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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
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Title
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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
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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
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/21dce66d493f3127fdea23e0fe479352.pdf
201c5bddbf52e3ee01d1cce842ad34be
PDF Text
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1275e1fdf93ad4a99df9264c1458948d
PDF Text
Text
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Andrew Jackson Greene Collection
Description
An account of the resource
The Andrew Jackson Greene Collection consists of more than 160 diaries written by Greene who describes Watauga County's education system, including Appalachian State Teachers College, cultural and religious life, and agriculture from 1906 to 1942. <br /><br /><strong>Biographical Note.</strong> Andrew Jackson Greene (March 2, 1883-August 12, 1942) was a life-long resident of Watauga County, North Carolina and instructor in several Watauga schools including Appalachian State Teachers College (A.S.T.C). Greene worked as a farmer, public school teacher, and college professor. Greene was an enthusiastic diarist maintaining regular entries from 1906 to the day before his death. He also recorded A.S.T.C. faculty meetings from January 9, 1915 to May 3, 1940. He married Polly Warren, and they had three children, Ralph, Maxie, and Lester.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/190">AC.105: Andrew Jackson Greene Collection</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1906-1942
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Copyright - United States</a>
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Number of pages
73
Dublin Core
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Title
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Diary of Andrew Jackson Greene, Volume 37 [March 24, 1920 - July 31, 1920]
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="Andrew Jackson Greene Collection, 1906-1942" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/190" target="_blank">Andrew Jackson Greene Collection, 1906-1942</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1920
Extent
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66.7MB
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
105_037_1920_0324_1920_0731
Description
An account of the resource
This diary includes daily entries by Andrew Jackson Greene. These entries are from March 24 through July 31, 1920. In each entry he talks about the weather, church members, visiting his neighbors, and the work he does around the house. He also takes his vacation during march, and he mentions his children much more frequently than in past diaries.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
Baptists--Clergy--North Carolina--Watauga County
Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Copyright – United States</a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Diaries
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a title="Andrew Jackson "Greene collection" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/39" target="_blank"> Andrew Jackson Greene collection </a>
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Watauga County (N.C.)
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
<a title="https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html" href="https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html" target="_blank"> https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html</a>
Appalachian Training School
Archie Warren
Boone Trail
Brownwood
Brushy Fork
children
church
farm
Greene Family
Housework
Luther Oliver
Mast Store
Meat Camp
Mr. D.F. Horton
Neighbors
R.A. Thomas
Sherwood's Store
Solomon Younce
South Fork Church
Todd
Vacation
W.H. Greer
W.T. Chappell
Walnut Grove School House
Willowdale
Zionville
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Andrew Jackson Greene Collection
Description
An account of the resource
The Andrew Jackson Greene Collection consists of more than 160 diaries written by Greene who describes Watauga County's education system, including Appalachian State Teachers College, cultural and religious life, and agriculture from 1906 to 1942. <br /><br /><strong>Biographical Note.</strong> Andrew Jackson Greene (March 2, 1883-August 12, 1942) was a life-long resident of Watauga County, North Carolina and instructor in several Watauga schools including Appalachian State Teachers College (A.S.T.C). Greene worked as a farmer, public school teacher, and college professor. Greene was an enthusiastic diarist maintaining regular entries from 1906 to the day before his death. He also recorded A.S.T.C. faculty meetings from January 9, 1915 to May 3, 1940. He married Polly Warren, and they had three children, Ralph, Maxie, and Lester.
Contributor
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Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942
Source
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<a href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/190">AC.105: Andrew Jackson Greene Collection</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1906-1942
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Copyright - United States</a>
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Number of pages
98
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
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Diary of Andrew Jackson Greene, Volume 64 [July 17, 1926 - October 19, 1927]
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="Andrew Jackson Greene Collection, 1906-1942" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/190" target="_blank">Andrew Jackson Greene Collection, 1906-1942</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1926-1927
Extent
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74.7 MB
Language
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English
Identifier
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105_064_1927_0717_1927_1019
Description
An account of the resource
Andrew Jackson Green recorded this diary from July 17, 1926 through October 19, 1927. Greene wrote about church, the weather, the Appalachian Training School, and his family and friends. Places named throughout this diary include but are not limited to Friendship Baptist Church, Watauga County, Boone, Cove Creek, Willowdale Baptist Church, Lenoir, and Mabel.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
Baptists--Clergy--North Carolina--Watauga County--Diaries
Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942
Creator
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Greene, Andrew Jackson, 1883-1942
Type
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Text
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Copyright – United States</a>
Format
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Diaries
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
<a title="Andrew Jackson "Greene collection" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/39" target="_blank"> Andrew Jackson Greene collection </a>
Coverage
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Watauga County (N.C.)
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
<a title="https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html" href="https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html" target="_blank"> https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html</a>
Advent Church
Agnes Fisher
Ashe County
Baptist Church of Boone
Bethel
Blue Ridge
Clarence Garland
Daniel Boone Hotel
Elbert Farthing
Federation of Women’s Clubs in North Carolina
Friendship Baptist Church
Georges Gap
Gertrude McCorman
individual instruction
Jacob May
Johnson City Chronicle
Klondike Stock Farm
Miss Ollie Eller
Miss Gertrude Weil
Mitchell River
Mountain View Church
Mountain View Institute
New River Bridge
Normal School
North Wilkesboro
President Dougherty
R.L. Isbel
Reverend P.A. Hicks
State of Wilkes
Sugar Grove
Summer School
Sunday School
Surry County
Todd
Vilas
W.J. Mast
Willowdale Baptist Church
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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/3aeeaf308ceb052510e4cdf8e87ad22e.mp3
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https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/830a6f5fc4916a88e5a974b7ed6225dd.mp3
0a59da7c9ba4a294023e100f4787e639
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/15afd20c10710e9d450e93672c800166.pdf
dd10ff6e97edcf57fea25183a452af40
PDF Text
Text
Oral History Transcript
Appalachian State University • Collection 111, Tape 34
Interviewee: Edward Blackburn
Interviewer: Bill Ballock
2 March 1973
BB: Bill Ballock
EB: Edward Blackburn
OB: Ollie Blackburn
BB: This is an interview for the Appalachian Oral History Project with Edward Blackburn at Todd,
North Carolina, on March 2, 1973 by Bill Ballock. Tell your name and start out from there.
EB: I’m Ed Blackburn and I live at Todd, North Carolina. I’ve lived here for 80 years and I’m a
preacher. I have, in the past been a mail carrier, but today I’m trying to preach. Lived here in
the mountains and worked with mountain people, think they’re the finest people in the world.
That’s not belittling anybody else, but I appreciate and honor them. Want to be an honor to the
mountains. Is that thing (the tape recorder) running now?
BB: Just don’t even pay any attention to it.
EB: Now, you go ahead and talk to me.
BB: Okay. Can you tell me something about your childhood?
