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PDF Text
Text
Tape #37
Interview With Mary Burnham
I.
Childhood Days
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
II.
Name and birthplace of parents
No brothers and sisters
Land owned and what happened to it
Birthplace
Family life as a child
Gardening, canning, scarce food periods
c
Schooling
A.
B.
C.
Parents
Mother tutored, Boston boarding school, Vassar
Taught in Valle Crucis (Mother)
c
D. Went to Mission School (9 years)
III.
History of Mission School
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
Started 1$42 by Bishop Ives, Episcopal
-,
Started school for boys, theology school
Started 1st monastic order since reformation
Brother Sciles took over
1$95 school reorganized - industrial school for boys
Changed to mission school for girls
G. 1925 on went through 10th grade
H.
I.
J.
IV.
Original idea to train women in area- scholastically
and domestically
School almost totally self - supporting
Summer used for an inn
Education
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
Boarding school at 15- from mission school
College in Maryland BA
Technology school - degree in library science
Swarthmore 4years - library
UNC - studied (graduate) ancient and medieval
history (2years)
Cornell- 4 years - Zoology Department
Library work in Boston
�V.
Religion - Ghurches in Valle Crucis
A.
Different denominations
c
B. Changes and improvements
VI.
,•;
VII.
Valle Crucis Community
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
Major events and activities in community
A.
B.
C.
D.
VIII.
Two levels
Big landowners, small farmers
Minority Groups
A.
B.
XI.
Farming
Population
Community club (changes)
Large mumber of summer residents
Modern conveniences
Decision Makers in Valley
A.
B.
X.
Political rallies
Quiltings
Family gatherings
People helping each other
Changes in Community
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
XI.
Pfening of the valley (before 1940 flood) Bishop Ives
"Vale of the Cross" Valle Crucis latin
Abbey in Vales momed Valle Crucis
S
Monastic order at the mission
Settling - deeds go back to 1$02
Most families settled by 1$40
Wagner ancestors
Foreigners
No racial or linguistic minorities
Population changes
A.
B.
C.
D.
Decrease during W.W.II and after
People come back after many years
People left to get better jobs
Attachment to Valle Crucis
£
�XII.
Elections - Party Preference
<
A. Democratic
B. Political meetings - Boone, Johnson City
XIII.
Transportation
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
XIV.
Mountain Crafts and Customs
A.
B.
C.
D.
XV.
Weaving
Chair Making
Pine needle baskets
Bark Baskets
Looking for Herbs
A.
B.
XVI.
Tweetsie Railroad - ElJt Park Terminal
7 hours to Valle Crucis from Elk Park - horse and
buggy
Paved roads
Horse and buggy
First car - Model T Ford 1925 - big event
Genseing "sang"
Galax - change in quantity in the area
Customs - Way of Life
A. Dating
B. Group activities more popular
C. . Parlor games
D. Picnics in the summer
E. Sleigh rides
XVII.
Legends and Superstitions
A.
B.
C.
D.
Planting with moon
Medicines and cures
Gardening
Superstitions vary with community
S
�XVIII.
-i
The Depression
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
XIX.
Wall Street Crash
Bank closings
Mountain people not affected as much by depression
Credit an Mast Store
WPA work (school, Boone Post Office)
CCC
Scarcity of food only among lazy or disabled
NOTE: Listen to chimes of mission is background
of tape
Prices stayed fairly level - locally raised
commodities
New ways for making money (crops)
Changes in schools during depression- improvements since depression
Changes in churches during depression
Likes - Community Togetherness
A:., Changes
B.
XX.
Closeness,, friendliness of people
Today's Lifestyle
A.
B.
C.
D.
Not a lot of change
Still comfortable in valley
Misuse of land
If she could change anything, it would be
progress in Valle Crucis (development of land, etc.)
�AOHP #37
Page 1
This is an interview with Mary Burnham for the
Appalachian Oral History Project by Lester Harmon at the
Valle Crucis Mission School on March 19, 1973•
Q:
Would you give me the name and birthplace of your
parents?
A:
Wade Hampton Wagner, Valle Crucis, N.C., Sarah B..
Marsh, Patterson, New Jersey.
Q:
And the number and names of your brothers and sisters
and their ages?
A:
None.
Q:
Did your parents own any land?
A:
Yes.
Q.
In Valle Crucis?
A:
Yes.
Q.
What happened to the land?
A:
Well, it was gradually sold off.
Most of the original
Wagner Farm was sold off in bits and pieces.
My
mother sold the last big chunk when I was about 13We still own an acre where the house where I'm living
stands now, which my mother built in 1927.
