Thomas Pearsall's strength of character earned him respect and trust
Pearsall describes how her husband's easygoing personality, business acumen, and paternalistic attitudes garnered the trust of whites and blacks alike. Because of his ability to gain the trust of both races, Thomas Pearsall was chosen to serve as the chair of the education committee. His acceptance of others is expressed later in the interview.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Elizabeth Pearsall, May 25, 1988. Interview C-0056. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- WALTER CAMPBELL:
-
How was he different in running the farms from your father? Were they
very much alike in the way they handled the families, or was Tom closer
to the tenants than your father?
- ELIZABETH PEARSALL:
-
Well, it was more or less the same pattern. It was still paternalistic.
But with Tom's generation you tried to improve the quality of
their lives and give them access to education more. My father inherited
the system from his father. He was Marse Mack as he was called, much
beloved by the people. But as I look back now, it was on a different
plateau, sort of. But it came with the times. My father did the best he
could in his position and in the scheme of things. So I think it was the
agricultural prominence maybe that stood out.
Then by that time, it had been recognized, I think, almost over the state
that Tom had a gift for arbitration. He really did. I often told him, I
said it just doesn't go with what a doctor in Philadelphia
called his "dynamo" personality. We went up there one
time. He had an ulcer of the stomach when he was twenty-two in college
because he was revved up all the time. But the doctor up there said,
"Mr. Pearsall, you have a dynamo personality and
you're going to have to live with it but you can curb
it." I said, "And this great patience that you exhibit
whenever you're handling a hot potato," and he was
always handling them. I said, "It's just amazing to
me to see that you have two personalities." He always believed,
he said, "You sit around the table and you hear this little
man, and that little man, and that other. Let every man have his say. He
feels that he's with it. And no man has all the ideas anyway.
Then you go home and you call up that man and this
man." He spent half his life on the telephone. But it was that
really basic gift of his to walk in other people's shoes, to
see it from that man's point of view. Once people understand
that in you, they trust you and more or less they're with
you.
- WALTER CAMPBELL:
-
So in other words then, why Umstead would have come to him was one, his
interest in agriculture; two, he's in certain banking and
industrial circles; and three, he had a natural gift for arbitration, in
a way.
- ELIZABETH PEARSALL:
-
Yes.