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This is an interview with Mamie Graybeal Shull for the Appalachian Oral
History Project by Bill Brinkley on April 3, 1973.
Q:
I'll be glad to know anything you can tell me about the area.
have you been living in this area?
A:
I come here in 3-906, and I've been here all that time practically, except
ten years. But this has always been home and our home post office and
everything.
Q:
How did the mill get it's lumber? Did it buy the lumber from the people
or just go in and cut it off or what?
A:
The mill?
Q:
Yes, Shull's Mill, didn't it deal in lumber?
A:
The first old original part didn't.
it?
Q:
What was it then?
A:
Yeah, Whiting Lumber Company was in here. They come in here in 15 or .16 or
somewhere along there. I don't just remember. But you see, Shull's Mills
was here long before that.
Q:
What vas the reaction of the people toward the lumber mills?
A:
Well, they seemed to like it, didn't they Dean?
of people around here.
Q:
Was there any bad fedlings about the lumber being cut off?
A:
Not that I know of.
Q:
I thought there would be some resentment.
A:
Not that I know of.
Q:
During the depression, what was that like?
A:
Well, we lived in Elizabethon duiing the Depression, down there in that town.
It wasn't too bad for a lot of people but for some people it was. People
with a business it was kind of hard.
Q:
Did you grow your own food?
A:
Not down there.
have any land.
How long
Where Shull's Mill got it's name wasn't
Whiting Lumber Company?
It brought work to a lot
Mr. Whiting you see bought the timber and cut it.
What was your family life like?
We did here but not down there we didn't, cause we didn't
We lived in town.
�Q:
Did you grow any kinds of crops in the area?
A:
Here? Well, we had just our garden and a
have.-enough land to be what you'd call a farmer.
own stuff and we'd sell alittle once in a while.
Q:
Was there anything you liked about the depression?
A:
Don't know that I did. Lived on soup. We didn't live on soup, but a lot
of people did, they say. I don't know. No, I didn't like it.
Q:
Since you've lived in the area so long, I bet you know a lot about home remedies
for different things.
A:
I don't know. Yeah, I used to. My mother's mother was sort of a doctor
around this country, you know along time ago. That was before I came here.
And we didn't have doctors everywhere. There was a doctor in Boone, and
Grandma Shall knowed alot about that. I heard her talk alot about it, and
law, I don't know. Its been so long since I've used any of them. One home
remedy that people might think is foolish now, if you had any kind of infection
if you was about to take the blood posion or anything, go out here to some
of these red clay banks and get you some red clay mud and put it in a pan
and pour cold water on it and stir it up and sort of make a poultice and
bind a cloth around it and you could draw that inflamation all out.
Q:
How does that work?
A:
I can't tell you, but I've done that and I've seen Grandpa Shull do that.
Q:
Were there any more that you can think of?
A:
I can't hardly say right now, that one just came to my mind, because people
thought it was so foolish, would now. I was '-thinking the other day I reckon
thats why I thought of it today. Now, I used to just tell them. Can you
think of any honey? (Son-says touch-me-nots) Oh yeah, touch-me-nots, you
know these wild touch-me-nots. That is good for poison ivy. You can take that
you know its green, green plants and you can just take it up and rub it in
your hands and it would kill the poison ivy just like that. They used to
make a medicine out of it. It was made in Knoxville, but they don't make it
anymore. I don't know why.. It is called Jewel Weed, That is the right name
for it, but we call it touch-me-nots.
Q:
A:
patch was all. We didn't
We had enough to grow our
>
Is there anything for fevers or colds?
For pneumonia fever they used to use lard, turpentine, and lamp oil, and onions,
work your onions in a pan in some water and put that lard and turpentine stuff in
there and cook it all up good together, and take snorts, what we used to get
from our^wheat. They took the wheat to the mill and they got shorts. You
thicken it all up with that and put it across your chest and bind the cloth
around and that was a sure cure for pneumonia. Granny Shull doctored with
pofticf "l . i t 1
r S 1 " -fie\>
Dr'Mck Bln*ham had
them t0
«-ket the
�: ._; Shezkept stirring it, cooking it, and mashing it until it made a salve that
would nearly cure any kind of sore. And 1*11 tell you another thing that will
kill poison ivy. Grandpa Shull used is aid motor oil.
Q:
Motor oil?
A:
Now, it will stain your bed, it will just stain everything. Dean used to have
it so bad, and pappy said to me one time "If you would take some old motor oil
and grease him. Take some old rags and wrap around it because it will stain
your bedclothes, and that will cure him*''
Q:
I have that pretty bad, maybe, I should try some of these old remedies to get rid
of it. I take it easily.
A:
I'll tell you another thing that will cure it to, and you can do that any time
of the year is to make you some real strong balck coffee. Just boll it, don't
perk it, just boil it strong and black. Strain the grounds out and let it cool
and put epsium salts in it. Then wash it in.
Q:
Is that right?
A:
Claude Dean had it one time until his eyes were nearly closed shut. Him and
his wife came down to Lhe store and got some epsium salts and it cured it on
him. You can have that anytime whether you get the Jewel Weed or not.
