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This is an interview with Ruby Trivette for tLe Appalachian
Oral History Project by Bill Bullock on February 17, 1973.
A:
As far back as I can remember when I was a child and lived
—
I was born in Ashe County, about 20 miles, no, about 15 miles
from here; and the family moved to the present location when I
was 5 years old.
My grandparents lived within sight and I can
remember going to my grandparents' home as a child and being
homesick.
I wanted to go home, and being unable to say "home"
or to make that distinction known, I was told I always said,
I!I
want to ;go walking."
Somebody usually pacified me before
the time to go home.
My memory of life before that time is rather sketchy and varied;
I'm not sure what I remember and what I've been told that I was,
has become a part of my early memories.
Whether this is something
I remember or have been told about, it has become a part of my
so-called memory.
When I was very small, before we moved to this
particular area, I can remember riding on the old workhorse
(I believe the
old horse's name was Kate.).
From the barn, I
can remember riding the horse with my Father holding me on the
horse down to the watering trough in the old spring-place to
get —
to water the
old horse.
My Father had some sheep and
on this particular Spring, I possibly was four or maybe five,
I'm not sure.
But among the little lambs there was one black
one which became mine by divine right of having my own way; and
�I can remember being so proud of that little lamb, and how
heartbroken I was when one morning the little lamb did not
turn up with the rest of the sheep.
When daddy got out to
hunting it, why, he found it had died from what reason I
have no idea whatsoever.
When we first moved to this particular setting, these whole
meadows here were covered in mostly laurel, some maple, and
other hardwoods of that sort.
The creek at that time had many
deep holes and my brothers and I found it quite an enticing
place to play.
There was rather a mythological, scary figure
that, we were told, would get us if we went out to the creek.
That particular thing we called ol'Bloodybones.
I never knew
exactly what Bloodybones looked like but it sufficed to keep
us away from the creek at a time when we might have been
drowned.
In fact, I remember one time my younger brother, I
recall, was just a small toddler, and he had fallen
that crossed the creek.
off a footlog
At that time we carried water from
across the creek from the spring and brought it up the house.
He had fallen off into a rather deep hole and fortunately my
Mother saw him and was able to yank him out of the hole.
And again in those days, toys, such as children have such a
number of today, did not exist.
For jumpropes, we went over on
the hill and cut green briars and very carefully got rid of the
briars.
But we had some good jumpropes.
There was also some
sort of a vine and we called it "jackvine". I'm not sure just
what the correct name was, but we made ropes and jumpropes and
�tied all sorts of things with that.
Many times we'd go up onto
the mountain into the woods and we'd find wild grapevines.
Of course, (at) that age we were not trusted with a knife, but
we didn't need a knife many times.
We'd find a sharp rock and
keep beating and banging and bruising on an old grapevine down
at the ground to the point we were able to just get hold of the
grapevine and swing out - way out into the woods - it made no
difference to us if down underneath us, forty or fifty feet, was
a big rock cliff.
That didn't bother at all.
Q:
What was Christmas like?
A:
What was Christmas like?
Christmas for us in the early days
was; well, it was a time when we looked forward to it a great deal.
It was not commercialized to the extent it is today, and since
children didn't have a great deal of toys.
If we got one toy,
the boys got a jackknife from a Jay Lynn catalog, or a juice harp
or French harp.
That, maybe one toy, and most of the time we
needed shoes or clothing, so maybe we got some clothing, and
maybe an orange or nuts, and a little bit of candy - most stick
candy than any other kind.
I recall one time I got what I
thought was the most beautiful doll that I'd ever seen; the first
store-bought doll I ever had.
or six at the time.
Q:
What was it like?
I must not have been more than five
�A:
I tell you, I had a rugged life trying to keep up with that
bunch of boys; and I didn't think it was fair that they should
be able to do anything that I couldn't do.
I gave them a
hard run for their money - all of them.
Q:
What was family life like, doing chores?
A:
Every child had its own particular bit of chores to do, work
around the house.
In those days there was wood to cut, wood
to haul into the woodyard, wood to split for stovewood, and
of course, the fireplace wood to be taken care of.
There were
cattle, cows to milk, and calves to look after, and sheep to be
looked after, and horses to be fed and watered, and everybody. .
oh, chickens to be looked after.
had our own eggs.
We raised our own chickens,
I remember, possibly when I was five years
old, I took a pint cup with my Mother to milk and found out
that I could squeeze a little milk out of the old cow.
Q:
What was the main source of income?
A:
Farming.
That was about all.
In those early days people just
about raised on the farm what they existed on.
