1 50 3 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/918b1ffafa4a2a9fe248bbb995492337.pdf de1b7557918f512ebb32acd029a18650 PDF Text Text AUH f Y-L This is an interview for the Appalachian Oral History Program with Mr. C. K. Morris of Meat Camp, North .Carolina. The interview is by Mike McNeely and today's date is June 11, 1973. Q. Alright, Mr. Norris, Let's start out with talking about your, the farm you were born on. When and where were you born? A. Right up at that old house. Q. What was the year you were born? A. Eighteen and ninety-one. Q. Okay. Uh, ya...ya daddy was a farmer, right? A. Yeah. Q. How many brothers and sisters did you have? A. I had three sisters and three brothers. Q. Sounds like your daddy had a lot of help on that farm. A. Well, right much. Q. Let me get something here. Uh, how big was the farm? A. Uh... Q. Acre wise... A. Uh, you might say it's only about, about forty acres now, till we added more to it. Q. And how much of that forty acres was used for farming? A. Well, I'll say about half of it. �AOH # 71 Q. What all did you grow? A. Crowed potatoes, corn,, cabbage, wheat, rye, buckwheat. And we had our own fruit, had ? orchard with plenty of apples. We kept cows, made our milk, made butter and cheese. Kept chickens for eggs and for the market. That's about all the farming. Q. How much of the vegetables and stuff that you grew, how much of that was used for the market and how much for your own, home grown use ? A. Well, it took right much to feed all them people. I'd say about half, about half a that amount. And that, the surplus was hauled to town. It was hauled to Lenoir, Hickory, and Morganton. We bought our salt and flour and what groceries we used then out of the store, we bought with surplus, and paid on taxes. We h?d to have enough to pay the taxes. And on this farm one time, the tax was only about $4, 00, Q. Was that with all the buildings and everything on it? A. Yeah, and now I pay a hundred or more. A lot of difference. Q. Did you have hogs on your farm? A. Yes, We raised our own meat, raised our hogs, raised a few calves for the market. And there wasn't so many cattle in the county then,. like there is now. Most every family had, oh, from three to six cows. And they milked 'em-a big family used a lot of milk. And they'd sell off the calf. A plump, good calf would bring ten dollars,, ten dollars to twenty dollars, A cow would bring about twenty-five. Mow ed, mowed the meadow with a mowing siythe. You know what th$t is. Cradle it, cut the grain with a cradle- you ever seen a grain cradle? Q. I'm not sure. You got one up in your barn? A". There's one a hanging right out there in the back of that shed. Q. You shew it to me pfterwhile, and I'll get a picture of it. I saw your cniltivstor, pnd you had & plow ?nd what else? �A. We had a lay-off plow and a cultivator. Where they cleared the land - where they cleared , now they'd go in the woods and clear , like that over there. 'That mountain, one time, was in timber all over this bottom. Go in there, and cut that timber and pile it and cut it, and saw it up, so they could roll it in big piles and burn it. Burn the logs and the brush. And if it was too bad, the first year they'd dig holes sndijilant their corn and beans. Dig holes with a hoe. And by next year, thye'd take - they used 9 lot of them, ole shovel plows. Just one plow like sort a like a. cultivator, you know, a lay - off plow. They used them a lot in gauching up the land. They used mainly the hoe in the steep land. A lot of land was used , farmed and never cultivated. I mean they just dug it with a hoe. Stacked their hay, mowed with a scythe, and stacked their hay out in the meadow. You've seen hay stacks, plenty of them. Q. There's not as m^ny now, though as there were. A. No, no body stacks their hay anymore. Very few really. Back on Cove Creek way, they.stack right much hay, back toward Mountain City. Q. Did you let your hogs - I was reading somewhere that a lot of people let their hogs run free back then. A. Run their hogs, and their sheep and some cattle - run 'em out in the range. Turn 'em out in the spring and go and, go and get what was left in the fall. And everybody had fences and some cattle just run out on the outside. They had stocklaw then and everybody had a fence back when I was growing up. All the fences were made out of rails. Made out a split rails, yonder lies a pile right now. Q. How was that meat from the cows and hogs that ran free around wag -fotfesin the woods? Was it any good? ' •w ^ A. Oh yeah. Well, they'd bring 'em in now, they drove - bring •em in and put 'em in pens and feed 'em corn a while before they killed 'env And they's a lot - now some of them, they's sjpme run out and was killed just off of the mash. Had lots of chestnuts and acorns, and them hogs would get just as fat , and that was the best meat you ever tasted. A lot of -'em noe, they'd bring their hogs in, they had 'em marked, every man, you know, they'd get together. And every man had a certain mark that he knowed his hogs. And then when they brought 'em in, they'd sort 'em out. Get "em in a pen, a lot somewhere, and every fella pick 'em out. A lot of 'em'd go wild. Once in a while, they'd never get 'em. They'd be wild hogs out in the mountains. �Q. When did ya'll have your - did you have an annual kill, or you ju$t kill 'em at different times during the year of what? A. Anytime, anytime, there wasn't no slaughter pens at that time My neighbors'd go in and help each other kill hogs. Sometimes they'd kill fifteen or twenty a day. A whole lot of hands go in, keep water in big ole pots and barrels and fill a barrel. And they'd kill their hogs and drag 'em in. I've helped kill as high as twelve of fourteen in a day. Kill, maybe one man' have two or three of half a dozen. Go in and dress his'n out whatever he wanted to kill. A lot of times, they's killed one or two at, a time. They didn't go in and butcher 'em all day long lik;rthey do now. •-/• And I never treated 'em or never really took care of 'em, just kill 'em and salt the meat in big ole barrels. And where they'd stay, well I've seen old buildings was good then like that one there and they's just hanging a;; over up stairs. Did they smoke a lot of it? A. Yeah. Q. Did they smoke it instead of salt it? A. They had to salt it, It'd take salt - they had to let it take the salt and then they'd hang it up and smoke it. They salted it in them barrels and lets see, there's about a month and a half to two months and then they'd hang it up, and then they'd put that smoke under it. Q. Did the smoke give it any flavor? A. Oh yeah, that smoke flavor's real, well, you can get this breakfast bacon that's got that smokeed flavor. It was more of a smoked flavor then, when we smoked it in the ole smoke houses than they did in this bacon you buy. Q. That's sorta like getting charcoal broiled hamburgers now, get the taste of it like that? A. Yeah. Q. Well, you didn't have refrigerators or freezers back then... A. No, we didn't have no freezers, and we kept the milk and butter in the , had the spring house. Built a house right up the spring. The water run in, and they have a big ole trough as long as that car that run that the water right from the spring in there and they kept their milk and their, all of their stuff that, they like to use a freezer now. All their pickled beans and kraut and everything that stayed in that water. And it was like that, it kept it cold. And they kept their butter and they salted and canned a lot of their meat. They canned that and salted as we do yet. And they salted and tender loined and all that stuff"now, they put in cans and it'll keep right on. Q. How about your vegetables? You didn't keep them in your spring house did ya? �A. No, nothing much. We buried the cabbage, the potatoes and rutabaga and all the root crops eventually we . And we buried the cabbage and they're burying a lot of times, burying a lot of them cabbage and use 'em all winter and the dig 'em up, and sometimes there'd be a whole big field of 'em. And in the winter, they'd haul 'em to market they didn't need to use and make barrels of kraut. I've seen them ole wooden barrels - the fifty gallon barrels of kraut. And they'd haul it to market a lot of it to sell it, oh, in a pint or a quart. Just measure it out. Used to haul it to Lenior, and them niggers, you couldn't fight 'em off: of the wagon. Q. How did you make kraut? A. Well, ya have that - hack that cabbage up real fine, pack it in a barrel, put salt on it. Put so much salt. And then they weight it down, put a plank on the barrel, put a rock and then they'd put weight on it. And it'd pickle that cabbage in only a little while. It didn't take it long to pickle it. And then you'd have kraut right on. Q. Was that kraut better than what you get over at Watauga? A. Two to one better! Way better. That old chopped really good. Take a dish of that kraut on a cold and put a little sugar and black pepper on it and it raw. It's good cooked too. I love it raw and It was really good. kraut was winter day just eat do yet. Q. Do you remember any days like Christmas or Easter or your birthday or anything? What was Christmas like back when you were a child? A. Well, we didn't have much Christmas. I gotta stick or two of candy and an apple or two, and a orange once in a while. We didn't have but way little Christmas. Most kids got a few sticks of candy. Didn't have no toys. Very few toys at that time. Q. Did you have a Christmas tree? A. Sometimes we'd have a little Christmas tree. Sometimes at the closing of school, they'd have a big Christmas tree and the kids would all getta, all getta a little package, a few sticks of candy, orange, apple or two, and that's about it. Baked ole molasses sweet bread for a cake. I love it now better than anything you can buy. Q. You ever make molasses yourself? �A. Oh yeah, we made our own molasses. Q. How do you do that? A. Well you grow the cane and pull the fodder off of it. Go in and top and pull the fodder off and run it through them rollers and catch the juice. Run it through a cane mill. You ever see a cane mill? Q. I think so, yeah. A. Two; big ole rollers, and you ground with a horse. Horse pulled it. Big ole pole round and it just went round and rounf. Stick that cane in and it squeezes juice out. And they had a furnace and a big ole boiler sitting on it. And they boiled that sown and made molasses. I've ground cane a many a time till I'd just about freeze. And then the kids'd come on and play on the cane stalks and have a good time. Boiling molasses, ah, nearly every family back then made their own molasses. Some of 'em made a hundred gallon or two. But the average family didn't make but twenty or forty gallon. And then they didn't have to have much sugar. Sweetened a lot - and they made tree syrup. Q. Maple syrup? A. Maple syrup - maple sugar. I can remember my mother sweetening her berries and fruits with the maple sugar. They'd have big ole dishpans full of it and just go and shave off whatever they wanted and put it in their fruit. Q. Mr. Walter was telling about a guy that still does that, when he makes pis molasses, he just boils it on down to sugar, cakes it up, and goes and sells it to the stores. A. Oh yeah, there's a few that still makes that tree sugar and tree syrup. Q. Did your mother use that much in her jellies when she was making it? A. Well,,1 don't know whether they used it much. They didn't make much jelly at that time. I don't know whether they used any in jelly or not. They could have, I guess. I guess it would really be better flavor than the white sugar now. I can remember when you could buy brown sugar. They got it in big barrels. I've got some barrels now. Four hundred pounds of brown sugar and you could buy it for $20.00, five cents a pound. And the white sugar was a little bit higher. And they weighed it out in, from a pound on up to whatever you wanted. Dipped it out with' a scoop and put it in bags. Q. Yeah, its already bagged up. A. Yeah, it's up to four hundred pounds usually in a bag. And a, and the first fertilizer that ever come to this county come in barrels. Two hundred pounds in a barrel. �Q. What did you use before fertilizer, before it came in the barrels? A. We didn't use it. We didn't have it. We just planted without it. Q. Did you use any, like cow manure or anything? A. Yeah, we used what manure we had. We used manure, and the earth growed the rest of it. Q. How about the feed for the animals? Did you just feed them some corn that you grew or did you go buy some of that or grind it up... A. Well, we ground into, I had it ground, some of 'em fed the biggest part of it just whole. Feed your cattle whole. They had some ground. They'd have the buckwheat and rye, they had the small grains ground, but most the corn was just fed whole. Wasn't no hammer mills. Just a flour mill and a corn mill was all the mills there was then. There wasn't no thing as a hammer mill. All water power. Back yonder all the mills in this country was run by water. Big whole water wheels, you've seen 'em. Q. Like down at Mr. Winebarger's mill? A. We take wagon loads of grain up there, of buckwheat, raised buckwheat, and go and have it ground and then use a lot of it for flour. And ole buckwheat cakes are good. And then they haul it. They'd have that flour ground and put in ten, twenty-five pound bags and haul it to Lenior and all down south, Lenior, Morganton, Hickory, Statesville. And sell to the stores. Swap it for wheat flour and we bought our salt. We'd buy a hundred pounds of salt for sixty cents ($.60) then. Q. Wow! A. In Lenior, that's what it cost. Q. Did you truck it down the mountain in wagons? A. Oh yeah, there wasn't no trucks. Done it all in wagons. Q. How were the roads? A. Muddy a lot of the time. Real muddy. Sometimes there'd be a row of wagons as far as from here to the creek, right along together. And they'd all camp out of the night, tie our horses and cattle up and feed 'em. Lot of time we got to make our bed on the ground under the wagon. After we'd get a load off - after we'd get a load off the wagon, then we'd have hay and stuff we'd fetch on our load for our produce, you know, and then we'd sleep in the wagon. And it was fun when the weather was good. I'd enjoy it now. But it was rough going, when it was pouring rain or snowing. Q. You had to go in the winter? �A. Oh yeah. We'd go when it was cold weather. Oh, we had a lot of apples then. Haul apples, potatoes, chestnuts, beans, shale wheat, buckwheat flour, meat, butter, and stuffed hams - people then sold a lot of hams. The farmers have more meat than