Dean;
Hemlock tea is good,
A.
Yeah., hemlock tea is good when you have your teeth pulled and have a plate put
in. Take the little green parts and put some water on them and steam boil it
and let it cool and wash your mouth in that and it will toughen your gums and
you can wear your plate, and want have to put anything in there to hold you teeth
in with. No povder or nothing.
Q:
Doggone. Lots of people in my family could have that it they had known about
it. They really had trouble with their teeth.
A:
I know that;
water,
Q:
Their's were about that way. They would take them out and leave them out a
few hours and pat them hack in and wear them again. They just really hurt them
bad;
A:
Wash your plate in salt water and that will toughen your gums.
Q:
Is there something about sassafras tea?
A:
OK Yes, it is good for spring of the year. If a fellow could get a hold of
some this time of the year it would be fine. It thins your blood. You get
all sluggish in the winter time because you don't have all these green things
to eat and sassafras tea will jsut perk you up right now. The red will but
the white don't do no good.
Q;
w4#/do you mean by red and white?
A:
There is red sassafras and a white sassafras and you use the bark off of the
I*ve had my mouth so sore that I couldn't even hardly d,r,ink,
�roots. The roots off the red are red and you dig down in there and the roots
are white. You can make it, but it is not as good as the red. But if you
dig down and the root are red just peel that bark off and make a tea out of it.
Q:
Do you know how to make it?
A:
Make the tea. You just put your bark in an enamel pot and boil it down a
while and stream that off and sweeten it and drink it.
Q:
Any spring tonics that you can think of that were used back then, say sulpher
and molasses. Was that a spring tonic?
A:
Mother used to mix sulpher and molasses and we young ones loved it.
Dean:
Whiskey and rattlesnake.
Q.:
Whiskey and what?
A:
Rattlesnake.
Q:
Rattles/j^ke?
A:
uh huh.
Q:
You mean rattlesnake meat or what?
A:
Yeah, just pour you some whiskey over rattlesnake and it will cure T.B.
Q:
You marinate the meat in it, or what?
A:
I don't know. I reckon you do.
know much about it.
Dean:
Dean knows more about it than I do.
I don't
This guy up here had heart trouble and died and they revived him with mistletoe
tea.
A:
Oh that was Zeb Brown and he had high, blood. He had high blood until he couldn't
even walk across the house without holding to a chair or something. And he
drunk mistletoe tea and he lived a long time after that and got so he could
do a right smart bit of work and everything. And Merfie Dyer, had high blood,
and he drunk mistletoe tea. It helped him. He used to work for the school,
Merfie did.
Q:
Are ther any legends that you are familiar with.
Al
AbTDUt old Lum and his bears. This is a true story. It was before I come up
here but I've heard them talk about it. There was an Aldridge and he was a
great bear hunter. He lived up the river. He had a big family. His boy
farmed but he didn't do much of anything but hunt bear. On time he was up
there and had him a cabin and he kept hearing noises that was a panther. That
evening when he was coming home in from his bear hunting. He had killed a
bear and had the meat there in his cabin and kept hearing this panther squaling
around but didn't think to much of it. That night something woke him up on
top of his house just raking and raising cane up there. He laid there and got
hold of his hatchet and directly a big old claw came through there and he
grabbed that thing by the foot and cut its foot and it was a panther a coming
Any old tales or anything?
�in thereafter his meat. Another time he was up there hunting and tracked a
bear into a den and he crawled in after Mr. Bear and he had him a pine torch
and he saw that old bear's eyes. There was two in there and the other one
ran out over hime and liked to have killed him. That hole was to little.
That is about the only two right now that I can think of. Can you think of
anything else, Dean?
Dean:
Not right now.
A:
There is lots of them but I can't think of any right now. I've heard people
laugh about them. He was the great grandfather of Boss Aldridge. He was their
great grandfather. Their daddy's name was Linville.
Q:
They called him Rolling Bum.
A:
I don't know
remember the
have if they
I don't know
Q:
Probably because he was rolling around when that bear ran over the top of him.
how you spell it. I've seen it, though. There is a book. I don't
name of it. There might be one over there at Boone. They should
don't have. They had the story and they called him Rolling Bum.
why they called him that, except he was a bear hunter.
A;, Might have been, I don't know.
Q:
Can you remember when the first cars came into this community?
A:
Yeah, I can remember.
Q:
What was the reaction to that?
A:
Most people was afraid of them, and wouldn't ride in them.
Q:
Scared the horses alot, didn't it?
A:
Oh, boy, yes, they saw the danger. There wasn't many. Wasn't but one for a long
long time. There was just one up the river here. Hub Wagoneer had it. He is
dead now. He was a young boy then. My husband thought they were the grandest
things that ever had been. He always wanted a good horse to pick up and go.
These cars could go faster than a horse and that was fun, Roby thought that
was the grandest thing that had ever been so he was crazy to ride in that car.
He just wanted to ride in that car so bad. That has been years ago. So one
day he went up to Foscoe and Hub brought him back down home in it. Roby come
in and said "Come out here. I want to show you something." And it was the car.
