Lack: My name is Adina Lack and I’m the archivist at UNCW and I’m here today with Sherman Hayes, university librarian and we are interviewing Mary Bellamy at her home on Church Street, downtown Wilmington.  If you could, please state your full name for the tape.

Bellamy:    Mary Cameron Dixon Bellamy.

Lack:    I’d like you to just begin by talking about your involvement with the New Hanover County schools.  I understand you were first a teacher at New Hanover County.

Bellamy:    I graduated from East Carolina in 1947 and was hired in June.  I was hired to teach at New Hanover and also teach at Wilmington College.  Subsequently they asked me to teach at Wilmington College.  It was opening in September.  I was signing a contract in June to teach at New Hanover High School.  I was graduated and certified in Spanish and French and social studies.  So I had a job teaching, I was hired to teach Spanish at New Hanover High School.

Mr. Hamilton, who was principal then, said we want you to teach part-time.  We want you to teach after school for the college we are going to open.  It opened in the beginning at New Hanover High School.  He wanted me to teach after school in the fall and teach Spanish. 

Lack:    And that was your first semester then?

Bellamy:    And he said also, I asked well do you have any work for summer school, I was getting married that summer in July and I said I need a job terribly (laughter).  He said he would talk to Dale Spencer who was an assistant principal.  He said, “We’ve got an interesting job.  It will be the kind of teaching you may never do again, but you will learn”.  I walked across the hall and we had an extension from Chapel Hill.  They had extension centers.  See there were so many veterans coming back and they had an extension from Chapel Hill.

They needed to teach veterans.  They’d been doing it, I think, since ’46.  He said he had a summer group and they needed Spanish I, Spanish II, French I, French II and this would be the kind of teaching that I might never get to do again.  Anyway it was from 8:30 to 2:30 and you took about a thirty-minute break.  You had individualization of instruction from the word go.  I learned, and the interesting thing was that I had been at the high school at New Hanover and I had the veterans, many of which I had in class.  Then I taught them.

We had a grouping.  It wasn’t a large group.  It was eighteen members and so I grouped them and we started working together.  I had a summer’s experience before starting to teach.  So it made it very interesting and all of them were veterans.  So it was a grouping thing.  They had a group and I had a syllabus for them and I said that we were going to work it this way.  We’ve got to get oral in.  I’ve got to do explanations.  So white board and chalk, you didn't have all these recording things then.

So with that, I learned.  I learned more than they did.  So I had a happy experience then.  They nearly all knew me.  I was coming home to get married here.  We were married in the home here and they started teasing me unmercifully.  You just got to get out that door and catch that bus home because I was getting married at 6:00 in the afternoon and I was teaching that morning.  I said there is no way that Mr. Hamilton or Mr. Spencer is going to let me go.  I haven’t asked.  I don’t want to ask so you just get back to work.

So, I was teaching.  It was a terrific experience for college work in the fall.  It was my beginning year.  The way we worked it was I worked in groups--individual groups.  It wasn’t a large group, it was eighteen, but everybody showed up, Spanish I, Spanish II, French I, French II, and we worked it.  I said when they were ready to take a test they should let me go over it with them individually.  I would make up the test so everything was individualized.  They worked at their own speed and I said, “You have to take at least one test a week.”  We stopped the conversation and so it was just fantastic.

Lack:    Did you know a lot of them from before?

Bellamy:    Most of them, yes.  There were eighteen and I must have known fourteen of them.

Lack:    You must have been about their age.

Bellamy:   Yes, they were in many cases older than I.  It was interesting.  So that particular year in the fall, Wilmington had voted a supplement to create Wilmington College and I was to teach Spanish, not Spanish and French, but I was to teach the Spanish.  That particular year we taught after school on Monday, Wednesday, Fridays at New Hanover High School and I taught all day long the New Hanover High schedule and from about 4:00 to 6:00, I had two classes, so it was 4:00 to 6:00 at New Hanover High.

Then they moved us to Isaac Bear.  In my first year, then when they moved the classes to Isaac Bear, I taught there. 

INTERVIEWER 2 (Hayes):   Now when did that happen?  You said the first semester was actually in the high school?

Bellamy:    Yes.

Hayes:   And then how soon did they give their own kind of space, that Isaac Bear space?

Bellamy:    I may be mistaken, I know my summer was at New Hanover High School, but the date is 1947, but we didn't get to move in right away.  I think we really did move into Isaac Bear in 1947, but we had to share the building with the high school because we had the downstairs floor at Isaac Bear, which was caddy-corner across the street from New Hanover High.  Then upstairs they let the commercial business courses stay upstairs.  So we shared downstairs and then eventually rooms upstairs.  I taught, I was contracted to teach for ’47-’48, ’48-’49.

I taught at the Isaac Bear building and I was present for the registration of the first class in the Isaac Bear building in 1947 and then I again, at that stage, I was teaching only Spanish.  So there was another French teacher that had been there … was a French teacher who had been hired.  All right, so at New Hanover High, I worked all day there into the college group at Isaac Bear and I didn't get any relief at that stage.  So that meant I worked after the closing of New Hanover High day.

The second year I taught, I had a release from two classes at New Hanover.  So that meant I taught Tuesdays and Thursdays at the college.  I went to New Hanover High at about 11:30.  Anyway they worked out a schedule and gave me only three classes at New Hanover High.  So two classes at the college and those were scheduled.  Then the principal, Mr. Hamilton, called me in.  Mr. Hamilton was a very persuasive principal. 

He said, “I told you, you weren’t to have but five classes, but I’ve got this homeroom … the shop teacher has refused to keep with the homeroom.”  See, homeroom was an hour long.  So he said, “I really need some help.  These poor things are not going to be able to go to school if I don’t get a homeroom teacher.”  The shop teacher had said he had those people from 8:30 until 12:30 and he was going to quit his job if he was left with the homeroom, those same people.

Okay my missionary spirit.  Oh I’ve got to help these poor boys.  You know you don’t say no to your boss when you’ve just been hired anyway.  I knew him because he had been my principal in high school.  He was the type of person when he entered the room there was complete silence.  He didn't have to speak.  He was this total disciplinarian, but really a wonderful man.  I knew I couldn't say no to Mr. Hamilton.  I didn't want to.  So he said, “Well,” he talked in a high-pitched voice, “Mary Cameron, this is a class with thirty-one boys and one girl.”  Dear Lord, help me.

