3
R: You were probably very progressive.
D: Very progressive, yes. While I was in kindergarten I suppose I was four
because I was the baby, and whenever they needed a child for something
like a play, I was the one. When I got to first grade -- after first grade
they decided to put me into third grade, so I skipped the second grade
entirely. I learned to read without any phonics and I can't spell yet.
R: You probably got all those
D: I don't know what you call them, but anyway, I went to public school, of
course, in fourth grade and there again they were trying new methods.
R: What street did you live on?
D: College Avenue. I went to the forth grade and I happen to remember there
was a Mr. Shellex who was a superintendent of the schools. In the fifth
grade, they accelerated me so that I finished almost all of the sixth by the
end of the fifth year.
R: You really rushed through.
D: Well,that was a bad thing.
R: Was your home where you lived owned by the church?
D: Yes, and it was right next door to the church.
R: How did your mother feel about living in the parsonage? My grandmother had
to live in parsonages all of her life, but they kept moving us place to place.
D: She said that when she decided to marry a minister her father objected
strenuously because she would never have a home of her own, and I think that
she would never complain because she knew what she was doing.
R: She knew it was part of the job. She actually did live in Tallahassee for
a long time.
D: Eight years. We went to Orlando in 1919.
R: So you were in Tallahassee from the age of three until ten.
D: No, from the age of two until ten.
R: You must have vivid memories of Tallahassee.
D: I do. I remember when Catts [Sidney Catts Governor of Florida], was elected
as the next governor. I remember particularly that he was blind in one eye and
that he had these glasses he could take off when he wanted to read and then
turn around for normal use. That's about all I remember except that daddy
didn't like Catts' politics. Catts had become a Baptist minister. He had
run for some office and lost because he wasn't well-known. So he became a
Baptist minister and then resigned to run for governor.
R: That's unusual. Did your father feel that he shouldn't stay a Baptist minister?