Was the first time £ had ever seen one. He said Hub come down to take you a ride
and I said "not me in that thing," Roby rode back up to Foscoe with him and
walked back down, rt iv&. only two miles up to J?oscoe and we walked up there.
It wasn't long though, until, I don't remember who had the next car. In other
words, it wasn't to long until Whiting's Mill came in here and there was several
car. But that is the first car I can ever remember seeing. That must have
been about 1912 or something like that.
Q:
Can you remember your first experience in a car?
A:
I didn't ride in Hub's car.
Pop got one not long after that.
A Ford.
�A:
The first car I can ever remember, right now, was in West Virginia. No that
wasn't the first one I'd ever seen. Hub Wagoneer''s was the first one I'd
ever seen, Roby went to West Virginia to work and he had two cousins who
worked in the mines and one Sunday some man took us up to the mines in his car.
That was the first time 1 had ever rode in a car.
Q:
What was your feeling about that?
A:
I didn't like it much. The roads were rough and they would just beat you to
death and I just didn't enjoy it much. I liked my horse and buggy. I loved
horses anyway. I liked my horse and buggy. I'd take Dean when he was just
a little bitty thing, so little he couldn't sit up and hitch up that horse to
that buggy and go anywhere I wanted to. And I could take him up on my lap and
ride a horse anywhere I wanted to. He had on a long dress. He was little.
Babies used to wear long dresses, now they don't do that.
Q:
Were there any major accidents caused by horses and buggys running away on the
account of cars?
A:
Yes, I expect there was, but right now I can't remember any bad ones. They
would scare the horses, but the people was usually nice. They would stop their cars.
Alot of places in the roads you couldn't pass. The things that scared the horses
were these old motorcycles. They would scare them nearly to death. When Mr.
Whiting had the mill over here there was this fellow had a motorcycle and he
would scare the horses literally to death. He could ride it out to the side of
the road anywhere and stop. I don't remember any of them ever having any bad
wrecks but the horses would just jump and rare and pitch and go on.
Q:
You were talking about Mr, Shull wearing the dresses and the way child rearing
was back then. How would you compare that with today's way of bringing up
children and how has it changed and things like that?
A:
Well, we live in a different time. Different enviroments and everything. We
raised our children the way people raised them and dressed them the way people
dressed them. Now they do the same thing so I guess if I was young and a
raising my family I would raise them like they do now. Of course, maybe I
wouldn't leave them by themselves as much as people do but some of them can't
help it. They have to work and get out and do tMngs. Back then mothers didn't
work as much as they do now . They were mothers and homemakers. Now its got so
that the wife almost has to work, when you think about it. The two things, I
guess if I was raising mine now, I'd just raise them like other people do. I'd
try to teach them to-jnind a little better than some of them do, but so far as
the general raising is concerned it is just a different era and time we live in.
Q:
Do you think that the mothers place is in the home?
A:
Personally, yes I do. And I believe that there are alot of mothers who are
working had rather be in the home if they could. But they can't. If you just
stop and think about it. I think especially if she has children. There is
nobody who will take care of your children like mother does. If she is a
real mother.
Q:
Do you think if the mother were in the home now<-a-days that things would be
differently concerning the student uprisings and such things as that?
Ai
I think so,
*
I really think so.
If they could be in the home and raise the
�children and take care of them. The children seem to think that their parents
don't care for them, because they can''t be with them enough. I don't know whether
this causes so much of this or not but it has affect on children. Most of them
have babysitters, and the babysitters are all right. I've got something against
them, but they don't love the children like the mother does.
Q:
Alot of them feed them and put them to bed right away.
play with them.
They don't have time to
A;
There good to them and see that they are fed and kept dry and warm and everything,
but that's still not the mother. To me, I might be wrong.
Q:
I agree with you. I agree with you one hundred percent, I think that a child
can tell the difference between the mother and say another woman.
A:
Sure they can, yes sir, they certainly can.
Q:
People say stuff like when the baby is small they are not really aware of their
surroundings.
A:
Don't you tell me that there not, You take a tiny little baby, maybe a month
old that knew their mother*s voice from anyone elses.
Q:
Is that right?
A'
Yes, I have. But a week or two, well, they don't notice much, If they're normal
children and everything by the time their a month old they can tell their mother's
voice. You take a little baby who is a month or six weeks old, and its mother
doesn't wear glasses, and someone takes it who wears glasses, and it will look
at them and squal, Nine times out of ten. Don't feell me they don't know the
difference,
Q:
There is something there just in bodily contact where they can tell the mother,
A:
Yeah, and anyone else can take them and pick them up and out of their bed or take
them off of their mother's lap, sometimes they don't care, but with some, the first
thing they will do is cry. When their mother's take them they ffuit and don*t tell
me they don't know the difference. Now the little things know. There is something
about them that knows.
Qi
Do you think that healthier babies are breast fed?
A:
Yeah, I really do. That is if their mother ±s healthy. No some mothers if they
have T.B, or something like that their babies are not healthy. If their mothers
are he<Ry their babies are better. Grow better, I think. There is not many
of them anymore.