And that is what it was.  He assigned me to take that homeroom to the second floor of the Isaac Bear building and there was one day a week when I had to take them across the street and go to New Hanover High with all these thirty boys and one girl.  She wanted to learn wood burning and carpentry.  Anyway, it was something.  I tried everything.  They wouldn’t be quiet.  The teachers across the hall would look at me disapprovingly cause they were teaching nice, quiet classes (laughter). 

I said well, you couldn't make them study.  There were three, two males, who wanted to study and one girl and that was Dorothy Rotmeir.  So I thought, elections came along and I said, “Why don’t you all?”  I told them about student elections, “You read the bulletin.” and I encouraged citizenship.  “Oh Miss Bellamy, we’ve got to elect so-and-so to be freshman class president.”  Most of the rest of them in there didn't have the grades to be freshman class president.

They managed that election and got this young man, the only one that had a C average, from that homeroom.  Well, in the meantime, I’d go downstairs after this class so it was a difficult time.  I started at the first hour with the…it was just unbelievable.  I walked in one morning to that class, we had those fold out windows in Isaac Bear, that could fold the window up and they had, I was on the third floor, I got in a minute or two after 8:30 and they had a fellow hanging out the window by his legs.

I spoke quickly and said, “Get him back in this room right this minute,” because I thought they could drop him.  So I told them to get him back in here.  They said, “Oh Miss Bellamy, he stinks.”  By that time, I was Miss Bellamy.  He stinks and you know he had come in on a bus from Carolina Beach and he was from a poor home and he did (laughter).  They didn't get too much of a lecture, but I asked the school nurse to send for him.  From then on, she had to get him some clothes and all that.  From then on, he didn't stink.”

But it was just impossible.  Downstairs, I’d go to this wonderful class of Spanish I and Spanish II and then I’d do the rest of the day at New Hanover.

Hayes:    Tell us a little bit about these first students, they were veterans, but what else were they doing?  This wasn’t full-time coming to school.  Was this like part-time that they would come or did some of them try to come full-time?

Bellamy:    They had the GI Bill and so most of them came full-time and they were trying to do makeup because veterans felt that here I am in the service, I graduated from high school, many of them left high school during their sophomore year so they had to makeup, in my summer program they were making up, using GI Bill money to make up high school work.  I was doing high school makeup because they didn't have Spanish or French and they needed that to get in college.  Colleges were pretty strict about requiring two years of a foreign language.

So in the summer program, they were doing makeup, but they were all veterans, but they dedicated their time, they had a GI Bill.  Now many of them had after school hours so the college could run in the daytime.  I did teach some at New Hanover High School, I guess it was my summer program I had indoors.  They were dedicated.  The attitude was for those who were going with the GI Bill, I’m going to go and do it as fast as I can to get through. 

So some of them were married and had double responsibilities and some of them had children.  Those were the ones that would pick up work on the weekends.  But by in large, they were full-time students taking five courses in the early years.  They were diligent.  They turned out to be some of the best students. 

Heyward [husband] went to the university at Chapel Hill under the same circumstance.  He was a veteran and he’d been in the Air Force since ’43 … He worked very hard and said that at Chapel Hill, they said to him, “We were worried about what we had coming because we didn't know what to expect from people who’d been veterans, but we have to tell you that you raised the level of expectations for all the professors, and the universities will never be the same again.”  He set such a high standard of scholarship.

Hayes:    They were serious then.

Bellamy:    They were very serious from the word go.

Hayes:    Well, that’s good to know.

Bellamy:    At Chapel Hill, they told him, the dean, told him.  But anyway it was a conscientious group.  So it really was, they were not eager for any foolish…they weren’t my homeroom type.

Hayes:    Was it mainly men then?

Bellamy:    Mainly men, we had women, so it was a mixture.  They could go to school…the Wilmington College opened to anybody so there were women students, but there were many veterans, many women who took advantage of the GI Bill. 

Lack:    What was it like moving over to the new campus?

Bellamy:    All right, finishing my career, I didn't teach the first three years, by the time I finished my second year with UNCW ’47-’48, ’48-’49, they had hired someone who could teach both Spanish and French and I didn't yet have a Master’s.  I was working on it in the summer.  So the third year, I worked as a librarian’s assistant and that wasn’t teaching, but I did those three years.  Now in 1948 and 1949, I did the graduation.

The graduation … extracurricular activities come to those that say yes, so I had the extracurricular activity of doing the high school, the college graduation, the first one and the second one.

Lack:    Oh, you organized it.

Bellamy:   Right.

Hayes:    Oh, tell us about that, that’s great.  Did you have some that first year that could graduate?

Bellamy:    See, wait a minute, it took two years, we had a ’48 class.  We did have a ’48 class. 

Lack:    Was that a refrigeration class?

Bellamy:    No, there was one earlier that was a refrigeration class.  So the first college graduation I think was in ’48.  If you look at Marshall Crews book, you will find that the photography was a fiasco.  I gave Marshall Crews all those pictures.  It was at New Hanover High School in their auditorium and the photographer was not a professional and he did a double exposure. 

Mr. Hamilton and I had our pictures taken and the double exposure was the class, the only picture of the whole class on the stage with Mr. Hamilton, his picture and my picture right in the center (laughter). 

Hayes:    Over the other picture?

Bellamy:    Right in the center.  So here were these tiny figures on the stage and Mr. Hamilton and I in the center with this superimposed picture.  The next year they got a new photographer.  So the next year it was better.

Hayes:    But I bet that was one very proud family group to come to a graduation.

Bellamy:    Right, absolutely.  At that time Mr. Hamilton, he was living at the corner of 13th and Chestnut, and his wife was a very gracious hostess and she invited us down to have a reception at her house.  We walked down 13th Street, it was open then and Brogden Hall wasn’t there, so we walked down, all the families of all the students, the wives and the veterans and the children, and it was really fun. 

You also needed a baccalaureate.  You needed a program in a church, you know, how the high school used to have … so that was at Trinity Methodist Church.  So we had that on Sunday and I’m not sure of the day of the week for the graduation, but the graduation was at the auditorium at New Hanover High School.  That was true for both years.

Hayes:    And was there a speaker?

Bellamy:    Oh yes, the first time the speaker was the president of East Carolina and the president of East Carolina for the second year.  They had changed presidents.  I went to East Carolina and graduated from there.  Nessick was the second one and he was hired, but the one that had been my, right this minute, I don’t remember the name. 

Then the second year of the graduation, by that time Dr. Hoggard was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the college and he invited us to come to his home for the reception after the graduation and the families went again.  He lived at the corner of 5th and Orange and he had a big white house.  It would be about 502 Orange.  He had the reception there.  I do have a picture of that which I haven’t given the college, but I will give it to you.  I’ll have to locate it. 