�2.
Q:
Were you born here?
A:
I was born in Avery County.
Q:
What can you remember about family life- what your
childhood was like?
A:
Well, my father died when I was about a year old, and
my mother and I lived with cousins - H.Mast's, Howard
STC'S aunt, in lower Valle Crucis - until 1927 when
we moved to the house where my husband and I now
live.
The reason for that was, my mother was
determined that I was going to school at the mission
school, rather than the public schools, which were
not as well staffed and as well built, and - everything
else, as they are now, and the schooling here was
much better than what you got in the public school.
Q:
Did you grow your ©wn food?
A:
Yes, we had a garden.
We never raised any animals
in the way of beef or pigs, or any of that kind,
but every year we had our own garden, and canned
until the deep freezer came in.
One of my earliest
memories from the age of 6 on , was helping to can in
the summer.
Q:
Do you ever remember any scarce periods, when there
wasn't much food?
�3.
A:
Well, we were lucky, my mother and I.
She had some income
on the side, so we weren't entirely dependawie on
raising everything.
But there were always times
when y/ou had a bad garden, or something like that,
and hoped you had enough left over from the
previous year.
Q:
How much schooling did your parents have?
A:
I don't know exactly how much my father had.
He went
to school, and I believe he finished about the 3rd
or 4th grade.
My mother, she was tutored privately
at home, she and her sister, until my mother was 15,
when they went to a boarding school in Boston, Mass..
It was quite an unusual school, I gathered, because
girls that
were interested in learning had the benefit
of Radcliffe and Harvard professors, who came and
taught them.
She went on to Vassar,
but she only
stayed for about a part of a semester, because in
1$91, and thereabouts, young women in college was an
exception, rather than a rule.
And she dropped out-f6r_
which she kicked herself for the rest of her life.
But she had enough background from her schooling there
in Boston, to be able to come down here and teach
Latin, English, Arithmetic - what have you.
Q:
You went to the Mission School?
�A:
F&r the first nine grades, yes.
Q."
I don't know too much about the Mission School.
Could you give me the purpose, how the Mission
school was organized.
A:
Well it goes back to 1$42 originally, at which time
Bishop Levi Silomon Ives, from the Episcopol Church,
.. came from Raleigh, to establish a mission here in
this area, which he did.
That's his log cabin that
you can see out there. (Note: Mrs. Burnham's office
at the Mission overlooks the church and a log cabin.
She was pointing out the cabin to me.)
He started a school for boys, and he started a
theological training school for ministers, and then
he started the first monastic order in this country
since the reformation.
This went on for several years
and then Mr. Ives became ill and went back to Raleigh,
and things kind of dropped off, and work was carried
on for many years, by a Brother Sciles, who's buried
down at St. John's down the river.
(Saint John's
Episcopol church, down Wautauga River.)
After his
death, things just sort of wilted for awhile, until
Bishop Chesher, also from Raleigh, began to be
interested in the area again.
In 1$95> he re-
organized the school, and started a new idea.
First
it was an industrial school for boys,- and gradually
�as the need shifted, it turned into a mission school,
training
^school - it's had various names - for girls.
But this didn't exclude the boys, because up until
its last few years of operation the local boys went
here, as well as local girls.
We had boarders here,
in the buildings here, and the rest of us came in
from the community.
Anybody that lived in this area,
within ; walking distance, came here rather than to
go to the public schools.
It was
nearer, and they
didn't have bussing systems in those days, so it
was to their advantage to come here.
From 1925 on,
it went through the 10th grade, so you could get your
high school diploma from here.
And the've had as
many as, oh, from the old enrollment books I've
looked at, they've had upwards of 100 going to school
here.
And what happened in earlier days, was a lot
of community, lower valley and others.
The public
school usually had about 6 months that it ran, and
finish up up here.
If they went to a public school,
they didn't have to quit, they could keep on if they
came up here.
So, it was really used by the entire
community, rather than being limited.
But the
original idea of the mission school was to bring
in young women from around this area, who maybe
didn't even have a public school near them.
But
they could come here and live, and not only were they
�6.
taught scholastically, but they were taught housekeeping,
and domestic arts, and things like that.
In fact, at
various times, this place was almost totally selfsupporting.
We had a big farm, chicken houses, the
apple orchards, the dairy herd, ice cream and cheese
factory.
And all of these things contributed to the
support of the students.
I was just reading some of
the old bulletins the other day when I was looking
around for some historical material.
for a girl for a year was $100,
A scholarship
so you can tell that
they had to be self-supporting in a lot of ways, to
get by for
that little for a whole year.
In the
summertime, they used the place as an inn, and people
came from away and stayed here as they did in
days.
those
People didn't just get in a car and go and go
and go.
They came someplace and they sat down, and they
stayed.
And from the cities, frequently the mother and
children would come up the 1st part of the summer.
The father would come up weekends, and when his 2 or
3 weeks vacation came, he
came and stayedVv&re too.
All the big houses around here were crammed during
the summers with visitors from away.
A lot of them
stayed all summer, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, what have you.
And the girls from the school, some of them who
couldn't get back to their homes, or didn't have homes,
�7.
would stay here during the summer and work in the
kitchen or dining room, and so forth.
Q:
You went to the mission school your 1st 9 years?
A:
For the first 9 grades.
Q:
Did your mother teach here?
A:
She didn't teach while I was going to school here,
except to substitute.f She had
taught here.
She
came from New Jersey to teach here originally, in
1909, met my father and never left.
at various intervals here.
fill in.
But she taught
When I was a baby she taught-
Then she taught after I was away, she taught
again at various times.
She was always handy, if they
needed a substitute- almost anything that they needed.
Q:
After you went to school here, where did you go?
A:
Well my mother had been sent to boarding school when
she was 15, and she therefore went on the theory
that I went to boarding school when I was 15, so I
was sent to the Hannamore Academy in Ragsterstown•'
Maryland, where I graduated from high school.
Also,
at that time, the llth grade was as high as the N.C.
schools went, and most colleges were requiring 12
grades, so that was another reason for going away.
�Q:
And after high school?
A:
I went to Hood College in Frederick, Maryland and
recieved my A.B. there.
Then I went to Drexel Institute
of Technology in Philadelphia and recieved my Bachelor
of Library Science degree there.
Q:
And then you came back to Valle Crucis?
A:
No, then I worked at Swarthmore College for 4 years,
in the library.
Then I came to U.N.C. for 2 years,
in graduate study in Ancient and Medieval History.
Then I went to Cornell University to work for 4 years
in their Zoology department - I was librarian of the
Zoology department.
And then I was out of the
library business for 2 or 3 years.
I was living in
Boston, and I went back to library work,
I worked
8-g- years, partly as patients librarian and partly as
medical librarian at the Shaddock Hospital in
Jamaica Plain, Mass.
I met my husband in Boston, we
married, and when her retired from gov. service, we
came down here to live.
One of the old ladies around here who wasn't too
familiar with education - she heard something about
my going to graduate school - to library school after college.
She was doing somebody's laundry.
The story is that she came up out of the washtub and
said, "Ain't that Mary Wagner ever going to get
educated!?"
�Q:
What sort of churches were in the area when you were
a child?
A:
Well, the Methodist Church in the lower valley, and
the Episcopol Church here.
I remember as a small
child, going to the old chapel down the road.
remember some of
out here.
And I
the building of the stone church
The Methodist Church, this church, and old
St. John's down the river, are the only ones I really
remember.
Q:
What were they like then, and have they changed much
since then?
A:
Well, the Epicopol Church doesn't change too much.
Of course, we've added things here and there, and so
forth.
The Methodist Church has done improvements, and
so forth, in their building.
St. John's has since
sort of folded, except for a service once or twice
a year.
Q:
But,
they're pretty much the same.
About the Valle Crucis community, - do you know how
it got it's name, and how it was formed?
A:
Well, the story that we all go by and believe pretty well based on fact, I think - is that Bishop
Ives gave the name for the valley and - this was
before the 1940 Flood which sort of rearranged part
of the scenery.
The creeks in the valleys-looked out
from the other building here, you can't see it too
�10,
well from here, crossed in the middle or met in the
middle of the meadows down there, sorta in the shape
of a St. Andrew's Cross.
Then if you really look at it,
well, up in that direction which is Clark's creek,
back
this direction and then down the road towards
the store and then up cross from big school Barns
down there, there are four little coves that come in
so you, by stretching your imagination make it look like
a St~i Andrew's Cross.
And also there was an Abbey in ',
Wales which was named Valle Crucis, and we think that
may have had something to do with Bishop Ives naming
it Valle Crucis.
Q:
And this is in Wales?
A:
Uh - hum, that's the original Valle Crucis.
Q:
What about the mission school that's over there
established in
the last quarter here?
A:
Yea, uh - hum.
Q:
Did it have a special name?
A:
Order of the Holy Cross.
And in the church out here,
the stone church, in the back you'll find a wooden
cabinet, alter, small alter and so forth with an
inscribed memorial to Brother Scyles; was the first
long term member of the monastic order since the
Reformation.
�11.
Q:
That was the first one established in this country?
A:
Un - hum.
Q:
How was the community formed or why was the community
formed?
A:
You mean sociologically, economically or
...
Q:
Yea, well just how did the people or when did the
people begin to settle in this area?
A:
Well, I've got some old land deeds at home that go
back to 1$02; the land in this area.
Most of the
families, I guess,were settled in or around this area
by around 1&40, something like that.
but a good many of the older ones.
were a little later than that.
Not all of them,
My Wagner ancestors
They came, pretty near
as I can figure out by the records, my Grandfather
must have come here just before the Civil War and he
worked his way came down through Virginia as many
people did from Pennsylvania and that area.
He had
a big family but it was all scattered and trying to
pick up bits and pieces of family history has been
pretty hard and I haven't really worked on it too hard.
But I know that some of my uncles were not born here
and others were.
I know my father was born in a log
cabin that my grandfather first built when he moved
�12.
into this area.
I remember the log cabin myself.
It's fallen down now , but it was standing when I
was a child.
Q:
What were some of the major events and activities
back then?
A:
Well, in those days we used to think the political
rally in Boone was a big deal and everybody went.
We had a parade on the Fourth of July and so forth.
Q:
How about the corn shuckings and . . .
A:
No, we didn't have any of that particularly.
Quiltings they had to some extent, yes.
Corn
shuckings was just a matter of - well anything as far
as the seasonal farm crops was concerned.
It meant
that everybody gathered at whoever was ready, their
house or their farm and did the work that was to be
done there and then they moved on to somebody else
was ready and in the fall when there was a lot more wheat
and buckwheat and rye raised they would come, machine
wouldoome around.
Everybody just pitched in where
ever the work needed to be done, there wasn't and big
deal about it.
Whose ever farm was being worked that
particular day, the women were responsible for feeding
the gang and of course they always put on a big meal.
How anybody ever went back to the fields and worked
after they tucked away some of those meals, AI don't
know.
�13.
Q:
How has the community changed ovef the years?
A:
It's, well of course, it's become more mechanized
and change over from crop farming to cattle farming.
Fewer people have sizable farm or
of people just don't bother anymore.
___•
Lot
They can go out
and work for wages and go to Boone, and shop.
Most
of the local people though still keep something in the
way of a garden.
Lot of us would feel lost without
it I suppose, we've had it for so long.
Things like
Community Club and so forth, it died out for a while
particularly during the war.
up again.
c
Since then its started
The biggest difference is that instead of
having summer people come and stay in the houses,
many of them have built their own, as you know.
So
there we actually have two seasons when our part time
residents are here.
local ones are here.
In the winter time when just us
And course people, living in the
community has made a difference because they're
really a part of the community for at least six months
of the year.
Anf it's sort of evident, I suppose,
our perspective having people from various places come
here, lot of the small farmers and workers and so
forth, they just go on pretty much as
they did except
they have electricity and deep freezers and f.V.'s.
�H.
Q:
Who had been the main decision makers for the valley?
A:
Well, if you want to get in the social angles, I suppose,
there's sorta been two levels.
Important, locally
v. \ • *< important families like Mast, Shawls, Bas*y4s-, Taylors,
Wagners, what - have - ya.
And then the people on a
more of a small farmer level.
were the big land owners.
Those I'd say originally
And the school here itself
which one time owned 2,000 acres.
That's a pretty
good hold in North Carolina any place.
awful lot of it.
We sold an
We actually own over 500 and some
acres now.
Q:
Have there ever been any minority groups in the community?
A:
Actually when somebody from another country came here
to Watauga County everybody got out and looked at them.
Gosh we even had one resident from Canada at one time
when I was a kid and I remember what a big deal that
was.
Somebody from a "foreign country". But in the
natural sense of racial or
I wouldn't
say we had.
~__minorities, no,
We had the occasional student
from another country at the school maybe or visitors
or something of that kind.
There's been pretty much
a close-knit relationship.
Things start getting into
family relationships in Watauga County you gotta wash
both feet and your hands too or you'd get in trouble.
�15.
Q:
When you were a child, how many people lived here as
compared to the people that live here now?
Has it
increased?
A:
There was a decided decrease during World War II and
after it because almost all the younger people got
up and moved elsewhere and many of 'em didn't come back.
And even the immediate generation following World War II,
many of them moved away, but a lot them lived within
a reasonable distance of here and come back to visit
their families.
And more and more of them are, as they
reach retirement age are beginning to come back themselves
just as I did.
But it was a question of earning a living.
Bat; o»f them didn't want to stay here and farm a few
acres when they could go to some city or town, and
get a better job.
But it's plain the hold Valle Crucis
has on people because once they've been here chances
are they're gonna turn up again sometime.
Now for
instance, couple of our local ladies were doing a
tour of England, Wales, and Scotland and they went
to a little town in Landgoland right near Valle Crucis
Abbey and they were having dinner there and someone
asked them where they were from and they said
"We're from Valle Crucis, North Carolina" and the man
said, "Oh yes, I've been there.
I was on a tour with
a singing group that went to Appalachian State
University several years ago."
experiences here.
He described his
He'd been taken around the county,
�16.
shown around.
Not very big on the map,, but you can
always turnfsomebody i^p who's been there.
Q:
Have you got any memories of any specific elections
whether they be local, state, or federal?
A:
Oh yes.
on.
That's one thing everybody gets pretty hot
I can remember 'em all.
that goes.
Hoover on, as far as
Well, a lot of them, I was away and I heard
second hand, but we were in the early days of my memories,
predominantly Democrat.
My mother was a Republican.
I don't,never decided so sure whether that was a political
conviction or just out of stubborness.
She and one or
two others were Republicans and they used to get into
some pretty high , heavy arguments whether or not to
vote for Democrats.
Now I think a lot of people, I
know a lot of people then and some today still just
vote the party rather than the candidate which is their
affair.
But it's at least broadened in some sense that
most people around are aware theyenow are two parties*
Which
were not" in the 20'.si don't think they were.
They used to have some pretty hot political meetings
in Boone.
And 'course well, one time I remember it was
Hawl Smith's Hoover campaign.
They had a Democratic
rally in Johnson City which fortunately coincided with
the visit of the circus. So I remember going to the
�17.
circus, but I remember some of the people that
went down with us, they went to the rally.
find the circus was more enjoyable.
I
I'm not
particularly politically minded till I probably
paid less attention to it than a lot of people
would.
Q:
What do you remember about the transportation
system when you were a young girl, did they have
any railroads?
A:
Well Tweetsie, yes.
The old BT and WNC ran from
Johnson City to Boone.
well when my
And it ran through Elk Park
mother came here in '99 Elk Park was
terminal, that was the end of the line.
she was
And from ther
brought here in a horse and buggy, one of
those big double buggys and it took her, I think it
was, seven hours from Elk Park to Valle Crucis.
They got stuck in the mud and they got tangled up in
the axles of an ox drawn wagon and a few other little
items.
By the time I was noticing things like that
they had graveled this road out here, which had
another name it wasn't 194 then, and it wasn't until
1927 or 8 that they paved this road through here
for the first time.
And I remember very distinctly
going down to Sunday School down at St. John's or
going up to Foscoe to visit an Uncle and Aunt, that
we went in a horse and buggy.
Mother didn't
have a
car and oh, it was a big deal when Mother got her
�IB.
Model T Ford in 1925 or 6 - 1925 when I was about four
going or five I think.
when she got that.
That was a big exciting thing
But the road from Boone to
Bck-bwing Rock to the best of my memory had not been
paved then, 'cause I remember going down it when it
was gravel.
That was the old road.
now , to me, is the new road.
The one we use
The other one was a
real doozy.
Q:
Do you remember very much about the mountain crafts
and customs?
A:
Well', my clearest memory on those is of course of
Mrs. Finley Mast and her sister Miss Lownny and
their weaving cabin down at the Joe Mast's place on
the Broadstone Camp Road.
And they were very active
weaving and things of that type.
One of my memories
was going there and watching them weave and then
having Miss Lownny show me how to weave on the small
loom.
I never got to fool with big looms.
That was
too much to set for just to have somebody to play
with.
I remember them setting those up and watching
them do that.
And of course quilting - I've been
^CVwV
-te- those as a child.
them.
I've seen them - been around
And I was taught how to make a white oak
split for cane chairs.
Think I could still do it -
�19.
I never tried.
But Mr. Duke Tester, he used to do
that regularly and he sat down once and showed me how
he split a sapling, skinned it and split it, smoothed a
and so forth.
Q:
Could you do it if you wanted to now?
A:
I doubt it.
I might possibly on a small one, but I'd
be very insecure at trying because it's been such a long
time - I've just had no chance to experiment with it.
My mother went for awhile over at the craft shop in
Boone,
that little log cabin there at
_^
corner, and took some lessons just for fun.
_
At that
time they had lessons there if anybody wanted to try
'em.
I can't tell you who did it but I can remember
people doing the old pine needle baskets and so forth.
I've seen 'em do it, watched 'em do it.
baskets that you see here and there.
Those bark
Old Mr. Jason
T'Qwnsend up on Clark's Creek still makes those.
Q:
(side two)
What were the pine baskets you were talking about?
A:
Took pumps of pine needles like the little tips that
they pick in the winter to make wreaths out of.
And
They smooth 'em out and then tie them with a kind of I don't know what it is raffy or something of that kind.
And then tie it and then build up row by row, shape
your bowl or basket.
Curl your first ones around tight
and then build another bunch around that and around and
aroy,iid, then on up the sides and you could shape it in
�\0
or out depending on how many needles you want to use to
make the shape you want.
! w I f ve seen 'em I think in
0
one of the craft shops around here, but I wouldn't
r swear to it.
i
Otst-i -*....£, - 0,
Q:
Did many of
the people go out looking for genseng?. '
A:
Or "sang" as its sometimes called.
There were quite
a few of them.
Q:
How about -gay
A:
Well that was quite a growing thing because, well that's
Q oJi. c>r.
one reason there' s not as much -gaylight-a, as there used
to be around.
Much of it was picked and it was a regular
thing in the fall, early winter before Christmas, people
picked it by the bushels to ship out of here.
And of
course if you don't pick it carefully why there goes
your pay 1 I jJhts.
Pull the roots up and why you've
ruined the whole thing.
areas
Now a lot of the easily -aeeeesibe
were practically cleaned out of it.
I still
ship it out, send it out to some of my friends and
relatives at Christmas time.
Q:
Not too many use it.
About some of the customs, well for instance dating,
courting, was it so much different then?
A:
I don't really know because as I say, when I was
fifteen I was sent away to boarding school and I lost
�22.
supply and needed for the winter.
A few, yea, and
there it was winter and there were one or two sleds
that they would have parties in the winter and we'd
go on a sleighride.
That was great fun.
In those days
the roads were either dirt or gravel and you could
get a good track on them and really go for a good ride.
That again was a group thing.
Q:
What do you remember about some of the folk tales,
legends, and superstitions?
A:
Oh, the usual ones like planting your beans on Good
Friday, and kill your hog at the right time of the
moon 'cause if you didn't, your bacon would curl.
Various home remedies and so forth that some of the
older women had.
Like if somebody was drowning or some-
thing you'd roll 'em over a barrell and if someone threw
a fit, you threw all his^ clothes in the fire and
burned 'em.
Didn't matter whether they were brand
new, whether he had money in his pocket or not threw 'em all in the fire and burned 'em.
noticed that it did much good.
the garden and things like that.
Never
Most of 'em were about
Still there's
people around here that you wouldn't believe that
will tell you up and down about the garden - if you
don't plant at a certain time why your crop won't grow.
�23,
For instance if you make sauerkraut at the wrong time
of the moon it'll go on you, it won't
properly^ §0—bad on-y^m.
season
These things, they can vary
from one area, one little community to another one that
may be only four or five miles away. Each one will
have it's own little version.
Get 'em all together and
have mish - mash, but they do believe them.
The women
here who work the school, they'll tell you straight
up and down if you don't plant something at a certain
time you won't have any luck with it.
I can plant it at
a certain time and still don't have any luck with it.
Q:
When did the Great Depression start as best as you can
remember?
A:
And how many years did it last?
Well I remember my first awareness of it was my mother ,
took the New York Times and of course Wall Street crash
was very big in the N.Y. Times.
I remember that part
of it, I remember very distinctly the bank closing and
I think in between that, as I say, we knew the people
working in these areas govermnent agencies to help
people out, but we simply weren't that much aware of it
as they were in the cities because
people
here at least eould raise an adequate, or fairly
adequate, food supply.
I know at the store for instance,
at Mast's Store, you can look it up in some of the old
�24.
books down there that Mr. Mast has, long lists of
U^/
people who bought an credit for a long period of time
until they could find work.
But I imagine that right
around here probably Mast store carrying people on credit
did as much for the local people as some of the
government agencies.
They know these people; they
know that they'd be good for it when they could, but
really it didn't make that much of an immediate dent
in most people around here.
Q:
What do you know about government projects WPA?
A:
Well they built the stone part of the public school
down here and they built the post office in Boone, but
they were very much present.
They worked right here,
and I remember the C.C.C. camps very distinctly, although
there weren't any around here, but there were some
boys who did go to those camps from here.
various projects.
There were
Well, I didn't have any direct ..
response to them except I knew people working on them.
Q:
Do you remember when they started effecting this area,
or started working in this area?
Well, let me think; it was'32 wasn't it?
I'd say it
�25.
was about a year and a half or two years after that
they began to show around here.
I'd say and
They was slower coming
it was slower leaving.
Q:
Was there ever a scarcity of food among the people?
A:
Among those families who were not able to, or willing to
work on their own crops.
Q:
Yes, there were some.
Were the prices like at the store, were they high or
low or during the depression?
A:
Well, of course compared to now, they were lower by many
many times and very few people bought much of their
food a:fc''!i the store outside of staples like flour and
sugar and coffee.
There we're a whole lot more things cheaper
than coffee a lot cheaper than hard coffee bought
in those days.
drinking it.
Lot of people are like that, still
But, about all j remember in that
respect is that the prices in this area seemed to me
to stay fairly level.
They didn't go up the way
they did in some of the cities, because so many of
these commodities were raised locally.
And so
instead of shopping potatoes out - potatoes were
a cash crop at that time.
Potatoes went to the towns.
So these areas shipped out, out of state or further
down state.
Apples of course were always
�26.
because there were a number of orchards in this
state.
Pay was low, I remember that very distinctly.
The men working the orchards were making 20 - 400
an hour.
And women would come in and do house work,
for instance, for a dollar a day.
And women, that
was a good day of pay.
Q:
Did any of the people around, try to come up with
new ways for making money?
A:
Well, if I know crops for instance, potatoes were a
big crop.
Potaotes, cabbage, corn, and various grain,
made crops,
^nd then we had a big thing on green
beans for a while.
And everybody began cash croping the beans,
And that, began to fall apart.
tobacco began to fail.
That was when the
Then when I was small, tobacco
was not a big crop around here by any means.
very small.
It was
Folks a somebody just grazed small
amounts of it themselves. Something of
that sort.
Just been a shift in emphasis on what
crop they could make cash one.
Q:
How about the schools?
Did they change very much
during the depression?
A:
Uh, they began to, the public schools began to pull
�27.
themselves up by their boot straps.
They really
began to take a look at what the world works and
upgrading.
I'ts been a long process. I think the area
schools are better now then they ever were before.
Even though there's
in some of them.
been slow improvement, I know
But the school term went through-
while quality and training of the teachers improved.
And prior to the depression, anyone who had a high
school education or a
__, „ plus would gladly
teach in any school they wanted to.
And any teacher
who had high school, or a little more, why they
could teach school.
They would make do with what
they had at the time,
or what the state would give
them in the way of money.
it wasn't worth much.1
i
But I think from the depression on,' the schools were
gradually building upwards, constantly.
think they've backed any.
I don't
It's been a constant
upward move.
Q:
How about the churches, did they change much during
the depression?
A:
No, uh I don't tMnk so.
Change isrfU something that
uh, goes over to big around here.
It takes a long
�28.
time and is slow.
People got to stop and see something
worse before they're gonna snap it up.
They not gonna,
somebody come roaring through with a big idea.
Not many
people around here are gonna fall right in the line and say
okay we'll do it right now.
first.
They got to see if it works
I think the churches have held their ground pretty,
well here.
I think there's less emphasis on the church as
a social unit perhaps.
But most of the families that
went to church then, still go to church now, and they choose
which church they go to and uh what the church near to one
of them then.
Uh, there is to some degree of the church
going on the younger generations part.
middle age and older groups.
of alligience.
I think that the
It's all a certain shift
Someone will belong to one church and marry
someone who belongs to another church.
And I think the
dominant partner in a marriage says as to where the family
ends up going to the mothers church or the father's church.
This is true today where people don't have that conviction;
but their church is the only church that they'll shift.
Chances are theys go to church somewhere.
Q: What do you think was best about the days back then?
A:
Well we lost our sense of community togetherness, I'd
say.
Well, this is still true right around here.
If
something happens to a family, everybody will get together
�29.
and try to do everybody will get together and try to do
something about it.
Or if a family's burned out for
instance,everybody goes out and sprays their attic or
pantry or what have you, to see what they can spare.
Now
of course, this has changed to a certain extent because
now you can channel it through uh fire department, and
before, they didn't have a fire department.
was up to the neighbors to get up and do it.
Before it
Uh, in some
ways its not quite as close a religious group because of
broad communications and more travel.
But still when it
comes to punching somebody who's down or something like
that, why the people will get together quietly and try to
do something about it.
Why well, this is an instance.
Sort of ties in general things I guess.
when my mother died.
