Martha Hall Doctor was born in March 1934 in Historic Goldsboro. She is the oldest living person born and raised on 13th Street in Historic Goldsboro at 88 years of age.
After attending Goldsboro Elementary for three years, Hall Doctor transferred to Crooms Academy where she stayed from fourth grade until graduating with the class of 1952.
Hall Doctor went on to graduate from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in 1955, before returning to start her 34-year-long career as a teacher. Hall Doctor taught at five schools in Seminole County — including Hopper Academy and Crooms Academy — and one school in Indian River County.
During the integration of schools around 1970, Hall Doctor was sent to teach at Monroe Wilson Elementary.
Hall Doctor said she often taught her students, “the best place to find a helping hand, is at the end of your arm with God‘s help.”
In 2009, Hall Doctor became one of the charter members of the Goldsboro West Side Historical Community Association, an organization dedicated to preserving the history of Goldsboro.
Francis Oliver, founder of the Goldsboro Museum and founder of the Goldsboro West Side Historical Community Association, said she got close to Hall Doctor when the association first began working together in 2009 — although they’ve known each other as acquaintances for over 50 years.
“Martha is six years older than me, and we didn’t necessarily hang in the same circles. I was more in the political circle, and she was in the teachers’ circle at the time,” said Oliver, noting that the two did appear at the same church events and would always greet each other.
Oliver explained that she and Hall Doctor began to form a stronger friendship when the chartered members of the Goldsboro West Side Historical Community Association began to go through items collected from Goldsboro native Alfreda Wallace.
“For two weeks we would come together to go through all the stuff from Alfreda Wallace’s house and pick out what was history,” Oliver said. “That’s when I got close to Martha and got to know her story. She told us a lot of stories about Goldsboro while we were looking through stuff.”
Oliver said she still remembers several stories from Hall Doctor during that time. She recalls hearing the story of when a white business owner in Goldsboro put Black boys in the freezer for allegedly stealing from the store, and the story about Goldsboro residents keeping the Klu Klux Klan from entering the town.
Oliver’s favorite story from Hall Doctor is about when one of Goldsboro’s founders William Clark’s favorite mule died.
“The facts about these stories are they were Checked and accepted as the truth. Through pictures, newspaper articles, books, and court records, the stories were validated,” said Oliver in a Facebook post about Hall Doctor.
Maurice Fields II, one of two sons born to Hall and her husband Robert Doctor, said seeing Oliver’s post about his mother made him feel good that she has touched so many. He said everywhere he goes in Seminole County he sees her former students.
“She has ex-students who are nearly 70 years old that stay in regular contact with her. She has students that have long moved away that call and talk for hours,” said Fields II.
Many comments on the Facebook post about Hall Doctor mention she has a great sense of style.
“Always impeccably dressed,” “wears big beautiful hats, dresses like a queen,” “beautiful attire and matching hats,” read some of the comments.
“I still have some of the clothes I made that I’m very proud of,” Hall Doctor said. She learned how to sew as a child from her mother, who was a seamstress.
“[My mother] could see a dress in a magazine midweek, and on Friday take my brother and I to Garrett’s mercantile in downtown Sanford where she would buy cloth. [She] would then spend Saturday at the sewing machine. That dress would then go to church on Sunday morning. Yes, there were times that she would make matching outfits for herself, my brother and I,” said Fields II.
“She is a Goldsboro Legend,” read the start of Oliver’s post about Hall Doctor. The post received 161 likes, over 122 comments and 12 shares, as of Aug. 26.
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