they could use, and they'd haul them and sell them to the stores. And you didn't see much loaf, well, in this part of the country they didn't. Very seldom did you see a loaf of bread in the store. They didn't - well down in the bigger towns you could get loaves of it some places. And you go in and you could buy sausage and beef and . We done our own cooking. It was fun. Build a fire outside and cook potatoes and cabbage; we didn't take time to cook beans. Fried taters and onions. Tie our team up and feed 'em and while they were eating, we'd get supper or breakfast. Fry eggs and meat. And hit was they was a lot of fun in it. Whole lot of hard work and hardships too. Q. Do you remember any incidences where a wagon didn't make it all the way down? Where there any that ran off the road? A. Well, not much. There's a woman or two got killed, run off the road on a wagon, way down at Blowing Rock Mountain. And once in awhile they'd be a team run away and tear up everything. But not hardly ever hear tell of any. Once in awhile you hear tell of a train running over a team and killing them. And it took about four days to go, four or five days to go to Lenior and back, sell your load out. Took about two days to go and get your load off and get back home - and two more to get back. And if it was slow selling, it took another day Sometimes you'd see twenty-five or thirty wagons in town selling produce. They peddled a lot; they'd go from house to house, done a lot of peddlin'. And sometimes they'd buy half a bushel of potatoes, apples, bushel - bushel of potatoes, maybe, and a bushel of apples. Oh, the next house, maybe they didn't want nothing, maybe the next one you'd go to would buy something. That's the way we got rid of a loy of it. Q. What was the price of farm products back then? A. Well, potatoes was a dollar or less a bushel. And apples sixty cents to a dollar a bushel. And cabbage was seventyfive cents to a dollar a hundred. Now we didn't get eight or ten cents a pound back then like they do now. Q. Did your mother, here at the house, did she bake a lot? A. Yeah, they baked corn bread and biscuits, fried buckwheat cakes , made light - homemade, light bread, baked pies, cookies, sweet bread, that ole molassey bread. And that was all done in an ole skillet by the fire. Q. When did ya'll - ya'll get a wood stove? �A. Finally, I can remember. I helped work out money to buy the first wood stove my mother ever had to cook on. Q. Which did she like better, working on the fireplace or the cookstove? A. Oh, it was much better to have a cookstove. Easier to do the cooking, than it was by the fireplace. But that ole cornbread and light bread baked in them ole skillets, it would melt in your mouth. It was the best cornbread I ever eat. She had a great big ole oven she baked light bread in. Loaf bread, they call it now. A great big thing. And she'd mix her - make up her yeast and get her dough ready, put it in that big ole oven and she just heated it real slow, barely warm, you know. And it'd rise a way up - just puff a way up there. Be that thick. And then she'd put coals under it and she had a lid to fit it, a cast iron lid. And it'd rise up there, and she put the coals on that thing, heat it slow and after a while it'd just finally turn - when it got done, there'd be a good brown crust on it. And it was really good. A lot better than this bread you buy now. Q. How often did she bake? A. Oh, only once in a while. Maybe every two or three weeks, to make that light bread. They didn't bake it every day. They made biscuits and I can remember when most people, they eat cornbread for breakfast and biscuits every Sunday morning. You wouldn't believe that. Q. I believe it. I love cornbread. A. I do too. I eat it, most the time, twice a day. They didn't have wheat flour to make biscuits every day. And you used eggs and shortening on the old cornbread, and it like you do biscuits and it was pretty good. Q. Did you ever have corn fritters? A. Yeah, I've seen my mother bake corn sweet bread. Bake it like they did the ole molassey bread, put molasses in it and it was good. But I'd rather have that old molassey sweet bread now than to have any you could go to the store and buy. They baked what they called gingerbread. Great big, thick. They baked it in cake, make them cakes to fit the skillet. It was really good. Put ginger in it and that ole gingerbread was hard to turn down, when you're hungry. Q. Your mother had to buy a lot of spices at the store didn't she? A. Yeah, they bought the grain spice and ground it. �10 Q. Really? Did you have one of those things like a pepper thing that you ground? A. Ground the coffee - ground the coffee in the bean. They bought that coffee green and they parched it, parched that coffee and they - seen my mother a many a time parch that coffee in a one, them ole skillets. And they had a coffee mill. I've ground coffee - you seen them, hadn't ya? Q. Yeah. A. Hold it between your knees, grind that coffee. The coffee then, now you got real coffee then. There wasn't no dope in it. Q. Did they do the spices the same way? A. leah, done the spices the same way. Pepper. Gosh, that ole pepper. You get it in the grain and grind it, you didn't have to make anything black to taste it. Ah, it's a gettin' now, you can make your egg black now, and hardly taste it. Q. How about, did they dry a lot of stuff? A. Dried berries, fruit, dried berries, apples, cherries of all kind. Beans, dried beans, dried pumpkins, they dried a lot of stuff. I can remember when my mother didn't have more than two or three dozen cans. Dry that stuff and cook it. And them ole dried beans, they was worth it. Q. I've heard of drying apples - I've seen people drying apples and beans and all. But I've never seen 'em dry cherries or blackberries. How did they do it? A. They used to dry lots of blackberries and cherries. And they didn't do too much canning and they didn't have no way of freezing it. Q. How did they do it? Do you remember? V A. Well, they had grates, and they had good, big crates they'd put 'em on. And when the sun shined good, they put 'em out on.... Q. The apples they'd slice up and cook.... A. Slice up and dry it out. They dried the bigger part of their fruit at that time. Dried sweet potatoes. My daddy used to grow a lot of sweet potatoes. He didn't grow 'em for the market. He'd just grow 'em to have plenty to use. They cooked them and sliced 'em up and put 'em on crates. And when it rained, they'd take 'em in and set them around the fireplace, so that if they ever stayed out in the weather, they's spoil. You had to keep them dry. Q. Back then you had the spring houses, right? So that's where you got your water. When did you build your well out here? �XX A. Oh, it's been about forty-two years or longer. Q. Where was your spring house located? A. We didn't even have a spring house here. There's a spring down under the bank there that we used - we just had a box down there. And we kept pur milk and stuff to keep it cold in there 'til we dug the well. I was aiming to pump the water from over yonder, but the spring went dry. And the people built way up on the hill somewhere and they carried their water up the hill. Why, they'd carry, some families would carry as far as from here to the hog house over yonder. Didn't think about a well or a pump. No, carried their water from the spring/ Q. How often did you take baths back then? A. Well, once a week, and you're lucky to do that. Q. If you had to carry water that far, you wouldn't take it very often. A. Didn't have no bathroom in the houses. Outside toilets. They wouldn't such a thing as a bathroom in the house. No where in this county and its not been many years so there wouldn't a bathroom in none of the houses that are here, in this part of the county. Q. How big was the house you were born in? A. Oh, it had about four, four to five, five rooms, I guess. And some places, they just had one or two big rooms, old log houses. Three or four beds in one room and the kids slept in little beds you pushed under the big ones. Q. Yeah, tumble beds. I've seen those. A. And they didn't have a whold lot of room, like they build houses now. Wasn't a bedroom in every little corner. Q. Did your mother have to make all your clothing? A. Bigger part of it. Weave, she had a loom and she'd weave the cloth, weave clothing - made our clothing. And they made shoes. There were men had shoe shops round and made most of them, wore homemade shoes - men and the women. They had a few shoes in the store, but the bigger part of the farmers wore homemade shoes. A lot of the women - the women's dresses drug the ground. And they wore button shoes up about that high. You never seen them, did ya? �JL/C Q. I've seen pictures of them. A. And the dresses drug the ground. Q. Did they go to the store and buy the cloth to make their own dresses? A. Well, they went to the store and bought some, but the most part was homemade. Wove at home. My mother had - she'd card the wool and spin it. She had them spinning wheels and then she had a tig ole.Toom that she wove that cloth. I've wore homemade clothes many a time, many a day. And they'd make their underwear. They didn't wear much underwear, like they do now. They'd make their pants and coats and vests and all like that out of homemade - outa wool. That old wool'd get next to the hide, it'd just scratch ya. It'd rip you to death. Wool and they knit your mittens and knit our scoks, outa that homemade wool. Q. She didn't have a sewing machine, did she? A. No, my mother never had a sewing machine in her life. Q. She did all of it by hand? A. Did it by hand. My aunt done a lot of sewing for people. She had a sewing machine. Lived up the road here. But my mother done all her sewing by hand. And the bigger half of the women did it. Made their own dresses and their men's clothes and everything by hand - sewed by hand. Q. They made their quilts too, didn't they? A. They made their own quilts. Wove their own blankets. Old yarn blankets. Now that old wool blanket, it'll keep you warm. Q. Scratch you to death, but keep you warm. A. They was really good and they'd last for years and years. Had feather beds. They kept geece, and picked your feathers out of them and made bedx. I sleep on a feather bed all year round now. We've got two or three feather beds. My mother made it in her life time. And I still sleep on it. Q. Was the church really important in this community? A. Well, more than it is today. About everybody walked to church And ole timey preacher. And they got up there and preached, we sat on ole benches. Had four legs on 'em shaved out of a round piece like a chair post. No back. Hardly a few of 'em had benchs of this - seats made out of plank. But back as Ion as I can remember they sat on them old split logs. And they all went and they enjoyed the meeting, they enjoyed the sermon. And sometimes the preachers had to walk four or five miles. And he's get maybe fifty cents or a dollar for two sermons. And they all - and the preaching was over and they all walked out and ever - out this road they all walked together. Where �13 one or two would drop out, and they'd stand and talk and they enjoyed themselves, much more than they do now. Q. How often did you have meetings? A. Well, they had it once a month, a lot of churches. Just have it once a month, two services. Then they'd run a week or two of revival, sometime during the year, usually in the fall of the year. And they'd have a - have a real, live one. One of 'em get happy and they'd really have a time. Q. Was the preacher a hell-fire, brimstone preacher? a mild one? Or was he A. Well, they - sometimes there'd be one preacher for eight or ten years before they change. And then maybe they'd set a new one amd maybe he'd serve a good many years. Now they have to have a new one about every twelve months, don't they? A lot of churches. They change right often. Q. Did the preacher - what type of sermons did he preach? Did he tell the people what they were doing wrong or did he tell 'em something they wanted to hear, like... A. Ah, he went to the Bible for it. Told 'em their wrong doing. Q. What church did you attend? A. Meat Camp. Right over here. I went ot differnet churches. Went to Howard's Creek. You know where Howard's Creek is? Went there part of the time and went to the Rich Mountain to that church. Sometimes we'd go way down yonder to Fairview way down toward the river. People wasn't too selfish where they went to then. Now they have to - there wasn't so many churches as there is now. Built a lot more as time passed by. Q. Were there a lot of community activities centered around the church? A. Well, not too much. Not like it is now. Q. Did ya'll have any square dances then? A. No, they wasn't no - wasn't nothing of that kind a going on in this part of the country. Q. What did ya'll do for recreation, when you weren't farming? A. Well, we'd go a fishing or squirrel huntin1 or something of that kind. Q. What did you do when you were courtin'? A. Well, we walked out there to our girlfriend, whereever she might be. Sometimes we'd go to church, sometimes we'd walk out and pick cherries in the summertime. Sometimes they'd have a candy pullin'. Gatherin' in all and have music. Not too much dancing. There wasn't many people could dance. �Q. Did they "flatfoot" a lot around here? A. Well, not too much. Q. What type of music did you have? A. Had a fiddle and a banjo. Once in a while a guitar, French harp. My daddy and a neighbor, they went lots of places and made music. My daddy was a fiddler and my neighber was a banjo-picker. They'd go to the closing of the school, sometimes to a neighbeor's house, make music - a few of the neighbors would come in. They'd just set and enjoy it. Close of the school, they usually had 'em come in. They'd give 'em a dollar or two at the close of the school. Q. Tell me something about the school around here, like the size of it, and the people in it? A. Well, these old school houses where they walked, I've known teachers to walk five or six miles to teach school. And there wasn't too many One teacher was all they had, and they teached up to about the seventh grade. And then they had to go - they went to Boone then to finish up. The eighth or tenth grade, something like that. Go to Boone - go to town for the rest of it. Q. Tell me about life during the Depression. A. Well, we got enough to get by with, but it was hard going, we just had to work a day or two to get a little chew meal to help. And we're lucky to get by with it. People didn't have enough to eat. They got by, but Their clothes were