Garnette Galloway

DR. ROBERT LUCKETT: My name is Robby Luckett. It is Saturday, September 17, 2016. We are at the Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center in Jackson, Mississippi. Do I have your permission to record this interview?

GARNETTE GALLOWAY: I’m Garnette Galloway.

RL: Could you spell your name?

GG: G-A-R-N-E-T-T-E G-A-L-L-O-W-A-Y, Garnette Galloway.

RL: And do I have your permission to record this interview, yes or no?

GG: Yes.

RL: Yes, [laughs] okay. Thank you. Can you tell me just about yourself and where you’re from, when you were born, where you were born? Tell me about your parents, maybe, and your grandparents.

GG: As I just said, I’m Garnette Galloway, and I was born on the Gulf 00:01:00Coast, one of God’s countries, I call it, and I attended school in Vancleave, Mississippi, a two-room school at that time. And we had three teachers. And so how come [ph]—one was my aunt; that was the principal. And the other instructor, elementary teacher, was my cousin, and she was a Reddicks [sp?], Dr. Reddicks’ brother’s wife. And President Reddicks was my third cousin, because my grandmother, my mama’s mama, they were first cousins, sisters’ and brothers’ 00:02:00 children.

RL: Who were your parents? What were their names?

GG: My mother’s name was Gladys Aretha Johnson Wells. My grandmother, her mother, was Josephine Burnett Bradley [sp?].

RL: And your father?

GG: And my daddy’s name was Cornelius Onid Wells, and he was original from Moss Point, a little [ph] place up where they call Three Rivers. As you past through Moss Point, you cross the bridge, goin’ towards I-10, in that area.

RL: When were you born?

GG: I was born April the 19th, 1935. I was born during the ending part of the—oh, boy.

RL: Great Depression?

GG: The Great Depression. That’s what I have, 00:03:00the Great Depression written down. The Great Depression. And durin’ the time I was born, my mother had a midwife, and, believe it or not, she wasn’t Black; she was a white lady. And she delivered me, and I was born also on a Good Friday. I was my Mama’s present.

RL: Was it unusual to have a white midwife? Were most midwives—? In your community, was this— GG: No, most of them were Black. I don’t—well, my people worked, you know, for the whites, and they knew her, and so she, I’m told—you know, because I don’t know—I’m 00:04:00told that she came and was a nurse midwife, and she delivered me. But, however, during that time, she, in writin’ the record for the birth certificate, she made a mistake, I suppose: instead of writin’ Garnette, she wrote Carnette, C-A-R-N-E-T-T-E, Wells. So then, by my goin’ to school, and I was in need of my birth certificate for some reason, we discovered that she had made a mistake, and we could not find my record, birth certificate, and so it was a delayed record. And I will show you the birth certificate. I was a delayed record. Sorry about this.

RL: No, that’s 00:05:00 okay.

GG: Sorry about this. I thought it was a good time to show it.

RL: This is great.

GG: I’m sorry about—and I have it ready in here. Let me look at it. [inaudible]. Just a minute. Sorry.

RL: No, that’s okay.

GG: Just being delayed.

RL: Is this your original birth certificate, with the name misspelled? Is this your birth certificate that—?

GG: It’s “delayed” written on here. It’s [inaudible]. Oh, here it is, right there. See, you got me nervous.

RL: I’m sorry. You’re fine, nothin’ to be nervous 00:06:00 about.

GG: [inaudible] everything together. It was this one. I have it on paper where you read, because the initial, if you want me to read it, because—see, I wrote it on this paper. Wait a minute. [inaudible] to read. I had gotten a picture of this one. Okay, I have it. Oh, you dealin’ with that [ph].

RL: If you’d like to read it to us, that would be great.

GG: So you want me to read?

RL: You can read it. Please.

GG: After [ph] you turn it on, it’s— RL: It’s on.

GG: It’s off?

RL: Yeah, it’s on. It’s on.

GG: Oh.

RL: Please, read it. 00:07:00It’s great.