In both cases, at New Hanover High School auditorium and the baccalaureate service at Trinity Methodist Church…

Hayes:    Now the first several years then, the high school principal also served as the college president?

Bellamy:    No, he was dean.  They simply called Mr. Hamilton, “dean”.

Hayes:    I think later they gave him the designation that they say he’s the first president.

Bellamy:    Mr. Hamilton?

Hayes:    Yes, we have a picture in the library of him.

Bellamy:    He was really a fine, wonderful person and a good friend to both Hayward and me.  My husband taught.  When he graduated from Chapel Hill, he came to teach at New Hanover High School.  Mr. Hamilton was not there.  He had moved to Virginia in 1949.  He became superintendent of instructions for the State of Virginia.

Hayes:    Wow, that’s good to know.

Bellamy:    So he moved from New Hanover High School in ’49.

Hayes:    And is that when they named Dr. Hoggard to be the president.

Bellamy:    He was Chairman of the Board of Trustees and I think he was supposed to be the first president. 

Hayes:    I think later on, just to make it clean, they said he’s the first president.

Bellamy:    Right, but at the time, Mr. Hamilton, he ran New Hanover High School and he ran Wilmington College out of the same office and I don’t know if he got any supplement or not.  He could do anything (laughter).  Then Dale Spencer succeeded Mr. Hamilton as principal at New Hanover High so he was supervisor then of the college.  It operated, well let’s see, Marshall Crews came in ’49 so he probably took over the responsibilities and Dorothy Marshall came in ’49.

Hayes:    That’s amazing, we have those people still here to talk to.

Bellamy:    Yes, Dorothy Marshall and Marshall Crews came in ’49, but the only thing I did in ’49 was assist the librarian and they got somebody else to do that third graduation.  I did the first two and I enjoyed it.

Hayes:    Now did you ever come back and teach at the other campus then in later years?

Bellamy:    Yes, I was invited full-time.  One of the successors in foreign languages, we happened to live in the same neighborhood on Willow Street, which is beyond in the Chestnut Street area, Helena Cheek and Larry Cheek.  Larry came, he could teach French and Spanish and so could Helena, so Helena was hired at UNCW and I had the choice, because again I didn't yet have a Master’s by the third year, I was just doing it in the summers, and so I was working at Chapel Hill on my Master’s and I was staying here because Heyward was going, well--not at this house.  Well, I was at this house for part of the time, but my mother and father lived here and his mother and father lived out on 17th Street at Dawson.

His father died in the summer of our marriage so he had to come home, run a grocery store and then return to college.  It was best that I stay here and work.  So we had to help one another.  So they did not give me the choice to stay at the college because they were trying to get people with Master’s degrees and Larry Cheek had seen it, had a Master’s degree and he was hired to teach all the French and all the Spanish because the French teacher had moved on too. 

I had a choice  Well I knew I could go back to New Hanover full-time so I wasn’t worried about it.  I never had any resentment about it because also Helena was teaching…anyway we were living as friends.  So at Wilmington College, Larry took the job.  Then, salaries were better in public schools.  They were better so Larry wanted to switch over so he convinced them to hire Helena who was almost through with her Master’s, so that worked out all right.

Again, we lived in the same neighborhood and she came over to the college.  Larry went to the public schools as principal.  So as principal he was going to earn more.  So he went to Washington Catlett School as principal, then subsequently to Sunset Park School.  She stayed at college.  In 1961, she was carrying all the French, all the Spanish, she did it all those years from about ’53 til ’61.  So, finally they let her get another teacher and by that time, I had my Master’s.  So, she came and asked me.

I loved high school children and we used to, Heyward and I, taught together at New Hanover in the fifties and he taught chemistry and biology and we chaperoned everything.

Lack:    You taught in the high school at the time?

Hayes:    Yes, she stayed at the high school.

Bellamy:    Right, I stayed at the high school.  I never left.  I did part-time for the Wilmington College, but if I had my Master’s, I would have had the choice, but I didn't have the choice, but I was perfectly willing to stay at New Hanover.  Heyward started teaching at New Hanover High School in 1950 and he stayed with them until ’54 at which time he got an assistant principal-ship and then you know up through the ladder there.

We enjoyed those years because we chaperoned everything.  If you ever said yes and they liked you, you stayed forever.  So we chaperoned every dance.  We refer to those years as the happy days, well they were the happy days.  And the kids would stop by and we’d make paper flowers for every dance and hayrides, they used to have those things in those days.  Even the college kids would go on hayrides.

Hayes:    Really?

Bellamy:    Yeah, you know, you get a truck and you put the hay in the back of the truck and Heyward always sat up front with the driver and I got to get in the back, supposed to make them behave.  In high school, “No, no, no, don’t do that.”  Of course I wasn’t ever going to say that.  They were the days when they were having hayrides still in the college years.

Hayes:    I hate to say it, I remember those too (laughter). 

Bellamy:    They were fun (laughter). 

Hayes:    It was a chaperoned way to have a good time.

Bellamy:    Then you’d go build a bonfire somewhere, cook hotdogs.  That was fun.

Hayes:    So when they came to you in 1961 and said would you like to come out, what was your motivation to change then?

Bellamy:    We were in a situation in the family where he had become the supervisory of secondary instruction and I was at the high school teaching and by that time, we had two children and had a very good maid.  It was at the point when I’d go to the lunchroom, teachers won’t leave you alone, and they said, “Why _______” so that was part of the reason.  I was enjoying it and every time I had a baby, I got my job right back and went back to work.

I had a good maid and knew that we could handle it.  I wanted to try it.  First of all, I did want to try it because I felt I needed a change of scenery and he did too. 

Hayes:    And he later became superintendent so it was just as well you were working at the college and the college was no longer connected to the school, right?

Bellamy:    Right.  That’s right.

Hayes:    It was on its own.

Bellamy:    It was on its own and everything and Marshall Crews, I didn't tell Helena yes, and then Marshall Crews came over and asked and I accepted.  I think I took a cut in salary, but that was all right.  I could have more time with the children.  I could take the children to school, pick the children up and I was able to work a schedule better.

Hayes:    And how many sections did you start teaching at the college?  Was that about four?

Bellamy:    Five.

Lack:    What was your Master’s degree in?

Bellamy:    My Master’s degree was in romance languages and literature.

Lack:    Spanish and French?