pretty bad, hard to get a day's work. Dug roots and drained the wood and dug roots and gathered herbs to help keep clothing and something to eat. Q. How about - were there a lot of moonshiners? A. No, not much. There's never been - oh there's a few around. Right many in Wilkes County. And if they had to get something to drink, they went to Wilkes and got the most ot it. I can remember when you could buy corn whiskey for sixty cents a gallon, and it was pure corn. And they was - there was one man that made it, I'll never - my mother got some for my grandmother once, take it back here between here and Todd, on the Big Hill. He had a bonded outfit and they come around and check 'em once in a while. Gaugers would come around they wasn't allowed to have so many barrels, you know. He'd come around and they always knowed when he was coming, then they would get it down to where they wasn't in no trouble. And theycould sell - I don't know how much they's allowed to sell. I was too little to know much about it. �15 Q. Do you remember any government programs? the CCC? Such as the WPA and A. No, no, well, I remember when the WPA worked here. They bought 'em a lot of mules to farm with. They were army mules that was brought here when the war was over with Germany. And they had people take 'em and work 'em. Farm 'em too, try to raise 'em something to eat. And they worked 'em on the road. They worked a whole lot - the WPA worked at a building that highway , They let 'em work ehm mules, to farm with and, I don't know, they all just gor old. Last one I ever knowed of, well it had a picture of him. An old white mule and man a following the plow. And they said the best they could estimate his age, he was fifty-five years old. He was a relief mule. Q. Oh, the mule was fifty-five years old. A. He was fifty-five years old, the best they could estimate his age. H<=: was still a pulling the plow. I never did get one, I didn't use 'em. Had my own work horse. We plowed it off a lot, plow, harrow with 'em, seen'a few worked a mowing machine. But they was too slow to do much more with a machine Most of it was with things like that out there. Pitch fork, I've seen 'em use. I've seen 'em use old hoemmade pitchforks, three-prong, I've got one. I'll show it to you. I've got one that I guess is two hundred years old. Q. You've given us a lot of information. I've just got one more question. What's your philosophy of life? Do you have one? A. No, I don't think I have one. Q. Why do you think you've lived as long as you have? getting along pretty good here. A. Well I just worked hard all my life. day, eat cornbread. You're Drink lots of water every Q. Molasses bread too. A. Molasses bread and I get along pretty good. Q. Have you got anything you'd like to add to what we've already talked about? A. No, I couldn't think of anything more that would be of any interest to you. Q. Well, thank you very much. � 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 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Scanned by Wetmore, Dana Equipment Hp Scnajet 8200 Scan date 2014-02-24 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 C.K. Norris, June 11, 1973 Description An account of the resource C.K. Norris was born in 1891 in Meat Camp, North Carolina where he grew up on a farm. Mr. Norris talks mostly about growing up on the farm, such as raising crops and livestock. His family would haul their produce to Lenior, Hickory, and Morganton to be sold. Mr. Norris talks a lot about food throughout the interview including how to dry fruits and vegetables, make sauerkraut, use spices properly, grind coffee, salt meat, and make maple syrup. He also describes other aspects of his childhood including church, school, and the Great Depression. Mr. Norris also talks about WPA's affect in the Meat Camp area. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McNeely, Mike Norris, CK 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> 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. 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 document Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 111_tape71_CKNorris_undatedM001 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Meat Camp, NC Subject The topic of the resource Norris, C. K.--Interviews Farm life--North Carolina--Watauga County--20th century Depressions--1929--North Carolina--Watauga County Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century United States--Work Projects Administration Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-06-11 C.K. Norris cane mill church dried beans dried fruit farming Great Depression Hickory hogs Lenior livestock Meat Camp Meat Camp Church molasses Morganton North Carolina sauerkraut spices spring house wagon weaving WPA https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/27b53db1ad01c1f3a826eda7b31264f6.pdf cb874bf7faff180b24891f6117d6ed17 PDF Text Text AOHP #$7 This is an interview for the Appalachian Oral History Project on April 10, 1973. The interview is with Mr. L.E. Tuckwiller, County Agricultural Extension Agent for Watauga County. The interview is being conducted by Joy Lamm. Q: Mr. Tuckwiller, you have been county extension agent for how long now? At Thirty years this last February. Q: Are you going to be here thirty more? At No. I expect about another year and a half or two years will get my tenure filled out. Qt Was this your first job? At No. I worked for a cooperative, coming out of school, for seven years - Farmer's Cooperative over in Cherokee and Clay County, N.C. Qt What kind of cooperative? At It was handling feed, farming supplies. At that time we were making some butter, and also we were pasteurizing some milk, and got into bottling milk before I 16ft there. We were processing farm products and selling supplies also* Q; Was this a large farming area? A: No, it's a very small farming area. Farms are small - well, I would say an average of 30-1*0 acres per farm. Most of the farmers had from one to five cows and sold a little surplus milk. They also, at that time, were keeping a large number of chickens - by large number, I mean most of them had a few chickens which amounted to a large number in the area. Cur cooperative purchsed the eggs, ran trucks through the community. We purchased the eggs and purchased the chickens« That was before broilers got to be very prominent, so we purchased what we call fryer chickens, and roasters0 They were fryers after they weighed about h Ibs., they they were called roasters after they got above that. So we did quite a bit of business that way. Qs And then you pulled these and sold them at a market? At Sold them mostly in Atlanta, Georgia. We had a truck that usually carried the produce to Atlanta each week* Thay would take some live chickens, some eggs and �often times some butter, processed and packaged of course. We would bring back farm supplies, and also, often times we would bring back feed. Qs Now what years were these? Aj That was 1931| - 19U2. I graduated from Berea in 193U, June, and went directly to this cooperative. The post office was Brasstown, N.C, I left there in February of 19U3 to come over here. Qs And so your only training before then was at Berea? At At Berea, yes. In the meantime, since I'*ve been working here, I've been to workshops and extension courses. I've taken k of their three-week summer sessions. I've had numerous week-long sessions of training, what we call in-service training. I couldn't count those, there's been many of them, usually 2-U a year. So you count 30 years, there were probably 75-100 of those week-long sessions. Q: Plus working in the cooperative was probably the best trainifeg you could get, wasn't it? As That was good training, yes. Q: What was your job in the cooperative? A: When I started I was called the butter-maker. I made the butter, processed the sour cream. I did that for approximately a year, then I was promoted to manager of the Cooperative Feed Store, and as that I was kind of kicked upstairs to an office. Someone else took over the butter-making, and I suppose that would be the title you would call me through the other six years that I was there. But, of course, we grew from a small butter-making plant. We began to handle poultry and eggs and more feed and supplies in 1937> so it increased in volume from, oh, I think we had sales of something like $i|0,000 - $50,000 the first year, and it ran up to about $250,000. QJ What was the name of the co-op? A: Mountain Valley Cooperative, Inc. It's defunct at the present time,, Went out of business after we quit the manufacture of butter from sour cream collected from farm to farm0 You see, the Health Department got into that a little bit. �Qt How did you make the butter? A: The sour cream came to us in containers, cans , and we pasteurized it and made the butter in those large churns - well, not a large churn - we would make from 300-500 Ibs. of butter at a time, but it wasn't large. Of course, they have churns that will make k or f> tons of butter at a time. Qs Was this electric or hand operated? A: It was electric. The churn and the pasteurizer was electtic. Of course, we had the steam boiler that produced the heat for pasteurization - just a process we went through. Q: And did you have a factory? A: It was a small factory - I'd guess you would call it a small factory. The building was about 100' X 1 0 I believe. Run one way kO1 and then we had the |' boiler room to the back. It was a small unit. Q: Getting back to Berea, could you tell me about your schooling there; what you studied, and what you remember about the school? As Well, it was a four-year collegej a small college, with only about liOO students when I went there. They did away with the section they called normal school, and they built it up to around 800 by the time I left there. I went in 1930, right in the bottom of the Depression, and then it was coming out of the Depression a little bit in 193U» when I completed there. Qs What was it like going to school during the Depression? A: Well, I suppose it might have been easier going to school during the Depression than any other time, because you couldn't get a job, and if you could make enough to kino, of keep going, why you could feel like you had been occupied. So, I didn't have any money, and Berea was a very economical school to attend - I worked 2 hours during the week, and on Mondays when we didn't have classes. I usually tried to work from U-6 hours, and of course our wages were Iow0 I think I started in around 1U# an hour and worked up to 2£# an hour, which is not quite the minimum wage now! I was able to go through school - I think I had something like $165 when I went there- �I borrowed from the strident fund, worked, and got out owing approximately $300, Probably did pretty well. I worked through h years, stayed at the school during the summer months, and worked - first summer I worked in a broom factory carrying broom corn to the broom makers. Then I worked in the shipping department the latter part of the summer. The other two years I worked in the creamery. That's where I learned to make butter, pasteurize the milk, make cheese, so it was a learning experience even while I was working. Qs And this is what got you interested in the Job with the co-op? At I expect it was. At that time, jobs were very scarce. A few of the boys got jobs teaching - or boys and girls - got jobs teaching. When that was over, there were not many that were employing college graduates for more than just manual labor, and I felt very fortunate to get a job; even though the salary was very low, it was a job. Q: Inhere was your family living during these depression years? As My family was on the farm, or were paying on a farm in Greenberry County, West Virginia, and they were lucky to keep their payments up, and they were not able to help me. Also, the two sisters at that time were just finishing high school and were ready to go to college. They finally wound up going about a term each, but they didn't go through. But if there had been a little more money, they probably would have. Qt Were you born and raised in West Virginia? AJ Yes, I was. Qs Was this in the mountainous section? A« Yes, it's not quite as mountainous as around Boone, but over where we were raised it was what they called the rolling lando And, part of it got up on the mountains also, but we had land you could get machinery over. It wasn't quite the one-horse farm you find in some of the steeper mountains0 It was a 200-acre farm quite a. bit of land involved, Q: T/fes there coal mining going on around there, or was it agricultural? �A: It was agricultural entirely,. There was coal mining approximately 25 miles away. We were - well, later than that it came a little closer when it got to strip mining. But, we just at that time, some few were beginning to go to the coal fields for work, because the roads were built just before that; they had hard surfaced road, and they begun to get automobiles and trucks dependable enough to take a transport to and from the coal mines. Up until that time, we were strictly agricultural, and that was the only kind of work we had available. There was not much money. I can tell people we grew up in poverty, but we didn't know it, se it didn't make too much difference I guess* Qt Did you make and have the things you needed from the farm? A: Most things we made. We bought, I think my mother had the few chickens. She made some homemade butter. She sold butter and eggs to get sugar, salt, coffee. As I remember, that was most of the things we purchased. The rest of the things we got our meat, vegetables, wheat for the flour - most everything was produced right there on the farm. Q* When were you born? A: September 16, 1908. Qi Were you at home when the Depression started? Ai I was - yes, I suppose. I finished high school in 1?29 and I got a job working on a neighborhood sawmill, immediately after finishing high school, and my application for college; I planned to work a year to try to get a little money to go to school on. Actually, the Depression hit, started in 1930, and that's the year I started to Berea, So, I had my application in, had been accepted, and was planning to go when things begun to really tighten down. Q: When you growing up on the farm, did your family farm by planting by the signs, or did they have any superstitions regarding fanning? AJ We heard about those all along, but as a rule we paid no attention to them. My father was not much on signs, neither was my mother, so we planted when the ground was dry, and we farmed when the weather was suitable, so I heard