2 50 53 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/936e6f52f780827e40452b70eb72a431.mp3 5ccd3d80a8ccf0bddb7a634f21bb9a34 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/bedd31c9c73c23cdd89582e7759e5255.pdf a5c32ef7cf88a6112dc82dc1ac669f07 PDF Text Text Oral History Transcript Appalachian State University • Collection 111, Tape 92 Interviewee: Viola Greer Interviewer: Karen Ward 16 June 1973 KW: Karen Ward VG: Viola Greer This is an interview with Viola Greer by Karen Ward for the Appalachian Oral History Project on June 14 at Mrs. Greer’s house. KW: Mama Greer, where were you born? VG: In Tennessee. KW: Where? VG: Crandall, Tennessee. KW: When did you move to Watauga County? VG: I didn’t move here until after I was married and my first baby was about…oh, I guess two years old. KW: Do you know how long you have lived in Watauga County? VG: I’ve lived in Watauga County ever since I moved here, then I moved away several different times and lived other places for a while. I went to west to Montana and lived there for one spell and then we lived down in Ashe (County) one time, and then we went down to Zach’s Fork near Lenoir for a few months one time. And all of my children were born here. KW: In this house? VG: All but two. Two were born down at mama’s, down the road a little piece. The first that I went to school was in Ashe County over at Pine Swamp. Then we moved from there to the Fleetwood School and that’s all the school that I went to. KW: What year were you born in? VG: 1906. 1 �KW: So that makes you how old? VG: I was 66 in March. KW: What were your parent’s names? VG: Arthur and Martha Nichols. KW: Where were they born? VG: In Wilkes County. KW: Both of them? VG: Yes, but they moved to Tennessee. Both families (had moved from Wilkes County to Tennessee) but they didn’t meet until after they moved out there and then got married. The first four children were born there (Tennessee), two were born in Wilkes County and three in Ashe County. KW: So you had nine in your family? VG: Nine children. KW: Can you tell me all of their names? VG: Yes. The oldest was Monroe, then me, then Chow, then Emma, Hattie, Ethel, Florence, Minnie, and A.F., Jr. KW: What was your father’s job? VG: He was a sawmill man and lumbered you know. He bought timber and sawed it, that type of work. KW: You told me where you went to school. How long did you go to school? VG: Well, I didn’t go very much. I just went off and on. KW: About how many years all together do you guess you went? VG: Oh, I don’t know. I only went about four or five years. I would go some each year and that’s all. KW: How many months out of the year was school going on? 2 �VG: Six months. KW: Six? Did all of your brothers and sisters go to school? VG: Yes, they all went some. The last ones, well I don’t know. I reckon they finished high school, but the first ones…we had to stay home and work and they didn’t have a law to make you go to school and with that big a family we had to work. We farmed and dad had the sawmill too. KW: Did your family have a big farm or garden? VG: Oh, yes. KW: What kind of crops did you all raise? VG: Oh, corn, potatoes, and beans and just everything. KW: Did you sell it or just use it (the crops) for yourself? VG: No, we ate it. The twelve of us ate it. KW: What were the teachers like in your school? VG: Well, at that time there was only one teacher. One-room schoolhouses and one teacher. KW: Were they strict on you? VG: Yes, it was different to what it is now. You really had to learn and had to get your lessons or you would be punished. Either whipped or either kept in during all the play periods and dinner hour you know. Back then every morning we had chapel, you know. The teacher always read the Bible and then we had prayer and we would sing a couple of hymns, every morning before we started. KW: They don’t do that in schools now. VG: I know and the teachers, they were good and they loved to teach the children religion. KW: What kind of subjects did you learn? VG: We had arithmetic, history, geography, and spelling. KW: You had the same type of subjects that we had. VG: Yes, we didn’t have science like they do now. 3 �KW: Do you think the schools have changed quite a bit? VG: Oh, yes. KW: How? VG: Well, I don’t think they are as strict as they used to be when I went to school. The children were quiet. They were really quiet. We just played ball or something during our play periods. Of course there were not a lot of children in one little school, maybe twenty or something like that. KW: Is that all? VG: Yes, because there was a little school in every community you know. Children in each community went to that school. KW: Did you ever work anywhere besides just your house? VG: No. KW: Just worked in the garden and at your house? What different types of churches were in your community when you were growing up and at the different places where you lived? VG: Well, as far as I can remember, I have always gone to the Baptist church. I’ve gone to the Methodist church only when they were having a revival. When I was young we used to walk up to Mill Creek when we lived in Ashe (County) when they were having a revival. Some of the people that lived around us were from there. Their parents would go. We would either walk or somebody would take a wagon with horses and we would fill the wagon full with everybody. KW: What church did most people go to? VG: Well, in all the communities that I lived in, people went to the Baptist church. KW: Do you think that religion has played an important part in your life? VG: Oh, yes. Sure do. KW: How do you think it has? VG: Well, I wouldn’t know how to explain it. I wouldn’t know what to do if I wasn’t Christian and didn’t go to church and did all these things. I’ve gone to church all my life, expect for the period when I was raising my children…I didn’t go very much at that time. But since then, when I have had a chance, I attended church. I have always gone to the Baptist church everywhere that I’ve lived. The community church was Baptist. 4 �KW: Do you think that the churches that you used to attend have changed with the churches you go to know? VG: Yes. KW: Are they better or different or what? VG: Well, I think that they might be. They are not as strict as they used to be. I can remember if a church member did something….for instance, if a girl had a child, they (the members) would turn her out of the church if she didn’t come and repent. Yes, they used to do that to people years ago; they would turn them out if they didn’t come back and repent. Now, they don’t seem to pay any mind to anything that happens. KW: What kind of sermons did the preachers preach back then? VG: Oh, I couldn’t tell you. There were ‘old timey’ preachers who didn’t go to the seminary. Just old country preachers that would preach for hours until you would just about lose your mind. You would be starved to death and you couldn’t stand it. And they sang a lot. KW: Did you have a piano or any type of music back then? VG: No. KW: Just sang without music? VG: Some churches had organs, but not very many. We just had somebody…who used what they called a ‘tuning fork.’ Do you know? KW: Yes. VG: Some of the churches had them (tuning fork) and some didn’t. KW: What about the church that you went to most of the time. What did it have? VG: Nothing. KW: You just got there and sang? VG: Yes. We would have ‘singing schools’ and then the singing leaders would always have a tuning form. But otherwise we always just had a leader, somebody to lead and we just sang. KW: Well, it sounds like fun. 5 �VG: It was fun. I just loved the old songs but I can’t remember half of them. I can remember a few. I can remember the preachers preaching so long, most of them did. KW: Did you ever have any dinners after church on the grounds like they do now? VG: No. Sometimes, I guess it was ‘homecoming.’ We would have a big dinner. KW: But you didn’t do it like we do now? VG: No. Back then we had associations and we always had a lot of good food then. KW: Can you remember anything about politics when you were growing up? VG: No, I never paid any mind to politics. In fact, I just didn’t hear much about it. I can remember when (President) Wilson was elected. That’s the first election that women could vote. I remember, I was married then. I remember my mother going (to vote) and she didn’t want to. I was married, but I wasn’t old enough to vote. KW: How old did they (women) have to be to vote? VG: Twenty-one. KW: Twenty-one back then? VG: Yes. KW: Well, can you remember how people would tend to vote…Republican or Democrat? VG: I can’t remember it a bit. Women didn’t talk politics, and you know men…they just went and voted and back then you didn’t hear anything about it. Now they just really carry on, but really I can’t (remember). That’s the only election (President Woodrow Wilson) that I ever paid attention to. Now, dad didn’t talk politics but he was a Republican and my mother’s people were Democrats. But she always voted Republican after she started voting and all the children… KW: Republicans? VG: Not Ethel Clawson. She married a Democrat and the first time that she ever voted after she was married was when Eisenhower was elected. But all the rest, like my sister Hattie…she married a Democrat but they never voted. She’s never voted since she’s been married. She voted one time before she was married and her husband didn’t vote, so she didn’t vote. 6 �KW: Do you know why? VG: No. Well, she wouldn’t have voted for a Democratic ticket I guess. Maybe she just wasn’t interested enough to care whether he (her husband) voted or not. But he never did vote, nor has she ever voted since she’s been married. I doubt she voted in this last election. I don’t know. KW: How did people get around for transportation when you were growing up? VG: They walked and rode in wagons. KW: Covered wagons? VG: Some