1 50 3 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/d64cd610551e84347b37f6f1ba7e6a13.pdf b8c8f282d27abb9305cda32faf9cfed5 PDF Text Text This is an interview2with Carter Ruppard by Tommy Pursley for the Appalachian Oral History Project at Matney N. C. on June 10, 1974. Interviewer : Where was your mama and daddy born? Mr. Ruppard : In Irdell county . I forget the name of the town . That's been years ago. If my daddy had been living yet he would be a hundred and seven years old . He come to this country from I rdell county to Watauga. Interviewer : When did they move here? Mr. Puppard: My daddy was twenty-five years old when he moved to Watauga county. And raised thirteen children in the country. Interviewer: born? What were you in that thirteen? Were you one of the first ones Mr. Ruppard : No, no . Let's see. Andrew is the oldest, Laura, Ellen, James, Nanie, Daisie, Me, Maggie, Besty, Troy, Roy, Sherman, right on down the rotation. Interviewer : Were they all born f ight here? Mr. Ruppard: In Watauga County : Interviewer : So when your daddy moved here • . . . Mr . Ruppard: Right over here at Cove Creek, at Willow Dale. Interviewer: That's where he lived? Mr . Ruppard: here . Yes sir. Interviewer : Are all your brothers and sisters still living? He lived there eighteen years before he ever came up Mr. Ruppard : No sir . I just got two sisters a living. I got two brothers and a sister living besides myself . The rest are all dead . Interviewer: Do they still live around this area? Mr. Ruppard : Got two brothers that live up here at Blowing Rock; one sister lives over here this side of Banner Elk, Horse Bottom they call it. Interviewer : Why did your parents move to Watauga County? Mr. Ruppard : They just come from Irdell County to here, took up and raised here, right over at Cove Creek at Willow Dale. Interviewer : Did they have them a farl'l? �2 Mr . Ruppard: Rented~ They rented fro~ old man Thin Mast . , Dave Mast's daddy, Gharles Mas.t t:s daddy . Stay up there eighteen years till we come to tnis country up here. Been here about sixty-nine years, right here. What I was going to say about the little ridge up there where Troy and Roy live, up there this side of Illowing Rock, stayed up there eighteen years, butchered for Boone Fork Lumber Company when the band mill ran over here at Shull ' s Mill, then I came back here, home to the old place . Interviewer: You were born on Cove Creek right? Mr. Ruppard: Yes sir. Interviewer : How old were you when you moved away from there? Right up there above Willow Dale. Mr. Ruppard: I was just ten year old when we come from over there over here. I'm eighty-two years old . We been here some while . Interviewer: Did your brothers and sisters help with the farming? Mr . Ruppard: Oh yeah . I can remember very well nister when there were nine of us all big enough at home at one time to take a row of corn across the hill together . Went to the taole and filled the table as far as here over to mama . Lived better then than we can now . And it was every day business . Interviewer: Did you all raise most everything you needed on the farm? Mr. Ruppard : Yes sir . We hardly ever go to buy anything unless it would be a poke of flour once in a while. The rest of the stuff was all raised on the farm . People better get to doing it now to . Interviewer : Do you still raise a lot of your food right now? Mr . Ruppard : Everything mostly. Interviewer: Do you remember anything that happen when all thirteen of your brothers and sisters were living at home? Ruppard : I can remember everything from two years old up to now . Yessir. I stayed with my oldest brother that Has married . The first baby that vTas born I was two years old . They sent me back home and I could carry just half a gallon of water to his wife . I stayed with them nearly three weeks and when they sent me back home they bought me a pair a overhauls just like the ones I got on now . I've wore pretty much ever since. I can remember stuff back then just about as good as I can a month ago . It was daylight to dark work, carry a lantern up at night to tie up ( unintangible) and put it in stacks. People have to do it this day and tiwe they'd die in spite of everything. l~r . Interviewer: Do you think life was better then than it is now? �3 Mr. Ruppard: Well in a way . Interviewer: What ways was it better? Mr . Ruppard : We never had any of this back then . . . I can remember very well. I was ten year old when we lef t over there and come here . Been here ever since and up to that time you never heard of a sickness only one thing . An old one-eyed fellow lived over here at Matney and people would come from Cove Creek and come to him to get him to make medicine to cure Diptheria they call it . Now then there is all kinds of disease everywhere. Every kid that took Diptheria would come to old man Doc Hogsy right over here at Matney . They had to make medicine to cure that. You would hear tell of measles, mumps, something like that, but I mean anything like cancer, stuff that a way you never heard tell of it. Interviewer: When the doctor had to take care of people what did he charge and how did you pay him? Mr. Ruppard: Back when we were over there for eighteen years, there weren ' t two doctors in this country at that time, old man Doc Perry and Doc Fybes down on Cove Creek . If they went to see you years ago they went horseback riding. Interviewer : Mr. was the two Well how were the roads? Ruppard: Oh boy it was bad . Not a hard surface road heard tell of. It just out of one hole and into another one . They call you out to work enroads and you had to do it for free. They'd work you out two days every weeks. I worked this road here when free labor was working . Interviewer: Were the roads wide enough for wagons? Mr. Ruppard : Just about one way. You had to pick places ti pass. It wasn't like it is now where you could pass anywhere . A lot of places you would have to pick places to pass . I've hauled lumber from here to Elk Park and Cranberry on the dirt road, mud down through there. You be expecting to meet somebody and have to pass them with a load of lumber. It's all together different. Interviewer: Well you've talked about how hard you had to work, did you ever have time for games or anything like that . Mr. Ruppard: Lord dickens. place a going. It was daylight to dark, after dark to keep the Interviewer : You never got to go out and fool around with your friends? Mr. Ruppard: Very seldom did we get to' do the same thing as a vacation day . Interviewer: What did you do for entertainment? Mr. Ruppard: Like I tell you, hard work . That's what we got . �4 Interviewer: You didn't have get togethers? Mr. Ruppard: Only thing like that back then was in clearing new ground people would go in ... if we had a big new ground to clear here, the Binghams down here and Haurts and all of them would come in here and help us in our new ground and when we got ours ready to pile the logs and burn the brush we'd go on and help them get theirs ready. And while the men folks were doing that the women folks would have a quilting . . They sit around and quilt and get dinner. I fell on two old sled standards years ago and broke two ribs back there and just got so I could get out of the hospital with that and they swell up on me and it cuts my breath off every once in a while. I guess I took a team and logged more than anybody in this country that I know of now. Two big settings up in Jenkins, Kentucky, two big settings up at Garden Creek, 26 miles above Wilkesboro. We logged all over this country. Interviewer: What would you do leave home for a couple weeks? Mr. Ruppard: Yes sir. Interviewer: How was the pay then? Mr. Ruppard: It come slow. It come slow, Mister. I was talking to a fellar the other day about going up there to · Kentucky on that job, we destroyed and wasted more timber that if we had it back this day and time we could buy up a sight. Big chestnut logs and we'd just cut a twelve foot slice out of them to make our log losd out of and just leave the rest hardwood, poplar, and stuff and now old rotten wormy chestnut is way up yonder. We wasted more than people make this day and time. Interviewer: Besides logging and farming what other jobs have you worked at? Mr. Ruppard: That's about all I ever did, farmed, sawmilled, logged. Interviewer: Which work did you like the best? Mr. Ruppard: I just as soon get out and go to the mountains after a trail of logs as I would anything. Or work at a sawmill if every man does his part under a sawmill shed. I loved that pretty good. You couldn't find most of them that would do that. One would loaf on his work and that would make it harder on the rest of us under the shed. If everybody would carry his load, I'd just as soon work under a sawmill shed. Interviewer: Was Saturday and Sunday any different from the rest of the week? Mr. Ruppard: We'd work Saturday and take off on Sunday. Interviewer: What did you do on Sunday? Mr. Ruppard: Go to