very little �about the signs when I was growing up from my family. Now there were people in the neighborhood who did farm by signs. They did certain jobs when the signs were right and only when they were right. I heard them, but I never grew up believing in them very much. Q; Do you remember any particular superstitions? A: Oh, I heard quite a number of things. If you planted when the sig.i was in Twin, I believe, it was suppose to yield a good crop0 If you planted when the moon was on the decrease, your bacon and fat would shrivel up when hogs were killed. Several things I heard, but I don't remember too many of them. Qs It was a whole lot easier to just go on and do what you wanted to do. At I tiling so, yes. Qs Did your mother help your father on the farm? As Not too much, except my mother always did the milking in the summertime and my father was working in the fields* Usually in the winter months, my father took over that chore. My mother always tended to her chickens, those were hers. She took care of those0 The rest of it, my father pretty well took care of. My mother was there were six of us children born just two years apart then, for 11 years, so she had her hands full at the house. I was the oldest of six. She didH have much time to get out in the farm. She would help occasionally. In hay harvest, she would get cut and what we call hitch hay shocks, bringing hay into the stacks. Or, she would drive the wagon hauling the hay sometimes, something like that. Q: What about your sisters? Did they have different tasks to do than the boys? A: They had their household tasks to do, and as I remember, one of them would-it kind of rotated-one of them would wash dishes, one of them would peel potatoes and prepare �the vegetables, and one of them would carry in the wood-that got to be-we cooked with a. wood stove-it was a right smart little chore sometimes. My father and I did a lot of that, but during the summer months, why, that usually fell to the girls. They carried the wood in from the wood shed, saw that everything was ready for the fire. The water was on the back porch. Had an old well bucket, so they had to draw the water at certain times. Some few things like that that I remember. Q: Had your family been in that area for several generations? A: Yes. The old family farm had been in the family since this area was settled, because that area, the colonists from Virginia began to spill over in there, about the 1^70's, sometime in there. Some of the little tales that I can remember about some of the ancestors that had been in there. Around 1785, something like that—they had been there for a long time. Q: What are some of the tales that you remember? -A: Well, the tales, of course the ones that are scary, and things like that, would be the Indian raids. One that my grandmother used to tell was pouring scalding water through the puncheon floor to scald an Indian that had crawled under the floor to try to get into the house. Of course, that would be one I would remember, something like that. Then, about hearing the Indians at night-acting like- making sounds like hoot owls communicating with each other across from the home, and barring the door-keeping everything closed. I remember those kind of things0 Qt Did they ever have any attacks? At Not right in our immediate community. There was a fort some 8 or 10 miles away that did have and Indian attack-in fact, I think it was burned. I believe one time, but there was none right in our immediate community0 Q: What was the name of the fort? �A: Fort Donneley. Q: This was in your grandmother's day? At No, it was before my grandmother. My grandmother was born about 1852 or 1853• That was after the Indians were driven out. Ail these tales were before, just something passed down by her parents or grandparents, or something. There was no Indian there when my grandmother was, as far as I know. She said there was bears and deer. I heard them tell about seeing deer go through the clearings they hacked out of the woods, things like that. Q: Did they have some Civil War stories? As Tes. There were some Civil War stories. They were pretty well on the border, and I think seme of the people went to each army, so there was-I don't know of any brothers against brothers, but I've heard some tales of some cousins against cousins on different sides. There was always an alert to - if the soldiers of either side were coming, they were to hide in the woods or somewhere„ Qi Who was to hide? AJ The family-the women and children would hide. Qs Oh, the whole family would go hide? AJ Yes, they would particularly try to take care of the horses because the horses were essential to the farm. So they would try to hide the horses0 There's one tale-this is limestone country-and ther's one tale that they took the horses of anyone to a limestone cave and took them back into where they couldn't hear the horses of any soldiers Cavalry that came by. Those were scary tales too, you know. Q: The soldiers on both sides would come through and just take whatever they wanted? A: Yes, that seemed to be the idea, that if either side would come through, they would �pick up anthing was loose. If there was a cow or calf, they would drive it off, you see. If they found any potatoes, why, they would take them. That's all "hear say", but I would suspect that there is quite a bit of truth in it. Q: What side was your family on? A: Most of my family was on the Soughern side-Confederate side. My father's people were all, and my mother's people were divided somewhat. There was two sections of those. One brother had already migrated to down of the Ohio River, which is 150 miles further northwest, and they were very definitely Yankees, but the ones right there in the community I suppose they had more Southern sympathy than they had for the Northern. The next door neighbors was a Northern soldier so-both ways. Qs Do you remember any stories about hiding runaway slaves? As No, I suppose that, evidently, not many went through that areao I think that most of the slaves headed further East into-up Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. Of course, that was Virginia until Civil War time<> West Virginia was cut off because what is now West Virginia wanted to go with the confederacy. That's really the reason the state of West Virginia was formed I guess, when you get basically down to it. Q: Your family migrated from Virginia? A: Yes, they migrated from Virginia. They came with the colonies from-well, actually we don't know what ship the ancestors came over on or anything like that, but they were with the Jamestown Settlement, but they might have been, I don't know. Qt You had never been down to Norht Carolina until you came down after col- lege? As I came down after finishing college and got a job. Qj What were the farming conditions like when you first came to this area �10 30 years ago? At Well, most everyone depended on their farm for their income, whether it was, whether they actually farmed or whether they did business with the fanners such as the fertilizer dealers and the merchants. The biggest payroll of course was Appalachian State University, as it still is. We had, the census gave us around 2600 farms, and the income about l^g million, total sales during the year, so you see, there wasn't really a lot of money floating around<, Part of it was what we would now call "Subsistence farming", with making most everything that you used at the farm, on the farm, and in the home. We didn't buy a lot. I guess the grocery stores would say we didn't buy anything much, Q: What portion of the farm products were marketed? AJ We were producing at that time quite a number of vegetables. In I9k3> when I came here-the second World War in progress-we were growing cabbage, snap beans. Irish potatoes for sale. We were also "growing some beef cattle, a large number of farmers kept sheep and sold sheep and lambs. Then there were poultry and eggs on a good many farms at that time. So, we sold vegetables, livestock, livestock products, and eggs, poultry. Qt Did the family use most of what they produced? Aj Depending on the size of the farm. The small farmers used a higher pro- portion of what he produced-total poduetions-thah the larger farmers. Of course, the larger farmers sold quite a volume of their produce. I would say of the amount produced was actually sodl or more, and livestock, it would be 9/10 I expect, because they would produce enough, where 1/10 of what they produced would supply their needs. Q: How did you define1 "subsistence" then? A: Well, what we mean by subsistnece was what that most of them raised all that they needed on the farm, and then sold the surplus. Q: Were there outside laborers that worked on the farm? �n A: Usually neighbors. The small farmers would work on their own farm part of the year, and then work for their neighbors part of the time. Q: And the neighbor would pay them cash? AJ Cash, or pay them sometimes in farm produce, swap labor with them sometimes. There wasn't an awful lot of cash to change hands, but some of it did, of course. Q: What were your main markets—the main commodities produced? As The vegetables were sold through-at that time we had, well Goodnight Bro- thers were operating at Hollar's Produce, At time to time other large farmers would have some produce. As trucks,- began to come in, we got more and more of the outside truckers coming in buying a truckload of cabbage, a truckload of beans. The biggest bean market in the world at that time was at Mountain City, Tennessee. We had a bean market there. We had a small bean auction market here in Boone for a while, and there's also one in West Jefferson. Some of the towns south and east of here, such as Charlotte, and Gastonia, were good markets for farm products. Farmers began to get pick-up trucks. They would load a pickup, or maybe a larger truck, with cabbafe, beans, apples-take off down there for 2 or 3 days and sell a load* Potatoes were a Mg item. We could store potatoes all winter. Q: What did the Goodnight Brothers and the Hollars do? A: They shipped their produce by the truckload, to the terminal markets—Atlanta Charlott$, and up the Eastern Seaboard-Washington, New York. I've even heard of sine if tgen giubg as far as Boston. Some went to Louisiana. That used to be a pretty big market for cabbage in the late summer, so they distributed wherever they could find a marketo Q: Did they use the railroads at all the ship the produce? A: Some. But, most of them went by truck* They could load up in Boone and be in Washington, D.C. the next day. The railroad was a little slower. A good many �12 of the livestock, cattle and sheep, were shipped by train to the processing plants in New York City, Baltimore, Maryland. Usually our produce would head East and North, because you could get it from the West in to New York a little later in the season0 • We were a little bit earlier than some of the northern markets• Q: Ai Were there any local trucking companies? There were some local trucks. Sometimes you would find people that would gather up a load and take it to these markets themselves. Some fortunes were made that way, and some were lost too, from what I hear. A rather risky business. Q: Do you know the names of any of the people who did that? A: Well, the Critcher brothers, Fred Critcher and his f?mily, were one of the ones that I remember making a pretty big success of it. They are still in the business. Then the Hollars family was into it. Of course, the Goodnights, that's the way they started,, They started with, I think, if I remember tales I've heard. They started with just a wagon and horses, hauling cabbage and potatoes to the East or Southeast, selling them that way. It grew into a very successful business. The Cooks, McNeils, Browns, you could just about name any family.':and you would find somebody that's done a little bit of that trucking trying to get produce to the market. Q: Were there any particularly larger farmers when you first came here? A: Well, yes, there were some large farms. Most of the large farms were livestock because they could handle livestock with less labor than the vegetable farm. That's, in what we would call large fawns, there really was not any. I expect the largest would be 1 0 - 0 acres with £0-68 acres cultivation |050 which would be what we would call a large farm, which wouldn't be anything, today we wouldn't call it large,, But, the average farm in Watauga County �13 has always been somewhere from £0-60 acres, wiich would indicate that there's quite a number of 10-20 acre farms, some were UOO-5QO acres. Q: Who were the larger farm owners? As Well, one of the larger ones that I remember was the Dr» Peary farm which more recently is owned by Floyd Ayers, who is now deceased,and over on Highway 10$. Then we had farms over in Valle Crucis, the Tom Beard farm, Will Mast farm, the Taylor farm, Don Shall farm, those were fairly large farmsi Down at Brownwood on the Ashe County line, we had the Coopers, Albert Cooper farm, it was a fairly large farm. And down at Deep Gap, old man Moretz had all that land there in the gap, which was a pretty large farm. Of course, a few of them stiU have farms. The Murray Brown farm, he was a pretty young man at the time, he had a little over 100-150 acres, rapidly accumulating more, The Neil Blair farm, where the golf course is now, was considered a pretty large farm. ASTC Dairy Farm was considered a fairly large farm. Q: So a lot of this area that we've seen developed into other things is where the prime farm land used to be? At That's right. The development has taken quite a large part of the better farm. The Neil Blair farm was a big farm. Where the Hound Ears development is was the Claude Shore's farm. That was not an exceptionally large,farm, but it was good farm land. Where Boone now sits, wJiere all this shopping development on the Blowing Rock Road is, see that was farm land. That belonged to the Farthings-mostly, Grady Farthing's brothers, Ed, Zeb, and Don. Q: How do you feel when you see the shopping centers and bulldozers where your best farms used to be? Aj Well, I have mixed fellings on that. A lot of the people are making an easier living, at least part-time, in industry, than they were able to make on the farm with the assets that we had for farming. So, that has helped. But, also I hate to see the bulldozers tearing up our land. I think it could �be done without as much destruction as has been for the last few years, but they say it's progress, so we'll go along with it to a certain extent. We'll do all we can to try to keep them from