covered and some just bare. Everybody had a team of mules or horses and had a wagon. When they went somewhere that was too far to walk, they rode a wagon. KW: Did you walk a lot? VG: Yes. I’d rather walk than ride the wagons. We walked everywhere we went, unless it was too far to walk. KW: How far was ‘too far’ to walk? VG: Well, when we went down to Wilkes to visit some of dad’s people. KW: I agree that was a little far. VG: My mother used to walk from Tennessee to Wilkes (County0. Yes, before she was married she walked it once a year. She would go back and visit some of her brothers and sisters. KW: How long did it take her? VG: Two days I think. They just spent one night…you know back then, whenever it began to get real late they would stop at somebody’s house and ask if they could spend the night and they (the house where they stopped) always took them in. Back then people just took-in anybody. KW: You couldn’t do that today, could you? VG: No, no. KW: Can you remember when you saw your first car? VG: Yes, that was when I was a little girl. I lived in Wilkes (County) and I can’t remember the man’s name, but they had this T-Model (Ford) and we lived right down the road…a dirt road. I 7 �would see him go back and forth and everybody would just run to see that car. But in Ashe County when I was just a little girl, the first car I saw there my daddy bought it. A Buick Touring Car. We would ride the old dirt road you know…and then come to this steep rocky bank. You would get out and push the car over this bank, ride some more until you came to another steep area and then push it again. KW: Can you remember how much cars cost back then? VG: No. KW: Not hardly as expensive as they are now. VG: Lord no. But I don’t remember (the cost). I probably didn’t even know what dad paid for the one he got. Then my brother when he got grownup, he bought a T-Model. KW: What did you think when you first saw the car? VG: Oh, I was scared of it. The first one that I saw, I was scared of it. The car made a lot of racket and noise and I was really scared of it. I didn’t see how people could get along without a horse or a mule or something to pull a wagon. KW: In previous years, did you ever make soap or quilts, or weave? VG: Oh, I’ve quilted all my life. No, I never weaved. KW: What about making soap? Did you make soap? VG: Well, the kind that my mother made was called ‘coal soap.’ People would have a lot of grease and then they would add lye. I never did make any myself and I can’t remember how much lye was used. But mama would make soap and she called it ‘coal soap.’ It was white, just as white and she would cut it up into bars. I have seen the old soap that people used to make. They would save all the old meat skins and meat scraps and everything and boil them. I’ve heard mama tell that they made their own lye out of ashes to eat up the old meat scraps and then it would be yellow and soft. You just get a handful and put on your clothes and scrubbed them on the board and put a whole lot in the big old wash pot and boil the clothes. Keep jabbing the clothes with the stick, a paddle or something…you scrubbed the clothes on the washboard. KW: You used washboards? VG: Yes. 8 �KW: How long did it take to wash all your clothes doing that? VG: Oh, all day. But there were so many clothes to wash for a home and my mother was so particular. Everything had to be just so clean. You would scrub them to get all the dirt out on the washboard and then you would put the clothes in the pot and boil them in lye or that soap. Mama used to just cut that white soap she had made. She just cut up a whole lot of the soap in the pot and let it dissolve. Then she put the clothes in or had the pot usually hanging on poles over the fire and you put wood underneath and boiled the clothes. KW: Boy, I bet it did take a long time. Well, you said that you quilted. Do you still quilt? VG Yes. KW: Do you enjoy doing that? VG: I love it. KW: Did you do this one here (pointing to a quilt)? VG: Yes. KW: That’s pretty. I like that. VG: I have made quilts all my life. KW: Really? Do you sell them or give any quilts away, or just keep them? VG: Oh, I have given them away. But you know, people used to…they had to have lots of quilts because they didn’t have warm houses like they have now. We just had fireplaces. You had to have lots of quilts for every winter. Mama made quilts. I have quilted ever since I was old enough to quilt. Ever since I have been married, I have not made as many. Well, I’ll say that I haven’t made quilts in maybe two years. I love to make quilts in the wintertime. KW: Do you do it with other people? Do you get together? VG: Sometimes. KW: I bet that’s fun. VG: It really is. Last winter, a year ago now, I made three and Ethel, my sister, came up and helped me finish the last one. I haven’t made any this winter. I’ve been lazy. 9 �KW: Catch up next winter I guess. VG: I love to piece the tops, all different designs and they are so pretty when you get them done. KW: They are pretty. When you were growing up can you remember any ‘outlaws’ in your days? VG: No. KW: None at all? Did you ever hear of any murders or stealing? VG: Yes, I had heard of stealing’s. I guess there were murderers, but not around here. But over in Ashe (County) there were a bunch of children…they were about grown…but they would just steal everything that was loose. They would steal from anybody that had a barn and a lot of chickens. They would steal the eggs and chickens. KW: Just for meanness? VG: Well, I suppose that maybe they would cook the chickens and eat the eggs. I don’t know what they did with them, but I know that bunch of children used to get our eggs and steal our chickens. They did that everywhere. KW: Can you remember any superstitions when you were growing up? VG: Yes, one was not to walk under a ladder. KW: That one still exists today. VG: Yes. Everybody always thought that Friday the 13th was unlucky and everybody would try to be so careful. Another one was not to cut your fingernails on Sunday. KW: Why? VG: I don’t know. KW: I have never heard that one. VG: People said that it was ‘bad luck’ to cut your fingernails on Sunday. KW: Did you ever plant your garden by signs? VG: Well, I didn’t know what the ‘signs’ were, but my mother always planted by the signs. This 10 �lady Mrs. Trivette that lives across the way over there in the white house…she always planted by the signs. KW: A lot of people do that still today. VG: I know. My mama always said to plant cucumbers and beans when the signs were in the ‘Twins’ (the Gemini astrology sign between May 21 to June 21) because there would be a higher yield. She would have a lot more beans and cucumbers and they would make kraut. Well, they still do that and pickle beans. Mama always made it (sauerkraut) when the sign was, I believe, in the ‘Head.’ And pickled beans. KW: Well, did the Depression affect your family very much? VG: No. KW: Really? You always had what you wanted? VG: Well, not what we wanted, but you had enough to get by. KW: Were you married? VG: Yes. KW: How many children did you have? VG: Two. Ages two and three. Fayne was born during the Depression. KW: Oh, was he? VG: We bought this home here. Bought the land and we eventually got the house built on it. We built the house enough so we could live in it and we just kept building. But I really didn’t….because I have always made gardens and grew all the vegetables. We used to always keep hogs. We never did keep beef, but we always bought half of beef or something in the fall then would ‘can’ it. KW: That helped a lot. VG: Sure did and we had our own pork you know. I was having a hard time, but I had one before. I don’t know if they were any different. I still just work as hard as I can. KW: Good for you. VG: I love to work. 11 �KW: What was your husband’s job during the Depression? VG: Truck driver. He owned his own truck and hauled lumber all the time. KW: You said that you always had enough food during the Depression, right? VG: Always had enough food. You could take fifty cents and buy a whole shopping bag (of food). KW: Could you really? VG: You could really buy just as much food. KW: What did you do about lights before electrical appliances came in? VG: We had lamps, kerosene lamps for several years before we got power. We had two Aladdin lamps and then just lots of little lamps. Just all over the house and we would go around and light them. KW: And blow them out when you went to bed? VG: Blow them out when you went to bed and light them when you got up. We just washed the lamp chimneys and trimmed the wicks. KW: What was your first electrical appliance? VG: A washing machine and an iron. KW: Was that after you were married? VG: Oh, yes. We didn’t have power until, I believe Kent was a baby before we got power through here. I don’t know how long it’s been…it was the REA (1935 Rural Electrification Act). KW: That is what you had? VG: Yes, and we got it just as soon as they were available and then a washing machine and an iron. KW: I bet you were tickled with that? VG: I sure was and I also had a refrigerator. Kerosene I believe and for several years before we got power. We had a Delco light plant (a small generator that farmers used for electricity). We had lights and we had a refrigerator that you had to run this plant (the Delco) to build up the power. We didn’t have (consistent) electricity until the power line came through. 