church and have a good time. Most of the time we had to work late Saturday night carrying out hay and tie up the stacks. It was hard business. �5 Interviewer: Did you go to church on Sunday and stay all day? Mr. Ruppard: No. We go until after the service and come back home. lay around or walk up to your neighbors. Interviewer : What kind of church did you go to? Mr. Ruppard : Baptist . We'd Everyone of us, the whole bunch was Baptist . Interviewer: What did you do when you started getting a little older about courting girls? M.r. Ruppard: going. We'd ask daddy if we could go out . Interviewer: Where would you go if you went? If he said no then you weren't Mr . Ruppard: Just go to her house. I was telling a fellow here the other n~ght • he. was· talking about drinking liquor . I said anybody can smell gas or 1 ~iquor quicker than I can they just might as well stay in bed. I don't fool with it and I never did . I had a pair of mares and I hooked them to a bug . .. I dated this girl nearly four years, stayed in a sawmill with her da~ly and hauled lumber through the \-?inter time with him ... we took a buggy ride down to Elk valley, down Elk Park and around on Sunday . And they was Advents; Seven Day Advents. We came hack from the ride and I hitched the mares as far as from here to the road from their house. Her daddy never would ask me to help him on Sunday . But when we drove up her daddy and grandpaw, an old man, was up in the hollar trying to finish stacking some hay. It looked like it was going to rain. Well this girl ' s name Fas l)aisie, but her daddy always called her son . Her sister's name was Blanche and he always called her Jack . He seen us walking up to tl\e house and hollared, ''hey Son." She said, "what do you want Papa?" He said, ''bring us a bucket of water up here . '·' We went out to this spring and carried them a bucket of water and he said, "Son, how about getting up there and finish stomping down that ' so-and-so'· hey . " He was an awful man to swear . That's the only thing I ever had against him. I said, "no, I ' 11 do it." I wasn't going to stand there and see her do it . Before I did it he said, ''Cart you never have took a drink and before you get up on that hay you got to take a drink. 1 ' Before I could say anything there he come around that haystack totin a gallon jug, holden the cork in his teeth and pouring it like he was pouring water. To satisfy him I took that jug and turned it up and took one swallow. I got the whole whiff of it as I . . .. I got up there and before we could finish that haystack, I had to hold to th~ top of that stack to keep from .. . . . I could see everything in twos, two of everything . And I noticed this girl sitting up there laughing at me. Yeah, she was tickled to death. I had to hold to that dogged pole up there to keep f rom falling off till we got that stack done . Then I had to go back down to the house. I had to go about from here to the woods up yonder to my horse and buggy. I remember very well trying to get my horses unhitched and a fellow come along that was courting one of my sisters, Walt Bennet, he was corning over here . Re got me in that buggy and brought me home, took my mares and turned them loose . The next thing I could remember, buddy, was right in that room, right in there, my mother was standing there trying to pour sweet milk down me . I could always blow an old French harp. �6 My paw, he was sittinr, there and he said, " son, let's .~ear you play some on your French harp. Be said that I said, "where's the dad-blame thing at.'~ rle gave me that French harp. Instead of holding it the way I was supposed to, I was blowing in the back of it. He said that I said, " I can't blow this dad-blamed thing." And I throwed it at him and bearly missed him in the face. So I count it that I been tight one time in my life. Then one other day we went to Johnson City. Feller up here, Lee Ward, went with us, cattleman. I bought me a calf. Coming on back ... Willie, my oldest boy, he lives down here by Ernie Tripplet, by Connie Yates out there. Lee says to Willie, "I want to p.sk yo u something. I want the truth and Willie I want you to tell me. Did you ever see your papa turn up anything to drink?" Willie says, " No sir, not in my life I ain't." Coming back outside of Johnson City there's a place Mister Lee can 't pass to save his life without stopping and ~etting him a pint. But when he does he says, "Mister Cart there ain't no use to offer it to you. You won't drink it." And he'll set it behind the seat. And I'll take an ~ oath anytime you want me to that I never saw a bottle turned up to Lee Ward's mouth while he was behind the steering wheel. Lee said, " I want to ask you again . Did you ever hear your daddy swear?" He says, "No, only when he was talking after somebody else and telling what they said." I brought that calf back ... Mister Lee says, 11 Mister Cart, before you put that calf on that rich cows milk you better give her something for the scaires. I've got the medicine." I said, "Mister Lee, I 'd just soon pay you as anybody." He got that old calf and took it over there to the barn. In the barn set an old Pepsi bottle with about that much clorox in it. He just pick that stuff up and poured it down that calf and that calf went about half way across tne yard there and just fell over. I said, ''looky there Mister Lee." He said, "Goddamn." I said, "there ain't no Goddamn to it. It's a dead calf." It just kick two or three kicks and it was dead right quick. He said, "what was in that bottle?" I said, "you had it poured down that calf so quick, I couldn't tell you." It was clorox Andrew had over there bleaching his Stallion's mane. He came out with his checkbook to write me the money for the calf. I said, "no Mister Lee. That money's worth advertising your doctoring. He said, "Cart, don't you ever tell anybody about this." Well if I'd promised the man that I wouldn't have told it then I'd not told it, but I never promised that I wouldn't. I swapped horses with him one time and he gave me fifty dollars to boot. He said, "I'll swap with you if you'll never tell anybody I booted you." I said, "that's the reason I want to swap with you Mister Lee; so I can tell everybody that I got a little boot in a horse swap.'' Well a little later on over here at the stock sells in Boone, we were all standing up on the bank watching the rotation. Right there about middle ways there layed a two year old that was just bearly milk broke. He was just a shaking. One of them, a fellow called on Mr. Fred Greene. Me and Lee were standing right together watching them run the cattle in there. One of the fellows said, "Fred here's one down the milkboard. He called on a fellow, Johnson, to get some ~oys and drag him out of the way so the other ones would quit runnin~ over him. He said, "I'll get him up from there directly. I'll give hirr. a dose of penicillin." I said, "Mister Taylor if you can't get him up Mister Lee here can." We had a lot of fun together. Interviewer: What did he intend to give the calf? Mr. Ruppard: He figured it was \Tater and he mixed this powder with it, but he �7 poured that clorox down that calf . That's what killed it . It just walked there and i t didn't kick three kicks. He just poured that powder in that Pepsi bottle . He never asked if it was water or coffee of liquor no~ nothing. Interviewer: Well the man that gave you the drink of liquor, did he make it? Mr. Ruppard : Oh, no sir. A fellow right down here this side of Elk Park bootlegged all the time. His daddy did up till he died then old Hoove Eller . .. old man Ben Eller, he made it and sold it all fiis life . After Ben died Hoove ran it, he sold it. Anybody wants a gallon of liquor they go down to Hoove Eller ' s . Me and his oldest brother, a crippled fellow, took a load of lumber over tp Elk Park, broke a wagon wheel down, didn't get to come back that nigpt . A fellow down there name Williams fixed our wagon wheel, and we slept with Uncle Ben in what he called his liquor house . There wasn ' t much roof to it, but it had a good floor and it was good and warm. Thomas and Ben made an agreement about something . Ben moved our bed where he had a lid there and he raised it up and reached down there and pulled up two gallons of liquor. That bo-x was sitting just as full of gallons and half gallons just _ pretty as you please . as We stayed there over night . Sometime during the night it come to snowing one of the prettiest snowa I believe I've ever seen. That always did me good too. It would snow and we could pull our logs easier. I bet you the next morning that snow three or four inches on us. Ben said Reese .. . he was laying over there behind. He was way bigger than me or Reese was . He said, "Reese. What do you want Mr. Boss . " He said, "Reese, it ' s time to start a fire . " He says, "OOOOOOH Mr . Boss." I can see .him just as plain as if he was here talking. Ben said, ''you coming out from be~ind there Reese?" "OOOOOOH Mr . Boss I don't believe I can." Be said, "I be dad-blamed if you don ' t." He picked a little of the cover up on on his arm and rolled all of that snow back on Reese . He said, "wait Mr. Boss . Wait Mr . Boss . I'm acoming." Two or three fellers had stayed there on the floor and you couldn ' t tell them from snow. Ben ran them up from there. Now this fellow I was telling you about, I courted his girl, he kept it regular, too, buddy. He kept his liguor . Interviewer: When did you get married? Mr. Ruppard: Oh, I was about 23 years old. She was 16 . What I was going to tell you about the liquor business now. Two fellows were shot over there at Foscoe on Christmas Day . That liquor came from down in a whole where we lived at Watauga Gap . Old man John Townsend, they claimed, could come nearer to making pure whiskey than anybody they knew of . Well from Saturday evening to Sunday night they kept the road full going down there. They'd go down there and spend theit money and go on back home . They never bothered a thing at our house except just passing back and forth . Two fellows, I forget their names, but they fished all the time. They were sitting up under a big oak tree and one said he wished he had some of them fried up, he loved to eat them . Well somebody said, "if you like fish so much why don't you eat them ~·a..; . He said, " by God I can." He caught one that was four or five inches long and he put it in his mouth and swallowed it. They'd had bet 25¢ and it cost him twenty-five dollars to operate to. get that fish out. He swallowed it alive. Well anyway, them same two fellows come up through there one day, had them a gallon a piece and started to come in the house. My daddy stopped'em . Said they weren ' t bringing that stuff in the house with all the youngins in there. They tried to come anyway and my daddy had to drag one of them out by his ankles. That was the only �8 trouble we had the whole time we lived there . But after that killing took place . .. my daddy knowed all four of ' em, worked with them. The high sheriff of the co~nty, Luther Farthing, Coe Perry, Ed Shipley, and old man, I forget his name; we d g~ne to b:d, mama and us children. We slept back in the bedroom and papa slept in here in front of the fireplace. I wasn\t asleep and somebody knocked on the door . Dad said, "come in . " · If he hadn't ask where I was at I wouldn 't have cared so much. Sheriff said, .. he called my daddy grandpa all the time . .. he said, " Grandpa, where is Carter a:t?" I got up and came in there and we sat there and talked to eleven o'clock . Finally he turned around to me and said, •:carter I want to tell you my business." I said, "What's that Sheriff? What have I done or is it something I ain't done . " He said, "no, I brought these three men with me for you to be swore in here as deputy sheriff if it won't be too much trouble for you . " I said, ,. Thank you Sheriff. That's as nice as can be t. asked of anybody . I been here thirteen years and I can't do enough to get people to stop going down there let alone being a target propped up out there to be shot at . " I went on back to bed. He finally deputized one of my brothers, Coy, to help him catch one of Dave Chirley's boys . They was making liquor up in the hollar up there . Bill Whiter's boy, Paul ~'hiter, ¥as up at Blowing Rock courting. About your size for the world and not a finer hoy on the Blue Ridge . He had to pass here and on up through Dave's where they was making the liquor . He come ridinf through in a buggy and they hollared halt at him and didn ' t hear them. They was laying out there on a stack out, Coy and the Sheriff . Coy shot the boy right through the arm there as purty as you please . Talk about somebody giving up their job in a hurry, now Coy did . I never had a run in with the law. I ' ve been in court one time and the judge scared me, I could _ haye_ gone out the top of that building . I went up there and I was a butcher for the Boone Fork Lumber Company while the ban mill was running . I had two sheep to kill and a beef to kill every week. Old man Judge Wagner was the man to pay me, giving me three dollars a day . Now this is the way it went . He went down to Ed Shipley I was telling you about and he give him twenty-five dollars a ewe, a hundred head of ewe. He brought 'em up there and had a divided field with fifty on one side and fifty on the other side . Right here was a white spring and an apple tree stood over there where I had my block hung for butchering. My orders were to kill the two best out of the left hand side of the field until they was used up before I was to kill any on the right hand side . They had jerseys, gernseys, holsteins, all kinds in there . I had an old collie dog, if I had it now I wouldn ' t take five hundred dollars for it. I clip his ears and cut off his tail and =I betcha he weighed 125 pounds. People would come to see that dog catch a sheep. I get my block hung, then I pick out the best one in the bunch and I'd hit that one on the back with a peice of bark of a stick and I ' d say get her Red . No matter hiw many times he ' d chase the sheep around the herd when he finally got it seperated he would get it by the legs and drag it to me . Well that morning my daddy was up there with me and he said, "look coming up the hill." There wasn ' t a road to get up there and a bunch of people from the lumber company were coming up the hill . They got up there and the boss says, •:son which one you gonna give us today?" I said I hadn ' t had time to look them over yet. · Hell the ones on the left side were all nasty looking and had what I call snot-slinkings coming out thear mouth and nose . He picks one out of that bunch and says to kill it and not to kill another one till he sends me word. The next day I was down by the sawmill and Mr . Jud Wagner come up riding a great big old horse and he said, "Hey Mr. Ruppard you back fron killing sheep already?" I said, "No, I ain't killed no sheep and back already." He said, "Well ain ' t the day sheep day . " I said, "No, ' �9 today ain't sheep day . Mr . Richard told me Tuesday morning to kill that one and not to kill any more till he sent me word . " He got mad said he was gonna tell them all off . He swore tnar he rode that horse up to where they was and cussed them all out. I know he was l y ing' cause if he ' d rode that horse up there he would have nad to ride it across two train trussels and there's no way he could have done tnat . Thursday week here comes the deputy sheriff and sentence my daddy and me to Boone to go to court . What it was, the company was sueing Ed Shipley f or putting diseased sneep off on 'em . Jud was sueing Ed Shipley for putting then off on him . Well, they called the case and they said, "tell us your ousiness up there with them sheep . And I told him I was the butcher for the Boone Fork Lumber Company. I told, I had had orders to kill two sheep a week and a beef . I was supposed to take the best two out of the left hand side. The judge was sitting up there behind me and he said, "look around here son." Buddy I could ' 9- went out the top of that court house . He said , "what do you mean the two best out of the left hand side?" And told him the right hand side had more snotty noses and nasty behinds and germy sheep . You know from that day till this they never did settle that unless they compromised some how. Tnis fellow I was telling you about natl this old leather saddle. Nice saddle. I had one . Anyway he was a big old fat fellow and he had that open end saddle on that big old horse he was riding. There was this woman that lived up above us, she could plow as good as any man ever could. She could take a team of horses and handle them better than a man . Well old Ben went up to her house on that big horse and while he was there , she turned that saddle around on his horse and you know he rode that horse all the way back down there to Foscoe before he turned that saddle around, nearly ten miles . You should have seen that fellow . He was sore and black and blue up under there where he ' d rode that saddle backwards all that way . Yeah . We had our ups and downs; ups and downs . Interviewer: Did you get to go to school very much? Mr. Ruppard: I never got to go to school over two months in my life. I was talking to a feller the other day . His daddy was the only teacher I ever went to. He smite me . He hit me . He was a little feller . . . Ralph Wilson's daddy, Frank Wilson, alittle fellow . Rignt there at Willow Dale where I'm telling you, right over there a little farther. There was an old well there, That ' s the reason they built the st:hool there. They cleaned that well out a little later and you'd be surprised at the old dead dogs and cats and chickens and things they got out of that old well . Right on above now us boys had us a swimming hole. It was long as from here that old building up yonder and it was about ten or twelve feet deep. About middle ways there was an old