Q:
How did you discipline your children when they were growing up as compared to^the
way it is now?
A:
If Dean did what I told him not to I paddled him, Thats all I can say, Taught
him to mind. Not to sass you and not to talk back to you, and things like that,
Q:
Crafts, did you ever do any of the weaving?
A:
No, I've never done any weaving, but I knit and
Today, this day and time, they can.
Crochet sometimes, and do some
�sewing and stuff like that, But I've never been to any of the places where you •
make this stuff. I've just never had any chance to go.
Q:
Did you ever make any soap?
A:
Oh, yes,
Q:
How did you go about doing that?
A;
Well, we burnt wood. We always burnt wood and in the winter time if we could
get hold of any hickory wood or maple, Hickory made the best soap. We had an
ashthopper. Daddy built an ash hopper. This was when I was a girl, Me and
Grandma Shull made soap after I came up here. We would put all those ashes in
that hopper and keep it covered up with something to keep rain and snow from
comming in on it. When warm weather come we would save all the scrapes from
the hogs, all the bones and scraps and everything. We would put water on the
ashes in the hopper and when it run out in a little box it was lye. It would
eat the hide off your hand, and we would put that in a little iron wash pot and
put a fire under it and start it to boiling. Then we put pieces of meat scraps
in it and stirred it with a sassafras stick. We stirred and stirred it until
the lye eat all that up. It would boil and get thick. We would let it sit there
and cool. My mother never did make any that you cut out in squares, Some people did.
We had a big barrel! we put it in and that was what we washed clothes with and
washed our dishes with. We had other kinds of soap to wash our hands and face with.
But, we washed our dishes and clothes with that lye soap.
Q:
How did-',you make the other kind of soap that you bathed in?
A:
Daddy got it at the store somewhere.
Qj
Oh, I thought maybe you made that,
A:
No, mother never did, I don*t know if she knew how or if it was just to much
trouble. We were a big family and we would buy a cake of soap ever once in a
while.
Q:
That lye soap was pretty strong?
A:
Yeah, after it set for a while;,, after it got old it didn't bother you. But when
you first made it, it was strong. See, we rubbed our clothes on a wash board
and it would take the hide off your hands. Off the fingers where you rubbed.
I*ve had my fingers so sore.
Q:
How often did you have to make this soap?
A:
We made it once a year. Just when we killed hogs and had plenty.
have meat scraps and that greasy stuff.
Q:
That one barrel! would last you?
A:
Oh yes, Made a great big old wash pot full. Sometimes we made two washpots full.
Sometimes Daddy would kill hogs on Thanksgiving and then maybe the last of January
or the first of February. Daddy would kill another hog, and we would make some
more. That's what we done, I don't know what other people done.
What we called stores-bought sopp.
You had to
�Q:
I bet you did a lot of canning back then didn't you?
A:
Not when I was a girl growing up. I didn't know much about canning until I
married and come up here to Grandma Shull's, My mother dried everything nearly.
She pickled beans and corn and aade kraut. She dried apples and peaches, pumpkin,
sweet potatoes, corn and that stuff,
Q:
She dried corn?
A;
Yes.
Q:
How did she do that?
A:
Well, the way mother did it, you take roasting ears when its not too hard, Pour
boiling water on it and let it set just a little bit, then take it out and drain
it off and cut it off the cob in whole grains and have your oven not too hot
and put them in a long black bread pan. Spread it out and set it in the stove
and stir it every once in a while and dry it until it got to where it would
rattle. We would put it in jars of some kind and keep it. You would have to
soak it overnight and cook it like cooking corn. It was good.
Q:
You mean after you soak it, it was just like regular corn?
A:
Yea, just like roasting ears.
Q:
How did you fix the pumpkin?
As
Just peel them and cut them around and around. ^Moth^er bad a rack up over the
cook stove and she hung the pumpkin up over that cook stove,
Q;
I've seen my grandmother dry apples.
A;
I dry apples every year.
Q:
Do you still dry apples?
A:
Oh yes, we love them.
Q!
They make good pies, don't they?
A:
Oh, yes, good fried pies. And they make good fruit cake. That was all the fruit
cake i ever seen or knew anything about until Dean was a great big boy.
Q:
With dried apples.
A:
Yes, Did your grandmother make any gingerbread?
Q:
Not, that I can remember.
A:
Boy, you're not as old as Dean.
Q:
She was in her 70's when I was just a small boy.
A:
Well, I bet she could tell you about this. You make cookies. You make dough
just like cookie dough. Its made like biscuit dough but it is made sweet.
1 didn*t dry any last year.
I've got some now that I dried last year.
He can remember.
�10
Its got sugar and stuff in it. You roll it out and cut it out round and bake
six or eight layers. You have your dried fruit cooked and mash it all up like
you were going to make fried pies and then you put it between those layers of
cake and let it set about a day and night and its good. That was our fruit cake.
Q:
That really sounds good. We had this old wood stove and she cooked some stuff
on that like fried chicken and baked some bread. I believe it was the best that
I had ever eaten.