Bellamy:    Spanish and French.  That was granted in ’52 and one thing they didn't tell me at UNC-Chapel Hill, they don’t always tell you these things, they told me that the State Department when I already got a major in Spanish and a minor in French for my Master’s using the summers of ’48, ’49, ’50, ’51, ’52, for ’53 they said the State Department said we can’t certify you, I didn't want to lose my certification had I wanted to go back to the public schools.

So they said you couldn't have your…well I had to have the certification and you had to take an additional nine hours of education so I had taken six, I learned that later.  I might have substituted that instead of French, but I did need the French and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I had to, in essence, taken a minor, nine hours of education.  So I took, I had completed my Master’s in ’52 by going summers, but I had to go back for another semester in ’53.  He had to go back to school then too so we finally got it all done.

Hayes:    Adina, if you don’t mind, can we ask her to reminisce a little bit back before she got here because you come from long Wilmington stock.  How did you happen to…give us a little history of how you came up to choose to become a language teacher? 

Bellamy:    This was my home.  I moved here in 1939 to this house.  My mother was a schoolteacher and my father did plumbing and heating work.  So my mother said, “You have to earn your living."  So I went to East Carolina and East Carolina said, at that time it was East Carolina Teachers College, so you know what I had to do.  I wasn’t much keen about becoming a teacher because I watched my mother teach first grade her whole life.

So, I had decided that I didn't like the book work, but went with the blue sheet where you kept records.  I said, “Mama, I am not going to be a teacher.”  So, when I got to East Carolina, they didn't ask you which track that you were to be put in, they put you in teaching (laughter).  So I thought well I might as well.  I got two majors and a minor and I started out with French.  I loved French and I hadn’t yet had Spanish.

I decided that since Heyward had had Spanish, I’d better impress him further by taking Spanish.  So I knew I wanted to stick with French and then within the freshman year, I switched to Spanish ’cause I liked it so much as the major.  I also had picked up a history major.  In those days, you had to be certified in all the social studies because they said as a history teacher you were not going to get a job cause you had to do some psychology, you had to do some sociology, you had to do some economics.

Hayes:    Because the high school might have you teach those subjects?

Bellamy:    Right, they weren’t hiring pure history teachers.  So I did like Spanish and I knew I had to have a job.  When I did my student teaching, I did real well.

Hayes:    You student taught in Spanish then?

Bellamy:    Yes, I did my student teaching in Spanish at Greenville High and I had a very good supervisor and I enjoyed the experience.  Then, also, I had to do US History.

Hayes:    She could teach almost anything then.

Bellamy:    And so you had to do one teaching course in your major and so I got Spanish.

Hayes:    So tell us, are you good at teaching math too?

Bellamy:    No, no.

Hayes:    I didn't know how broad-based you were.

Bellamy:    I did teach once at New Hanover High when I went back after the second baby was born.  I had to teach US History, I did teach that.

Hayes:    Well, now you mentioned these babies, why don’t you tell our listeners, what are your children’s names.

Bellamy:    The oldest one is Mary Louise and she is the scientist in the family.  She is at North Carolina State and she is ina program … she has her doctorate in teaching and she’s working with the Outreach Program K-12 … [she is?] working with the National Science Foundation funding this particular program at N.C. State.  So essentially she is working with the National Science Foundation there and she’s working with the campus with Outreach for grades K-12 in the public schools, all schools.  She’s doing this for N.C. State, Chapel Hill, and the University of Texas.  The programs tie together that way and this is her second year in the program and I don’t know how long the grant will last.  Her husband is a teacher at N.C. State and his field is music.

Hayes:    Music?  I didn't know they had music at N.C. State.

Bellamy:    He is the conductor.  He teaches music.  It’s one of your basic studies.  So he is the director of the Raleigh Civic Orchestra and he has two orchestras, a chamber music group, and a full orchestra.  He and Mary Louise both have their doctorates.  Hers is from the University of Maryland and his from Johns Hopkins.

Hayes:    Any grandchildren from that?

Bellamy:    No, Mary Louise doesn’t have any children, but the second child is Heyward Clifton and he’s one of the editors of the… [inaudible] …

Anyway at the end of his sophomore year, we went to Brevard, we got in the car and went to get him in the mountains and he said, “I’ve got to talk to you,” (laughter).  He knew his dad was going to be mad.  Heyward said we should get started, "Go ahead son, what is it."  He said, “I am not going to major in cello” (laughter).  Heyward looked at me and I looked at him.  He took off from then and majored in English and he taught English.  He decided that was not for him so he went into newspaper work.  He’s taught in Virginia.  He wasn’t happy.

He’s one of these perfectionist types that thinks everybody ought to behave throughout that homeroom.  So, anyway, he went into newspaper work and worked in Petersburg on the Petersburg Gazette and then went to Durham and he’s on the Durham Herald.  He’s one of the editors at the Durham Herald.

Hayes:    So he found a home.

Bellamy:    Right, and he has a daughter five years old.  His wife is a costume designer and she has a home business making wedding dresses and bridesmaids dresses.  My youngest son is Frank.  Here’s a picture of Frank.  Frank is George Frank and he and McKay are at the university.  She teaches costume design and set design and is in the department of drama.  Shannon, the wife of my oldest son, and McKay worked together with the Carolina Playmakers and they both worked in the department.

When Shannon got married, she didn't go back to work.  They had their little girl.  So she’s doing her own work.  McKay and Frank have two children, Cameron and Elena.  One is ten, she’ll be ten this month and then Elena, she’ll be 9 in August.  Those children are just fourteen months apart.  But Frank and McKay have two children, but McKay teaches back in the department of drama at Chapel Hill and she just got her full professorship.  Frank is a book dealer.  He worked at the Intimate Bookshop in Chapel Hill and he worked at Duke at their bookshop, but now he’s at the Bull’s Head in Chapel Hill.

Hayes:    A lot of education there.

Bellamy:    So the boys are oriented towards the humanities and the languages and the bookshops and all that, and my daughter is science-oriented, her husband is in music.

Hayes:    Interesting mix.  Okay we’ve got plenty of time, but this particular tape just has about 8 minutes.  We want to get started when you head out to the campus.

Lack:    This is tape 2 and I’m Adina Lack with Sherman Hayes interviewing Mary D. Bellamy and we’re continuing with our discussion.

Hayes:    We had asked you the question off-camera if your [name] “Cameron” was connected with the Camerons that are a well-known family in town and you said you are a Cameron.

Bellamy:    I am, my mother was a Cameron, Mary Esther Cameron and her father was George Cameron.  Bruce and Dan’s grandfather was Daniel Dixon Cameron.  He and my grandfather, he was the uncle of my grandfather, but they were in the same age range.

