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Sesquicentennial Interview: Linnia Knox Carpenter

When: 1974

This interview was conducted in 1974 as part of the I Remember When  television series produced by the Ann Arbor Public Library.

Transcript

  • [00:00:11] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: There was nothing strange or odd to me in becoming a minister's wife, being so active in the church from early girlhood that meeting the public and being thrown in with various groups, it came very natural to me. Being a minister's wife or marrying a minister, there is a difference being a minister's wife and the wife of a minister. I wanted to be more than just the wife of a minister, I wanted to really be a minister's wife, which to me was more significant than just being married to a minister. As a minister's wife, I felt that it was my place to be a real helpmate to my husband because I felt if any phase of the work in the church failed, that meant that my husband failed.
  • [00:01:55] CATHERINE ANDERSON: What kinds of things did you do?
  • [00:02:01] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: One thing I did perhaps in the year of 19 and 40, after coming to Ann Arbor, I got the little children together and organized a choir of the little children. I called that choir, I named the choir the Blue Crown Choir. The reason I named them that was because of the attire they wore. I had little blue crowns made for their heads, and their robes was blue, the undergarment, and the top part was white, and that's why I named them the Blue Crown Choir. That was step number 1, which from I shall say the year of 19 and 40, right on up to 66. When Reverend Carpenter retired from the pulpit at that time, the Blue Crown Choir was active.
  • [00:03:27] CATHERINE ANDERSON: It dissolved when you left or is it gone now?
  • [00:03:31] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Yes.
  • [00:03:32] CATHERINE ANDERSON: That's too bad.
  • [00:03:33] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: That's just gone now. Another thing that I was just very active in working with not only the children, but also adults in Second Baptist Church. Another group that I organized was called the GAs, that's the girl's auxiliary, and we were known by the uniform that we wore, the girl's auxiliary, which was a group. It was a part of the missionary movement. Then the Shepherd Boys League was the boys. They were not in with the girls. I became superintendent of the Sunday School, that is the primary department. I had each age level of the children, but I did not have the adults under my supervision. We took we included from the cradle role right on up through high school in that department.
  • [00:05:13] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Did your husband head any organizations or he just preached, and what kind of things did he have to do besides that?
  • [00:05:18] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Besides preaching?
  • [00:05:20] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Yes, I know ministers are very busy besides that.
  • [00:05:22] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Very busy, he was busy naturally counseling and hospital visits, visiting the sick. He was a member of the Kiwanis Club. There was scarcely any place you could go here in Ann Arbor and mention his name that he wasn't known by the merchants all over. If someone would visit Ann Arbor, and they'd come up to a filling station, and they would inquire about the Second Baptist Church or Reverend Carpenter, right away, they could tell where to find that church. We lived right there, one of the nice features about Reverend Carpenter was, he liked to live among the people. He did not just want to preach at Second Baptist church and then go way out in some subdivision, and he wanted to live, which he did, lived right down there among the people. We lived so closely that I didn't even have to go out, we didn't have to go out of the building to go in the sanctuary.
  • [00:06:57] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Really, right in the church?
  • [00:06:58] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Right lived in the building. We did not have to go outside to go into the sanctuary at all. I go right out of my kitchen down through the basement and right up into the sanctuary, it was so built, and it is still built that way with the present building. It was in 19 and 52 that we put forth an effort for a new building. We were only out of the building 11 months and a few days before we were back into the present building, and we thought that was a wonderful record that the weather or nothing held them up from their work on erecting that building.
  • [00:08:18] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Can you tell me any problems that you had like your husband had or the church had? Do you have a church counsel or does the reverend have to make all the executive decisions, money decisions, and all that kind of thing?
  • [00:08:33] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Well, we have what we would call a church meeting. We'd have a church meeting, which would bring in all of the members when any decisions was to be made. Nothing was made, I shall say, behind the memberships back. They were always apprised of whatever steps that were to be taken. This is what the way that it operated at that time. When we got ready to build and actually, we had this committee, it was called the Building Committee. One of the very most leading and most prominent men of our church was Douglas E. H. Williams. He was the executive secretary of the Dunbar Community Center. He was the executive, he was the head of that.
  • [00:09:44] CATHERINE ANDERSON: What is the Dunbar Community Center?
  • [00:09:47] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: It was a place, have you heard of the Ann Arbor Community Center? Have you heard of that one?
  • [00:09:55] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Yes, but I don't know what it does.
  • [00:09:57] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Well, it's a building where that you have the various activities going on. This is what I know, the various activities are carried on at this building, and it was the same way with the Dunbar. It was the Dunbar then but the new structure on North Main Street is the Ann Arbor Community Center. We dropped the name of the Dunbar. Of course, Mr. Williams was instrumental in putting that up but then he passed, sitting at his desk, he passed. Naturally, it has a new name and maybe a new meaning there but it is a building where that the young people can go and have getting them off the street. Then committees can meet there in the building and it's just that type of a thing. Now let's see back to the church.
  • [00:11:09] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Do you have trouble getting a new membership, getting new people to come?
  • [00:11:15] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: We do not have so much of a problem now. Our membership has grown considerably. We have quite a few more young people in the church now, and the people that are in the church now are mostly people that have come to Ann Arbor in these recent years. As I stated, there are not too many of the older members at Second Baptist now. We lost some of them, quite a few by death. Then when their favorite pastor passed, why they left too.
  • [00:12:07] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Where do they go now?
  • [00:12:09] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Different places and some maybe no place. But they joined other churches.
  • [00:12:33] CATHERINE ANDERSON: We're talking about the kinds of activities the church does. We're talking about the committees and how the church is structured.
  • [00:12:41] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Well, it has grown to the extent that we have a credit union in our church. We have what is known as an annual bazaar every December, and that was just conducted Saturday. Let's see, we have the altar choir. We have the woman's course. One thing we have now in the church that we did not have, we have a mission board and that is where things are operated or done under a board now by the mission board, like, they set up the program. Our missionary society is carried on now by circles. We have circles, whereas that in my early years here, we just had a missionary society. But now it's carried on in circles. We have about five circles which make up the missionary society. They have recently formed the mission board, which everything's done is transacted through the board.
  • [00:14:14] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Who do they service?
  • [00:14:16] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: The missionary? Well, the public.
  • [00:14:22] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Does it stay within helping Ann Arbor people or it doesn't go to other countries?
  • [00:14:27] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Well, I don't know of this one. Now, I have the picture now of a family that adopted us as their parents in Africa.
  • [00:14:41] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Do you know which part, was it Tanzania?
  • [00:14:45] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Sinoe. Now I have a granddaughter that's in Monrovia University that's whose desire is to come to the United States for her Christian training as a missionary so that she can go back and teach her people. This group that I said, the Blue Crown Choir, which I organized is taking an active part in branching out to try to get funds to bring my granddaughter here to Ann Arbor or to America.
  • [00:15:34] CATHERINE ANDERSON: That's nice.
  • [00:15:35] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: That's an active part that they are taking in that. One of my most dependent persons in this project is Mrs. James Baker, Gwendolyn Baker, who was one of the original members of the choir. We thought that was a worthwhile, so we are hoping to be able to get funds enough to bring her here to put her in a Christian college or university.
  • [00:16:19] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: She might be able to do. As I say, we did branch out in other countries and especially Africa. I will say especially Africa, because we came to know a very dear soul who now is nearing her 100th birthday that was in Africa and said if she had 1,000 lives to live, she'd live every one of them for Africa. She was known all over as Mother George. Mother George ordained this young man as a minister. She ordained him. He was so interested in the letters that we would write to Mother George. He was so interested in those letters as she read them to the children there that he wanted that name. I want Reverend C. W. Carpenter. He took that name as Reverend C. W. Carpenter, Reverend Charles W. Carpenter, and that is what he's known now in Africa as. When we write him, we write him as Reverend Charles W. Carpenter Jr. The first child, took my name, Linnia, and that's why I say she's my granddaughter. In our convention, we had a foreign mission board. Then our work was carried on through this board. We would send money to that board, and the board would send it or distribute it or send it to Africa. Then we made personal gifts to Mother George herself for the work over there. She has taken clothes off her back to clothe those little naked natives in Africa and her health is very poor now. I'm sure she's home here and will not be able to return to her post anymore. But the work is going on fine. Now, you ask about problems. If we had any difficult problems.
  • [00:19:00] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Well, every church has difficulties.
  • [00:19:02] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Well, yes, they all do have some problems. Of course, finance is always one of the great problems of most churches. But I have often wondered how we did so much on so little. If I'd have known the thing, I wish I could even give you some figures of what the present. Have you ever driven past that church? You have. If I could give you some figures of the cost of that building, I did not bring in to say, which that building now, I don't know whether to say it, they are now have set up a building committee for a new building.
  • [00:20:20] CATHERINE ANDERSON: They want to move out of the one they're in? Have they grown that much, or they just think it's a bad location or they don't like the building, or?
  • [00:20:28] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: No. I will say this for them. I think it's space. I think this is the main thing. They're carrying on now a daycare center down there. They have so many various classes, like the arts and craft class and different things that are going on down there that they don't really have space to accommodate. I think they feel that they should have a larger building. Naturally, these are the steps that they're taking now. If I understand it right. I can't move, can I? I want to give you something.
  • [00:21:24] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Sure.
  • [00:21:25] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Can I move?
  • [00:21:30] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Sure. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:21:33] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: That's what that is. Now, I believe this is naming some of the various committees that they meet.
  • [00:21:40] CATHERINE ANDERSON: No. That's not the one. Maybe this is it. Here.
  • [00:21:43] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Are being formed now. I mentioned the credit union, which is a growing thing.
  • [00:21:53] CATHERINE ANDERSON: What does that do?
  • [00:21:56] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Well, they say Sunday is to help the church to help others. You see you pay into the credit union, and then you can borrow from yourself instead of having to go to the bank or someplace to borrow, you can borrow money from yourself cause you've put money in the credit union, so you can borrow from the credit union.
  • [00:22:18] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Do you think a lot of people will use that?
  • [00:22:21] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Well, it seems like. I don't know. I know I'm not a member of it myself, but they have quite a list of subscribers in there. Then they have quite a few, like they have what is known as the Pastors Aid Club, and they have the Progressive Club. This Progressive Club is the one that usually sponsors the church bazaar every year.
  • [00:23:08] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Do you find that your church is really closely knit? Or could you compare it then a few years ago to now, like when your husband was the pastor?
  • [00:23:23] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Not as much so now as it was. See with the newer people coming in and coming into the church, it's not as much so now as it was.
  • [00:23:42] CATHERINE ANDERSON: You were very closely, I would think very closely knit, because the church usually would you call it a central place for your community?
  • [00:23:52] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: For the community. A central place of meeting. Is that what you mean? Yes. It was somewhat a central place for meeting. I cannot say that it is any more so now than it was then. There are just more activities going on now than what was going on then. Because now we have what is known as the Sunday school choir. That's a choir made up of little ones just about like I had for the Blue Crown choir. But it's called a Sunday school choir. They sing once a month. Then they have, what is now the young people's group, which takes in the teenagers. I had one of the girls in yesterday talking with her and she was on her way to her youth meeting. That's what they call it a youth meeting. I asked her, what did she do? What did they do at their youth meeting? She said, we make plans and talk about what we would like to do for the community. Then I guess, in other words, what they'd like to do for themselves. One of the undertakings that they were endeavoring to do, they were endeavoring to raise money to put new Bibles in the church. I asked her what happened to that? Said, she didn't know, what happened to it? I said, I don't hear any talk about it anymore. Now she said they are going to try to raise money. They want to take a trip to Portland, Oregon. They got to map out ways to make finance for that. Of course, this kind of weather is not very promising. In the summer, they do car wash. I think they have bake sales, something like that, which is very poor way to try to make finance because it's a long road to travel. But this is what she said, they do. They meet together with their leader, who is Ms. Paul Spann, and make out their plans and see what they can come up with. As I said the Bibles. I do remember that, but now I don't hear anything about the Bibles and we don't have any as yet. I'm going off on this because you said you don't have to be heard. When I was on WPAG, I couldn't think of anything hardly to say on that, but after I was all through, I thought of many things because it was supposed to be talking all about my husband. I could think of many things that I should have said that I didn't say. But this is a little bit different. Now, let's see. What more can I say about my husband? Let's see.
  • [00:27:18] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Have you got any anecdotes of anything that happened to you humorous or sad or just anything that, just a story that you can remember that happened to you especially when you first came to the church, but it doesn't matter anytime while you were with the church? I'm sure that as a minister's wife, many things happened to you, but just something that would interesting that you'd like to tell. You can say it. I know I can tell you don't want to tell me. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:28:08] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Oh, dear. In coming to Ann Arbor, and especially the first two months, I shall say. I think the main thing that my husband was interested in now, should I say my husband or Reverend Carpenter, which would be much better?
  • [00:28:35] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Doesn't matter.
  • [00:28:41] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Naturally, he was interested in my meeting the public and the public getting to know me. Of course, he took me to the various stores and what have you and introduced me to the manager and different ones in the store then I would go in, they would know that that was Mrs. Carpenter, and of course that I could go to most of them and get whatever I wanted and have it charged or anything. Now, there was a store here that time. It was called Mack's, I think. One day, I went up town. I don't know what I was going to get. But nevertheless, I went to Mack's, and I asked for whatever it was that I wanted, and then I told them to charge it. I wanted to charge it. I presume, went and looked at the record. The sales lady came back and said, Mrs. Carpenter, I'm sorry, but we have a record here of a bassinet, and a baby carriage that hasn't been paid for, and I said, that's fine. That's all right. I said, I'll call my husband's attention to that. I went on home, and I told Reverend Carpenter about it. I said, on your account up there, you are charged with a bassinet and a baby carriage and hasn't been paid for. He could not get me out of that house fast enough.
  • [00:31:10] CATHERINE ANDERSON: You said you couldn't get you out of the house fast enough.
  • [00:31:12] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: To get me up to the store to clear this thing up. Here, he's charged with a bassinet and baby carriage and didn't have that first child. I thought that and he often would make mention of this from the pulpit of what mistakes can be made. I hear he's bringing a brand new wife to Ann Arbor, and here he's being charged up with a bassinet and a baby carriage. She'd be wondering what kind of a husband she's got.
  • [00:31:47] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Thank you. Oh, dear. Can you think of anything that happened with the choir that you worked with or on one of the committees?
  • [00:32:09] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: No. This I can't think of anything. You know, this is
  • [00:32:21] CATHERINE ANDERSON: You'll think of something when I leave.
  • [00:32:23] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Maybe. This might be true, then I often say, I haven't been exposed to situations like a lot of people have been exposed to and can talk about. In any line or any field of work, I haven't been exposed to these things. I just don't know, but I know is I listen to different people talk and tell of their experiences, and difficulties in their lives, and everything. I just sit and look at them. I said, Well, I haven't been exposed to anything like that. I can't tell anything about what happened, difficult things or situations that I've ever come up under.
  • [00:33:13] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Do you think that's because of your church background and stuff? Do you feel that that's been a real strength for you?
  • [00:33:20] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: A real strength. My religious background? Without a doubt. It has been a strength to me. But the one thing is various difficult problems that a lot of people have had that I've never had and never been exposed to anything like that. Even when I hear my friends talk about their parents, their grandparents, and they and situations that happened back in their time. Of course, mostly all of the people that I have talked with and my friends are mostly all Southerners and they tell me what they had to undergo down south. The hard life they live down south, I said, Well, I can't there's nothing like that I can tell about.
  • [00:34:21] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Are they living here now, your friends from the South?
  • [00:34:25] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Ann Arbor is made up of Southerners.
  • [00:34:29] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Do they find the same kind of problems here that they found there or is it really a very different situation?
  • [00:34:34] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Well, naturally, the situation here naturally, would be altogether different than in the South. They wouldn't have the prejudice here that they had down South. You see that existed down. They wouldn't have such problems as those here.
  • [00:34:51] CATHERINE ANDERSON: You don't have any problems here at all in that area?
  • [00:34:57] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Yes, there is prejudice here. And I like to say there's prejudice even among the Blacks.
  • [00:35:05] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Really?
  • [00:35:07] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Black people are prejudice, yes, they are I tell them, don't say you aren't prejudice. Some of them are just as prejudice as they can be. Some of them just don't have any time for any any white person. They just figure that they all alike. They know what they suffered down south, and they suffered at the hands of white people. They figured that the same thing is here to a certain extent, but not as great as it was in the South. But Reverend Carpenter could tell them or he did tell them that things are going to change in the South. They're going to change down there. Some of these very people right here from the South are living to see the situation change. Now, mostly any city that we would go to now in the South, we could stay in any of the hotels. Now, but it wasn't so when I came to Ann Arbor.
  • [00:36:20] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Was that true of Ann Arbor too? Was there more prejudice here then than there is now? I mean, have you seen it change here too?
  • [00:36:28] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Yes. It has changed here too now because many of the eating places, especially. The Blacks couldn't go in.
  • [00:36:40] CATHERINE ANDERSON: That's a shame.
  • [00:36:41] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: They could not go in. You take, for instance, take this beautiful world that God gave to man. You couldn't even go certain lakes and fish. You weren't permitted to go on lake, because why? It's a private lake.
  • [00:36:58] CATHERINE ANDERSON: What did Reverend Carpenter have to say about that? Because I'm sure that bothered the congregation.
  • [00:37:03] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: The situation?
  • [00:37:03] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Yes.
  • [00:37:05] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: He said, Well, these things are to be. Said, If you read your Bible, study your Bible, you'll see, where it's in the Bible. These things are going to be and will be, but they're going to change. They will get better. And we've gone to certain lakes and they said, Yes, Reverend, yes, you can get a boat. You come on. But you let some of our parishioners go to this same lake. They wouldn't let them. But yet Reverend Carpenter could go.
  • [00:37:37] CATHERINE ANDERSON: What do you think that is?
  • [00:37:38] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: See. I don't know. He could go, but they said, No, they wouldn't. One place my Reverend Carpenter said, Well, if they can't go, I won't go. See, if they can't go, I won't go. Now, take the YM and the YWCA. Now, that wasn't thrown open. Either. It was closed. I'm not positive, whether I was the first black or not. But I was accepted into the YWCA and no black boy need to even think about going to the YMCA because they just couldn't have membership there. That bar was let down. I've had people to say these situations changed through Reverend Carpenter. The stand that he took because when he would be asked to speak at these various meetings, he would tell them in no uncertain terms. He would let them know. I've had the white people many, even since he's been gone to say that it was through Reverend Carpenter that conditions have changed. He told me this is before my time that they went into a store up here on Main Street. I think it was an A and P. The clerks were reluctant, the cashiers were reluctant to serve his wife, to wait on her. They would accept some of the other the white customers ahead of her, then when they did serve her or wait on her, they just threw it at her, like that. Well, he reported it. In two or three days, that person was gone. They didn't have a job. But it was only by the stand he took. Didn't have a job. He would go in places. He has been yes, he's been discriminated against, to be served, and they would act like they didn't want to serve me, he'd sit there and he'd sit there, and the waitresses would walk around. Other people would come in and they'd serve them. He'd still sit and he'd sit. I think this happened even in Detroit at J. L. Hudson's, I believe. Yes, they had a cafeteria there, so he got up. Then he went for the manager. He reported it to the manager. Well, in a few days, that that waitress was gone. It's these things that broke down that prejudice line, you know, is it by someone taking a stand in this way that.
  • [00:41:15] CATHERINE ANDERSON: When did you see these barriers start to be broken down? Was it not until the 60s or was it before? I mean a real break.
  • [00:41:26] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Let me see. It was it was before the 60s. Yes, it was before the 60s. I was trying to think of. Well, I'll tell her this incident. Now, I don't know whether you've ever heard of the Church Women United group or not, have you? Well, this is a group where you know no color line. I said to this young girl was on her way to her youth meeting yesterday. I said, I was talking to her about her brother, and I said, Miss Fisher brings Doug home sometime from school. Said, Do you know her? I said, Sure, I know Doctor and Mrs Fisher. How do you know her? I said, Well, there are some of my very best friends. In the Church Women United, there are two groups. Back in '65,'64,'65.
  • [00:42:38] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: The women asked me if I would consider being chairman of the friendship circle. Because Christine don't think she can do it any longer. They said, Linnia, would you take it? I said, well, if you think I can do the job, I said, yes, I'll take it. I'll try, do the best I can. I call these women together. I said, now, we're not going to have it one sided. I said, it's going to be set up equal. I said, if I had six Blacks I want six Whites, just like this. I called together these women, and I told them what I was endeavoring to do. One woman who was an elderly woman said now, Mrs. Carpenter, I will be interested in this friendship circle if it's going to be a two way affair, I will be interested in it. I said, well, I intend for it to be. I told the group that morning when I called this a planning breakfast where we met to make plans for this setting up of the friendship. I said, now, the way I would like to have it, I'd like to have it equal as many Blacks as Whites, and you know. Ms. Beach said, well, she would be interested then, if it was going to be set up like that, said, but if it's going to be just all of us, and none of yours, said, well, I wouldn't be interested because we're together all the time anyway. Said, and our purpose is to get to know each other better and to have a better understanding between the two groups. I said all right. We've been going from back there to '64, '65 up to the present time. We've been going ever since. It's a lovely group. As I say, I was accepted and well, I don't know. Planned Parenthood, all of these, they accepted me graciously when coming to Ann Arbor, I knew no color line at all. As I say, as far as being a Black person, I didn't know I was unless I looked in the mirror at myself. Because as far as the treatment from those women. When we were talking about a merging with the YM and YWCA, I was one of the group that went to Canada to make a tour through and a merged YM, YWCA over there to see what we thought about that. I haven't been excluded from any group or organization.
  • [00:45:48] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Well, that's nice. Do you have anything else that you'd like to tell me? I haven't really got any more questions that I can think of.
  • [00:45:59] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Well, I can't think of anything. The last question you asked was about problems, difficulties, and what have you. I never ask you. Are these going to be on the tape? This what I'm doing?
  • [00:46:17] CATHERINE ANDERSON: I don't know. It depends on how close she zoomed in on you.
  • [00:46:21] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Well, look, I've been using my hands so much.
  • [00:46:23] CATHERINE ANDERSON: That's nice.
  • [00:46:23] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Oh no.
  • [00:46:25] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Oh, it is. It's nice, it's a personal touch. What is your best memory of working for the church?
  • [00:46:35] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: My best memory? Now, let's see. What would call my best memory?
  • [00:46:40] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Of working for the church
  • [00:46:41] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Working for the church. Now, you're talking about the things I did best memory of working for the church?
  • [00:46:51] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Being involved with the church.
  • [00:46:54] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Such as? Name something. Such as.
  • [00:47:01] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Working with the choir, working with different groups. What did you like about working with the church?
  • [00:47:11] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Well, I really like just the very things that I did. I liked people. I'm a lover of children, I can't say I was. I am a lover of children. Naturally, having worked with the young people before coming to Ann Arbor, it wasn't difficult for me to fall right in line after I got here to Ann Arbor. Then in a way speaking, I liked instructing, and that's what I did for the adults. I instructed them. I taught them Bible. This is the thing that kept me going or made me happy is working with people. In other words, I also well, I can say I guess this is substituting for my husband. Oft times people would call for my husband if there was sickness in the family. He perhaps, we were not able, I could not contact him. I don't know one particular incident I'm thinking about. There was sickness, and call came into the office and I don't know where my husband was. He could have been out of town at that time. I don't think he was fishing, because if he'd been fishing, I wouldn't have had the car. I know he wasn't fishing at that particular time. He was not available. I jumped in the car and went to the scene. I shall say, went to the scene and to see how bad the sickness was, and if there was anything that I could contribute or do. But there was nothing that I could do, only pray. Since I wasn't able to get hold of my husband, I went out. I offered my service, and I prayed. I felt that was one of my duties as a help me to my husband.
  • [00:49:44] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: One other phase of my husband's public ministry was visiting the jails and the prison, especially in Jackson. He made his visits to the Jackson Prison, and the jail here. As part of his business. Now, I'm trying to think of some unpleasant circumstances. Did that answer your question your question? Is what phase of work I said that The duty of a minister's wife, she's got to be prepared and ready to assume certain obligations. She just can't say, I'm a minister's wife and just sit down, which I'm sorry to say I've come across. I'm not going to say some. I will say one in particular that does just that. I sure don't I sure don't want this on the tape, either. I better not say any more about that because.
  • [00:51:09] CATHERINE ANDERSON: I was going to say, don't mention any names.
  • [00:51:11] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: No, I'm not going to mention any name at all, but I'm afraid if there might be someone that might be viewing this, and hear me say this and know it is me doing it. They might know who I'm talking about. But, but this is true.
  • [00:51:36] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Can you think of anything else, Chris?
  • [00:51:44] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: The missions. I think I would prefer sticking preferably or strictly to to my work in the church prior to the present? Prior to 66, I shall say. See.
  • [00:52:13] CATHERINE ANDERSON: That's fine.
  • [00:52:19] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Prior to 66.
  • [00:52:23] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Can you think of anything else that you'd like to have on the tape or tell or.
  • [00:52:33] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: As I say that I there perhaps could have been a lot more that I could say or have said, had I been coached or prompted as to what was expected of me to say, and it perhaps could have come forward, rather than trying to bring it to the front right now. I had no problems with my dealing with my choir members, as I say, they were children. We had one of the choirs during my time was known as the gospel chorus. The Gospel chorus. That was a group of men and women that did mostly gospel songs. Then we had two other choirs. We had what is known as the senior morning choir and the senior evening choir, and then you see the Gospel chorus. The children that made four choirs all together.
  • [00:54:16] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Can you think of anything really happy or funny that happened to you with the children? Children are really cute. They usually do really funny things. Were they pretty well behaved? I mean, lots of the kids I meet nowadays are not well behaved.
  • [00:54:33] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: They're not. But my group, the ones that I had, they were very well behaved, very well behaved. I'm glad to say, because, as I say, I started them, you see, and I started them just like I wanted them to hold out. I really could not say that I had any problems with the children until some of them perhaps reach the maybe the teenage that level, then you have a little problem with keeping them in the choir, keeping them, being faithful and loyal in their attendance to their rehearsals.
  • [00:55:26] CATHERINE ANDERSON: Do you think that the children are more rambunctious today because there is less religious influence in their lives, or don't you?
  • [00:55:37] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: Yes, less, very much so. This I was reading where he said that child delinquency would be less of a problem if let's see, something about adult. If the adults had taken charge in an earlier stage, you know, that it would have been less of a problem. But now the young people are exposed to so many different things now than they were when I came to Ann Arbor, I shall say, I never heard of LSD and all of these other things when I came to Ann Arbor. They might have been in existence. I don't know.
  • [00:56:28] CATHERINE ANDERSON: I don't either.
  • [00:56:29] LINNIA KNOX CARPENTER: See, I do not know. As I say, again, I will have to repeat, I haven't been exposed to a lot of these things, you know. Then it's surprising at how much, I'll say it's been more than 10 years now. When you are more or less, and I'm saying that, and I have to laugh when I say it, when I say, I'm not as active. I'm not out in the public as much as I was before this handicap. But when I tell anybody that they if shake their heads, Miss Carpenter, I can't see any I can't see any difference. That you're gone all the time and you're attending all of these meetings. When I hear from you, you're either in California, or you're in Buffalo? I can't see any difference. But there is a difference. There is really a difference, though. I don't know how it is or where it is, but there is a great difference. It makes a great difference when you can't navigate as you once did. No one would expect you to navigate, not being able to see like you did. Now, every place I go, I have to and instead of taking down notes and everything, I had to use my tape recorder to take down the notes for me.