GG: The State of Mississippi. Mississippi State Department of Health, vital records. Delayed certificate of birth. My grandmother, Josephine Burnett Bradley, Mary F. Hartman, and William G. Deeds [sp?], Chancellery Clerk, sign before a notary for my getting my birth certificate, and shared their African American midwife story. I was born in Vancleave, Mississippi, Jackson County, Jackson County on the Gulf Coast, in 1935, on a Good Friday, by a midwife, and she was a white woman. Her name was Mrs. Toole [sp?], who helped in my delivery. Upon namin’ me, Cousin Collard Bernie [sp?] named me Garnette Wells, and the midwife wrote on my birth certificate Carnette Wells. As I grew up and attendin’ school, 00:08:00I needed a birth certificate, and I was unable to get one because the name Garnette Wells could not be found. My mother, Gladys Johnson Wells, had to go to the school where I attended, and they helped in correctin’ my name from Carnette to Garnette Wells.

RL: And the midwife who delivered you, do you know how your parents paid her?

GG: No, I didn’t hear them say, talk anything about it. They didn’t say. I just heard ’em talkin’ about her name, given her name. That’s all I— RL: How many brothers and sisters do you have?

GG: Well, it was seven siblings, two brothers and five sisters, and my last sister passed away April the 16th 00:09:00of this year. I am the last sibling left, and I am sweet 18, turn it around, I’m 81. [Laughs.] RL: Were all your brothers and sisters delivered by the same midwife, this white woman, or were you the only one, or do you know?

GG: I knew— RL: Were they all delivered by the same midwife?

GG: No. My oldest sister was born in Biloxi, and she [inaudible] in the hospital in Pascagoula in Jackson County.

RL: And what number child were you, of the seven?

GG: I fell between the two brothers. 00:10:00I was really the third child: my oldest sister, my oldest brother, and then I fell, and then my baby brother fell next to me, so I fell in between the two boys. So then I call myself a tomboy, because I would climb trees, try to ride the horses—we had more than one. And one day—we had a fence, but when I first started riding I was afraid to get on the horse’s back. We had a saddle on the horse. So I got up to the fence, climbed up on the fence, raised my leg up to get on the horse, and I fell down, screamin’ and hollerin’, afraid of the horse.

RL: And did you grow up on the Gulf Coast, Vancleave?

GG: That’s where I was born and reared. I attended school at Bluff Creek Elementary School, 00:11:00and my brothers—so happened when we went to high school in Ocean Springs, which is about 15 miles away from Vancleave, they drove the school bus. For that reason, I had the opportunity to just walk out the house and get on the bus. And I was blessed to have had them to drive the bus until I graduated. And when I finished, I didn’t come right to college, but I did come to Jackson State, and I majored in English, and a librarian for, I always say from the heart, 31 years.

RL: You must’ve known Dr. Margaret Walker Alexander.

GG: I knew her very well. I’d go to her house. We’d eat, [laughs] and just enjoyed ourselves. And for my people, 00:12:00she’s very, very good.

RL: Anything you remember about goin’ to her house? What did she like to serve in her dinners?

GG: Well, vegetables, and we’d have good ol’ fried chicken, cornbread. We just enjoyed ourselves.

RL: What did your parents do? Did you live on a farm?

GG: It really wasn’t a farm. My father worked at the shipyard in Pascagoula, and, believe it or not, we lived with my mama’s mama, in her house ’cause they had acres of land, and a big house. The house had a fireplace, and there was a big kitchen, maybe about the size of this, believe it or not, and she had a long table, because every Sunday 00:13:00we had—I don’t know how many preachers would come there to eat—very good cooks, my parents were—but they had a old wood stove in the back, and they would cook cakes, pies, chocolate cake, coconut cakes, German chocolate cakes. She would just have it, and it’s unbelievable. Egg pies, coconut pies, and huckleberry pies. And let me tell you about this huckleberry pie. One Sunday the pastor was at the house, came there to eat, and my oldest brother, who’s deceased—Mama had everything on the table, and they were eating, and we were children, and my brother walked up there to the table, “Mama, Mama! He gon eat up all my huckleberry pie!” [Laughter.] And so she said, “Boy, hush. We have company. You go back.” That huckleberry pie was something really good, 00:14:00 though.

RL: What are huckleberries?