Now for sugar
and other staples that you couldn't raise, you had maybe some
extra chickens and eggs and butter and things like that.
It was mostly a barter economy in those days.
You would
�go to the store with a little jaggard of money and buy a sack
of flour or something like that.
You traded for it.
Particularly in this area, most people just about raised what
they lived on.
I can remember when we raised our own wheat
and had it ground.
those days.
Buckwheat, we used a lot of buckwheat in
We always had that buckwheat.
Raised our own,
had it thrashed and carried it up to Meatcamp to the
Winebarger watermill and had our own flour ground.
And all
transportation was by horse and wagon, buggy or sled.
Q:
What about the development of Todd?
A:
My earliest remembrance of Todd goes back to a time when Todd
was quite a prosperous and thriving little metropolis.
We had a bank.
depot.
We had a drugstore. We had, of course, the
The train, of course, ran in at that time.
The main
source of transportation and commerce at that time that
brought the railroad in here was the chestnuts, especially the
tanbark from the chestnut wood, and cross-ties and things like
that.
Much of the lumber in the area was sawed up into cross-
ties and lumber.
It left here by train.
Q:
Do you remember the train being put in?
A:
No.
I don't remember exactly.
I can't recall that, I can just
—
�I know when the train was here.
remember when it came.
That probably, no. . .1 don't
I couldn't tell you that I knew that.
The train was here as far back as I can recall.
Q:
What about the depression?
Do you remember the depression?
Can you tell me something about what happened?
A:
Well, as far as the depression was actually concerned in this
area, we had no soup lines, nor did we have anybody on
starvation.
But again, people who owned their own property
or who lived on the land, so to speak, made out with just
about what they could raise.
Grown men worked many a day for
a quarter a day, sometimes fifty cents.
But then you could
take what you earned (now that was a 10-hour day, not an 8hour day) and go to the local grocery store and carry enough
home to feed a huge family on for some time.
was just about non-existent.
time.
Money, as such,
Especially at this particular
Many people in this area began to raise cabbage for the
market, the kro,ut factory at Boone.
maybe a quarter of a cent a pound.
I believe cabbage was
I'm not sure.
It finally
got to the point that I believe we had a field above the road
over here at one time (and) I believe part of it just stood
there.
Q:
There was no sale for it at all.
Do you think people were better off out here than they were in
the city?
�A:
In that regard, yes. Because (in) rural life in those days,
as well as now, rural people tend to look after each other.
If somebody needed help, everybody shared to the last goround.
While possibly in towns or in the cities at this
particular time, maybe one didn't know what his neighbor
needed or maybe there was a different philosophical attitude.
Q:
Do you think that today that still exists?
A:
To some extent.
However, in this particular area, as far as
helping one's neighbor (or it doesn't have to be one who lives
nearby, someone in the community who has suffered some misfortune in some way), everybody tends to assist in any way
they can.
However, the time had come until "my business is
not everybody else's business."
There is beginning to be a
little more of the metropolitan attitude.
engrossed in everyone's private affairs.
We're not so
Now there was a time
when practically everyone in any area was somehow related or
inter-related and it was just about like one big family in a
sense.
And today, young people in the rural area have moved
out, and as we say, foreigners have come in; and it isn't quite
the same.
But there's still maybe a sense of a deeper
fellowship camaraderie prevalent in many areas.
Q:
What about the people that are moving in now, the tourists
that are at Beech Mountain, Sugar Mountain?
�A:
Well now, I have little connection with Beech Mountain, Sugar
Grove, or anything of that sort.
Of course, they have moved
in here primarily for summer-home and winter recreational
facilities.
Most of the people who have come into this
particular area who have purchased homes, or even have
summer homes, they are —
let's say —
they own the property,
maybe they pay taxes, but as for adding much to the general
cultural level of the community, there's not much interchange or relationship in that sense.
Q:
Do you particularly like it?
A:
Well, I have no objection to anyone getting rid of his
property wherever he wants to.
But I'll have to get down
to dire need before I'd sell any property to anybody of that
sort.
I have no, no reason for that except that from what
we have been able to see from experience.
They, maybe, the
general cultural level and educational level have not increased
any as a result.
Q:
I should say that.
Do you think these people are kind of destroying the mountains
as they were?
A:
Well, there has been a great deal of change throughout this
whole area.
Much of it has, in the ecological sense, destroyed
the native beauty and attractiveness of the landscape.
�10
Q:
So you could do without them?
A:
Well, I could.
My livelihood and my economy doesn't depend
on them in any way.
Q:
What about your education?