EB: Yes, a little bit. I remember not too much about it. I remember many years back, born here
in Ashe County and lived here, as I said once, all my life. Went to school here, what little I went,
and went to the First World War. Went through the First World War through the entire was
except for 14 days. Came back and lived here ever since. This has been my home ever since.
All my life this has been my home. I have seen Boone when it was just a few white houses there
and the streets were two feet deep of mud. If you got across the street you got across on a pile
of ashes. You missed the ashes and you went in the mud to your knees. I’ve seen West
Jefferson come from a house or two to a nice town. Seen the railroad come in here and helped
work on it. I drove pegs for the engineers, helped work on the track and I’ve seen it come and
go.
BB: What about the railroad? What did you do on the railroad?
EB: I helped the engineer survey it and worked on the track work. And then I helped grade it,
helped grade the whole thing. Helped make it, everything but the coaches and the engines.
1
�BB: Where did it start out?
EB: Where did it start from? Abingdon, Virginia. Came to Todd, 76 miles, 76 miles and so many
tenths to Todd. Came in and out once a day. Stayed all night here and then went out in the
morning, came back in the evening. Todd used to be a business place. Had a bank, drugstores,
and how many grocery stores I’ve forgotten. Lots of numbers of people lived here. It’s just a
ghost town now because all the old people are dead and all the young people have moved
away. And the banks are gone, the money is gone, the timber is gone, and most of the land is
gone.
BB: How did people feel about the railroad here in Todd?
EB: Well, they wanted it to come in you know. They didn’t know it was going to ruin us and take
all our timber out and leave us nothing. We wanted it to come in.
BB: So you think after it left it was bad?
EB: Yes, yes. It left us in a lot worse shape. All of our timber gone and not anything to show for
it.
OB: It should have gone on up to Boone.
EB: Sure, if it went on up to Boone it would be running today. West Jefferson over there is a
thriving town and it came into West Jefferson now one or two times a week. (The railroad)
hauls freight in there. No passenger trains, no mail. Used to run a passenger train in there and
carried the mail.
BB: It did run a passenger train?
EB: Yes, oh yes. Two times a day the Lord blessing. One in the morning and one in the evening.
In and out. Passenger train and freight, sometimes two freights. Loads of them, double heading
out here, a number of cars loaded with timber.
BB: So if you wanted to change it back, you wouldn’t let the railroad come back?
EB: No. I wouldn’t work on it. In fact, I would get other people not to. That’s right, keep what
we have.
BB: Well, they tell me you are a preacher. Can you tell me something about how you got
started in that?
EB: Yes, well the Lord called me. Yes, I’m a preacher honey. Got a lovely church over here. The
finest people in the country come there. I got started because the Lord called me to be a
preacher. I didn’t want to be a preacher. I wanted anything in the world besides being a
2
�preacher. I really wanted to be a drunkard, and drink liquor and carouse around. But the Lord
saved me. Then He called and saved me and delivered me from drinking liquor. He called me to
be a preacher. And now I’m preaching and wouldn’t do anything else now. I’m not much of a
preacher, but I’m the best preacher I know how to be. God bless you.
BB: When did it start?
EB: When did I start preaching? I started preaching in about 1922 or ’23.
BB: What brought it on? Did you go to school?
EB: No, never been, just went through the schoolhouses. Ran a mill, only school college I’ve
ever been in. I used to run a mill in Todd and sell meal to the Boone College. That’s the only
college I know anything about; selling meal. I’ve been to college anyhow selling them meal.
BB: So you just took the preaching on your own?
EB: Yes, thank God. On my own. Lived by it. Only way I have of getting a penny is what people
give me. Nobody behind me but the Lord and that’s enough. God called me and I’ve worked
with everybody that needs help.
OB: He’s worked all his life and got Social Security.
EB: I draw Social Security, but not enough.
BB: Do you get paid for preaching?
EB: Yes sir. Got a lovely congregation. Get a little, sometimes get more than others. Take an
offering every morning when I preach. I just preached over here at the tabernacle two times a
month, second and fourth Saturday. And somebody takes an offering for us.
BB: What’s the name of the church?
EB: Blackburn Memorial Church and Campground. I want you to go out and get a history of it,
get you to look at it and take the history down off of the sign.
BB: How did it come about that you’re preaching? How were you called?
EB: Well, the Lord just called me you know. I got saved from being a drunkard and the Lord
called me to be a preacher. Why, I don’t know, but He called me to be a preacher. I just went to
doing things that preachers ought to do. Not like other men can, but the best I could. And God
called me to be a preacher and I’ve been faithful to the job ever since.
OB: He gets busier everyday about it, counseling with somebody. Some drunkard or some
3
�family having trouble.
BB: What people come here?
EB: Drunks, folks trying to get delivered from liquor, folks having marriage troubles, about to
separate, parting, fussing and fighting. Come here day and night to be prayed with and
counseled with, talked to and prayed for. Thank God. God had blessed us so far with a fruitful
ministry.
BB: They told me that once you got sick. Could you tell me something about that?
EB: Once I was seriously sick. So sick they thought I would die you know. They sent me to the
hospital against my will. They sent me to West Jefferson and the hospital at Jefferson kept me
18 or 19 days and couldn’t find what was the matter with me.
And they sent me from there to Winston-Salem. When I got to Winston I was so near dead they
gave me eight pints of blood. And that’s about all of it. But I stayed down there 18 or 19 days
and they were going to operate on me, but I couldn’t take it. I was weak. I couldn’t stand an
operation. I prayed and before the Lord and the host of heaven, God healed me and I came
home the day they were supposed to operate on me.
That night – the doctors and nurses came in to get me ready for an operation and I told the
nurses, “God’s healed me. I’m going home. I want you to send me home today.” That excited
the nurses and the doctor came in and told him that, and then he went out of the room. And
several other doctors came in. They pushed me and then rolled me, then looked in my eyes,
looked at my fingernails and examined my feet and had a counsel and told me I could go home.
But when I got ready to come home there were a number of people there that came to set up
the operation.
Felt sorry for my mom you know and my children. I was getting my clothes on and getting ready
to come home and I told the doctor, “I’ll never be back down here unless I come to pray for
somebody.” I’ve been back twice, or three times.
OB: Why don’t you tell the whole story?
EB: Well, I’ve told enough of it, haven’t I?
BB: I want the whole story.
OB: The night you were healed, don’t you remember?
EB: Yes, yes. I was praying you know, the night before the operation and a nurse came through
and turned my pitcher upside down, the water pitcher, and I knew that was bad business. I was
burning up and wanted water. The nurse came in and turned my water pitcher upside down, no
4
�more water for me. If I had money I would have hired somebody to pour water for me, but I
didn’t have that kind of money and had to depend on the nurses and the orderlies. The nurse
came through or one of the aides came through and turned my pitcher upside down and I knew
that there was no more water for me. I knew what was coming. I knew that I was so weak and
couldn’t take it. I was already dead. I just told God that I couldn’t take it. And sometime through
the night, somebody came to by bed and called me name and said, “You don’t need an
operation.”
