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Transcription: [00:00:00]

[00:00:02]
{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
My name is Theresa Duncans Holmes.

[00:00:07]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And would you mind telling us how old you are?

[00:00:09]
{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
I'm 81.

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
I was 81 in January, January 13th, 1913.

[00:00:16]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
And where were you born?

{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Cleveland, Ohio.

[00:00:18]
{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
And umm - when - at what age and when did you come to Roanoke?

[00:00:24]
{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
My mother and father came back - well I'll start this way. When my mother was young, they didn't have a high school in Roanoke. So, she went to Virginia State for high school, and in the summer, she resided in Cleveland with relatives to study music. In the meantime, she met my, met my father, and fell and love and her [laughter] she's a teenager, so they lived with his relatives, and my people had a fit. She was the only child, you know, so she was four, and they came here to Roanoke to live.

[00:00:58]
Which then, we lived um, uh, Chestnut. Chestnut. That's where the Black community was back over in those days. And that was in 1915. And, uh, my father was dissatisfied with Roanoke so he went back to Cleveland, and he got a divorce and he married again. Later my mother married again. Then, people bought the property up on Gelman[?]. People were moving over this neighborhood, you know, started to move over...over...well some families were already back from the, say, ninth, tenth, ninth, seventh, and sixth.

[00:01:48]
But on this neighborhood, people were moving in, um, to Wells. And, uh, we, I went to school at Harrison where I had the Harrison [[?]] that is when I first went to school at six years old. Then they changed - you know how they relocate you to Gainesboro, and my mother died [laughter] because the toilets were outdoors, and they were wooden. And you know how parents did like most parents did contact everyone they know - knew - to see if they could have me transferred back.


[00:02:28]
But once the judgment is passed by the powers that be, they can't do it for one, you know -

[00:02:32]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Right, Right.

[00:02:33]
{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
- without the others. So I remained at Gainesboro for about two years, then back to Har - err - Harrison. And by that time, they had built the first Addison - Lucy Addison. So I graduated - I was sick for a couple of years, but I graduated in 1933 from, uh, the first Lucy Addison. And then, after a couple of years, I went to Saint Paul in Lawrenceville for two years. '35 and, um, '38 my mother decided that she wanted to make some changes, so she moved to Brooklyn. St. - 88 St. James Place.

[00:03:15]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Oh I know that. I know that very well.

[00:03:17]
{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
We took a house there. So I would - went there with her, and, uh, while I was there, well, I married and everything. It was a disaster, but anyway.

[00:03:27]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
[Laughter]

[00:03:28]
{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
My mother stayed there until her mother was ill, and she came back in '44. Well, constantly, you know, came back, but to live at 315. And her mother died in '46, her gra-, my grandfather died, and then my grandmother died, and my mother married Mr. [?] and she moved here. So, my mother got sick for the last time in '65, so I moved back in '65.

[00:03:57]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Mm-hm.

[00:03:57]
{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
So I've been here ever since.

[00:03:59]
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Oh, good. That's a good place for us to stop because I want to -
{SILENCE}

[00:04:13]
{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
So -
{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Okay, go ahead.
{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
Your, your grandmother lived at 315...
{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Uh huh.
{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
...the whole time, she...
{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Yes.
{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
...she didn't move?

[00:04:18]
{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
Yes, uh huh.
{SPEAKER name="Louise Spence"}
I see.
{SPEAKER name="Theresa Holmes"}
She died in, uh,
{SILENCE}
...see, my mother came back in '44, she died in '46.

Transcription Notes:
Started on the transcription to begin something, I will continue soon. Also would the second woman's voice be Louise Spence, I don't think it is Pearl since Pearl's voice sounds different on other transcriptions. ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-04-06 13:48:55