tearing up all the beauty0 We still think that the farmers are the backbone of Watauga §ounty, that is as far as the attraction for tourists» There's nothing more attrac tive in our reports that we get, one of the things that they like about Watauga County is these well-kept farmsteads and nice cattle on the hill, tilings like that. So, I'm still a farmer, I believe in farming. Qs Do you think that it will be possible to continue with out well-kept farms and cattle on the hillside? A: I'm hoping it willo I know we'll have difficulties and we're going to have problems. But, I think we'll be able to maintain quite a bit of that, and may see some of it coming backo We've cleared some land when we're trying to farm extensively that I know would be better off in forests. So, I'd like to see some of these steeper, rougher places go back to forest production, which I think would add to the beauty of the area. I hope that we'll be able to keep enough of our rolling land, sloping land, bottom land, to produce feed for livestock, support our operation, and I believe we will. Q: Were you involved in the timber growing business, or was most of the limber sold before you came here? As Most of the timber was sold before I came to the country. We have had the part in getting quite a number of seedlings set, pine seedlings, poplar seedlings, and in some cases walnut seedlings, locust.. T e've also been in- volved in sane timber stand improvement work, but most of that timber was cut out before we came or was being cut out during WWII, pretty extensively at that time. So, we didn't get in on too much. We worked with the land owners where we could„ �Q: How did WW II change farming, or change the acea? As Well, when WW II was over, the market for Vegetables dropped off, and our farmets went to other types of production. Many of the boys who had been in WW II were not satisfied with what they could produce and income they could get on the farm, so they went seeking other employment. It was a period of change--the automobile came in strong*, prosperity seemed to increase and the young people became more restless. Of course, the rural prpulation was too great for the land to support all of them, so they began to spread out. Qs Would you say this was when the major change took place? As I think it is, yes. Qs Right at the end of the war? As Yes, just in the years right after the end of the war. Actually, I expect, when we begun to get industry in Watauga County, most of it occured in the 'Jo's which was a period not too lone after the war. We begun to take stock of what we had, and work with industry to get some payrolls in the county. So, we were instrumental in studying the situation and getting several facts before the people. Then we worked with the Chamber of Commerce and others to bring in some industry. I tell some of them we might have overdone it. Q! Were you personally involved in helping to get industry in? A: Yes, we were. We were one of the counties designated as rural development county, and in 1956 one of three in N. C. An extensive study was made of the situation and the assets and possibilities in Watauga County. We got quite a lot of help from the state, notable N. C, State University. We were pretty active in that, Q: Going back for a minute, during the war, was there a decrease in farming because the men were away? As Well, we have reduced the land that is being used for agriculture. I think �16 according to the US Census, only about % of Watauga County is now used for agricultural purposes. Most of the agriculture has shifted from a row-crop vegetable production to more of a livestock economu with grass covering the hillfi, and some of the roughland going back to trees. The income from the farm has increased from about $1.5 million sales back in 191*5 to approximately $k.£ million at the present time, and the large part of the people that live on the farm, one or more members are now partly employed or full-time employed in industry. So, we would say that our area is more of a part-time fanning area at the present than it was back in those days. Q: What about the crops that are grown? Has there been any change? A: The crops grown now are mostly the U-H crops, grass crops, livestock feed crops. We've gotten away from the vegetables, and the crops that require too much labor—what we call child labor. There's not as many people on the farm, the farm families are not as large, they don't have a large number of children growing up to help pick beans and cabbage and things like that, so we're getting away from that type of farming. Qj Are more outside laborers employed? A: No, most of the farming is done by the fanner and his family,, There's not too many outside laborers employed by the farm. There is some, but not as much as there was a few years ago. Q: What about the markets? A: Well, the market—transportation has come in with the better roads and trucks, so you can get rid of most any crop you can produce. On the other hand, the transportation through the U. S, , so that crops producedlin one area, can be qu±6kly transported to another area where they're used. So, that's maybe reduced the demand for the corps we produce in other areas with machinery, and the price has become more equalized and not as profitable for us. �1? Q: Do you sell the grain crops outside of this area? A: No, ma'am, most of the grain crops are now fed to Itestock in the area, and we're even importing some grain from other areas, because it's easier to buy corn produced at the foot of the mountain than it is to grow it here, sometimes more economical. But, we grow our hay crops and our silage crops, Q: What is a silage crop? A: That's corn that is put in these horizontal silos and used for livestock feed during the winter months, usually corn, Qi Since cattle is one of the major animals raised, how do you feel about the meat controversy? As We do not agree with the housewife when she says she's paying too much for meat. If she had to get out here and produce it, I think she'd change her mind. We think food is still a bargain. The U.S. housewife is only spending around 17$ of their income for food. Most countries, they're spending quite a bit more, so the farmer, as yet, is not getting his fair share. I think the increase in price, the increase has come about largely because of increase in the cost of labor, transportation, marketing, and so on. Qt Are there any particularly good years that you can remember, or one best year or best period, for farming in the area? At No, I don't remember any particularly good years that, there was a time long about '50 or '51 when livestock prices were quite a bit higher than they had been before, that were considered good years for livestock producers. Every so often you'd have a good year for vegetable producers0 Cabbage would bring a good price, but I don't recall which years those might be. Q: What about a worst year or years? A: The worst years were the years around 'f&-'55, in there, when we had unreasonably dry weather for our area, and our vegetable crops were short, so we ran short all the way through« Those were pretty hard years for us. We can get �19 them anytime again, too. Q: Do you know how the 'ijO's flood affected the soil, and therefore, the farming? A: Only from hear-say. There were still signs of the flood on these mountains when I came in 'ii3. Many of the little fertile valleys were covered with logs, ricks, and debris taken out of cultivation. We could see what they called "burst outs" on the sides of the mountains, where it looked like big patches of the mountain slipped off and slid down the valley. It was evidently, a scary time of destruction at that time. Qr Was that land ever recovered? A: A lot of it is gradually being recovered, but there's some of it that has not. Some of it was just graved beds. The highway department has gone into several places and scooped up the gravel and used it for highway construction, and things like that. I'd say 1S% of it has been recov ered, but farmers have been reluctant to plow up those bottoms and make them more vulnerable to erosion, in case we do have high water. We tru to keep a high percentage of it in sod crops that won't be—they can be washed away, but it takes more water to wash them away, and it's n6t quite as vulnerable. Q: Have there been any floods or natural disasters since then that have affected the terrain for farming? A: Not to any extent. Some of the river bottoms have flooded a little bit, but we've been remarkably free of disasters-natural disasters-such as excessive flooding or wind damage, tornado damage, anything like that. Q: Could you comment on the Watauga Sour Kraut Factory and impact on farming? A: The Watauga Krout Factory was here when I came. They have been processing cabbage from 75-125 acres of land over the years. They were, I guess, one of the first industries using farm products. Sawmills used lumber, timber, but--and they �have helped quite a number of farmers, probably 60-100 per year, with a small income, no excessive income, but they've been a good substantial, stabilizing industry for our area. Q: When was that started, do you know? As I do not know, but I think it must have been just about after the first World War, shortly afterwards sometime, but I do not know just when, Qt Do you know who started it? At I do not, I'm sorry. Q: Who runs it today? A: Mr. and Mrs**Bil Miller-William Miller-are the operators. Mr. Miller's father operated, it for some time with the help of Dr. K. C. Perryk who I think furnished part of the financing. So, I really don ft know just how they gained control of it> or just what did happen. Maybe I should have been curious enough to try to find out, but I did not. Q: But they are still as successful as ever, aren't they? A? I think so. They—I don't think they make any great lot of moJiey out of it, but they are making a living and they're supplying a market for cabbage, which is a good thing for out there. Q: They buy from individual farmers, is that what they do? A: Yes. Q: How has—I'll ask you this, then I'll let you rest. How has your job changed over the years? A: My job, when I started, was working with individual farmers trying to help them change their management practices, or their production practices, to produce more and make more money for their farm. My job has been more in the last—well, since the rural development program in the mid 1950's, has been to try ot help the people help themselves, whether it be in agriculture or whether it be funding employ- �ment or starting some kind of small business that would help them with better incomes or make a better living0 It's evolved from a help the people in a limited way with agriculture to helping them in any way that we can to make—to give them a better living whether it means more money or just more pleasure from what they are doing.* Qs What sort of assistance has the United States government given to these kind of programs to help people? As Of course, part of the salary of the country extension agents, home agents, Ij-H agents, is appropriated by the Congrss and that comes through the North Carolina University which is supplemented with some money from the—appropriated by the state and them that is in turn supplemented by some county money topay personbel and to do research work to try to increase the income or the know-how of farmers c, You see, back thirty years ago, we were producing thirty to thirty-five bushels of corn per acre when the hybrid corn was devleoped and now we're not satisfied if they don't ge over a hundred. So there's been quite a lot of work from the federal government, the U, S, Department of Agriculture, plant breeding, animal breeding and soil testing, fertilization, chemicals can be used to control pests, those kind of things. The research, as far as direct supplement ot farmers, unless you would call the fertilizer that came through the agriculture stabilization program as a supplement, why the department has not given farmers the handout or anything like that. They did give them some money to encourage conservation, and that's one thing that helped us to get away from plowing up too much of these hill land, those kind of things. Q: Well, I have read a lot about how universities like North Carolina State, the land grant colleges have poured millions of dollars into developing machinery that really puts the samll farmer out of business and I've been concerned about that. I wondered how much they've done that actually helped the small farmer. �22 Q: Well, unfortunately I think there's too much truth in the statement that they have developed machinery and technology that the large farmer or the one that is able to control the acreage or rent their own acres-a little more benefit to them than it has been to the small farmer, so I'd say there's more truth than we'd like to talk about that. Qj What can the small farmer do to compete then? Aj Well, there are certain crops that the small farmer can produce more econom- ical, that require a lot 6f hand labor and he can increase his income if he's willing to maybe work a little bit harder. We think this small fruit crop is one reason we're into the strawberry plant businesso That's an opportunity. We know that, with proper care, that a farmer could can have a labor income of from $2f>00$3000 from an acre of strawberries and maybe blueberries, take longer to get them established, but that may increase to that amount or even more so then with such crops as trellised tomatoes that require a large amount of labor, at a high income per acre, other fruits, the production of fancy vegetables, things like that. There's Opportunities there I think and North Carolina State University has worked for those type of people quite a little bit. Maybe they can do more, but it's a—I don't think we've left them our entirely and now at the present time we've got--we're working three, what we call nutrition aids that are working with'the low income farm families on a-not only producing vegetables, fruits, and a family food supply, but on usine what they buy from the stores preparing balanced meals and health care. Q: What is the U. S. Government doing to help the small subsistnece family far- ,mer? Ai: Outside of the educational assistance we can give them with extension programs through the home economics and different kinds of sids, I don't know that the Department of Agriculture is doing a lot for the small subsistence farmer. They are �more concerned with getting the farmer and his family educated so they can take advantage of employment opportunities. It