Next morning I was able to come home. Thank God. And I’ve been home ever since and I work
like a slave, day and night. I haven’t ever been sick any more and I’m 80 years old this coming
August. Thank God. That’s what God done for me.
BB: You sure don’t look 80 years old.
EB: I have been out here sawing wood.
BB: My father is 50 years old and you look twice as young as he.
EB: What about that? Bless your daddy honey.
BB: What about the community itself? What do you think of the Todd community?
EB: I think its marvelous and wonderful. One of the best anybody ever had the privilege to live
in. Thank God. The best neighbors that God could set down around you. Anything you need,
somebody will bring it to you and see about you. That’s what I think about it. It’s so good I
nearly disgraced it by living here, that’s what kind of place it is. Marvelous.
OB: Tell him how we worship.
EB: Well, just like anybody else so far as I know. We go to church.
OB: Well, I mean we’re all one.
EB: Sure, sure. Our prayer meetings, we all worship together you know. We have a prayer
meeting in the Baptist church, and we’re known as Holiness people. We go to the Baptist
church and the next night they come to the tabernacle church, and the next night we go to the
Methodist church. We worship all the way around. And nobody knows whether uncle Ed
belongs to the Baptist church or the Methodist church. And I don’t know whether the Baptist
church belongs to our tabernacle or the Baptist church. We don’t pay any attention to that, we
just worship God, and get along good. It’s a marvelous community. Nobody’s got a better one.
BB: As time goes on, do you think that it’s losing out, that people are getting away from each
other?
5
�EB: Yes, I do believe the young people are as time goes on. Yes, I do. And the old people are
dying and that cripples us some. But so many of our young people have moved off from this
country see, they had to leave here to get a job. And we just get them through high school and
many of them through college and they’ve got to go somewhere else to get a job you know, to
work out a living.
So that just leaves the young and the old folks. You know the old folks die one by one and leave.
And then these other children go to college and then they get…raised. Ma’am and me raised
five children, two boys and three girls. Our baby is in New Jersey, she’s a librarian. I got a boy in
Virginia Beach, Virginia; he’s a printer for the United States government. He has been thee a
long time, soon to retire. And I got a boy that lives at Cherryville. He drives for the Carolina
Freight and he’s been there for years. We have a daughter that lives in Abingdon, Virginia. She
married a builder contractor and they have a supermarket. They are building a supermarket.
Our oldest daughter married a sanitary and county health officer and they live here in Ashe
County. Five lovely children and all of them seem to be doing well.
BB: That’s just great. It’s just beautiful out here. I don’t see why any young people would want
to leave.
EB: Thank you, it is beautiful. And we live in an old house.
OB: I’ll tell you why the young people, our children…every one of them get so homesick to
come to the mountains to live. But you see, where we made the mistake was selling every stick
of timber we had here for the railroad and letting the companies come in here and carry it off,
haul it off on the train out away from here. And wouldn’t let companies come in here. We could
have had factories up here, all kind of furniture factories and everything if we hadn’t loved our
little dirt. You see we loved the dirt better than if we loved…
EB: Sure. They wanted to buy land for factories.
OB: And we wouldn’t sell them land. And see that’s the reason our children now had to reap
the results of it. They had to get an education and go somewhere else to get a job.
BB: What do you think about somebody who would want to come out here and farm and try to
preserve what you have?
EB: I think it’s wonderful. I think that young people can come and live conservative and buy a
farm and get rich, thank God. Say raise enough cattle to get rich. Right here in these mountains,
men are doing it. I don’t. I don’t have a cow. Don’t have anything but some fish and wild ducks.
That’s all the property we’ve got. I own 27 acres of land here and this old house is over 176
years old, where you’re sitting now.
6
�All handmade, all worked with hands. And there’s a door that doesn’t have a nail in it unless I
put it in. The house is put together with wooden pegs. It’s been here we know for 176 years
and we think several years longer.
BB: Do you know who built it?
EB: We think we know. We think a man by the name of “Younce,” who has been dead for many
many years you know. We think he built this house here. This house and the soldiers, Northern
soldiers came down and burned my grandfather’s house down. This was his workhouse where
he loomed, had looms, and wove their cloth and cooked here.
OB: Made their shoes.
EB: The fireplace was six feet across and I filled it in. But this was just and outhouse. Northern
soldiers burnt the house down out here and left our people with nothing. Took their meat and
the horses, and burned a lot of their clothes. Just left my grandparents with nothing.
BB: So you remember your grandparents talking about the Civil War?
EB: Yes, I just barely can, the Lord bless you, just barely.
OB: His mother was 11 years old.
EB: Yes, when they burned the house and she’s been dead for years.
BB: So they did come through this way?
EB: They did come right through here and burn the nice home out here on this hill right out
here. You can go out there and dig up charcoals from it right now.
BB: And you’re 80 years old?
EB: I’m 80 years old this coming August.
BB: Okay. What do you think about politics?
EB: Politics? Well, I think that we need two kinds. I think we need two good parties and I think
that both sides do so sorry that I’m ashamed of both sides. I vote for one then I wish I had
voted for the other because we do things. They tell us we’re not going to do one thing and the
next day they do it. Then I think I ought to have voted for the other fellow. I think we need two
good parties and men to be honest and upright and tell us the truth and do the best they can
for us and quit lying to us. We know they can’t do all the things they tell us they’re going to do
because we haven’t got enough money to do it.
7
�BB: Do you remember the first election you voted in?
EB: No, I can’t remember darling. No.
BB: Who was the first president that you remember?
EB: Oh, I remember Teddy Roosevelt and Mr. McKinley. I remember, I was just a boy though,
but I remember when the news traveled so slow you know, about killing McKinley. I remember
that.
BB: What did you think of Roosevelt?
EB: Well, I was just a boy. Didn’t make any different to me darling. Just another man and I
heard by father and mother talk about him you know. Teddy Roosevelt.
BB: What about Truman?
EB: Yes, I loved Harry Truman. I think he was an excellent president. He would tell you what to
expect and then he did it. And if you didn’t like it he would fight you if you wanted to fight. I
think he was fine.
BB: What about Eisenhower?
EB: I think he was great.
BB: You did? You liked Eisenhower then?
EB: Yes, I liked him good enough to vote for him.
BB: What about Kennedy?
EB: Not struck on Kennedy. I’ll not comment why, but I’m not struck on him. I didn’t give a dime
if it’s on the signboards in Broadway, New York City.
BB: What about Johnson?
EB: I liked Mr. Johnson, thought he was a nice, fine gentleman.
BB: What about Mr. Nixon?
EB: I think he’s fine. I quarrel with him sometimes, cuss him sometimes for things he does and
don’t do. But I think he’s going be a fine president. I think he’s doing the best he can.
BB: What was World War One like?