GG: It’s something like a blueberry, but, to me, it’s better than a blueberry. I’ve been tryin’ to get somebody go out in the woods out in Vancleave and get me some huckleberry plants so I could plant ’em up here, and they said, “Nah, it’s large rattlesnakes down there,” and they said, “No, no way.” So they don’t go out in the woods too much, and they have little bears out there now, some kind; I don’t know what kind, but—but it’s really changed down there since that time. And by the way, joined the church at age nine, and Reverend T. B. Brown that was pastor up here at Mt. Helm—I joined church when I was age nine because it was in Gulfport in that time, and he came out to run that revival, and he was singin’, “Get onboard, little children.” And he had 22 young folks 00:15:00that joined the church that night at that revival. And we were baptized guess where: in Bluff Creek, out there in that creek. No pool in the church at that time.

RL: And you were submerged.

GG: In the— RL: In the creek.

GG: In the creek, Bluff Creek.

RL: You mentioned your dad worked at the shipyard. What did he do there?

GG: I think he was a welder [ph].

RL: It must’ve been very busy during World War II for him.

GG: Yes, and then my daddy was also [inaudible] like us, and he made these concrete blocks, and he’d saw some [inaudible] probably, the pine trees, and I don’t know how he cut it but he made a log house, built a log house in the— RL: Is it still there?

GG: Huh?

RL: Is it still there, the log house?

GG: No, no. All that’s 00:16:00gone. The old house burned down, tore down, because Mama had a brick house built, and a deep well built, you know, the well, because we used to have a pump. We used to have the well where you had to pull the water out, draw the water out the well. And then we had to pump. Then she got the electrical pump later, ’cause they had the, you know, the old hand pump which you pump. And I had a good life. We never wanted for anything. Some people don’t believe that. We had hogs, and they would kill the hogs. Had a smokehouse. They would make the bacon, sausage, and today I don’t eat chitlins because we had to clean this, get stuff outta there. And we had the cows, and they’d kill a calf, 00:17:00[inaudible], and they would share it, the meat, the food, once they killed it. They would share it in the community, give it to others. But we did have a large garden. It wasn’t really a farm, because they didn’t sell it, but they would give away. And I guess that’s why I give stuff away today. Don’t have sense enough to sell it, but I give it away. But anyway, they had sugarcane. They would make syrup. And they had the horse, and the things, how to make the syrup. And we just had corn, and we had to go out there and cut that corn down, give the cows and the horses that dried-up corn, shell it, and—what else?

RL: You said you came to Jackson State. When did you come to Jackson State?

GG: I came in the end 00:18:00part of ’54.

RL: As a student?

GG: Yes, a freshman. And when we got to Jackson State, it was the largest class. Reverend Leon Bell—I figured you may know him—and some others. There were 700 of us.

RL: Wow.

GG: But we fell in group seven, and everybody was saying, “They the slow students, they the slow students.” We was group seven. But I’ll tell you what: most of us became teachers and preachers, have different things. I mean, most of us made something out of ourselves [inaudible].

RL: Did your parents expect you to go to college, or was this some— GG: No, let me tell ya, when I finished school in Ocean Springs, we had to go to Vicksburg, the students. They had an oral charter [ph] contest, and I think 00:19:00there was about 23 students, and I was a Wells, and they went alphabetical, and I was the last to speak, and I won first place.

RL: What’d you speak about?

GG: [inaudible]—and “statistics” I could not say, and my instructor that’s—“You can say it. You can say it, Ms. Wells. You can say it, you can say it, you can say it, you can say it.” And I said it, and when I got there, I guess I was on the shaky side, a little nervous, because I was last, but then I was so proud that I came first place. That was way back in ’54. Don’t ask me now; I don’t recall the exact title, but I was speakin’ somethin’ about the government anyway, I know. But I forgot—I can’t right at this point recall the 00:20:00 title.

RL: When did you finish at Jackson State?

GG: I finished in 1960. Just like most of us, I saw some guy and I got pregnant and married. But anyway, I went back, and—I had finished everything, but I went, did my student teachin’ in Greenwood, at Threadgill High School, and for that reason—that was in December, so I couldn’t march, not until the march that came up, and made me finish in ’60. So I say I’m class of 1960.

RL: And you said you met a boy and got married. When did that happen?

GG: That was in 1959, when I married him.

RL: And when did you start a family?

GG: That’s what I’m saying: I got pregnant, and then—you know, you got nine months, so the baby was born in ’59, but—and then I had to go back to school. 00:21:00I was still goin’ to school, never got out of school, but I was goin’ to school, but, you know, I had to drop out for a while, and then I marched in ’60. But I never was really, as I say, delayed, in a way, as far as I have to go back to take other classes.