apple tree limb sticking out over the water. And we were playing 'mad dog ' we called it. \{ e were always playing that, us boys . I could run then . The person that was it would say, " innie minnie miny moe, catch a guinie by the toe," then you would light out after them. I had caught all of them except for one boy . He went up that apple tree and I went up after him . He started out on that limb and I was right behind him. Well he got out there and I started shaking the limb . Ee fell in the swimming hole and nearly drowned. I ended up having to jump in there and pull him out. Well there was this girl up there watching and she says she ' s going to tell the teacher . I lite out after her to make sure she tells �10 the truth. Well she told him and he sends me to get a switch. You needn'.t come back with one with just one switch on it, it had to have two switches on it. He switched me, boy he switched me. � 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 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Pursley, Tommy Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Rupard, Carter Interview Date 6/17/1974 Location The location of the interview. Boone, NC Number of pages 10 pages Date digitized 9/16/2014 File size 7.54MB Checksum alphanumeric code 9452ab507801e9bf1d4f158da784e47a Scanned by Tony Grady Equipment Epson Expression 10000 XL 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. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived AC.111 Appalachian Oral History Project Records; 1965 - 1989 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/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 111_tape292_CarterRupard_transcript_M Title A name given to the resource Interview with Carter Rupard [June 17, 1974] Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Pursley, Tommy Rupard, Carter 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> Subject The topic of the resource Farm life--North Carolina--Watauga County--20th century Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Mountain life--North Carolina--Watauga County Logging--North Carolina Sawmill workers--North Carolina--Watauga County Rupard, Carter Description An account of the resource Carter Rupard talks about growing up on a farm in Cove Creek with his many siblings. He says that they "lived better than we can now" and that "we hardly ever went to buy anything unless it would be a poke of flour ever once in awhile." His family was totally self-sufficient with their farm, and they had to work very hard every day of the week. Banner Elk Blowing Rock Boone Fork Lumber Company butcher Carter Rupard courting Cove Creek Doctor Fybes Doctor Perry farming Irdell County Johnson City Judge Wagner liquor business logging Matney North Carolina sawmill Shull's Mill Watauga County N.C. https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/5cf8fc862e53c175bb88604e47e29317.pdf 8e021f72058a71c5f4806748c32eb51e PDF Text Text �� 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 Kirby and Eller Family Letters Description An account of the resource The Kirby and Eller Family Letters contain correspondence between the Kirby and Eller families of Ashe County, North Carolina. The letters focus mainly on day-to-day events such as planting and harvesting crops, health and illness, and household tasks, but also include references to the Civil War. The original letters of Collection 495 Kirby and Eller Family Letters, 1826-1938 are in the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection. <div class="subnote "> <p><span class="less">Elizabeth “Bettie” Kirby (1851-1925) was born on February 15th, 1851 in Meadow Creek, Virginia, to parents Joel Kirby and Frances Roberts. Millard F. Kirby, Samuel J. Kirby, Emory T. Kirby, and Ada B. Kirby were her siblings. She married Joseph Lafayette Eller on September 22, 1875 in Ashe County, NC, where she lived until her death on December 9, 1925.<br /><br />Luke Eller (1806-1883) was born on June 8, 1806 in Ashe Co., NC. He was married to Sarah King<span class="elipses"></span></span><span class="more"> on March 27, 1829 in Ashe Co. He is the father of Joseph Lafayette Eller (Elizabeth’s husband), Hansford Eller, and Aswell Eller. Luke Eller lived in Ashe Co. until his death on December 6, 1883.</span></p> <span class="note-content readmore expanded"><a href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/165#" class="expander">See less</a></span></div> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <p><a href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/165">AC.495 Kirby and Eller Family Letters</a></p> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title="In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted" href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/?language=en 8" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted </a> 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 Letter from R. A. Fan to Mary Eller, 29 May 1899 (Part Two) Subject The topic of the resource Fan, R.A. Courtship Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2 pages Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Letter_nd_012.pdf Description An account of the resource This is the second part of a letter written by R.A. Fan to Mary Eller. In this letter, R.A. talks about a friend of hers, Blanch, who is dating Earl Ashley, and R.A. disapproves of this relationship. Language A language of the resource English Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <p><a href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/165">AC.495 Kirby and Eller Family Letters</a></p> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a title="In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted" href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/?language=en 8" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title=" Kirby and Eller Family Letters" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/17" target="_blank"> Kirby and Eller Family Letters </a> Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4453028/ashe-county.html Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Letters (Correspondence) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Ashe County (N.C.) courting Earl Ashley letter Mary Eller R.A. Fan Romance https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/c0fda66486b11b32e32cefae4864f3fa.mp3 da32e4a686b13e86c5ca44db2778b99f https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/5344c91deed430f25c6ddcfaf3733297.pdf cc47525b342044c703215c0f6e88d073 PDF Text Text Oral History Transcript Appalachian State University • Collection 111, Tape 214 Interviewee: Charles Bolick Interviewer: Barbara Greenberg 21 June 1974 CB: Charles Bolick BG: Barbara Greenberg BB: Charles Bolick of Blowing Rock, North Carolina interviewed by Barbara Greenberg on June 21, 1974 at his home. Well, Mr. Bolick, Charles you… CB: Charlie, that’s my name and that’s Libby, my little darling over there. BG: You want to start out by telling me a little bit about where you were born and your family. CB: Oh, well…its just about ten miles from Blowing Rock over in Caldwell County. Mulberry Valley, a good farming community. BG: And did your parents own their land there? CB: Oh, yes. They owned their own home. BG: How much land did they have? CB: Oh, I think it was 150 acres in that place. My mother had a couple of hundred somewhere else. And, we just lived…that was all there was to it. We had to work. We had to do this, that, you know. And go barefoot, summer time us kids did. And we would get so danged tired playing, that if we stubbed a toe over a flint rock…the sparks would fly, that’s for sure. They would, we could light our way after dark by stubbing our toes. BG: How many people were in your family? CB: There was one little girl that died, I don’t remember her, I wasn’t even born yet. But there would have been eight had she lived. There were seven of us. Five boys, two girls. BG: What did your father do? CB: He was a farmer, just a plain homesteader. He had to be, like most of the people back those days. They had to be. They just had to do what they had to do and there was not much, as I understood it, not much money back in those days. The people, but yet the old timers they had to have cash to pay their taxes. And he told me that his father, my granddad, old granddad 1 �Abner, he had his own still. He used to make whiskey and he sold it at ten cents a quart, 40 cents a gallon, in order to get money to pay his taxes. That had to be in cash. Otherwise they could barter you know, the barter system. If we have something we have a little surplus of, we could swap to our neighbor who may have had something we needed. You know that’s the same as cash and sometimes I think maybe it was better off that way than it is today. The only thing we’ve got that isn’t worth anything is our dollar. Everything else is worth something today. BG: Especially the land. CB: Oh, Lord yes. Even the barrel box cost you 25, 50, maybe 100 dollars. Well, it’s a homestead; okay you got it from now on. We had to think of those things too. That’s permanent, to pay taxes. Those are the two things that will last right on through. BG: Till the end. CB: Yeah, just right on and on. BG: Well, when did you start farming? CB: When? Oh, I was about knee high I guess. Kept clearing new ground. We burned a lot of good wood, just piled them up, you know new ground. Logs, brush, everything. But farming, that is the way we grew up back in those days, we had to. BG: How did you decide how much of each crop you should plant? How did you know how much you would need for the next year? CB: Well, that was just a matter of what folks knew, it was experience. They would just plant what they thought and hoped they needed with perhaps a little surplus, you know. It was just that way. Sow turnip seeds, you know, when we were laying the corn by. They lay corn in the new ground we would sow turnip seeds, then pumpkin seeds. And maybe fill up an old hollow chestnut stump with turnips in the fall of the year. They’d keep maybe, if we covered them over good. Haul them out by the sled load, you know, and pumpkins, they’d break loose from a vine and go rolling just having a big time down the mountain. BG: Do you farm as much now as you used to? CB: Oh no, we just to a little gardening now. Just a little gardening and the better half does most of that right? I don’t see my way around too good any more. BG: were there ever any times when your family didn’t grow enough food and when you were hungry? 2 �CB: Oh yeah, we went through all that. We just had to make do without. The only things we bought back in those days was sugar and coffee and once in a while rice if we wanted to be real fancy, we would buy enough of rice for breakfast. But the rest of it we just grew on the place. And we raised our own hogs and killed a beef in the fall of the year, salt them. You know, we didn’t have all that fancy stuff, it was just plain salt. And some of the best eating. We made kraut, we raised cane, I mean the kind you make sorghum out of it. Well, we just had to make it or else we didn’t have it. BG: Did you have chickens and cows? CB: Chickens? Yes, and turkeys. BG: How were the chores divided on a farm? Did the boys do certain chores and the two girls do other things or…. CB: Oh, a whole lot like now. The girls did their share of the chores and the boys of course worked outdoors like gathering corn and hoeing corn and digging potatoes. And the girls were more interested in quilting or making their clothing. BG: Helping your mom in the kitchen? CB: Cooking, yes, exactly. And Lord knows the mothers had plenty to do back in those days. Besides raising a bunch of little heathens that we were. BG: Did you give your mother a hard time? CB: No, she was always our best friend. BG: That’s great. Did the Depression have very much effect on your family? CB: Well yes, it did to me. I wasn’t here then, I was out in the western country, but Lord it did hit out there. The Depression? Do you mean that 1928, ’29, ’30 Depression? It was tough. And it must have been rough on other people, because I was single then. I hadn’t been exposed to marriage at that time. So no responsibilities other than, well…I was working on this construction camp, and this friend of mine, Old Smiley Thomas, he said, “You know something?” I said, “What Smiley?” He said, “The times are getting better.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “They are making the hotcakes bigger and thicker.” Every morning, we were living in this boarding house; the hotcakes were bigger and thicker. Oh Lord, is that thing on? BG: Tell me, when you planted your crops in the spring of the year, did you know whom you were going to sell your crops to? 3 �CB: Oh, no. We were just growing them ourselves. BG: There was no cash crop? CB: Well, whatever we might swap with a neighbor for something, if they had a surplus of more that they needed. I’ll never forget one time my mother sent me over to old uncle Will Green’s. He’d always butcher a yearling, take down to the Grove Store and sell it on Election Day. That was usually in early November, the 6th I believe. And my mother said, “Charlie, go up there this morning and get us a good mess of beef. Your dad, when he goes for live beef, he always brings back part of the neck; the brisket they call it.” She said, “Get something better.” Well, I bought ten pounds of steak, 50 cents for 10 pounds, or five cents a pound. Well, I got back home with it and my mother balled me out for buying such expensive meat. Can you imagine that? She did. She said, “Charlie, I didn’t mean for you to buy such expensive beef.” I’ve thought of that time and again. Five cents a pound for good steak, just a yearling beef, you know not an old or a tough one or something. BG: Good eating wasn’t it? CB: Yeah, it was. But I couldn’t quite get over her kind of balling me out about buying such expensive meat, it was five cents a pound, ten pounds was 50 cents. And you know how I made that 50 cents? I used to help my dad run his still. BG: Did your dad run his own still? CB: Oh yeah, copper stills back in those days. They weren’t government inspected. We had a lot of fun. We talk now how to make apple brandy. BG: Tell me how you make it? CB: Well, you just grind up the apples and set them in wooden barrels and when it ferments and gets to the proper stage, before it turns to vinegar, you just boil it. Just distill and boil it. And that’s all it and you get something. It’ll be brandy tomorrow. And two or three sips, you could make a rabbit walk up and spit in a bulldog’s face. BG: Well, tell me…you don’t have to put any sugar in it? Just… CB: No, we didn’t then. We were not that smart. No, it just made more. It produces more. Like this old farmer was telling me about his corn crop this year. He said, “I’ll calculate that it will grow about 60 gallons to the acre.” BG: What do you mean 60 gallons? Did you mean 60 bushels? CB: No, we get two gallons to the bushel. So he figured it in gallons. Except one fall of the year, 4 �some of the neighbors got worried because he wasn’t going to their revival meeting at night. You know those country folk…back in those days; I guess here and there they’re still that way. My dad said, “Charlie, some of the neighbors are wondering why you’re not attending. Maybe you would better go down to the Bryant’s and sort of wash up a little bit and put you on a clean pair of overalls. Just shut the still down and go on to the church. That will take the pressure off.” Well, it did. It worked. BG: What was it like (running the still)? Did you have to hide this still a lot? Did you have to hide the fact that you had this still? CB: Oh yes, that was all way back in the cove, the little burner. Otherwise you would get “chopped down” as they called it then. The revenue agent, the IRS, the same outfit that collects our income taxes. They are something. BG: I hear they are bad people. CB: Well, we had a lot of fun. It was rough growing up in that time and day, but we did enjoy life, just like people do today. Just a little different style and manner that is all. We were ourselves, and they were themselves. Like the old saying out west, “Well men are men, and women are glad of it.” That’s the way it was then, down here at home, right through these hills. I wouldn’t mind living through it again, knowing what I know now. It was rough, but that was only what we had, so we had to live it. BG: That’s right. Do you think life today is harder or easier than it was then? CB: It’s much easier, but it’s too fast. Everybody’s in a hurry today. Back in those days you just didn’t rush through like they do it now, it’s the way I see it. Somebody asked me not long ago, “How did you do it? How did you hang on so long to life?” My answer is by not hurrying. The only time I ever got in a hurry in my life I was trying to stop. Just one time I got in a hurry. BG: Well what happened? CB: I had straddled a danged riled horse and he was running away with me. That was it. The next thing I knew I was sitting there looking at the other mountainside, blinking my eyes like a frog in a hailstorm or something. And didn’t know who I was or where I was. Two arms, one collarbone busted, and my head and neck bruised. They made me a trough to eat out of, I couldn’t feed myself. Well, I still like horses now, if you can imagine that after that one near beat me to death. It was a little two or three year old stallion. The horse was as gentle as a kitten, but he just decided he was going to have his fun, and he did. BG: How old were you then? CB: About 17 or 16. I was old enough to have known better. 5 �BG: Really? CB: When I look back at things like that its sort of amusing and, you know, if you didn’t have a sense of humor you wouldn’t have much. At least I wouldn’t. I sort of like that idea of taking things lightly, you know. Don’t be too serious about things and don’t get in a hurry. BG: Yes, you get by a lot easier. Talking about getting in a hurry, did people go visiting very much when you were a boy? CB: Not very much. Well, they did on Sunday. That was church day, you know…Sunday school. And that was the chance they had the whole week to see their neighbors. People would have this church group where they would get together and get acquainted again. And do a little gossiping sometimes on the side. But it was interesting. That was the only thing that we had to look forward to. There were no picture shows, no little league baseball. The only place where kids could go. Sunday morning we could put on our clean shirt and go to church without asking mom or dad, “Can we go?” That was understood, that was a part of life. They knew where we were going. We knew where we were going, there were no questions asked at all on Sunday morning. Do as you please, as long as you go to church. Well, sometimes as little boys we would always go to Sunday school first then church. Sometimes we would prefer the swimming hole that was about a half mile below the church. We would play “hooky,” I believe they call it. We sure did, but it was fun. Once in a while we would have to kill a water snake or something. BG: Does the water stay pretty cool up here all summer long? Is it warm enough to go swimming? CB: Well, this was down in Caldwell County about 2,000 feet lower than Blowing Rock. Down in the valley, John’s River Valley and Mulberry Valley, which was just under the mountain three or four miles away. Yes, up here the only way I would go swimming is to fall in and hope that didn’t happen. It’s too cold up here. BG: Pretty chilly. What about your schooling? Can you tell me something about your schooling? CB: Yes, ma’am. If I can remember. We had a three-day rain one time, way back in the teens. That’s a little further back than you remember I’m sure. It washed the foot-log away, and we were living on the wrong side of the creek. The schoolhouse was on my side. So I had to go to school for three days before they go the foot-log put back. BG: That’s the only schooling you ever had? Those three days? CB: Yes, that was it. Except for just reading the Boone Almanac and a few newspapers. BG: Where did you learn to read? 6 �CG: At my home by firelight. Preacher Savage used to be the Episcopalian minister here. I think that he was raised over somewhere in Allegany County. He gave me a book; the name of it was Treasure Island. I started reading it on Christmas morning, that was my Christmas gift, and I finished reading it about midnight. I just had my head buried right in that thing. First in my bedroom, then I had to go out on the porch, then upstairs. I was so danged scared I called my mom to show me to my bedroom after reading that book by firelight. The house was a bit crude, it didn’t have things so modern back then. That is, not compared with today anyway. Its like those old timers used to say it was “root hog” or “die them days,” and hogs didn’t root them like they do now. BG: What do you mean by that? CB: Well, hogs would just stick their nose in the ground and start walking. Now these days they have smarted up, they go “hunching along.” I’m sure that is going to be interesting now. BG: Go ahead. CB: Pardon? GB: I just said go ahead and tell me some more. CB: About what? BG: You’re doing just fine. CB: Well, thank you. I hope it will not create too many red faces. But, just thinking of things back those days like they were then and like they are today, there is really no comparison. Back in those das when I was a young fellow, we just had one-track roads. It was either a buggy or a wagon or a sled. Just right of the river. Most of the roads followed the creek bank, through the farm area. Back in those days farmers were what kept us alive and they couldn’t afford to give valuable level land, it was with corn or wheat or something for a road. That had been unheard of. BG: Doesn’t the way people used to utilize what they had, taking advantage of the land and misusing it? CB: Well, they just had to do it. Yes, we used to make molasses like I told you a while ago. Boil molasses, you grind the can round with an old cane mill, horse or a mule, or an old steer or something. That used to be my job. Pulling that thing, pushing him along, grinding candy. It took one complete circle for the horsepower to equal one turn of the cane mill. So it was a slow process. And it was just a toss up which one of us got dizzy first, going around and around. And lots of times we would have to take one out when it would fall. Put in a new one that wasn’t so disturbed, or something. 7 �And chestnuts, the forest full of chestnut trees then. It was a lot more fun to pick them up and road them in front of the old molasses boiler furnace. That was made it worthwhile was roasting chestnuts. BG: I don’t think that I’ve ever eaten any chestnuts. They are just not around anymore. When was it that the blight hit and wiped out all of the chestnuts? CB: When? Well, it was some sort of blight. It got all of tem. All of our original, now they are what they call blight resistant Chinese chestnuts. They are not too good either. I planted a few of those. They are a very poor substitute for what we used to have, our original chestnut trees. BG: When did this blight hit? Do you know what year that was? CB: Oh, it started when I was a kid. My granddad had a big old field he called his chestnut orchard. Great big old chestnut trees that were three or four feet in diameter and he would go out there and pick them up. He would just fell for them, but they started dying. I was probably ten years old, that’s a little while ago. Life was really interesting back then. It still is for that matter, but people are living so different today. Too much hurry. Too much, well just we’ve got to get there or we don’t, these days. And I don’t see where it quite, I don’t know…maybe it’s a wholesome life. That’s all people know. The young people these days, is what they’re living. Just like we did. The thing is its just different for us old timers. But yet its all the young people know. This is their life. And some of them are living it up a little bit. BG: Way too fast. CB: That’s what I would say. It’s no use hurrying through. It’s too short anyway. I’m not mad; I don’t know whether they quit. It just doesn’t work that way. BG: You’ve got a real good attitude. CB: Well, thank you. I have been that way most of my life. Like I say, if you didn’t have a little sense of humor, you wouldn’t have any sense. It all goes together. It works together. It’s about what you make of it, is the way I see it. But the main thing, don’t get in a hurry. Even thought it might be a lot of fun, don’t get in a hurry. Just go along in the agony. I’m going to tell you a little shady joke or two. You would be better put that on another tape. BG: All right. Can you tell me what a typical farm day was like? What time did you get up in the morning? CB: Sunrise or earlier. BG: And what was the first thing that you did? Try to remember one, a particular day and just 8 �tell me every detail about it. CB: Well, the first thing we would usually have breakfast. Mom would get up and cook breakfast. BG: What did she usually cook for breakfast? CB: Just whatever there was. Eggs, bacon, ham; we usually grew our own hogs and our beef. Just whatever there was. And turkey, once in a while we would have a stuffed turkey or something at Thanksgiving. But it’s just a plain country family. Get up and work after breakfast. Hoe corn; dig taters, whatever there was to do. BG: There’s always something to do. CB: There sure was. If nothing else we could on rainy days, we could get out there and straighten up old bent nails with a hammer. Straighten nails they call it, because you couldn’t afford new nails or anything. We made our own fence rails. We made our fences. We couldn’t afford buying barbed wire, it was called barbed wire. So the cattle and cows and everything they just roamed around through the pasture and the woods. And we would in the evening, our job as kids was to go out and round them up, bring them in for milling. Just plain country life. BG: What time would you come in to eat? CB: Before dark. We would usually be in by dark, after supper. Bread and milk for supper. It was wholesome, it was right good eating. And one time, I’ll never forget this. We had something different for breakfast. Usually it was cured meat, ham, and stuff like that, maybe salted bacon. But one morning, it was in wintertime, sort of cold. And mom left her old oven door open, this old range stove. Back in those days we used to have a cat hole in the door. Have you heard of that? A cat hole so the cat could come in or go out as he pleased. And some of them, before they got sort of wised up they would cut a little hole for the kittens. But by and by they found out the kittens could go through the same hole the old cat could, so they just cut one hole, a big one. Mom left the over door in a range cook stove. Two or three cats in there. It was cold, wintertime. They decided they would keep warn in that oven. Well, we got up way before daylight always every morning, and she closed the oven door and started the fire going. It was a wood burner, and by and by she heard this awful yowling. She started looking for the cats, they weren’t anywhere in there except in the oven and they were baking. That’s one time we came right near having a baked cat ham for breakfast! Well, mom opened the door. They left there so fast and both hit the cat hole at the same time and they jammed up in it and then they got in a fight. The hair was scorching plum in the woods! But we nearly had cat ham for breakfast that morning. 9 �BG: But they made it all right? CB: They pulled through it. They didn’t come back too soon; they stayed away a little while. BG: Wondering what these strange people are doing to them? CB: Well, this was just old country stuff you know. That’s all. Just like people used to live. BG: After you ate supper at night, did your family sit around together and have any sort of a family entertainment? Did anybody play a banjo or fiddle? CB: Well, there were not many musicians in our family. Two or three of the youngsters could kind of plunk on an old guitar. You know, just one at a time. But generally at that time of the day we were so tired we just went on to bed after supper, as soon as we could. Back in those days we had those old rope beds. They called it a corded bed. Instead of springs, we used just rope. BG: Were those pretty sturdy? Were the rope beds pretty sturdy? Did they hold the mattress firm? CB: Well our mattresses were “ticks” as they called it. Straw ticks. Filled with wheat straw. Well, by and by then they wore out we hat to put new straw in it. And the old bed, it could be any style shaped bed and ever so often those ropes had to be tightened up. My brother and I bunked together. One particular evening we got to bouncing around, the danged thing collapsed with us and the old headboard came over and caught. We were in a spot I’m telling you. Hollering, “Help! Help!” Mom finally had to go, she just died laughing, she had to come and lift the danged headboard off of us before we could move. I reckon we would have been there yet if somebody hadn’t moved. BG: What was the headboard made of? CB: Wood, it was all just old wood. BG: Were they all hand carved by somebody in the family? CB: Well mostly, yes. But there not so many factory made stuff back in those days. It was just you do it yourself you know. BG: Everything seemed to last a lot longer like that too. CB: We have an old one in here, but its modernized. It got springs and what not on it. Used to be in the family when I was a kid. You can see it after a while. BG: All right, great. I’d like to see it. 10 �CB: It can’t talk to you. If it could I’d touch a match to it I believe! BG: Don’t want it to tell any stories? Any old stories? CB: I don’t believe I would, don’t believe I would. Lib can tell you some stories. Now, any other questions Miss Barb? I’m just taking up a lot of your time? BG: Oh, I’m enjoying it. Its great. This is great. I want you to tell me some more stories, like the beds. I didn’t know about the rope beds. What was something else that is so different now than how it was? I don’t know like…rugs. Did your mother weave your own rugs? CB: She had some of those old wool cards they called it, you know…spiked things? And a spinning wheel and what not. I think couple of old spinning wheels as boys; we tore them up trying to make a sawmill out of it. Or tried to. If we had them today they would be worth something. But as kids, anything we could, we would tear up cloth and make a sawmill out of it. Just anything, kids, crazy. When the brains were passed around I reckon we just reached over and grabbed a bag of nuts, or fell out of the high chair or something! BG: Did your mother make all of your clothes? CB: Most of them. BG: What did she make them out of? What kind of material did she use? CB: They called it factory cloth back then. It was just plain old white cloth. The same kind of stuff they made covered wagons out of, the white stuff. BG: Canvas type cloth? Was it thick? CB: Well, it was made by a manufacturing company. It was thick and heavy. Well, that was the only cloth that I ever knew of, other than the overalls. Overall cloth could be bought then in the bolt. She would make overalls for us and shirts. And that factory cloth was the coldest underwear I believe. Even an Eskimo would have shivered if they put on a pair of drawers made out of that stuff! BG: Did they keep you very warm in the winter? CB: Well, after you finally got them warned up you would stay warm. They were all right, but golly they were cold to start with. BG: What about your shoes? Did somebody make your shoes? CB: Oh, we would get a pair a year. If we wore them out, we were out of luck until the next year. There were shoemakers back in those days, but my dad didn’t make any. His dad did, my 11 �old granddad. He used to make all the shoes and granny made all the clothes for all the young ones. BG: Did you know your grandparents very well? Did they live… CB: I remember my granddad real well. He died when I was about; I think I was eleven years old when he died. He was 90, somewhere in the nineties. I went to his funeral. BG: What was the funeral like? CB: It was country graveside; they just dug a hole and planted him in there. That was all there was to it back in those days. My daddy used to worry about that. He told Momma one time, he say, “We’ll, you know it would take a 100 dollars to bury the family.” There were seven kids and he said, “It will cost that to bury our whole family.” One hundred dollars, think of that. Well, an undertaker wouldn’t even sneeze at you these days for $100. BG: And then you would be buried anywhere you wanted. Is that correct? CB: Oh yes, family burying ground usually. Just anyplace on the hillside where it wouldn’t do to grow corn. Just plant them (people) there and they would stay. No questions asked. Nothing. BG: Did a lot of the neighbors come to the funerals? CB: Oh yes. Everybody for miles around. That was another one of those get together, like going to church on Sunday. But they were all there if you needed help. They would come and sit up with you and everything. That’s one think we don’t have that much anymore, very much. We still have friend s and neighbors, but back in those days you just had to do things. That was part of life, you know. BG: Showing each other. Kind of showing each other how you felt, helping them out when they were having hard times. CB: Oh, yes. It was just being neighbors and friends, that was all. We either stuck together or else we were gone. That was the way it was. Help each other. And sometimes I think its pretty nice way to live. Pretty good way to be friends and neighbors. Its still that way, but a little different…too speedy these days. Say, “Good morning” to somebody these mornings and then the next morning they say, “Oh, go to hell!” or something. Its just different than it used to be. Please excuse my language. BG: Oh, it’s quite all right. Well, you were talking a little while about the roads being just onelane roads. Do you remember when the first cars came to this area? CB: Oh, yes. They were those old Model T Henry Fords. You would crank one of the dammed things till the water boiled and maybe they would start. You know hand-cranked? Lord have 12 �mercy. The hardest work I have ever done in my life was trying to crank up one of those damned things. And then you would usually end up with a broken arm! The car would backfire if it ever did fire. That’s what this old Frenchman told me. He said, “I cranked the danged thing until the water boiled.” He was French Canadian. I said, “Dan, wouldn’t it fire at all?” “Hellfire, it wouldn’t even backfire!” he said. But that was your Model T’s. That was way back in the 1920s. BG: Did the coming of the car have much of a change on life? CB: Oh yes, it changed everything around. But it took a little while to do it. You know we still had plenty of chestnuts when they first came out. And beans and corn and there was no blight, there were no bugs. We didn’t have to spray, or dust or anything for our crop back then. But I reckon the Model T’s changed all that. They brought the bugs with them or something! BG: The pollution I guess it was. CB: Could be. I don’t know if this was so long ago. It’s hard to put everything together again, you know just at once. But sometimes I think maybe we would have been just as well off if we would have stayed with a horse and buggy. I can’t help but think of it that way. At least it suited me. And those were the good days if you didn’t mind sitting behind a horse. You could have a lot of fun on a date. Just as much fun as it is these days. If you didn’t mind sitting behind a horse. BG: What was courting