What did you do for fun in your youth in Scotland?

We built “playhouses” outside by sweeping the dirt up and dividing it into “rooms” by delineating rooms in the dirt with piles and leaving space for a door. We used rocks as cookware, and mud as sauce, as well as weeds, you know, the ones that smell like carrots, as greens. We had lots of fun playing in our “playhouses” and also played lots of ball games – volleyball, kickball, baseball, just like kids play today.

We would go up on the hill by Miss Gray’s to the field and played baseball every evening. The girls played the boys because neither group had enough to make their own two teams so we had to each form a team and play against each other, both softball and hardball. We played up until someone hit a line drive at my friend who was pitching, and hit her in the mouth and we never played hardball again. Sometimes the girls beat the boys. During the summer we played the other black schools and nobody could beat the Scotlanders, boys or girls, and we won first place all the time.

How different was it to be a child/student in Scotland for you than it is for us today?

We didn’t have the opportunities you children have today. We all went to a one classroom-schoolhouse with a kitchen right here in the community. We went there through 7th grade. In my class, we had just a few children, but all of the kids in all of the grades were in one room together. Our friend would cry every day and my sister and I had to sit with her so she’d calm down and the teacher could go about her business with the rest of the children. She’d cry so hard and wet her papers so that she couldn’t do her work because the paper was all puffed up. The school had just one teacher, and she worked with different groups of students at a time. We all went outside to play together because there was only one teacher to supervise us. We HAD to learn because if we didn’t work hard and learn she would call our parents and tell them that we weren’t working hard enough and our parents would let us have it. After 7th grade, we went to Lincoln High in Lincoln Park. The schools were segregated, so we had to go to all-black schools, so that’s why we had to travel all the way to Lincoln Park to go to high school. When we graduated from Scotland, this woman who lived up by Cabin John would let us on her property and we had to go and cut roses to decorate the church for our graduation to make it pretty for our graduation. We had tubs of roses that we cut ourselves.

What were the rules, at home and in the community, when you were young?

When we was coming up, if we did anything we weren’t supposed to do out in the community, our parents already knew what we’d done when we got home because everyone talked to everyone else, especially about the kids. In the home we had chores to do. If we didn’t do our chores, we got punished.

What were daily tasks/chores/jobs?

We had to wash dishes, wash clothes, and help with the younger kids, things like that.

What was your punishment?

We couldn’t go out, we were grounded, and we would have to stay in.

What did the community look like?

Our own houses weren’t attached like they are now, but were separate. When Paul and I got married, we moved to DC but then Paul’s mother died so we came back to live with Paul’s father. There was no running water. My grandmother lived in a house and everybody would come to our house to see TV because we were the only ones with a TV. Scotland extended to the Cabin John shopping center. Our ball field was up there and when the men played ball it was up there. Across from the shopping center where the nursing home now is lived more Scotlanders. A cemetery with grave stones was said to be up there and a man was going to take me to see it but he died before he could take me. Snakes Den is beside the church and there’s a graveyard there too.

Was there a central gathering place for youth in Scotland?

Up on the hill, on the ball field.

Can you describe the living conditions?

We had no running water and had “outhouses” to use. We swam in the creek and had to run the cows out of the water to get in and swim ourselves, but I never got in myself. The boys used to throw the girls into the water but I couldn’t swim, so I would stand on the hill and just look. It frightened me so bad that I still don’t get into the water. My sister was the same way. We were afraid.

What problems did you face?

Going to school was a challenge – it was a problem to us because Democracy Boulevard onto Seven Locks Road, where the two houses are now, we lived up there back then.

How did you relate to other communities in the area?

It was more country out here, there was nothing up on the sides, no townhouses, nothing. A man used to have a camp where The Heights is now. There was a house up on the hill where The Heights School is now. The Ricketts, a white family, lived there and they played with us and we ate together at each others houses so there was no segregation and that was the only white family that lived here. They moved when someone bought the land and made it into a summer camp for boys. Back through the Cabin John park woods there was a white man who also lived in a house way back there but we didn’t socialize, we just knew he was there.

What was family life like?

It was good because, you see, when we were young we didn’t understand what was going on, that was just the way we lived and we didn’t know any better. Our parents told us to go to school, learn, and do what you have to do to make it in the world and we had to make it, regardless of how we were treated. Once you get it up here (points to head) ain’t nobody can take it away from you. We didn’t know about racism, segregation or the like, just to do what we had the chance to do, which was go to our school. I told my kids to do the same thing when they were growing up, to learn all they can and make the most of themselves.

At what age did folks get married? How old were people when they got pregnant?

Kids did not get married young because the parents were strict. The girls are getting pregnant younger now than they did when we were young. Some of us got caught but very little.

How did everyone find out they were related?

My great-great grandfather, William Dove (the first African American landowner of Scotland property) had 15 children and every piece of land that he got he passed on to them and then the Masons started buying land from him and he also had lots of brothers and sisters.