seems to me that they might be encouraging part-time farmers more that they are full-time farmers on these small farms. And perhaps, outside of the few speciality crops, especially vegetables, and small food projects* Why, if the farmer doesn't want to do a pretty good job of management and take quite a bit of pains, he might make more money on the job. But I think at the same time, and I think our Department of Agriculture is encouraging, the use of the resources that they have, such as the land for the production of these high-income-per-acre crops* We are not willing to admit that the samll farmer is completely out. He may have to do a little bit better job of management, and have to get his business established, spend a little more money to get started then he used to, but he can stiU. make a pretty good go of it, Q: Is money available to help you get started? A: Money is available usually through the Farmers Home Administration and usually some other sources to help him get started. He does need to work out a pretty good farm plan and know what he wants to do, and how he wants to do it. Q: And that's where you would come in? A: Yes. Q: Do you see any hope in cooperatives or farmer's associations to kind of band together to compete with the very large farmers? As If cooperatives—if there is a place—if they have a specific purpose and know what they're after, and have a pretty good plan to go after that particular point, then a cooperative will work. There's been too much emphasis place on cooperatives just because they're called cooperatives. Farmers get together and they don't know what they want* They don't plan far enoueh ahead, so I'm not too strong on just fanning a cooperative just to say we have one. Let's have a purpose and have a real need for it. I think the Blue Ridge F.lectric Membership Cooperative-the Elec- �trie Co-op, the teltphone co-op, have done wonderful-have been wonderful, and they are doing a good job. There is a need for it-there's a purpose, and they had it well planned. If you talk about a little co-op such as a transportation eo-op, which I know of, it wasn't planned well enough, and the people were not willing to use it, so those types of things I think we need to be care ful what we get into. Q: What about a cooperative or association to pool and sell produce or livestock? As If the visiting markets are not doing what they should then a co-op can step in and do the job, but your management in a co-op needs to be just as good as in a business. Sometimes that's hard to1get. We need to study carefully. Co-ops are not a cure for everything. Q: Are there any in this area? A: As I mentioned, the telephone and the electric co-ops are the better ones that are going strong. Q: I'm thinking of fanners. A: Well, of course the PCX is a co-op—it's a large one. Qi Are there any that market farm products? A: Not that I can think of right off hand. But there-is , over in some of the western counties, there's a tomato marketing co-op, and apple marketing co-op in Mitchel County* We have not had a co-op here to market vegetableso I think a lot of that will depend on if you have good, conscientious markets-private enterprise markets-then the farmers will go along with that before they'll put their own money in and try to form one of their own. I think they're wise to do that, because its hard to hire-you just can't hire the type of management that it takes sometimes. Q: What about a farmer's market? A: Well, we have-now, let me go back a little bit. Our livestock market is-the building and facilities-is supplied by an association which is leased to private operators, so we have gone that far, so maybe I better back up a little bit on �what I said awhile ago. We do have a. livestock association that has supplied the facilities, which is in turn leased to private operators. Those types of thingsI think the situation has to be evaluated as it develops. You can't just make a general statement, say every place should-the producers should land together to get facilities and them lease it to private operators* Mayb;e they should get the facilities and msybe operate it themselves, and maybe a private operator who will bet or funish the capital themselves can do it. So, each situation needs to be evaluated in itself. Qx Has there ever been an open-air market, where the fanners could bring in thfeir produce? At When we had our bean market, there was-you might call that a kind of open-air market. There's been little small curb markets, but there's never been what you referred to as an open-sir market, as far as I know, in Boone, as there is in the larger towns. So, you've got to have buying power before those type of things will succeed. I don't believe that you have enough buying power around Boone to operate a very large market. Little private roadside markets, will do a good job. I don't believe we've got enough buying power to operate a big market* Q: Do you know if any of the farmers take their produce to Winston-Salem or other cities? A: Very few. Occasionally you'll get them taken further away the Columbia Veg- etable Market, Columbia, S. C. we well a few loads down there, but it's sporadic. A farmer has a surplus and he don't think he's getting the market price satisfied, then he'll take a load, but it's not a good sustem. QJ Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you think would be helpful for us to know? A: I believe you've pretty well covered the agricultural situation. I don't know, I hope I've given you the facts. Ifve given you my opinion, so maybe you �can compare it to someone elst, and them form your opinion. Q: Thank you, Mr. Tuckwillere � 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 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Scanned by Wetmore, Dana Equipment Hp Scanjet 8200 Scan date 2014-02-25 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 L.E. Tuckwiller, April 10, 1973 Description An account of the resource L.E. Tuckwiller was born September 16, 1908 in West Virginia. He graduated from Berea College in 1934 and was the Watauga County extension agent for the past 30 years. Mr. Tuckwiller talks mostly about his career as an extension agent throughout the interview. He explains his academic career and what lead him to the job. Mr. Tuckwiller was born and raised in West Virginia, so he describes the history of that area and compares the land to Boone. He also talks about his childhood on the farm and stories he heard of the Native Americans and the Civil War. For a large portion of the interview, Mr. Tuckwiller talks about farming in Boone and how he has worked with farmers. He also discusses the loss of farming land to development. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lamm, Joy Tuckwiller, LE 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 4/10/1973 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. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 25 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource document Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 111_tape57-58_LETuckwiller_1973_04_10M001 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Boone, NC Subject The topic of the resource Farm life--West Virginia--20th century West Virginia--Social life and customs--20th century Farm life--North Carolina--Watauga County--20th century Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Mountain life--West Virginia--History--20th century--Anecdotes Berea College 1940 flood Appalachian State University Atlanta Berea College Blue Ridge Electric Membership Cooperative Brasstown Cherokee County N.C. Civil War Clay County N.C. Columbia Vegetable Market Cooperative Feed Store country extension Department of Agriculture Farmer's Cooperative Farmers Home Administration farming Fort Donneley Georgia Goodnight Brothers Great Depression Greenberry County Hollar's Produce L.E. Tuckwiller livestock Mountain City Mountain Valley Cooperative Native Americans North Carolina North Carolina State University sawmill subsistence farming superstitions Tennessee Watauga County N.C. Watauga Kraut Factory West Virginia https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/b82b7c50d44c31b219ccc5f34376f72c.pdf 2ae609794a1902a7d0c69e515a224fb7 PDF Text Text AOHP This is an interview with Mr. and Mrs. San Jones on the Castle Ford Road on June 12, 1973. The interview is with Mike HcNeely. Question: Mr. Jones, would you tell me something about the farm you were born on? Answer: It was sixty-five acres, X think. I've cleared it here the last few years, all ray life nearly. There's about as much land as you can see. Done everything that can be done to get it to work. Qt How many were there in your family? A: Nine. Q: How many brothers and sisters? A: Five girls and four boys. Q: Your dad had a lot of help on that farm, didn't he? A: Yeah, when we got up big enough. Oh we just growed corn, potatoes, mostly theni"—-beans, and peas anything like they do now. little stuff like that. Didn't grow Pumpkins, just grow all the pumpkins and string it and string it up and put it on posts and dry it. Q: Did you have any livestock? A: Yeah, we had hogs, cow or two and hog or two. Chickens, geese, guineas. Q: Were the cows and chickens used for meat, or were they used for milk and eggs? A: No, just milk and eggs mostly. Q: How about your hogs? Did you let them run free or did you keep them in pens? A: No, we had a big lot back then. That's about a acre a lot for *.-• them to run in. Q: I was reading somewhere that some of the farmers let their hogs run wild. A: My dad used to have forty—-one year had forty head. Cholera got �2. amongst them, they was out in the mountains. six. That cholera111 kill them right now. All died but five or I've never seen but one-- I remember seeing them bring one old big hog in. that far, I guess, out of his mouth. His tusks was stuck We had to cover that fellow, you stick your finger, he'd make a dive at you, just like a snake a-grabbing.at you. mouth and all. He'd eat you up. Ah, they had him tied all over, I don't know how in the world they ever, caught him. I was just a little bitty fellow then, but I can remember it. That's been sixty year ago or more. Q: How often did they have a kill? A: Every fall. They'd go out and shoot them down, with old war rifles, anywhere they could find them. Q: How was the meat back then? Was it as good as it is today? A: Well, I don't believe there was as any a fat hog, unless they got fat on mash, they used to get awful fat on mash, Chestnuts and acorns, Lord, there used to be worlds of them. I picked one day, part of a day after a big snow, about ninety pounds of chestnuts. Early fall and they'd been dry, you know, and they wouldn't open up, well they'd open, but they couldn't pull out. bring them out. They'd take damp, you know, to They come a snow, four or five inches, and I was on Buffalo, and it went off a little while and boy, I mean to you, trees, there was two or three growed up in one bunch there. bushel or more under that. I got a half Boy I got all I could carry and I never got started on them. Mrs. J.: Me and my sister used to pick them up, had four or five ^ trees out in the field. went to school. We'd pick them up in the morning before we Sometimes we'd get three bushels. Dad always took produce down around Salisbury and down in there, he'd take them down there and sell them for us. �3. Q: Did you all use them around the house any? A: Mrs. J. (Chestnuts, oh we'd eat all we wanted and sold bushels of them. Mr. J. I used to climb trees to shake them out. Mrs. J. We never did shake them out. We'd just pick them up as we went to school of the morning,when they started falling. Q: Was there a lot of fruit around here--berries? A: Mrs J. Yeah, there used to be all kinds of berries, and apples, and cherries. Mr. J. Anymore you don't get many a meal, once in a while. .. . Now you couldn't get a cherry ham shuck for years around here. Mrs. J. Cherry trees just about all died. And blackberries seem they blight anymore, you can't get none of them. Mr. J. Hadn't picked a blackberry in four or five year, I don't reckon. Mrs.J. Sometimes you can get some wild strawberries if they don't freeze. Lot of time there comes a freeze about the time they're blooming. Don't get to bloom anymore. Q: How about huckleberries? At Mrs. J. Are there any around here? Ah, none to amount to anything, they used to be a good many, back in the mountains, you know. Mr. J. We got, was it ninety-six quarts or something---over a hundred one year? Mrs. J. About ninetyfseven^quarts, but the field that had so many in it's been cleaned off, bulldozed out. Mr. J. Timber them out, killed too lots pine and everything. We found a bush one time, I don't know, I wasn't with them. Mrs. J. Mr. J. Had I went that day or not? Yeah, you was off in the field here picking. And one of my girls found it first, then one of my boys, and she pickftd a gallon bucket! full and he finished his off on one bush. �4. The biggest huckleberries it after that. I always there, you know. Q: I ever seen. I never did see that many on it up when I went over in I think it's dead now, it's been destroyed. How did they used to put up their fruits back in your mother's day? A: Mrs. J. Most the time they just canned them, cooked them and put them in cans, sealed them. Mr. J. Now they made a lot of dried sweets too. Mrs. J. Of course apples, they dried a lot of apples, had dried apples and they'd dry pumpkins and way on back before I ever remember, I was told, my mother told me how they used to dry their blackberries. They dried them. They dried their peanuts, string beans, and they had what they called leather britches. Mr. J. They are good. They'd just seal and dry them and put meat to them, they are good. Q: How much of the crop that was on the farm was sold as produce and how much of it did you use? A: Mr. J. We never sold---growed anything back then when I was a boy. Mrs. J. Since we when,we lived out there, a lot of time,we growed beans. Mr* J. We might have sold a few taters Mrs. J. We growed tobacco to sell and grain, what corn we put out, we'd use it, have our own meal and so forth, take beans to market and tobacco. Mr. J. We used to make seventy-five and seventy-six gallon* of molas- ses here and never sold a one, we eat everyone of them. My dad, after we all left but my youngest brother and he would eat a snuff glass full every morning, you know, for breakfast. (chittling) molasses. That's a half a pint of �5, Q: Did you ever make maple syrup or maple sugar? A: Mr. J. I made a lot of maple sugar, I know how it's made .... Well there was three pots, I think, one was an awful big one. Just out in the woods, had an old pole, and a fork in the pole laid in*it and the lails across it. And we'd give out troughs, wooden troughs, take . peck buckets and go around and dip it out. Mrs. J. Mr. J. Tapped the sugar trees, sugar maples. My dad used a axe, cut a place right handy and hewed out a little old thin strips about that wide, stuck in there and drive it in there, you know, catch your water. Mrs. J. Mr. J. Makes a spout for the sap to run. Sometimes it's clean, sometimes it'd just drip calmly, some of it runs better than others. Mrs. J. Mr. J. That boiling it down though. I've boiled to twelve and one o'clock plenty of time. Get it down to pretty good syrup and bring it in home the next day or night and boil it down to sugar. best syrup I've ever eat. I Hike that syrup, boy it's the If I had a gallon I wouldn't take---wouldn't sell it for a ten dollar bill, it'd cost more than that if a man could get it. Dad made some for years, a little and sold it, they was all gone, I understand it. Q: Did they use the sugar instead of white sugar? A: Mr. J. No, sold it. Q: How much did it bring? & : Mr. J. I forget now. Only good time was forty cents, fifty cents a pound, thirty and forty, well the last he made he sold to a postmaster down there at old Jefferson, he got fifty or sixty cents or more down there. Mrs. J. Now a---white sugar was cheaper than the maple sugar, buy �6. the white, would save money. Mr. J. Now there's a man over there on Buffalo, that would be, he's a doctor, Sam was his name, Sao Perkins, and he tried to run it on yarn strings, you know, to a-.