I want you to kind of tell me
about your early elementary school and on up until you got
your degree to be a teacher.
A:
Well, when I started to school, there was no laws, no law
giving a specific age for entry in school.
You went when
Mom and Dad decided you was big enough to get there, I guess.
I started to school in a little frame schoolhouse about a
quarter of a mile from here when I was five.
However, before
I went to school, I have no recollection at all of when or how
I learned to read; but before I ever saw the inside of a
schoolhouse, I was reading Zane Grey books and things of that
sort.
It was just a great deal of that, I'm sure, came
through my Grandmother who lived with us for years.
us all, I guess, in a sense.
boxes and so on.
and so on.
She taught
We read, oh, sugar bags and soda
We associated words with what she'd tell us
One of the earliest teachers I can remember was
Graham - D. W. Graham and his wife.
Mr. Graham is now dead and
Mrs. Graham is the mother of Dr. James Graham in Boone.
They taught at the local school.
Wilson Norris of Boone and
Mrs. Edith Norris, his wife, also were among my early teachers.
�11
Mr. Wade Norris, who died a year or two ago, was an early
teacher.
Mr. Elic Tugman, the father of the Tugman boys in
Boone, and then that just about brings it down to the time
that Mr. Ron Davis hit us all broadsided as an elementary
teacher.
Q:
I reckon everyone remembers him?
A:
Everybody remembers Ron, Mr. Ron Davis.
He was an excellent
teacher, but we thought he was awfully hard.
However, if I
was every inspired to aspire to becoming a teacher, I think
perhaps he gave me the little leverage I needed to send me on
the way.
He was very hard.
He was quite a stern taskmaster.
We soon learned when he said something, he didn't beat about the
bush about it, we knew it had to be just as he said it was.
Then that just about took me up to the time when we went into
highschool, and highschool began at the eighth grade.
Mr.
Davis continued his education along as he taught, and we thought
once we had left the elementary grades that we'd get rid of him;
but he came right along up the line, and most of us had him for
at least a few classes in highschool.
Q:
When did you go to college?
A:
I started college in 1936 and went three years, and completed
my B.S. degree in 1940.
�12
Q:
When did you start teaching?
A:
I started teaching in the fall of the same year at a school
in Wilkes County that is now no longer in existence as such.
It was Mount Pleasant High School in Wilkes County at that time.
Q:
What grade did you teach?
A:
Well, I'm an English teacher.
I taught English.
in English, French, and History.
I was certified
My first year I taught some
English, some French, and some History to the various levels.
Q:
That was 1937 you started teaching?
A:
I started teaching in 1940.
Q:
You've been teaching ever since?
A:
I've been teaching continuously ever since.
The first year,
or when I applied for a job, jobs were pretty scarce in those
days and there was no vacancy in either my own home county of
Watauga or Ashe.
I had a friend who taught, in fact, he was
the principal at this particular school.
In communication with
him, he told me there was a vacancy in my field and I applied
at this school and had the fortune to get a school.
My salary was $96 a month.
in my life —
$96 —
The biggest money I've ever earned
and 8 months school.
�13
Q:
What would you do in the summer?
A:
In the summer months when I was not in school and after I got
my B.S. degree, I did not return to school for 3 or 4 years,
I'm not sure.
Most of my summers I spent at home because the
first year I taught, I taught in Wilkes County and the illness
of my Mother made it necessary that I stay home.
I did apply
and was fortunate enough to get a job at the local school just
across the hill, almost in sight.
years.
I taught over here about 7
(As for) my summers up until when the war began, my
brothers were all in the service except for one, who was 4-F
because of high blood pressure and a heart condition.
He
hadn't been well for years.
Q:
What war was that?
A:
World War II.
Mother had a heart condition.
Eventually it
became necessary that she go to the hospital and remain there
for, oh, continuously, for the last six months of her life.
And again, that was in the time of World War II when gas
rationing and tire rationing and sugar rationing and everything
was in effect.
and back.
I just about had to make a trip a day to Boone
With a little understanding on the part of the
rationing board, I managed to get enough gas to do the necessary
running.
A.
I believe a C rationing gave you a little more than an
An ordinary passenger car, I think, got so many A stamps
�14
for a month or so and so. You couldn't get anywhere on that.
Q:
You remember the flood of '40, don't you?
A:
The flood of '40, yes.
begin in Wilkes County.
It was just about time for school to
It was to be my first school.
Before
time for school to start, the flood came and, of course, the
road washed out over the top of the mountain out in Deep Gap.
Many of the roads to Wilkes County were destroyed and schools
were delayed.