Hayes:    And your homestead here is a famous Cameron homestead?

Bellamy:    Right, it was in the Cameron family.  This is Cameron Lane it’s on, and it was in the Cameron family and George Cameron is the…the tradition says that the seeded tree that was in the yard toward the west was the burial tree under which George Cameron was buried, and that would have been in 1826.  But it fell during one of the hurricanes on the neighbor’s house.

Hayes:    Well at least it fell on a neighbor’s house.

Bellamy:    Right (laughter) and interestingly enough with insurance, they have to pay for it.  It’s the strangest thing.

Lack:    When a tree falls on your property, you have to pay for it even if the tree was not yours.

Bellamy:    And this had happened to the neighbors who lived next door.  When they lived in Charlotte, Michael Kemper and his family, his wife said, “Oh, that’s all right.  That happened to us in Charlotte and the insurance on the house on which it fell covers it.” Can you believe it?

Lack:   And you said the nearby house around the corner is the original sea captain’s…

Bellamy:    Right, the 511 Surrey is the address and it was moved from the lot immediately across the street and it’s been modified and you see, what you see is steamboat gothic on the exterior.  It was a Georgian style house with a wide central hall like this house is.  This is a Georgian raised coastal cottage and that house had the same pattern, but the person who was good enough to rescue it and save it was interested in a more modern design, but he kept the old stair and essentially the house has been preserved.  It does have the double chimneys the way it had to start with, but it was moved, that would have been in about ’74.

Hayes:    Now your husband is a Bellamy.  Is he from this town as well?

Bellamy:    He lived in ____ County in South Carolina, but his family and the Bellamy, the family of the Bellamy Mansion, they are descended from three brothers, John Bellamy, Abraham Bellamy and Richard Bellamy.  His ancestor is Abraham …  So his ancestry is the same family.  Heyward’s family moved here in 1935, so he came when he was 11 years old. 

Hayes:    Why don’t you bring us back to the college in 1961.

Lack:    We were discussing about your path and how you worked at the college when it first started and then was it in 1961, I believe, that it moved to its own campus?  When did you get invited back to teach?

Bellamy:    In 1961.  I went the first year they opened and began teaching, and Helena Cheek was teaching French and I was teaching Spanish.  It was a quarter system and we had five classes each. 

Hayes:    Still a two-year college at that point?

Bellamy:    Yes, it was still a two-year college and three buildings, Alderman, Hoggard and Hinton James, the one that walked to the university at Chapel Hill.  Maybe he rode a horse (laughter).  I think back what it must have been like in 1796.  That was interesting.  So those three buildings were there and the college, I don’t remember, let’s see, I guess 2000 students.

Hayes:    A different group of students, right?  We were talking about that earlier, that you had had the veterans that were such a driving force.  What about 1961, what were the kids like when you went out then?

Bellamy:   Well, again, I felt that they were serious, very serious.  Again, many of them were working part-time.  Again, I got people with whom I was familiar because you see I left the high school and some of my students were going to Wilmington College.  So that was very nice and very pleasant.  When students say to me, "you taught me," and some of them I taught both places.

Hayes:    So it made your transition sometimes a little easier? 

Bellamy:    Right, and you knew more people because you’d been associated with many of them at New Hanover High.  I found it very rewarding and I taught…Helena and I worked well together and one reason Helena was interested in my going is I had taught her son Larry Cheek, the eldest of her children, at New Hanover High, and he liked my style of teaching.  She and I essentially had the same style teaching and we both loved our work. 

Larry Jr., her son, see Helena and Larry both spoke French and Spanish so the home was language-oriented.  So Larry was one of my students in those early years and he went to…he knew he was language-oriented.  They encouraged him to go to a school in New Mexico, I think, to learn business.  He didn't want to be a teacher.  Larry then went down to Brazil and learned Portuguese by working with the McKaffen boy from here in his wood shipping business.  It’s a wood called enjaroba, which works up like mahogany, and it came in through this port.

So Larry and the McKaffen, Hugh McKaffen, I think it was, owned the enjaroba mill.  That was in the 60s and Larry went down and worked and learned Portuguese.  So with those two languages, Spanish and Portuguese, he still sells aircraft.  He got into the sales of aircraft.  So this is Helena Cheek’s son and she was my colleague and later became Dean of Women at UNCW.  When Larry Jr. went after the school in New Mexico, he sold aircraft for Waukee out of Atlanta, and now he’s working out of Dallas for Mitsubishi.  He sells aircraft and jets and all throughout Latin America and he’s totally fluent in both languages and can sell (laughter).

Hayes:    Did he not finish high school then here?  He went to the special school?

Bellamy:    No, he finished high school here.  He went to Chapel Hill to college and graduated there, but in the interim he came back and studied at UNCW.  He studied with me in Spanish, there.  Jim Price’s son did the same thing.  I taught Jim Price’s son.

Hayes:    So like in summer school for example, you would get students coming back?

Bellamy:    No, I think Jim Price, Jim Price was the former bursar of the college before and he died in recent years, the last couple of years, his dad.  Jim Price Jr. was a member of the same class Larry was.  Larry, I think, did graduate finally from Chapel Hill, but he did at least two years at UNC-Wilmington.  I taught him there.

Hayes:    We were asking the question together, no one considered languages beside French and Spanish.  When did that issue start to come up?

Bellamy:    Well, Helena was asked to move to…Shannon Morton was going to retire.  She’d been Dean of Women and Marshall Crews, Dean of Men, and Shannon was going to retire.  Helena had been asked to become Dean of Women, and so we had to go looking for a new chairman.  Helena found Lloyd Bishop and he became the chairman of the department.  See, she was the only chairman.

Hayes:    Right, what did you call the department?

Bellamy:    Modern languages, that’s right, the Chairman of Modern Languages.

Hayes:    Now you used the term Dean of Women and Dean of Men.  I think those are less used now.  What was involved with those two?

Bellamy:    You had a Dean of Men and Dean of Women.  Now Marshall Crews was Dean of Men.

Hayes:    What did they do?

Bellamy:    They essentially did the office business as related to…

Lack:    I think it was like Dean of Students, but it was divided because there were different rules.

Hayes:    More about your student life, not the academic.

Bellamy:    Right, more about student life.  If they needed someone to talk to, it took the place of an advisor.  Now your advisors often had so many students and a student could get resolution sometimes because the advisors, the academic advisors, you know, didn't usually…some students had things they wanted to talk about.  So it was in essence a counselor.

