Editor’s Note: Dr. Di Ann Jones, associate professor of history at Hast Carolina University and author
of Mama Learned Us to Work: Farm Women in the New South (Cltapcl Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2002), presented a lecture on the background of and inspiration for the book at her
alma mater, Cates County High School, on October 23, 2002.
Teaching, Learning, and Dreaming:
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Learned Us to Work: Farm Women in the New South
Dr. Lu Ann Jones
As I thought about the brief comments I wanted to make. I’ve recalled a lot of personal
history and thought a lot about the many people who made a big difference in my life and
made this book possible. I decided to organize my comments around the themes of teach¬
ing, learning, and dreaming.
Because this book is a dream come true I want to start with the dreaming, and how
important it is for us to learn how to dream — and to dream extravagantly. In that vein, I
want to dedicate these remarks to a former teacher at Gates County High School who is
quite ill now, Mrs. Eunice Brown.
When I was a student here between 1968 and 1972, Mrs. Brown taught courses in
American literature and speech and drama. I had many excellent teachers, but Mrs. Brown
was extraordinary for several reasons. First, she was brilliant. She was the first intellectual I
ever encountered. Ideas mattered to her. Of course, we use words and language to express
our ideas, so words and language mattered to her, too. She was the teacher who first
helped me to appreciate the beauty and power of language and inspired me to want to put
words together in a way that captured their rhythm and cadence and precise meanings.
Mrs. Brown was a gifted teacher, I have come to realize, because she nurtured the par¬
ticular talents of each of her many students. We were individuals to her, unique and spe¬
cial. She valued us all, whether we were the class cut-up who scraped by with C’s and
needed to take himself a bit more seriously, or the all-too-earnest A student who needed
to take herself a little less seriously. She saw the talents locked inside us and gave us keys to
our treasures with creative assignments.
One of Mrs. Brown’s most creative assignments was the midterm exam for the speech
and drama class. We were to give a speech about three things we wanted to accomplish in
the future. What she was really doing was giving us license to dream — and to dream
extravagantly. The other night I dug out my notebook from that course (yes, I still have it,
thirty years and countless moves later) and found the rough draft for that talk. It was
uncanny — and comforting — to recall how well I knew myself at the age of seventeen.
“Since I tend to be so fickle,” I began the talk, “it’s very hard to say three things I want to
do because it’s very likely that I’ll change my mind tomorrow.” I have indeed been fickle,
blessedly so. A willingness to keep my options open and to take risks has led me on some
great intellectual adventures.
Now the body of the speech begins. “One thing I am sure I want to do is travel around
the United States.” I followed this statement with an exposition about wanting to meet
people and “find out what people all over the United States are like.” As you wall see, that
dream came true. Second, I said, “When I finish college I want to have a profession. ... I
haven’t decided yet what I want to do but I do know I want to work with people. . . .
Whatever I decide to do it’s got to be challenging and rewarding.” Today it might not
seem particularly bold or daring for a teenage girl to say she wants a career, but thirty years
ago it was something that we had to assert.
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