like? CB: Courting? Just like it is now, I reckon. BG: Where did you go? What did you do? CB: Nowhere. You just go call on your date. You would sit at her house for an hour or two and then head for home. A little bit milder I reckon than what it is these days. I would say quieter. And you had to act respectable they called it back in those days. You had to be known in other words. If your date’s parents didn’t like you, you just didn’t date. That was all there was to it. You had to be a good neighbor and a good friend in order to have a date with whoever it was. BG: Did you have to ask the parent’s permission or did you ask the girl? CB: Well, that was usually understood. You knew if the parents didn’t approve of you, you wouldn’t be there regardless of what the girl said. But otherwise the courtship I would say was a little more modest back in those days. Less, what would you call it these days? permissiveness these days? 13 �No, that was unheard of back then. If a girl made a mistake, she was through. And they all, it seemed to be understood that way. They just very seldom ever made a mistake until they were married. And then of course, it couldn’t have been a mistake. End up in a divorce court, but very seldom. BG: Did they have many divorces back then? CB: Oh yes, the same then as now, but you were downgraded if you even though of a divorce. That was something unusual. People jus didn’t go for that. They just have to if they made a mistake. Well, they would sweat it out. Just tough it out. Rather, they were thinking of the kids. Family life in other words. Rather than degradation. BG: That sounds good. CB: Whatever it was. They just didn’t go for that back in those days. Nothing, they wanted to be on the “up and level” you know, keep going ahead. And it wasn’t a bad idea, I reckon. BG: Kept people closer together and family life more of a family. CB: Yeah, more of a close-knit family life. Rather than, I think these days that, I don’t know but it seems to me that the parents say, “Okay kids, just go ahead.” Without supervision or anything. Just to get rid of them, get them out of the house. “Go on, do what you want to do.” Well, they do. Especially if they have a sporty vehicle. Back in those days if we had a four-legged horse and a four-wheeled buggy we were, lucky. A buggy would be like a Cadillac today. BG: Were your parents very strict with you? Did you consider them to have been strict? CB: Well, they sure laid it on once in a while. I knew exactly where they were hitting too. BG: Is that what they would do for punishment? CB: Well, they would talk a little once in a while. But usually they were too dang busy trying to make a living that they didn’t have time to talk too much. But when they did decide to punish, they knew exactly where they were spanking. BG: What did they spank you with? CB: Oh, a paddle, broom handle, anything that was available. Just whatever was handy that would be it. Usually he palm of the hand. BG: It seemed to hurt the most I guess. 14 �CB: Well, like you said, I knew exactly where they were spanking. BG: Did your family dig roots too? CB: Dig roots? Oh yes, we used to dig ginseng. “Sang” we called it back then. S-A-N-G. Ginseng. That’s supposed to be a mysterious, great herb that the Chinese like so well. And then star root, and then we would also pull Galax. BG: Did the people use ginseng around here at all or did they just sell it? CB: I don’t know of anyone that used it, juts just one of those things. Maybe a few people do. I’ve found it. I’ve dug it up from time to time, but I don’t see that anymore. BG: I’ve got a few plants at my house. Got about four of them. Only one is getting a little berry on it. What do you do with the very if you want to say, increase your crop? CB: The seeds? BG: Yes. Are there seeds inside the little berries? CB: Yes, like holly berries. Same color exact. The ginseng is a pretty plant really, its just three leaves. And the seed part after they grow to a certain age, the seed comes up in the middle of he pant with al little flower, a little group of red berries. Those are the seeds. BG: Do you replant each of the red berries or is there just one, or several of them? CB: No, there are several in a little pod right in the center of this parent plant. And the birds sometimes plant them, or you can if you want to. And if a mole or something doesn’t get them, it’ll come up. My daddy used to have three or four old big hollow chestnut logs full of red soil that he grew ginseng in where we used to live. But the cultivated kind never did do quite so good as the just out in it s natural state in the woods. Well, the time it rained for three days, my dad’s old ginseng patch washed away. Those old hollow chestnut logs, they went down the river putting him out of the business. He said, “Well, I’ll just leave them where they are from now on, out in the woods in the cold.” Back in 1916, it rained so much that is caused a flood. Nearly washed everything thing down. The word got passed around, back at this time there were no telephones, but the word spread from one place to another. This old timer, our country church preacher got people together to pray at our little church for this rain to quit. He said, “Pray for the flood to stop.” It was really a rip-snorting flood! BG: Was it worse than the flood of 1940? 15 �CB: Yes, it was. I remember that one too. But in ’16 it was a little rougher. Well, it was rolling boulders half as big as this house down the little creek here. It just shook the earth, like an earthquake. Most of the foot-logs washed away. Finally one of the brothers said, “Well, looked like no more of us are going to get here. We might as well go in and start praying.” Then the preacher said, “We can go in and pray, that’s all right, but it ain’t going to do a bit of good as long as those clouds are coming from the north and from the southeast. It wouldn’t do a bit of good!” BG: Well, did you say it rained for three days? CB: Three days and nights. There was no let up to it. I was beginning to wonder what old Noah felt like. BG: Who felt like? CB: Old Noah, you know, the ark. I was beginning to look for a little mountain to climb onto. But the branches were all so full of water. I couldn’t think, or get to the mountain. One little branch of the creek above the house where we lived, it dried up every summer and it got so deep I couldn’t even wade. I was 19 years old and couldn’t wade in the creek because there was too much water in it. Rock, driftwood, everything coming down. BG: Did that hurt a lot of people for that year? Was it in the springtime? CB: It washed a lot of crops away. Corn and wheat, ruining so many farms down there in the valleys. A lot of the farmers they were do discouraged. They would have sold out if they could have found anyone to buy their place. But by and by they came accustomed to the change. Where rich level fields had been, it was nothing but rock. That creek was running everywhere. No sir, the bottomland as they called it. Nothing but rock. End of interview 16 � 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 Bolick, Charles (interviewee) Greenberg, Barbara (interviewer) Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:26, Making moonshine 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 Charles Bolick, June 21, 1974 Subject The topic of the resource Bolick, Charles (1891-)--Interviews Farm life--North Carolina--Caldwell County--History--20th century Distilling, Illicit--North Carolina--Caldwell County Caldwell County (N.C.)--History--20th century Caldwell County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Description An account of the resource “Charles” Wesley Bolick was born on August 15, 1897 in the Mulberry Valley community of Caldwell County about ten miles from Blowing Rock, North Carolina. His parents were Emanuel (b. October 24, 1852 - d. August 16, 1926) and Mary Vienna Sherrill Bolick (b. April 1860 – d. August 27, 1934). He had four siblings and was married to Elizabeth “Libby” Gomer Bolick (b. October 7, 1881 – d. January 16, 1983). Charles Bolick died on April 29, 1996 at the age of 98. During the interview he talks about his parents and siblings, selling whiskey, making apple brandy, living off the land and making everything the family needed. He reflects on the Depression, and attending school. He also discusses making molasses, sleeping on a rope bed, courting, digging for ginseng, and the floods of 1916 and 1940. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bolick, Charles 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 21-Jun-74 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. 16 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 14:08:22 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)</description></Folder></kml>||||osm Caldwell County (N.C) 1916 flood 1940 flood Blowing Rock Caldwell County car chestnuts cooking courting Depression farming herbs molasses moonshine Watauga County N.C. Whiskey