1
50
1
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/d64cd610551e84347b37f6f1ba7e6a13.pdf
b8c8f282d27abb9305cda32faf9cfed5
PDF Text
Text
This is an interview2with Carter Ruppard by Tommy Pursley for the Appalachian
Oral History Project at Matney N. C. on June 10, 1974.
Interviewer :
Where was your mama and daddy born?
Mr. Ruppard : In Irdell county . I forget the name of the town . That's been
years ago. If my daddy had been living yet he would be a hundred and seven
years old . He come to this country from I rdell county to Watauga.
Interviewer :
When did they move here?
Mr. Puppard: My daddy was twenty-five years old when he moved to Watauga
county. And raised thirteen children in the country.
Interviewer:
born?
What were you in that thirteen?
Were you one of the first ones
Mr. Ruppard : No, no . Let's see. Andrew is the oldest, Laura, Ellen, James,
Nanie, Daisie, Me, Maggie, Besty, Troy, Roy, Sherman, right on down the rotation.
Interviewer :
Were they all born f ight here?
Mr. Ruppard:
In Watauga County :
Interviewer :
So when your daddy moved here • . . .
Mr . Ruppard:
Right over here at Cove Creek, at Willow Dale.
Interviewer:
That's where he lived?
Mr . Ruppard:
here .
Yes sir.
Interviewer :
Are all your brothers and sisters still living?
He lived there eighteen years before he ever came up
Mr. Ruppard : No sir . I just got two sisters a living. I got two brothers
and a sister living besides myself . The rest are all dead .
Interviewer:
Do they still live around this area?
Mr. Ruppard : Got two brothers that live up here at Blowing Rock; one sister
lives over here this side of Banner Elk, Horse Bottom they call it.
Interviewer :
Why did your parents move to Watauga County?
Mr. Ruppard : They just come from Irdell County to here, took up and raised
here, right over at Cove Creek at Willow Dale.
Interviewer :
Did they have them a farl'l?
�2
Mr . Ruppard:
Rented~
They rented fro~ old man Thin Mast . , Dave Mast's
daddy, Gharles Mas.t t:s daddy . Stay up there eighteen years till we come
to tnis country up here. Been here about sixty-nine years, right here.
What I was going to say about the little ridge up there where Troy and Roy
live, up there this side of Illowing Rock, stayed up there eighteen years, butchered for Boone Fork Lumber Company when the band mill ran over here at
Shull ' s Mill, then I came back here, home to the old place .
Interviewer:
You were born on Cove Creek right?
Mr. Ruppard:
Yes sir.
Interviewer :
How old were you when you moved away from there?
Right up there above Willow Dale.
Mr. Ruppard: I was just ten year old when we come from over there over here.
I'm eighty-two years old . We been here some while .
Interviewer:
Did your brothers and sisters help with the farming?
Mr . Ruppard: Oh yeah . I can remember very well nister when there were
nine of us all big enough at home at one time to take a row of corn across
the hill together . Went to the taole and filled the table as far as here
over to mama . Lived better then than we can now . And it was every day
business .
Interviewer:
Did you all raise most everything you needed on the farm?
Mr. Ruppard : Yes sir . We hardly ever go to buy anything unless it would
be a poke of flour once in a while. The rest of the stuff was all raised on
the farm . People better get to doing it now to .
Interviewer :
Do you still raise a lot of your food right now?
Mr . Ruppard :
Everything mostly.
Interviewer: Do you remember anything that happen when all thirteen of
your brothers and sisters were living at home?
Ruppard : I can remember everything from two years old up to now . Yessir.
I stayed with my oldest brother that Has married . The first baby that vTas
born I was two years old . They sent me back home and I could carry just half
a gallon of water to his wife . I stayed with them nearly three weeks and when
they sent me back home they bought me a pair a overhauls just like the ones
I got on now . I've wore pretty much ever since. I can remember stuff back
then just about as good as I can a month ago . It was daylight to dark
work, carry a lantern up at night to tie up ( unintangible) and put it
in stacks. People have to do it this day and tiwe they'd die in spite of
everything.
l~r .
Interviewer:
Do you think life was better then than it is now?
�3
Mr. Ruppard:
Well in a way .
Interviewer:
What ways was it better?
Mr . Ruppard : We never had any of this back then . . . I can remember very well.
I was ten year old when we lef t over there and come here . Been here ever since
and up to that time you never heard of a sickness only one thing . An old
one-eyed fellow lived over here at Matney and people would come from Cove Creek
and come to him to get him to make medicine to cure Diptheria they call it .