I'm not sure how long . . . several weeks until
the road could be repaired before we could start school.
Right here in this valley I well remember it rained for, I
don't know, 3 or 4 days almost continuously.
afternoon it just continued to pour.
about have saturated the whole earth.
On this particular
The rain seemed to just
This particular afternoon
it got darker than usual along about 3 or 4 o'clock.
continued to pour down.
Rain
The creek out back of my house in
ordinary times was nothing more than a little stream you could
almost jump over, and there was a footblock, I guess about 15
or 20 feet above the water that we crossed over going over on the
hill.
Some of my brothers decided they'd better get out and see
about the cattle. We had some milk cows and calves, and they
were grazing back on the other side of the creek up on the
mountain.
So a couple of them took the milk bucket over to the
cow and maybe milked; I believe they milked.
Before they could
get back, I had stepped out on the back porch and saw a veritable
wall of water coming down to the house over Balm of Gilead trees,
�15
some 30 feet high, I guess.
That wall of water, it didn't
go over the top of them, it just swayed them over and covered
the whole thing.
By that time, not only was the wall of
water between us and the hill on this side, but the water
had cut a new channel and spread out all over those meadows
out here.
The house here was on the highest ground and it did
split going on either side.
So part of the family was on that
side of the creek and part of it was over here.
The boys who
were on the mountain side just followed the trail on down to the
next neighbor's house and there was no way for them to get
across, so they spent the night there.
When we realized that
it was going to be rather dangerous to stay here, we made
arrangements to get out.
We chained the car to an apple tree
and a couple of my brothers veritably carried our mother out—
the water striking the boys (and a couple of them were about
grown at that time) above the waist.
who lived just across the road.
We went over to the people
Before we got out, we had 3 or
4 hogs in the hogpen where the water was swirling around.
My brother, Tom, took a big old hammer, we called it a rock
hammer or a go-devil or something of the sort.
He knocked the
door down to the hogpen and let the hogs out so they swam out
and got around the barn.
Even before they could get to safety
around the barn, the water was so swift that when the hogs
came out of the pen, it just swept them off their feet.
Some of them were swept down, oh, between the barn and the
house and managed to get out and get back up to the barn.
�16
One of the calves that couldn't be satisfied without trying
to cross the creek and get back upon the hill where its mother
was, washed away.
down the river.
It managed to get to land about 3 miles
Somehow or another there was a little island
back there and along with other neighbors''
animals (many of
them were washed into the mountain side of the river), managed
to get out and survive.
Q:
So did the hogs drown?
A:
No, the hogs survived.
We lost nothing except an awful lot
of topsoil, all the fences we had, and that one calf, I believe,
the extent ot it.
Q:
So most of the people took care of each other?
A:
Absolutely.
Q:
What was the feeling?
A:
Well, we'd never experienced anyting like that before.
always had rain.
Were you really scared?
We'd
We..had always been accustomed to the old
creek out back of the house.
It would get up pretty angry
at times and maybe get out of its bank, but nobody ever had
any conception of what it would be like for just a veritable
downpour such as that, and just sweep houses and cattle and
fences and everything away.
We had some young fryers.
�17
We raised our own at that time, and we had a bunch of young
fryers.
They got drabbled and somehow or other they'd made
their way toward the house and had gotten on the back porch.
I grabbed up a chicken coop and slammed some of them inside
and took it out to set it in the woodhouse.
Just as I set
foot in the woodhouse, I felt the whole thing give away.
It was gone, chicken coop and all, within the space of five
minutes.
Q:
I just did get out in time.
What did most of the people think about the flood afterwards?
What was the feeling?
A:
Well, I guess if you are wondering if the people through this
area thought it was a judgement of God or something, I didn't
hear anything of that sort.
It was a natural phenomenon and
most people were so grateful in comparison with the horrors
that had been reported from the Wilkes County side and down
Elk where the landslide was.
So many people had lost their
lives, a week or two later they were still finding bodies in
brush piles on so on.
It was a feeling of gratitude and thank-
fulness that it was no worse in this area than it was.
So as
far as I know, no one in our particular area right here lost
anything more than . . . (tape ends).
Q:
What about church life?
A:
Well, we are certainly in a strict Bible belt.
Within this
little community there, up the highway 194 towards Boone, is
�18
a little Episcopal church that is no longer being pastored,
but in those days it was certainly a vital part of it.
And again, in those early days, through Mrs. W. S. Miller
(who sort of saw to it that the Episcopal church did continue
to live) in many instances, books, printed material and
sometimes clothing, through her effort were sent outside this
little area to help many of the people who had large families.