12 �We had this Delco plant for several years before the power line came through. I forgot about that. We had a building up here in the back with that light plant in it. KW: Where is it at now? VG: Oh, daddy sold it years and years ago. I can’t remember who bought it. Somebody back in the country bought it before they got power. I can’t remember who. KW: Tell me about some of the homemade remedies you had for medicines when you were younger? VG: Well, I’ll just have to tell you what mama did. If some of my children got sick, she doctored them for years. She would make catnip tea and onion poultice (Onion poultices are used for moving toxins out through the blood, lymph and skin in cases of bruising, swelling, and inflammation that causes pain). Now, I don’t know how she made them, but she roasted an onion poultice and I can’t remember what she put with it. But she would make that when one was so tight in the chest. Put that on the chest. She used to make pennyroyal tea. Do you know what pennyroyal is? KW: No. VG: Well, it grows out in the fields. It has a little blue flower on it and I don’t know what she made that for. I mean, I don’t know what she doctored for, but I remember making it. That’s about all I can remember other than salves and stuff like that. She used Vicks salve as far back as I can remember it. KW: Do you remember who was the first doctor in your community? VG: After I moved up here, Dr. Blackburn. He lived in Todd, but he was our doctor and you had to ride horseback, the doctor would. He was with me when my first baby was born and when Fayne was born. Dr. J.B. Hagaman, Sr. was with me when Anna Lee was born. Dr. Triplett from Wilkes was with me when the rest of them were born. They were all born here at home. KW: In your opinion, what do you think makes a good mother? VG: Well, I think being Christian and I think staying home with your children and raising them yourself and not leaving them with somebody else. I think correcting them and making them mind, making them work. All of these things is what I did. I punished them if they didn’t… KW: How did you punish them? VG: I whipped them with a hickory (switch). That’s the way I punished them. Walter was always 13 �gone. He was just always away from home and I was just here with the five boys and you know how they can fight and carry one. So I just whipped (them). KW: Do you think people raise their children different today? VG: Oh, yes. You know when I was a girl, girls didn’t ever go anywhere by themselves or with a boyfriend. There were always somebody with them and they didn’t date like they do now. What we did on Sunday afternoons were all the neighborhood children would get together and play ball or some kind of game. One Sunday we would gather and play at someone’s house and another Sunday, another house. Just a whole bunch of boys and girls. We played all kinds of games. We used to ride horses, take turns you know. Someone would take a ride and then another would ride. Things like that. There was nowhere to go except church. We went to church and you would come back home and you had dinner. Several would be there for dinner and we would go home with each other from church and spend the evenings together and have a good time. KW: Sounds like you did. VG: We did have a good time. But everybody went home in time to do up the evening work. They had their chores to do and they had to go home and do them. They knew better than not to (to neglect chores) because back then children, they would mind their parents and if they didn’t they got in trouble. They would tell their children what time to come home and the children were there at that time. KW: What did people when they were dating each other? VG: They went to church and the boys would go home with the girls from church. That was all we did. We just went to church. KW: It’s different from today isn’t it? VG: I know. There were no shows (movies) to go to like they do now. There just wasn’t anything to do but go to church and sometimes in the fall, we would have corn shuckings. Just a whole bunch of people getting together…young people and shuck corn and we’d play games. I can’t remember how the game worked exactly, but every once in a while you would find a red-ear of corn and you would get a prize for that. I can’t remember what the prize was. That’s all we did. If children now were like they were back then, they would have had a much better time than now because there wouldn’t be so many things to do and they would be happy just to get to play. I always had to work, I didn’t have much time to play. I was the oldest girl and there were eight children (siblings), so I took care of them, washed and cook. I was always busy. 14 �KW: Okay, mama Greer, I want to ask you one more question. If you could change anything in this world, what would you change? VG: There are so many things that I’d change. I wouldn’t know which would be the most important one. I really don’t. I just don’t know. KW: Is there more than one thing that you would like to change? VG: Yes. There are a lot of things that I want to see changed. KW: Well, tell me one or two of them. VG: Let me see…..one thing that I would change is the way young people do and I’d also change a lot of things that the older people do. I’m just ‘old timey’ and I just like things to be done right and good. I just want everybody to do what’s right. KW: That’s the best way to be isn’t it? VG: Oh, I’d just give anything if my children were all Christians and just lived life that I would love them to. I think that I would be the happiest person in this world to see all my children ‘saved’ and all of them in church with my grandchildren. END OF INTERVIEW 15 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews Description An account of the resource In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region. The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students. Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU. An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school. This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965-1989 Sound A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio. Artist Greer, Viola (interviewee) Ward, Karen (interviewer) Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:33, Making 1uilts Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Viola N. Greer, June 14, 1943 Description An account of the resource Viola N. Greer was born on March 27, 1906 in Crandall, Tennessee, moving to Watauga County after she married Walter Greer and had two children Walter and Annie Lee. Her parents were Arthur and Martha Nichols Smith who were from Wilkes County, but had met in Tennessee. Her father bought timber for sawmills. As an adult she lived one year in Montana, then Ashe and Lenoir counties before returning to the Deep Gap area of Watauga County, where her children were reared. She died on November 2, 2003 at the age of 97. During the interview Mrs. Greer talked about her parents, the importance of religion, quilting, making soap, superstitions such as walking under ladders, and planting by the signs. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Greer, Viola N. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 14-Jun-73 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 15 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"><Folder><name>OpenLayers export</name><description>Exported on Thu Oct 24 2013 14:19:10 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)</description></Folder></kml>||||osm Watauga County (N.C.) Subject The topic of the resource Greer, Viola N.--Interviews Christian women--Religious life--North Carolina--Watauga County Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Tennessee--Social life and customs--20th century Quilting--North Carolina--Watauga County Deep Gap making quilts religion Tennessee Watauga County N.C. https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/8ce868caa3bb235a0331b5f582ef5b9d.mp3 c9ce9654a8776c86953607e289fd98dc https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/5656556df1cc5591caba18d53eb02dc3.mp3 0405b511ed3b1722c99aba6cd30d4abb https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/80d43e4f322bc0409865ccec0f2cdd4f.pdf a6dbed0b4a31179b086b0d81d155bf02 PDF Text Text Oral History Transcript Appalachian State University • Collection 111, Tape 39, 40 Interviewee: Stanley Harris Interviewer: Bill Brinkley 20 March 1973 This is an interview with Mr. Stanley Harris, Hr., for the Appalachian Oral History Project by Bill Brinkley at Boone on March 20, 1973. BB: Bill Brinkley SH: Stanley Harris, Sr. BB: Mr. Harris, could you give us your age and place of birth? SH: Well, I was born in Johnson City, Tennessee, where the name of the place was Trade, which is just over the line from North Carolina, on October 31, 1882. BB: How long have you lived in this community? SH: When I was two years old, my father moved to what is now Montezuma, North Carolina and I stayed there until I finished high school and in 1902 I went to college at Athens, Tennessee which at that time was part of U.SH. Grant University, main part being located in Chattanooga, but the liberal arts department was at Athens. That has since changed to Tennessee Wesleyan College. I graduated in 1902, and took a postgraduate course as what was then the American University at Harriman, Tennessee. Later, that was sold and the American University was closed. At the close of the school in 1903, I went to work for a furniture factory in Harriman, Tennessee and a year later moved to Lexington, Kentucky and worked there in a furniture store as a salesman. In 1907, I became the assistant secretary of the YMCA at Frankfort, Kentucky and in 1912, became the secretary of the YMCA there. In 1916, became the state boys work secretary of the YMCA. In 1908, started a Boy Scout troop under the British Scout Association which troop was recognized and chartered in December 1908. And it became, so far as we can find any history, the first chartered Boy Scout troop in the United States. After I became the state boy’s work secretary, my headquarters were moved to Louisville and the Boy Scout troop in Frankfort was expanded and a council organization with four troops in Frankfort. In 1917, I went with the National Council as a special field commission and remained with