Now then there is all kinds of disease everywhere. Every kid that took
Diptheria would come to old man Doc Hogsy right over here at Matney . They
had to make medicine to cure that. You would hear tell of measles, mumps,
something like that, but I mean anything like cancer, stuff that a way
you never heard tell of it.
Interviewer: When the doctor had to take care of people what did he charge
and how did you pay him?
Mr. Ruppard: Back when we were over there for eighteen years, there weren ' t
two doctors in this country at that time, old man Doc Perry and Doc Fybes
down on Cove Creek . If they went to see you years ago they went horseback riding.
Interviewer :
Mr.
was
the
two
Well how were the roads?
Ruppard: Oh boy it was bad . Not a hard surface road heard tell of. It
just out of one hole and into another one . They call you out to work enroads and you had to do it for free. They'd work you out two days every
weeks. I worked this road here when free labor was working .
Interviewer:
Were the roads wide enough for wagons?
Mr. Ruppard : Just about one way. You had to pick places ti pass. It wasn't
like it is now where you could pass anywhere . A lot of places you would have
to pick places to pass . I've hauled lumber from here to Elk Park and Cranberry
on the dirt road, mud down through there. You be expecting to meet somebody
and have to pass them with a load of lumber. It's all together different.
Interviewer: Well you've talked about how hard you had to work, did you ever
have time for games or anything like that .
Mr. Ruppard: Lord dickens.
place a going.
It was daylight to dark, after dark to keep the
Interviewer :
You never got to go out and fool around with your friends?
Mr. Ruppard:
Very seldom did we get to' do the same thing as a vacation day .
Interviewer:
What did you do for entertainment?
Mr. Ruppard:
Like I tell you, hard work .
That's what we got .
�4
Interviewer:
You didn't have get togethers?
Mr. Ruppard: Only thing like that back then was in clearing new ground people
would go in ... if we had a big new ground to clear here, the Binghams down
here and Haurts and all of them would come in here and help us in our new ground
and when we got ours ready to pile the logs and burn the brush we'd go on and
help them get theirs ready. And while the men folks were doing that the women
folks would have a quilting . . They sit around and quilt and get dinner. I
fell on two old sled standards years ago and broke two ribs back there and just
got so I could get out of the hospital with that and they swell up on me
and it cuts my breath off every once in a while. I guess I took a team and
logged more than anybody in this country that I know of now. Two big settings
up in Jenkins, Kentucky, two big settings up at Garden Creek, 26 miles above
Wilkesboro. We logged all over this country.
Interviewer:
What would you do leave home for a couple weeks?
Mr. Ruppard:
Yes sir.
Interviewer:
How was the pay then?
Mr. Ruppard: It come slow. It come slow, Mister. I was talking to a fellar
the other day about going up there to · Kentucky on that job, we destroyed and
wasted more timber that if we had it back this day and time we could buy up a
sight. Big chestnut logs and we'd just cut a twelve foot slice out of them
to make our log losd out of and just leave the rest hardwood, poplar, and
stuff and now old rotten wormy chestnut is way up yonder. We wasted more
than people make this day and time.
Interviewer:
Besides logging and farming what other jobs have you worked at?
Mr. Ruppard:
That's about all I ever did, farmed, sawmilled, logged.
Interviewer:
Which work did you like the best?
Mr. Ruppard: I just as soon get out and go to the mountains after a trail
of logs as I would anything. Or work at a sawmill if every man does his
part under a sawmill shed. I loved that pretty good. You couldn't find
most of them that would do that. One would loaf on his work and that would
make it harder on the rest of us under the shed. If everybody would carry
his load, I'd just as soon work under a sawmill shed.
Interviewer:
Was Saturday and Sunday any different from the rest of the week?
Mr. Ruppard:
We'd work Saturday and take off on Sunday.
Interviewer:
What did you do on Sunday?
Mr. Ruppard: Go to church and have a good time. Most of the time we had to
work late Saturday night carrying out hay and tie up the stacks. It was hard
business.
�5
Interviewer:
Did you go to church on Sunday and stay all day?
Mr. Ruppard: No. We go until after the service and come
back home.
lay around or walk up to your neighbors.
Interviewer :
What kind of church did you go to?
Mr. Ruppard :
Baptist .
We'd
Everyone of us, the whole bunch was Baptist .
Interviewer: What did you do when you started getting a little older about
courting girls?