RL: And did you stay and raise your family here in Jackson?

GG: I’m still in Jackson. Been here all the time. Never did go back home.

RL: How many children do you have?

GG: Three.

RL: Were they delivered by midwives?

GG: No, at University Hospital.

RL: All three of them.

GG: University Hospital here.

RL: What’s your experience with midwives? I see your board here. Can you tell us about it?

GG: No, because she said about midwives, I didn’t know how the program was goin’, because, like I say, I received a letter Friday afternoon, and Monday she talked 00:22:00to me. Got a call.

RL: Dr. Harrison.

GG: Right. But she didn’t tell me this. On this card, it say midwife, so I didn’t have a full understanding, so I just said I’ll just make this, because I was delivered by a midwife, and that’s one reason I got this, because it says midwife, and I was delivered by Mrs. Toole, who was the midwife. And, like I said, I didn’t get the full understanding of it.

RL: Well, this is great. What all is on this board that you brought?

GG: Well, on this board is givin’ you the number of months that a woman have to go, you know, nine months, breakdown of it with the months, and also tell you the reading of it, of each one. And over here, it’s showin’ you how to deliver babies now in a chair. You know, you used to have ’em 00:23:00laying down in the bed or wherever, but this is the chair with the pregnant woman, ’cause she being delivered by the midwife, and this is the—[inaudible] where the baby, his head is comin’ out. But you have four stages, and the first stage of labor, and the second stage of labor, it talks about the midwife assisting the baby as needed, when fully emerged. And also the fourth stage of labor is the pure [ph] beginning of the birth extendin’ [ph] about six weeks. And over here is the pictures—I had ’em enlarged—where the nurse is being—massaging the mother’s breast, checkin’ to see if it’s okay for the baby to be nursed.

RL: So 00:24:00what do you know about the midwives, and the midwife that delivered you and your brothers and sisters?

GG: Well— RL: Anything you know about them?

GG: No, I didn’t know them. But she had passed away when I got large enough to have known her. I didn’t know her.

RL: Do you know how your parents paid her?

GG: No, I don’t.

RL: Was she somebody that was well respected in the community?

GG: Yes.

RL: How so? How did people know her? Just as a midwife? Was she involved in other things?

GG: No, as I said, my mother worked for the whites. She would cook for them, and she knew them that way.

RL: So she cooked for the midwives.

GG: Yeah, she cooked at their house, you know. 00:25:00You know when they have maids, and they go to the house and cook and clean up? Well, she cooked for them.

RL: So there was a midwifing house. People would go to the house and have their babies there?

GG: I don’t know.

RL: Midwife usually came to their house.

GG: Right, the midwife came to the mother’s house to deliver the baby.

RL: Anything else you remember about them?

GG: No, only thing I know, my older sister that passed away did deliver one or two children here in Jackson. The lady was blind, and she had a child at the house [inaudible] my oldest sister helped, you know, the delivery 00:26:00of the baby.

RL: When was that?

GG: Oh, that’s been about 40 years ago, I guess, ’cause I— RL: Was your older sister trained as a midwife?

GG: No, she wasn’t.

RL: So how did she know what to do?

GG: I really—God, I guess, helped her deliver it, but she did it. And I think that young man is a preacher now. I think he’s somewhere in Texas, as I understand it. He’s at Montgomery.

RL: What were the circumstances that your older sister was asked to do that? Was she just the only person around?

GG: Well, they were neighbors, but they lived—my sister’s house was here, and they have the house over to the left [inaudible], and it was right next door.

RL: Did she have any tools or anything?

GG: No. You know, the midwives, I understand, the tools was their hands. That’s all they had, and they sterilized them, 00:27:00and then they sterilized the bed, and the mother, cleaned them up to do away with the germs before they had the baby. But they used their hands, but if it came too difficult, then they would call the physician in for help. That was back in the day, [laughter] and probably somewhere today, too.

RL: Did they have uniforms, or was there somethin’ that they wore, that—?

GG: No. No, once you have to go in a rush, you don’t have a uniform, just like some of these women we hear in the news, they had a baby on the plane or in the car, whatever. So this way if you get caught and need help, and the person that would come to assist you, and I would imagine that’s how it goes.

RL: Right. Anything else that you remember about midwives, 00:28:00or anything else you’d like to tell us? [Pause.] This has been wonderful. Thank you very much.

GG: Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW]