There Went The Neighborhood - Audio Interview: Paula Miller

Sat, 08/10/2024 - 2:18am

When: June 9, 2021

Paula Miller, the youngest of the Dixon siblings, attended Jones School in first and second grade. When Jones School closed in 1965, she was bused to Pittsfield Elementary School, where she felt alienated from her fellow classmates. She went on to attend Spelman College and became a teacher.

More interviews are available in the There Went The Neighborhood Interview Archive.

Transcript

• [00:00:02] HEIDI MORSE: Today is June 9th, 2021. I'm Heidi Morse with the Ann Arbor District Library Archives. I'm speaking with Paula Miller about Jones School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Could you please say and spell your name?
• [00:00:18] PAULA MILLER: My name is Paula Miller, P-A-U-L-A, Paula, Miller, M-I-L-L-E-R.
• [00:00:26] HEIDI MORSE: When and where did you grow up?
• [00:00:29] PAULA MILLER: I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
• [00:00:38] HEIDI MORSE: Around what time, what decade were you a child?
• [00:00:42] PAULA MILLER: I was born in 1957.
• [00:00:52] HEIDI MORSE: What stands out to you the most about your childhood and growing up in Ann Arbor?
• [00:00:58] PAULA MILLER: Wow, so many things. In fact, the first thing comes to mind is the smells--of the ground around the swing set, [LAUGHTER] and the farmers market and farm bureau there. The university, the influences. First experience with a family that was Asian, going to their house, and having to take my shoes off. The clean floors, the maintenance people that my family knew, and just a host of things. The milkman bringing the milk to the classroom.
• [00:01:44] HEIDI MORSE: Was that for a snack or lunchtime?
• [00:01:48] PAULA MILLER: Yeah. I remember having it for a snack.
• [00:02:00] HEIDI MORSE: Now, what was your family like? You had siblings?
• [00:02:04] PAULA MILLER: I'm the youngest of six and my dad was hardworking. He was a maintenance man and during the day if there's anything that broke in the house he could fix. Anything, electricity. We did have everything that we needed. According to me being little, I saw him just do everything. My mom did day work, like the help, and they worked very hard. I stayed with my dad all day, my mom all night. We never had a babysitter.
• [00:02:41] HEIDI MORSE: So they divided their time watching the children?
• [00:02:45] PAULA MILLER: Absolutely. My dad would plant all the plants in the backyard and my mom would cook from the plants. Make pies and everything that we needed. I remember going to the meat market to get all the meat and I remember the sawdust on the floor. Everything was in the community. I remember going to the bread store, those are two stores we had to go to. Because we had cherry and apple and raspberry and rhubarb. I know I'm forgetting something. And then he would grow vegetables, and we had everything. It was just so awesome.
• [00:03:28] HEIDI MORSE: You don't see that now as much nowadays.
• [00:03:32] PAULA MILLER: No, we had peach trees. My mom would make me pies from the yard. I feel it was a holistic experience that kids maybe don't get anymore. She would take the newspaper and make patterns and make our clothes. I remember going to the fabric store, she would sew all of our things from scratch.
• [00:04:08] HEIDI MORSE: Now your parents, did they move to Ann Arbor?
• [00:04:11] PAULA MILLER: Yeah, that was part of that migration. My mom moved up--now I'm just thinking what I know from being young like that. My mom moved up because her mom was sick and had to go to the University of Michigan. I think she had bronchitis very badly and my dad came up to join her.
• [00:04:39] HEIDI MORSE: What grades did you attend Jones School in Ann Arbor?
• [00:04:43] PAULA MILLER: K through first. [Corrected via phone: first through second grade.]
• [00:04:51] HEIDI MORSE: Do you remember how you got there?
• [00:04:55] PAULA MILLER: You mean how I get to school every day? Yeah, I would walk. Oh, my God, I'm sure I would walk. My mom knew the crossing guard, it was Officer Owens, and sometimes she would sit on the porch and that's how I learned to walk home by myself. Because she let me walk that far and she'd meet me and begin to walk me home. Then after a while, I learned to walk with my friends and it was great to know Officer Owens and that their house was right there. He was so fabulous. Sometimes he would take peppermints and put them in his hand so when he held our hand and walk across the street, he'd give me a peppermint because he didn't want to treat me special, [LAUGHTER] so he gave me a peppermint in my hand. It was just so great.
• [00:05:45] HEIDI MORSE: Do you remember what a typical school day was like?
• [00:05:50] PAULA MILLER: No. It's hard because it's so long ago. But I remember that everybody was in charge of you. I remember once going through two people which happened to be the maintenance people talking, and she took my hand and led me around them. I felt so corrected and I'll never forget that. That was Mrs. Swing, and she knew my family. Everyone in the school had a role in helping the kids to do the right thing. In most cases, our families all knew each other. I remember my sister at that time she was taking fencing and she was good at it I thought. What else did she do? Fencing and something else, I know she played the violin. I'm trying to think is there anything else, she did quite a few things. About the school day, I had a very rigorous teacher. I had a very sweet teacher in kindergarten, Mrs. Murray. Then I had a wonderful teacher in first grade. I don't even remember her last name now because I still talk to her to this day. But she was my first encounter with having a Black professional in front of me. She wore her hair natural, and I think her husband was going to the university at that time. I ended up babysitting for her and my sister did. She became friends with my big sister--she's 18 years older than me. I guess my sister would come to the conferences my mother couldn't make. I just think the university fed into the school which fed into us. The milkman would come through, drop off his stuff. I remember the windows being open. I can see the floors shined to the hilt and it was just very comforting.
• [00:08:08] HEIDI MORSE: Do you remember what kinds of activities you participated in?
• [00:08:15] PAULA MILLER: I remember recess. I don't remember gym for myself. Maybe I remember climbing a rope. I don't remember much but I just remember the fencing because it's so impressive. To be little and see your sister's face covered with the mask and just the sword so that was interesting.
• [00:08:41] HEIDI MORSE: Yeah.
• [00:08:42] PAULA MILLER: I remember the cakewalks. I don't know if that was at school, somehow it's in my head, and I loved the cakewalks. I feel like that's something that's going to be specific for me because when I say cakewalk to people now they're like, what is a cakewalk? [LAUGHTER] It was so much fun. The community would participate and we learned to give our things and to give nice things. Oh my God, it was great.
• [00:09:16] HEIDI MORSE: Would you mind describing more about what a cakewalk is for the record?
• [00:09:20] PAULA MILLER: Okay. Well, I guess you would walk around a circle with the music on. I'm maybe not telling it correctly because I was so young. The numbers will be on the floor. If they stopped the music and you end up on a number, get the cake. That's what it would be like. To me, it was real farm country back then. Everything just basic. Very basic and very pure.
• [00:09:47] HEIDI MORSE: Who were your classmates at Jones, were they neighbors or?
• [00:09:51] PAULA MILLER: Neighbors.
• [00:09:52] HEIDI MORSE: Okay.
• [00:09:52] PAULA MILLER: Neighbors absolutely. I still have one friend now. We were five when we met and we're still friends. She lives in California now and she teaches ethics to the doctors and nurses of various hospitals, so awesome. She knows me better than anybody in the whole world.
• [00:10:16] HEIDI MORSE: It's good you can keep in touch. How would you describe the education that you got at Jones? It may be hard to say because you were so young but did you feel it prepared you for your next. [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:10:32] PAULA MILLER: I'm going to speak for my experience and I can't say whether it prepared me. Maybe I'd have to be a little older to say but I would say that it was a holistic experience. At that time, you know how wealthy kids only have to learn certain things because they're never going to encounter something. But us we were in a farmland so we would learn how to, I don't know the terminology, where you would cut a groove in a tree and you would join a peach and apple tree. I got home and I told my dad about that and he tried it with me. He was so excited that I was learning that in school because he--migrating from the South--was an agriculture person. We learned the things I think that were valuable for us during that time in our community. I got to see a professional and it happened to be a Black person and to see her doing things at the university but relating to my parents in such a way, is so incredible, and why I will send my grandkids now to a Black college, which I did attend. They need to get an experience that's all-inclusive. That's what Jones school did for me.
• [00:11:58] HEIDI MORSE: Do you recall what the relationship among the teachers was like? It sounds like you had this one Black teacher role model. Did you know whether she had good relationships with other teachers?
• [00:12:16] PAULA MILLER: I didn't know because as a kid, I didn't pay attention to that and I didn't know until now when I think about her being even Black. But my kindergarten teacher was very sweet to me and she was my good friend that knew me since I was five since she spoiled me. But I had this particular thing that I couldn't drink the milk and she just catered to me so much and she was white. I don't know if she got along with Madeleine or not. I didn't get to see that aspect of it.
• [00:12:57] HEIDI MORSE: Do you remember when Jones was shut down in the '60s?
• [00:13:04] PAULA MILLER: I do. But what I remember is just unique to me because I was so young. I know there were people for and against, I know that. People didn't want to put their children on a school bus. I know that. School bus was a big deal. That's what I remember. Just having to catch the school bus now. There's no more Mr. Owens or anything like that. It takes you out of the community where you don't have your parents and you have to judge things from a kid's perspective and there's subtleties there, maybe racism, that you don't identify until maybe you're older.
• [00:13:58] HEIDI MORSE: Can you tell me about where you went after Jones and what the transition was like for you?
• [00:14:07] PAULA MILLER: I went to Pittsfield and I think my mom knew the principal and the secretary. I remember the secretary, a very well-dressed woman and I remember her legs and her fuzzy, curly hair and Mr. Stevenson, the principal. I remember them being very kind to me. Subtleties though were for me, I might not say it chronologically in the right way, were two instances. One when we were talking about suntans, I guess. I don't know what the segue was, but the teacher said for us Black kids that when we get a suntan, we get suntans, she said, but for us, our skin looks a little dirty when we get a suntan. To digest that, I feel like to this day, maybe she didn't know how to describe it better because she didn't appear to me as a person that had Black people around her growing up or in her life. I feel like we were her Black experience. People don't mean things but they say things and if a kid is around, it's everlasting. One thing I felt like was purposeful and that is that I told you my dad was a maintenance man and my mom did day work. I didn't have the experience of having a debate team. I never was in a debate team or trained by anyone. She had a day where we had the debate teams and she said the subject matter is going to be the Civil War and slavery. There were kids there whose fathers were doctors, lawyers from their community. Their community was, I'm not going to say that they were better off, but they were professionals. They knew how to debate. All I knew how to say-- Of course, you put me on the side where--I don't know, put me or I chose my side? Out of fairness, let's just say I chose my side. Of course, I wasn't for slavery but all I could do is from an emotional perspective. I didn't know how to research it even though she gave us library time to do it. At the end, the white kids were smiling. Of course, they won. But how does it make you feel like you don't have tools? It's like a [INAUDIBLE] person going to a lawyer, you don't have tools. But she gave me the experience. I'll never forget it. As I grew older, I understood what happened.
• [00:16:48] HEIDI MORSE: Sorry you were put in that position.
• [00:16:51] PAULA MILLER: Yeah. I remember her name and everything, but maybe I shouldn't say it because I wonder if she even knows that she was. I'm going to say her name. Is that okay?
• [00:17:01] HEIDI MORSE: It's okay.
• [00:17:02] PAULA MILLER: I hope that if she's alive she knows that that's a forever memory in me. I feel like she could have taught us about, defined what debate was and how it works and now, but she didn't do any of those.
• [00:17:20] HEIDI MORSE: Do you remember what grade you were for that experience?
• [00:17:28] PAULA MILLER: That was sixth grade, the suntan thing. That was her and it was sixth grade. Not going to say that I didn't have beautiful experiences. My third grade teacher would come and get me the summers and take me out to the lake in her cottage to fish. She taught me how to put a worm on a hook and she spent the day with me. Her husband was passing away so to pass the time for her, she'd love to come get me and spend time with me. Sometimes she'd get my friend, like my best friend or whatever. She put her top-down, she had a dog named Rex and she just became a part of me to this day. Sometimes I even dream about her to this day. She was a good person. That was Mrs. Brown.
• [00:18:12] HEIDI MORSE: Also at Pittsfield?
• [00:18:14] PAULA MILLER: Yeah, absolutely.
• [00:18:19] HEIDI MORSE: Did you have friends who were relocated to Pittsfield or other schools?
• [00:18:24] PAULA MILLER: Absolutely. One friend actually moved away. That friend I told you about, they moved away. Her mom didn't like the idea so they moved away and I developed some friends too. My girls would have me come over the house after school and I learned about foods and how people eat differently because they always put ketchup on my bologna sandwich and I wasn't used to that. She packed something for me to take on maybe go tobogganing. She'd pack a lunch for me because I didn't expect to go or something and she know I was far away from my house and they were good to me. To this day, you don't know if people do things because they think Black people are underprivileged, or just the things that they do. You think about that when you get older.
• [00:19:21] HEIDI MORSE: Just looking back not knowing what the exact motivation was?
• [00:19:24] PAULA MILLER: Exactly, just don't. But I did have a camping experience, one day it's cold out there you got to wear your clothes to bed. [LAUGHTER] Those things I can never forget. I loved tobogganing. It was so fun. We had ice skating at the park. That's what we would do and I couldn't ice skate because I had asthma so bad.
• [00:19:53] HEIDI MORSE: Thinking about the closure of Jones school, do you remember who supported it and who opposed it?
• [00:20:02] PAULA MILLER: No, I really don't. I think maybe my mom supported it because she was just for better opportunities for us. She thought there was a better opportunity. Maybe listen, I can't speak for her, she's not here but something about her maybe thought she'd see it through. I don't think my friend's mom was for it because they moved away. That's all that I know.
• [00:20:39] HEIDI MORSE: How would you say that that neighborhood around Jones school that you grew up in has changed over the years?
• [00:20:46] PAULA MILLER: Well, I think that it took opportunities away from the community. For instance, Diroff's store, we would always go there to get lunch or something. Now he didn't have the influx of parents and kids going in the store. I might be mispronouncing the name. I think it's Diroff's, I'm not sure, on Detroit Street. Then Officer Owens, he's not working anymore, that was his job. The maintenance people, I don't know if they came out to any other schools. I don't know, but I do know my folks knew them. I saw one of them at my sister's funeral just a couple of years ago. But I'm sure it affected the community largely. I know the farmers market has just transitioned into some cosmopolitan whatever. It's sad because in the farmers market were the fish people who were my neighbors. I think, I was so young that they had a lucrative business and how proud was I to walk past them and see them do a fish market with all their kids and everything. Their grandfather lived next door to me and he was an entrepreneur. He had a garbage business. They had a good business and then their kids had the fish market. Then I go to the fish market and I see what's happened to the fish market? They're not there anymore. The neighborhood changed.
• [00:22:38] HEIDI MORSE: Do you remember any discussions about segregation or urban renewal in your neighborhood?
• [00:22:50] PAULA MILLER: I'm trying to speak from my experience, not from what I think I know now. I don't recall any experiences like that. I didn't get any from my mom because I never took stories home because the wittiness behind and the subtleties behind what was done to make me feel inferior, surpassed what a kid would be able to come home and explain to you. Yeah. Sometimes, when I'm around and I think about it, I'm like wow.
• [00:23:31] HEIDI MORSE: Are there any of those subtleties that you'd like to share at this time?
• [00:23:36] PAULA MILLER: I think I told you. The biggest one is the one I thought about the debate. The debate was very gut wrenching. There will be times where people would take me to their house, where they didn't want to do it. They had their own family thing to do, but it made you feel you're excluded in some ways, and because you catch a bus, I had those feelings sometimes.
• [00:24:11] HEIDI MORSE: What school did you attend after Pittsfield?
• [00:24:14] PAULA MILLER: I went to Scarlett Junior High School. What did I experience there? At Scarlett, you felt a dissension. The people that you had for friends, the Caucasians that were your friends in elementary, were no longer friends in junior high school. They almost didn't speak to you. So you begin to have clusters, like race groups. I remember that. I remember we didn't have a Black history month. We had a little sit-out. I go protest to get Black history, I remember that, that I was a part of. I'm trying to think if there's anything else that sticks out. Nothing more. But I will go back. We had sock hops. [LAUGHTER] Go to the sock hop in 7th grade, I remember going to that. That was it.
• [00:25:34] HEIDI MORSE: I know you said you were the youngest of your siblings, did you feel that your experience differed from their school experience?
• [00:25:43] PAULA MILLER: Oh my God, I was like a Martian when I got home. My dialect, everything about the way I spoke was like entertainment for them. [LAUGHTER] I would sit down at the table. I'm talking about things that aren't relevant to them because my experience is different from theirs. Some days, I felt ostracized. But it wasn't coming from a bad place from them. It was almost like I was entertainment for them. "What did she say?" It was like that. Sure, it affected me. Absolutely.
• [00:26:19] HEIDI MORSE: Are you talking about after college or in high school? [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:26:22] PAULA MILLER: No. I'm talking about during school. When they would be home and I was last out starting at my earliest experience, when we'd sit at the dinner table and I would say things, it was big different deal for them. That's how I felt, maybe it wasn't for them but I'm just speaking from experience.
• [00:26:47] HEIDI MORSE: Yeah. Is there anything else you'd like to share at this time about your school experience in Ann Arbor or the neighborhood that you grew up in?
• [00:27:02] PAULA MILLER: It was a beautiful experience. When I see the Wall Street thing. Was it Oklahoma? Yes. When a community is prosperous, I get that. And I feel we gave up a lot of things. I missed some things by moving out. But as an older kid, I felt when I got back to Huron, things were starting to come together, maybe, as the kids were all in one school. I loved that we had a big science [program], a whole woods for science. That's an Ann Arbor experience that some other kids don't have. I feel like we've benefited from the university a lot. I had a dance teacher that would dance at Nixon's inauguration. The university really helped these kids at school almost have that experience that New York kids have because they're exposed to so many different people in the world and they never leave their community. They still have a very rich experience. They can go to a store and eat different foods. I felt I had some of that because I did live in Ann Arbor, and I did benefit from some of the things from our community, the University of Michigan. I had tutors. I had a tutor from England. Her mom sent all of her childhood books to me, so I had some very rich experiences. That's my first experience to begin to know Paddington. I think that's his name. [LAUGHTER] But I hope I'm answering. I don't know.
• [00:28:52] HEIDI MORSE: Yeah.
• [00:28:52] PAULA MILLER: I went to the Black colleges. I ended up graduating from Spelman. My experience was again rich like Jones School. I saw Dr. Martin Luther King's family so much. His dad was in the grocery store line. His sister was the secretary. Julian Bond's mom was the librarian. But I went on to pick those schools because I needed it. I felt that I wasn't seen, and that when I went to those schools, you're seen and you're up for scholarship and stuff because I just needed to be valid. You what I mean? To be relevant.
• [00:29:43] HEIDI MORSE: Did you have any Black teachers in school after Jones?
• [00:29:50] PAULA MILLER: Yes, I did.
• [00:29:51] HEIDI MORSE: Okay.
• [00:29:51] PAULA MILLER: Yes, I did.
• [00:29:55] HEIDI MORSE: Like at Scarlett or Huron?
• [00:30:05] PAULA MILLER: Not sure about Scarlett. But at Huron, I did. At Scarlett, probably there was one or two. I don't know. Another was a Black math teacher. But it's a shame that I have to think that hard.
• [00:30:34] HEIDI MORSE: I'm glad you were able to find the rich learning community it sounds like you did at Spelman.
• [00:30:40] PAULA MILLER: Yeah, and I became what I am. I did my master's there. That's a whole different experience. I feel like because of Ann Arbor, I can do that. Find the good in everything.
• [00:31:05] HEIDI MORSE: Well, thank you very much for sharing your memories and your perspective today.
• [00:31:11] PAULA MILLER: Okay. Thanks for asking. [LAUGHTER] It's only my perspective. I'm not speaking for everybody in the community, but that was my experience.
• [00:31:20] HEIDI MORSE: Yeah.
• [00:31:21] PAULA MILLER: Thanks for asking.