-he had a outlet, you know, little buildings where they bo He'd it down, you know, It wouldn't run off the hill, it'd just run a little, and just drip off, put out a lot of money that-a-way. Then he bought him a five-hundred or a thousand peck buckets and had him a big trough, it was down there, and had a hoXfe bored in there and they'd just carry it and pour it in that trough and it run on down there where they made it, you know, they'd catch it down there (in pots). his buckets. And somebody stole about every one of I know he had five-hundred or more, ten quart buckets, all along the row, somebody finally stole about everyone, if they didn't buckets. Lord, they made hundreds of gallons of syrup, they didn't make sugar, they just made syrup, you know, and sold it. Anybody with any sense a-tall would know that it wouldn't run on yarn strings. Q: How about sawmilling around here? A: Mr. J. That's pretty . . . . I used to sawmill before I come to this country, I ain't done so much since I come, well I've done some too. 1,'ve packed them and I've rolled logs, burnt, cut the timber, ball-bust. Mrs. J. I ain't dome none of that, but I've cut timber. Q: How did you get the trees off the mountain, down to the mill? A: Mr. J. Have a---easiest is by team. Of course, I worked where they had to ball boot them down, off of the in Avery County some too. River. . I've worked That timber'd run eight miles up the Pigeon But that brother seemed he was going broke so bad two of them one of them die"d just a while back. twenty-seven years. (Greg Scott) '.ti "rr-r.-rc r:r":—i,-:': there was I worked for him He sold out, bought them a truck, �7. went to hauling extract. Biggest extract plant that used to be down there at Canton in the world. used Don't know if it's there or not, but be there. Canton is eighteen miles, where our camp is there. Right on the Pigeon River. Q: Did the railroad help any with the sawmilling? A: Mr. J. Yes, it did. They hauled it in on trains, they got to the right place where you loaded it. Yes, they did. And I worked Creek where they hauled it all in for several miles. get it off the mountain and to get on the train cars. But you had to Averaged seventy-five thousand a day. Didn't matter what you taking in on it. That's more than they cut here in two or three months. band mill. That was I handled lumber there twenty-seven feet long, twenty- seven inches wide. Of course, I handled most of the dry lumber, loading cars. Old hemlock logs, splinters sticking out that far. Had to use hand leathers and a apron here. Hand leathers come in on the inside of your hands here. Boy, it'd just ruin you. Mrs. J. Ruin your hands if you got one of them hemlock splinters. Mr. J. They cut little old "lathes," about two to two.and-a.half inches wide and about four foot long, I think. And a eighth to a quarter of an inch thick, and they are the hardest, and they are the hardest things to bail. Boy, that's what they'd give a new man. They test them out on that. Now if he could stand that, he could stand anything. Q: Is this train that came down through Todd the same one that went through Boone and up to Linville? A: Mrs. J. No, this went back into Virginia. Mr. J. I don't know what they've stop that one from running to Ashe County, have they, Jefferson, I don't think. No they had an awful bunch out the other day. There was a string of coal here as �8. long as from here to that garage, just . So big. That's the way they get their coal in down there. They sell it cheaper than they do in Boone, cause they truck it in up there. Mrs. J. I don't know. That train run up here a lot. They hauled a lot of extract back then, stuff like that. Mr. J. Lord, I boarded down in West Jefferson one time a while. helped beat the first rock made them hardtops. I West Jefferson, Old Jefferson, over through there. Mrs.J. After they took this up, the train just run from Abingdon to West Jefferson. Mr. J. They used to come in, a heavy load, there'd be two engines to it, to a load. Why, it'd jar the whole town nearly. It'd just chug-a-chug-&. It would, about jar the town! Mrs. Jones adds something which is inaudible. 0: Did this train down here get washed out with the flood of '40? A: Mr. J. Mrs. J. Mr. J. No, it wasn't here then. Taken up way back yonder. It was took up before that time. They discontinued it. See that grade over there is on that grade is on railroad grade there. Prom Todd to Pleetwood. it had a wide road. Best grade in the state, if It is, the longest stretch there in the state of North Carolina. Mrs. J. W«ll, it ain't wide enough for a highway. If it was wider, it'd be a good road. Mr. J. Well, it's just twelve foot down below Brownwood, Fleetwood. You can't hardly pass on it from there. ThereJs places you can't. And it's washed out, fell off like it is right over yonder all along the highway down through there. was a week ago, I reckon. dangerous. I went down there last Friday. I'm afraid to ride on that road much. It It's �9. Q: Was the train in here during the depression, or was it stopped before that too? A: Mr. J. I don't know how long it's been took up. It was way before you and me was married, wasn't it? Yeah, and we've been married for thirty-eight years. Why it's been forty some years, I guess. Q: What was life like around here during the depression? A: Mrs. J. It was pretty tough, and pretty scrimpy. You had to make do with what you had. Mr. J. Well, I lived on Three Top worst depression Mrs. J. back in Ashe. That there that was before we was married. . . . pulled leaves, gathered herbs--~anything to buy what was necessary. And the rest of it they just had to do with what they had. Q: What types of herbs and all did they gather? A: Mrs. J. Oh, they was different kinds. wood leaves, bark Tfi'ey gathered beech- , beechwood bark, and witchhazel was what they call it. And they peeled Shawneehaw, black- berry briar root . . . . Mr. J. Sassafras roots . . . . Mrs. J. Sassafras roots fras big roots. Shawneehaw I've had to gather many of those sassatake out to the mountain, and pull Shawneehaw. Mr. J. I've treked for a mile and a half, two mile, all I could tie up and carry. Don't get big, really. Mrs. J. Wild cherries, wild cherries. Mr. J. Used to pick a lot of Balm of Gilead buds, but they got so cheap now you can't make nothing. Q: How much do those herbs bring? About thirty cents a pound. �10. At Mrs. J. pound. Oh, some of them bring from a penny to three cents a No, Shawneehaw or the bark from Shawneehaw root sometimes up to eight, nine, ten cents. Witchhazel leaves usually runs two to three cents and the bark sometimes all the way from one to three. Mr. J. Beetwood leaves now bring as high as thirty-four cents or more. Of course, everything's so high, you can't buy nothing now. Sold a lot of them for thirty-three or -four cents a pound. Mrs. J. So funny. You could get a lot more for what little money you did get out of the store. Mr. J. Anyone got that price then, they'd got rich. I been a-buying flour over yonder at 221, used to, 1 guess for two, three, or four years at two dollars for Blue Ribbon. Mrs. J. A box of matches now cost you fifteen cents. them here around for a .nickel. Mr. J. Mrs. J. Used to get A big box of soda was a nickel. Now it's $2.65. A glass of snuff was a quarter. Plug of tobacco was---it run about a quarter---200 to a quarter. Q: How about your salt? A:- Mrs. J. like that. Salt run about eighty---about a cent a pound, something We'd go buy rice. Get rice for two or three cents a pound. Box of Quaker Oats cost you maybe twenty to twenty-five cents. Mr. J. I bought some side meat for five cents before I was married staying with my brother-in-law. Q: How much does it cost now? A: Mr. J. Five cents a pound. I looked down here at Jack's Grocery the other day, there's a piece about that thick and so big first meat, I don't know. Seventy-five cents! pound. Mrs. J. Meat's got ridiculous now. , looks like Seventy-five cents a �11. Q: Was there a scarcity of jobs during the Depression? A: Mxz.J, Mrs. J. Yeah, it got awful scarce. People that had anything to do, they just didn't have the money to pay to have it done. So they just had to do what they could do theirselves and let the rest go. Mr. J. I remember two first checks or payrolls any monthly checks I ever drawed was during the World War. I was just a boy, and wasn't grown. First one was $37.20 and the next one was $27.20. Q: What were you doing? A: Mr. J. sand. Doodling saw dust at a mill, cutting eight to ten thou- Had a help awhile. And I'd do that with a wheelbarrow by myself, cutting eight and ten thousand feet lumber. Now you talking about a job, and that sun coming in on you. Couldn't stand it now, I bet you. I think I got two dollars a day, I think. Q: Were there any government programs around here, in the Depression? Like WPA, CCC. A: Mrs. J. They had the WPA awhile. mainly on it. A lot of the men could work on There was just so many people that needed work, they couldn't work them all. But they did work some. Mr. J. Q: I never did work at it, myself. They were pretty hard days then, but do you remember any of the good times during the Depression? A: Mr. J. Mrs. J. Not too much. I expect that all the way around many fared about as good then as they do now. A lot of them fared just as good, if not better than they do now. We have to work awful hard now-a-days to get by. Back then you had to work hard to 'get by, so you get just as much pleasure out of it. Mr. J. I figure one girl's been a-working three years, in June, out �12. at I.R.C. And she's made—worked out more money than I bet I work out in twenty years, twenty-five. got more than I've seen of my own. one today. She's spent a fortune, she's still She's got a lot of bonds, got She's got money at the Building and Loan and at the bank, and paid for a car. Bought sewing machines, electric irons, and enough to fill that car full several times. Paid for a house, clothes, and everything. Mrs. J. Mr. J. Q: My iron. We got the iron and give it to her. That's right, you did. But she got i1^ though. What were the first electrical appliances you got? A good one. Do you remem- ber? A: Mr. J. Mrs. J. Mr. J. Yeah, no-no, it was an old refrigerator. Refrigerator, and next was the washing machine. That's it down yonder. Kelvinator--that fellow called it Kelvinator. Q: Yeah, that's what my grandmother called it. A: Mrs. J. Mr. J. Did you get a radio? Yeah, we've got one. We've got several. Got two now, one's shot and the other won't play at all, unless you cut it off---I no more. Transistor radio's what I use now. Q: What were some of the programs you listened to? A: Mr. J. Q: Yeah, some of the first ones. A: Mr. J. On the radio? Oh,"Amos and Andy." Mrs. J. "Grand Ole Opry," "Amos and Andy." Then sometimes on Sunday, we'd get singing and preaching. Q: Where did y'all go to church? A: Mr. J. Up here at the top of the mountain, now. up there on Three Top, we went to Kraut. When we lived �13. Q: Was the church a pretty important part of your life when you were growing up? A: Mrs. J. Mr. J. Yeah, it was. Had to walk two or three mile off the mountain. three-quarter of a mile nearly straight down. them. Paid no attention to it then. Mrs. J. else. Well, there's Big, deep snows on That's the God's truth. People used to really go to church better then than anytime They got cars and they'll take off somewhere else, you know-- not stay at home. Mr. J. Mrs. J. I walked sixteen to eighteen miles many times before . . . . They used to---Sunday mornings would come, you'd have to get up and work-—do what you have to do, and then get ready to go to church, walk, and come back home. Mr. J. Fix you something to eat. We'd used to ride the horses back or go in a wagon when I was lust a boy. know, walking. I'd see old men coming when with the canes, you And buggies, yeah, a lot of buggies. I'd go, "What in the world is the matter with that man, has to have a cane." Blame, I've had to use one or two times, some crutches. I've had to use crutches. Q: How often did y'all have services? A: Mrs. J. We usually have services once a month, a preaching service, Sunday School every Sunday. Q: How about revivals? A: Mrs. J. Mr. J. Usually had one revival a year. Now it's two. And this man that runs the church, he has to get somebody to do the preaching, so we can have two to pay now. much money. Too Some type of helper, I don't care how--the pastor up here weighs 274 pounds. And he can preach, preach up a storm. And he has to get somebody else to do the preaching when we have a revival. �14. He's a big man. Q: Who is he? A: Mr. J. Mr s. J. Herbert Goodman. Goodman. Q: How did that church get it* A: Mrs. J. Mr. J. name? Do you know? No, I don't. No, I don't know. I've been in this country thirty-seven years in March, I reckon. Mrs. J. That church has been established a long time. I don't know how it got its. name. Mr. J. Yes, that's been established maybe ninety years, I guess. Well, they've