7
the turpentine camp back to a little town called West
Bay and from that to St. Anderw, which was a
part of Panama City along the beachfront.
P: Before we leave the turpentine thing and move on, I wanted
to ask you a few more questions aboutit to get it on the
record. What about the Black women. What did they do at
the ...
L: They went fishing.
P: In other words, they did not work the trees.
L: No, they did not work in the forest. I can remember groves
of them fishing because Iwould go fishing myself in the time
when we were not working or in school, when we had a school
which met up at the turpentine camp at Laird's Camp. The
school met in the Black church. We sat on the benches
in the Black church. During school they had religious
services. The Black people had religious services beginning
sometimes Friday night. If the Visiting minister was there
he started in Friday night and they sang until they sang
themselves out Saturday morning. Then there was a period
of resting and then they'd start Saturday night and sing
until about Sunday noon. And there would be preaching too.
I remember that my father said we could go over there for
the services, but if he ever heard that we laughed he
would give us a switching. We were not supposed to laugh
at Black religious services like young people would today,
and they still have service like that today.
P: Angus, where did you get your early education?
L: In a number of small schools with what amounted to tutors
in part of it. The second year after my mother's death,
my fatherplaced my older brother, younger brother, and myself
in a boarding school in De Funiak Springs. There is where
I first met Bob Graham's family, the Simmons family. Dr.
Simmons had a drugstore there, and I supposed he was a medical
doctor too, I'm not sure. That's where I knew Bob Graham's
mother, and his brother first, in 1913. Then my father married
again and we moved to West Bay and they had a public school
at West Bay.
P: Tell me about the boarding school before you go on to the
West Bay operation.