8
�EB: It was rough, rough, rough. World War One was rough. I volunteered and went. The war
was declared the 6th day of May and I enlisted in the World War the 17th day of May. I wanted
to go to the war and then I went, but wanted to come home. Went to France and fought
through the Meuse-Argonne Forest, Mont Saint-Michel, close to Verdun, and sector near
Verdun. I saw the Hindenburg line broke where Von Hindenburg said there wasn’t enough men
this side of hell to go through that line and the American soldiers went through it and tore it all
to pieces and whooped their hind ends off.
BB: And you were in it? You were fighting?
EB: I was there. Came out of the lines on November 11th, 1918.
BB: And then you went to World War Two?
EB: I wasn’t in World War Two, no.
BB: You were at home right?
EB: I was at home, yes.
BB: Were you preaching then?
EB: Yes.
BB: What was it like during World War Two?
EB: Well, I wasn’t in it. I just knew all the men that was in it. I knew lots of the men that did go
you know. But I wasn’t in it. I didn’t have any part of lot in it except to work you know. I worked
in the defense plant, the most of the time during the Second World War in Coats, Pennsylvania
for a steel mill. A big steel mill.
BB: What about Vietnam? What about the people here at home? How do they feel about it in
your community?
EB: Well, I think the majority of us thought that we had it to do. That there wasn’t anything else
to do is what I think. They didn’t fight as rough as I wanted them to fight. I wanted them to
thrash the face out of them and get out of it. Give them a thrashing and come home, but we
just played along with them and didn’t whoop them. I wanted to whoop them good and come
out.
BB: Are you glad that the Peace…
EB: I am delighted! I want to be a peacemaker honey. That’s my business, being a peacemaker.
But if I have to fight you I’m going to fight awful rough while I fight.
9
�BB: What about the Depression?
EB: Yes, I lived through that. It didn’t make much difference to me because we’re kind of
depressed every day anyhow. But we did get through it, but it was a hard time, the Lord bless
you. It was a hard time.
BB: What did you do during the Depression?
EB: Well, I lived right here and raised cabbage and Irish potatoes and sent children to school,
right here.
BB: Do you think that it was easier for the people, the farmers than it was for the people in
town?
EB: Yes, I do. The man that had the farm knew how to work it and to manage. He had a better
chance of surviving than the people in town because they didn’t have anything. They were just
out.
BB: You didn’t have any trouble getting clothes or shoes and stuff did you?
EB: Oh, no. No, we had clothes, had shoes, and had plenty to eat what it was. But we didn’t
have any money.
BB: You wouldn’t want to see another Depression would you?
EB: No, no. Never want to see another Depression. Don’t ever want to see ten-hour workdays
come back. I want good wages and honest work. I do believe in a man that’s getting two dollars
an hour ought to be able to put out and work for two dollars an hour.
BB: I reckon that you remember the flood of 1940 too, don’t you? The flood?
EB: Yes, I do.
BB: I reckon as a preacher that you had right much to do?
EB: Yes, I had much to do the entire time son.
OB: When was the flood?
EB: 1962, wasn’t the flood the one I’m thinking about here in ’62? We about washed away in
this country. I think it was in…no, in 1943, wasn’t it ’43?
BB: Yes, somewhere in there. Do you remember it?
10
�EB: Yes, oh yes. I had a mill down here in this little village we call Todd. And I came home and
when I came around the curve coming out of Todd, there was a high place there. I turned
around, looked around and told God and to myself, “This is the last time I’ll ever see Todd if it
doesn’t quit raining.” And that night two or here buildings went out of Todd all together like an
ark. The buildings went right down the stream all together. There was a mill there, a big mill.
That mill was taken out, a store on the other side of the creek away from the water; the rain
took the store just like an ark was floating down the creek. But God ceased the rain and that is
the only reason that Todd didn’t wash away.
OB: Right here, over there came a big crack on the hill.
EB: Yes, the mountain cracked there. And had it slid off, there wouldn’t have been anything left
in the village. It would have all went out; too much dirt and water. I saw that.
BB: Did anyone come to your house for refuge?
EB: Yes, we had company. Some of our kinfolk were here. They got caught in the storm here
and had to stay here.
BB: Were all of you scared?
EB: No, we weren’t scared here on the hill. We thought my, lots of water, but we didn’t think it
would get to us and it didn’t.
BB: I was talking to Miss Trivette and she said their house almost washed away.
EB: Oh, yes. All around them.
BB: I reckon that was a pretty bad time.
EB: Yes. Serious time, serious time.
BB: Getting back to your childhood, what can you remember about it now? Was it like growing
up in the mountains?
EB: Marvelous, wonderful. I had a good daddy and a good mother and didn’t know what
trouble was. He was a hard worker and had a good farm and made all the things we needed to
live on except clothes and shoes. It was marvelous. I would love to go back and live through it
again. Didn’t know what trouble was. Didn’t know we would ever see a day that we didn’t have
enough. Thank God!
BB: What kind of games did you play?
EB: We just played what we called back in those days “Base.” We didn’t know anything about
11
�baseball and things like that. We just played Base, “Dare Base” and would run like wild men.
We would see who could outrun the other and who could break the other side. If we ever made
a circle around the others man’s home, we would break him up and had to start over again. If
we would catch his men off a base, we would put them in jail. We would get all of his men until
he was overpowered, why we broke him up again.
BB: What was it called?
EB: We called in “Base,” or “Dare Base.” We would have a line and dare a fellow to come put
his foot on a line. Then we would take out after him and if we caught him before he got back to
his base, why we would bring him and put him in a jail. But then we had to guard him and if
another man left his base and came over, we could touch him. But if he touched the guy in jail
before we could get to him, then he would get out. But he watched that and if we caught him,
we put him in jail. That was our job.
The fellows that got the most men in jail or one of our best runners made a circle around the
other man’s base, that broke him up and we won the game. Just like war. He just had to
surrender, that’s all.
OB: Then at night, we danced in the homes. Barn dances.
EB: We would have parties in the night. Play the banjo, the violin or fiddle. We danced all night,
thank God! Had a good time.
BB: Did you know anybody that played the fiddle?
EB: They are dead now. Knew a lot of men, but they have gone to heaven now.
OB: My daddy played for the parties. My granddaddy played the violin and my daddy played
the banjo.
BB: Would it be every night?
EB: No, we couldn’t take it every night. About two nights a week.
BB: Would you all be drinking moonshine?
EB: Not much, sometimes. Usually wine, grape wine. Sometimes we had the real
stuff…moonshine.
BB: Did your dad make moonshine?
EB: No sir, he was a Christian gentleman. He didn’t even drink it. My father’s brother was a
12
�Congressman. There is his picture on the wall. Served two terms in the United States Congress.
And my father was against liquor.
BB: What was his name?
EB: E. Spencer Blackburn. Honorable E. Spencer Blackburn.
BB: What was the year that he was in Congress?