We were in Boston
And coming down my husband asked
on the plane, "How much will it cost to have the grave
dug?"
"I don't plan any arrangements or nothing.
says,"What do you mean?"
it done.
I said,"The neighbors will have
They'll get together and have it done.
"But won't they charge?"
He
I said, "No"
He says,
They expept sometimes
when something happens in your family, you'll come and help
dig the grave for them.
And uh of course we didn't stay
at the house after it was closed, my house.
Later on we
were living here, my son-in-law died, and we didn't go in
the kitchen, my step daughter and I, we didn't go in the
�30.
kitchen for 3 days.
over the kitchen.
hear a tap
Well the neighbors came in and took
And everybody brought food.
in the door.
And you'd
It was somebody else with
something else to bring food.
And this was the way things
were taken care fo down here. When something like that
happens, the neighbors just sort of take over, help out.
Q: I have had a lot of contact with Richard and other people
in the valley; and they say it's still alot like that.
A:
Yes it is. Well, Mrs. Zares died recently.
originally
She wasn't
from here, but she lived here for a few years,
Their children live, one in Charlotte, and one in Baltimore
I believe. But the same thing happened. Someone from the
church, and various other people just came in.
And every*- -
body brought food. And they just took care of the meals
and dishes and everything for the time the family was here.
Q: What do you like best about today's life style?
A:
It's still relaxed^ it's comfortable and you're not
pushed too much.
If you want to scurry around, but if you'1
don't want to, you can sit back and know things are going
to be pretty much theaame. And of course there's more worry
about vandelism and breakage and there's more of it.
And there's more temptation towards it too.
A lot of these
�31.
houses are closed up six months of the year.
But
basically I think the community is still a unit.
Of course some of us are beginning to worry that
ther will be too much building and too much misuse
of some of the land.
And we'd like to see it kept
as a small quiet country community.
We have no vital
urge for a shopping center or anything like that.
So when we get to Boone, and you get all you have
over there.
Q: If you could change anything now, what would it be?
Would you keep the valley like it is?
A: To a certain extent.
I'm not against people coming
-&.. C'-^
in if it's done in a way.it doesn't spoil the valley.
1
A lot of people, a lot of people are crazy to have a
golf course out here in the fields.
less.
But I could care
Infect, I would care very strongly that I
hope they don't.
Because we're; our particular lot
is just a little corner surrounded on three sides by
a possible golf course, which I don't care for at all.
t
It's something ,Ife-*riT not resented, but never happy
about for $0 years was the fact that I've always
t(J h l'^a/H4--^
thought sold the last of the Mhifefter land.
Out of a
deal, I'd like to have that 70 acres still in my hands
even though it is rocky on top of a ridge.
But at
least I know somebody's not going to put a housing
development on it.
�32,
Q: Well Mrs. Burnham, it's been good talking to you
and I sure do appreciate what you told us.
Hope
we can come back some other time.
A: Glad to help
you if I have, glad, whatever.
�
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
2014-02-11
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Mary Burnham, March 19, 1973
Description
An account of the resource
Mary Burnham was born in Avery County where she grew up and attended Mission School for her first nine years of education. She then went to boarding school called Hannamore Academy in Ragerstown, Maryland. Ms. Bornham continued her education at Hood College in Fredrick, Maryland and Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She then worked at Swarthmore College for four years as a librarian. She also went to UNC for graduate study in ancient and Medieval history. Ms. Burnham worked as a librarian in the department of zoology at Cornell University and at Shaddock Hospital in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts where she met her husband and eventually after retirement made her way back to the Valle Crucis area.
Ms. Burnham explains the history of the Mission School she attended. Ms. Burnham goes into detail about the Valle Crucis community including its history, major events, and the current differences compared to her childhood. Her memories of the area also include politics, specifically elections and the typical transportation of the area. Ms. Burnham then speaks of the traditions and customs of the area such as quilting and weaving. Other traditions she talks about include picking herbs, folktales, and group activities she experienced as a child. Ms. Burnham recollects the Great Depression and its effects on the neighborhood including the public schools and churches.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harmon, Lester
Burnham, Mary
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
3/19/1973
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.
32 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_tape37_MaryBurnham_1973_03_19M001
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Valle Crucis, NC
Subject
The topic of the resource
Avery County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
Depression--1929--North Carolina--Avery County
Valle Crucis (N.C.)--History--20th century
Cornell University
Drexel Institute
Great Depression
Hannamore Academy
Hood College
Mission School
Shaddock Hospital
Swarthmore College
Valle Crucis