A:
There's nothing like a good wood stove to cook on. 1 like the gas and the electric
stove. They are quick and they are clean, but give me a good old wood stove
to cook on. Bake cornbread, arid have shucky beans. Did your grandmother ever
make any shucky beans?
Q:
No, whats that?
A',
Mother dried beans.
Q:
No.
A:
WeiV, Dean, he's never had nothing to eat.
Q:
Don't believe that I have ever had any.
A:
You take these litt/e short beans. We used to call them cut shorts and cornfield
beans and when they are green and have pretty good sized bullets in them. You
fix them like you were going to cook them. Sometimes I Break them up and
sometimes 1 string them on a string and hang them over the stove and keep them
until they are good and dry, Then you put them in a can or something to keep
the bugs away from them and cook them with a piece of ham_bone or ham hock.
Q:
That sounds good.
A:
You never.
Q:
No, I guess I am just used to all the food comming out of a tin can. Grandma
died when I was in the second grade. So I really don't remember too much of
this- stuff, I do remember that cooking on the wood sto^e. Cause that sure was
good. It seems like a one side there was a tank for hot water.
At
In your time. When I was young they had that. Now, my first cook stove didn't
have that, but than, Dean can remember when my stove didn't have a water tank on
it. We heated water on top of the stove in a kettle. I've got the tea kettle
yet.
Old iron tea kettle. Then finally, we got an enamel one, it was lighter,
and wasn't so heavy to lift. And I cooked on a fire a whole lot.
Q:
In a fireplace?
A:
Yes, baked,. -bYead and boiled those shuckey beans oni-the fire. The fireplace had
a crane that had three different hooks on it. And they were facing to the side
of the fireplace and you could pull it out of the way or put it back on the fire.
You hung your pots on that. I didn't ever have one. I just set my pots on the
fire. Had to watch over them sometimes because the logs would burn into and
your stuff would turn over incthe floor. If you didn't watch.
We dry beans yet,
Dry green beans, didn't you ever eat any?
I've never heard of anything like th&t.
�11
Q:
We have one of those iruour house. We live in my grandmother's old house.
We remodeled the inside and when they did they closed up the fireplace. What
was the kitchen then is my bedroom now- They closed up the fireplace and all
that old stuff, The crane is still there closed up in that wall.
A:
You ought to open that up.
Q:
Guess that we would have to tear the wall apart.
A:
YQu ought to open it up and have you a fireplace there.
Q:
We still have one of those old timey iron skillets that has legs on it. It is
a great big old;;thing that is as heavy as can be. It's got a great big iron lid
that goes on it to. She probably set that in the fireplace.
A:
No, you let your coals burn and set them out on the hearth on top of the coals,
is where you baked your bread. You put your bread in there, and put your lid
on and then put a little coals and hot ashes on the top. And that is the way
you baked your bread.
Q:
We still have her old iron skillet over at fohe house. I remember when we were
kids getting water out of the well. Having the old well and winding the water out.
We didn't have running water when I was real small.
Ai
We didn't have running water either not until to long. I mean water in the house.
We had a well when Whiting was over here with the mill. We had a well, I reckon,
when we went to Elizabethan. That was the first time we had water in the house.
Wasn't it Dean? Had water down there. Then when we come back here we still had
the well for several years.
Q:
We left our well just like it was.
it still.
A:
Its good for it to draw water out.
Q:
Weil, I think it is a lot better, than comming out of the tap.
A:
This old well that we use down here in the front yard. But Grandpa Shull dug
one before he was married. That is Dean's grandpa. We had to have it cleaned
out ever once in a while.
Qj
I can remember that. They had a great big wench with two men on each side and
they would let them down in there and they would come out with .all kinds of
toys and stuff that my sister and I had threw in there
A:
This well went dry and we finally brought a pump in the kitchen.
put some pipe down in there.
Q:
Is that bird not common in this area?
Dean:
A:
So we could go out there and wind some out of
A hand pump, and
Kind of rare.
But they're awful "wild, They very seldom come this near to the house to feed. But
in the summer you can hear them around hollaring, In the grandfather there are
lots of them. We call them Joe Winks, Maybe you know them?
�12
Q:
No, I don't believe that I have heard that name.
A:
Well, thats what we used to call them a long time ago. Joe Wink. But they
call them toe hoes now. They make a kind of noise like they are singing
To hink, to hink, to hink.
Q:
Are there any animals that are extinct almost now.
of hunting.
A:
No. I guess they are animals
there is not as many. People
the river. There is not many
Their hides are a big price.
Q:
Did your husband ever sell any of his hides?
A:
Oh yes, that is the way he got money in the winter time. Grandpa Shull had
two sugar orchards. One was right up there. Some of the old trees are still
there yet, one is out yonder where the golf course is at Hound Ears. Me and
Roby tended that one and Grandma and Grandpa tended this one here. We made
maple sugar and syrup and sold it in the spring. That is the way we bought our
sugar, coffee, clothes, and stuff like that. We would take Dean down there
and put him in a box. They had a big furnace built along and a boiler like
they make molasses in. You have seen them make molasses.
Q:
I've seen the thing they were made in.