EB: Well, I’ve forgotten little darling boy. I was just a boy. In 1906 and 1908 I expect (Edmond
Spencer Blackburn was a Republican U.S. Congressman from 1901-03 and 1905-07). You better
put a question mark on that honey, because I was just a little boy. But he would visit my father
often. Had a big, high silk hat and fine clothes.
BB: What kin was he to you?
EB: He was my uncle, my father’s brother.
End of side I
BB: Have you hunted and fished a lot?
EB: Yes, fished a lot. Yes, it wasn’t against the law then to take a net and go into the river and
catch fish by the bushel.
BB: What about legends and stuff? Old folk tales and myths. Do you remember any?
EB: No, not many. People used to tell us ghost tales and that would scare us nearly to death.
BB: Who would tell them to you?
EB: Old people. But they are all dead and gone many years ago. They would come by and tell us
ghost stories you know, and we were afraid to look out of the house after the sun went down.
BB: Do you remember any?
EB: No, I can’t remember them. One old man lived down here on the river and a man went
missing and the people never could find him. They thought he went and jumped in the river at a
hole where it wasn’t frozen over. But never could find him. But then in the spring when the ice
went out, the ice flow went out, why this old man down here on the river found five bones.
What the doctor said was they were five bones of a man and he took them home and put the
bones in the loft. He said that every night the five bones would just beat the floor all night. I’ve
heard him tell that story many times. He said there was a beat on the floor. But he still had so
far as I know, when he died – still had that beating on the floor.
13
�BB: Do you believe that?
EB: Don’t believe a word of it, no. But I do believe that he had the bones because I heard
people talk about the man disappearing. The man’s name was “Lookabill.” Something
happened to his mind. A nice man, but he disappeared and never was found. That’s as close as
anything that would come to a ghost story. But that’s just to me a folktale. I know nothing
about that, only what was told.
BB: Do you remember any old sayings?
EB: No, I’ve forgotten them all. We used to have many of them. And they were all so good that
they ought to have been remembered.
BB: You ought to have written them down.
EB: Yes, by all means.
BB: If there was anything that you could change back, what would you change that’s now gone?
EB: Well, if there was anything that I could change back I would have gone into preaching when
I was 14 years old. And I went into the First World War without ever being a Christian. God
wanted me to be a preacher when I was 14 years old, but I wanted to drink liquor and I put off
preaching until I was about 22 years old. I would change that.
BB: Is there anything that you would change in the community?
EB: No, I doubt it. Just let her roll, just like it did.
BB: Is there anything else you want to tell me?
EB: Bless you. I don’t know much more little lad. The Lord blesses you. I never thought about
anybody coming to talk to me about things like this because there are so many men that can
tell you so much more than I could tell you. But there is nobody in this country much older than
I am.
BB: They say you are the oldest around?
EB: I don’t know any men that are older than I am. I know one lady down here. No, not in this
vicinity, I don’t know of any man that’s older than me.
BB: And this is your mother?
OB: This is my wife and she’s 81 years old.
14
�BB: What’s her name?
EB: Ollie Blackburn.
OB: I was Ollie Clawson.
EB: She was a Clawson.
OB: I waited through the war to marry him.
EB: We were supposed to get married anytime, but I went to the war and left her here you
know.
BB: Were you raised here in Todd too?
OB: No, I was raised in Watauga County.
BB: In Watauga County?
OB: Yes, this is Ashe County.
EB: Yes, here we are across the line about a hundred feet. When you came up that road you
were in Watauga; when you turned in to our house, why you are in Ashe County.
BB: So you all live in Ashe County?
EB: Just across the line. We pay our taxes on the Ashe side.
BB: What was your childhood like? Did your mother teach you how to crochet and all?
OB: She taught me how to sew and I sewed and made all my children’s clothes. During the
Depression we had some pretty well to do folks and they gave us second hand clothes and I
made them over for my children. Some of them got the prize for being the best-dressed in
school there.
EB: Out of second handed clothes.
BB: During the Depression they got the best-dressed?
EB: Yes, I guess it was during the Depression. They went to school well-dressed by ma working
over old clothes, redoing them.
BB: How long have you two been married?
15
�EB: Going on 54 years. We had a 50th anniversary three years ago this June. So this June we will
have been married 54 years.
BB: Have they all been good years?
EB: All have been wonderful. Thank God, I would like to live them all over. Been good years.
Ma’s been a darling.
BB: How many grandchildren do you have?
EB: Fourteen.
BB: I bet you have a big Christmas don’t you?
EB: Yes. Fourteen. And two great-grandchildren.
BB: Do they all usually get home for Christmas?
EB: Yes, usually.
BB: What’s the difference in Christmas when you were small and Christmas now?
EB: Oh, so much difference. When I was small if we got two sticks of candy and an orange we
were well fixed.
BB: Do you remember any great presents that you once got during Christmas?
EB: No. I got a toy truck; as far back as I can remember and thought that was the greatest thing
that could be delivered to anybody.
OB: Tell him about your pistol.
EB: Yes, I used to have a little gun when I was six years old. Lots of folks won’t let boys have
pistols and I had a gun. I think this is the same one if I can find it here.
OB: I guess it’s gone.
EB: I had one like this when I was just a boy and I’d hunt with it you know. I would shoot grouse
and rabbits when I was six years old.
BB: So it’s a real pistol?
EB: Oh, it’s a real .22 pistol. Break it down. That’s a real gun. Dangerous, it would kill you. Single
barrel, a Stevens.
16
�BB: Do you still hunt?
EB: I still hunt.
BB: Do you still hunt with this?
EB: No. I carry an automatic shotgun.
BB: What do you think about the tourists?
EB: Well, I think that they have ruined the mountains, is what I think of them. We can’t go
anywhere and get anywhere but they do bring in some money but we were living well before
they came. That’s not belittling them; that’s just what I think about them.
BB: So you think that Beech Mountain and Sugar Mountain…
EB: Yes. I think its hurt the morale of the country. I do. And that’s just what I think. That’s my
personal opinion.
BB: Well, I agree with you.
EB: Yes. I think its hurt the morale of the country. I do. And that’s just what I think. That’s my
personal opinion.
BB: Well, I agree with you.
EB: Thank you dear. Bless you darling. Just about ruined us.
BB: I hate to see the mountains torn down too. I think it’s real sad.
EB: Thank you honey.
BB: Is there anything that you want to tell me? Just anything that you would want somebody to
know about you as a man?
EB: No, I didn’t do well enough to want anybody to know anything about me darling.
BB: I think you being a preacher…
EB: I’ve done my best on that line. But we got many preachers.
BB: Do you baptize?
EB: I do. Baptize and marry folks.
17
�BB: You have a license to marry?
EB: I do have a license to marry, yes. And to baptize and to establish churches.
BB: What was your education? You got as far as…
EB: Oh, I wouldn’t know. I just…it pushed me to get through the seventh grade I guess. We just
had three months of school you know, when I went to school. Always commenced in
September and would be out by Christmas. And we had to walk three miles. We have to walk
three miles when I went to school most of the time.
