Fannie Louden

INTERVIEWER: All right. Well, welcome. Your name, please ma’am, for the record?

LOUDEN: My name is Fannie Louden.

INTERVIEWER: [00:24] What was your connection with Yancey School first?

LOUDEN: Well, I came to the old school, which was a wooden building. And that went up to fifth grade. But I started at a two-room school down the road. I think it was a first and second grade. I think I remember—I could remember all of my teachers’ names, I think. I think in first grade, Miss Garden—Gardner. Second grade, Miss Pinkie. Third grade, Miss Turner. Fourth grade, Miss Smith. Fifth grade, Miss Price—everybody knew Miss Price.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, Flossie, yeah. 

LOUDEN: Yeah. Sixth grade, Miss Turrell. And seventh grade was Mr. Faulkner, who was the principal here at this school. And when I finished here, which was in seventh grade, I went on of course to Burley, to eighth grade. After I finished Burley, I went to St. Paul’s College, and got my bachelor’s degree. And after my bachelor’s degree, I went to Orange County to teach. I think I taught in Orange County about three or four years. And when integration started, in Orange County it was altogether different from Albemarle County. Because in Albemarle County and Charlottesville, some of the schools were closed: they didn’t want to integrate. But when I taught in Orange County, we didn’t have a bit of a problem. We didn’t have no problem whatsoever: it went smoothly. So when I first taught in Orange County, I taught at an all-Black school, which was Lightfoot Elementary. And Mr. Holmes was the principal there. Then I taught there about two years. And then I went up the road to Unionville Elementary School—that’s when they integrated, and I taught three years there. And the principal there was Mr. Nicholson. And then I came to Albemarle County, and I came to Yancey Elementary School, and then I taught here twenty-six years. And most grades I taught, the majority of grades I taught, was fifth grade. 

INTERVIEWER: [02:57] You said that they had closed some of the schools in Albemarle County—

LOUDEN: I’m talking about Charlottesville. They closed some schools in Charlottesville.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, Charlottesville. Charlottesville had problems. 

LOUDEN: Mm-hm. Yeah, Charlottesville had problems. I don’t know about Albemarle County. I don’t think Albemarle County had any problems, I can’t recall, when they integrated the school.

INTERVIEWER: No, I don’t remember this, either. 

LOUDEN: Unh-hm, right.

INTERVIEWER: [03:18] Do you remember what year you came to Yancey to teach?

LOUDEN: A-ha! No. (laughs) I do not remember the year when I came to Yancey.

INTERVIEW: [03:29] Who was principal when you came here?

LOUDEN: When I came here, it was a lady principal. Oh, what was her name? I can’t remember her name. But after her, Mr. Turrell was the principal. And after Mr. Turrell, Mrs. Page was the principal. And after Mrs. Page, the last principal was Mac Tate. I can’t think of the lady’s name, the first principal that was principal—because she came the same year that I did.

INTERVIEWER: [04:18] Yancey was already integrated by then, anyway.

LOUDEN: Yes. Well, Yancey was integrated when I came on-board.

INTERVIEWER: [04:28] What was the school like when you first got here? 

LOUDEN: I didn’t have any problems at all. Everybody worked together and stuff. But it was—

INTERVIEWER: [04:38] The building was—How was the building?

LOUDEN: The building was fine. You had some big classes then. I believe my largest class, one year—One year, here, I think I had about twenty-seven kids. I think one year—yeah.

INTERVIEWER: [04:59] Did that number go down?

LOUDEN: Yeah, the numbers went down and stuff. I guess when I quit teaching, I think I had about maybe seventeen or eighteen kids then. The numbers started going down then. But it was enjoyable. I enjoyed teaching here at Yancey. It was an enjoyable situation. We used to take the kids on field trips and things. Especially when we would go to the museum in Washington every year. That was the fifth-grade big-time field trip. And Mac Tate one time took us, we went down there in the Tidewater area. One time we took the kids down there, and they got to ride out in the ocean. That was a fun time. But it was an enjoyable situation that I had here. No complaints at Yancey. (laughs)

INTERVIEWER: [06:05] How did the school deal with the community? Or was there a difference? 

LOUDEN: I haven’t seen the problem with the community. Every time we’ll have—you know, some, when you have special occasions and you have big crowds, you know, PTO and things like that. Parents very seldom came out. I don’t know the reasons why, but you know, parent-teacher conferences, they would come out and stuff. I thought the parents the community got along very well. 

INTERVIEWER: [06:48] What was it like at the old school?

LOUDEN: I can’t remember the old school much. I cannot remember the old school much. 

INTERVIEWER: Reginald was telling me a little bit about the old school. I remember the building right here—

LOUDEN: Yeah, the building.

INTERVIEWER: —when I first got here, because it was still standing when I first started school.

LOUDEN: Yeah, you had to go up steps. You had steps to go up. And I think the first classroom was Mr. Faulkner’s classroom—I think. Because I think they had a back end on the building, too, that they had. Of course we had, I guess it was coal-burning stoves back then. Of course they had toilets outside. You know, they had to go to the bathroom—no running water or anything like that. Although, I think the school that was the white school, they had all of these things. But we didn’t. Anything else?

INTERVIEWER: And this has been Fannie Louden, interviewed on October 27, 2018.