Oral Memoirs of Dillard Alan Gould

Oral Memoirs of Dillard Alan Gould

Oral History, Dillard Alan Gould

Oviedo (Fla.)

African Americans--Florida

Schools

Education--Florida

Segregation--Florida

Elementary schools--United States

Students--Florida

An oral history interview of educator Dillard A. Gould. The interview was conducted by Dr. Connie Lester and Jessica Oldham over Zoom on August 2nd, 2022. Some of the topics include his early life and education in Oviedo and playing sports, his military service, experiencing discrimination in the United States Army, and being stationed in Germany, working for AT&T, and his thoughts on African American advancement and the Oviedo Colored School Museum.

Oral history interview of Dillard Alan Gould. Interview conducted by Connie Lester and Jessica Oldham through Zoom on August 2, 2022.

0:00:00 His early life and education in Oviedo and playing sports
0:05:58 His military service, experiencing discrimination in the United States Army, and being stationed in Germany
0:08:13 Working for AT&T
0:10:25 His thoughts on African American advancement and the Oviedo Colored School Museum

Gould, Dillard Alan

Lester, Connie

Oldham, Jessica

Gould, Dillard Alan. Interviewed by Connie Lester and Jessica Oldham, August 2, 2022. Audio record available. RICHES, Orlando, Florida.

2022-08-02

2022-08-02

Schramm, Noah

Oviedo Colored Schools Museum Collection, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES.

Multimedia software, such as QuickTime.

video/mp4

application/pdf

143 KB

98.1 MB

13-minutes and 18-seconds video recording

9-page digital transcript

eng

Moving Image

Oviedo, Florida

Item Creation

History Teacher

Originally created by Dillard Alan Gould and Connie Lester and published by RICHES.

Cravero, Geoffrey

Robison Jim. Around Oviedo. Charleston South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. 2012. Accessed November 4, 2022.

The World Outside Reunion. “A Written and Pictorial History of the Oviedo Area Colored Schools, 1890-1967.” RICHES of Central Florida accessed November 4, 2022, https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/items/show/5258.

"1878 -1913 Black Schools in Seminole County." Parks and Preservation, Seminole County Government.” Accessed November 4, 2022.

Lester
Today is August the 2nd, 2022. I am Connie Lester. With me is Jessica Oldham, and Dillard Alvin Gould. We are conducting this oral history via Zoom. Mr. Gould, welcome to the oral history. Would you please state your name and tell us a little bit about where you’re from, and what it was like growing up?

Gould
Okay. My name is Dillard Alvin Gould. That’s my given name, but I was under a different name until I was—went through the service. My mom didn’t like the name I was given so she—she put the name she wanted on my birth certificate. And, uh, I didn’t know about that until I went in the service when I was 17. You need my, uh, original name?

Lester
If you want to give it to us, yes.

Gould
My original name was Aloie Tossie. A-L-O-I-E. Tossie. My mom didn’t like that name…

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
…but it was given to me by my aunt. And, uh, she never changed it. She just put what she wanted on my birth certificate, which was my great-grandfather’s name. His name was Dillard Gould.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
So, I was surprised when I got to the service and I gave my birth certificate, that it was different. So, I went through school with that name. And when I tried to, uh, get my school records when I was in New Jersey, I—they had a hard time finding them. Yeah.

Lester
So what was your childhood like? What was—what was it like growing up in Oviedo?

Gould
Growing up in Oviedo was, uh—well, it wasn’t easy.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
I had a—Well, first of all I didn’t start school at, uh, six years old like most kids did. I started at five [audio glitch]. And that was a problem for me for a while because I think I was too [audio glitch] young to be there.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
But my mom insisted that I go because I knew a lot of stuff. Apparently, I didn’t know enough, and later years it caught up with me. I didn’t get past the eighth grade. But eventually, I, uh, finished school with a GED . And I passed it the first time around [doors closes]. Which was, uh, because there’s not much about my childhood to, uh [clears throat]—nothing, uh, dramatic about it or anything. I was just a kid that was always hungry. My mom worked every day and my dad wasn’t around.

Lester
What kind of work did your mother do?

Gould
She was a farm worker.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
After that she went to work for Henry Walker[?]…

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
…on Lake Charm in Oviedo. She worked for them for 37 years [clears throat].

Lester
Did you have brothers and sisters?

Gould
I had two brothers and three sisters. I don’t know how in the world my mom, uh…

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
…took care of all of us, but she did. She was a good woman.
Lester It sounds like it. Were—were you the oldest or kind of in the middle?

Gould
No, I was the third.

Lester
You were the third. Okay.