Hayes:    Then … in 1961, who was the academic administration?

Bellamy:    That was Marshall Crews.  See, the academic administration with Marshall Cruz and Dr. Randall, it was a small group.

Hayes:    Dr. Randall was the president.

Bellamy:    Right and Marshall Crews was the Dean of Men.

Hayes:    So they didn't have the separations that we do now?  There are the student services, they were all one group.

Bellamy:    All one group and you did everything as it came up.

Hayes:    And Marshall Crews and the other person taught classes as well.

Bellamy:    Well Marshall and Helena were limited to one class maybe.  So Helena didn't have any classes I don’t think.  I think the responsibilities of working in the central office were time consuming.

Hayes:    The registrar…

Bellamy:    Dorothy Marshall was the registrar.

Hayes:    So that was a whole aspect.

Bellamy:    So she had control, that was Dorothy Marshall’s area.  Dorothy Marshall came in ’49 and she was at Isaac Bear so she has been, I guess next to me, she’s been the senior person. 

Hayes:    That gives us a sense a small school of 2000 students.

Lack:    You were asking if they considered offering ancient languages?

Bellamy:    Well the thing I’m getting to is German.  Lloyd Bishop hired the first German teacher and that was about 1965 and that was Bill Lowe.  So we added German.  Dr. Randall could teach language, he could teach Latin and he could teach linguistics.  So we taught Latin and linguistics.  He was excellent as an adjunct when we went into teaching education because you needed someone who knew the workings of other languages.  Old Dr. Randall could speak Arabic.  So he could teach Arabic and he did.

Hayes:    Now when you use the term old Dr. Randall…

Bellamy:    Well young Dr. Randall is his son and he taught geography.  Okay so Dr. Randall…

Hayes:    That was for our listeners (laughter).  They [might be?] wondering why you were calling him old Dr. Randall (laughter).

Bellamy:    It is not meant with any disrespect.  Old Dr. Randall as senior Dr. Randall and Duncan was the son and taught geography. 

Hayes:    So he did actually teach some of the classes and helped you out?

Bellamy:    Yes, he taught Latin, Arabic, and linguistics.  So when we started to teach in the education program, we needed the linguistics because we didn't have a pure linguistics adjunct.

Hayes:    Who were some of the other faculty, we covered modern languages, but in ’61 when you went back, who were some of the other faculty because it was a small faculty.  Today we’re at 500 so if you ask who are faculty, it’s hard to…

Bellamy:    Marshall Crews taught math part-time.  Mr. Hurst, Adrian Hurst, in mathematics and he’s dead.  Shannon Morton in English.  She was still living.  She taught English in the original group.  Adrian Hurst was in the original group.  Dorothy Marshall came in ’49 and taught business subjects, typing, shorthand.  In those years, in the early years of Wilmington College, we were doing typing, shorthand, bookkeeping.  She was still a part-time member of the business department until Dr. Kaylor came.  She ceased then getting those one or two classes.

That was all right with Dorothy.  Who else, let’s see, in science, DeLoach.  He was at East Carolina, and he came.  So Dr. DeLoach was one of the early ones.  It was real interesting to me that he left his whole fortune to UNC-Wilmington.

Hayes:    And few people, I think, realize that.  They named the building for him because he was a distinguished professor, but few realize he was also quite a large…

Bellamy:    Right, Dr. DeLoach again was a very good teacher at East Carolina, but he chose to go various places, but his heart seemed to stay with UNCW.  It was a pleasant place.

Hayes:    Now was B. F. Hall there initially?

Bellamy:    No, Frank Hall came, I remember, because he dispossessed me of my office.

Hayes:    Oh, here’s a story, let’s get the story.

Bellamy:    Dr. Hall came in.  Let’s see, I had an office upstairs in Alderman, and I’m claustrophobic about no window.  And I had an office upstairs in Alderman, and it had a door that faced the hall.  No window.  I had to leave my door open.  I just couldn't stand it.  I had a third child in 1962, Frank, the youngest, so in 1962, I was not teaching in the fall semester.  We still had the quarter semester and I went back just before Christmas.

The semester changed just before Christmas.  I went back to work and I had been moved downstairs in this great big room with all the lights.  They took a classroom and made offices out of it on the first floor of Alderman.  They called us the United Nations because I had … we all had a desk and Bill Lowe greeted me at the door and he said, “We got you a special window” (laughter).  They put my desk right by the window so I could see out.  So I was happily dispossessed, let’s put it that way.  He came in 1962.

Hayes:    I’m trying to think of other disciplines that you would have.  He started the religion and philosophy.  Jerry Shinn came later than that probably a little bit.  Jim Megivern was recruited later than that.  Who else, history, what about history?

Bellamy:    Duncan Randall was in the History Department and chairman of the History Department, before they got a Geography Department.  There was Tom Mosley.

Lack:    What about art and theater?

Hayes:    Yeah, was Claude Howell there?

Bellamy:    Claude was doing the art and the theater.  Doug Swink was there from the beginning.  Doug Swink was one of the original people.  See, he taught at New Hanover High.  So Doug Swink was one of the original teachers.  I was trying to think…

Hayes:    Was there music at all?

Bellamy:    Yes, we had music.

Hayes:    There was one chemist, what was his name?  Is it Adler?

Bellamy:    Oh, Adcock, Louis Adcock was there.  He was among the original group at Isaac Bear.  Bill Adcock, his brother, was the music director both of …he was more band-oriented than classical music, but he did do both.  So Bill Adcock and Louis Adcock, I’m kind of blank.

Hayes:    That’s great, we got a lot of them.  Those are the names we know too.  And you must of hired part-timers.  Did you have any part-timers in language that would help out?

Bellamy:    We didn't need them.  We hired Bill Lowe in German and, I think it was 1965, cause that’s when Helena went to the Dean of Women.  Shannon Morton retired. 

Hayes:    What about when Helena went to Dean of Women, who was picking up French and Spanish?

Bellamy:    I was doing the Spanish and, by that time, we had hired…the next one to be hired after Bill Lowe was Jack Sparks in French, and he was hired.  Then Rush Beeler.  Jack Sparks in French and he became our department chairman.  See, Lloyd Bishop moved on in 1968 to northern Virginia with VMI, up there.  So Lloyd Bishop moved on.  Jack Sparks became the chairman and he hired Rush Beeler and then Rush Beeler became the chairman.

Hayes:    Now let me ask you about a contemporary issue in modern language.  You know, our current language faculty besides teaching language teach culture classes, literature about the language and so forth.  They’ve all got Ph.D.’s and they’re about language and other things about the language. 

