1 50 7 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/61b8ac98d1bdb562a48623aec5d27a7e.pdf ffd35fd69fb38b80c4fa9af45d98ddd6 PDF Text Text This is an ·Appalachian Oral History Project interview with M r. Perry Hicks of M arion, North Carolina who is a retired mill worker. He was interviewed by Sam Howie on December Jl, 1975. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A.. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Some of the first things we need to know are thi ng s like where you we re born. Well, I was born in Haywood County in the extreme western part of North Carolina, right inside of North Carolina. Our closest neighbors we r e in Tennessee •••• back in the extreme western part, near Pigeon River. Pigeon Rive r? I was raised on a company's land. My father paid $25 a y e ar, standing rent, on the mountain f a rm. And he raised hogs, c a ttle and livestock and he farmed. He raised wheat, corn, oats, rye, irish potatoes. The land produced rye and oats in abundance, and irish potatoes and cabbage and vegetables. But the corn made about 15 bushels an acre, about 6 to 8 bushels of wheat per acre, and about 20 bushels of rye, and about 20 or 25 bushels of oats. And , I was raise d there and we had a three-month school. We went to school through July, August and September, at an old sawmill shanty. And my daddy left there when I was ab out 12 years oad and went farther back in Haywood County to a big double-band sawmill. He went there for the e x press reason to send me and my brother to a six-mon th school. We was up to a pretty good size. About the only thing I learned wa s how to hobo a railroad engin e in old log[ ing trains. It 'd leav e there in the morning ab out the time my daddy went to work. I 'd get on it and go to the mountains and come back in just ab o ut dinnertime and go to the house and eat my dinner. I went back, I went back to the mountains •• I did most of the ti me. The thing that got me out of heart about g oing to school was that most of the students were stupid or dumb or something o r d i dn't care about learni ng and the tead.her appointed me to try to help them learn. nd I went from seat to seat for a week or two and I wasn't making any progr e ss. They weren't learning, and the teacher would get on me ••• so I got out of heart and quit . ' Then my daddy bought a farm in Madison County, moved back there, and stayed til I reckon it was 1920. But in the meantime I met my wife and me and her was married. I was 17 years old, she wa s 16. That 's been 59 years ago . What year we~e y ou born in? I was born in 1899 and we decided to come to t h e cotton belt ••• here to M arion and we come up there and I went to work in the mill. What year wa s that? That was 1919 that I went to work in the cotton mill. Which mill was that? Was1 that in ••• That was Clinchfield. Clin chfield? It's Clinchfield. The one that you came by. The bi e one? And the mill run 12 hours a day. Of cours e , the day I worked was 10 hours , but the wheels and machinery they would stop at 12 hou rs. I went to work in the card room for a dollar for 10 hours, got a dollar a day. I paid 45 cents per week for house rent, for a three-room house. W as it a mill village then, that you lived in? Yeah. Clinchfield mill villa g e? �2. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. • Q. A. Yeah, Cli n chfield village. Did you have to live in the mill village to work in the mill? No, you didn't have to but it was cheaper. They furnished the house. It took 700 hands to run the two mills at that time. We was up there, I don't remember how many years, several years though. There was a man who come in here organized a union. What years? Two cotton mills. Was that in 1929? I guess it was. Yeah , it wa s. And oh, he got the East Marion mill pretty well organi zed . The mill I was working in, they never did go so str ong for the union. All of the bus i nesses in M arion was bitterly opposed to it. To the union? Yeah , to the union. And, of course, by me being nonunion, I was let in the inside of wha t was going to happen. I was sworn to secrecy not to tell anybody what I knowed about what was go i ng to happen. But I knowed the union wasn ' t gping to win and I knowed the unio~··· ah, the company was not going to accept it, the people wasn t going to accept it. The town and the businesses wasn't going to accept it. They were se ar ching all the time for something that they could try the union organizer for, in the law. Take a warrant for him ahd try him. Do you remember his name? Hoffman . And he went right on and closed the mill I was working at for three weeks a nd they got ready to start it up and they told us all where to get to, t o come in on a certa i n Mo nday morning . And we went there, and I was the first person to get ther e th t morning , me and my brother-in-law. We went up on a bank and the union neve~ did see us. But when they began to gather in, to go to work, the union people they was on the picket line, they had the spies and they all came in there. And the union got to singing hymns and inviting people t o come to the ••• to be saved, t hat is come in and join the union. And th9 superintendent, Henderson, he c a me in and when he went to open the gate, why some of them caught his coattails and drug him backwards. So he said ev e rybody go home. o we all went home and in another week they notified us to gather up one day again a t 12 o'clock at the company office. That was the superintendent's office? Yeah, so that day we all come and there was number one, number two mill and we wa s going to try to start up number two mill. It was the b iggest mill. nd of course the union was evtErywhere. It was closed. h nd we got the ••• finally got the soldiers in there. 'l bey pushed t h em back. nd we got inside t h e lock. W ell, we had enough help to start the smaller mill. o they took us all ov e r to the smaller mill and we started up at 12 o'clock that day. Then after that, it was all over with. They cut the hours down at the mi l l. Of course all along they'd be.gun rais i ng the wag es. And I had got up to piecework and I made 18 dollars and 75 cents a we ek , five days and a half on piece work. ow many hours a d ay? W ell, I worked 12 hours a day b e cau s e every hour I worked was more money to me. They started t h e machi n e ry at 6 o 'clock in the morning, but I was always on hand to start my ·ob. Then me and somebody would work together, and he wo uld take my job am. his �J. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. too while I was of f to l u nch. And I'd come back and watch h is job and mine too and he would g o to luhch. So we never let our machinery stop. I was running frames in the card room, and it went on that way and after that was all over with, all blowed away, they went to putting one, couldn't have one man, put t ing two men on a ••• putting one man on the job two men had been running. And it just kept getting worse and worse. Was that after the strike in 1929? Yeah. ~hat was after that? Yeah. nd then they ••• thing s got so bad through the Depression and they cut us down to half a day at a time. I went of a morning and worked u ntil twelve and so mebody would come in and run my job in the afternoon. But I had a wife and at that time five children and I couldn 1 t feed anyone on it. So I quit and went into farming, and went to farming. Do you remember what year that was? In the early JO's? Yeah. The early JO's. And them people that was left up there, they didn't have no way to get out. But I had connections with that person who had some property. I was always pretty bad to talk and get acquainted and find about people, make friends with people. So I had connecti ons with a rich man who owned all this land from here, I mean right where this house is, and he rented me his farm a nd farmed it for five years. At that time, the cotton mills picked up again ••• still stretched out. e called it the stretch out. I went back to work to get my old job and I worked about five years. And I b ought a farm, southe ast of this county ri ght down near the Burke P ounty, Rutherford County line. W ent down ther e and stayed for six years. W a t community wa s that? h That's the Dysartsvill e Community. And after I sold out that place down the re, my motive t h en was to work out Social Security. Th en you cou ldn't carry Social Security if y u we ren't working for the company , but they chang6d theJaw after a while. nd in the meantime, by work i ng in the cotton mill I took what they call emphy sema, brownlung we called it. I was afraid to go back in t h e cotton mills on account of that so I went to Drexel Furnitu r e Company and went to work for them. Wher e is that? I t's up here in M arion. nd I worked there for 15 years. So I worked in t he cot t on mills for 15 years, I farmed for 15 years, and I worked for Drexel Furniture Company 15 years. I made 4 5 years u ntil I r e tir ed. Th e fir s t of this year will be 14 years after I retired. And as far a s the mountains is c oncerned, where I wa s rais ed, people wore out their land. ot to where it wou ldn't produce. One other thing tha t I didn't mention that i t g re w good was tobacco back in them mountains. Wa s there a good market for it? Yeah. Pe ople ma d e pret t y good money a t it. A lot of people, they didn't when I was a ch i ld, but af ter I got up about grown, people g ot into tobacco, raising tobacco and mad e more and more after I left. W been in this county about, a b out 5~ , ~ea!!B . fhat's e wh en we left Ma dison County. I was r ai sed inMAi~~ & · County , and my wife was raised in M adison County. ~ hat's mountain counties �4. Q. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. Q. A. and my daddy bought a farm in Madison County . Tha t 's how come we were living in Madison County when me and her wa s marr ied. And her father owned a farm a nd it was wore out when he g ot it, and he ain't ever d one muc h to build it up. And after me and her c om e here,her who le family come too, in about a yeBl'and lived here. Did they come to work in the mills? Yeah . The y c me to work in the mi l ls. I t was he a ven to them, to work in the mills and draw a payday, however small. But to have payday every week and they had about thr e e or four chi ldren old enough to work i n the mill . How old did you have to be before you could go to work in the mill? W ell, back when I was a child, they put c hildren in the mill that was e i ght years old. Eight years old? igh t years old. What did they have them doing? They were work i ng in t h e spinning r o om, spinning, swe eping the floor. I knowed a man, he 1 s been dead about two or three year· s. He told me he went in t he mill when he was eight y e a rs old, worke d there until he retired. He was an overseer for a bout lS or 20 years. But when my wife's p eople came here y ou h a d to be 14, a ch i ld h a d to be 14 years old. You had to prove your a ge. That wo u ld have been during the 2o•: s? Yeah . And then they got it up ••• Yeah, then I think they fina l ly got it up after I left there to where you had to be 16 before they let t hem work in the mills. But when I first come to the cotton mill with my brothers and sisters working i n there a nd have little children, brothers and sisters, and the y'd take them in there six, eight and ten years old and help to run. Anybody going · n the cotton mill worked. ~ here wasn't nothing to it. Did they pay, was th ere a pa y di ff erence for young ••• Yeah , you had to start off with the smallest wage and after you got to where you cou ld run piece work, of course,you g ot a raise. Paid better . 'pinners h a d to h a ve p iece work, we was in piece work and carders had to h ave piece work. hen they had day labor too. Hut the day labor never did work but ten hours. They let them off, they went to work at seven , let them off an hour lunch, and they quit at six that evening. iece workers, naturally, they would go mor e hours a nd then of course I was y oung, pretty ambitious a nd with family to support and I liked to get two hours more because I made more. But they f :!. nally-I'm gett i ng a ll this mixed up-they f l nal ly got a case against the union or ganizer. 'l' oo k h im to court. Tried him and he got a fine. • urned him loose, he r went on down t h e coun t ry somewhere , I for g et where he went to, went to organiz i ng down ther ~ and they got a case against him and they came to Mari on to l nvesti r at e wha t went on ab out him around here. And I don 't know exactly wha t the y ever did do with him. But he t old them he organized Kingsp ort, Tennes s ee, that he was over there or ganiz i ng, working on a union, to raise a union . ell, so me of the strikers here, to be sure, they went over th e re to check on him . They said that when they got there, the re was the roughest looking man they ever saw with two .45 pistols walk ing arou nd the gate , keeping the gate . Said they asked him had the mill ever been uni onized and said he went to cus sing , said no, it hadn't be e n organi 7.ed. ' hey run all the unions off. well, they �5. Q. A. Q• .8. • Q. A. Q. A. Q. • Q. A. run the most of them off here. hey was defeated. (inaudib le) ••• frie nds that hadn't jo i ned to beg for them and get them (inaudible) ••• But naturally, I have, all of my l i fe, been opposed to t he uni o ns. I think, now this is just my opinion, I may be 100 percent wrong, but I believe the unions is the thing that caused us to have the most troubles (i naudible) •• I think they are what is causing 1.us to have high prices now. Because when they organize where they have to pay u~i o n wages, they have to p a y s o much to pr0duce the stuff then they must let prices rise to come out on it. hen the poor class of people, people on ocial Security l i ke me a n d my wife, we h a ve to pinch pennies, to g et by. Buy only stuff t ha t's necessary. Of course, back in the Depressi on, during the JO's and late 20's, there were people who wer e out of work and strugg led to fesi their famili es . nd a 24-pound of flour about 65 cents, five pounds of su gar 25 cents, a pound of coffee 15, all suc h as that. In the Depression when th er e wa sn't so much union ••• ow, the people that have to pay the union wages, to g e t t h eir stuff produced have to have a big price on it to come out. And I guess the uni ons have done s orr.e good but I th ink it's done more dama ge than any k i. nd of good, taki ng all around. And I 've alwa ys been opposed to it and I guess I always will be. I 've had some people, some v e ry close friends belong. I n f a ct, some of my close relatives lost their jobs up her e on ac c ount of uni on. ~ hey hired so me back but some had to le ave. That's about all now,unless you want to ask questions. You can ask questions about anythi n g you want to. I ' l l do my b est to answer them. You we re sayi ng awhile ag o that one of the reasons you all c ame to M arion was because the farming wasn't all that good. Now, did you, your father owned the farm in M adison County but you said something about the soil th ere had been leached out, wouldn't grow very well. Could you have had part of that f arm yourself? No; there wasn't enough of it. There was just fifty acres. How many brothers did you have? I just had one • Just one brother? Only one of us could have l i ved on half of it. I t j ust wouldn ' t produce? No . It took the whole farm of fifty acres because it had been cleared up , mostly cleared up and worn out before my father bought it. M wife and father and mother, they had eight y c hildren when the y left there. He owned fifty acres, and his land was wore out. Most of it washed away up there in the mountains. It was steep cou ntry? Yeah . It was pretty straight up there • Is there any way to estimate what, say, it was possible to e a rn off of a farm of tha t size then? Well, you t ake a farm of tha t size, my f a ther was selling livestock and didn't mak e any grain to sell on that small place. Now, he did where I was raised, where he had so much land. But about, I 'd say about six hundred dollars a year was about wha t he got out of his livestock he had for sale. Of course, the �6. Q. living , he had his l i ving made there, he made it there. Didn't hav e to buy gr oceries or anything like that. About all the money he got was clea r to stick in his pocket, clear. 'Cause he made all his seed and in summertime he had pasture to run on. As far as having any money and investing it, why wit h out he too k a notion to buy so methi ng, he didn't have any at all. It was all cle a r. When I was a child on the farm, I was raised on, company land. I seen him in t h e fall of the year when lie'd sold his livestock, and wha t stuff he raised on his farm for sale, I ' ve known him sticking that money i n his pocket and going out over the country want i ng so mebody to loan it to. He didn't need it, didn't want it, didn't want to carry it. He got about six percent intere s t on it and he felt safer of course when he wasn't ca rryi n g it i n his p ocket. He just didn't want to carr y it arou nd. Go out and hunt somebod y to loan it to, and sometimes it was hard to do ••• Wasn't as much use for money then as ther e is or was later on, was there? A. No. Q. There wasn't mu ch you had to buy • The only person who would borrow it was somebody who wanted to add nore livestock. And of course, in them days, livestock all run outside, in the mountains, fenced up your fields. ~ ow in the mountain s it was ready to be put on the market in the fall. It got fat and was ready for t h e market . He just brought it off the r a nge and put it right on the market. An:i a year or two year-old ••• .Al,. End of tape #1, side 1 Beginning of side 2 Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Your father owned tha t farm free and clear? Yeah , the last p lace. I n fact, that ' s the only p lace he ever owned. In M adison County? Yeah . He finally sold it out and came her e to Mari on too. So your family and your wife's family came to M arion? Yeah. Did they come for the expressed purpose of working in the mills? W orki ng in the cot t on mills. So you all pretty much figured it was, that staying on the farm of that size was not going to bring you suf f icient income to raise a family. Wel l , that wasn't my father's c oncern. He wasn't worrying about the income he made, he made as much money as he cared about. He wanted to get rid of the harder work. Working l n the cotton mill was not as hard work as running one of them mount ain farms. Of course, me and my brother wa s married. Just him and my mother we re living on the farm. He ca me here to work in the mill. Him and my mother both worked. M mother didn 't work too much y but she worked some. He sold out. He give ~35 0 for the place he owned. The feller except ed the timber but he had in the trade to saw him house timber. And he built a house out of great big boards, built a barn, cleared some land, built some fence. Kept it I don't know for how many years and he sold it for $2200. Aft er he comehere , a ft e r we all come here, he divided �Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. • Q. A. Q. A. that $2200 with me and my brother, give me $1100 and give my brother $1100 . Of course, you take the mountain people who learn to do what they do themselves and lea rn how to do wi thout. And he saved money all the time,he laid money back all the time. Not much, but some that after a year or so it began to count up. He got enough money saved that he bought that place right across the road there where that house stood. He stared there for 12 or 15 years, I guess. When he retired,he got $ 22 a month and mother drawed off ofhim and she got half as much. 'he got $ 11. Both together got like $33 . Well , they laid away some of that every month, some of that $33 because they made everything we e a t r ight over there . This wasn't built up out in here as it is. It's farm country. There was one build i ng right out here, that house, and one out here on top of the hill. That 's all there was, just there at the top of the hill up yonder plumb down to Ne bo. Uns e ttled. How did you learn that the mil ls we re here? Well , I had friends tha t had left there and c orre here and worked. They came back home. vid they leave for the same reasons? Yeah , for the reasons coming to the co tton mill to work. When they came back home andyou learned from them, they were just visiting? Yes. I n fact, when me and my wife moved here there was a young man that we knowed had been h e re and worked and he came back with us. In 1918, when that awful flu ep:t.demic come in here. W was e here at c1·nchfield, and we had one ch i ld less than a year old who had flu. ('Wife speaks) No, we all had the flu and it looked ••• (Hicks r e sumes) No, it looked like it was going to be so long b e fore I could even get back to work, well, I had a little home ••• so we went back there and stayed a year and then come back. (wife speaks) Then we c ome back to the cotton mills . That would have been in the early 20 1 s? (wife) Yeah , the la st time we come back. And you came back th a t time to stay? Yeah. 1e been here ever since. I n this country, but not whe r e we'r e living. Here in McDowell County. The people who we re working in the mills during the early 20 1 s after you all came back, came h e re the second time, were they from McDowell County? No . M ost of the people in M cDowell County wouldn't work in ••• might few people from McDowell County that would work in the cot ton mills at all. Only a few people? Mighty few. It was a disgrace for people in this county t o work in a cot t on mill . I t was made up of mountain people. (wife speaks) That 's all it was •• ( inau d ible) (Hicks resumes) M adison, Haywood , Mitchell, Yancey, Avery , Watauga countie s. ost of the people that wo~ked here was from Haywood County where I come f rom. M ost of the people i n Clinchfield? Yeah . Some people would get maybe in debt back at home. Th ey had a home, but they'd get in debt and couldn't ••• an:l they'd come here, their whole f amily, go to work until they paid that debt. �8. Q. A. Q. • Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. • Q. A. Q. A. When they paid t h is debt, they'd take off back home. Is it your fe e ling that the people that came here from the other counties to work in the mills came for the reasons you've said. That is, it was either impossible or hard to make a good living on the farm? Yeah . And the reason they came here was because they might find work a little easier and there was some more money? Yeah. In the end of the year, you co 1ld make more money up here in a cotton mill than you would out on the farm. But people lived hard. The houses were cheap. The house we l ived in, y ou co ld set in the house and see daylight almo yt anywhere you looked. W s that the mill house? a That was the mill h ous e . They'd have people ••• they finally at last sold them to the hands . Most all the houses repaired (inaudible) nd what did you pay for rent? 45 cents a week for a three-room house. nd wh en you first started in the mills, y ou were making somewhere near $10 a week? Yeah, around that. When people in, say, ~ adison County were looking around for something to do other than stay on the farm, wha t else could they have done, say, besides stay there or come to the mi l ls? Wa s there a lot of timbering back then? No , not then. When people began to c ome to the mills,the timber business was ove r with. Peop le had log , ed out all. the timber. What was the name of the comp any that owned all the farm where you were born? W as it a lumber company? No, it was just a big land company. Uptogo (?) I believe was the name of the company a nd then the Boise Hardwood Lumb e r Company finally bought the whole mountain. Boise? Yeah, Boise Hardwood Lumber Company . nd they built a narrowguage railroad up in them mountains and set their band mill at Hartford , Tennessee. ell, they were working on that when I left. Of course, I could have went to work for them but it was a little too rough, for me. I went down there and helped t h em clean off the ri ght of way for the railroad up Pigeon River. That was after me and my wife got married . And of course one thing that bluffed me out on it, everythin g in the whole country c ame in ther e to work. On that railroad? Yeah . Cutting timber and logg ing . Drunkards, murderers, everything else . I t wasn't no fit place I felt like to raise a family. And , I help ed clean off the right of way on Pigeon tliver. I-40 goes down through there. (wife speaks ) Where he was raised, now it's a game pres e rve. vhat' s the name of it? (Hi cks resumes) Yeah , in orth Carolina and part in Tennessee . Have y ou ever be en down I - 40? Yes sir. I know a fellow who lives out at t h e foot of l t. J;'.isgah. He 's out on the Pigeon River . Clark's his name (inaudible). 1 �A. Q. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. • Q. A • Q. A • Q. • Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. rr you went down I - 40, do you kn ow that W alters (?) dam, that dammed up P igeon River? uns the water through the moun ta _ns and comes out at 1v'a terville? 'r o a powerhouse? I know wher e the river's down below I - 40 there. But I don't remember it . Well , I don't guess you've ever noticed ••• (wife speaks) Did you see the powerhouse when you ••• ? (Hicks resu mes) W ell, back up t h is way there's a sign up there tm.t says the Harmon Den , on a post . I remember t hat . Well , right there, just a lit t le piece up that creek was wher e I was barned an d raised . That is up and down country , isn ' t it? Yeah . Good bit steeper t h an around here? I've t o ok peop le down through there and told them I helped clear off that right of way . The~ say I don ' t see how you stood up on that hill . And I could n t now of course , but I could then , when I was a young man . hey say people had one leg shorter than the other so they could stand on the ~ide of a hill . (pause) You said that when you came here you d i dn t h a ve to live in the mill village? No . You didn ' t ha re to but it was cheaper . And ther e weren ' t too many houses for rent other than in the mill village . or course , the cotton mill company wanted you to live in their houses . But you didn;t have to? No, you didn t have to • Did y ou have - to at East arion? No , you didn't exactly have to but they were the same way . They wanted them to live in them . (wife sp ea ks) They h ad bet t er houses at East 1arion . They did? (Hicks) ~eah . When you start e d out you were working ten hours a day, ri v e and one - h a lf days a week . Did that chang e much during the 20 1 s? At some point i n there you went to a 12- h our day . Ye ah . It changed a lot , now . or course, think t he.y start up n ow and run maybe ten hours and the day labor works eight . But , when I was runni ng frames on piece work , in the number two mill , it's the biggest mill, the one next to th e highway, there were 23 frame hands in th u t card room to maJ.re roping to make thread for yarn spinning . And they put in new machinery, bi gge r machinery , and the last time I was talk i ng to people that lived and was work i ng there , they got three hands doing what us 23 done . · 'hat is a stretch out isn't it? Yeah, that's a s t retch out . Did you start out working as ai. carder? Yeah , I went to runni~cards . What s being a carder? What does that mean? Well; that's where the raw c otton comes and you start it into roping, about the size ofyour finger . It first comes to the lap room . They make it into big round laps , runs through two machi nes im there . nd they take a lot of the waste out of it . And they make big laps and br i ng it in there and hang it on the backs or card s . And when the laps run out we laid it down on a roller , stuck the end of it i n there and it would conB through . �10. Q. A. Q. • Q. A. Q. Q. • Q. A. Q. • Q. And we carded it and took a lot more waste out of it. and made that roping . Then we took that roping in cans to the drawing f r ames . Them drawing frames, they run it through two mach i nes there, front d r awing and bac k d.J:rawing. Then it went from there to what they called slubbers, gre a t bi g heavy work. That was the first piece work I ever did, running slubb ers. Then it went to the intermediates. Tha t wa s the job I run the most . nd they took the slubb e rs ••• (inaudible). Then we run it through them interme d iat e s a nd it cut it down to about fourth of tha t size. But we had to run two spools of cotton togethe r. That is , t~ of the same size. Then it went from there to tre spe eders. nd th ey had to run two together there . And tha t cut it down to a smaller thread . nd a stouter thread. fhen it went from th e re t o th e spinning room and the y respun it on spinning reels. l n the spinning room. Then it went from the spinning room into t h e weav e shop . Did y ou ever work in weaving? Yeah , I worked in weaving one ti e. First time I ev e r come her e I worked in the weave roo m. Did Clinchfield do any finishing then? Or print ing? No, they d i dn't do any fin ishing. Just white cloth • Did East ari on? Yeah . They finished cloth ov e r there. (wife sp e aks) They do now. I don't know whether the y used to ••• (Hicks resumes) They didn 't the n , when I was working in the mill, but the y do now. They make rayon and use man - made f i b e r over there. Let me ask you a question about the mills . Was it possible to move up in a job? Like to be a boss or foreman or something? W s that pr etty easy or were there so many people that it w s a hard to do? No, it wasn' t hard to do . It was easy to bu i ld up to it. I built up to that and wo uldn't take the job . Because I didn't feel like I could put up with the agg ravating help . I was pretty high -tempered . I knowed ~ e andthem was go i ng to have trouble, becau se t hey failed to do wha t they were suppos ed to do. ow when the bosses got on them, they'd argue back and they just wouldn't fire anybod y . About the only way they'd fire anybody was on account of bad char ct e r. I f he t u rned ou t to hav~ a bad character, why they ' d f ire him right on the spot. But doing bad work, they wouldn't necessarily fire ••• They wouldn't fire you for that. They'd c o me around and raise sand with y ou, but they wouldn't fire you for it. We re there plenty of jobs? W as there lots of people tryi n g to get in the mills then or was the re just a few jobs open? No. There was plenty of jobs. And a lot of peop le co me and there was h a rdly a n ybody come tha t didn't g e t a job. They was always ne eding help. 'l 'hat was du r ing the 20 1 s ? Yeah, because tha t was wh en t h e people wa s coming out of the mou ntains and off of the fa r ms and they s oon got dissatis f ied and went back home . Did a lot o f that happen? Lot of t h em come in, they 'd work a nd then they went back home? Yeah , they'd go back home and usually after they went back home and stayed a year, year and a half, two years , t hey'd come back. And pr ob ably stay the rest of th e ir lives th a t time. �11. Q. A. Q. • Q. • Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A • Q. • Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Why did they go back to the farms i n the first place? W ell, because they'd got dissatisfied . Dissatisfied with the mills . (wife speaks) Some of them would come to work out money to buy more land with, or improve their land some . Oh , the y 'd come and get more money to buy a bigger farm? (Hicks resumes) Yeah . But them that did that, usually when they went back home, they stayed . But the ones that did come because they kinda got tired of farm ng , in fact young people, children, th ey all had to leav e the home to get a job. Why wa.s that? W ell , there weren't a ny jobs there , only just the farm • And -the farm would only support • .• That was the only sup p ort t here was, and the young peop le didn't much like it . They wanted payday coming in . You stayed i n Cl i nchfield pretty much duri n g the 20 1 s . Or did you ever work East Marion? Or one of the other mills? Yeah , I went ov e r th e re one time and worked with them awhile . t East Marion? Yeah , after I went out on the farm . I got some lei~ure and didn't h a ve nothing to do and I went back up to Clinchfield and they just didn ' t have nothing for me . They told me to go over to ~ st Marion and tell them that they sent me over there . And I went ov e r there a nd told the overseer that I 'd been sent over there to work about three weeks . He said, well I can't do nothing but put y ou to work here . Come in in the morning and work . So , I worked there thre e weeks . I I That would h a ve been during the 30 s, wouldn t it? No, that was in the early 40's . That was after I'd moved and bought that farm . Ioved out on that farm . It was after c rops was laid by and everything was over . 1 But up to that time that you all left during the early 30 s , you stayed in Clinchfield? Yep. I was in Clinchfield . At the time y ou left Cli n chfield , how many hours a week wer e you working? I was wo rking 55 . 55 . Do you remember wha t you were bringing home in pay then? Do you rememb e r what y ou were being paid? Yeah . I was makin~ $18 . ?S (inaudible) . But inthe early 30 s they we re c ut ting back hours and ••• Yeah . (wife speaks) ••• ri ght after the war , the First W orld War • We re the wages during the 20 1 s pretty much steadily going up? No, they didn't go up fast . ow , I might AO a I little politicking . I I don t know what your politics are . But that s all right . I like you just as g o od to be one as the other . nd , right after World War One , let's see , who was elected? arren G. Harding . · ell , after the election was ov e r with , they c ome around and cut me down to 85 cents . After the electi on, I was cut down fran a doll a r . Why was that? Just because t hey could . And I don 1 t knov if poll tics had any thing to do with it or not. But I always blamed Warren · G. Harding for it . Because he was president when I got cut . Were the bosses trying to tell you how to vote? W ell , up here at Clinchfield , they wanted you to vote straight De mocrati c tick e t . And if you wasn ' t a Democrat , you didn ' t fare too g ood . �12. Q. A. Q. A. • • Q. Ji But you could get a job if you we re ••• ? Oh y eah. You could get a job and stay, but they giv e you the c old shoulder if you wasn't a Democrat. Do you know if that wa s the same thing at East ari on? Yeah, t h e same thin g at East 1ari on. They wanted you to be a Democrat~ Yeah. But now at Drexel Furniture Factory I worked at, you h a d to be a Republican to get any favor up there. They wanted you to vobe a straight Republican ticket and all my overseers was Republican. They led me pretty high . Wh en Nixon wa s running against ~enne dy, they come around, several of them, and t old me that they'd done found out that ixon was going to be elected so I 'd better turn ove r and vote for him. I told t h em he wo uldn't be elect ed, thi;t I d i dn't think so, that he wruld. o I had it I back in my favor. Of course, I didn t rub it in on any of them, after Kennedy was elected,you know , and Nixon got beat. But I never could understand how Nixon ever could get elected. Then after this Water ate mess, he got elected like all therest of them do because he had plenty of money or the people that h a d I the money was backing him ••• (inaudible). But it wasn t too long a f ter that that I got on piece work. ow when you went in there running c ards like I started running cards, they'd tell you that if there was anything you'd rather do besides the job you had, when you got a few minute s off your job, go and work a t it. nd help the hand that was running it. And as quick as y ou got to where they thou ght you could run that job, pretty well, why they 'd giv e it to you . Give you this same kind of job. The turnover in the work was awful fast ••• (inaudible). Do you know why t hat wa s? That t h ere was so much turnover? W ell, one thing was, they began that stretch-out system. Of course, it wasn't too bad at that time, but it started in that direction and the people that come from 0 outh Caroli n a up here, just droves of them. I n fact, all our overseers was fro m ~outh Carolina. (inaudible) And they'd co me here and they didn't like North Carol ina. They didn't like the temperature and they d idn't like the people, didn't like the mills, didn't li~e nothing about it. Well , they wou ldn't stay long before they'd go back to South Carolina. And they might co me back aga i n. 3ome of them did. Of course, some come and stayed. ow all the ove rse e rs up there was fr om South Carolina. And I said awhile a g o where I was off e red an overseer's place, you had first to start off, they c alled it a fixer. You had to keep the machinery repaired. They held you res p on sible for the work, the machinery. And some people would get c areless and make bad work and when they got on them ab out it, they'd swear that the machine wasn't working right. So then they'd g et the fixer up and they'd give him a bawling out. And when the fixer got on to the help, for the work, why they (inaudible) to tell him what they thought of him. A~d they didn't hesitate to speak with him. I heard them talk to the fixers and that was why I was glad li wasn't a fixer after I heard what they said. Then you went from there to what you called a second hand. He was over the fixers. nd he had a boss carder over him, and a lot of them went on to be the boss carder, the boss weaver, and the boss spinner. After the old ones all died out. End Tape #1 Begin Tap e #2, side 1 �13 . Q. A • Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. • You were saying that the fellow you bought thi s land here from was telling you that the bus i nessmen i n larion didn ' t want the Clinc hfield mills to come in here? No, they didn ' t want it to c ome . The people here knowed that their people wasn ' t going to work at it . And then they regretted the people t hat it brought in . ( i naudible) too many bad peop le . But they fell in love with them old mountain people , when the y come here . They found them to be truthful and honest . Whi c h they didn ' t exp e ct them to be . rrl they liked them . Got along wi th the m and r e s pect e d them . You were s aying that a lot of people who might hav e been av ailable in McDowell County to work i n the mills didn ' t . You ever find out why? No . W ell , they just , it was a disgrace . They consid ered it a disgr a ce , to work in the c otton mills . That was the people who were , say , farmi n g here in McDowell Coun t y? Yep . They lived around here , they was born and raised here , and they lived hard . They lived a whole l o t harder than they would if they ' d have worked in the mills . But they just c ouldn ' t take a bossman . They didn ' t want no boss i ng . So they eked out a li v ing out in the soil . And a f e w of them , a l o t of them , work ed on the side and made a little blockade liquor . Most of them ended up inthe chain gang before it was over with . They'd just rather live off of what the y could make out o n the farm . You farme d ••• You we r e on a farm in adison County and a farm in this ar e a . Woul d farming have b e en any eas i er or more profitable here? Oh y e s . It was more profitable he r e , of course . I f a rmed with a man that had an extra good farm . t had been well took c a re of and handed down thr ough his grandfather . nd he finally (i n audible) . He was a M urphy . And his grandfather at one time had owned 100 Negro slaves . And he built bri c k houses and burnt the bri c k on the place where he built the hou se s for the colo red people . • hey finally come on down to Condre y (?) , t h e g randson and gr a nddaughter . There were two granddaughters and one grandson a ndth em three got all his property . Was tha t this property , here , or · n Dysartsville? No , it was this here . I don ' t know , it was about fi v e or six hundred acres , all told . Arrl he had a riv e r farm but the Duke Power Company bought his river l a nd and put water up on it . nd he heired a lot of wealth from his mo t he r. (wife speaks) She was a M urphy and married a Condrey . (Hi c ks r e sumes) Arrl he had plenty of mcn ey and he was a hard man to get any of it out of . He stuc k to it . I n the 20 1 s and JO's , when you were in the mills , were there any black people work"ng i n the mills? Nothing only the scrub b ers . The y h ired a colored man to scrub and (inau d ible) • Then it must h a ve been co pany policy not to h i re bla c k people ? Yeah . Jell , them mounta i n people - wh e r e we re you raised at , in the mounta i ns or down in the cou ntry? Down farther east . ell , I can g iv e you a little informati on about that . ow , them W mountain people was awful op p os ed to the colored people . hey didn ' t allow them in the mountains . If one went back th e re , they killed him . And the peo ple that was work i ng in the mills would have left if they ' d ever put a colored pe rson in there �J.4. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q.. A. Q. running a nything other than scrubbing. Scrub b ing the floors (inaudible). Now they're using some of them now, but they couldn't back then b e cause t h e people wou ldn't bear for it. Up to the time when, you left the mills, there were no black people work ing ••• No black people in th e re. Only the scrubbers. During the 20 1 s and before you left the mills, how were mill workers, people tha t worked in the mills like yourself, how were they treated around town? When you went to town to do some shopping or something? Wel l , they was high ly respected by the bus · nesses in town because the bus i nesses in town knowed that Wu S where their mo ney was comi n g from. And they knowed they was go i ng to get ev e ryt h ing that the mill peo p le got ahold of. So where busin es smen might h a ve opposed the mills coming in, they were happy once the mill workers were here spending their money? When they was getting the money. nd the peo p le that was opposed to it ever be i ng put here was happy about it once it got here. Another thing. You were say ing ear lier that at some point some of your bosses, i mmediate bos s es, were from South Carolina. Yeah . W ell, the main overseer was. Was that true most of the time during the 20 1 s and early JO's? Why was that? Did they ••• ? Well , they ••• North Carol i na peop le didn't know the cotton mills. And you know that ' outh Carolina was full of cotton mills and everybody worked the cotton mills down there. (wife speaks) They didn't raise no cotton in orth Carolina much . (Hicks resumes) And they knowed the mills . And sev e ral of them ••• my overseer and a lot of the other overse e rs, the main overse e r, when they found out that the mills was going to come here to arion , they took correspo ndence co u rses in textiles. So they come prepared to •• educati on for work and all . ~nd they really could handle the cot on mill machinery . l'hey really coul d. I mean in running the mac h i nery. aking rope and thread and stuff like that. It seemed to be na tural, b e c a use they had be en raised with it. Do you know where Clinchfield and East ar i on got most of the raw cotton they proces s ed? Well , they got it out of the main market . The c otton market. (inaudible) that bought and sold to these companies ••• (w ife speaks) It come from South Carolina mostly ••• (Hic k s resumes) W ell , most of it did (inaudible) Anywhere t hey raised cotton. Now , a t the time of the Depression , big cotton farmers come ·here to try to sell t h eir cotton direct to the companies. Did t hat work? No. Th e company wouldn't b u y it. They to l d t h em to sell it to these companies and they'd rebuy it from thEm. Shipped up here by the carlo a d, one carload after another . Why wouldn't they buy it direct? Well , they had a standing contra ct with these bi g companies and naturally the peo p le that have the mo ney get th i ngs dore the way they wanted done. The big cotton-buying co mpanies that bought the cotton and then s old it to, say, Clinchfield . Do you know wher e they wer e ? ere they in Balti more? Or New York? W �A. Q. A • Q. • Q. A. Q. A. Q. Q. • Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. W ell , they was way off somewhere . I don't k now for sure where the y was at, but t h ey s e nt men i n at the fall of th e year , you know, t o bid on the ~o tton for ginning . There never was but one cotton gin in North Carolina that I know of . It wa s down near crest City . It's gone out of business , I thin k , now . It was a small unit. Let me ask you another que s ti on about that strike in 1929 . About how many peo p le in C1inchfield were part of the union or supported the strike? I ' d say about , there was about one f::l:fth :,at Cli nchfield . Of course there wa s more than tha t at East M ari on . And there was about 70 0 p e ople at work in Clinchfield? Then , in 1929? Yes . At Cl "nchf ield, at the mill . And I don ' t know how many worked at East ari on . It was a smaller mill than either one of these up here . But there wa s about half of the people at East arion that claimed for it . Finally got two or three kil l ed over there . Why was it that the workers at East arion supporte d it more than at Cl i nchfield? I don ' t know ••• I never have be e n able to understand that . It r eally was a bett e r place to work t b an Clinchfield. t was? Yeah , it was . Was it better in t e rms of the mo ney you made or •.• ? o, it wa s not the money but the work : ng conditions was bett e r . You said earlier that the mill village at East Hari on had better houses? (wife speaks) Yeah. (Hicks speaks) W l l , East t arion had better e homes for the people to live in . (wife r esumes) ••• loo ked nicer on the outside . I never have been in one of them . before . Did you all know many of the peop le tha t worked at East Mar ·o n? Yeah . I knowed a lot of the m. I knowed some of them well , one of the old men that got killed was from Clinchfield . Do you remember his name? Yes . He was a Vickers . I knew him well . Sam Vi c kers? Yeah . (wife speaks) He co . e from D ~ sartsville to the cotton mills . (H ick s resumes) He got into the union . And some of them w&s so stubborn that they wo uldn't have went back if the company had told them to . But the most of them they wou ldn't let come back . M ost of them th a t joined the uni on? Yeah . nd they come around , I lived up here at Clinchfield at that time, and they co me around one morning with a bi g old mega phone horn , around in a car . I was just getting ready to go to work . They was hollering that everybody at East ar i on had been run off . Ev e rybody at East M arin has been run off . Tha t 's all they said . W ell , the people h ere from Cl i nchfield , well , that joined the uni o n and was sticking to it , t h e y just took off ar:rl went over there . But when they got there , why people was bunched up into two bunches, union here and the non- uni o n up here • And there was so me people, somehow, I don't k now how they d one it , some of them had got in the mill . nd they was up in the card room , up in the spinning room top floor , and they got a rifle in the re . And the union f i nally at last went to sho oting guns (inaudible) �16. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. And there wa s three peop le killed. One wa s old man J ona s. e was from East lar ion. Old Sam Vickers and I forget the other fel l er's name . (wife) He was a g ood old man, Vickers was. (Hic k s res u mes) Yes , he was. He just got into that union. e liv ed,he had a home, he had a farm in Dysartsville. And he had left it to come up here, but he was raised in hutherford County . ~ nd he c ome up here and went to work. Had a great big bunch of girls. (inaudible) Who wa s it ••• how was t h e union organized at Clinchfield? LJid they get a couple of t h e workers to go a round and talk to each person abou t joining? Yeah . They first went to h olding a meeting about halfway b etween Clinchfield and East r i on. nd a few of the Cli n chfield peop le went out there and they liked what the o ld man promised them. Promtsed t h em shorter hou rs and higher wages. If one of them d i dn t like the boss, they'd run him off. So forth and so on. They was going to appoin t common workers to be the hea4 man. nd there was one old man, he was a Baker, and he didn t know a thing l n the world about a card room. He could run, i fi the picker r oom making them first laps. But that was about all he k nowed. But they t o ld him if he joined t h e union, they'd make him a boss carder. ' o before the mill closed down, he come around to the card room there and he off e red me a second hand job if I 'd come work for him when he got t hy place. I told him, oh yeah, yeah. Of course, I knowed he wasn t going to get placed . And so he g ot run off thinking that I -wou ld have been his boss man if he had gotten the job they offered him. nd he couldn ' t have run the (inaudible) , much less the card room. And the peop le got to talking it up, the ones that, had joined. Of course, they was I awful secretive about it. rhey didn t want many people to know at Clinchfield. And ••• They were afraid of losin g their jobs? Yeah. They was afraid of losing their j obs. Out they'd t a lk it a lit t le and the strikers got gathering up at night after we went back to work and they'd sh oot dynamite all night. 1 ight around the mill villag e. Hard for a ma n to sleep. I can tell y ou one pretty goo~ tale about that. I don't knew whether we ought to go into that or not. But there wa s a fel le r when them strikers, he had a little old dog ab out the size of that one and they'd t rained it to t h row st i cks and it would go and get them. Bring them back. That feller decided to get even with them. e got him some dynamite and he loaded up a stick one night and throwed it down toward the ra i lro a d. ell, that little dog seen him throw it and he went and got it and brought it back. Got it back into his yard before it exploded. I asked him , I said if, ever find any of your dog . And he said no I never did find a p iece of it. Blowed it all away, (wife spea k s) inaudible . I was read i ng in the newspaper in 1arion , had stories abou t the strike and there was one thing I wa s reading about . Said they had caravans d u ring the strike when both the mills were closed down, ca ravans of farmers that we r e br:k:ging food i n for the strikers. Do you know who organized them, or why? Yeah. A lot of them did. The strikers organized it, but, they got it started . But they made the farm e rs think they was winning, go ng to win, and it would be up to them to buy the farm e rs' food wh en ev e rything was over. lild a lot of people ••• �17. Q. A. Q. A. that wa s the day of th e horse and wagon and a lot of farmers would bri ng a wagon-load of food in to the strikers and park somewhere and they'd come and get it . Then the union went to order i ng when they got out of any thing to eat. The strikers all had a good garden. Everybody at Clinchf ield had a good garden . And the strikers, the union man told them t o divide their gardens with peo p le that didn't have any. W ell, they'd come in the r e, they'd pick tomatoes, they'd p ick potatoes , they p i ck a row of corn, and in a day or two's time the y could clean his garden out. nd they went to Hoffman , the head man , and told him that they had to have something to eat. lild he ordered a carload of flour. It come, and people told me that had a right to know , they said it was from great .big rolli n g mills where they'd sweep up of a tjight the flour that had sifted out on the floor. They put it in bags and he ordered it. The people that seen it, I never did see it , they said it was just as black as tar. People got to eating that and the y all got sick. But the farmers in the outlying areas were willing to do that because they ••• Yeah , t hey thought ••• the uni on had them thinking that the y were just going to take over. And they was going to help most of them people buy their products when it was all over with. rnd they'd bring it in just to give out to them. You were saying earlier that some peo ple at the Clinchfield mills had sort of taken you i nto their confidence and were telling you how everything was going to work. Was that y our supervisors? Yeah . No, not my supervisors. Me and him was very close together and he kept me i nformed all the time what wa s going to happen . I know the union c.ome to me, sent a special group , come to my h ouse right late one evening. tl nd they told me that they was giving me, since they liked me , they was giving me my last c hance to join t he union . And i f I didn't, I was going to have to leav e . Going to r u n me off if I didn't join the union. And I knowed then that th ey was the ones that was goi n g to lea ve, and I was going to stay. Th e way they come about it, they kind of tole me now since y ou are a special friend of ours, we're giving you a special c hance to join the uni on. You c an get in without p aying any dues or anythi ng for so long . And I said, well, I pretended gnorant i n it. Of course, I co u ldn't say nothing else. I asked them, I said well, what am I promised1 They said s h orter hours and higher wages. I said, well, when do I go to work? I 'm ready to g o to wor k for shorter h ours and higher wages. I pretended that I thought theunion was going to pay it, you know . They said, n o, we're just going to make the company do this . I said, well, if you ' re go ing to make the company do that, I can do just as good a job at that as you can. ~ o just count me out. I won't fool with it . nd the loyal help up there , the y made it so hard on the strikers after we all got back to work, after the mills was running, they mad e it so hard on the strikers that they j ust pulled up and left as fast a s t hey cou ld get away . The company used so me tri cks too . They went down here somewhere about outh Caro lina and the y got the roug hest old man and the sweari ge st o ld man and the most profane old man I ever saw and �18. Q.1 ., A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. he loaded up some household g oods i n a stati o n wagon. i nd the union didn't think nothing. He come right on throughthe strikers. And went to the office. They t ook back ovec there and showed him an e mpty house and he put that stuff in that hou s e. 'l hey locked the door. W ell, the uni on found out . Uow I was working at the time up in the card room. I didn't do much work. I stayed at the window to watch them mostly. I seen everything that happened. They'd done had the soldiers up here in town, but hadn't brung them down. They went over there, and t here was an old man, a good old man, agood friend of mine. ound the door locked, they didn't k now wha t to do. He said it wou ldn't do to let that old man move in there. So that old man that I 'd put so much faith in, he took a stick and he broke the lock off tre back door of that house. Was it the h ouse he was living in? The house t his old man had put his stuff in . He just , he put it in the re a nd he left. nd they carried that stuff out there and throwed it across the hi ghway. I n front of the mill. And the company sent a wagon team out there to get it. W ell, when they got out there, when they got to doing that, two big old mules, and they got them mules by the bridles and everyone had a club. And they got to beating them m ules ove r the head and most everywhere. (wife speaks) The un i on people. (Hicks resumes) And they wouldn't let t h em come back. So that's when the soldiers, they brou ght the soldiers in. nd they said, the union said, the so l diers was here to see that the rest of us left. That was what they said. Well , the soldiers corre down here and they, with fix ed bayonets, a n d they went to putting half of them this way and half of them the other way. One old man- I could se e h im fro m where I wa s at-he stood his ground. He wa sn't going to run, a nd o ne of the soldiers give him a good poke in the backside with that bayonet and I mean tha t old man could outrun a mule af t er that. He just left there . fini then the soldiers stayed up there for about a week. (wife) Se ems to me they stayed lo n ger than that. Why was it the company went and got that feller from ~outh Carolina and brou ght him her e with his furniture? It was after we had went back to work. And then after trey p ut his household goods back, they brought some more. Then he cane he r e and they worked him ab out a month. I was glad when he left . He was ••• (wife speaks) but he said why did they, why d d they have h im t o come? (Hicks resumes) Well , they had him to come for j ust exactly what happ ened. They knowed that the strikers would tear his stuff up. Oh . '.!.'hey wanted to get the strikers to do sore thing, to provoke them? Yeah . ~ o the soldiers would come. Yeah . And tre soldiEr s, they'd told them t h e y wouldn't c ome down here, trey was already up here in the courthouse. But they wouldn't let t h em come without there was some violence erupted somewhere. And they went and got that old ••• and he was the feller that got it started. Was the r e anythi n g el s e you co u ld rem ember abo ut whether or not the company had a plan to deal with the union? Did the y tell you other things that they might have thought about doi n g? Well , t h e¥ just aimed to be · t them. That was all there was to it. They d i dn t aim to run under a union . nd the Cli nchfield company �19 . Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A Q. A. Q. A. Q. Q. • Q. • Q. A. did know that they h ad enough lo yal help to start up. ~hey knowed it wouldn't be no trou ble to g e t e n ou g h . nd they just d idn't aim to run under a uni on. And that old man, bri nging him in, he was the feller t ha t tur ned the tide. He brought the soldiers, he help ed brin g the soldiers, arrl tm soldiers could break t h e pickets at the gate? Yeah. W ere there a n y other k i nds of tr i cks l i ke that th a t either side used, that you could recall? W ell, not very much , I don't reck on. Now, t he company, after they g ot back to work, the union members that was still in com pany hou s es, they notif ied them to g et out. nd some of them left and the most of them didn't. nd they went a nd put their stuff out i n the street. Or on the side of tbe street. t he c ompany a nd the law did. Evicted them? Just piled it up on the si d e of the street. W ell, the uni on people they s ome h ow found some kind o f house a nd some of them went back home. The y was all fr om the mountains. nd some of them went bac k home and some of t h em found a house. I had one of my mother's brothers got into t h e union and one of my daddy's brothers g ot i nto it. nd my daddy's brother lived way down h ere a t ebo. And he was go ing back a nd forth to work. And they fired him. And my mother's b r other, they got him a house over the r e s omewhe re. And he went there and lived until he could find a place t o mo v e. He went ou t on the f a rm. ' tay ed th ere as l ong as he lived. I s the re a nything that made the people that join ed the union any dif f erent fro m t h o s e that didn't? I mean, were they like fr om a diff e r e nt a r ea? Or did t h ey have anything in common? ell, they was all fro m th~. mounta i ns. But the ones tha t I k now e d W from t h e mountains a nd back i n where we co ne from was co n sidered to be boss y and ov e rbearing. That was the way . the y l o oked on t h em back there at home. W ere they the ones that joined the union? Yeah. They was t h e ones that join ed the union. And th ey was people that had had their way where they'd lived. ~ ecause people was afraid of them. Sort of bossy and mean? They were bossy and overb e a r i ng. 1 W ere t h ey y ounger tha n tm people that didn t join the union? Wa s there any age difference? No, they were mostly middle-age peop le that joined. Mostly families, that had a man at the head of t he family. nd of course the b osses had always made t h em mad. h ey'd come around arrl bawl them ou t about somethi ng. W ere t h e y g ood work ers? Or were they poorer workers t han t h o s e that didn't join the uni o n? W ell, they just d o n e wha:; they had to do. uot by with anything the y cou ld. he ones tha t I knowed. Did any of your close friends join t h e uni on? Yeah • We re you all still clos e friends t h en? Yeah. I never did hold that against t h em, because some of them I talked to, I t old t h e m I said now I don't believe in t h e u nion. I don't want t h e uni ons. rlut you do ••• n d of Tape # 2, s i de 1 Be gin Tape #2, side 2 �. . 20. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. • Q. l'i.. Q. • Q. A. • A. Q. A. After they broke the strike and broke the union, were most of those people that was in Clinchfield that were in the uni on, they eventually g ot them o u t of the mill? They run them out one way or the other? · Yeah. Some of than t ore up their houses before they left (inaudible). How did the company ••• did they just fire them or make it rough on them? They just fired them. Right off. ost of them. Fired most of them~ Yeah. Vo you k now where they went? W ell, they scattered about everywhere. ~ome of them went out through the coun try around through M cDowell County and some went back to Madison , Haywood , Mitchell County, very Cou nty, Y111 cey, back in there where they care from. 'ome of them stayed around McDowell County as long as they 1 ived. 1:y uncle ••• both my uncles did. Of course, my daddy's brother, he owned a home h e re at Nebo. nd worked in the mills I don't know how many years. A lot l onger than we had. He ha.d a great big bunch of g irls and they all worked (wife) They still live around here. (Hicks . resumes) They give him what they got for their work. It was the change that come in their ticket. Say they drawed a ticket for $10.50. He give them the 50 cents. He took the $10. That's the way most of the parents did. ~nd he saved up enough money to buy him a home. He had it when he died. A lot of tte parents, they just let the children pay so much board. Was there a lot of women that worked in the mills? Ye ah. There was more women than there was men. M ore women than men . Did they do pretty much the same jobs that the men did? Yeah . About the same thing. LJid they get paid about the same? Paid the same. All except n ow the rough end of the card room where I was. L ike the carders, and drawers and intermediates. '.l'hey was run by men. But the f i ner spinners, the speeders, that made the f ner yarn, they was all most run by women. Did they also work i n weaving? Yeah. Abcut as many women as there was men in t h e weaving. What about ••• what d id the women do? uid they join the union in about equal num bers, or were there fewer women? No. Th ere wasn't hardly any joined • The union was mostly men1 Yeah . Was that true at East larion too? No . I thi nk it was a loy of women joined over there. I tell you ••• That thing's off now ain t it? You got it cut off now ain't you? No. It 1 s still on. You want me to stop it? No. I don't care anybody knowing what I got, was fixi ng to say. Th e re was one of our next-door neighbors up there at Cl inchfield. And he joined the union and he had a little ch ld take sick. A little girl, and he sent after me one evening to come out there as quick as I could. And I got out there and him and his wife left the r o om with a little child, and asked me to go in there and stay with it. And ~ went in there and it died in five minutes after I got t here. W ell, he had a sister that lived at East arion. Her �21. Q. A. husband belong ed to the union ove r there and they hadn't never went bac·k to work. And everybody that belong ed to theunion seemed to think that if you didn't belong to it y ou ought to be afraid of it. fraid of physical dama g e. He asked me, he said Perry are you afraid to go to Ea.st M ari on? I said no sir, I ain't afraid to go to East M ari on. He said you go over there, told me what house his sist e r lived in and tell my sister to come over here 1 that baby's dead. So I went to the house and pecked on the door 1 and she come to the door and I told her my business. hat her brother's baby had died, s ent for her. She said, well, I'll have to se e my husband. He's down there on the picket line. That was before East Mari en had ever started up. Said, I 1 11 h a ve to go down there,and se e him. Sa id I guess you're afraid to go down there, ain t you? I said no, I a i n't afraid to go nowhere. I said get in the car and I'll go down there. I went down there an:i she hunted her husband. evera.l of them c an e, eight or ten foot of my car with t h eir clubs. And they was looki ng at me awful mean, but they never said nothing. And she talked to her husband and then she come back and got in the car and I too k her back over ther e to her brother's. And when I was a young man up there at Clinchfield, I was a man that everybody looked to for everything. I had to hunt the doctor for all the people. I had to dig graves for everybody, and I had to hunt preachers t o preach at funerals, and I had to, well, they just looked on me as a fre e riding horse. 0 o one n i ght, so me feller pecked on the door and I went to the doo r and he said Perry, my wife's having a baby m d I can 1 t get none of my uni on men to go a fter t h e doctor. aid, will you go? I said sure, I 'll go. ~ o I put on my clothes and went out there and got in the car. I had an old T- model Ford. He said, now are you afraid to go to the head man? He lived over there between the r e and Clinchfield. Said, are you afraid t o go to his house? I said not a bit in the world. owe went to his house andhe pecked on the door and his wife come to the door and said he was over at union headquarters on ~ orehead idge. That wa s a Negro secti on. He c ome back and said that man's over at the union headquarters and I guess you're afraid to go over there, ain't y ou? I said no, I a i n't a bit afraid. Said a re you su r e~ I said I 'm v e ry sure. So he g ot i n the car and we went over there to that union headquarters. That whole hilltop was covered up witq people. ind he went in the old bu i lding there. I t had be en an old store buildi ng. Found t h at man. And they had to get an order fr om the u ni on bef ore they could get a doctor. He went in there and got t hat order and brou ght it back and we went up to tov n to an old doctor. He's b e en dead a good many years, and he wa s an old country doctor. Name wa s Jonas. And we went to his house and call ed him out. He promis ed to come. But I went through them any time I took a noti on to. Part of the time I was mad e n ough to bitten through nails and part of the time I was a mused, I was tickled at them. ~hen you would go through the picket lines ? I went through the picket l i nes. Another thing I ' l l tell · you. They had t he roads blo c k ed. W ouldn't l e t anybody in. W ell, my �22. Q. A. Q. A. Q. brother come down through there and me and my wife and family was over at my daddy's on the other side of the mill • .And my brother asked me, s a id have the y se rched your car yet? I said no. He said, well, they will before you get home. He said t h ey searched my car, and we both had an old t ouring car with a cloth top. And of course, that finished making me mad. I didn't have too much farther to go . I told him, y ou get right behind me and I 'll show you how to go throu gh them. And my wife's brother had t ook two old F ord c a r horns and tore them up and put them together. Put it on my car and it made the awfulest racket you ever hea rd. So he got right behind me and I started. I had a 1 926 T-model Ford . And we crossed the railroad switch that goes down to Clinchfield. W ell, that crowd was all up there, men and women playing (inaudible) , hav l ng a bi g time. nd the farther I went, the mad d er I got. So I blowed that old horn and it went l i ke a railroad whistle. .And they all turned one another loose and just reached around and picked up them clubs. They h a d them setting aga i nst the bank and the y watched the road. And tha t's one time tha t o l d car run good. Just seemed like it wanted to run g ood. I poured the gas to it, and it was the wnong thi ng to do. And I went through tha t crowd. They just spread li k e water. I got to the foot of the hill and told my wife, said I 'm g o i ng to stop and go back the re. I might have hit somebody. I 'm sorry that I done that. She commenced to beg me to go on, s a id y ou'll just g et in a fight. Just go on, go on. So I went on home. I said, you reckon I hit anybody? He said, I don't know, but he said they was three and four double deep on the side just as I come through . Bu t he said that ro d was ope n, but they was all piled up on the side. (wife speak s) They j ust jumped out of the way. You brushed one man . (Hicks res umes) A few d a ys after tha t, I was off , going back. The y stopp ed a man , wouldn't let him g o in. I pu l led right up against him. So they told him he'd have to back out, and go back. Wouldn 't let h i m go in at all. And he started backing into me and I just blowed that old horn and held my ground. Some of them come back there and looked. Said, let him through , let him t h rough. I t's this craz·y man back here . He' 11 kill a bunch of us if we don 1 t let him t h rough. So they let him through, go on, but they followed h i m ove r there. F irst place he could t u rn around , t h ey made him turn around and go back (wife spea k s) They was afraid they was brirgtng i n new hands to the mills, that was wha t ••• Oh . New worke rs to repla ce the strikers? (Hi cks resumes) Yeah. ~ hat was what they was trying to sto p . ew hands coming in. (wife speak s) But they never did try to s top us no more . Why we lived on cotton mill hill a nd we had to go out sometime. (Hick s resumes) ow when the soldiers come, they sea rched my ca r every time I took it out. (inaudible) Even raised the back seat and raised t h e tr unk lid. Looked u nder the hood and ev r y t hing . Wha t we re t h ey looki ng for? They wa s looking for weap ons. Dynamite? Ye a h . And pistols and ev erythi n g . F irst morning I went in the mill after t h e soldiers come, the y stopped me abou t seve ral hundr ed yards from the mill a nd wanted to search me. An d I needed a poc ke t k nifle on my job, to cut roping. nd he searched me and found my p ocket knife . He said, now I 1 11 have to take that • I �23 . Q. A. . Q. • Q. said well , I don 't know h ow I'm going to do withou t my pocket knife . I said , no way I can get it in there? He s a id you might put it in y our shoe . So I just reached down and stuck it in my shoe . '.L ook it in there . But I left it in there . I wouldn ' t brin g it back out . They was afraid sorr:ebody would take a weapon i n there . (wife speaks) An d they ' d g e t to fighting (Hicks res um es) They sent us word o ne eveni ng from East Marion thEt the y was comi ng over there a nd going to run ev e rybody out of the place . Who was going to do that? That was the union at East arion . And they brought us the word . W ell, there wa s p lent y of broom handles in there . mi we had to make , call t h e m brush sticks . Take a bro om handle and whittle it off and cut notches in it, and make a brush out of that waste (inaudible) . To clean up under the machine ry with . And everybody went to work , some cut the brush off the handle . Some found a bro om handle . And the feller that had the little dog that carr ied the dynamite ba ck to the house , he bro u ght him in there •• g ot h i m a railroad tap off a joi n t on the railroad . He had it n there m.d he whittled down his broom handle and put that tap on the end of the broom handle . I watched him fix it . nd we wa s go n g to meet th em out at the h e ad of the stairs . I told h i m, I sai d when we go ou t there a n d me e t them people , I'm going ri ght behind y ou . He said why? I said , well , there won ' t be nobody left for me to hit after he gets through with that nut. nd they had the picket line all around our mill . 'l'he railroad switch was down t h rough there. W ell, a lot of them mean bo y s wou ld g e t nuts , a nd the re was always plenty of old wore out nuts off of the machi nery . They could get a poc k etful . They slip 1 up ther e and they'd throw them up at the windows . hey hurt several people that wa y . But that felle r brought h i m a nut off the railroa d . (wife speaks ) W s he aimi ng to throw it at s omebody? (Hicks resumes) Yeah~ And they'd pick up the nut wh en it c ome a nd they' d go to the off ice and report it . nd they c ru ld look at the nut and tell where it come from . W h a d an of f ice e in o ur own depar tment. One old mean boy n the r e , good old boy but devilish . And he went so mewhere and took a wrenc h and he took him a ••• got h i m a nut off ••• Come back in there a nd told me , said you come over here nd watch what I ' m going to do. And I went over there and of cou r s e he h i d there i n the window a nd they couldn't see . He throwed that old big railroa d nu t out there . He d idn't hit anybody, but come ri ght clo s e to . They run a nd rabb e d it up and look ed at it and we co uld see them . nd he said I 1 m wo nd e r i ng if they k now wha t wi ndow that cane out of. He got it off the railro a d . Let me try to get the time stra i ght in my mi nd . You c a me to the mills firs t in 191 9 ? I guess it wa s 1 1 8 • 1 91 8 . And t h en you a ll lived in the mi ll villag e? And then you went b a c k to M adison County? S ta;yed a year and then you come back? Mov ed back i nto the mill vil l age , and t h en so metime during the 20 1 s, y ou mo ved h er e ? �24 . A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. • Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. • • • Q. Q. No . Not here . Dysartsville? I first went out on a farm over across the hill, here adjoining Lake James . I rented it from an old feller . That wa s old man Condrey . When wa s that? What year were you out there? Now that was in the 20 1 s . (wife speaks) No, that was in the 30's . (Hicks resumes) Was it? (wife) Yeah, because Lois was a little baby . Shew as born in 1930 and we moved between then and 1932 . (Hicks) ow, about the time she was a year old. (wife) It was ab out inaudible) when we moved out on the farm . ~ o , did you all then live in the mill villag e all thew ay during the 20 1 s up to the 30's? Up to th e 30's when we went out there . No , I bought a little farm down here at Nebo and we quit the mill and went out ·and stayed about a year . And ••• (wife sp e aks)But you worle d 'in the mill. (Hicks resumes) But I worked in the mi l l . went back and forth . And then you finally left the mills in about 31 or 32? To go ••• Yeah . We staye d ou t five years . And t h en you come back to Drexel? nd then I went back to Clinchfield . nd I worked several years t he n and then I bought that farm in Dysartsville . (wife) Th~ was in 1939 . (Hicks r e sumes) I t was in the early 40's . It was just abou t the time that W orld War One was breaking out . They got three of our oldest boys. In W orld W ar umber Two . How many children did you all h ave? Ha d six. Six living and two dead . Got four boys and two girls . You said earlier that you had brown lung . When did you discover that you h ad that? Well, I don't know that was what it was . I knowed it was something bad wrong . Th e last wor k I done in the cotton mills . That would have been in 1939? Yeah . About 1939 . And I got a l lergic to everything . Hay fever • Breathin§ got bad. hen I went out on the farm and stayed six years . old the farm . That was wh en I was talk i ng a b out wanting to work out ::,ocial Security . To have something to depend on when I retired . nd you had to have worked for a company at that time to carry it ..," And I decided to go back • •• instead of g o i ng to the cott m mills. They done everything they could to get me to come back th re . And I went to Drexel Furniture ~ompany . W ent to work out on the yard . Handling lumber . And my emphysema g ot worse, and worse. I got to where I wasn't able to run the job . Somebody said (inaudible) well satisfied with my work . When did you 1 k now you h a d b r own lung ? W ell, it ain t b e en too many years ago that I knowed for sure that's what it was (wife speaks) We l l, the doctor told y ou that was emphysema . He n ever did tell you it was brown lung . (Hicks resumes) No. lhey cal l it brown lung now . And , W3ll I wrote t o a doctor that wrote this in the Asheville ~itizen . l old him h ow I had work ed . And he wrote me back a letter and told me I had emphysema . But the doctors around Mari o n here they ne~er cou ld discov e r. (wife spea ks) They called it athsma . Just athsma? �A. And after I went to wor k up there in the lumber yard, I told my overseer that it was getting too hard for me. I'd have to give it up. He as k ed me what I wanted to do and I told him I thought I wanted to nightwatch. I'd worked with him a year and a half. So they had no trouble getting a nightwatchman job. They was having trouble keeping nightwatchmen. I t was an awful big old p lant and it was awful spooky . And ther e wa s a lot of people ( inaudible). So they put me right on. I nightwatched for two years there. .rind in the time I was there, we built this lit t le old house h ere. Our oldest son's wife while he wa s i n the Army, bought two a c res a nd a half of land here. nd he said he'd give •.• both of them said they'd g ive e n ough l a nd to build us a house on. W ell, I didn't much like the idea of that, but I went ahead and built this little old house. Cheap lit t le old house. nd we been here about 30 years. nd I nightwatched two years and a half and our children all go t away from home. There was nobody to stay with my wife. She was afraid to stay by herself at night. I went and told my bossman that I want ed on the days hift, something. I didn't k now nothing ab out the furniture factory, that is the inside of it. Well, he went and got me a job in the machin e room. Rough (inaudible) where all the lumber all started. But it was worse than the cot t on mill. F or dust. There wa s dust ev e rywhere. The ve ry worst thing that I cou ld have done. But I stuck it out there until I was , got old enoug h to retire. They cut the a ge down fro m 65 to 62. And on the l''ourth of July, I was 62 in April. Been 63 the next year. W ell, I went to the Social Security man here i n a rion and signed up to retire. He fir s t told me, said you can't retire. Yet. Said it;s all right to sign up, but y ou can't retire. I said,~11, didn t you know they'd cut the a g e down to 62? He said no, I didn't know it. W ell, I said, I been watching th a t closer than you h av e. So he signed me up and I went back on M onday morning after the ~ ourt h of J u ly, went right up to my boss and tol d him, I said I'm just work i n g a ten day notice and I'm quitting. He said what's themat t er? I s aid I' m r e tiring. So he come around about an hour or two and he said, P e rry y ou can't draw a thing this year. You've done made o ver $ 1200, and that's all you're a llowed to make. Wi th them. He said you c a n't draw a cent until next year. He said l e t's throw that notice away. I said, well, just throw it a way. He said, well, I never did turn it in nohow. So I worked the rest of that year and retired. I like to never made it. I had, tl!mt dust gi v e me hay fever and agitated this collapsed lung. And so at the end of the year, when they c ome out for Christmas, he come around to me and said now P erry you're just go i ng to make $ 1200 next year, ain't you? I said I ain't going to make nothing next year. W hen I go out of here a t Christmas, I 'm not comi ng back. Oh, he said, co me back and work out $ 1200. I said no, I'm done. He s a id,~11, come back and wor k unt i l yo ur birthday . I said no, I 'm done. 'o I ~ome out the Christmas vacation and although I was supposed to go back and work a few days between vacatio n and the first of the year. But I took pneumonia fe v er. I saw a doctor and wasn't able to go back. But quick as I was able to go, I went and signed out for release and got what was coming to me. nd they beg ed me there yet to come back and visit, but I ain't n e ver g oing back. End of Tape #2, sid e 2 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews Description An account of the resource In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region. The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students. Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU. An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school. This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965-1989 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Howie, Sam Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Hicks, Perry Interview Date 12/31/1975 Location The location of the interview. Marion, NC Number of pages 25 pages Date digitized 9/19/2014 File size 24.4MB Checksum alphanumeric code b6affd7cf20c7fcf3df5c2f7a0b30fa4 Scanned by Tony Grady Equipment Epson Expression 10000 XL Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records; 1965-1989; W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection; Special Collections; Appalachian State University; Boone; NC). Any commercial use of the materials; without the written permission of the Appalachian State University; is strictly prohibited. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived AC.111 Appalachian Oral History Project Records; 1965 - 1989 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 111_tape338_PerryHicks_transcript_M Title A name given to the resource Interview with Perry Hicks [Feburary 9, 1976] Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Howie, Sam Hicks, Perry Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a> Subject The topic of the resource Appalachian Region, Southern--Social life and customs--20th century Appalachian Region, Southern--Social life and customs--19th century Hicks, Perry Description An account of the resource Perry Hicks talks about working in a cotton mill in western North Carolina in the early twentieth century. He was born in 1899 and began working at a young age because he dropped out of the six-month school he was attending. He explains the influence the unions had: "naturally, I have, all my life, been opposed to the unions." He says that the unions caused inflation, so the poor people didn't come out ahead anyway. He eventually left the cotton mill because he couldn't support his family. Boise Hardwood Lumber Company Burke County N.C. Clinchfield Clinchfield company cotton mill Drexel Furniture Company Duke Power Company Dyartsville East Marion Mill farming flu epidemic Great Depression Haywood County N.C. Madison County N.C. Marion mill house mill work Perry Hicks Pigeon River protests railroad Rutherfod County sawmill segregation voting World War I https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/d64cd610551e84347b37f6f1ba7e6a13.pdf b8c8f282d27abb9305cda32faf9cfed5 PDF Text Text This is an interview2with Carter Ruppard by Tommy Pursley for the Appalachian Oral History Project at Matney N. C. on June 10, 1974. Interviewer : Where was your mama and daddy born? Mr. Ruppard : In Irdell county . I forget the name of the town . That's been years ago. If my daddy had been living yet he would be a hundred and seven years old . He come to this country from I rdell county to Watauga. Interviewer : When did they move here? Mr. Puppard: My daddy was twenty-five years old when he moved to Watauga county. And raised thirteen children in the country. Interviewer: born? What were you in that thirteen? Were you one of the first ones Mr. Ruppard : No, no . Let's see. Andrew is the oldest, Laura, Ellen, James, Nanie, Daisie, Me, Maggie, Besty, Troy, Roy, Sherman, right on down the rotation. Interviewer : Were they all born f ight here? Mr. Ruppard: In Watauga County : Interviewer : So when your daddy moved here • . . . Mr . Ruppard: Right over here at Cove Creek, at Willow Dale. Interviewer: That's where he lived? Mr . Ruppard: here . Yes sir. Interviewer : Are all your brothers and sisters still living? He lived there eighteen years before he ever came up Mr. Ruppard : No sir . I just got two sisters a living. I got two brothers and a sister living besides myself . The rest are all dead . Interviewer: Do they still live around this area? Mr. Ruppard : Got two brothers that live up here at Blowing Rock; one sister lives over here this side of Banner Elk, Horse Bottom they call it. Interviewer : Why did your parents move to Watauga County? Mr. Ruppard : They just come from Irdell County to here, took up and raised here, right over at Cove Creek at Willow Dale. Interviewer : Did they have them a farl'l? �2 Mr . Ruppard: Rented~ They rented fro~ old man Thin Mast . , Dave Mast's daddy, Gharles Mas.t t:s daddy . Stay up there eighteen years till we come to tnis country up here. Been here about sixty-nine years, right here. What I was going to say about the little ridge up there where Troy and Roy live, up there this side of Illowing Rock, stayed up there eighteen years, butchered for Boone Fork Lumber Company when the band mill ran over here at Shull ' s Mill, then I came back here, home to the old place . Interviewer: You were born on Cove Creek right? Mr. Ruppard: Yes sir. Interviewer : How old were you when you moved away from there? Right up there above Willow Dale. Mr. Ruppard: I was just ten year old when we come from over there over here. I'm eighty-two years old . We been here some while . Interviewer: Did your brothers and sisters help with the farming? Mr . Ruppard: Oh yeah . I can remember very well nister when there were nine of us all big enough at home at one time to take a row of corn across the hill together . Went to the taole and filled the table as far as here over to mama . Lived better then than we can now . And it was every day business . Interviewer: Did you all raise most everything you needed on the farm? Mr. Ruppard : Yes sir . We hardly ever go to buy anything unless it would be a poke of flour once in a while. The rest of the stuff was all raised on the farm . People better get to doing it now to . Interviewer : Do you still raise a lot of your food right now? Mr . Ruppard : Everything mostly. Interviewer: Do you remember anything that happen when all thirteen of your brothers and sisters were living at home? Ruppard : I can remember everything from two years old up to now . Yessir. I stayed with my oldest brother that Has married . The first baby that vTas born I was two years old . They sent me back home and I could carry just half a gallon of water to his wife . I stayed with them nearly three weeks and when they sent me back home they bought me a pair a overhauls just like the ones I got on now . I've wore pretty much ever since. I can remember stuff back then just about as good as I can a month ago . It was daylight to dark work, carry a lantern up at night to tie up ( unintangible) and put it in stacks. People have to do it this day and tiwe they'd die in spite of everything. l~r . Interviewer: Do you think life was better then than it is now? �3 Mr. Ruppard: Well in a way . Interviewer: What ways was it better? Mr . Ruppard : We never had any of this back then . . . I can remember very well. I was ten year old when we lef t over there and come here . Been here ever since and up to that time you never heard of a sickness only one thing . An old one-eyed fellow lived over here at Matney and people would come from Cove Creek and come to him to get him to make medicine to cure Diptheria they call it . Now then there is all kinds of disease everywhere. Every kid that took Diptheria would come to old man Doc Hogsy right over here at Matney . They had to make medicine to cure that. You would hear tell of measles, mumps, something like that, but I mean anything like cancer, stuff that a way you never heard tell of it. Interviewer: When the doctor had to take care of people what did he charge and how did you pay him? Mr. Ruppard: Back when we were over there for eighteen years, there weren ' t two doctors in this country at that time, old man Doc Perry and Doc Fybes down on Cove Creek . If they went to see you years ago they went horseback riding. Interviewer : Mr. was the two Well how were the roads? Ruppard: Oh boy it was bad . Not a hard surface road heard tell of. It just out of one hole and into another one . They call you out to work enroads and you had to do it for free. They'd work you out two days every weeks. I worked this road here when free labor was working . Interviewer: Were the roads wide enough for wagons? Mr. Ruppard : Just about one way. You had to pick places ti pass. It wasn't like it is now where you could pass anywhere . A lot of places you would have to pick places to pass . I've hauled lumber from here to Elk Park and Cranberry on the dirt road, mud down through there. You be expecting to meet somebody and have to pass them with a load of lumber. It's all together different. Interviewer: Well you've talked about how hard you had to work, did you ever have time for games or anything like that . Mr. Ruppard: Lord dickens. place a going. It was daylight to dark, after dark to keep the Interviewer : You never got to go out and fool around with your friends? Mr. Ruppard: Very seldom did we get to' do the same thing as a vacation day . Interviewer: What did you do for entertainment? Mr. Ruppard: Like I tell you, hard work . That's what we got . �4 Interviewer: You didn't have get togethers? Mr. Ruppard: Only thing like that back then was in clearing new ground people would go in ... if we had a big new ground to clear here, the Binghams down here and Haurts and all of them would come in here and help us in our new ground and when we got ours ready to pile the logs and burn the brush we'd go on and help them get theirs ready. And while the men folks were doing that the women folks would have a quilting . . They sit around and quilt and get dinner. I fell on two old sled standards years ago and broke two ribs back there and just got so I could get out of the hospital with that and they swell up on me and it cuts my breath off every once in a while. I guess I took a team and logged more than anybody in this country that I know of now. Two big settings up in Jenkins, Kentucky, two big settings up at Garden Creek, 26 miles above Wilkesboro. We logged all over this country. Interviewer: What would you do leave home for a couple weeks? Mr. Ruppard: Yes sir. Interviewer: How was the pay then? Mr. Ruppard: It come slow. It come slow, Mister. I was talking to a fellar the other day about going up there to · Kentucky on that job, we destroyed and wasted more timber that if we had it back this day and time we could buy up a sight. Big chestnut logs and we'd just cut a twelve foot slice out of them to make our log losd out of and just leave the rest hardwood, poplar, and stuff and now old rotten wormy chestnut is way up yonder. We wasted more than people make this day and time. Interviewer: Besides logging and farming what other jobs have you worked at? Mr. Ruppard: That's about all I ever did, farmed, sawmilled, logged. Interviewer: Which work did you like the best? Mr. Ruppard: I just as soon get out and go to the mountains after a trail of logs as I would anything. Or work at a sawmill if every man does his part under a sawmill shed. I loved that pretty good. You couldn't find most of them that would do that. One would loaf on his work and that would make it harder on the rest of us under the shed. If everybody would carry his load, I'd just as soon work under a sawmill shed. Interviewer: Was Saturday and Sunday any different from the rest of the week? Mr. Ruppard: We'd work Saturday and take off on Sunday. Interviewer: What did you do on Sunday? Mr. Ruppard: Go to church and have a good time. Most of the time we had to work late Saturday night carrying out hay and tie up the stacks. It was hard business. �5 Interviewer: Did you go to church on Sunday and stay all day? Mr. Ruppard: No. We go until after the service and come back home. lay around or walk up to your neighbors. Interviewer : What kind of church did you go to? Mr. Ruppard : Baptist . We'd Everyone of us, the whole bunch was Baptist . Interviewer: What did you do when you started getting a little older about courting girls? M.r. Ruppard: going. We'd ask daddy if we could go out . Interviewer: Where would you go if you went? If he said no then you weren't Mr . Ruppard: Just go to her house. I was telling a fellow here the other n~ght • he. was· talking about drinking liquor . I said anybody can smell gas or 1 ~iquor quicker than I can they just might as well stay in bed. I don't fool with it and I never did . I had a pair of mares and I hooked them to a bug . .. I dated this girl nearly four years, stayed in a sawmill with her da~ly and hauled lumber through the \-?inter time with him ... we took a buggy ride down to Elk valley, down Elk Park and around on Sunday . And they was Advents; Seven Day Advents. We came hack from the ride and I hitched the mares as far as from here to the road from their house. Her daddy never would ask me to help him on Sunday . But when we drove up her daddy and grandpaw, an old man, was up in the hollar trying to finish stacking some hay. It looked like it was going to rain. Well this girl ' s name Fas l)aisie, but her daddy always called her son . Her sister's name was Blanche and he always called her Jack . He seen us walking up to tl\e house and hollared, ''hey Son." She said, "what do you want Papa?" He said, ''bring us a bucket of water up here . '·' We went out to this spring and carried them a bucket of water and he said, "Son, how about getting up there and finish stomping down that ' so-and-so'· hey . " He was an awful man to swear . That's the only thing I ever had against him. I said, "no, I ' 11 do it." I wasn't going to stand there and see her do it . Before I did it he said, ''Cart you never have took a drink and before you get up on that hay you got to take a drink. 1 ' Before I could say anything there he come around that haystack totin a gallon jug, holden the cork in his teeth and pouring it like he was pouring water. To satisfy him I took that jug and turned it up and took one swallow. I got the whole whiff of it as I . . .. I got up there and before we could finish that haystack, I had to hold to th~ top of that stack to keep from .. . . . I could see everything in twos, two of everything . And I noticed this girl sitting up there laughing at me. Yeah, she was tickled to death. I had to hold to that dogged pole up there to keep f rom falling off till we got that stack done . Then I had to go back down to the house. I had to go about from here to the woods up yonder to my horse and buggy. I remember very well trying to get my horses unhitched and a fellow come along that was courting one of my sisters, Walt Bennet, he was corning over here . Re got me in that buggy and brought me home, took my mares and turned them loose . The next thing I could remember, buddy, was right in that room, right in there, my mother was standing there trying to pour sweet milk down me . I could always blow an old French harp. �6 My paw, he was sittinr, there and he said, " son, let's .~ear you play some on your French harp. Be said that I said, "where's the dad-blame thing at.'~ rle gave me that French harp. Instead of holding it the way I was supposed to, I was blowing in the back of it. He said that I said, " I can't blow this dad-blamed thing." And I throwed it at him and bearly missed him in the face. So I count it that I been tight one time in my life. Then one other day we went to Johnson City. Feller up here, Lee Ward, went with us, cattleman. I bought me a calf. Coming on back ... Willie, my oldest boy, he lives down here by Ernie Tripplet, by Connie Yates out there. Lee says to Willie, "I want to p.sk yo u something. I want the truth and Willie I want you to tell me. Did you ever see your papa turn up anything to drink?" Willie says, " No sir, not in my life I ain't." Coming back outside of Johnson City there's a place Mister Lee can 't pass to save his life without stopping and ~etting him a pint. But when he does he says, "Mister Cart there ain't no use to offer it to you. You won't drink it." And he'll set it behind the seat. And I'll take an ~ oath anytime you want me to that I never saw a bottle turned up to Lee Ward's mouth while he was behind the steering wheel. Lee said, " I want to ask you again . Did you ever hear your daddy swear?" He says, "No, only when he was talking after somebody else and telling what they said." I brought that calf back ... Mister Lee says, 11 Mister Cart, before you put that calf on that rich cows milk you better give her something for the scaires. I've got the medicine." I said, "Mister Lee, I 'd just soon pay you as anybody." He got that old calf and took it over there to the barn. In the barn set an old Pepsi bottle with about that much clorox in it. He just pick that stuff up and poured it down that calf and that calf went about half way across tne yard there and just fell over. I said, ''looky there Mister Lee." He said, "Goddamn." I said, "there ain't no Goddamn to it. It's a dead calf." It just kick two or three kicks and it was dead right quick. He said, "what was in that bottle?" I said, "you had it poured down that calf so quick, I couldn't tell you." It was clorox Andrew had over there bleaching his Stallion's mane. He came out with his checkbook to write me the money for the calf. I said, "no Mister Lee. That money's worth advertising your doctoring. He said, "Cart, don't you ever tell anybody about this." Well if I'd promised the man that I wouldn't have told it then I'd not told it, but I never promised that I wouldn't. I swapped horses with him one time and he gave me fifty dollars to boot. He said, "I'll swap with you if you'll never tell anybody I booted you." I said, "that's the reason I want to swap with you Mister Lee; so I can tell everybody that I got a little boot in a horse swap.'' Well a little later on over here at the stock sells in Boone, we were all standing up on the bank watching the rotation. Right there about middle ways there layed a two year old that was just bearly milk broke. He was just a shaking. One of them, a fellow called on Mr. Fred Greene. Me and Lee were standing right together watching them run the cattle in there. One of the fellows said, "Fred here's one down the milkboard. He called on a fellow, Johnson, to get some ~oys and drag him out of the way so the other ones would quit runnin~ over him. He said, "I'll get him up from there directly. I'll give hirr. a dose of penicillin." I said, "Mister Taylor if you can't get him up Mister Lee here can." We had a lot of fun together. Interviewer: What did he intend to give the calf? Mr. Ruppard: He figured it was \Tater and he mixed this powder with it, but he �7 poured that clorox down that calf . That's what killed it . It just walked there and i t didn't kick three kicks. He just poured that powder in that Pepsi bottle . He never asked if it was water or coffee of liquor no~ nothing. Interviewer: Well the man that gave you the drink of liquor, did he make it? Mr. Ruppard : Oh, no sir. A fellow right down here this side of Elk Park bootlegged all the time. His daddy did up till he died then old Hoove Eller . .. old man Ben Eller, he made it and sold it all fiis life . After Ben died Hoove ran it, he sold it. Anybody wants a gallon of liquor they go down to Hoove Eller ' s . Me and his oldest brother, a crippled fellow, took a load of lumber over tp Elk Park, broke a wagon wheel down, didn't get to come back that nigpt . A fellow down there name Williams fixed our wagon wheel, and we slept with Uncle Ben in what he called his liquor house . There wasn ' t much roof to it, but it had a good floor and it was good and warm. Thomas and Ben made an agreement about something . Ben moved our bed where he had a lid there and he raised it up and reached down there and pulled up two gallons of liquor. That bo-x was sitting just as full of gallons and half gallons just _ pretty as you please . as We stayed there over night . Sometime during the night it come to snowing one of the prettiest snowa I believe I've ever seen. That always did me good too. It would snow and we could pull our logs easier. I bet you the next morning that snow three or four inches on us. Ben said Reese .. . he was laying over there behind. He was way bigger than me or Reese was . He said, "Reese. What do you want Mr. Boss . " He said, "Reese, it ' s time to start a fire . " He says, "OOOOOOH Mr . Boss." I can see .him just as plain as if he was here talking. Ben said, ''you coming out from be~ind there Reese?" "OOOOOOH Mr . Boss I don't believe I can." Be said, "I be dad-blamed if you don ' t." He picked a little of the cover up on on his arm and rolled all of that snow back on Reese . He said, "wait Mr. Boss . Wait Mr . Boss . I'm acoming." Two or three fellers had stayed there on the floor and you couldn ' t tell them from snow. Ben ran them up from there. Now this fellow I was telling you about, I courted his girl, he kept it regular, too, buddy. He kept his liguor . Interviewer: When did you get married? Mr. Ruppard: Oh, I was about 23 years old. She was 16 . What I was going to tell you about the liquor business now. Two fellows were shot over there at Foscoe on Christmas Day . That liquor came from down in a whole where we lived at Watauga Gap . Old man John Townsend, they claimed, could come nearer to making pure whiskey than anybody they knew of . Well from Saturday evening to Sunday night they kept the road full going down there. They'd go down there and spend theit money and go on back home . They never bothered a thing at our house except just passing back and forth . Two fellows, I forget their names, but they fished all the time. They were sitting up under a big oak tree and one said he wished he had some of them fried up, he loved to eat them . Well somebody said, "if you like fish so much why don't you eat them ~·a..; . He said, " by God I can." He caught one that was four or five inches long and he put it in his mouth and swallowed it. They'd had bet 25¢ and it cost him twenty-five dollars to operate to. get that fish out. He swallowed it alive. Well anyway, them same two fellows come up through there one day, had them a gallon a piece and started to come in the house. My daddy stopped'em . Said they weren ' t bringing that stuff in the house with all the youngins in there. They tried to come anyway and my daddy had to drag one of them out by his ankles. That was the only �8 trouble we had the whole time we lived there . But after that killing took place . .. my daddy knowed all four of ' em, worked with them. The high sheriff of the co~nty, Luther Farthing, Coe Perry, Ed Shipley, and old man, I forget his name; we d g~ne to b:d, mama and us children. We slept back in the bedroom and papa slept in here in front of the fireplace. I wasn\t asleep and somebody knocked on the door . Dad said, "come in . " · If he hadn't ask where I was at I wouldn 't have cared so much. Sheriff said, .. he called my daddy grandpa all the time . .. he said, " Grandpa, where is Carter a:t?" I got up and came in there and we sat there and talked to eleven o'clock . Finally he turned around to me and said, •:carter I want to tell you my business." I said, "What's that Sheriff? What have I done or is it something I ain't done . " He said, "no, I brought these three men with me for you to be swore in here as deputy sheriff if it won't be too much trouble for you . " I said, ,. Thank you Sheriff. That's as nice as can be t. asked of anybody . I been here thirteen years and I can't do enough to get people to stop going down there let alone being a target propped up out there to be shot at . " I went on back to bed. He finally deputized one of my brothers, Coy, to help him catch one of Dave Chirley's boys . They was making liquor up in the hollar up there . Bill Whiter's boy, Paul ~'hiter, ¥as up at Blowing Rock courting. About your size for the world and not a finer hoy on the Blue Ridge . He had to pass here and on up through Dave's where they was making the liquor . He come ridinf through in a buggy and they hollared halt at him and didn ' t hear them. They was laying out there on a stack out, Coy and the Sheriff . Coy shot the boy right through the arm there as purty as you please . Talk about somebody giving up their job in a hurry, now Coy did . I never had a run in with the law. I ' ve been in court one time and the judge scared me, I could _ haye_ gone out the top of that building . I went up there and I was a butcher for the Boone Fork Lumber Company while the ban mill was running . I had two sheep to kill and a beef to kill every week. Old man Judge Wagner was the man to pay me, giving me three dollars a day . Now this is the way it went . He went down to Ed Shipley I was telling you about and he give him twenty-five dollars a ewe, a hundred head of ewe. He brought 'em up there and had a divided field with fifty on one side and fifty on the other side . Right here was a white spring and an apple tree stood over there where I had my block hung for butchering. My orders were to kill the two best out of the left hand side of the field until they was used up before I was to kill any on the right hand side . They had jerseys, gernseys, holsteins, all kinds in there . I had an old collie dog, if I had it now I wouldn ' t take five hundred dollars for it. I clip his ears and cut off his tail and =I betcha he weighed 125 pounds. People would come to see that dog catch a sheep. I get my block hung, then I pick out the best one in the bunch and I'd hit that one on the back with a peice of bark of a stick and I ' d say get her Red . No matter hiw many times he ' d chase the sheep around the herd when he finally got it seperated he would get it by the legs and drag it to me . Well that morning my daddy was up there with me and he said, "look coming up the hill." There wasn ' t a road to get up there and a bunch of people from the lumber company were coming up the hill . They got up there and the boss says, •:son which one you gonna give us today?" I said I hadn ' t had time to look them over yet. · Hell the ones on the left side were all nasty looking and had what I call snot-slinkings coming out thear mouth and nose . He picks one out of that bunch and says to kill it and not to kill another one till he sends me word. The next day I was down by the sawmill and Mr . Jud Wagner come up riding a great big old horse and he said, "Hey Mr. Ruppard you back fron killing sheep already?" I said, "No, I ain't killed no sheep and back already." He said, "Well ain ' t the day sheep day . " I said, "No, ' �9 today ain't sheep day . Mr . Richard told me Tuesday morning to kill that one and not to kill any more till he sent me word . " He got mad said he was gonna tell them all off . He swore tnar he rode that horse up to where they was and cussed them all out. I know he was l y ing' cause if he ' d rode that horse up there he would have nad to ride it across two train trussels and there's no way he could have done tnat . Thursday week here comes the deputy sheriff and sentence my daddy and me to Boone to go to court . What it was, the company was sueing Ed Shipley f or putting diseased sneep off on 'em . Jud was sueing Ed Shipley for putting then off on him . Well, they called the case and they said, "tell us your ousiness up there with them sheep . And I told him I was the butcher for the Boone Fork Lumber Company. I told, I had had orders to kill two sheep a week and a beef . I was supposed to take the best two out of the left hand side. The judge was sitting up there behind me and he said, "look around here son." Buddy I could ' 9- went out the top of that court house . He said , "what do you mean the two best out of the left hand side?" And told him the right hand side had more snotty noses and nasty behinds and germy sheep . You know from that day till this they never did settle that unless they compromised some how. Tnis fellow I was telling you about natl this old leather saddle. Nice saddle. I had one . Anyway he was a big old fat fellow and he had that open end saddle on that big old horse he was riding. There was this woman that lived up above us, she could plow as good as any man ever could. She could take a team of horses and handle them better than a man . Well old Ben went up to her house on that big horse and while he was there , she turned that saddle around on his horse and you know he rode that horse all the way back down there to Foscoe before he turned that saddle around, nearly ten miles . You should have seen that fellow . He was sore and black and blue up under there where he ' d rode that saddle backwards all that way . Yeah . We had our ups and downs; ups and downs . Interviewer: Did you get to go to school very much? Mr. Ruppard: I never got to go to school over two months in my life. I was talking to a feller the other day . His daddy was the only teacher I ever went to. He smite me . He hit me . He was a little feller . . . Ralph Wilson's daddy, Frank Wilson, alittle fellow . Rignt there at Willow Dale where I'm telling you, right over there a little farther. There was an old well there, That ' s the reason they built the st:hool there. They cleaned that well out a little later and you'd be surprised at the old dead dogs and cats and chickens and things they got out of that old well . Right on above now us boys had us a swimming hole. It was long as from here that old building up yonder and it was about ten or twelve feet deep. About middle ways there was an old apple tree limb sticking out over the water. And we were playing 'mad dog ' we called it. \{ e were always playing that, us boys . I could run then . The person that was it would say, " innie minnie miny moe, catch a guinie by the toe," then you would light out after them. I had caught all of them except for one boy . He went up that apple tree and I went up after him . He started out on that limb and I was right behind him. Well he got out there and I started shaking the limb . Ee fell in the swimming hole and nearly drowned. I ended up having to jump in there and pull him out. Well there was this girl up there watching and she says she ' s going to tell the teacher . I lite out after her to make sure she tells �10 the truth. Well she told him and he sends me to get a switch. You needn'.t come back with one with just one switch on it, it had to have two switches on it. He switched me, boy he switched me. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews Description An account of the resource In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region. The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students. Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU. An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school. This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1965-1989 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Pursley, Tommy Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Rupard, Carter Interview Date 6/17/1974 Location The location of the interview. Boone, NC Number of pages 10 pages Date digitized 9/16/2014 File size 7.54MB Checksum alphanumeric code 9452ab507801e9bf1d4f158da784e47a Scanned by Tony Grady Equipment Epson Expression 10000 XL Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records; 1965-1989; W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection; Special Collections; Appalachian State University; Boone; NC). Any commercial use of the materials; without the written permission of the Appalachian State University; is strictly prohibited. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived AC.111 Appalachian Oral History Project Records; 1965 - 1989 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 111_tape292_CarterRupard_transcript_M Title A name given to the resource Interview with Carter Rupard [June 17, 1974] Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Pursley, Tommy Rupard, Carter Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a> Subject The topic of the resource Farm life--North Carolina--Watauga County--20th century Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Mountain life--North Carolina--Watauga County Logging--North Carolina Sawmill workers--North Carolina--Watauga County Rupard, Carter Description An account of the resource Carter Rupard talks about growing up on a farm in Cove Creek with his many siblings. He says that they "lived better than we can now" and that "we hardly ever went to buy anything unless it would be a poke of flour ever once in awhile." His family was totally self-sufficient with their farm, and they had to work very hard every day of the week. Banner Elk Blowing Rock Boone Fork Lumber Company butcher Carter Rupard courting Cove Creek Doctor Fybes Doctor Perry farming Irdell County Johnson City Judge Wagner liquor business logging Matney North Carolina sawmill Shull's Mill Watauga County N.C. https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/7955776b936911d510652d48df4bdfc7.pdf 88316902588f76fe8dea2556b50fc363 PDF Text Text Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, Tape 74 Interviewees: Mr. and Mrs. Jim Greer Interviewer: n/a Date: 11 June 1973 Transcriber: J. McTaggart Interviewer: This is an interview with Mr. and Mrs. Jim Greer for the Appalachian Oral History Project in Triplett on June 11th, 1973. Okay, first I'd like to have your names and ages, please. Jim Greer: Mine's James Calvin Greer and I'll be 65 years old on the fourth day of September. I: Oh okay, what about you, Mrs. Greer? Vera Greer: Um mines Vera Greer and I'll I was 61 the first day of May. I: Oh and where were you born? JG: I was born around here at the community center. I: Wereya? JG: Yeah, just around the road there. VG: Yup right at the community, yeah. And I was born in Caldwell County. I: Have you lived around here all of your lives? JG:No. VG: No. I: Where have you lived? JG: I lived in [inaudible] state gone for four years before I come back. I lived in Caldwell County, Wilkes County. VG: Who's that? I hear another car. JG: I don't see it. Some folks bought that place up here. I: Why did you move from here? JG: Well, my mother moved to Wilkes County to my sister's and my daddy he left when I was four years old. Mama had to keep me and my sister up 'til I got big enough to work. And I had to help her 'til I got grown. We left here when I was about nine years old and went on up ahead the creek where Ralph Greene lives now; got roots and herbs and gathered barks and stuff to get our groceries and clothes with. Mama made all my clothes she just bought the cloth and made it. And uh you couldn't get no work �nowhere; there was no work to do. And I wasn't big enough to work and mama she'd wash around here on [inaudible] branch all day for 50 cents. [Inaudible] not too big a washing for 50 cents. I: How would she wash 'em? JG: With her hands and washboard, paddle board. Stand on big ol' banks and she had the paddle and she'd beat the dirt out with the paddle. It was rough going, I'll tell you. I: Were there just you and your sister in your family? JG: Yeah at that time, the other had three. VG: She was married twice [inaudible] the first time. JG: She was married twice, my mother but the other two was married and gone. Last, my daddy was being an [inaudible] sister. I: Is she older or younger? JG: She's younger than I am. Daddy [inaudible]. I: What was your father's occupation? JG: Well, he worked for people, dug ditch and anything you could get do. VG: All of these cleared fields on top of the mountain up here he cleared them. JG: On top of the mountain up here, he cleared them. When you first go out up here them fields out there when you first go out old man Tom Greer's mail [inaudible] on top of his up there. All them fields my daddy cleared back there. I: Well, how did he do it? JG: Ax, chopped 'em. I've seen him cut trees down four foot through with an ax, chop 'em down. I: How long would it take him? JG: Well, it'd take him three or four hours. I: And how much would he make? JG: Well, he got when he did get anything it was 33 and 1/3 cents a day was all he got out of his work. Killed himself at work and people living off his labor right now, enjoying it. I: Did your mother work or was she just around the house? JG: She worked around the house and whatever she'd get to do for people, haul corn and stuff like that. Wash and things like that; we'd walk way up here to the creek, three miles down here [inaudible] the branch and do a little washing. �I: She would just do the neighborhood's washing? JG: Yeah, mm hm ol' lady [inaudible] and uh Minnie Hayes' mother, yeah. She'd come on out of there and work all day and get by the time we had a cow, she'd take it up and fodder. You know, top fodder of corn. She'd give it about five or six shucks of top for a day's work. And she done carry them out from around there [inaudible] Creek here in about three miles. And I'd come and meet her in the evening and take part of the load off of her and carry what I could. I was little I couldn't do much, 'bout five or six years old something like that. And me and her would get out in the woods and gather herbs and roots carry it little up here to [inaudible]. [Inaudible] that big brick house up there on the right of the road there used to be a big ol' store right there where that there cloth place is now. And old man [inaudible] McNee run a big store there and we'd carry our herbs up there right up there mountain 'bout I guess we'd go three miles. And the mountain we'd climb all the way 'till we got on top. I: So you would sell your roots and herbs and things? JG: Yes, maybe get up there and maybe have a dollar's worth with all we can carry. I: Mm. JG: Some of 'em were a cent a pound; some were a cent and a half some two cent, three cents. You couldn't get nothing for more than that. I've had hard all my life and the highest I ever made a working was the furniture factory [inaudible] 36 hours. I worked all my life, raised my family, worked for my mother and sister 'till I was 21 years old. I helped on that highway that goes down the mountain to Wilkesboro; I helped build that bridge from the bottom to the top. I: Really? JG: Yeah, see it's about four miles to do that, no way around it [clears throat]. I: Goodness, what do you do now, what kind of work? JG: Nothin' I've been disabled for about 16,17 years. I: Oh. JG: My [inaudible] to the heart [inaudible] won't let me. He tell me last year not even to put out a garden. The digging might have a stroke or something. I: Mm, did you have a garden when you were little and growing up with your family? JG: Yeah, me and mama gardened every year and raked. You went through the houses sits up here and you start up the mountain and you leave this old house down here at the foot with the rock crusher. The two little houses sits on the right on the holler. Now this field right here above the road me and mama made our bread on that hill there. [Background noises] �I: Made what? JG: Made our corn bread when I was a little boy. We had corn all over that hill. We had a third of it for raising. We dug holes and plant the corn with a hoe then dug it out and hoed it when it come up, made our corn up on that steep hill. It's straight up and down now. I: Goodness, I don't see how you could hoe like that. JG: You couldn't hardly stand up on it. You'd slide down and fall; we worked it 'til we got our corn worked out. We made corn out of it two or three years on that hill. It's growed up now they've been timber cut off it since me and mom worked corn on it. I: What other kind of crops did you raise? JG: Well, just beans and cucumbers and maters, Irish potatoes stuff like that. I: Did you have any livestock or animals? JG: No, well we generally kept cow most of the time. Dm, I've eaten boiled Irish potatoes for months at a time for bread. We didn't have no bread and we didn't have no bread to eat. We'd boil Irish potatoes and eat them for bread and butter. That's what we had to eat. You tell people that this day and time they wouldn't believe it but it's so. I: Hm I guess you were glad to get that though. JG: Oh Lord yeah, I was glad to get it. A lot of times we didn't have potatoes. And I've eaten water gravy a-many a-times just made out of flour and water and a little grease, you know. Maybe ol' strong meat skins or something fry the grease out of 'em and make cream gravy. [I'd] eat that many a mornin' for breakfast. I: Hm. JG: Mama made all my clothes. Here, here maybe I'll show you here. I've got a picture if I can find it when I was a little boy. Where is that picture? VG: There's one right up here. Yes sonny, they're right up here where I hang it! JG: No, not mine! VG: Yes! You're too! JG: Did I put it up here? VG: [Inaudible] I know you did! JG: I'll show you this so you know I'm telling the truth. There it is. That's me and my mother there. I: Aw. �JG: I was 21 years old when that was took down at far end of that high bridge I was telling you about. I: That's a good picture. JG: There's another one just like it. [Inaudible] my other picture. VG: Well, I don't know what you've done with it, honey! JG: Let me see. I: Your mother made these clothes? JG: Mm hm, made my clothes. VG: No, not them. She's talking about the little picture that he had. I don't know what he's done with it. JG: Here it is! Here it is! I'll show you. I knew I had this. VG: Damn, I thought that was ones he had...that is him and his mother. I: You were 21 here? VG: Yeah. JG: Mm hm. I: That's a good picture. VG: Now, right there's where... JG: That's where [inaudible] year old when that's took. You see, the homemade overalls and the shirt. You see the buttons on it. Now that pictures way old, it's about 60 years old I guess maybe more. I: Oh. JG: It was took when the old picture was crackled up you know and you couldn't get the crackles out of it. VG: Took it from an old picture you know. JG: A boyfriend of mine had a creek up there in little Triplett and his grandfather's back here behind. I tried to take 'em both off but didn't get 'em both. I: Who took these pictures? JG: [Inaudible] Greene took them way back when [inaudible]. VG: She lives at uh... JG: Spruce Pine. �VG: Spruce Pine! JG: She's dead now. How come you get that now she's around at Minnie Hayes's and uh asked her and she didn't have one of my old pictures when I was a little boy. And she said yeah, she did she took it with a little bitty Kodak just made little bitty pictures about 2 by or 2 by 3 or something. And uh she kept it all this time and I asked her if she'd let me have the picture. She said when I'm dead, says you can have it. I says well I might die before you go [chuckles]. So she died and her daughter had some made, some smalls made and sent me two of 'em and I took them and had 'em enlarged like that so they could be a little bigger. I: Aw, that's a good picture. JG: I was about nine years old when that was took. I: Aw, I bet you're glad to get that. JG: Oh yeah, I wouldn't take nothirt' for it. I: Goodness. JG: I wouldn't. I: Mm. JG: I had on a little black hat you see it? You can see it. VG: That was up here on [inaudible]. I: How long would it take your mother to make a pair of overalls like that? JG: It would take a month. I: Did she have an old sewing machine or would she make 'em by hand? JG: No, she made 'em by hand. I: Oh and she, where would she buy her cloth? JG: Go to Eller McNee's (?) store on top of the mountain. I: Oh yeah, do you know how much it would be back then, the cloth? JG: Well, it run sometimes 10,15 cents a yard according to what... VG: Well, you can't put the [inaudible]. [Inaudible] he had surgery on his back twice, got hurt at the shop. He dropped his [inaudible]. I: Did your mother make her clothes too? �JG: Mm hm, you had to make your clothes then couldn't go there was nowhere to buy 'em. l:Hm. JG: She make 'em [inaudible]. I stayed barefooted Christmas. I never got no shoes 'til Christmas then got these ol' brogan shoes, ol' yellow shoes with brass rivets in 'em here and brass toes on 'em 'cause if you're...hard as a rock you couldn't be in 'em, skin your feet all over. You'd have sores all over your feet and your ankles. I: Goodness. JG: It was rough going, I'll tell you. I: How far did you have to walk to school? JG: Oh, it's about three miles on the way up there to Howard's Creek where Ralph Greene lives, left at the rock crusher, and right on up the creek as far as you can go. I: Oh, really? JG: Mm hm. I: How much schooling did you have? JG: Well, I went to school to the fourth grade but I never did learn nothin'. The [inaudible] didn't have no dad either I'd look after him. These Tripletts down here all of 'em have a big head and queers(?). They beat me half to death at school and do things at school to get the teachers to beat me. And uh I couldn't help it 'cause they'd just double up on me three or four get on me at a time and beat me half to death 'till I got big enough to take 'em apart. I beat two of 'em nearly to death after I got up big enough. And I broke them and the rest of 'em ain't bother me anymore. I: They've learned their lesson [chuckles]. VG: They broke once [inaudible]. JG: So uh I was [inaudible] off the road by all the young'uns up them days when I was growing up. Everybody had well... I was the same about the same as orphans, you know. My daddy's gone, my mama had to work all the time she couldn't be with me all the time. I wasn't mean; I didn't do nothin' to nobody. And Stewart Shimens(?) around here can tell you all about my life. He knows everything about it, knows how people treated me, all these old people around here. And I was treated like a dog, what you might say all my life. I have been and since I've been married, same thing. People took off me and beat off of me and you know the same three men got [inaudible]. I: Mm, why do you think they treated you like that? JG: Well, just 'cause they could get something I had, you know, might [inaudible] borrow it and never pay it back. Things like that. I've been too easy with people, let 'em go. I ain't doing it anymore, I can't. �VG: We got a son-in-law that... JG: Owes me a thousand dollars right now. VG: Just about a thousand dollars in money now. And we will not I bet you we never as long as live see every dime of it. They done, you seen that car sitting out here when you was here before. That blue car that's pushed off down there and I told you that's my son-in-law's. Well, that's the one bless your heart and they come and got it Saturday. I: They did? VG: He told us that his daddy borrowed the money for him and paid cash for that car. And honey, it was through the American Credit right up here. JG: He borrowed the money from American Credit. VG: And went back and borrowed $75 on it besides. JG: And he's not gonna pay for but he come and got it [inaudible]. VG: But you can tell her to get back on you how you used to walk ten miles a day and work. JG: Yeah, I walked ten miles a day and worked ten hours and back home, after I go back home by moonshine. I: To moonshine? JG: By moonshine. I: Oh. JG: In the woods, you know. Go to the woods, carry wood out, and cut it up-and stow in the woods. In the summertime, work ten hours and walk five miles this way, I mean ten miles this way. I: Mm and what were you doing when you were working? VG: He worked in... JG: I worked in the furniture shop [inaudible] furniture with my mom. I lived way down on Lenoir Creek... VG: And then when we was in the Depression though we, we had a terrible time. One of our children was born. JG: Me and her during the Depression dug roots and gathered herbs to buy our clothes and groceries and the baby's clothes. VG: ...buy our first baby's clothes. I: Really? �VG: I went to the mountains this is as long as I could walk. I: Goodness. JG: ...crossing the mountains with me, we'd dig roots and gather herbs, sang and stuff. I: 'Bout how much could you get for that? JG: Well, it was cheap. VG: It was cheap then. It wasn't much... JG: You couldn't get over five cents a pound now for what we had. VG: No. JG: And I had to carry it three miles down [inaudible] in the summer. Down the mountain all the way and carry it two sacks at a time on my back. I: Was it very heavy? JG: Pretty heavy, yeah. [Inaudible] I get there. I: I bet it did [chuckles]. How many children do ya'll have? VG: We've had nine but two of 'ems dead. JG: Seven living, six girls and one boy and got two boys dead. I: You said you had a child during the Depression. VG: Yes [both talking at once]. I had one good dress and one old ratty thing I'd put on 'till I washed my good one. JG: I didn't even have clothes to change in. I wore her overalls [inaudible] my marriage and she could wash mine. And I dug the ditch and worked the hill and cut the wood for 50 cents a day and had to take it to mill our flour and a piece of meat or something like that. We couldn't get a dime to [inaudible]. Nothin'... I: So, uh did ya'll have like a farm or something during the Depression? VG: No, we just lived in what they called a little sawmill shack. You know where they built shacks through the mountains, you know, to work a sawmill. And Jim worked the sawmill some after our first baby is born and then it got down to that Depression. And uh when the next baby come along, and I'd saved her clothes. If I hadn't saved her clothes [inaudible] went naked 'cause we couldn't buy none. JG: Two hours a day at the sawmill [inaudible] and saw carrying green lumber and [inaudible] out for 50 cents a day. �10 I: Mm and was this every day? JG: Everyday 50 cents a day. That's [inaudible]. You can tell these young people about what it was like [inaudible]. I: I know it. I've heard too many people say the same thing. JG: [Inaudible] I couldn't go through it again. VG: We'd go to people's houses for the raced your own hogs and they'd give us meat skins to season what little we had to season. JG: Fry the grease out of it and season your potatoes and beans or something. I: Oh would, uh were people friendlier during the Depression? VG: Yeah! We had a few good friends not too many. JG: The town built her uncle [inaudible]. VG: And then after my baby's born, my aunt give me clothes so I could wear her clothes after the baby. I: Oh and your uncle what gave you the hog skins and stuff like that. VG: No, it was another one. JG: Yeah, he gave us some. VG: Yeah, he gave us some but there was another one. What was his name? JG: Dave Frasier gave us some. VG: Yeah, yeah. JG: [Inaudible] VG: We sure had it rough, buddy. And he worked my doctor bill out at 80 cent a day. JG: Paid half of it on the doctor bill... VG: ...and half of it to get something to eat. JG: I stayed away from Blowing Rock for a long time [inaudible]. I: And where was this? JG & VG: Down in Wilkes County. I: That's where ya'll were living during the Depression, in Wilkes County? �11 VG: Yeah. I: Did it affect many of your neighbors as far as food and things? VG:Huh? I: Did the Depression urn affect many neighbors as far as food and things? VG: Oh yeah, just about everybody. I: Did the people not have enough to eat? VG: I don't know but we didn't. JG: There was a lot of 'em didn't have enough to eat. We didn't make [inaudible]. I was eating, I was telling you about walking ten miles and working at the furniture shop. I eat oatmeal for breakfast and worked on it 'till 12 o'clock and maybe make a sandwich, a peanut butter sandwich at dinner time, cold Cola and work on it 'till night and walk on home. I: I don't see how you could stand it, could take it. JG: Well, people couldn't stand it. VG: People, people at this time now is much as uh we you know have now. JG: The people... VG: If it'd come now I don't believe could live. I: No I don't think so. JG: Well there'd be a many of 'em starve to death if the government didn't take care of 'em it wouldn't work. You couldn't get people out here and work for 50 cents a day to save your life now. They wouldn't do it but I had to do it or starve to death I didn't like the stuff. I: Did you ever hear about any of the government projects during the Depression like the WPA? JG: No, well yeah we did too. They give away stuff a lot at Wilkesboro. We never could get nothing of it. VG: Yeah, we did. We got some blankets and things one time. JG: One time, yeah one time. I'm talking about food and stuff we never did get that. VG: We didn't get no food. JG: And my brother in law, he's [inaudible]. He's got his own farm and he worked for the WPA. And I signed up don't know 50 times I guess that the WPA and they never would give me a call to work. I: Hm, I wonder why. �12 JG: I don't know why they didn't but they didn't... I: I thought they would let... VG: I think they just had their picks... JG: Yeah, just certain ones that would work three days and then the other ones would work three days. And I finally [inaudible] to call Will and I didn't have any job at the shop. I finally got on a contractors job up there building that highway to Morganton and Lenoir. I got on that and worked I get to work three days... VG: And off three days. JG: ...and off three days. I think it was a dollar, a dollar and half a day [inaudible]. I worked on that till they cut me off of it and I finally got me a job in the shop between... VG: 27 cents an hour. JG: 27 cents an hour. I: What were you doing then? JG: I was working shingling with working with [inaudible] hanging the shingles things like that. Just anything about if you wanted to know, [inaudible] cut off saw, planters, sanders, two jointers, things like that. 27 cents an hour and I worked there for nine years. Well for nearly nine years before I ever got a raise. VG: Halfway left 'till September we've been married uh, 44 years. I: Really? VG: We ain't ever been apart a day in our lives. I mean he's went off to work but what I mean you know get mad and separate or something. JG: And since then, people get married and they don't get along. VG: We don't even quarrel now maybe one of us be a little nervous and might smack one off, you know. I've got bad nerves. When I was in that wreck, I took I had the epilepse [epilepsy]. I: Oh, have you ever worked any jobs? VG: Uh uh, nothing only when I was little, I dropped corn and beans and stuff like that for people. And I take it and butter and milk and take it home to eat for all of us. I: Yeah, how many were in your family? JG: Bernie and James. �13 VG: Yeah but honey, that was after mom married the next last time. JG: Six of 'em the last time, Carl, Will, Lance, Marie, and Horace. That's six. VG: Yeah but they wasn't born when I dropped corns. JG: I know, well there was just three of you. You and James and Bernie. VG: Yeah there was just three and we had a step dad and he was a terrible man to us. Lord, he'd beat us for nothin' just beat us like beatin' a dog. I: Hm, could your mother not do anything about it? VG: No, she'd try to fight him but he could outdo her. I: Did ya'll have a farm where you lived? VG: Yeah. I: Did you have to work on the farm? VG: Yeah! He'd give us, if he couldn't find nothin' else for us to do, he'd give us about acre of land to pick up rock of the bay and we better have that done when he come in or he'd whoop. I: Why would you have to pick up the rock, where would you put the rocks? VG:Take 'em off you know pull 'em off the land where was cleared you know. He'd just have us do that 'cause he couldn't think of nothin' else for us to do. And I'd have to get all the wood and carry all the water. I: Were you the oldest? VG: Yeah, yeah I was the oldest. I: Hm, do you remember... VG: Pulling drag woods out, drag wood out of the mountains and I'd have to chop it and carry it in. I: Do you remember any good times when you were little and growing up? VG: It was a dire some place. I: You were what? VG: It was a dire some place. We went out to play, he whooped us. I: Really? �14 VG: Yeah! He let one girl, one of our girlfriends, come one time. Asked him if we could goto her house and play and he told us yeah. We didn't know no better we ain't never went nowhere you know before. And when we come back, he told us how long to stay, two hours. When we come back, he said you march right to them woods and get a hickory. I: Why? VG: He whooped us for going! I: Did he tell you you could go? VG: Yes! I: Goodness. JG: He was mean, he was just an old drunk and [inaudible] 'em. I: Oh, that's just awful. JG: I'll tell you how we treated my daddy. You know, this white house on the bank down there as you go out the first one right there. Up on that hill, well Will Willy live there now and he got my daddy to cut wood for him one time when that hill was there. And my daddy was cutting wood and a log coming through down hit his shin and [inaudible]. You know what that man done? My daddy went in the house tied it up to keep it from bleeding. Come over here son and poured on his shin on that skin place and he had a sore on his leg as long as you [inaudible]. VG: Eat it up! You know carbolic acid will eat you up! l:Ew. JG: [Inaudible] And he poured that on his leg and it skinned up like that on my daddy's leg 'til a man could cure it up. And he had a sore on his leg when he died over there. I: Goodness. JG: If I had been big enough and got hold of that man, I would kill him. That's how they treated my daddy. He worked, the people would work him and they wouldn't pay him for it. They'd say I'll pay you next week or next day or two or something like that and that'd be the last of it; maybe workin' a week at a time all he got was what we were eating. l:Hm. JG: You couldn't get no 33 and 1/3 cents a day you know what you get out of a day's work then for ten hours a day. He dug a ditch for people, cut wood, cleared off lands, cut logs for people and roll 'em into hollers, and burn 'em and everything else, clean off their land for 'em. All these big mountain fields on top the mountain when you go out, he done the most of 'em. �15 l:Hm. JG: People treated him awfully dirty but there's another day coming... I: Yeah. JG: ...when they get their part and it hits you. I: Why do you think they... [END] � 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 2014-02-26 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 Mr. and Mrs. Jim Greer, June 11, 1973 Description An account of the resource James Calvin Greer was born in Triplett, NC in 1908. Vera Greer was born in Caldwell County in 1913. Mr. and Mrs. Greer both recall very hard childhoods and growing up in the Triplett area. Mr. Greer worked at the local sawmill during the Great Depression. They recall collecting herbs and bark to pay for groceries and clothes. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Weaver, Karen Greer, Jim and Vera 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_tape74_Mr&MrsJimGreer_1973_06_11M001 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Triplett, NC Subject The topic of the resource Greer, James Calvin--Interviews Greer, Vera--Interviews Depressions--1929--North Carolina--Watauga Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-06-11 barks Caldwell County Great Depression herbs Jim Greer North Carolina roots sawmill sawmill community sawmill shack Triplett Vera Greer Wilkes County 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/f3905df2ba703c574ba8227640ecbad0.pdf 444744f7916455869455aa54a4b58318 PDF Text Text AOHP #73 Page 1 This is an interview with Mrs. Elizabeth Hartley^ and her son, William, by Karen Weaver for the Appalachian Oral History Project in Triplett on June 11, 1973. (in this transcript Mr. Hartley and "son" are the same person) Q: First I'd like for you to give me your name and age please. A: Lizzie Hartley, Elizabeth Hartley and I'm 73. Q: Where were you born? A: ABout Q: Did it have a name? a mile over up this holler. Did it have a certain name for the area? A: Arnold's Branch. Q: Arnold's Branch? A: Yeah, Arnold's Branch. Q: How many children were in your family? A: Seven. Q: How many brothers and sisters did you have? A: I had four sisters and two brothers. Q: What did your father do for an occupation? A: He farmed and worked the sawmill. I've never heard of that. �Q: The sawmill? Was it around this area? A: Yeah,rail around this area. Q: Did your mother-was your mother just a housewife? A: Yeah, my father was a carpenter. Q: Was he? A: Built houses. Q: So you had a farm? A: Yeah, yeah we had a farm. Q: Did the children have to help with the work around the farm? A: Yeah, the children helped with the work. Q: What did you have to do? A: Oh, we hoed corn, made a garden, and all such things as that, What did he make? Building, he worked at a carpenter's trade. Is that where you get most of your food from? raised cattle, chickens and hogs. Q: Was it hard work? A: Yeah, it was hard work. Q: How long did you have to work everyday? A: 'Bout twelve hours every day. People worked form sixvo1clock till six o'clock for 60£ a day0 �Q: So you rteally felt like you'd earned that, didif'^. you? A: Yeah and most everybody lived in a one roomed house. Q: The vtiole family? A: Yeah, amd we were raised right here in a little ol' log cabin with-it had three little rooms. One big one and two little ones. There wasn't hardly anybody that even had a stove to cook on. They cooked on fire. Q: You had to cook all your food on fire? A: Yes. There wasn't anybody, only just- I bet there wasn't half a doxon in our community that owned cookstoves. Q: Really? Who were some of the families that had stoves? A: My grandmother had one and Mary Carroll had one. That's the only two I know of in the whole community at that time. Q: I bet living in a small house, did you have alot of fights with your brothers and sisters? A: No, no. I's the oldest girl in a family of seven and I took care of the other young'uns. Q: Oh, so that's mainly what you had to do? A: Yeah. �Q: Did your brothers have to help around the house with the housework? A: No, they didn't do no housework. Q: They just farmed. A: Yeah and fixed wood and things like that. Q: Have you had any jobs? A: Nol Q: lfc>u just lived around here on the farm all A: Yeah, and people used to gather all kinds of herbs and dig roots your life? and all for a livin1. Q: Did you all used to do that? A: Yeah. Q: How much would you make? A: Oh you couldn,'t make nothing hardly. You could a lots a kinds of roots you could dig 'em and dry them and sell 'em for 2$ a pound, and people would dry fruit and sell it for 2C a pound, corn 50£ a bushel and coffee IOC a pound and sugar about 4C a pound, cloth about If a yard. Q: Really? Some of that cloth now is two and three dollars a yardl �A: Yeah. Q: What kind of roots and gerbs did you gather? A: There way May Apple, Blood Root, Black Cohosh, Blue and Stone Root, and Quill Root. Q: Quill Weed? A: Quil Weed, yeah. Hydrangeas, something that is on the root list, hydrangeas was then. Gather pine tips to make Christmas roping and skin white pine bark. Q: What were some of these used for? A: Oh, it was all used for medicine. Q: Can you still sell them today? A: Oh, yeah. It was 2C a pound. (Mrs. Greer's neighbor) Beadwood leaves are 15C a pound green now, 30C for dry. Q? What are they used for? A: Medicine Q: Any particular type of medicine? A: (Mrs. Greer) No, don't know what kind. (Mrs. Hartley) It's Oxblood that they use for heart medicine, they sell it up here at Boone, that medicine for heart trouble made o : of oxblood. u| It had a little purple bloom on it. Star root and Gensang and �lady's slipper, wild cherry bark, "sassyfat" root bark, that's a tree. Q: What is lady's slipper used for, do you know? A: Some kind of medicine, I don't know what. And Beth Root and Indian Turnip, sprigmint and angelico. Q: I've heard some of these, but some I've never heard of before. Like I have heard of ginsang and things like that. They pay a pretty good price for tinat, don't they? A: Dollar an ounce. (Mrs. Greer) get hardly nothing. (son) Pepper drinks that you but. Q: A: It wasn't back then, you didn't You take now, you know these Dr. That's wild cherry flavor. It is? Yeah and this here root beer drinks that you buy? That's sassafras flavor. Q: It is? I didn't know that. So they use some of these herbs for those drinks too?v> A: (Son) I think so. (Mrs. Hartley) Sassafras and you never see no drink made with Beadwood do you? Q: Is that a herb or root or something? A: A little branch. (Mrs. Greer) just pull the leaves off. That's �what we's telling you was 15C a pound, green now. we are talking about spicewood.. (Mrs. Hartley) Mo, Them there are beadwood leaves, they are called witch hazel on the list. Q: Yeah, I have heard of that. Did your family used to use any of these for medicine, like when you could'nt get hold of a doctor? A: Oh, yeah. Make tea out of them and catnip, catnip tea. TMey used to make catnip tea and boneset and lemon balm and another kind we gathered, bugle weed, and wild horse mint. What people hepatitis 'now, wild cherry- tea from wild cherry bark will cure that in two or -three days. (Mrs. Greer)- Lord a mercy, yeah. I took my, one of my young'uns had it one time, had that for I don't know how long and I took her to the doctor time after time and she didn't get no better, just laid there like she's dead or something. Little girl came up and she was-well her and Mizelle was A'sout the same age I reckon and she said, "I had that stuff and Momma made me some wild cherry bark tea," and said, "It cured me". So I said wouldn't j^t, no harm in trying. ANd I went down here and got me some and fixed her some and in three days she's well. Q: Did you tell the doctor what you had done? A: No, they wouldn^tbelieve you. it. He'd say some of his medicine done �8 Q: Wild cherry bark, is that what it is? A: Yeah (Mrs. Hartley)' and Balm of Gilead buds you pick them. I picked eleven pounds one time and took them to Boone and got eleven dollars for it. Q: Really? Do they fix. them in town or do they send them off somewhere? A: They ship them. Q: Did you mother or grandmother used to have any home remedies, like for Wtan4lvLkids were sick? A: Oh yeah, Catnip tea and wild cherry tea, boneset. If I had to die or drink boneset , I'd have to die because I couldn't swallow that. Q: A: That is a bitter thing, oh nasty. (Mrs. Greer) Corn silk tea's good for your kidney's if you can get it ciown, but getting it down. (Son) Have you ever tasted any Quinine? Q: I have heard of it, but I have never tasted of it I don't think. A: (Mrs. Greer) Well they used to give us quinine when we was little for a high fever. Q: Really? Did it cut it down? �A: Yeah, but it would run you crazy. (Mrs. Hartley) was assifidity, you buy it at the drugstore. That there You can put that in a- put that in some kind ofaicokol, it is awful good medicine for your stomach. (Mrs. Greer) Yeah, for babies for the cholic. (Mrs. Hartley) Now you can tell her what you make. Q: (To Sofl) What do you make? A: Well, few dancing dolls,-and churns, buckets, and lamps. Things of that nature. Q: How did you get started in doing these things? Making these things. A: Making them? Q: How did you get started making them? A: How did I get started? Q: Why did you get started making them? A: I picked it up myself. Q: You just wanted to start making them? A: Yeah, well in fact I think I must have been gifted to work like that because that is what I like. Q: You sell these to craft shops? �10 A: Yeah to different places. There's not alot to be made at it because there is to many in it. Ocaasionally I build a little machinery once in a while for woodwork as the drill, lathes, grip saws, ^B^rfLuS. a"d things like that. Q: What kind of instruments do you have, do you own that you play? A: I have three right now, two guitars and a harmonica. Q: You have a dulcimer, don't you? A: (Mrs. Greer) Yeah, he's gonna build him one. one to build him one. (Mr. Hartley)) not mine, I borrowed ri.t. He borrowed that The dulcimer , that's I got it and I'm gonna get the pattern off of it to build one for myself. Q: Oh, how long do you think it'll take to build one? A: Weil, now I wouldn't have the least idea, because I ha^re never built one of those. Q: Well that makes sense. A: Well, no, I just work around home. craft work. Do you have a certain job you work at? I do garden work, I do some Well, occasionally I'll work away from home <X livrl^j help somebody finish a house of something like that, but not very often. Q: Oh, so you just stay around home and work mainly and carve all this �11 stuff? A: Well, I have been playing the guitar and other instruments like that. I reckon I been where I could play an organ ever since I coiald walk because they was an organ in the home when I was born wasn't there? Q: Who played it? A: The whole family. Q: Where did you get it? A: (Mrs. Hartley) (Mrs. Hartley) Yeah. Roebuck then. Ordered it fro'm Roebuck, Sears. (Mr. Hartley) I am gonna show you. It was Sears I have something in a few minutes It is a 1908 Sears catalog. Q: Really? Is it an original one? A: (Mrs. Hartley) Yeah. Q: Is it one that you all had? A: (Mr. Hartley) I found it advertland and I bought it. In a few minutes I'll get that out and we will go through it. Q: Okay. What can you remember about the Depression? A: (Mrs. Hartley) Well, I don't remember anything unusual that happened, Alot of people suffered for something to live on and you would see people- we lived in Tennessee part of the time at that time and you would see whole wagon trains going down there and stop �12 everywhere a wanting potatoes or something to live on. We made it pretty good through the Depression, but a lot of people suffered. Q: So it didn't affect you all as far as food? A: No, as far as food was concerned it didn't bother us. Q: Did any of the children leave home during the Depression to find work? A: No. Through the last Depression, now we went through two- one ±>out 1916 and one about 1930 and the first on I believe was the worse than the last one. We skinned pine bark and gathered stuff and bought food we had to have and o£ course we always put up a lot of food at home. (Mr. Hartley) Well the way it was, I remember just a little bit about it because I was very young, but the pBople that owned right much property and owned their own home where they could farm it, they made fairly wellthey growed allftheir own foor, but the people that rented or depended on jobs- they suffered. Q: Were neighbors helpful to each other during this time? Did they help each other out a lot during the depression? A: Oh yes. Some did- them that had anything divided with them that didn't. (Mr. Hartley) Well it was about the same way then I think it is now, there as some people that wouldn't work regardless, (Mrs. Hartley) and we helped Virgil folks down here out. had a big family. They �13 They didn't have - they owned their own home, but they didn't make much. We helped them out a lot. We always kept hogs , we killed hogs every fall, had plenty of meat, kept cows and had plenty of milk and butter and things like that. And then we growed a lot of corn and potatoes and beans and all kinds of stuff like that. Q: What about -this first depression? in 1916. A: I had never heard about it- What can you remember about it? I don't remember to much about that. remember that at all can you Vear? But these people- you can't It was hitting pretty hard on them, at that time, them that didn't have nothing to live on. And we gathered pine bark and all such things as that in order to buy the the things you can't raise like sugar and coffee, salt and stuff like that. (Mr. Hartley) Made no difference what you took to the store when they ran out of herbs at regular how much, you never got no money for it. If you get enough you get it all up in groceries or whatever you needed. They wrote out what they called a due bill. Q: A what? A: (Mrs. Hartley) A due bill. not a penny. Wouldn't never give you no money, People couldn't hardly get enough money to pay their taxes at all. Q: What did they do when they couldn't pay their taxes? A: They just let them go until they could pay them. �14 Q: Just let it pile up kind of? A: Yeah, our tax never did. We never did have our property advertised for tax, but the last paper we got there's two whole pages people's land advertised for tax. Q: They advertised it for sell for their tax. A: So they could pay their tax they were gonna sell their li'.nd— A: Mo they had to pay it with that. Now a lot of people owns enough that they pay their tax and never miss it, but they don't want to you see. (Mr. Hartley) What's the matter with times now they're taxing people so high and they're getting sick of it. (Mrs. Hartley) They will tax them so high that they CQiA't pay it hardly. Q: You said that your father had a farm. Did he ever take any of his products into towns to sell? A: No not much, well they used to. Used to take a yoke of oxsns and a load of Irish potatoes to Lenoir. Take them about three days to go «Iown there and back and they would take them a load of Irish potatoes down there to town and sell them and bring back a load of flour. Q: How would he get it? Would he get his flour like in A: Iibags just like it's bought now, cloth bags. back a thousand ppund6 at one tirae. I have seen him bring �15 Q: A thousand? How long would it take you all to run through a thousand pounds of flour? A: Oh, we didn't use it all. He let other people have alot of it. I would ruin before we could use a thousand pounds. Q: What else could he get besides flour? When he took his produce in what else could he bring hack? A: Well he never did bring anything , but flour. Q: Is that all? A: .Yeah. You see they had a little grocery store round here just below the church and there's one down on the creek and you could get all things like that, well we could have got flour, but I remember Wivius_ 4iu/ju. wasn't no flour in the stores, nor no meal either, Q: Why not? A: They just didn't sell it then. the flour mills to but flour. They'd have to go to Lenoir to the (Mr. Hartley) We raised wheat, lot of wheat, had to take it to the mill and have it ground. Q: Did you have a lot of wheat? A: No, not too much. Q: Just enough to live off of? A: Yeah, we raised wheat and rye, cut it by hand. �16 Cut it with an old-fashioned cradle. I bet you've never seen one one of them. Q: A: I don't know whether I have or not. Oh they had a blade that long and then a little bitty fingers on it about- they's little bigger round than your finger and I guess they was about 40 inches long. You'd just take that cradle, swing it around, get you a bundle and just pour it off of it. You'd get about a bundle ever lick. and rye both. I've bound wheat Go along behind the cradle and tie it up in shocks and let it dry and then stack it or thrash it- stack it and then the thrashing machine come and thrashed it, after there got to be any thrashing machines. A lot of people thrashed it out by hand. Q: How would you do that? A: Fixed them a thrasing floor and spread that our on it and just beat that grain out of it. Q: Oh, I ' l l bet that was hard work, wasn't A: Yeah. it? Then you could hold it up and the wind was blowing it'd blow every bit of the chaff and trash out of it and you just had clean wheat. Q: Isn't there something in the "Bible about the wind blowing the chaff away. �17 A: Yeah Q: With all the work around the farm, when did you all find time to play? A: When you were children? Oh we didn't play none. I was having to tend to the young'uns till I got too big to play. Q: So you never got to play? A: No, No. Q: Did your brothers and sisters ever have any little games that I didn't play none. No. they used to play? A: Oh yeah. Played ball and once in a while I could get time to jump rope or something. (Mr. Hartly) Q: What would you do? A: Veil, we'd get out and maybe we'd go somewhere there's a big a big whole of water- go swimming, or we'd get out in a good cool place in the voods, set around and talk, find us a good grapevine to swing on and played with that. Then after we ' <' learned to play music we'd get together some of us over the weekends, get back where it was cool at. Maybe a whole crowd of us gather around, play sing, and dance. sometimes keep as many as four cows (Mrs. Hartley) We'd and it's whole lot of trouble to take care of youTmilk and keep it clean. �18 Q: How would you go about doing it? A: Well, you'd just milk the cows and then strained your milk and diurn, make butter. And we kept four or five old hogs all the time and we'd feed the hogs milk and now give $1.;35 a gallon for milk. Q: Did you have any kind of ice box or something to keep your milk and stuff in? A: No, but it kept in the spring. Kept a race below the spring water ran in it all ihe time. Q: Oh, I bet it kept a lot colder, too, didn't it? A: Yeah, it kept it good and cold. We had a spring box down here when we lived here and we kept our milk in the water. (Mr. Hartley) The way we'd do-that we'd get some kind of good wide board, make a box* Make it waterproof. Go right down below the spring, we'd dig out a space in that branch there that would fi>^ it so the water would stand about eight inches deep in the box -and the W^W- hjojld, flow through that box all the time and that's what kept the milk and butter cold. Q: Looks like after a while the water would start to rot the box or something. A: Oh, it won't run under the water at all. �19 Q: What the box. wouldn't be under water? A: No, not under water, no. Q: How long did you have to use it like this before you got an icebox1 A: I guess about my whole lifetime up until about thirty years ago. Q: Really? A: About thirty of thirty-five years old. I guess I was thirty-five, maybe forty before we ever got refrigerator. our first refrigerator in '55. five years old then. (Mr. Hartley) We got (Mrs. Hartley) Well,X was fifty- (Mr. Hartley)) Well, you see we didn't get ttie electricity until '54, then '55 we got the refrigerator. (Mrs. Hartley) We didn't have no electricity till about '54. Q: Iteally? A: (Mr. Hartley) They didn't nobody around down in here have no electric til right up around '53. (Mrs. Hartley) Electric wasn't down in here til that time. Q: Wasn't that hard not having electricity? A: Well you never was used to it, you wouldn't miss it, if you never knew nothing about it. But now if you were to go back and didn't have electricity it would be rough. It would be bad now. never was a car down here til about '22, 1922. down here. There Not even one car �20 Q; Really? Do you remember if that is that the first time you had ever seen a car? A: Oh, no. I had rode in a car before that time. Q: Wiat did you think about the car when you first saw it? A: Oh, I didn't think much about it. First car I was ever in was Charlie Watson's, when Roxy and Deity, my two sisters went to Boone to lave their tonsils out. and I rode in that car. taken out. That was nineteen and eighteen I went with them to KuVt- their tonsils But the first car that was ever down in here was Seymore Carroll's car and they never was a car down in here til '22. Q: Why not? Just nobody down here had one? At No they couldn't get in and out of here. There wasn't no road. Couldn't get in and out, no there wasn't no road they could drive on. Q: So that's how you traveled before you had a car? A: Yeah, walked. I walSed. I could walk then. First time I ever went to Boone I was eighteen years old before I ever went to Boone. Q: How long would it take you getting there wilking? A: Oh not long, not too long, no. Deerfield, that way. Went up to Jake's mountain through �21 And the first time I ever went to Boone I went up there to my mothers sisters, walked up there. We got back home about two o'clock. Q: Did you? And that is the first time that you had been to Boone? A: First time I ever went to Boone I was eighteen years old. Q: What did you think about it? What did it look like when you were eighteen, what did the town look like? A: I don't remember. cThere wasn't too many buildings there. I remember Roby Blackburn's, went into see him, she-her son had died and she went up there to, have , be appointed administrator. Roby Blackburn up there and he asked me how old I was. And I saw I told him I was ei ghteen and he said I was old enough to begin to court just a little bit but I wasn't old enough to get married yet. Now most all the buildings that was up there at town, I would say fourteen years ago, was torn down. Q: Really? What kind of buildings were up there? A: Well, there's some of them was dwellings and some of them was for business purposes. Now up at the place where I bought my first Gibson guitar I ever owned was tore down. the theater is at? You know that parking lot just above it? Right there. Q: You know where That is where it was? The store? �22 A: Yeah, it belonged to Richard Greene. Q: Richard Greene? A: Yeah he owned it. He owned the store? He had his music store in the basement of his house.' Q: And it/s torn down? A: He is dead now. Did he go into another business or what? I have got the guitar now yet, the one I bought from him. Q: The very first one you bought? A: No, it is just the third one but it is the first Gibson. Q: Oh, -that is the kind that my brother has. I think it is a Gibson. When'did you get your first guitar? A: The first guitar I got was in, the first one that I ever owned I got it in 1936. Q: Who did you get it from? A: Sears and Roebuck. Q: Did you? A: Uh huh. Do you still have it? I wished I had kept it. A guitar like it today costs $32.00 and that one costs four dollars and thirty-nine cents. �23 Q: What kind was it. A: Silverstone. Q: Prices have certainly changed. A: (Mrs. Hartley) You could get a good cow for $15.00 but you had to work thirty days to get that $15.00. Q: WMit, just doing any kind of work? A: Any kind of woirk that you done you just got 50C a day and you had to go to work at 6:00 of the morning and work till 6:00 of the evening, for 50C. Q: That is the most you could make was 50£? A: 50C, 50C a day, and people got so they could get a dollar a day for work and they thought they's going to town. Women, when they worked they got 25C a day and the woman would do just as much a« the man, they got, a man got, 50C a day and that wasn't fair. Q: What kind of jobidid the women have to do? A: Oh, they would get and work in the fields hoeing corn and working out like tbat. Q: What about the men, what did they do? A: They would do things like that too. Worked in timber and the saw- �24 mill, cut timber and logs, and I worked in the sawmill. They wasn't no way to get lumber out of here only haul it out with,* team. Couldn't get in here with a truck. Q: Either oxen or horses? A: Oxens or horses. Q: Didn't you say that your father worked wi-fk the sawmill? A: Yes Q: Would he just cut up the lumber? A: He usually logged. Q: Logged? A: Pull logs into the sawmill out of the mountains. What would he do, what do you mean by logging? He'd pull them with teams and he done a lot of carpenter work, too. (Mr. Hartley) He helped build every house that was built in the neighborhood, until he died. Q: He was probably a pretty \\&rd worker then, pulling all that stuff. A: Yeah Q: How long has it been since you have made a quilt? A: I ain't been too long. four years. (Mrs. Greer-neighbor) It's been about (Mrs. Hartley) I guess it has since we made one. But I've got some more to make cause I have got some to quilt. �25 I ain't got nowhere to put them up to quilt. Ain't got room in here and it is too hot upstairs in the summer time and too cold in the winter time. Q: Where did you used to quilt them? A: We'd quilt them right here but we didn't have as many things in this room, (Mrs. Hartley left the room to get a quilt to show me so I talked to Mr. Hartley about school until she got back.) Q: How much schooling did you have? A: I went to the fourth grade and then I got sick end had to quit. Q: Do you remember your first year of school, the Very first day of of school? A: Yeah, I didn't like it. Q: You didn't like it? A: Well, I didn't like my teacher awfully good. Q: Where did you go to school? Ai It was down here. Why not? I tell you, you know down yonder where come down, you know where the church is around there? Well, you know where you come on down to that road you turn left to come straight on down this way? Well you remember after you got on down, you �26 remember that house that's setting over that creek? Right there was where the school house was at. Q: Really? How long has it been since they have torn it down? A: They te.d the last school house there at the '40 flood. (Mrs. Hartley returned with her quilt) Q: Oh, this is beautiful! When did you make this one? A: It ain?.t been too long since we quilted this one. Q: Is this a certain pattern? A: Star. (Mr. Hartley) If she wants to make a certain design in her quilting, I help her figure her patterns out. Q: Do you make up the patterns? A: Yeah Q: I knew that there were some certain patterns to go by but I didn't know that you all had made these up. pretty. A: Oh, these are Now, do you do these by machine or hand or what? (Mrs. Hartley) I can do it by hand or by machine or either one, It is quilted by hand. Q: Are you ging to go back to quilting? A: I don't know. I don't know whether I could or not. I've got �27 I ain't hardly able to do nothing. A: (Hr. Hartley) People used to talk about seeing such hard times back then, I don't wonder at it. Took everything they could rake and scrape to buy buttons with to go on the clothes aad they was made of brass, and brass never was cheap. (Mrs. Hartley) Well, people back then didn't know how to have nothing. The land vas worth three times as much as it is now and -they planted about four hill of corn to the acre. (Mr. Hartley) They would plant •the corn four foot apart each way. Q: They just didn't know? A: (Mrs. Hartley) Didn't know hosr to do it. take you right now and show you a farm. (A\r. Hartley) I can It is in Ashe County and it is a beautiful farm too and way back, it is a great big farm about 300 acres was sold for one old hog rifle. Swapped for one rifle. Q: Really? Whose farm'-is it? A: Cooper's, Cooper's farm. (Mrs. Hartley) People used to buy all all the land the land they wanted for $4.00 an-acre. (Mrs. Hartley) Sell any kind of old bluff for $2.00 an acre. Q'i Why do you think their has been such a drastic change in the prices of land and everything>else? A: Well I don't know. People has just got to be bigger dogs than �28 they used to be I reckon. (Mr. Hartley) and what's run the prices of land up here in the mountains so much is the people from Florida and also from the North coming back here, and what I think has really happened is people has made so much money they either have a farm or a lot that costs just so they got it. See they could buy that land cheaper than they could pay their income tax. Q: What do you all think about all these people coming from Florida aid like from the North coming in and building houses and all these condominiums and things on top of mountains? A: (Hrs. Hartley) Well, I don't exactly approve of that, do you? (Mr. Hartley) Well, I will tell you what I think about that. I think we should hold that more or less for the people in our own state. a home. Now say for instance,say you wanted to go buy you How much more would that home cost you on that account? A 30, a $25.000 and a $30.000 home now ain't worth over $45.000. And they will burn you. up building it. And'the labor costs on a home now is more than the material to build it. people wfisn^t work like they used to did. Because And most of the contractors when you build now, they build you a house at costs plus 10%. Well they don't try to save nothing on that building material. They don't try to save nothing on the lot. Now they don't care how long it takes them to build it, why the more they are going to make. self. (Mrs. Hartley} Well, built our house practically his He cut every piece of framing in it but three. it his self. He built �29 Q: How long did it take you to build it? A: Well, in getting my^timber out and having it sawed, it took me a little over a year. See, I cut my own logs and had them sawed. I built this houee for a little less thafa $22.00. I am thinking about, I don't know whether I will or not, I been thinking a little bit about building me another one. Me and a friend of mine are going to buy a sawmill, in fact we are going to build us one a piece. Yeah, we are going to cut our own timber. Q: Where would you build it? A: I would probably build right around here somewhere and my friends gonna build one about a quarter of a mile on up above here. Right there's where I was born and raised. Q: You said awhile ago when I was talking to you about school. Do you remember any experiences that you had in grade school? A: Well, not but a very few of them, Matter of fact, what I liked about school, only it was different than it is now. We run up with a problem then in school that you didn't know what to do with, your teacher, she would come to your seat and sit with you and explain dt to you and help you, or my teachers would. She would work with the whole class like that as long as we had her for a teacher. learned in school and learned and learned fast. And my favorite subject was arithmetic, but today we call it math. Q: How much schooling did you have Mrs. Hartley? We �30 A: They just, when I was growing up they was just three months school. Maybe I would get to go two or three days during the whole term. never went to school none to amount to nothing. I (Mrs. Greer) She can out read any body you ever seen. Q: Did you teach yourself to read? A: Yeah. Q: You did? A: Well, •-! just got to reading every little thing I could come across. How did you know how to teach yourself? (Mrs. Greer) there? Q: You see all them books and things stacked up across She reads everything in the world. That is really good. What about your brothers and sisters, did they get to go to school? A: Oh yeah, they went to school. Q: Did your parents go to school? A: Yeah, both of them could read and write. Q: How many years did £hey go? A: I don't know. They didn't have no school much. Back then children didn't get to go to school, they had to work, and their wasn't no compulsion school laws then. Q: I never went to school none hardly. Do you know what they used'to do Hor discipline in the schools? �31 A: Used to whip them. stand up. Sometimes make them slay in. Sometimes make them I was going to school in an old log cabin, and one boy, they made him stand up and he fainted. He was a grown man just about, Granville Tripplett. Q: Who was it? A: Qranvilfc Tripplett. Q: Do you say you went to school in a log cabin? A: Yeah. Q: Was it one room? A: fust one room and they didn't have no glass in them, just open He is dead now. windows and a big old fireplace, they kept a fire in it, big old chimney, kept a fire in. Q: Who would keep the chimney supplied with wood? A: Well, the students would. Yeah, they was woods all around it and and they would cut the wood. Q:, About how many students would be in the classroom? A: They would be about. I've got a group here of pictures taken, maybe I can find it. Q: What did they used to do for discdpLine when you went to school? A: (Mr. Hartley) Well, sometimes they would use a switch on them, �32 sometimes a paddle or they'd rnark a ring out in the center of the floor and make them stand on one foot for a certain length of time. Q: What if they would fall? What would the teacher do if they lost their balance? A: Send them back to their seat. Then alot of times they would make them mark a ring on the floor and make them hold their arm up like that for a certain length of time, ot again go up and put a dot on the board and make them stand on their tiptoes with their nose in that dot on the chalkboard. Q: Just anything they could think of to do. A: Yeah. But I will tell you though, the teacher I had was good to them but she kept them under control. Q: Was she a strict teacher? A: Well, the same teacher I went to was my first grade teacher, second, third and fourth grade as the grades come up for me, why she got up, she come up and started teaching higher grades., Q: Who was she? A: It was Ollie Triplett at that time, it is Ollie Thompson now. Q: So she would just move up with you all in the grades? As you would move up to another grade, she would move up? A: Well, see she would go to school herself when school was out. She �33 would build herself up to it,. She'd teach around here and -then when school was out she would go to college. Q: Well how would the teacher go about teaching if you were all different ages? A: Would he teach you all at one time? No, they had certain classes for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grades. Q: Would they all be in the same room? A: Yeah. Q: What would the other ages be doing when he was teaching another age group? A: They was, they'd just call them up to class and have them recite one class at a time. Q: What would the others be doing though? A: Be studying. (Mr. Hartley) I believe folks back then days too Wis alot stricter with their younguns than they are now. Back then it is a possibility that they were too strict with their family andnow it is a possibility that some of them are not strict enough. Don't you believe that a lot of this doping that has got dnto the college and many different places, don't it start at the students homes? Q: I couldn't really say. �34 A: (Mrs. Hartley) No, I don't really believe parents, if they know that, I don'tAtheir parents would allow it. Of course alot of the parents are dopes too. (Mr. Hartley) Yeah, what I mean, I think alot of times I believe these things begins at home. Q: Probably so. Probably has the roots of it at home. A: Or at least in the hometown. You see, the students that go to college up there are from all over. some cases their from other nations. All over the nation and I don't know you might not agree but I think in America, I don't think they should allow anybody in Boone to have schools but for theJAmerican students. And you know that as messing up our nations too much and that is giving other nations the chance to learn too much about our affairs, Q: You think they should stay in.their own nations and country and go to their own schools? A: I think that we'd be better off. Q: That is interesting. A: This United Nations"4Keu have got I don't think too much of fchat. Because we are paying for all of it and the other nations are paying for none of it. Q: We are paying all the expenses. You don't think that it is helping keep peace or something with other countries or anything? A: There^ is no way to keep peace with other countries because we have �35 done found, looks to me we've done found that out. All they are doing now, just trying to get everything out of us that they can and we are giving it to them. Now I have had people that stayed in i Germany for three or four years andhow I had a cousin, her and her husband stayed ovet there for four years and she told me that the German people had any love for Americans they did not. they hated our guts. fact. (Mrs. Hartley) She said that And I wouldn't doubt it that ain't about the Now I think that our government authorities is just doing the American people awful wrong. They are taxing them out of all reason in the world and then sending it to them people over seas now that is not fair. I don't think they should do that. (Mr. Hartley) Well, now you know when they settled this here peace treaty there in Vietnam, whenithey went- and signed that peace treaty and they wanted to i give North Vietnam so many million dollars, two and and a half million, I think, and South Vietnam two and a half million , I agree with you that isn't fair, it isn't fair. Q: What, to give them the money? A: To give thm the money to build back with. They was the ones that started the war and they were the ones tho^" tore up everything. Vfty not let them fix it back themselves. Q: Where would they get the money to fix :it back? A: (Mrs. Hartley) Where did they get all the money to buy all that equipment for the war? �36 Q: Well, that is right. A: (Mr. Hartley) I think to let them whup theirselves, that would teach them a leason. � 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 William and Elizabeth Hartley, June 11, 1973 Description An account of the resource Elizabeth Hartley was born in Arnold's Branch, North Carolina in 1900 and lived on a farm where her only job was to collect herbs and dig roots. William Hartley is the son of Elizabeth Hartley. Mr. and Mrs. Hartley both talk about growing up and childhood activities such as picking herbs, but they both agreed their childhoods were mostly hard. Mr. Harley talks about playing instruments like the organ and his interest in music, while Mrs. Hartley discusses her hobby of quilting. They both reminisce about what it was like living through the Great Depression and such as using electricity for the first time in 1953 and seeing their first car in 1922. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Weaver, Karen Hartle, William and Elizabeth 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. 36 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_tape73_William&ElizabethHartley_1973_06_11M001 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Triplett, 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 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-06-11 Elizabeth Hartley farming Great Depression herbs homemade remedies instruments Quill Weed quilt making quilts roots sawmill schoolhouse Triplett William Hartley 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 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/0e9f9812f094fab788424d2902696892.pdf 4ea8e2aabeffb2a8bf6a33e4f60f0376 PDF Text Text CHECKER BOARD COMPOSITIONS n*fff<*£*mij ��fr-^T^tA / Q//l*^4jst^*SsT*r*-i? �/ ^r -^^f-^j ^J^. v -—x-z-**^ sY?T7^r>-tf A -#• ^7*7*^**^-^-- ~V*~t*~Sttr?7 I/ ^^^~YV9 v-M-^-zy �/I isA^-ft /" / ! , /) £*7 /n^rT'^t^f^— / / lsts-#^>*? ^. 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' 0*~-i^t^Cs • + •' �-T'y -y-^y*^ *~*~-f ��BY CUTTING OUT THE BLACK AND RED DISKS A COMPLETE SET OF CHECKERS AND CHECKER BOARD CAN BE OBTAINED � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/777f0d0f4736524b6a9f503b8024a343.pdf bc444a0a688329ef2274cb5eb0c9df7b PDF Text Text ���������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Andrew Jackson Greene Collection Description An account of the resource The Andrew Jackson Greene Collection consists of more than 160 diaries written by Greene who describes Watauga County's education system, including Appalachian State Teachers College, cultural and religious life, and agriculture from 1906 to 1942. <br /><br /><strong>Biographical Note.</strong> Andrew Jackson Greene (March 2, 1883-August 12, 1942) was a life-long resident of Watauga County, North Carolina and instructor in several Watauga schools including Appalachian State Teachers College (A.S.T.C). Greene worked as a farmer, public school teacher, and college professor. Greene was an enthusiastic diarist maintaining regular entries from 1906 to the day before his death. He also recorded A.S.T.C. faculty meetings from January 9, 1915 to May 3, 1940. He married Polly Warren, and they had three children, Ralph, Maxie, and Lester. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/190">AC.105: Andrew Jackson Greene Collection</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1906-1942 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Copyright - United States</a> Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Diary of Andrew Jackson Greene, Volume 12 [January 1, 1914 - March 31, 1914] Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="Andrew Jackson Greene Collection, 1906-1942" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/190" target="_blank">Andrew Jackson Greene Collection, 1906-1942</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1914 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 34 MB 51 pages Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 105_012_1914_0101_1914_0331 Description An account of the resource Entries in this diary range from January 1, 1914 through March 31, 1914. These entries are a more poetic approach than that which was taken in Greene’s earlier diaries. His entries give insight into his church life, his work, political debates of the time period, and community and local events. Community members mentioned include Jack Greene, Roe Warren, J.R. Garland, and J.J. T. Reece. Subject The topic of the resource Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century Baptists--Clergy--North Carolina--Watauga County Teachers--North Carolina--Watauga County Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Copyright – United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Diaries Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title="Andrew Jackson "Greene collection" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/39" target="_blank"> Andrew Jackson Greene collection </a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Watauga County (N.C.) Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. <a title="https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html" href="https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html" target="_blank"> https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html</a> Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1910s Beaver Dam church debate Fork Ridge G.P. Sherrill Hunting J.C. Davis J.F. Oliver J.J.T. Reese J.R. Garland J.R. Wilson Jack Greene Lee Swift Literary Society Mabel mill prater meeting Reverend Harrison Farthing sawmill sermon Singing Sunday School The Clansman trial Upland Literary Society Upland School