M.r. Ruppard:
going.
We'd ask daddy if we could go out .
Interviewer:
Where would you go if you went?
If he said no then you weren't
Mr . Ruppard: Just go to her house. I was telling a fellow here the other
n~ght • he. was· talking about drinking liquor . I said anybody can smell gas or 1
~iquor quicker than I can they just might as well stay in bed. I don't fool with
it and I never did . I had a pair of mares and I hooked them to a bug . ..
I dated this girl nearly four years, stayed in a sawmill with her da~ly and
hauled lumber through the \-?inter time with him ... we took a buggy ride down to
Elk valley, down Elk Park and around on Sunday . And they was Advents; Seven
Day Advents. We came hack from the ride and I hitched the mares as far as from
here to the road from their house. Her daddy never would ask me to help him on
Sunday . But when we drove up her daddy and grandpaw, an old man, was up in the
hollar trying to finish stacking some hay. It looked like it was going to rain.
Well this girl ' s name Fas l)aisie, but her daddy always called her son . Her
sister's name was Blanche and he always called her Jack . He seen us walking
up to tl\e house and hollared, ''hey Son." She said, "what do you want Papa?"
He said, ''bring us a bucket of water up here . '·' We went out to this spring and
carried them a bucket of water and he said, "Son, how about getting up there
and finish stomping down that ' so-and-so'· hey . " He was an awful man to swear .
That's the only thing I ever had against him. I said, "no, I ' 11 do it." I
wasn't going to stand there and see her do it . Before I did it he said, ''Cart
you never have took a drink and before you get up on that hay you got to take a
drink. 1 ' Before I could say anything there he come around that haystack totin
a gallon jug, holden the cork in his teeth and pouring it like he was pouring
water. To satisfy him I took that jug and turned it up and took one swallow.
I got the whole whiff of it as I . . .. I got up there and before we could finish
that haystack, I had to hold to th~ top of that stack to keep from .. . . . I could
see everything in twos, two of everything . And I noticed this girl sitting up
there laughing at me. Yeah, she was tickled to death. I had to hold to that
dogged pole up there to keep f rom falling off till we got that stack done .
Then I had to go back down to the house. I had to go about from here to the
woods up yonder to my horse and buggy. I remember very well trying to get my
horses unhitched and a fellow come along that was courting one of my sisters,
Walt Bennet, he was corning over here . Re got me in that buggy and brought me
home, took my mares and turned them loose . The next thing I could remember,
buddy, was right in that room, right in there, my mother was standing there
trying to pour sweet milk down me . I could always blow an old French harp.
�6
My paw, he was sittinr, there and he said, " son, let's .~ear you play some on your
French harp. Be said that I said, "where's the dad-blame thing at.'~ rle gave
me that French harp. Instead of holding it the way I was supposed to, I was
blowing in the back of it. He said that I said, " I can't blow this dad-blamed
thing." And I throwed it at him and bearly missed him in the face. So I count
it that I been tight one time in my life. Then one other day we went to Johnson
City. Feller up here, Lee Ward, went with us, cattleman. I bought me a calf.
Coming on back ... Willie, my oldest boy, he lives down here by Ernie Tripplet,
by Connie Yates out there. Lee says to Willie, "I want to p.sk yo u something.
I want the truth and Willie I want you to tell me. Did you ever see your papa
turn up anything to drink?" Willie says, " No sir, not in my life I ain't."
Coming back outside of Johnson City there's a place Mister Lee can 't pass to save
his life without stopping and ~etting him a pint. But when he does he says,
"Mister Cart there ain't no use to offer it to you. You won't drink it."
And he'll set it behind the seat. And I'll take an ~ oath anytime you want me to
that I never saw a bottle turned up to Lee Ward's mouth while he was behind
the steering wheel. Lee said, " I want to ask you again . Did you ever hear
your daddy swear?" He says, "No, only when he was talking after somebody else
and telling what they said." I brought that calf back ... Mister Lee says,
11
Mister Cart, before you put that calf on that rich cows milk you better give
her something for the scaires. I've got the medicine." I said, "Mister Lee,
I 'd just soon pay you as anybody." He got that old calf and took it over there
to the barn. In the barn set an old Pepsi bottle with about that much clorox
in it. He just pick that stuff up and poured it down that calf and that calf
went about half way across tne yard there and just fell over. I said, ''looky
there Mister Lee." He said, "Goddamn."
