us. Mother is now 70 years old, but very active for her age. She use to work hard too, takin in washin's and workin for private families. She can't do any of that kind of work now. Right now she's visitin friends in Medulla, Florida.

"My parents left Ocala when I was between two and three year old. They first moved to Orlando and afterwards went from place to place, wherever they could find work to do.

"I have two sisters, Rosa Lee Boone, age 30, she has two childrens, H. J. and Reva. Rosa Lee lives in Mulberry, Florida. I think her husband works for WPA. Lillian Melton, my other sister lives in Gainesville, Florida, and she is 33 years old. She is separated from her husband, Daniel. She works out in private families.

"I work hard to take care of my wife and mother, and we all gets along nicely together. My wife understands me and I understand her. You see if we don't agree, I will get another woman. There are too many women in the world who would want a good working man." Corneal, who was still seated on the bench before the dresser, looked up with a sharp eye, while William continued: "You see this is my third wife, but I'm not going to tell you anything about the other two.

"I think that a home should be the first thing in a man's mind, although I don't own my own home. But I don't never worry too much about it because like it says in the Bible, 'first seek ye the Kingdom of Heaven, and everything shall be added unto you,' and that's what I do. I've owned

1117