the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America until October 1, 1947, when I was automatically retired because I had reached the age of 65. I spent a few months in South Alabama where I had a little property, then came back to Chattanooga, where I was associated with Jake Bishop in General Insurance, and for a time lived in Johnson City. 1 �In 1948, we came back to Watauga County primarily because in 1930 and 1931, we had built a very modern residence across Cove Creek from Henson’s Chapel Methodist Church. At that time it was called Amantha, and we lived there until we traded that property with Gene Wilson and officially moved to Boone. In 1949, Watauga County celebrated its 100th anniversary, and I was elected president of the Watauga Centennial, and we published a brief history written by Dr. Whitener as a history of Watauga County. In 1902, after graduation from the Grant University branch at Athens, I came back to Watauga County as principal of Cove Creek Academy, which was kind of a high school and taught school until about the middle of January 1903, when I went to the American University for a short post graduate course, and it was at Cove Creek Academy that I met Mary Swift, then a student, which in 1919 became my wife. We lived in Memphis for a while and then moved to Chattanooga and eventually came back to Watauga County to love, and the family has been here ever since. In 1949, I recommended to the Chamber of Commerce that we should develop industry to balance what was then a college and tourist business as about the only industry. The board of the chamber of commerce was not sympathetic at that time to developing industry, but within a year or so, that became one of their major projects, and as secretary of the industry committee I directed the campaign to supplement the purchase price of property for IRC, and had an important part in bringing industry to Boone, which was the first of the major industries coming here. Later, the industry committee arranged with Shadowline to establish a plant here, and after that, we found that Blue Ridge Shoe Company was disappointed in the location they had chosen as a new plant, and persuaded the management to investigate Boone. We did all the preliminary work necessary to get the Blue Ridge Shoe Company to come to Boone, including sale of bonds on their property, most of which was brought finally by the Northwestern Bank, though several thousands of dollars of bonds were brought by local citizens. Later, the industry committee was successful in persuaded Vermont American to establish their plant in Boone, and each of these instances; we had to supplement the land purchase for the new company. I had the privilege of conducting the finance campaign, all of which was easily successful. One of my big contributions to Boone and Watauga County was as a member and the chairman of the board of Watauga Hospital, and conducted the finance campaign to renovate and improve the then Watauga County Hospital building. This resulted in our acquiring our modern surgical department and a very successful surgeon. Also, with the help of the state and federal government to build a nurses home all of the county divided the money through bonds, the modern Watauga Hospital, this property was transferred to the college and later became a part of the equipment of Appalachian State University. If I have been any value to Watauga County, primarily it has been in developing these industries and providing opportunity for people in Watauga County to get employment at good wages, and this has resulted in many homes and smaller businesses that would not have come without 2 �these manufacturing industries to provide the employment. I’m still secretary-treasurer of the industry committee and a member of the board of most of the organizations that continued to have a responsibility except to encourage and promote them. We built the building for Shadowline and they operated it on a rental basis for a few years and then bought it, and we built the building for the Blue Ridge Shoe Company, which they still operate on a rental basis. Same is true with the Vermont American that is operated on a rental basis as far as the building is concerned. The “Echoes of the Blue Ridge” finally developed into “Horn in the West” and has been one of the great advertising projects for Boone and Watauga County. It resulted from an invitation to Kermit Hunter to be the speaker at the Chamber of Commerce where we persuaded him to write the story, and we conducted a finance campaign for the money to build the theatre for the “Horn in the West” and again I had the privilege of being the director of the finance campaign. That’s about the story of my connection with the development of industry and the “Horn in the West.” I have remained as an active worker in the Chamber of Commerce, but recently no major projects. Now, what other questions do you want answered? BB: Were you also connected with Coleman’s Tobacco Warehouse? SH: Well, soon after I came here probably in 1950, Coleman employed me as a sales supervisor and at that time had the radio program promoting the tobacco warehouse and Boone as a tobacco market. I’m still the sales supervisor for Coleman, though we have not had a radio program as such for the last five years. Before warehouse #1 burned, the year before that we sold in excess of six million pounds of tobacco ant the Boone market. Less than 1/3 of that tobacco came from Watauga County, and a considerable proportion of it came from Tennessee and Virginia, but the tobacco warehouse in Boone has been a great help to the farmers, not only in Watauga County, but in this whole section, and last year sold in excess of four million pounds for mighty close to $3 million. BB: You organized the first Rotary Club, is that correct? First director? SH: I was one of the group that organized the Rotary Club in Boone and because I had previously been a Rotarian was elected the district governor for District 780 which included all of Western, N.C. from Charlotte and West Jefferson through to Murphy, some 40 clubs. BB: What I’d like to ask you now is a few questions on the Depression. When did the Great Depression start as best you can remember? SH: Well, the Depression started in 1929. We had a very prosperous period after the war closed, and things were going great when the Stock Market had a tremendous setback, and by 1931 we were in perhaps the worst Depression we had ever had. This Depression didn’t seriously affect me because I was then employed actually by one of the Rockefeller 3 �organizations, and they didn’t cut my salary, but salaries went down in many instances, more than 50% and thousands of people were out of work. It was during that time I decided to build a rock house over in Cove Creek and believe it or not, purchased well finished lumber at $14 a thousand, employed labor only one carpenter on the job got more than 35 cents an hour, and he as the foreman in building the house made a little more than that but not much more. Common labor could have been had for ten cents an hour, but I couldn’t persuade myself to go quite that low and paid 15 cents an hour for common labor. The rock that built the house was delivered to the site for a dollar a yard, and even the rock mason made about 75 cents and hour, which is not much more than 10% what the same would cost today, and while we later sold the Cove Creek house to Gene Wilson and his wife, we decided to live in an apartment, and not finding what we wanted, we bought the lot on W. Queen Street and built West Apartments, which five or six years ago we sold to a corporation which now owns them, but I still manage the apartments. BB: Where were you living at the start of the Great Depression? SH: Well, we were living on Cove Creek though I was travelling out of New York and came home about once a month for a few days, and sort of kept track of things, but Mary and the children ran the house. BB: How many were in the family at that time? SH: We had two children: Stanley, Jr. who was born in 1923. Wait a minute, he was born in 1920, and Martha was born in 1923. BB: Was there a scarcity of food during that time? SH: No scarcity of food. The scarcity was anything but, and since my salary was continued, I made more clear money from 1930 to 1936 than I had ever made prior to that. BB: Did you raise crops? SH: We had a big garden, but as far as farming is concerned, I didn’t do any farming. Anything that was done on the farm was done on a rental basis, and that was not a cash binder, but a percentage of the income. But we had a big garden, and I got some prestige as a grower of roses, for we had a very beautiful rose garden. BB: What animals did you have on the farm? SH: Well, part of the time we had a milk cow or two which Stanley learned to milk as a ten year old youngster, and we usually kept a horse that we could ride or plow, but we made no attempt to be farmers, but we did have a good vegetable garden along with the roses. 