BB: So you got about as far as the seventh grade?
EB: Yes, I guess it pushed me to go through the seventh grade.
BB: Learn enough just to read and write?
EB: I can read and write. And I can…
OB: Figure (mathematics).
BB: I would like to come down to your church sometime.
EB: Well, you ought to come darling. You ought to come. You ought to bring some friends. I
want you to go up by and look it over darling before you leave here this evening. Open the
door, it will not be locked. Just open the door and go in and look around. What God has done.
BB: How long has that church been there?
EB: Well, this one has not been there that long…I guess 38 or 40 years. That right ma? About 38
years.
BB: Is this your first church?
EB: Yes, but the first church was burned down over there.
BB: I know a good question. Do you remember the first time you preached? The very first time
that you preached?
EB: No. I don’t remember the first time I ever got up and took a text and preached from it. But
for years before I ever went out into the ministry, before I was ordained I would hold funerals
you know. So many people would send for Uncle Ed you know, to come and hold funerals. But I
can’t remember the first time.
18
�BB: What were the funerals like?
EB: Well, they haven’t changed much. They have gotten finer, but the same mode and the same
lines. When I was growing up we didn’t know anything about undertakers in the mountains
here. Just neighbors, dress people and made their caskets and put them in the ground.
BB: When was the first time that you can remember that you preached?
EB: I can’t remember. Can’t remember the first time that I ever was called to a funeral. Wish I
could. I would like to try and recall the feeling, but I can’t remember to save my life. I’ve had
hundreds of them.
BB: It wasn’t a good feeling I guess.
EB: Wasn’t so good. I was scared. Still am.
BB: Are you still scared?
EB: Still scared. Scared to death.
BB: Do you preach from a text or do you just get up and talk?
EB: I preach right out of a book. Never write down a note or take a note and just read by
chapter – what I’m going to preach from and go to preaching. If there is one certain verse in it
that I want to dwell on and talk about, I pick out such and such verse in such and such chapter
and tell my people all I know about it.
BB: Do you all have Sunday school?
EB: We do have Sunday school every Sunday. One of the finest in the county.
BB: What time does preaching start?
EB: Eleven o’clock. Every second and fourth Sunday.
BB: So you only have preaching the second and fourth Sunday? Why is that?
EB: Well, because we found it’s the best. And because my people are not…
OB: Well, he preaches in other places.
EB: Yes, I’m gone a lot of the time and that gives me a chance to preach here twice a month and
go somewhere else two times.
19
�BB: Oh, so you go other places?
EB: I go to other places.
BB: Where do you usually go?
EB: Well, the last meeting I was in was at High Point. Evangelical Methodist in High Point. And
next to that one, I go anywhere they call for me…anywhere from Ohio to Pennsylvania.
BB: You’ve been up to Pennsylvania?
EB: Yes sure, give two meetings in Pennsylvania and two meetings in the city of Baltimore.
BB: Well, thanks a lot.
EB: Honey, have I been any help to you?
BB: I think you have.
EB: Have you? Do you? God bless you. (Gives a prayer) “Father in heaven, here’s a lovely, pretty
boy. I’d give a billion dollars, God, if I could be like him. But it’s gone from us God. And now
Lord we pray that as long as he lives let him remember the two old people, the Blackburn’s on
the hill. Came in to have an interview with them and we wasn’t wise enough to give him much
of an interview. After he leaves we’ll think of many things that happened to us that might have
been amusing to him.
I pray you will take good care of this little boy God, and make his successful in the world. Help
him to be a Christian gentleman. Because if he gains the whole world and loses his soul, what
would he give for that pearl of great price, which is his soul. Take good care of the little boy. In
Jesus’s name we pray. Amen and amen. Bless you darling. You’re lovely.”
End of interview
20
�
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Title
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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
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Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1965-1989
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Artist
Blackburn, Edward (interviewee)
Ballock, Bill (interviewer)
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:04, Reflects on Todd and Ashe County, 00:32, World War One
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Title
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Interview with Edward Blackburn, March 2, 1973
Subject
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Blackburn, Edward (1893-)--Interviews
Todd (N.C.)--History--20th century
Todd (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
Clergy--North Carolina--Todd--Biography
Railroads--North Carolina--Todd--History--20th century
Lumber trade--North Carolina--Todd--History--20th century
Description
An account of the resource
Edward Eugene Blackburn was born on August 29, 1893 to Alex (b. 1852 – d. June 1, 1926) and Rhoda Howell Blackburn (b. February 12, 1856 – d. December 6, 1934). He was married to Ollie Clawson Blackburn (b. July 29, 1893 – d. June 1985). He grew up in the Todd community of Ashe County and served in the U.S. Army during the First World War with the 318th Field Hospital of the 80th Division. He experienced combat in France, which is briefly mentioned in the interview.
Many affectionately knew him as “Brother Ed” or “Uncle .” The Reverend Ed Blackburn and his wife took over the leadership of The Tabernacle, a non-‐denominational Holiness church across the hill from his childhood home. This church later became the Blackburn Community Church, was originally started by his father around 1910. His uncle was U.S. Congressman Edmond Spencer Blackburn (b. September 22, 1868 – d. July 21, 1912) who served in 1901-03 and 1905-07.
During the interview Ed Blackburn talks about growing up in rural Ashe County. Topics include explaining the rules to a game called “dare base,” and his experience working at a grist meal and laying railroad track as a young man. He also discusses the railroad in Todd, timber stripping, religion, and family.
Source
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<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-Mar-73
Rights
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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.
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MP3
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20 pages
Language
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English
English
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Sound Document
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Todd (N.C.)
Ashe County
childhood games
Civil War
folklore
ministry
railroad
religion
timber
Todd
Watauga County N.C.
West Jefferson
World War One
-
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PDF Text
Text
Oral History Transcript
Appalachian State University • Collection 111, Tape 122/123
Interviewee: Don Davis
Interviewer: Donna Clausen
1973 July 5
This is an interview with Mr. Don Davis for the Appalachian Oral History Project by Donna
Clausen on July 5, 1973.
CD: Donna Clawson
RD: Don Davis
CD: Mr. Davis, when were you born?
RD: July 30, 1986.
CD: What year was it when you started school?
RD: I suppose I started school in 1902.
CD: What school did you go to?
RD: Laurel Ford, a little school about a mile toward Todd, off on the right hand side of the road.
CD: What kind of school was it? Was it one-room?
RD: It was a one-room school. The house was made of “boxing,” we called it in those days. The
plants set-up and down, and enclosed the house. Part of it was sealed; part of it wasn’t. It was a
rather cold building in the winter. It was heated by a stove sitting near the middle of the room.
You’d call it a shack if you saw it now.
CD: Was it not a very large building?
RD: Small building.
CD: How many pupils were in the school?
RD: I’m sorry that I don’t know, but there were pupils from the first to the seventh grade. I’d
say 20 to 30.