had it a long time. Q: I guess Mr. Grogan up yonder would know. A: Mr. J. Mrs. J. Mr. J. He'd know a whole lot about it. He might come near to telling you how long it's been/ He's been a member up there for years. conversation about his brother.) month. (Tape goes into He's got a birthday right next He's eighty-seven or eighty-eight year old. I'll have to look it up one of these days, in the Bible. Bibles--tore all to pieces. Now I mean ole-timey Bible like that now, oh, a i n ' t a-telling what it would bring, would it. Mrs. J. Yeah, those people out at the flea market offered $75.00, didn't they? Mr. J. tore. out. There's plenty of if it hadn't been Two of my oldest brothers got in to it when the rest were And they tore it all to pieces. that big. END OP SIDE 1 Oh, the back on it was nearly �15. A: Mr. J. That's nine years, I guess. Got gone in ' 2 And 6. I had to send off—my name wasn't in it. brother had it Virginia. Someone else had it. My Had to write on it there, and he sent that pages that had his on it. I' took it. Don't know how I'd ever got it that day. Q: Were there a lot of doctors in this area? A: Mr. J. Q: What did y'all do when you couldn't get a doctor? A: Mrs. J. No. Well, if you couldn't get one, you had to do the best I could. Mr. J. Mrs. J. There's one that lived up here for years. There's one that lived right up the river here, and there's one at'Boone that would go out on calls. Mr. J. He's dead now. a good country doctor. to. One over on Creston---Three Top. He was He always went out, "hoss" back, or used Finally got one at Todd. Mrs. J. Well, if you really had to have one, if you fine them at home, well he'd go up the river here. Mr. J, People died then of appendicitis, and they just called it indigestion or something; colic or something. Yeah, it killed a many a one, and they didn't know what was the matter with them. Mrs. J. Well, people used to---they wasn't no doctors around handy, and they just had to doctor the best way they thought. they got better, it's all right. If If they died, it had to be all right, because it's all they had. Mr. J. They weren't experimenting like they are now. live twenty-one days with double pneumonia. Had a brother Sight a man ever been in that country. Q: What were some of the home remedies that your mother used? �16. A: Mr. J. Mrs. J. Used boneset or my mother did, and catnip . . . . Ole penny royal-— for colds or anything like that, they'd make a tea out of penny royal. And lots of times whenever a baby was cross, wouldn't sleep, they'd take a catnip block, and make a tea, and give it to the baby. And they used camphor for other things. Colds and colic or anything like that. camphor in water . Mr. J. Give them a few drops of .» . We used to take two or three drops of camphor in a bowl of milk, and give it to a baby and it'll ease him right now; or else it used to for colic. Mrs. J. And for people who had chest colds or fevers, well, they'd make a poultice from, ah, roast onions and mix sulphur or something with them, and make a poultice and place it on their chest to break up the fever. Ah, there's so many of them there old remedies. I couldn't think of all they were. Q: What was sassafras tea used for? A: Mr. J. Mrs. J. Yeah, people used to drink a lot of that. Yeah, they used to drink that in the spring of the year for a tonic. Mr. J. Yeah, those winters. Mrs. J. Yeah, and sometimes they'd drink it instead of drinking coffee. They'd make a tea out of it and drink it instead of coffee. Mr. J. It's cheaper now than coffee. Mrs. J. Ten ounces for a $1.75. Back during the Depression, why, coffee was so high and we's so low on money, we had to parch rye around here and make coffee out of it. Q: Mr. Jones, you said your wife knew some of these old farm super- stitions. A: Mr. J. Could you two give me some of them? I don't know. I know I'd never like to plant nothing �17. when the moon points was up. I don't know if there's anything in it or not, but I never did likfe to. I put out some onions one time when the points were up, and I couldn't keep them in the ground. Mrs. J. Superstition is a pair of cedar trees. Little, ole cedar. If you plant it, by the time it gets up big enough to shade a grave, why you'll die. Mr. J. All kinds of stuff like that. Why you can plant it, and my mother argued argued there was-~ something in it. You planted corn or beans, put the heart down and it won't hardly freeze. And I tell you what. You just go right there and drop corn and beans and see if they ain't worlds of it— lots of it ain't even hurt at all, and the other just cooked. Mrs. J. Mr. J. I've seen some that-a-way, but I don't know . . . . My mother tried if she could. she tried to plant a little on Good Friday She always planted with the eye down, so she could have some early beans. something in that. I tell you one thing, I believe there's You can plant a whole row through there, and there*d come a big frost there, and it'll kill some dead and won't hurt some. Mrs. J. Used to plant you one to make you a few potatoes. Plant them about when the sun was in the moon, in the dark of the moon. I heard once about, something about, there was a family asking when was a good time to plant potatoes. moon." Told them 'bn the dark of the So they thought that was getting out in the night time and planting, using lanterns. Mr. J. You know there's a lot of people won't cut wood only at certain times. They won't walk after it. Yeah, they won't, at certain times, cut their wood. Q: I was talking to a fellow the other day, yesterday, and he �18. said that he'd be putting the boards on the barn. And if you put them on when either the moon was growing or was full, it would bow them out. If the moon was shrinking, it would set them in there tight. A: Mrs. J. Well, I know there are times that you can put boards on a barn, and them dirty things will just cup up. Mr. J. Mrs. J. The moon points it up when it does that, I know. And I have seen them on buildings that way where they|ve just turned up. Mr. J. Ixwas madder—I couldn't even see hardly. Those wouldn't set in there at all. Q: Isn't there one about planting corn? I think, if it's if the moon's full, you plant your corn, it'll grow higher. A: Mr.J. Mrs. J. No, it'll grow higher, I think, on the new moon. I think that when the moon's new, if you plant your corn, why it'll grow taller. Mr. J. Mrs. J. Yeah, some people plant in the moon. Yeah, I always planted in the ground. attention to it much. it. I never did payono Wanted to plant something I always planted Old-^people used---they used to have certain signs when they planted everything. You can get these here gardening books and they still go by the signs in planting root crops, planting you know, stuff that grows above ground. attention to it. I never did pay much I just went and planted when I got ready to. Q: What did they use for fertilizer back yonder? A: Mrs. J. Well their the only fertilizer they used back then was just the litter from the barn and stables, because they didn't buy it, they didn't have it. factured it Well, back there I reckon they manu- nowhere around here, where they could get it. But they �19. used the litter from the barns, and in their big fields where they put their corn or something like that, why they didn't use anything. Most of the time, they just cleaned out new land. They'd tend it till it gets so it wouldn't make nothing and then they'd let it grow up and try a new patch. Wood land then was had a lot of, you know, weeds had rotted on it so long; so long as it had lay it there. just planted in it, after they cleaned it off. They But, when it wouldn't make any more, why they'd let it change off and clear them off another patch, and try it. Q: Did all the gardening with horse drawn stuff, didn't you? A: Well, they usually had a patch that they kept their stable litter throwed on, that they did their gardening on. Mite small. My mom and dad always used their stable litter a little on their garden. She always had a pretty garden too. Q: Yeah, they didn't have tractors back then, did they? A: No, no, they used a team to do their plowing with, or oxen. oxen a lot. use a horse. Used And if they wanted anything cultivated, why, they had to They have cultivated with oxen too. I've drove oxens. I don't like it. Q: How is it different from driving horses? A: Mrs. J. Well, oxen can be so stubborn. won't budge at all. They won't budge till they get ready to. ever they get ready, then they'll go on. you can make him go on. They can just bug up and When- But a horse, most of the time, One of them old oxen, when he's stuck, he's just going to stay there til he's ready to go. Q: Did the farmers make the yokes for the oxen themselves? A: Mrs. J. Yeah, some of them did. knew how to make them made them. that made them. They used some of them that Maybe one person in the settlement �20. Q: Did they have a blacksmith around here? A: Mrs. J. Q: Where did y'all go to school over here? A: Mrs. J. at Trout. I guess they did, I don't know where though. Well, I went to school at Deep Gap, and he went to school He lived back in Ashe, he's from Ashe, Watauga County. I went to school in Deep Gap. I was born here in Well, I first went to school at the old schoo}, one room school building on Creek. x And then they put the schools together and took out a lot of the one room schools, and took out some of the county schools. Mr. J. seen. I remember the first air car and the first airplane I ever I bet you don*t---can't remember that. Q: No. Where was it? A: Mr. J. Way back in Ashe County. First airplane (car) I ever seen. twelve or thirteen years old. said, "all take a peek." Up on what they call the "Bluff." I was going to school---about Went past the schoolhouse. Rose something or another. got to see it, it was gone out of sight. stayed all after Teacher Before we all After that he come back and a little piece at church, I mean, schoolhouse. We'd go there and boy we thought that was the awfullest that had ever been. We'd look at it, go over there, reach in it, look at that car. Mrs. J. I can't really remember the first car I ever seen, but 1 can remember the first airplane I ever seen. We were living in Virginia at that time, and they's, gee I forget now whether there was five or how many there was in the bunch. Mr. J. Mrs. J. Five or seven. Went over in a bunch. They was the first ones I can remem- ber. Q: What did you think of them when you saw them? A: Mrs. J. Oh, I thought that was something great. All them airplanes, �21. I just don't remember the first car I ever seen. Mr. J. Well, I do. Mrs. J. I sort of remember one Dad ever bought. He got an old "scooter," strong armed as I am I'd run it up in the trees every time. Q: How much mileage did you get in those old cars? A: Mrs. J, I don't really know. I was too young really to know any- thing about them. Mr. J. Didn't have any roads then. Back in '27, with only gravel roads, if you got thirty-five mile,you's flying. boys taking me to see my girl. road, and you were flying then. I know. One of the Hit thirty-five mile on that old.gravel They thought that was something. Q: How many miles to the gallon of gas? A: Mr. J. I don't know. There was-—according to what model it was, I guess. Mrs. J. Mr. J. I don't know myself . . . . I don't remember for my life. now. They's quite a difference from Now one son-in-law, he told our daughter here---he's got one of them, I reckon you kinda call foreign made 1 reckon it's made in the United States or it's made just like one of those foreign cars. I think he gets about thirty-five miles.(to the gallon) Q: I get about thirty-two on my Volkswagen. age. You were talking about courting. That's pretty good mile- What all did you do? What did you do on your dates? A: Mr. J. Mrs. J. Mr. J. Mrs. J. Mr. J. Q: I'd just go and sit all night is all I done. We'd just sit and talk. Stay till about eleven or twelve o' clock. We never did go anywhere. Go to bed. He'd come visit, sit and talk. I went everyday. Did you ever go pick berries or cherries or work in the garden �22. together? Mrs. J. Mr. J. Oh, we might have gone out together and pick cherries to eat. They were going to clear out the pig-pen one time, but I didn't stay long. Mrs. J. I come back. I was scared of it. I don't know, we might of got out and worked cutting cabbage or something, anytime that we'd be a working. Q: Can y'all think of anything else that I haven't asked you about? A: Mr. J. I don't reckon. After you leave, I can think of a whole lot. Mrs. J. Whenever a fellow's trying to think of something, ever think of Q: it. We appreciate you giving us this information. he can't � 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 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Scanned by Wetmore, Dana Equipment Hp Scanjet 8200 Scan date 2014-02-24 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 Sam Jones, June 12, 1973 Description An account of the resource Sam Jones was born in Deep Gap, North Carolina around the early 1900s on a farm where he grew up. He worked at a sawmill. Mr. Jones starts the interview talking about growing up on a farm. At this point his wife joins the interview, and they begin talking about berry-picking and produce. Mr. Jones also talks about working at the sawmill and the importance of the railroads in transportation. They both talk about their experiences with the Great Depression including topics of picking herbs, working, and church. Mr. and Mrs. Jones discuss the lack of doctors in the past and different home remedies they used. To end the conversation, the two recall the first time they saw a car and airplane. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McNeely, Mike Jones, Sam 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> 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. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 22 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource document Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 111_tape84_SamJones_1973_06_12M001 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Todd, NC Subject The topic of the resource Farm life--North Carolina--Watauga County--20th century Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Depression--1929--North Carolina--Watauga County Sawmill workers--North Carolina--Watauga County Mountain life--North Carolina--Watauga County--History--20th century--Anecdotes Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-06-12 berry picking Deep Gap dried fruit farming Great Depression herbs and roots home rememdies livestock maple syrup railroad Sam Jones sawmill