4 �BB: We’re you familiar with any of the government projects during the Depression? SH: Not too much familiar with government projects during the Depression, though during World War One, I was a federal director of the boy’s working reserve, which organized boys to work to produce food during the war, and a big part of that was done by Boy Scouts who produced the gardens especially the big garden in Washington, D.C.. The garden was down on the peninsula that furnished vegetables not only for the White House, but Walter Reed Hospital, major hotels in Washington, and was honored frequently by a visit from Mrs. Wilson, wife of the president, and on a few occasions President Wilson accompanied Mrs. Wilson to the garden for she always picked up her own vegetables twice a week. I didn’t do the technical work that was done by a man from the agricultural department who supervised that big garden, but I promoted the idea of boys doing things for the government not only making gardens, but distributing literature, making Black Walnut surveys, and numerous sundry other things, but I had very little to do with government projects during the Depression years. BB: Were prices higher or lower during the Depression? SH: They were down at the bottom. I don’t know the figures, but certainly meat prices weren’t much more than 10% of the present price today, and as far as I have any memory, there was abundance of food if you had to pay for it. BB: Did new ways of making money arise due to these conditions. SH: I didn’t make any money except my salary until I retired, but since I retired I made considerable money out of projects I’ve been interested in. BB: Do you remember any of the banks closing? SH: Oh, yes. The Watauga County Bank in which my wife and children kept their deposit was closed, and their deposit frozen. That’d didn’t affect me very much because I had continued to keep my account in a bank in Chattanooga which, while it was frozen for a short time, reorganized and went right on in business, and from my frozen deposit was promptly reinstated. But there was another bank or two in the county that was closed and if the Northwestern Bank hadn’t taken over the assets of the Watauga County Bank, there would have been a worse Depression in Watauga County. But the Northwestern Bank took over the assets of the Watauga County, and some months earlier Mrs. Harris sold her stock in the Watauga County Bank, but most of the stockholders, in fact, I suppose all of the stockholders lost their stock, and not only that, they had to put up an amount equal to the base value of their stock, which was $100 a share before the Northwestern Bank took it over. And that was a real Depression. BB: What were the community reactions to the bank’s closing? SH: Well, of course, everybody that had any interest in the bank, particularly the stockholders 5 �were very much concerned and some of them very bitter at the officers of the bank. By they had loaned too much money to too many people that couldn’t pay and therefore there was nothing that the officers of the bank could do but accept the closing when that was decreed by the federal government. BB: Whom do you blame for the collapse of the bank? SH: Oh, I think the officers of the bank were too liberal in their loaning money, therefore, had a very good many notes that weren’t collectable. I don’t think that there was any one individual that was particular responsible. It was the policy of the bank to loan money particularly to farmers and a number of the farmers not only couldn’t pay their notes, but some of them lost their farms and that was one of the reasons they go so bitter at the bank. BB: Did the schools change very much during the Depression? SH: All the schools went on as far as the country schools are concerned, teachers were paid $25, $35, or $45 a month, but that was in line with other things at that time, so as well as I observed there wasn’t much let down in public school situation. BB: Did the businesses and country stores change very much? SH: Well, some of the businesses and went into bankruptcy, but not too much change in the major businesses. They weren’t making money, but nobody else was making money at that time, so they went along with the crowd. BB: What do you think caused the Depression? SH: Well, I had an experience in connection with the Depression that always stood out with me. I went as the guest of a very prominent stockbroker to a dinner in Dallas. Everybody was asking him questions about how to get rich on the stock market, and he finally got a little irritated at that attitude and gave them a good lection about trying to make money without working for it, and told them that if that attitude kept up there was going to be a Depression, and hence I was sort of close to it. What happened was, as he told me later, he went back to New York, and had the stocks that he held analyzed and began to sell the stocks that they thought were dangerous, and as they began to sell, prices began to go down. I’ve always thought that the fact of his starting to sell stocks was one of the basic reasons why stocks began to go down. Because if he were selling stocks at a lower price, pretty soon everybody was looking for them at that price. And as a result, stocks went down, and that was the beginning of the Great Depression. Fact of it is, I had some stock that I paid as much as $20 a share for that went down to $1.25 a share. I didn’t sell mine for several years after the Depression was over and finally sold them for $60 a share instead of the $1.25 that I would have gotten for them in 1931, or 6 �1932. And that was an illustration of what happened in the stock market. BB: Who was hurt worst by the Depression? SH: Well, the common people are always hurt worst. Laborers, small investors, small businesses. They were the ones that were really hurt. BB: Well, what do you think was best about the Depression? SH: What was that? BB: What do you think was best about the Depression days? SH: Well, it probably brought out the stamina of the American people and showed that by hard work, they could still live, even if they didn’t live like they had been accustomed to living. But I think it emphasized the importance of hard work and striking with it that would be valuable today. Most of our troubles today are because people don’t want to work and a good many people don’t want to put out their best at work, whether it be in building a house or running a business. BB: How is life different today from life during the Depression? SH: Well, it’s only different in the luxuries we have. Very few people had automobiles. You could buy a good Ford or a Chevrolet for four or five hundred dollars, but most people didn’t have four or five hundred dollars. BB: What do you like best about today’s way of life? SH: Well, I like the comfort of feeling that I have a reasonable income, likely to have as much as I actually need as long as I live. I hope to be at least another ten years because I’m only 90 and I want to get to be 100. BB: If you could change anything about the way things are now, what would you want to change and why? SH: I’d want to change the willingness to work more than anything else, and I think people are happier and live longer when they’re working and that’s the reason I keep working now, because if you keep busy whatever your job may be and try to put out the best you can. You don’t have so much time to worry about the aches in your knees and your back and so forth. There could be a different attitude toward life and willingness to do anything that needs to be done. BB: I would like to ask you some questions concerning your childhood. 7 �SH: As a kid, I was connected with a lumber company. There were seven of boys and we did whatever work there was done on the farm, but I happened to be down among the younger ones and older ones didn’t like farm work, so by the time I was 12 or 13 was the ‘chief on the farm.’ What little farming we did and one of the big jobs was to get my younger brothers to do what I thought was their part in taking care of the farm. Father did encourage us to get through high school and we all did. I was the only one of the three younger boys that finished college, but we all got through high school. We didn’t have any of the luxuries and we worked even as kids. I think one of the troubles with youth today and I don’t think there are nearly as many of them as people think, but one of the troubles is that children are given too much and are not required to make an adequate return for it. I think you can spoil the child by giving him too much maybe worse than if you made it pretty hard on them. BB: Could you give me the name of your parents and their birthplace? SH: My father was William J. Harris and he was born out in the county from Abingdon, Virginia, where his father owned considerable farmland. My mother was born just this side of Mountain City, Tennessee, on the road about two miles this side of Shouns (Tennessee). Their education was limited to grade school. I don’t think either one of them ever went to college, but they appreciated the importance of their children getting an education, and while they didn’t have back in those days much money to help them through college, they did encourage us to make our own way so I worked my way through college and that was good for me. BB: How much schooling did your brothers and sisters have? SH: All of them went to high school, what in those days was considered high school. My brother Kemp went to college to study to be a minister and had the best education of any of us, including me, but he didn’t go to college until after he had decided to go into the ministry and that was when he was 25 or 30 years old. He was like a lot of other ministers now, young ministers, he went to college and pastored a small church some place, and managed to get through college that way. BB: Wen you came to this area what sorts of churches were there? SH: Well, over in Cove Creek where I taught school and where I lived, there was a Methodist and a Baptist church, Henson’s Chapel and Cove Creek Baptist Church that is still there. So far as my knowledge is concerned there was an Episcopal church, a Methodist church, and a Baptist church in Boone. But I did not know too much about them even when I was teaching at Cove Creek. BB: To which church did most people in the community belong? SH: Baptist. 