1
�CD: How many teachers did you have?
RD: One teacher, Miss Margaret Dobbins. She lived a half-mile from the school.
CD: Did she board with someone or was she from the area?
RD: Her home was in the area. She stayed at home. I passed by her house every morning as I
went to school. I usually waited for her.
CD: How far did you have to walk to school?
RD: Oh, it was something over a mile. I doubt whether it was a mile and a half.
CD: What time of year were you in school?
RD: I think we started in September. The first school I went to, I guess, was for four months.
CD: Can you remember your first day of school?
RD: I’m afraid I can’t remember and pick out the first day as an individual, vivid picture.
CD: Did you go through your entire seven years there?
RD: No, I changed several times. When I had been going to school for three or four years, they
moved the school house down to what I would refer to as Mr. James Miller’s bottom, and built
another house. I don’t remember how many years I went to it, but when I was 12 or 13 a new
district was created in this area.
It was called the Tugman School District. They had to build a house, and for the first term they
used a little storehouse that belonged to Mrs. Emma Stevens, about a mile and a half from
where we are on the road toward Boone.
Then the following year they had the Tugman Schoolhouse built, which was on the road toward
Boone near where Donald Woodring now lives. It was a much better house than I’d been
accustomed to, but it had only one large room and one teacher.
CD: What kind of subjects did you study in school?
RD: We studied the traditional subjects I guess: reading, writing, and arithmetic. To that were
added geography and history, civil government, physiology. And the last year that I went to the
Tugman School we studied a course in elementary agriculture.
CD: Did one teach all those subjects?
2
�RD: One teacher attempted to teach all the subjects. The last year that I went to Tugman
School, I went there, I guess, three years, a couple of the seventh grade boys assisted a little by
working with the second and third grades part of the time.
CD: What kind of equipment and furnishings did the school have when you were going to
school?
RD: When I went to the first school there were no desks, and crude benches. I’m not sure in the
second school whether we had any desks, but still it was largely benches. In the Tugman School
we had well-constructed desks, through they were homemade. But they had sufficient room for
our books, and the top of the desk was large enough to keep all our books and for our writings.
CD: What kind of writing materials did you have?
RD: The first writing equipment that I recall was what we called a slate. It was made of a type of
rock, and had a wooden frame around it. We marked on it with what we called a slate pencil,
which was also some type of rock. And of course we had some paper. But I can remember when
it was something to have a paper tablet in school, and a pencil to write with.
CD: Did you have textbooks for every subject?
RD: No, we didn’t have any writing books that I recall. Any books that we had were individually
owned. At least they were not furnished by the state or county. It was hoped that each child
would have a set of books. Often, it wasn’t true. Many times, two or three pupils tried to work
from the same book.
CD: What did you do for recreation, like when you had a recess or something?
RD: We played various types of ball, and what we called “Dare base.” We threw the ball over
the house, caught it over there, ran around on the other side, and went around and the fellow
on the other side caught it and ran around the people on that side before he could get around
to the opposite side, and thereby caused him to belong to the side which had been successful.
In the Dare-base, we divided into teams, somebody chose the players. One from one side
would go over and touch something near the other side that they dared us to touch, and then
they attempted to catch us before we could get back to the home base. If they did, we became
their player. Of course the game was won if they could catch all of those players.
CD: Did boys and girls play that game?
RD: Yes. Another game we played was a game called “Bull-pen.” It was a type of ball where part
of the players were in a circle and part of them were inside the circle. The ones that composed
the circle would hit a boy within the circle, and then they would run a certain distance to a
defined spot.
3
�The one whom they’d hit would stand at a definite place and try to hit one of the players who’d
formed the circle. If they could hit him, he had to come inside the circle, and the other fellows
were around him.
CD: That sounds exciting. What kind of discipline did the teacher use?
RD: Various kinds of discipline. All the teachers that I recall used various types of corporal
punishment. Sometimes they switched pupils; sometimes they paddled them in the hand with a
ruler. Sometimes they had them stand on one foot. Some had them put their nose in a ring on
the blackboard, and then put each hand up on the board at a mark and stand for a definite
time.
An they were kept it, if they wouldn’t study or misbehaved. When the others went out, they
were assigned something to do inside. And there were times when they were required to learn
something extra because they’d been lazy and hadn’t learned what they should’ve learned.
CD: Did they ever have to memorize anything?
RD: Yes. Sometimes they memorized as a form of punishment. I guess that was bad, but the
teacher had to do something. Teachers, then as now, I presume, were often at their wit’s end
to know what was best to do to control the children.
Various teachers had various rules, of course. Some expected a much quieter room than others.
Some were stricter about the lesson being well-prepared than others. That, I supposed, still
holds.
CD: Can you remember the qualifications that your teachers had to have to teach?
RD: The earliest teacher that I had was reported to have had a first-grade certificate. That
doesn’t mean a certificate to teach the first grate. There were “First-grade” and “Second-grade”
certificates issued by the county superintendent when the teachers had followed and
completed a definite line of work.
It was assumed that a teacher who had a First-grade certificate would be a superior teacher to
one who had a second. There may have been “Third-grade” certificates. I’m not sure about
that. As now, a certificate was not always definite proof of what type of teaching a person
would be able to do.
CD: Do you know what kind of salary the teachers received?
RD: My first teacher received a dollar a day. When I first attempted to teach I received a dollar
and a quarter. The last day I ever taught, I received more salary than I did in the first month, or
any month of my first year.
4
�CD: Where did you go to school after you finished grade school?
RD: Appalachian Training School. There were no high schools available in this area where one
could stay home and go to high school. Because of that I didn’t go to high school as soon as I
should have gone. I went back to grade school. I might have entered high school if there’d been
one located close enough home so that I could’ve stayed at home and gone.
CD: What year did you start at Appalachian Training School?
RD: The beginning of 1917, I guess.
CD: Did you have to stay there to go to school?
RD: Yes. I boarded with a Mr. Henry Lewis and his family.
CD: How long did you go to school there?
RD: I went to Appalachian Training School, and Appalachian State Normal, and Appalachian
Teachers College off and on, periods in the summer. I went one full year during the time but
largely taught in the regular school years. During that time I taught in the regular school year.
Sometimes I began at Christmas because schools closed in those days generally before
Christmas.
Other times I just went to summer school, sometimes one summer term and sometimes two.
There was a time when I needed credit toward a certificate, thought I did, that Appalachian
wasn’t prepared to give and I went to the University to the summer school: two summer
schools in 1928, two summer schools in 1929 at Chapel Hill.
Then I had the certificate equivalent to what one would secure by graduating from a four-year
college. But it seemed after I’d secured that that I still wasn’t satisfied with the training and I
continued until I finally earned a degree from Appalachian, which was issued in 1937.
CD: What was the first year that you began teaching?
RD: In the fall of 1917.
CD: Where were you teaching?
RD: Zionville. As an assistant teacher in a two-teacher school.