Not many of them had much reading material.
Of course there
are a lot of these churches in our community.
There's the
Baptist church, of which I am a member, and all my forefathers
before me.
The next largest was Methodist and then Holiness
church, the Holiness Tabernacle Church.
was the pastor.
Mr. Ed Blackburn
Have you talked with Ed?
You must.
Q:
Ed kind of helps out everybody, right?
A:
Ed"s mother and my grandmother were sisters, and not only does
Ed sort of look after the spiritual welfare of all the people,
it doesn't make any difference, rich or poor, stranger or a
next-door neighbor, anyone who needs help, Ed's right there.
Q:
How had the church changed from when you were a little girl to now?
A:
Well, the biggest change that I see - when I was a little girl
the church that I attended was located about a half a mile up
South Fork river from Todd.
It was just an old frame building.
We had the old pot-bellied stove in the middle of the church.
�19
The church was just one big room.
Of course it was curtained
off eventually for Sunday School rooms and then we'd draw the
curtains for the auditorium for the preaching and so on.
Other than the style, of course, of the so-called ministry,
the
attitude
of the people, I guess you could say, have
changed more than anything else.
Right now we have a rather
comfortable brick building down in the little village itself.
We have a beautiful auditorium; and we have, I couldn't tell
you, a dozen or more Sunday School rooms, and all the space in
the world we need.
In those old days, and I can remember back
then, we didn't have a regular preacher right here for this
particular church, but I don't know, maybe once or twice a
month these preachers (one of them a Preacher Roberts) would
ride the train in from Abingdon or Bristol or somewhere, I'm
not sure just where. And if they came on a Saturday now, we
had Saturday services.
There were two services, maybe in those
days maybe two services a month.
There would be a Saturday
service and then a Sunday service.
The minister who came in to
pastor the church would spend the night among some of
his
parishioners and on Sunday, would preach and, I guess, I don't
recall definitely, but I assume that he had to stay over til
Monday to take the train back.
Transportation, I can remember,
we walked to church or if we didn't walk, we rode in a wagon
or a buggy or something like that.
weather everybody walked.
Most of the time in pretty
�20
Q:
Was Sunday a real exciting time, something to look forward to?
A:
Well yes, everybody was just . . . church about the only place
you went during the week in those days.
It was not only the
spiritual center, but the recreational center.
Friends,
relatives, and neighbors seldom saw each other more than on
Sunday, you know, and so everybody found out everybody else's
affairs and how everybody was doing.
It was not only a worship
service and Sunday School, but it was just a general get-together.
Q:
Do you think now that churches have lost that get-together sort
of thing?
A:
Well, not in our rural area.
Most people still have that.
Taking myself as an example, I certainly would have to say it's
different because I'm usually about the first one out of church
and I zoom home to get me something to eat.
But generally
speaking, everybody stands around, especially in pretty weather,
and talks, you know, and nobody is in any hurry to get home —
except me.
I guess perhaps one reason for that —
have very few ties with many of the people in that
right now I
community
except church attendance and the little rural store down here.
I see more of the people in the West Jefferson area where I
teach than I do around here.
Perhaps the attitude of people
towards spiritual things has changed a little bit in some areas,
but we're pretty narrow-minded here.
Right's right and wrong's
wrong, and there's no gray shades in between.
�21
Now I didn't quite finish awhile ago about my education after
I got my B.S. degree and went to teaching.
Of course, there
was a regulation at that particular time that within five years
you must renew.
So when I started back to renew, I also started
work on my Masters degree which I finished in '53, while I
taught school 9 months of the year and went to school 12 months,
Saturday and extension classes and so forth.
Q:
You said your mother lived to be 104 years old?
A:
My grandmother.
Q:
Could you tell me a little bit about her?
A:
Well, my grandmother was a Tatun and that is one of the old
families of the county.
She came from a large family.
I don't
recall now the names of her brothers, but they were all a longlived people.
Q:
How many were there?
A:
I just don't remember.
Now when you talk to Mrs. Miller down
here (of course, we are related through the Tatun side), she can
fill you in on a great deal of this that I do not know a thing
about or have forgotten.
�22
Q:
Remarkable.
A:
Oh yes. One thing I remember about her was that she was of
the old school that believed in many of the superstitions as
we would call them now.
She thought that when the master of
the house died, if you had bees, and you didn't go out and tell
the bees that the head of the house was gone that . . .(phone
rings).
Q:
You were talking about the bees.
A:
Well when my father died I remember distinctly we had I don't
know how many hives of bees out here in the yard, about where
the pear tree is now.