A:
They had that kind of thing. Roby would work and get a lot of wood piled up
and had a shed built over it.- I would"set Dean's box right over in there where
the wind wouldn't hit him, and keep him down there all day. We would take our
rations with us and stay down there and boil our sugar water. We had to carry
it when it was snowy and bad. Grandma Shull would keep Dean while we was
carrying in the water. Then we would come back and help carry in their water.
We sold our stuff in Blowing P.ock. There wasn't any sell for it right around
here. Anybody who came in and wanted a hunk of sugar or a pot of maple syrup
or something we just gave it to them. We sold it at Blowing Rod: and got a
dollar a gallon for our syrup. Made a many of a gallon of syrup for a dollar
and took it up there. That was a big price then.
0:
Did you have any brothers and sisters?
A;
Nine.
Q:
Nine.
A:
I don't know whether I can remember their ages or not.
Dean:
A:
Any of them gone because
all through here like there was then, or course,
fox and coon hunt, and catch some in traps along
mink around here. They have been caught out.
Thirty-five dollars for a big mink.
How many were in your family?
Do you remember their names and ages?
Well, close to it.
I could look.
I doesn't matter.
Well, I was the oldest. T" was born in '89. Then my sister Lucy
She was three years younger than me. Austin was the next. Then
Roger, Fred, claude, Frank, Ruby. I am the oldest and there two
between most of us, three years between some. I could go get my
was next.
Grace,
years
book
�13
and tell you just exactly. That sort of gives you an idea of how many of them
there was. We are all alive but two. I have got two brothers dead.
Q:
Did you all go to school.
A:
Well,they all got a better education than I did. I was the oldest and I didn't
like to go to school. I got married about the time that I got grown. I guess
I got about an eigth grade education. The rest of them finished high school
and most of them college. Three of them Fred, Grace, and Austin were teachers.
Grace taught in college for years and Austin taught in High School in Johnson
City a while and then he taught ar that College down there in Johnson City.
Dean:
A:
Dean:
The University of Tennesse
Yeah, then Fred my other brother taught at Washington College until he retired,
about four years ago. Two of my sisters are trained nurses. They both finished
high school and they are trained nurses.
Registered nurses.
A:
Yes, registered nurses. Then my sister next to me finished High School and went to
business college and she is a bookeeper. She doesn't wonk now. She is about 80.
She lives by herself and does her own work and everything. Then I had another
brother he finished high school and went to work for Free Service Tire Company
in Johnson City and worked there for fifty years. Last fall was fifty years
when he retired. He was 70. He went to Carson Newman College. He had been
there fifty years when he retired.
Q:
That is a long time.
A:
When I went to school?
Q:
Yeah.
A:
They were good schools I guess for the time. But they weren't nothing like they
are now. You just had one room and one teacher. The first school I ever went to
had two teachers. Over in Ashe County at Sutherland. That is where I first
went to school. Then I went to school down at Beaver Creek where they just
had one teacher most of the time. Professor Franklin, and of course he was a
good teacher and we had to mind him. That was one thing we had to do. But
they are different to what they are now. They didn't grade.:them like they do
now. Thejr weren't as good as they have now. There wasn't so many people,
Vie didn't have any cafeterias to eat at. We took our own lunch. They had a
bi^g old water bucket setting in the corner with a dipper and we all drunk out
of the same bucket and stuff like that, it didn't kill us. Played ball and
stuff like that when recess and dinner time come.
Q:
I can remember hearing my mother talk about peanut butter and homemade biscuits
and putting it into little buckets and taking it to school with her and eating
it for lunch. She said that some of the rich kids brought the sandwhichas maHe
our of bought bread would trade their sandwhichss for her peanut butter and
biscuits. That was something to them and the sandwhiches were something to her.
How were the schools back then.
What were they like?
�14
A:
Of course. My mother never did bake bread much, but grandmother baked light
bread. Baked it on the fire in that great big skillet I was tilling you about
on the hearth. Put two loaves in there and raise them up. Mother didn't
bake light bread so we took biscuits to school. We were always glad when
they killed hogs because we would get one biscuit with a piece of sausage on
it.
Q:
That was a treat?
A:
6h yes, that was a treat. We usually had butter and applebutter. Daddy always
managed to keep us a couple of cows. Had to because there were so many of us.
We had to have milk and butter.
Q:
With nine, I would expect so.
A:
We had apple butter and jelly and stuff like that in our biscuits mostly. Some
of the children would bring cornbread to school. We didn't have biscuits for
breakfast every moring but mother almost always tried to keep biscuits for us
to take to school, but we had cornbread sometimes for breakfast. We had our
own corn and had our meal ground but our flour we had to buy. Because daddy
didn't have enough land to raise wheat. We had to be saving with our flour.
Q:
How were the books back then?
A:
Books?
Q:
In the schools.
A:
Blue back speller. Dean didn't use it but I have got one. Dean had a little
spelling book like they all had. They had the primer and then the first reader,
and the second reader and all. Then, I've got all of them until he went on and
finished college. I've got all of his college books.
Q:
Where are you keeping these?
A:
Yes.