8 �BB: What were they like at that time and how have they changed? SH: I don’t see too much change so far as the religions attitudes concerned. I think they’re a little bit more liberal toward other churches than they used to be, that’s true to both Baptist and Methodist. I think my father tried to give me the impression that all Catholics had “horns and trails” and I learned that people in the Catholic Church were just as fine as the people in some other churches so that seems to be a drifting of not being so antagonistic toward some other and I think that’s true between the Baptist and the Methodist, all the others. BB: How did this community get its name? SH: Well, as far as I know it was the legend of Daniel Boone that gave this particular community its name. How much Daniel Boone really ever stopped here is still a question. He undoubtedly passed through a few times. BB: How and why was it formed in the first place? SH: I don’t know the answer to that; I suppose it was just sort of grew up as most places do to start with. I think that the Dougherty boys and the school had had a tremendous influence on the building of the town. They just had vision, they didn’t have much to work with back in those days but they got a school started and kept it going. BB: How had the community changed over the years? SH: Well, it has changed a lot in the comforts of the people that lived in the community, other than that I don’t see too much change. A large proportion of the people now are making pretty good wages and they’re living them up pretty large. Businesses have grown, some of them tremendously. BB: Who have been the community decision makers? SH: Well, the folks at the Northwestern Bank have been a tremendous influence in making the community. Alfred Adams has been chairman of the industry committee, and from a business standpoint there is nothing that has even approached the importance of the industry committee of the Chamber of Commerce in building the community from a standpoint of industry. BB: Have the Dougherty’s been in this decision making group? SH: Yes, very definitely. One of the interesting things to me was that back when I first came here, Dr. Blan Dougherty was very much opposed to developing industry, but a few years later he had a very definite change of mind and particularly in the promotion of the International Resistance Company (IRC) and a very important promoter of industry. Of course he had one love, and it was above everything else, and it was the college, which he built up from a little 9 �grade school to a quite sizeable college and laid the foundations for a tremendous growth that happened under Dr. Plemmons as president and is still happening under Dr. Wey. BB: Could you give me any other names of really important decision makers in the community? SH: Well, I think Clyde Greene and Russell Hodges were of tremendous importance, and the Winklers have been important promoters, especially Ralph and Gordon. The three Wilcox boys – Herman, Charlie, and Dempsey have been tremendously important people in developing this community. BB: Would you list the Farthings and the Councills among these also? SH: Well, the Farthings and Councills held a lot of property and Grady Farthing has been tremendously important as president of the Watauga Savings and Loan which, when I first became connected with it, had assets of very much less than $500,000. Now I understand their assets are listed at about 36 million. Grady Farthing has been tremendously important in that connection. Home of the best citizens in the county were Farthings, but Grady stands out as the high man so far as promoting the community is concerned. BB: Are there any minority groups in the community? SH: Oh, yes. There are minority groups, but they’re much better off than they are in cities, and we don’t have much trouble with the minority groups whether they be black or something else. BB: Were some families poorer than others? SH: Oh, sure! That’s true today. Home families barely lived while others were living in luxury. BB: Did the others look out for them to a certain extent? SH: A little, not much. BB: How many people were in the community? SH: Well, the first time I came to Boone, there must not have been over 300 or 400 people living in what is now Boone. There weren’t any paced streets or even “MacAdamized” streets, there were just mud roads and when it rained they were really muddy roads. BB: Has the population changed greatly? SH: Numerically, of course, it has changed greatly. A large number of people now living in Boone lived in the county but a greater number of people lived outside. From an educated standpoint, there’s a very tremendous difference. Back when I first came here there was very few that you could called educated. Now, a large portion of the population is at least high 10 �school educated. A very large proportion of the high school graduates go on to college. BB: Do you think there was a certain time that the population changed was greater, or was there a sudden influx of people, or was there a gradual change over the years? SH: Well, while there was a gradual change, there have been two or three instances where there was an influx, and the last five years have properly been the worse, or the best whichever one you want to put it. BB: Concerning transportation, how did people get around in the community? SH: Back then they walked, or rode a mule. Home of the better ones had a buggy. The automobile finally came, and very few had automobiles, but it kept picking up and picking up and automobile companies have probably sold more new cars this year, ten to one than there were in the county in 1947 when I came back here. BB: Where did the roads and railroads run? SH: Well, of course 421 was mapped out east and west of Boone, 321 and 221 were mapped out but they weren’t paved or fixed up. The road to Blowing Rock was one of the best, but that was organized as a toll road and you had to pay a toll to go over it. The county roads were generally poor and generally dirt. Paving the roads has been done in the last 20 years, mostly. BB: When were the railroads built? SH: Well, the Tweetsie Railroad built into here, I think, was built back in the teens, and was built primarily as a lumber road, though they had passenger coaches. Fact of it is, the railroad didn’t come beyond Cranberry when I was a boy and the first train that I ever road on was the Tweetsie from Elk Park all the way to Cranberry, but I remember very well how afraid I was of it. My brother carried me onboard, and I got down to Cranberry, and that was about 81-83 years ago. They built on up here (to Boone) after the William Ritter Lumber Company had developed Pineola, which they called Saginaw largely, and the Linville River Railway came on into Boone, but both of them from Cranberry to Boone was primarily built for lumber. BB: Are you familiar with any of the mountain crafts or customs? SH: No, not familiar enough to talk about it. BB: Are you familiar with the folktales, legends, or superstitions of this area? SH: Well, I’m not too familiar with that. 11 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews Description An account of the resource In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region. The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students. Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU. An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school. This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965-1989 Sound A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio. Artist Harris, Stanley (interviewee) Brinkley, Bill (interviewer) Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 03:07, Depression; 01:44 Work ethic Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Stanley Austin Harris, date unknown Description An account of the resource Stanley Austin Harris was born on October 31, 1882 in Trade, Tennessee, and reared in Avery County. The son of a Confederate officer, after graduating from Tennessee Wesleyan College in 1903, he worked for the Young Men's Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.) in Kentucky where he was introduced to the British Boy Scout movement. He chartered a troop from the British Scouting movement in 1908, two years before the Scouting program was established in the United States. He started working for the Boy Scouts of America in 1917 until his retirement in 1947 at the national office in New York City. In 1926, he was the director of the Interracial Service where his responsibility was to build positive relationships with African American and Native American communities across the nation. The Harris family lived in Boone while he worked in New York City, but would commute by train every few weeks. In 1942, Stanley Harris was awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities from the historically black university Tuskegee Institute; the first Caucasian to receive this honor. Upon retiring, he lived in Boone and was very active with local businesses and civic groups. During the interview he focuses largely on his retired life and talks about his childhood, the Depression, and Boone history. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource unknown Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 12 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"><Folder><name>OpenLayers export</name><description>Exported on Thu Oct 24 2013 14:22:23 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)</description></Folder></kml>||||osm Avery County (N.C.) <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"><Folder><name>OpenLayers export</name><description>Exported on Thu Oct 24 2013 14:22:23 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)</description></Folder></kml>||||osm Watauga County (N.C) Subject The topic of the resource Harris, Stanley Austin--Interviews Boy Scouts of America Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Watauga County (N.C.)