Bellamy:    You mean they’re teaching culture classes in English?

Hayes:    No, in the language and they do scholarship about films of Spain or films of …so had that, besides the language itself, had you started to add those advanced kind of extra courses by that time?

Bellamy:    We always taught our classes in the language or tried to.  When you got beyond first and second year classes, you might have done a minimal of English speaking, but you always tried to do them in the language, Spanish and French.  Again, you went to the major and that’s the stage at which you got civilization of Latin America, civilization of Spain, and literature courses.  So they were done totally in the language. 

In fact, I was teaching in the last years, elementary and most of the advanced courses in the language major.  We were doing that in Spanish and French and German.  Well, we didn't have a German major.  I understand they’re going to get a German major.  I talked to DiPuccio, and she said they were going to get a German major.

Hayes:    They’re doing a joint program with other schools in the state that they teach it using the television and that way they can have a major and have enough courses cause there just aren’t as many students in German.  Spanish, you were ahead of your time.  Spanish is by far the most popular language now and the largest number of folks.

Bellamy:    And it always was here.  Spanish at New Hanover High School, I never had to teach history except when I went back.  I always taught Spanish I, Spanish II, and only after the first son was born did I have to teach US History, which I did teach until ’61, and I loved teaching history.  By that time, we had someone who wanted to keep the second year Spanish so I was teaching Spanish I and US History at New Hanover, when I transferred over. 

Lack:    I was reading in the student newspaper a while back, there was an article about you in the 1960’s.  Did you teach sociology at one point too?

Bellamy:    No.

Lack:    So you never taught…

Bellamy:    Spanish.  At the college, I did have to teach French from time to time.  Helena had a physical…when my youngest son, George Frank, was to be born in 1962, and Helena got terribly ill once in that summer.  She had already planned to teach summer school so there I was, six months pregnant and Helena got sick and I walked into class and I said, “I’m sorry, but you have to look at me for a while” (laughter). 

So it was real funny cause I said, because it was essentially a lot of my same students.  See, she could teach Spanish too so if I wasn’t there, she could teach it.  I said, “I’m sorry.  You’re going to have to look at me until Helena gets well."  It was about two weeks.  So Frank was born in August.

Hayes:    It didn't seem to hurt him any (laughter).

Bellamy:    Not one bit. 

Hayes:    How long did you stay in the department? 

Bellamy:    Until I retired in 1988. 

Hayes:    1988!  That is tremendous.  So who were some of the later faculty?  Beeler came along. 

Bellamy:    Carlos Pedes and Bill Woodhouse.  By that time, we were beginning to pick up assistants like, you know, part-time people, like Aida Toplin.

Hayes:    Oh yeah, she just retired not too long ago.

Bellamy:    Did she? 

Lack:    Antolín González del Valle …

Bellamy:    Helena and I thought we needed some native speakers so we hired Dr. del Valle and his wife, by the way, taught at New Hanover High School.  She taught Spanish.  But I taught his son Luiz and Luiz Gonzalez Del Valle is a professor of Spanish, and he has his Ph.D.  I don’t know where he’s working now.  His dad died maybe ten years ago.

Hayes:    I’m trying to think, there was another gentleman…

Bellamy:    And Carlos Perez….

Hayes:    Was he from Cuba?

Bellamy:    Yes, Carlos Perez was Cuban.

Hayes:    And he just retired two or three years ago.  He’s probably still in Wilmington, I think.

Bellamy:    Yeah, he hires a crew, well he had his own business building houses and he works Mexican crews.

Hayes:    What about the chairman for a long time, I’m sorry, I can’t remember…

Bellamy:    Pierre Lapaire was hired and he became chairman and Jim MacNab, he was a chairman who taught French.  Pierre Lapaire’s wife taught for us.  She teaches in the English department, now, I think.  Anyway, she taught German for us, no she didn't teach German, they expected her to, but she didn't want to do it.

Hayes:    There’s a lady who just now is retiring for medical leave who is a French teacher.

Bellamy:    I don’t know, I do know the chairman, DiPuccio.  One thing I did, Helena died in 1980 with cancer, we didn't have a single scholarship in the foreign language department, and I wanted to do one.  In 1983, I had a student who came back and said I just don’t have the money and is there any way you can help me. 

So I went to Dr. Beeler and I said I wondered if he could help me get this done.  I want to get a scholarship in honor of Helena started.  So, Rush Beeler is very persuasive, and he got them to let me start that scholarship.  That’s been one enjoyable thing I’ve done.  We started it in ’83 and I’m still contributing and I enjoy that association.  I didn't let it be known that I did it, at that time, because the student … I didn't want her to know.  So Dr. Beeler worked it out.  We started the scholarship in honor of Helena.

Hayes:    Now, it became a four year school then in ’68, was it?

Lack:    I think it was a little before that.

Bellamy:    ’65.  About the time that Lloyd Bishop came, I think we were moving into that.

Hayes:    How did that change your whole departmental approach because now you had for the first time majors who might decide they wanted to do language.

Bellamy:    Well, we just worked gradually into the program.  We added, for the completion of the program, you had to have literatures, you had to have specialization courses.  So in foreign languages you needed advanced grammar and we wanted a linguistic component and that’s where old Dr. Randall fit in.  Also he could do linguistics so he helped us there.  So his expertise in those areas helped us to do the major. 

I did the literature, Antolín González del Valle wanted to do the literature, Spanish literature and Latin American.  So, when he had to retire at age sixty-five, so I was assigned the literature and I did the civilization courses.  You had a civilization course in Latin American and Spanish civilization.

Hayes:    Now were those in the language?

Bellamy:    Those, again, were conducted in the language, yes.  Spanish civilization, one year we just had Spanish, a sort of overall Latin American and Spanish civilization course, but we got to divide it with additional professors.  Then, when I left, Joanne Mount had wanted to move into teaching the Latin American.  Joanne, her specialty, her dissertation work was on Pablo Neruda [spelling?] so that meant she wanted to [do?] Chile.  Latin America was her specialty area.  She took over the civilization course and the literature course in Latin American.

Terry Mount was also in Spanish and he took over some of the work … he could do anything as far as literature and civilization and grammar.  You had to have at least a semester course in grammar, advanced grammar.

Hayes:    Let me ask you a question and you’re free to now answer this.  You represent a generation in higher education where a Master’s degree was quite acceptable and even unusual and then it switched to your new hires all were Ph.D.’s.  How did that work?  You’re obviously an honored member of the department, but did you notice that?