I said, "there ain't no Goddamn to it. It's a dead calf." It just kick two
or three kicks and it was dead right quick. He said, "what was in that bottle?"
I said, "you had it poured down that calf so quick, I couldn't tell you."
It was clorox Andrew had over there bleaching his Stallion's mane. He came out
with his checkbook to write me the money for the calf. I said, "no Mister Lee.
That money's worth advertising your doctoring. He said, "Cart, don't you ever
tell anybody about this." Well if I'd promised the man that I wouldn't have
told it then I'd not told it, but I never promised that I wouldn't. I swapped
horses with him one time and he gave me fifty dollars to boot. He said, "I'll
swap with you if you'll never tell anybody I booted you." I said, "that's the
reason I want to swap with you Mister Lee; so I can tell everybody that I got
a little boot in a horse swap.'' Well a little later on over here at the stock
sells in Boone, we were all standing up on the bank watching the rotation.
Right there about middle ways there layed a two year old that was just bearly
milk broke. He was just a shaking. One of them, a fellow called on Mr. Fred
Greene.
Me and Lee were standing right together watching them run the cattle
in there. One of the fellows said, "Fred here's one down the milkboard. He
called on a fellow, Johnson, to get some ~oys and drag him out of the way so
the other ones would quit runnin~ over him. He said, "I'll get him up from
there directly. I'll give hirr. a dose of penicillin." I said, "Mister Taylor
if you can't get him up Mister Lee here can." We had a lot of fun together.
Interviewer:
What did he intend to give the calf?
Mr. Ruppard:
He figured it was
\Tater
and he mixed this powder with it, but he
�7
poured that clorox down that calf . That's what killed it . It just walked there and
i t didn't kick three kicks.
He just poured that powder in that Pepsi bottle .
He never asked if it was water or coffee of liquor no~ nothing.
Interviewer:
Well the man that gave you the drink of liquor, did he make it?
Mr. Ruppard : Oh, no sir. A fellow right down here this side of Elk Park bootlegged all the time. His daddy did up till he died then old Hoove Eller . ..
old man Ben Eller, he made it and sold it all fiis life . After Ben died Hoove
ran it, he sold it. Anybody wants a gallon of liquor they go down to Hoove
Eller ' s . Me and his oldest brother, a crippled fellow, took a load of lumber
over tp Elk Park, broke a wagon wheel down, didn't get to come back that nigpt .
A fellow down there name Williams fixed our wagon wheel, and we slept with
Uncle Ben in what he called his liquor house . There wasn ' t much roof to it,
but it had a good floor and it was good and warm. Thomas and Ben made an agreement about something . Ben moved our bed where he had a lid there and he raised
it up and reached down there and pulled up two gallons of liquor. That bo-x
was sitting just as full of gallons and half gallons just _ pretty as you please .
as
We stayed there over night . Sometime during the night it come to snowing one
of the prettiest snowa I believe I've ever seen. That always did me good too.
It would snow and we could pull our logs easier. I bet you the next morning
that snow three or four inches on us. Ben said Reese .. . he was laying over
there behind. He was way bigger than me or Reese was . He said, "Reese. What
do you want Mr. Boss . " He said, "Reese, it ' s time to start a fire . " He says,
"OOOOOOH Mr . Boss." I can see .him just as plain as if he was here talking.
Ben said, ''you coming out from be~ind there Reese?" "OOOOOOH Mr . Boss I don't
believe I can." Be said, "I be dad-blamed if you don ' t." He picked a little
of the cover up on on his arm and rolled all of that snow back on Reese . He
said, "wait Mr. Boss . Wait Mr . Boss . I'm acoming." Two or three fellers had
stayed there on the floor and you couldn ' t tell them from snow. Ben ran them
up from there. Now this fellow I was telling you about, I courted his girl,
he kept it regular, too, buddy. He kept his liguor .
Interviewer:
When did you get married?
