My memories of Piney Oakes Eleentary

On July 1^st, there was a reunion of the students of Piney Oakes Elementary School.  This was an all-black school; that existed in Beckley that closed in 1972. Sharon’s class was the last class to officially graduate from then.  It was a neighborhood school that was located on Terrill Street in Beckley in what is called “The Red Brush”.  I didn’t attend the reunion, my dad had had a bad day at the hospital and I didn’t feel like socializing. I wanted to share my memories of Piney Oakes. I did name names in this document. This was my memories, others may have different memories. I just wanted t share mine.

I went to Piney Oakes from August 1964 to 1969. The school consisted of  six main classrooms and two classroom in what we called the tin buildings. It had offices, teachers lounge, lockers, kitchen and one of the room had a divider in it and was used as an auditorium and a portable stage for school assemblies and talent shows. School lunches when I went there were 26 cents; which was a notorious lunch and milk. The school cook was Mrs. Austin and she did a  great job preparing school lunches. You also could bring your own lunch or go home for lunch. I did all three depending on the weather. The principle was Mr. M.K. Austin. There were several established teachers and from time to time we had new teachers on their first teaching assignment or some that were close to retiring. The teachers I had were: Mrs. Lois Lewis, Mrs. Helen Christian and she got sick and Mrs. Callie Jordan was the substitute, Mrs. Martha White, Mrs. Irene Cross and Mr. Accord. My other teachers included Mr. Garten who taught Math and Mrs. Viola Braxton who taught English. We also had Mrs. Hazel Garland who taught special education. Some of those teachers were good and well to be honest some of them did not know how to deal with a student with low vision and albinism. So what they did was get me large print books, which were called special books. They were big and heavy, because there was no technology to make the books easier to handle. This happened in third or fourth grade. I can’t remember. The books were different so I didn’t make good grades during that time. My parents had to come to school and stop this practice. My mom was teaching me at home. I loved to read and I was a good speller. I won several spelling bees and even represented the school along with Darlene  Hammond Carson in the count spelling bee. I remember many of my classmates. Some are still around the Beckley area, like Shirley Stevens, Anthony Caldwell, Jimmy Shepard, one classmate Beverly Tyree Robinson is working with T.D. Jakes Ministries in Dallas Texas.  When I started going to Piney Oakes, some of the students from Raleigh were bused to our school. That ended in 1967. Then some redistricting happened and the kids that lived on F and Ringoben and several other streets were transferred from Institute Elementary to Piney Oakes. We got a crop of new students in the fall of 1967; I was in 5^th grade then. Since most of us walked to school we didn’t’ have that many snow days. It had to get really cold and bad for the superintendant to call off school.

I was painfully shy during my time at Piney Oakes. The year before I went to Piney Oakes; in an effort to keep the school in Mabscott open, they allowed some of us who are almost school age to go to school there. It was a two room school with grades one thru four in one room and five through seven in the other room. Then you went to high school from eight to twelfth grade. I was five years old in the fall of 1963 when I started school.  My birthday was in January. The school was located where the apartments are in Mabscott now.Because I was not school age when I started school, when I went to Piney Oakes, I was told I had to repeat first grade. One my first day of school my mom and Mrs. Holland walked Ricky and me to school. I was in the first grade taught by Mrs. Helen Jones. After a while, they could see that I was extra smart or something, then my dad went to school and told them I had already been in the first grade. I am sure he got m report card and got in touch with my first grade teacher Mrs. Annie Ferguson or Mrs. Ruby Coats who were with the school in Mabscott. Mrs. Ferguson taught school in the Cleveland Schools for a while after the Mabscott School closed. One day when I wet to school I was took to the second grade class where Mrs. Lewis was the teacher.  I was six years old at the time, younger than a lot of my classmates. I think Mrs. Lewis failed to understand that since was younger that may have had something to do with my work habits. Looking back I think that maybe I should have stayed in the first grade class until I could become acclimated to school there. In my second grade picture there is a hand on my back that was Mr. Austin. He sensed that I was very shy and I guess he wanted to reassure me. I know that some people liked Mrs. Lewis. She was also the music teacher. I like the music teacher, but I didn’t like her as a teacher. When I think of her I think of The Wicked Witch/ Miss Gulch in the Wizard of Oz. The second grade was when we took a field trip and went to the dentist and they gave us tooth brushes. We also had some new girls move in the neighborhood, Judy and Gloria Ricks. The Ricks, Wittenberg family have moved here from Mullins I think.

On to third grade, Mrs. Helen Wight Christian, I don’t remember a lot about her. I know I wanted to do well in her class. She got sick and we had a long term substitute Mrs. Callie Jordan.  Mrs. Jordan was a spunky lady who drove a green 1950 Dodge, my dad later bought that car.  She was interesting. I remember getting books from the back of the room and reading them I got awards for reading a certain amount of books that year. At the end of the school year I remember Beverly Tyree singing a song from” The Sound of Music” Doe a deer and female deer and so on.