Bellamy:    Well you noticed it…As far as a rank I was never listed higher than an assistant professor because that’s the decision that was made.  We, females, felt that, you know married females, that if your husband was here, no matter what job he was doing, they expected the wife would be here.  So you essentially knew you would have your job if you could do it well. 

Hayes:    But you didn't have the mobility?

Bellamy:    I worked on the Master’s and finished that, and I tried to go into a graduate program.  In fact, I have some courses beyond, at the Ph.D. level, but I decided, in 1981, Heyward had to…he was superintendent and we had been through some pretty rough years and he had to…it was at that stage that I stopped working on the Ph.D.  I enjoyed teaching.  It was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in my life. I love students.  I was content at the assistant professor level.  I thoroughly enjoyed what I did.

Hayes:    But the other people didn't look down on you because you were a great teacher.

Bellamy:    Oh no, thank you.  That’s a compliment.  But I did enjoy it.  I did my share of extracurricular activities.  I was chairman of the extracurricular committee for two years.  You know everything that was required and I enjoyed that part of it too.  I’ve always been able to be happy with what I have and what I can do.

Then going to the university freed me to give, to get a good schedule.  Now all my chairmen, Dr. Beeler and Dr. Sparks, they were very good about giving me a good schedule.  Like if I had to do the pick-up of the children, I could work it out so I could have 9:00 classes instead of 8:30 classes.  I could take the children to school and get to work on time.  If I needed to pick-up at the high school at 3:30, I could, my last class could end at 2:30.  Sometimes it didn't work.  I had always had good chairmen who were able to work with me on times when I needed to be absent and I’ve never been sick very much.

Hayes:    What about summers?  What were your summers like?  Did you end up filling in, in summer school?

Bellamy:    Yes, as you approached retirement, your summer school work, you’re paying your taxes on it for the summer so the summer was looked on by me as a chance to make some extra money.  Now, one summer I had to work the whole summer and I decided when I went back to work in the fall, I thought something was wrong.  I didn't want to be there.  I was too tired so I told them after that that I want to teach the first semester of summer school so I could have all of July, August, so I could be fresh when I went back to work in August. 

So I took one semester.  Sometimes I’d have two classes, but in the last years, there were more people wanting classes so I would take one class.  That added.  Your retirement was based on your last four years of teaching, so it was to my advantage to earn that extra money.

Hayes:    Oh, they counted that summer as part…

Bellamy:    Yes, that was an extra salary.

Hayes:    I think they do, do that now, but it varies with everybody because like you say summer can be exhausting.

Bellamy:    It can.

Hayes:    It’s more intense, a little bit more intense.

Bellamy:    Right, you’ve got to do semester’s work in four weeks and that’s not much time.

Hayes:    And language is about work and repetition.

Bellamy:    Especially at the freshman level and even the first year level and the second level, they have to use it faster than they can retain it.

Hayes:    That’s a good point.

Bellamy:    It’s too intensive for elementary and intermediate students, not as bad for intermediate as elementary.

Hayes:    Plus the weather’s good, the beach is good.

Bellamy:    It’s not like in the old days when there wasn’t any air-conditioning.  Well UNCW on the campus out there always had it. 

Hayes:    What about some of the groups you belonged to, tied to the university?  You’ve stayed in touch with the university, which we appreciate, but you’re a member of the Isaac Bear Society.

Bellamy:    Yes, the Order of Isaac Bear.  Forming that was very interesting.  I was part of the founders of that.  In 1988, the year I retired, Dr. Wagoner, I think, was moving, going to retire, and so it was a year when they looked around and there were thirteen of us teaching in 1988, who had been at Isaac Bear.  Calvin Doss was one of them.  So there were thirteen of us.  Joanne Corbett, she was teaching English at the old Isaac Bear building, Dorothy Marshall and a woman named Scott that taught at New Hanover High School but also taught at the college in those years.

Anyway we formed, Tom Brown, Tom Mosley, Marshall Crews, Doug Swink, Louis Adcock…So we decided, Dr. Wagoner invited us to dinner and he suggested that we needed an order like the Order of the Golden Fleece at Chapel Hill.  So we decided to form an order.  Those who taught at Isaac Bear and who were still teaching at that time, then we’d take it from there.  We’ve been real proud of that.

Hayes:    And the retired faculty group that meets occasionally.

Bellamy:    Right, we formed that, same year, same group of people plus anybody else who wanted to come.  It’s been fun to be part of it.  It really has.

Hayes:    Any last questions, we’ve worn her out.

Bellamy:    Oh, I’ve enjoyed it very much.

Hayes:    What’s your sense of the university.  You’ve seen such a broad spectrum.  Why do you think it continues to be so strong?  What makes the difference?

Bellamy:    I think first of all, the emphasis on teaching.  You know, we basically said we’re a teaching institution.  One thing I think is very strong is that the student gets to meet the faculty member instead of the teaching assistant and he gets fewer of these mass classes, huge-size classes.  There’s more, I’ve seen, I’ve always felt like the teaching has been excellent.  I hate to see us lose the feeling …  You don’t want to lose the contact between the teacher and the student because it’s what happens between them that makes learning really take place.  If you have these huge groups, that…

Hayes:    Well, I think in language, in particular, you can get too big to try to teach a class.  It’s probably too big now, there may be thirty-five.

Bellamy:    When I retired, I was having…one reason for my retirement was I was having forty in those beginning classes.  Beginning classes and even intermediate thirty, but, by that time, I also had some advanced classes.  I was having such a heavy load of advisees.  When they had advisees, you had to volunteer to take advisees so that meant that the…first of all they said you won’t have more than twenty freshman advisees, is what I’m talking about.

They said you won’t have more than twenty.  Well, when I left, I had sixty-five, and I just plain got tired (laughter).  I loved it.  By that time, I was sixty-three and my chairman, Rush Beeler said, “We can stay til we’re seventy."  I said, “Rush Beeler, you may stay until you’re seventy.  I am going home.”(laughter)  I really felt…Heyward was at home and there were a lot of things we wanted to do that we didn't do.

Hayes:    Well, we are grateful that you’ve been willing to talk to us and we thank you for your continued connection to the university.  Lots of folks move away and don’t continue to associate, but it’s so great to have you still be a great supporter of UNCW.

Bellamy:    Well I’ve enjoyed it.  I missed going to some things this year.

Hayes:    You’ll be back.

Bellamy:    I’ll be back, that’s right.

Hayes:    Thank you so much.  This was great.