CD: What subjects did you teach?
RD: I had first, second, and third grades. We had reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic,
largely.
5
�CD: At that time, had the schools changed a lot from when you had been in grade school?
RD: The schools were about the same then that they were when I was in grade school, and
whatever methods I had were, to a great extent, borrowed from the teachers that I had gone to
in grade school.
CD: Where did you teach after you finished teaching there?
RD: I taught there for five years, but there were intervals that I didn’t teach. Once I went to a
camp near the close of the First World War. I didn’t teach that year. Then I went back and
taught a year. Then I went to school a whole year. And then I guess I went back and taught . All
together I taught five years there. And then I came from there to Todd, and I taught 17 years at
Todd.
Then I went to Jefferson and taught two years, then went to Lansing and taught four years. And
then I came back to Todd and taught enough to make 32 years in all at Todd. I went to Jefferson
thinking that I would be a teacher only, but it developed that I had to be the principal of a
school because the principal resigned to go into defense work before the school opened.
And I went to Lansing because they needed a principal. That was during World War II, and the
school personnel was scarce. Had to use teachers, oft times that were not really qualified, so far
as credits earned at school were concerned, to be teachers. Some of them did excellent work in
spite of that. Lansing was a large school, the largest in the county. It was a union school, had 12
grades, and between, as I recall, six or seven hundred.
CD: Did you teach as well as being principal?
RD: I taught some. As much as the county superintendent would permit me to teach. He had a
notion that there were a lot of other things that were important for a principal to do besides
teach. And I agreed that he was right.
I remember teaching American history and sociology in the Lansing School. I recall having had a
class of 9th grade math one year. I also had world history, sometimes. It seems to me now, as I
think back, that I had two or three periods of teaching a day. Various subjects during the four
years. I taught geography sometimes.
CD: Do you prefer teaching or being a principal?
RD: Well, I’m not sure how you answer that. I’d say yes, without hesitation if one could have
what he considered an efficient principal all the time. Its not always easy to teach if the
principal is unable or unwilling to establish procedures for the school to follow that make what
one considers a good school.
CD: Were there a lot of changes in the curriculum over the years that you taught?
6
�RD: The curriculum expanded considerably during the years I taught. It was enlarged to include
many things that hadn’t been included before, and its been enlarged even since I’ve quit
teaching to include still other things. Now, I think the curriculum is perhaps the best it’s been.
I’m heartily in favor of things they’ve added wherein a child could learn by using his hands to do
things that he can use later in life as an occupation, whereby he could make a living. Carpentry
and bricklaying, plumbing and auto mechanics, and typing and bookkeeping: Things that will
function after the schooldays are over.
CD: Do you think that variety is important in a curriculum?
RD: Yes, indeed. I think that variety is very important. Now it’s to me quite noticeable that
there’s so much more for children to choose from than there used to be. When I worked in the
high school at Todd, I was principal there a couple of years, but mainly I worked in the high
school there for a number of years.
It was a small high school. We had few teachers, four, I guess, though it was accredited. And
that was the smallest number one could be accredited for, I guess. But we had what was called
a cut-and-dried curriculum. And whether you liked the subject or not, you must take it. If you
graduated from the school you had to have 16 units and you had to take all the courses offered
to get 16.
After a while, it got a little better. And now, is consolidated high schools (Todd High School
consolidated at Beaver Creek with Fleetwood and West Jefferson to make the Beaver Creek
High School), they have so much additional in the way of courses to offer that its quite
gratifying for e to know that a child doesn’t have to take world history if its meaningless to him.
And that he’s not obliged to take French if he has no interest or understanding of it, things like
that.
CD: How do you feel about certain required courses? Do you feel that some courses should be
required?
RD: I think I do. I would want a child to know something of the background of his country, and I
think for that reason American history is a must. Since we try to speak the English language,
even though we do it quite poorly, I think English is a must.
Of course, if you aim to write, you must know how to spell some. And if you aim to write, you
must know how to form your letters. So I think there are a number of courses that one would
say has to be required. But I’m quite happy that everything isn’t required; that a child has a
right to choose now from among many courses.
CD: Do you think math courses should be required?
RD: I don’t know how much math should be required. Math, like French, is somewhat of a
7
�riddle to some people. They don’t seem to have an aptitude or interest for it. However, we
have to count to do any business. And one does need to know the basics.
CD: How have the qualifications for teaching changed over the years?
RD: Well, it’s unbelievable to one who hasn’t thought about it. When I began teaching,
qualifications were determined by the availability of somebody with some learning to work in
the school.
If they’d been high when I was a youngster, I think the schools would have had to remain
closed. Now they consider a person reasonably well qualified if he has a master’s degree. Some
counties a few years ago would hardly employ one who didn’t have a master’s degree. I think
maybe they’re not quite as strict on that in Watauga as they were 10 years or longer ago.
There are many positions now that one must have at least a master’s degree to fill and its
desirable to have a doctor’s degree. Watauga elected a superintendent the other day that I
used to teach over a Lansing. He has a doctor’s degree. I’ve been extremely proud of him
because o the progress he’s made in the acquiring the necessary understandings to be what I
hope will be an outstanding superintendent for Watauga. I think now that degree is generally
expected from anybody, certainly a beginning teacher.
There may be some still teaching who haven’t a degree who worked, raising their certificate
without earning a degree. But I don’t think there’s anyone beginning teaching now without a
degree. I don’t know that that’s so. You could find out.
CD: I doubt that you could. It’s hard enough to get jobs with degrees.
RD: Of course I’m speaking of those subjects that must have a learned background that’s
learned from books. There are people teaching bricklaying and carpentry, and those kindred
subjects like auto mechanics and things like that who don’t have degrees. They don’t have to
have them to teach those subjects.
8
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region.
The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students.
Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU.
An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school.
This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1965-1989
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Artist
Davis, Ron (interviewee)
Clausen, Donna (interviewer)
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:44, Bullpen ball game
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 Ron Davis, July 5 1973
Description
An account of the resource
William Ron Davis was born in Todd, North Carolina on July 30, 1896, attended college at Appalachian Training School for Teachers (later became Appalachian State University) starting in 1917, then taught in Watauga and Ashe Counties for 32 years. He passed away on March 9, 1978 at the age of 81.
During his interview, Ron reflected on his rearing in rural Ashe County including his education, the rules to games they played as children, and discipline. He spent a considerable amount of time reflecting on education including his thoughts on how education has changed.
Creator
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Davis, Ron
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
5-Jul-73
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
MP3
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
8 pages
Language
A language of the resource
English
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
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Todd (N.C)
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Ashe County (N.C.)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Davis, William Ron--Interviews
Appalachian Training School for Teachers (N.C.)
Teachers--North Carolina--Ashe County--Interviews
Teachers--North Carolina--Watauga County--Interviews
Appalachian State University
Ashe County
children games
discipline
Education
Elkville
Lansing
Todd
Watauga County N.C.