On to the fourth grade and Mrs. Martha White; She was the worst teacher ever. Mrs. White apparently was from a group of teacher who considered themselves the elite of black society. All she talked about was her daughter Phillipa. It’s a wonder anybody learned anything in her class.  She had several sayings “I’ve got mine and you got your to get” that was the one that to this day irritates me the most. I remember several things about her. Once I came to school wearing a light blue coat that I got for Easter and someone knocked it down in the cloakroom and walked all over it. When I got home my mom was mad, she wanted to know why I didn’t tell the teacher. Well by then I knew she didn’t care and wouldn’t do anything, so my mom made a trip to school and Mrs. White wouldn’t stop eating lunch long enough to talk to her and then she talked about the incident in class. She thought I was stupid. While she would talk about het daughter and everything I would draw pictures and once we had a spelling test and I discovered that I was out of paper the only thing I had was a piece of paper in my tablet that I had drawn on and I kept flipping the paper over. She thought I was copying from someone else’ paper; until She saw the drawing. I was embarrassed. Another time we were coloring pictures for Christmas Seals and I had a picture that was nice and she said it was and then later she said I take that back you should outline your coloring. She made fun of me because I said I got an Easter basket for Easter. She said I was too old. Now mind you I was younger than everybody else in the class. The thing I remember about 4^th grade was a book called “Stepsister Sally’ a book a read about a girl who ended up with a stepsister she didn’t really like, but in the end they became friends. The other thing was when Mrs. White left the room, the boys would bang on their desks ad books and sing stuff like “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” and other current songs. Of course they got in trouble but I remember the singng.   She flunked a lot of the fourth grade class that year. I think the only reason she passed me because she didn’t want to deal with my parents. I ran into her several times after I started working in radio and she would tell people I was one of her best students. Right.

 Fifth grade I had Mrs. Irene Cross, Mrs. Viola Braxton, and Mr. Herman Garten. They were training us for junior high. We had lockers. I had a combination lock. I still remember that combination 6-12-5. My dad bought me that lock. We also changed classes. Mr. Garten was in the “tin building”, Mrs. Braxton was in the room next to the kitchen.  I think, and Mrs. Cross taught the rest of the classes. She was interested in science. That year we learned the state capitals, drew maps, did experiments. Mrs. Cross was a tough teacher, some didn’t like her. She was a large dark skinned woman. In another time she could have been a doctor or a PA, but she was a teacher. I think she graduated from Bluefield State College. Not sure about that either. I began to thrive in her class. I am not really sure why. This is when the kids from Institute came to school with us and that year I met Marsha Catus, Debra Terrell, J Darrell Jamison, Roberta Smith and a few others. I had several things to happen in fifth grade; I developed a bad bladder infection and had to see a kidney specialist. I had some embarrassing times because of it. We would talk about current events.  The1967-68 school years.  In West Virginia schools were integrated. Stratton High School was closed and turned into a junior high and the old WWHS was turned into a junior high as well. Dr. Martin Luther King was shot. They closed the school. That year our last day of school was June 14^th so we were in school the day that Robert Kennedy was shot. That year Judy Garland committed subside, Helen Keller passed away. The space program was starting up again; After the fire in the capsule earlier that year. We discussed all of this in current events. I read a lot of books during this time and one day when I was in the fifth grade, they brought a reel to reel tape recorder to the classroom. They showed us how it worked and recorded your voice. I was the only one who wanted to use it. I gave a book report about one of the books I read, the early days of discovering my calling. Sharon had stated school that year as well. She was a handful. She was in a talent show dancing.

Sixth grade was something else. They were preparing us to go to junior high and go to school with the “white” kids. We didn’t have a regular teacher that year. We had substitutes. I remember Mr. Accord and Mr. Garten. Math was hard for me because in the second grade they introduced something called “new math”. The teachers didn’t understand it, so they didn’t tech it correctly. I was 52 years old when I discovered I wasn’t stupid in math. They also had something called “spot reading” they would use a projector and scan stories in one sentence at a time at a certain speed. With me being visually impaired, I couldn’t see that well, so I missed a lot in my schoolwork. We had lockers that year too and changed classes. I actually failed art that year. My mom was wondering how I could fail art. We had paint by number sets to use and I got confused with some of the numbers and the picture looked a mess, so when it came time to present the work in class, I was too embarrassed to show it. I was eleven years old and starting to develop into young lady. In January we started going to the new church called Mt. Zion Baptist Church, some of the kids from school started going there. On January 26, 1969 I was baptized along with 31 others, some of them were classmates. Looking forward to going to Junior High. In the spring the school had their annual spelling bee and I was one of the one who would represent Piney Oakes Elementary, along with Darlene Hammond Carson. We would do practice drills with me because I was still very shy Mrs. Braxton tried her best to get me ready. We went to Mabscott Elementary We rode with Mr. Austin. Anyway, I did well for a while and then got nervous and missed a simple word “detective”. I couldn’t believe it. Darlene missed a scientific word, but the yard before she and her brother Billy had represented the school.  Mrs. Braxton did practice tours with us because it was the class trip to Washington DC. I didn’t go because we couldn’t afford it.  They took the train to Washington DC and a bus took them around to all of the sights, The Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, The Smithsonian Institute and all the other notable places in Washington DC. Then there was the final assembly as students of Piney Oakes. Next year we would go to school with the “white” kids. We would have to work hard to prove we were as smart as they were. It was the talk then.  I was looking forward to going to an integrated school. I wouldn’t be looked at as an oddity.

Piney Oakes gave us roots and wings and a lot of stuff in between. Many memories some were good, some not so good. I am a survivor. The school colors were red and white, the mascot was a panther. There was basketball, and cheerleading, recess and school carnivals. My mother was a homeroom mother at times.