--History--20th century Avery County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Tennessee--Social life and customs--20th century Avery County Boone Boy Scouts of America Depression Kentucky Rotary Club Stanley Harris Tennessee Wesleyan College Tennesssee Tuskegee Institute Watauga Centennial Celebration Watauga County N.C. https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/7279378da62d287a2467250bf1170b40.pdf 8f9a8b5d3b6eecb22ef29b88d6635df0 PDF Text Text Oral History Transcript Appalachian State University • Collection 111, Tape 122/123 Interviewee: Don Davis Interviewer: Donna Clausen 1973 July 5 This is an interview with Mr. Don Davis for the Appalachian Oral History Project by Donna Clausen on July 5, 1973. CD: Donna Clawson RD: Don Davis CD: Mr. Davis, when were you born? RD: July 30, 1986. CD: What year was it when you started school? RD: I suppose I started school in 1902. CD: What school did you go to? RD: Laurel Ford, a little school about a mile toward Todd, off on the right hand side of the road. CD: What kind of school was it? Was it one-room? RD: It was a one-room school. The house was made of “boxing,” we called it in those days. The plants set-up and down, and enclosed the house. Part of it was sealed; part of it wasn’t. It was a rather cold building in the winter. It was heated by a stove sitting near the middle of the room. You’d call it a shack if you saw it now. CD: Was it not a very large building? RD: Small building. CD: How many pupils were in the school? RD: I’m sorry that I don’t know, but there were pupils from the first to the seventh grade. I’d say 20 to 30. 1 �CD: How many teachers did you have? RD: One teacher, Miss Margaret Dobbins. She lived a half-mile from the school. CD: Did she board with someone or was she from the area? RD: Her home was in the area. She stayed at home. I passed by her house every morning as I went to school. I usually waited for her. CD: How far did you have to walk to school? RD: Oh, it was something over a mile. I doubt whether it was a mile and a half. CD: What time of year were you in school? RD: I think we started in September. The first school I went to, I guess, was for four months. CD: Can you remember your first day of school? RD: I’m afraid I can’t remember and pick out the first day as an individual, vivid picture. CD: Did you go through your entire seven years there? RD: No, I changed several times. When I had been going to school for three or four years, they moved the school house down to what I would refer to as Mr. James Miller’s bottom, and built another house. I don’t remember how many years I went to it, but when I was 12 or 13 a new district was created in this area. It was called the Tugman School District. They had to build a house, and for the first term they used a little storehouse that belonged to Mrs. Emma Stevens, about a mile and a half from where we are on the road toward Boone. Then the following year they had the Tugman Schoolhouse built, which was on the road toward Boone near where Donald Woodring now lives. It was a much better house than I’d been accustomed to, but it had only one large room and one teacher. CD: What kind of subjects did you study in school? RD: We studied the traditional subjects I guess: reading, writing, and arithmetic. To that were added geography and history, civil government, physiology. And the last year that I went to the Tugman School we studied a course in elementary agriculture. CD: Did one teach all those subjects? 2 �RD: One teacher attempted to teach all the subjects. The last year that I went to Tugman School, I went there, I guess, three years, a couple of the seventh grade boys assisted a little by working with the second and third grades part of the time. CD: What kind of equipment and furnishings did the school have when you were going to school? RD: When I went to the first school there were no desks, and crude benches. I’m not sure in the second school whether we had any desks, but still it was largely benches. In the Tugman School we had well-constructed desks, through they were homemade. But they had sufficient room for our books, and the top of the desk was large enough to keep all our books and for our writings. CD: What kind of writing materials did you have? RD: The first writing equipment that I recall was what we called a slate. It was made of a type of rock, and had a wooden frame around it. We marked on it with what we called a slate pencil, which was also some type of rock. And of course we had some paper. But I can remember when it was something to have a paper tablet in school, and a pencil to write with. CD: Did you have textbooks for every subject? RD: No, we didn’t have any writing books that I recall. Any books that we had were individually owned. At least they were not furnished by the state or county. It was hoped that each child would have a set of books. Often, it wasn’t true. Many times, two or three pupils tried to work from the same book. CD: What did you do for recreation, like when you had a recess or something? RD: We played various types of ball, and what we called “Dare base.” We threw the ball over the house, caught it over there, ran around on the other side, and went around and the fellow on the other side caught it and ran around the people on that side before he could get around to the opposite side, and thereby caused him to belong to the side which had been successful. In the Dare-base, we divided into teams, somebody chose the players. One from one side would go over and touch something near the other side that they dared us to touch, and then they attempted to catch us before we could get back to the home base. If they did, we became their player. Of course the game was won if they could catch all of those players. CD: Did boys and girls play that game? RD: Yes. Another game we played was a game called “Bull-pen.” It was a type of ball where part of the players were in a circle and part of them were inside the circle. The ones that composed the circle would hit a boy within the circle, and then they would run a certain distance to a defined spot. 3 �The one whom they’d hit would stand at a definite place and try to hit one of the players who’d formed the circle. If they could hit him, he had to come inside the circle, and the other fellows were around him. CD: That sounds exciting. What kind of discipline did the teacher use? RD: Various kinds of discipline. All the teachers that I recall used various types of corporal punishment. Sometimes they switched pupils; sometimes they paddled them in the hand with a ruler. Sometimes they had them stand on one foot. Some had them put their nose in a ring on the blackboard, and then put each hand up on the board at a mark and stand for a definite time. An they were kept it, if they wouldn’t study or misbehaved. When the others went out, they were assigned something to do inside. And there were times when they were required to learn something extra because they’d been lazy and hadn’t learned what they should’ve learned. CD: Did they ever have to memorize anything? RD: Yes. Sometimes they memorized as a form of punishment. I guess that was bad, but the teacher had to do something. Teachers, then as now, I presume, were often at their wit’s end to know what was best to do to control the children. Various teachers had various rules, of course. Some expected a much quieter room than others. Some were stricter about the lesson being well-prepared than others. That, I supposed, still holds. CD: Can you remember the qualifications that your teachers had to have to teach? RD: The earliest teacher that I had was reported to have had a first-grade certificate. That doesn’t mean a certificate to teach the first grate. There were “First-grade” and “Second-grade” certificates issued by the county superintendent when the teachers had followed and completed a definite line of work. It was assumed that a teacher who had a First-grade certificate would be a superior teacher to one who had a second. There may have been “Third-grade” certificates. I’m not sure about that. As now, a certificate was not always definite proof of what type of teaching a person would be able to do. CD: Do you know what kind of salary the teachers received? RD: My first teacher received a dollar a day. When I first attempted to teach I received a dollar and a quarter. The last day I ever taught, I received more salary than I did in the first month, or any month of my first year. 4 �CD: Where did you go to school after you finished grade school? RD: Appalachian Training School. There were no high schools available in this area where one could stay home and go to high school. Because of that I didn’t go to high school as soon as I should have gone. I went back to grade school. I might have entered high school if there’d been one located close enough home so that I could’ve stayed at home and gone. CD: What year did you start at Appalachian Training School? RD: The beginning of 1917, I guess. CD: Did you have to stay there to go to school? RD: Yes. I boarded with a Mr. Henry Lewis and his family. CD: How long did you go to school there? RD: I went to Appalachian Training School, and Appalachian State Normal, and Appalachian Teachers College off and on, periods in the summer. I went one full year during the time but largely taught in the regular school years. During that time I taught in the regular school year. Sometimes I began at Christmas because schools closed in those days generally before Christmas. Other times I just went to summer school, sometimes one summer term and sometimes two. There was a time when I needed credit toward a certificate, thought I did, that Appalachian wasn’t prepared to give and I went to the University to the summer school: two summer schools in 1928, two summer schools in 1929 at Chapel Hill. Then I had the certificate equivalent to what one would secure by graduating from a four-year college. But it seemed after I’d secured that that I still wasn’t satisfied with the training and I continued until I finally earned a degree from Appalachian, which was issued in 1937. CD: What was the first year that you began teaching? RD: In the fall of 1917. CD: Where were you teaching? RD: Zionville. As an assistant teacher in a two-teacher school. CD: What subjects did you teach? RD: I had first, second, and third grades. We had reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic, largely. 