Childhood Remembrance of Bugs
Search Terms: “water bugs”, *water bugs, “waterbugs” *water bugs, “wasps”, *wasps, “wasps + childhood, *gnats, “gnats” + “south carolina”, Spiders, and “WASPs”
When I first began my search, I wasn’t entirely sure about what I wanted to focus on. I do not have any bugs that I like, or insects, since I have a big fear of both species. This led me to ask my parents about their experiences with insects and bugs. I asked the questions: were there any that they liked or feared, some that they remember from growing up in the south, and other questions. My mother unsurprisingly said she had (and still has) an immense fear of spiders and cockroaches. My dad mentioned that in his house during the summer, there were a lot of water bugs and gnats. Lastly, they both recalled getting stung by wasps during the hot summers in Charleston, SC. With this, I had a list of different bugs and insects I wanted to search for and started looking within the archive. Throughout my search, I found that many of the bugs my parents listed are familiar to areas with humid climates. This applies to cockroaches, waterbugs, and gnats. I believe spiders can be found almost anywhere except for the extreme cold.
Newton Collier
Sallie Ann Robinson
I first looked up a bug that my father often recalled from his childhood during the summer was the abundance of gnats that would make their way into their kitchen or backyard. Chef and Culinary Historian Sallie Ann Robinson, who also grew up in South Carolina, recalls the same instances of gnats growing up. “...the warmer weather, the gnats would just drive you crazy, but we had this thing called a smoke pot that you would take cow dung and old cloth, and put it in a bucket and you light it, and what it does is smoke, this real strong smelly smoke would run gnats off. It would run you off too.” Interestingly, another HistoryMaker would also remember the use of smoke to chase off gnats in their childhood. R&B trumpet player and R&B trombone player Newton Collier recalls, “...you take rags and take ‘em out in the yard and just burn ‘em. And they keep the smoke—smoke would keep the gnats away.” After these two interviews, it made me wonder if our family should start using smoke techniques to get gnats away from our yard and kitchen.
Preston Jackson
Another bug that my father brought up a lot was water bugs. I am not entirely sure what my father meant by “water bugs,” but I saw a few historymakers mention water bugs. Sculptor Preston Jackson talked a bit about water bugs when recalling the sights of his childhood. “Well, to me sights were the automobiles of the 1940s..but what really caught my attention was General Motors [General Motors Corporation; General Motors Company], and the cars took on a rather cartoonish like appearance….and then automobiles that streamlined that were coupes and straight back you know reminded me of the large water bugs that would be in our kitchen when we turned on the lights, and they’d scurry.” This is very similar to what my father used to tell me about these bugs, only that they would be in his family bathroom and would try to hide in the bathroom drain when they would come into the room. Water bugs are essentially the water versions of cockroaches, but they are very different altogether.
Francis Frazier
I came across another story from Civic activist and education consultant Francis Frazier. In this interview, she recalled visiting a family while volunteering at Norfolk State University. “...and Wiliams [ph] let me in. There were about eight or nine of them. And when I went to visit them, they had one of those heaters like right in the middle of the room, you know, where you cooked, you did everything right there. And it was really funny, I was sitting in a chair. And they had lots of critters and things in their house. And so I watched this roach, like maybe it was in the corner, and I just watched him like a beeline up to me and come up to my chair. And in my head - cause I know they’re watching everything, right? And I'm saying to myself, ‘what am I going to do about this roach?’ It was like a big water bug.” This story reminds me of something my mother always says, “you can’t eat at everybody’s house.” But this leads me to the following bug/insect of discussion: cockroaches.
The Honorable Hazel O’Leary
My mother is very afraid of cockroaches and spiders. In Charleston, she often recalled the flying cockroaches that would come out in the summer and seemingly fly blind into your face. There was another HistoryMaker who had a very similar experience. University president and cabinet appointee, The Honorable Hazel O’Leary, the first African American United States Secretary of Energy and the President of Fisk University, discussed this when she was moving into her dorm at Fisk. “..I came in August, really. And my father brought me here, which was very interesting. My introduction to life at Fisk involved opening a dresser drawer in my dorm room in Jubilee Hall and having a huge thing fly out of the drawer. It was a flying cockroach. My father stood there laughing and said, “Welcome to the real world.” This story definitely made me laugh, as this is something that I can see my father saying to me as well. I had my own experience with a flying cockroach my freshmen year, which ended up with my roommate and I in the hallway of Manley Hall and while two other girls in our dorm helped kill the insect.
Gerald Johnson
One of the few things my mother and I share is our fear of spiders. I could never explain it, but Spiders have always freaked me out. I was not the only one with this sentiment, Historymaker Gerald Johnson, who is the CEO of the Charlotte Post, recalls his childhood fear of spiders, “...I grew up being scared of spiders because we had to keep the coal under the house to do the heating of the furnace, and so growing up, spiders used to collect along the side of the house, big spiders, and we would have to go under the house and get the coal, and I would always be scared of those, those big spiders.” Growing up (and probably still now), every spider I encountered always seemed bigger than it really was, but that is probably due to my fear of them.
