Nana Biography

Did you get hit much? 

No, I was never hit. But once I remember being – I forgot what age I was, but it must’ve been third or fourth grade, so eight, something like that. I had to go to the bathroom so badly, and we had the school desks, and I’m sitting there, afraid to ask her, so I sat on the edge of the desk and wiggled back-and-forth and finally could not contain it and wet my pants. I remember that very much because nothing was said, nobody said anything about it. But evidently she told my mother, and my mother said to me, “Nancy, if you have to go to the bathroom ever again, you must ask Miss Lucy, and she will let you go. “ and that was too bad about that, but nobody ever did that, but all the children I know talked about it behind my back. It was a terribly embarrassing situation. 

But I learned a lot from her. She was strict, and we had to memorize Bible verses when we first came in the morning. she just assigned it to the whole 30 kids, and two of us would be called upon to repeat them. So you had to sit there, and you had five minutes, and you did two Bible verses, and then you might be called on. Then we all got up and stood in a line and had a spelling bee, and so everybody that ever came out of the school could spell. It was marvelous. And I’m grateful for that because I’m a good speller.

That’s a terrific thing to learn.

Yes, because most kids don’t spell very well today, I don’t think, at least they have to, but anyway the schooling was very strict, and we had to sit quietly and the whole thing, and that did not bother me. Then when I got a little older, and went to say seventh grade, I went to another private girls school, which was in the town of Lexington, I lived in the country, and I was brought in by the black colored man who was employed by us or my father, or occasionally my pony. They had sororities and I was in a sorority.

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