She tied a black arm band or ribbon or
something around her arm, and she took her cane
her way out there from hive to hive.
and she made
She was saying to each
hive, "The master of the house is dead.
The master of the house
is dead".
Q:
I've never heard of that before,
A:
You haven't.
Well, that's an old New England custom at least.
But I remember distinctly she believing it.
Q:
What other folktales?
A:
Grandmother believed in witches.
There was, I'm not sure,
�23
I don't recall enough of the details to be specific about it,
but among her acquaintances as a young woman, there was someone
who had the name of being a witch.
And if this particular woman
had any grievance against you, she would cast a spell on your
milk cow and it would give bloody milk or completely go dry, or
cast a spell on a child and it would get sick.
There was some
tale that she told about this particular woman planting a little
handful of some sort of bean that she did some incantation over,
and over this little handful of beans when they were planted,
when she harvested, she had a bushel.
I'm not sure of the
amount, 1 just remember some fantastic amount like that.
She believed in witches now, she knew from first hand, you know.
At least in the cultural society in which she grew up, that
was true.
I don't remember so much about, oh, many of the older
sayings about the weather and, of course, people in an earlier
time didn't have the weather report to depend on.
all the signs and importance of the weather.
Grandma knew
I don't recall
that she knew any more than just the regular old things, red
clouds at night, and an east wind and the things like that, the
weather that would naturally follow, so to speak.
Q:
What does a red cloud mean?
A:
Well, red clouds in the morning, sailors take warning; red clouds
at night, sailors' delight.
Of course, atmospheric conditions,
it produced the different things.
An east wind which would
�24
make the smoke from the chimneys settle pretty close to the
ground, that was a pretty good sign that it was going to rain
or weather because, again, atmospheric conditions being what
they were, it would be natural, but that was the way they more
or less examined it. Owls, over the hills and hooting around,
why, in about 3 days you'd have bad weather.
Q:
Groundhogs?
A:
Oh, you'd better believe it.
Grandmother was also a devout
believer in the phases of the moon.
You planted in the moon,
you put a new roof on a building in the moon, you killed briars
and bushes by cutting them on some phase of the moon.
You
planted beans at one time, potatoes at another, and cucumbers,
the sign just had to be just right.
I believe maybe the Twins,
I'm not sure, to have a good crop of cucumbers.
Q:
And she lived this?
A:
Yes, as much as she could.
own sheep.
I have seen her take wool from our
I have helped wash the wool, clean it, and I remember
seeing her spin thread from that wool.
Q:
What about her crafts?
A:
Well, Grandmother could do just about most anything, as far as
I know.
What talent did she have?
She would card and spin and knit and do general sewing.
�25
I don't recall that she did much cooking after I can remember.
I'm sure she did.
She had an idiosyncracy about her food:
bread, especially her cornbread, was unsalted.
her
When mother
baked cornbread there was always a little tiny cake put in the
pan that had no salt in it.
Q:
Why?
A:
I don't remember.
I just don't remember.
I'v e often
wondered if that wasn't one reason she did live to be so old,
that maybe no salt to have any effect on blood pressure or
anything of that sort.
Now I do remember, not only she, but
my mother, and my mother's mother, who lived right up above
us here, saved ashes from the fireplace. Especially if a certain
kind of wood had been burned, the ashes were always saved and
put into an ash hopper, or an old hollow log that was sitting
upon a board.
They kept the good ashes —
wood ashes, I'm not sure —
I guess it was hard-
through the wintertime, and come
spring after having saved up all the meat scraps and grease and
so on through the winter, on a nice warm spring day, an old big
wash pot, big old iron pot fixed up on a tripod, you could make
a fire underneath it, was filled with water.
morning the water was heated.
Very early that
You kept pouring water up in the
ash hopper and gradually it made its way down through —
through —
and came out as pure lye, old brown lye.
seeped
After you got
I don't know how much, but however large the amount was or what
they wanted, then that was put into a wash pot, or wash tub, and
the meat scraps and grease, and so on, and mixed in.
It came out
�26
and made soap.
soap.
I couldn't tell you how, but it made soap—soft
Or cook it a little longer and maybe add a little borax
or something, maybe make hard soap.
That was about the kind of
soap you used for general cleaning and washing.
Q:
About taking a bath —
A:
Oh heavens no!
you didn't have a bathtub?
We had an outdoor "johnnie" winter and summer.
You would go out to the "johnnie" in the wintertime and the
wind blew through the cracks and sift snow all over you.
you got a bath —
it was in a washtub —
And
and you got an all-
over bath about once a week, I'd say.