Gould
Mhmm. No, wait a minute. I had two brothers and a sister before me. That’d make me fourth.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
And two sisters after me. Yeah.

Lester
Do you remember what kinds of games you played as a kid? Um…

Gould
Oh, we loved baseball. And I played basketball. Um, [clears throat] baseball was my favorite game.

Lester
What position did you play?

Gould
Well, I was a center fielder.

Lester
Were these baseball games in the neighborhood, or did you play at school?

Gould
Both. Neighborhood and at school.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
I probably could have been a professional but that wasn’t allowed back in my day.

Lester
So, um, you were an adult, uh, y—you—a—as a child, uh, integration hadn’t come, and the Civil Rights Movement hadn’t come. So, you experienced integration as an adult, um, I’m assuming, when you went into the army. Can you tell me what that was like?

Gould
Well, at first it was, uh, okay. I was the first one in my group to get a promotion. But after that, uh, I was, uh, sent to Germany. And the First Sergeant there didn’t like me at all. He was from Mississippi.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
And he said as long as he was there I would [audio glitch] never get any place. And he was a lifer. He was going to be there forever, so, he was right. I never got any place. My, uh, [unintelligible] leader, the lieutenant, he put me in for promotions maybe four or five times. They never got passed for [unintelligible]. It wasn’t easy. But I had plans to stay in there for twenty years or so. But, as it was, I got out after three years. A lot of time [sic] I think I should have stayed in, but I couldn’t take what was going on.

Lester
Did you have a chance to travel around in Germany when you were there?

Gould
Oh yes. It was a beautiful country.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
I went to Munich. Lots of places.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
I was in Augsburg stationed.

Lester
Okay.

Gould
Mm. I—I didn’t want to come home. I knew how it was back there, so…

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
But in Germany I had freedom I had never felt before.

Lester
Mhmm.

Lester
So, when you got out of the service, what kind of work did you do?

Gould
Well, [sighs] first I went to s—went to school. I got my GED. Then I went to school. Uh, electronics school.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
And I got a job with AT&T . And I retired [audio glitch] for them.

Lester
Was it difficult to get a job with AT&T? Were they open, uh, to…

Gould
No, not at first.

Lester
Okay.

Gould
They uh—they hired me because they needed, uh—needed me to, uh, rescue them, I guess.

Lester
[laughs].

Gould
They were fined by the government six million dollars for doing what they were doing. They were, uh, hiring sisters and brothers and cousins and aunts for the people that was [sic] there.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
And they needed me to kind of break that up.

Lester
Did it get better over time?

Gould
Uh, since I was the only different-colored person there, didn’t get much better.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
But I did the best I could do.

Lester
How long have you lived in the West, in Nevada?

Gould
We just been here three years. I came out here to see after my mother-in-law.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
My wife’s mother. Couldn’t live alone again because she’s in her nineties. So, we came out to, uh, take her in. Take care of her.

Lester
Where did you live while you were working for AT&T?

Gould
Well, I lived in New Jersey for twenty years.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
Then I moved back to Florida, and—and I was there for the rest of the time I was with AT&T.

Lester
Mhmm.

Lester
Can you talk about the changes you’ve seen over time? Um, how much change do you think there has been, since you [unintelligible].

Gould
Well, I’ve seen a lot of good, and a lot of not so good. Some of the changes were, uh, kind of fake changes. Weren’t real changes.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
But, uh, they were bearable.

Lester
Is there something you would like to say? A lot of students will look at this oral history. Is there something you would like to say to them, because they were—they were born so much later?

Gould
Well, take everything as it is, and just try to live [unintelligible]. That’s all you can do.

Lester
Mhmm.

Gould
I don’t think, uh, um, [unintelligible]—I don’t think the color barrier will ever end. It’s been there forever, so, it’s—it’s just the way it is.

Lester
Um, as you think about this Oviedo Colored School Museum , that is being, uh, built…

Gould
Mhmm.

Lester
…what kinds of expectations do you have for that museum? What—what do you hope it will accomplish?

Gould
Well, I hope that, uh, the people that go there will understand that the world is what it is, and it’s not going to change too much. And they have it much better than we did when we were kids.

Lester
Mhmm. Um, is there anything you would like to tell us that we haven’t talked about or that you would expand on what we’ve talked about earlier?

Gould
I can’t think of any.

Lester
Okay. Well, we appreciate your time, and we thank you, uh, for, um, doing this oral history with us.

Gould
Mhmm.

Lester
And this has been an oral history with Dillard Alvin Gould, conducted on August the 2nd, 2022, but through Zoom, by Connie Lester and Jessica Oldham. And thank you very much.

Gould
Thank you very much for having me.