Margaret Copeland
Charles Atkins
During our conversation, my parents remembered vividly being stung by wasps while playing outside in the yard. Corporate Executive Margaret Copeland also shares this same sentiment when recalling her earliest childhood memory, “....as I would run the length of the yard to go to the back door, he would jump on me and jump on me as we were — as I'd be coming — so I have those kinds of memories. I remember being stung by a wasp or bee..” For context, she recalled a memory of running in the yard with her childhood dog Mr. Tibbs or Tibby. Investment Banker Charles N. Atkins also remembers getting stung by a wasp in childhood, “..I remember a small swing set in the back. I remember getting stung by a wasp and my dad [Charles N. Atkins Sr.] helping to treat it.” I can recall when my brother got stung by a wasp in a similar situation. He was swinging on the swing in our backyard, and a wasp stung him on the head.. Similarly, my father did treat the bump get received with some Neosporin.
James Philips
One thing I did find extremely interesting when searching for stories about Wasps was an acronym, White Anglo Saxons Protestants. Though this does not have to do much about the insect, I still found the stories regarding this acronym extremely interesting as it is the first time I hear of such a phrase. Visual Artist James Philips was the first Historymaker I saw use this term while talking about the racial discrimination he faced in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. “..First of all, growing up in the south, all I’d hear was WASPs [White Anglo-Saxon Protestants]. I never, well, I knew there was an Italy, and there was a Germany, but I never ran into Germans or any Italians or any Irish people. You know, it was just all WASPs.” For context, Philips describes the different forms of racism he experienced up north versus when he lived in the south.
Juan Willaims
The second HistoryMaker I saw use this term was Newspaper columnist, radio host, and television personality Juan Williams. In his interview, he discussed leaving Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood in New York, when he got a scholarship to attend Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, New York. “....The thing about the schools I had gone to in Brooklyn, where they were integrated, was a lot of Jewish people. Even where my church was located, St. Marks was surrounded by Orthodox Jews. So I was accustomed to dealing with whites, but now I was going from a predominantly black and Jewish community to one filled with WASPs [White Anglo Saxon Protestants], and maybe not Wasps.”
Given the connotations, these two instances made me curious to learn what this acronym meant. Through my research, I discovered that WASPs is a sociological term used to describe Americans who were a part of the white upper class. This distinction was made between Italians, Germans, Irish, and then WASPs as the latter was seen as white individuals with an “American” identity rather than the three former. There are many examples of these individuals throughout American history, think of the Bushes or Theodore Roosevelt or many wealthy white families that come from “old money” and could be classified as WASPs. Though I have found throughout different articles that the WASPs “elites” have seemingly died off or disappeared with our society's move to diversity. I found this very interesting on the archive and thought I would include it in my blog post because I don’t believe many have heard this term used before.
I was very surprised that it was difficult to find many stories in the archive relating to insects that I wanted to discuss. There were not a lot of stories on water bugs which are relatively common within many southern states due to the humid climate, or flying cockroaches. I was also surprised by the number of wasps’ stories about the insect. I saw many stories that talked about the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs), but not many discussed the insect, which I feel that we have all had a run-in with a wasp sometime in our lives. But besides that, I was very excited over the connections I made with the different HistoryMakers during this writing process. Many had stories I could relate to or had similar instances happen to me. It was also lovely to hear that my parents were not overexaggerating the interactions they have had with many bugs, that flying cockroach story was very similar to something my mother and I went through as well.
Ambassador Update:
The HistoryMakers has been put front and center on our library's new website. When going towards e-resources, there is a specific section that highlights Video resources and lists different databases, including the HistoryMakers Digital Archive. I am glad to see that it is highlighted and that students won’t have to do an “extensive” search in the database portal.
Work Cited
Juan Williams (The HistoryMakers A2012.061), interviewed by Larry Crowe, June 15, 2012, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 11, Juan Williams talks about earning a scholarship to attend Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, New York.
James Phillips (The HistoryMakers A2013.210), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 5, 2013, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 8, James Phillips describes his experience of racial discrimination in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
Margot Copeland (The HistoryMakers A2014.045), interviewed by Larry Crowe, February 10, 2014, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 5, Margot Copeland describes her earliest childhood memory.
Hazel Trice Edney (The HistoryMakers A2013.339), interviewed by Larry Crowe, December 3, 2013, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 5, Hazel Trice Edney describes the sights, sounds and smells of her childhood.
Charles N. Atkins (The HistoryMakers A2016.040), interviewed by Harriette Cole, December 16, 2016, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 6, Charles N. Atkins describes his community in rural Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Preston Jackson (The HistoryMakers A2006.168), interviewed by Larry Crowe, December 13, 2006, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 4, Preston Jackson describes the sights, sounds and smells of his childhood.
Frances Frazier (The HistoryMakers A2012.078), interviewed by Larry Crowe, April 4, 2012, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 4, Frances Frazier talks about volunteering in Norfolk, Virginia's Ghent neighborhood while a student at Norfolk State College.
Gerald Johnson (The HistoryMakers A2002.217), interviewed by Larry Crowe, December 3, 2002, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 7, Gerald Johnson describes the sights, sounds, and smells of Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Honorable Hazel O'Leary (The HistoryMakers A2007.090), interviewed by Larry Crowe, March 15, 2007, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 5, The Honorable Hazel O'Leary recalls her decision to attend Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Sallie Ann Robinson (The HistoryMakers A2017.045), interviewed by Denise Gines, February 9, 2017, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 1, Sallie Ann Robinson remembers hunting and fishing on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.
Newton Collier (The HistoryMakers A2002.014), interviewed by Samuel Adams, March 18, 2002, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 6, Newton Collier describes the sights, sounds, and smells of Macon, Georgia.