Q:
You would just wash off?
A:
You just "swiped"
off otherwise.
In the springtime, about the
first day of May was time to go barefoot.
Any child that wasn't
allowed to pull off their shoes and go barefoot from then to a
frost, was a sissy!
The biggest job our mother had was to try to
get our feet washed before we went to bed, because we'd always
have a stubbed toe or scratched foot or something; and it dirty,
it hurt so bad to wash it off.
If possible, we liked to sneak
off to bed without washing our feet.
with that very few times.
Q:
Did you all have feather beds?
A:
Oh yes, I reckon so!
But I tell you, we got by
�27
Q:
What about the politics, the first election that you voted in?
A:
The first election I voted in, uh, let me go back a little bit
and tell you about the elections long before I voted.
In fact,
some of my earliest recollections and especially before
Presidential elections in this area, there were about two things
you'd get into arguments about, politics and religion.
Before
Presidential elections, people's emotions ran pretty high.
Parents didn't even let their children go down to the little
village much on Saturday evenings, when the local gentry gathered
together assisted by a little moonshine.
high
and fights were pretty common.
Emotions got pretty
Again, I don't remember
this, but I do remember hearing that my grandfather was an avid
politician.
More than once he just about climbed some of his
friends, you know —
good friends any other time.
election time, they differed in their politics.
But come
Now, they sort of
lost track of friendship till after the election.
Now I can't
tell you what my reaction was to the first election I voted in.
I suppose I looked forward to it with a great deal of anticipation
because I guess it was a milestone in my life.
I have attained my majority, I can vote.
Well after all,
The first time I voted
was just a regular state and local election.
I had to wait
another 4 years for my first Presidential election.
Q:
You remember who was running?
A:
No, I don't remember too much.
Let's see.
Probably the one
that made the greatest impression on me might've been about the
�28
first time I voted for a President, was Franklin D.
Q:
Was he real popular in this area?
A:
Well, not in the beginning.
But he started activities that
he brought out in programs that he espoused that did tend to
make finances and economic conditions a little more stable.
Yes, he was.
He was a popular person.
Q:
What about Mr. Truman?
A:
Well, everybody through this section that I had any contact
with, was a little bit skeptical of Harry S., but were quite
pleased when he did show enough initiative to take over and do.
He was a peppery little man with his sometime obscenities.
He was a popular man.
Q:
Well, what about Eisenhower?
A:
Everybody liked "Ike" pretty well.
"splash" in this area.
He didn't make a great
Franklin D. was the flamboyant President.
Of course, the President during war times.
From Franklin D. to
John F. Kennedy, I guess those were the two that made the biggest
impression on people or made the biggest impression on me.
Q:
Do you like Kennedy?
�29
A:
Well, he presented a different aspect.
I think young people
had a tendency to identify with him more than any of the
others.
Q:
What about Johnson?
A:
Well, again, personnally, I'm talking from my own ideas now,
my own attitude toward Johnson.
I thought when Johnson came
in as President under the conditions that he had to become
President under, I thought that he conducted himself very
well.
I'd always been a little bit leary of him because he
was such a "wheeler-dealer" all during his earlier political
life, and I guess throughout his presidency.
Frankly, I was
little bit sorry for Johnson during the latter days of his
administration.
Things had just gotten out of hand, and it
looked as if nobody could do anything about it.
He was bearing
the brunt of something that had started years earlier.
Q:
And what about Mr. Nixon?
A:
Well, I guess Mr. Nixon has had to make his mark on the world.
I'm not sure just what my attitude toward Mr. Nixon is.
Sometimes I think he has, and is doing, a remarkable job.
Then again, I begin to think we have a dictator instead of a
President.
Before I pass judgment on Mr. Nixon, I think maybe
I'll have to wait until his term of office is out and do that
in retrospecti'\ action rather
than perspective.
I really don't
�30
know.
I am glad that he has been able to bring things to
a wind-down in Vietnam.
wind down much.
However, I don't think it's going to
All I'm hoping is that we get our POW's out.
And then let them have it!
Q:
What about Vietnam in this area, how did people feel about it?
A:
Well, it was a useless war.
of it.
Most people could see little use
Just as we take our religion seriously - we still believe
in "Mom, God, and apple pie" country and so on.
Most people
through this area, they weren't in favor of going to fight in
Vietnam, or anything of the sort.
But I don't recall anyone who
deliberately left the country, or anything of the sort to keep
out of it.
Q:
So as far as overall policies are concerned, you think Mr.
Roosevelt was good?