Q:
Was there something called Stone Algebra?
A:
Dean, do you know anything about it?
A:
Now we had algebra. That was another thing I could never do no good at.
But I don't remember the name of it. How old is your mother?
Q:
She is fifty-four.
A:
No, she's not as old as Dean.
anything about that.
Q:
Did the teacher take sections in the one room?
A:
She had all the little ones setting up in the front. They had big long benches
when I first went to school. We didn't have desks then, until I was a pretty
good sized girl. The little ones would set up front because they would talk and
What were they like?
Have you got them stored somewhere?
That is something they had later.
I don't know
�15
he would have to get after them. Thei,-second reader was next then on back. The
bigger ones were in the back. Professor Franklin could tell which one was
whispering and he would be standing up ther in the front. The blackboards were
painted on the walls. I don't know whether you heard anything about it or not,
but you know that school house that burned down. Shull's Mills school house
that burnt over there at the Horn and the West Grounds. It was from over here.
Bernard Dougherty got it and took it over there and it had one whole side of
the wall painted black. That's when Dean first went to school in it. They
had this thing along there that held your chalk and erasers, and T-slant.
You would lay your stuff down in there. We had slates. All the children
didn't have slates, but we could all go to the board and do things. He could
be up there putting a writing up there on the board for us to copy off and some
body in the back a whispering and he would turn around there as quick as
lightening and tell them who it was and call them up there and punish them.
A;
Old Sutherland in Ashe County was the first school 1 ever went to.
know where that is at?
Do ypu
Q:
No. I know where Ashe County is.
exactly.
A:
There post office is Creston. They are R.F.D. It is way back over there in
the mountains close to Potter Town. You've heard of Potter Town. It is not
too far from there.
Q:
The students didn't have pencils and paper?
A:
No, not when I first went to school.
I've heard of Sutherland but I don't know
They just wrote on slate?
You didn't have any pencils or paper
We had our slate and our slate pencil. We carried it home of the night. We
put our salte pencil in a book or in our coat pocket. It was usually about
that long and you would eventually break them.
Q:
What was a slate pencil like?
4:
A piece of slate.
Q:
It was a piece of slate?
A:
It was about the size of that thing you have in your hand. It was sharp at one
end. Some of them with chalk on their saltes, but that ruined the slate. It got
it so it wouldn't write. Daddy wouldn't let us write on them with chalk.
Whatever daddy said we must not do we didn't do. Later, when I went to school
at Beaver Creek we had tablets and pencils. But even over at Silverstone I
know I did.
Q:
There wasn't much emphasis placed on education back then, was there?
A:
There wasn't much, not like there is now.
Q:
Especially in girls,
A:
Our school was always out before Christmas when I was a child. I guess we had
about four months of school and that was it. Our school was out before
Christmas.
�16
The week before Christmas we had our spelling bee and our school was out and
then we were free until the next time school came around.
Q:
Do you mean that was the end of the school year?
A:
Yes, unless they had a summer subscription school. Daddy always managed to
send the children to taht. That was when I was little. That was the end of
the school year. Then they got up to six months of school and that is the
most that I ever went. We would go a little while after Christinas. Now,
they have the nine month. I think it was just six months when Dean first
started to school. See Dean i,? 65 years old. When he first started to
school it was just six months. They would get up what they called a
subscription school and they would pay a dollar a month for a pupil. Say
somebody had three children to send, they would pay three dollars a month.
They would hire a teacher and this teacher would stay around among the pupils.
She would stay one night one place and the next night another place. That way
the people boarded her and what they paid in for teaching was her salary. She
usually taught two months. That was when I was little. When we lived on Cove
Creek.
Q:
A dollar per pupol was alot back then.
A:
When you had two or three children to send it was hard to get that three dollars
a month. There was very few who could ever let very many go. They would let
their oldest ones go. Daddy always managed for me to go and after Lucy
got pretty good-sized he managed for her to go.
Q:
Did the older one come back and teach the younger ones what they had learned in
school?
A:
Yeah, we sit down and made them learn their ABC's and learned themlto read
and write before they ever went to school.
Q:
My mother was the baby of the family and she skipped two grades. They would
come back and teach her what they learned at school. In the first grade she
knew all of her ABC's. She could read and tell time. The teacher moved her
up a few grades.
A:
I was the oldest and I can remember teaching the other children what I had
learned in my books. They were just tickled to death when I came in of the
evening with my books to learn them what I had. Dean knew his ABC's and
could read and write lots of words when he started to school.
Q:
Alot of emphasis back then was placed on the children learning the way of the
home life. Cooking, sewing, and things like that. The boys learned farming.
A:
Whatever daddy done, thats waht they done.
Q:
What was the reaction by the^parents when the school was increased to six
months a year?
A:
Most of them liked it when the school was changed to six months.
like the children were out to much without enough to do.
Q:
I was thinking that some wantedathe kids ther at home to help.
A:
Lots of times the older children would miss a day or half a day.
Wasn't it?
They felt
I missed alot.
�17
I guess that is why I didn't like to go because I had to stay home and help
wash and iron. It is hard on the children like that. Hard on the parents, to.