5 �CD: At that time, had the schools changed a lot from when you had been in grade school? RD: The schools were about the same then that they were when I was in grade school, and whatever methods I had were, to a great extent, borrowed from the teachers that I had gone to in grade school. CD: Where did you teach after you finished teaching there? RD: I taught there for five years, but there were intervals that I didn’t teach. Once I went to a camp near the close of the First World War. I didn’t teach that year. Then I went back and taught a year. Then I went to school a whole year. And then I guess I went back and taught . All together I taught five years there. And then I came from there to Todd, and I taught 17 years at Todd. Then I went to Jefferson and taught two years, then went to Lansing and taught four years. And then I came back to Todd and taught enough to make 32 years in all at Todd. I went to Jefferson thinking that I would be a teacher only, but it developed that I had to be the principal of a school because the principal resigned to go into defense work before the school opened. And I went to Lansing because they needed a principal. That was during World War II, and the school personnel was scarce. Had to use teachers, oft times that were not really qualified, so far as credits earned at school were concerned, to be teachers. Some of them did excellent work in spite of that. Lansing was a large school, the largest in the county. It was a union school, had 12 grades, and between, as I recall, six or seven hundred. CD: Did you teach as well as being principal? RD: I taught some. As much as the county superintendent would permit me to teach. He had a notion that there were a lot of other things that were important for a principal to do besides teach. And I agreed that he was right. I remember teaching American history and sociology in the Lansing School. I recall having had a class of 9th grade math one year. I also had world history, sometimes. It seems to me now, as I think back, that I had two or three periods of teaching a day. Various subjects during the four years. I taught geography sometimes. CD: Do you prefer teaching or being a principal? RD: Well, I’m not sure how you answer that. I’d say yes, without hesitation if one could have what he considered an efficient principal all the time. Its not always easy to teach if the principal is unable or unwilling to establish procedures for the school to follow that make what one considers a good school. CD: Were there a lot of changes in the curriculum over the years that you taught? 6 �RD: The curriculum expanded considerably during the years I taught. It was enlarged to include many things that hadn’t been included before, and its been enlarged even since I’ve quit teaching to include still other things. Now, I think the curriculum is perhaps the best it’s been. I’m heartily in favor of things they’ve added wherein a child could learn by using his hands to do things that he can use later in life as an occupation, whereby he could make a living. Carpentry and bricklaying, plumbing and auto mechanics, and typing and bookkeeping: Things that will function after the schooldays are over. CD: Do you think that variety is important in a curriculum? RD: Yes, indeed. I think that variety is very important. Now it’s to me quite noticeable that there’s so much more for children to choose from than there used to be. When I worked in the high school at Todd, I was principal there a couple of years, but mainly I worked in the high school there for a number of years. It was a small high school. We had few teachers, four, I guess, though it was accredited. And that was the smallest number one could be accredited for, I guess. But we had what was called a cut-and-dried curriculum. And whether you liked the subject or not, you must take it. If you graduated from the school you had to have 16 units and you had to take all the courses offered to get 16. After a while, it got a little better. And now, is consolidated high schools (Todd High School consolidated at Beaver Creek with Fleetwood and West Jefferson to make the Beaver Creek High School), they have so much additional in the way of courses to offer that its quite gratifying for e to know that a child doesn’t have to take world history if its meaningless to him. And that he’s not obliged to take French if he has no interest or understanding of it, things like that. CD: How do you feel about certain required courses? Do you feel that some courses should be required? RD: I think I do. I would want a child to know something of the background of his country, and I think for that reason American history is a must. Since we try to speak the English language, even though we do it quite poorly, I think English is a must. Of course, if you aim to write, you must know how to spell some. And if you aim to write, you must know how to form your letters. So I think there are a number of courses that one would say has to be required. But I’m quite happy that everything isn’t required; that a child has a right to choose now from among many courses. CD: Do you think math courses should be required? RD: I don’t know how much math should be required. Math, like French, is somewhat of a 7 �riddle to some people. They don’t seem to have an aptitude or interest for it. However, we have to count to do any business. And one does need to know the basics. CD: How have the qualifications for teaching changed over the years? RD: Well, it’s unbelievable to one who hasn’t thought about it. When I began teaching, qualifications were determined by the availability of somebody with some learning to work in the school. If they’d been high when I was a youngster, I think the schools would have had to remain closed. Now they consider a person reasonably well qualified if he has a master’s degree. Some counties a few years ago would hardly employ one who didn’t have a master’s degree. I think maybe they’re not quite as strict on that in Watauga as they were 10 years or longer ago. There are many positions now that one must have at least a master’s degree to fill and its desirable to have a doctor’s degree. Watauga elected a superintendent the other day that I used to teach over a Lansing. He has a doctor’s degree. I’ve been extremely proud of him because o the progress he’s made in the acquiring the necessary understandings to be what I hope will be an outstanding superintendent for Watauga. I think now that degree is generally expected from anybody, certainly a beginning teacher. There may be some still teaching who haven’t a degree who worked, raising their certificate without earning a degree. But I don’t think there’s anyone beginning teaching now without a degree. I don’t know that that’s so. You could find out. CD: I doubt that you could. It’s hard enough to get jobs with degrees. RD: Of course I’m speaking of those subjects that must have a learned background that’s learned from books. There are people teaching bricklaying and carpentry, and those kindred subjects like auto mechanics and things like that who don’t have degrees. They don’t have to have them to teach those subjects. 8 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/0bacb7c67ddd82623c1891caed2c2ae7.mp3 926b22193be83e92f3ff03378e1576b2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews Description An account of the resource In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region. The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students. Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU. An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school. This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965-1989 Sound A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio. Artist Davis, Ron (interviewee) Clausen, Donna (interviewer) Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:44, Bullpen ball game Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ron Davis, July 5 1973 Description An account of the resource William Ron Davis was born in Todd, North Carolina on July 30, 1896, attended college at Appalachian Training School for Teachers (later became Appalachian State University) starting in 1917, then taught in Watauga and Ashe Counties for 32 years. He passed away on March 9, 1978 at the age of 81. During his interview, Ron reflected on his rearing in rural Ashe County including his education, the rules to games they played as children, and discipline. He spent a considerable amount of time reflecting on education including his thoughts on how education has changed. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Davis, Ron Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5-Jul-73 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 8 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"><Folder><name>OpenLayers export</name><description>Exported on Thu Oct 24 2013 14:25:20 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)</description></Folder></kml>||||osm Todd (N.C) <kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"><Folder><name>OpenLayers export</name><description>Exported on Thu Oct 24 2013 14:25:20 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)</description></Folder></kml>||||osm Ashe County (N.C.) Subject The topic of the resource Davis, William Ron--Interviews Appalachian Training School for Teachers (N.C.) Teachers--North Carolina--Ashe County--Interviews Teachers--North Carolina--Watauga County--Interviews Appalachian State University Ashe County children games discipline Education Elkville Lansing Todd Watauga County N.C.