Interview with Ora Mae Jacobs, November 22, 2010

Interview Summary

In this interview, Mrs. Ora M. Jacobs, a housewife and educator, born in Almo, Calloway County, Kentucky, and was one of several children. She attended elementary school in Almo and Murray, Kentucky. Her older brother was one of her teachers in the segregated school in Almo. She attended West Kentucky Vocational School for the Colored in Paducah, Kentucky until the great flood, and then she transferred to Kentucky State University. She and her husband married before she graduated and they did domestic work for a family in Frankfort for two years before moving to Bourbon County where Mrs. Jacobs was substitute teacher in the Bourbon County School System; her husband was from Clintonville, Bourbon County. Her husband, Thomas Jacobs, was the bus driver for the colored school in Brentsville (Bourbon County) prior to school integration. After integration, her husband became the first African American assistant superintendent with the Bourbon County Schools. Mrs. Jacobs could not teach full time because she did not have her college degree. She sometimes gave her husband a hand when he was sick and drove the school bus. Mrs. Jacobs would have been a nurse if it had been left up to her, but her mother was the one who insisted she become a teacher. Mrs. Jacobs was a nurse's aid for a few years, and she was also employed at Avon (Lexington-Blue Grass Army Depot). Mrs. Jacobs also talked about the number of African American families that used to live in Clintonville, but thought there were only two left. Her church, Pleasant Valley Baptist Church, only has five members. The area known as Boonestown was completely African American when Mrs. Jacobs came to Clintonville in the 1940s. The Jacobs family has been in Clintonville for several generations.

Interview Keyword

African Americans in Kentucky Bourbon County, Kentucky Education employment Homemakers Club Integration parental guidance Race relations rural Kentucky Segregation wife

Interview LC Subject

African American families African Americans. Bourbon County (Ky.) Jacobs, Ora Mae Jacobs, Ora Mae--Interviews

Interview Rights

All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.

Interview Usage

Interviews may be reproduced with permission from Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, Special Collections, University of Kentucky Libraries.