A:
Well, he made a bigger impression on me perhaps at that
particular time.
colorful.
He was the most flamboyant, picturesque,
And in that time, when he would come on the radio,
"My fellow Americans" —
why, it would just about make chills
chase up and down your spine!
Q:
What about the law, police officers, etc?
A:
Well, when I was a child, about the only police officer we
ever saw or heard tell of was maybe the County Sheriff or Deputy,
�31
who had a bunch of bloodhounds trying to chase down somebody
who had broken in and stolen something.
knew.
That was about all I
The idea of a bloodhound was enough to make my blood
curdle.'
I don't suppose that other than that, I had much idea
of what law was about, because I just didn't come in contact
with it.
Q:
Do you think that the people, when you were small, were the law?
Like they said "This is right, this is wrong."
A:
I'm not sure, I could not answer that.
I just don't know.
This particular little area through here was pretty law- abiding.
We had an individual or two who was known to be what we called
just a veritable rogue, and everything that got gone was blamed
on one or two individuals, whether they were responsible or not.
I remember very well that we had some hams to disappear from the
old spring house.
We knew where they went.
We didn't have
any proof or anything, but we knew where they went.
Someone broke
in the little service station that was in operation right across
the road and everybody knew pretty well where the things went.
Nobody had any proof, but everybody knew.
Q:
If you could change something back to the way it was, what would
you change?
A:
I have no idea.
�32
Q:
As far as the community is concerned?
A:
Perhaps, if it had been possible or if it were possible
to
bring our little village back to the status and standards it
once had here, it
today would have been a private metropolis.
If we could go back to that time and continue to grow, I've
always wondered what would have happened had our bank and drugstore and all our facilities continued to expand instead become
sort of a ghost town, as it did become.
The chestnuts sort of
all died of blight and the timber supply cut off.
Q:
Looking at Boone, don't you think the people out here have a little
something that they don't find in Boone?
A:
We have a little something that Boone is missing now,
earlier times
in
when Boone was more provincial, long before we
had all the growth.
Even the industry —
I think industry is
the backbone of the county and of the economy.
But yes,
some
of the provincial attitudes and the neighborliness, general
neighborliness, has disappeared.
life.
It was one time a part of
I suppose we still have that to an extent out in most of
the rural areas.
Q:
How do you feel about women's lib?
A:
1 guess I would have to say that I'm in favor of equal rights
�33
for women.
A lot of this so-called stuff I read in here, it
has little interest for me,
except that 1 think a woman
should be paid on the same basis as a man for a job she does just
as well, and sometimes better.
And I have yet to find that.
But there are very few men who I would regard to be my intellectual
superior.
Q:
How would your grandmother feel?
A:
Well, my grandmother on my mother's side was rather conservative.
My grandmother on my father's side was quite conservative.
However, she lived through the Civil War, when she found that she
had to take the old mules or whatever they used, and go out in
the fields and plow.
than you would expect.
She was a little more independent maybe
And, of course, that sense of independence
came because mostly through that she had to sort of take over and
be the head of the house.
Q:
So, you don't think that a woman's place is at the home?
A:
For a woman who wants to make the home and family her life, that's
fine.
For those who want to combine them and have both, that's
fine.
But as far as carrying it to the extent that some of our
women "libbers" are, I think it's mostly to get attention rather
than action.
�
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 Ruby Trivette, February 17, 1973
Description
An account of the resource
Ms. Trivette's interview consists of many memories from her childhood including growing up on a farm, what the town of Todd was like, and her experiences in the schoolhouse setting. She then goes further talking about her memories of her education leading up to her teaching career. Although she mentions little on World War II, she talks more in detail about the Great Depression and what its effects were like on the neighborhood. Ms. Trivette also recollects her personal experience with the flood of 1940. She explains what local church was like when she was younger compared to her current experiences with church. Ms. Trivette also speaks of the folktales her grandmother believed in. By the end of the interview, Ms.Trivette discusses politics from her childhood to the present including elections and presidents. While speaking of politics, she mentions past laws and offers her opinion on women's equality.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bullock, Bill
Trivette, Ruby
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
2/17/1973
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.
33 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_tape33_RubyTrivette_1973_02_17M001
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Todd, NC
Subject
The topic of the resource
Country life--North Carolina--Todd
Todd (N.C.)--History--20th century
Todd (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
Ashe County
bartering
Bible Belt
Bloodybones
buckwheat
Christmas
D.W. Graham
Deep Gap
farming
flood of 1940
jackvine
Politics
red cloud
sheep
superstition
Tatun
teacher
Todd
Wilkes