In the fall it was time to gather in the crops and apples and stuff. Some
would keep children at hame all day to help do that. Maybe two days out of
a week they would have to miss. It was hard on the children to keep up.
Some of them didn't have to miss at all. They had older brothers and sisters
that could stay at home and do the work. The younger ones didn't miss at all.
It was the older ones that it was hard on.
Q:
Emphasis was placed on church going, wasn't it?
back then.
A:
Everybody went to church.
Q:
What were the churches like back then?
A:
They were sort of old fashioned like everything else was.
smart like country churches are today.
Q:
Were they old fashioned hell fire and brimstone preachers?
A:
Yeas most of them was.
Q:
What were the church activities?
A:
Go to Sunday School and they had preaching once a month on Saturday and Sunday.
That was it.
Q:
Did you have any church socials or picnics?
A:
Not when I was young.
Q:
Do you think the churches have changed a great deal over the years?
A:
Yes, they have changed alot.
people and the times.
Q:
Do you think that the beliefs have become a little bit lax over the years?
They are not quiet as strict as they used to be.
A:
There is more denominations now through this country. Used to be just
Methodists and Baptists when I was a little girl growing up. You never
heard tell of anything exceot Methodius and Baptists. You were either one
or the other. There was usually one of each church,in a community. They all
got along. They didn't disagree. You were just a Methodist or a Baptist.
Now, there are so many different kinds of Methodists and Baptists, presbyterians,
the holiness folks, and all that stuff until it is just dirrerent.
Q:
So many of them are church splits. One group goes off to be their own church
and they build a church over here and one forms out of that to.
A:
I don't know how it was in other communities but when I was just a girl growing
up you never heard tell of anything like that in the community. There was one
Baptist Church and one Methodist church and that was it.
Q:
To which did most of the people belong?
Good preachers.
Religion was really a big thing
They were a right
Most of them were older men.
Just like the people.
They change with the
�18
A:
I believe the Baptist in our community. Some of the Methodist churches had
more members and some of the Baptist churches had more members.
Q:
Preachers back then were God called, weren"'t they?
A:
They were different. Not many of the preachers had a college degree back
when I was growing up.
Q:
Just high school degrees?
A:
They were good men and good teachers. They preached the bible more than they
do now. They just got up there and read their bible and preached about it.
They talked about all that was going on in the world and everything. You were
SHved or you wasn't. You were going to heaven or to hell and that was. about all
there was to it. They just preached that and that was it. Everybody was
happy. The best I can remember that was the way it was.
Q:
The preacher was a very respected man in the community, wasn't he?
A:
Oh yes.
Q:
Had a lot of influence with the people.
A:
Yes.
Q:
I guess that was what held the churches together.
A:
I was. They respected the preacher and they respected each other. The church
was something sacred to them. That is about the best way that I can explain
it to you.
Q:
There were a lot of old customs that were held to back then, wasn't there?
A:
I guess so, but I don't remember much about them.
Q:
A lot of tradition.
A:
Yeah.
Q:
Can you think of anything else that I have left out?
A:
No, I can't.
A:
That store house down there used to be turned around with the front of it
down toward that other road because this road wasn't through here then.
The first post office was in that building. Shull's Mills post office.
I've got old tintype pictures made of that building. The front of that
store house and people standing in frcont of it. Dean has got the first post
office certificate in a frame. See when they built this road through here and
this high bridge they moved the store house down that way. Dean had it turned
with the front down that way. Then he rebuilt it and fixed it all over.
Dean's daddy said he could remember when Granpa built it. Roby would be 90
years old. The man who moved it said it was the best old house he had moved
since he had been moving houses.
Q:
It is well over a hundred years, isn't it?
A:
It is put together with pegs.
Some not even that.
Things being past down through the family.
I think I've covered everything all over the county.
�19
Q:
Dean:
A:
That goes a way back, sure enough.
It is .tall hand hued.
Those shelves in there were already there when Grandpa Shull had the store
there. Then Dean's daddy had a store there for a while. Now Dean has got
a store in it.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region.
The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students.
Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU.
An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school.
This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1965-1989
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Scanned by
Wetmore, Dana
Equipment
Hp Scanjet 8200
Scan date
2014-02-17
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 Mamie Breybeal Shull, April 3, 1973
Description
An account of the resource
Mamie Graybeal Shull was born in 1889 and has lived around Boone, North Carolina since 1906.
Ms. Shull begins her interview talking about Shull's Mill. She then talks about home remedies and other traditions like the legends, myths, and food. Ms. Shull explains her experiences with cars and the reaction of the community when they were first introduced. She recollects memories in the schoolhouse including school lunches, text books, and the layout. To finish her interview, Ms. Shull explains what church was like as a child.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Brinkley, Bill
Shull, Mamie Graybeal
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
4/3/1973
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.
19 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_tape54_MamieGreybealShull_1973_04_03M001
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Boone, NC
Subject
The topic of the resource
Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
Mountain life--North Carolina--Watauga County--History--20th century--Anecdotes
Boone
cars
legends
myths
Shull's Mill
traditional food