Mr. Ruppard: Oh, I was about 23 years old. She was 16 . What I was going to
tell you about the liquor business now. Two fellows were shot over there at
Foscoe on Christmas Day . That liquor came from down in a whole where we lived
at Watauga Gap . Old man John Townsend, they claimed, could come nearer to making
pure whiskey than anybody they knew of . Well from Saturday evening to Sunday
night they kept the road full going down there. They'd go down there and spend
theit money and go on back home . They never bothered a thing at our house
except just passing back and forth . Two fellows, I forget their names, but
they fished all the time. They were sitting up under a big oak tree and one said
he wished he had some of them fried up, he loved to eat them . Well somebody
said, "if you like fish so much why don't you eat them ~·a..; . He said, " by God
I can." He caught one that was four or five inches long and he put it in his
mouth and swallowed it. They'd had bet 25¢ and it cost him twenty-five dollars
to operate to. get that fish out. He swallowed it alive. Well anyway, them
same two fellows come up through there one day, had them a gallon a piece and
started to come in the house. My daddy stopped'em . Said they weren ' t bringing
that stuff in the house with all the youngins in there. They tried to come
anyway and my daddy had to drag one of them out by his ankles. That was the only
�8
trouble we had the whole time we lived there . But after that killing took place . ..
my daddy knowed all four of ' em, worked with them. The high sheriff of the
co~nty, Luther Farthing, Coe Perry, Ed Shipley, and old man, I forget his name;
we d g~ne to b:d, mama and us children. We slept back in the bedroom and papa
slept in here in front of the fireplace. I wasn\t asleep and somebody knocked on
the door . Dad said, "come in . " · If he hadn't ask where I was at I wouldn 't
have cared so much. Sheriff said, .. he called my daddy grandpa all the time . ..
he said, " Grandpa, where is Carter a:t?" I got up and came in there and we sat
there and talked to eleven o'clock . Finally he turned around to me and said,
•:carter I want to tell you my business." I said, "What's that Sheriff? What
have I done or is it something I ain't done . " He said, "no, I brought these
three men with me for you to be swore in here as deputy sheriff if it won't be
too much trouble for you . " I said, ,. Thank you Sheriff. That's as nice as can be t.
asked of anybody . I been here thirteen years and I can't do enough to get people
to stop going down there let alone being a target propped up out there to be
shot at . " I went on back to bed. He finally deputized one of my brothers, Coy,
to help him catch one of Dave Chirley's boys . They was making liquor up in the
hollar up there . Bill Whiter's boy, Paul ~'hiter, ¥as up at Blowing Rock courting.
About your size for the world and not a finer hoy on the Blue Ridge . He had to
pass here and on up through Dave's where they was making the liquor . He come
ridinf through in a buggy and they hollared halt at him and didn ' t hear them.
They was laying out there on a stack out, Coy and the Sheriff . Coy shot the boy
right through the arm there as purty as you please . Talk about somebody giving
up their job in a hurry, now Coy did . I never had a run in with the law. I ' ve
been in court one time and the judge scared me, I could _
haye_ gone out the top
of that building . I went up there and I was a butcher for the Boone Fork Lumber
Company while the ban mill was running . I had two sheep to kill and a beef to
kill every week. Old man Judge Wagner was the man to pay me, giving me three
dollars a day . Now this is the way it went . He went down to Ed Shipley I was
telling you about and he give him twenty-five dollars a ewe, a hundred head of
ewe. He brought 'em up there and had a divided field with fifty on one side
and fifty on the other side . Right here was a white spring and an apple tree
stood over there where I had my block hung for butchering. My orders were to
kill the two best out of the left hand side of the field until they was used up
before I was to kill any on the right hand side . They had jerseys, gernseys,
holsteins, all kinds in there . I had an old collie dog, if I had it now I wouldn ' t
take five hundred dollars for it. I clip his ears and cut off his tail and =I
betcha he weighed 125 pounds. People would come to see that dog catch a sheep.
I get my block hung, then I pick out the best one in the bunch and I'd hit that
one on the back with a peice of bark of a stick and I ' d say get her Red . No
matter hiw many times he ' d chase the sheep around the herd when he finally got it
seperated he would get it by the legs and drag it to me . Well that morning my
daddy was up there with me and he said, "look coming up the hill." There wasn ' t
a road to get up there and a bunch of people from the lumber company were coming
up the hill . They got up there and the boss says, •:son which one you gonna give
us today?" I said I hadn ' t had time to look them over yet. · Hell the ones on the
left side were all nasty looking and had what I call snot-slinkings coming out
thear mouth and nose . He picks one out of that bunch and says to kill it and not
to kill another one till he sends me word. The next day I was down by the sawmill
and Mr . Jud Wagner come up riding a great big old horse and he said, "Hey Mr.
Ruppard you back fron killing sheep already?" I said, "No, I ain't killed no
sheep and back already." He said, "Well ain ' t the day sheep day . " I said, "No,
'
�9
today ain't sheep day . Mr . Richard told me Tuesday morning to kill that one
and not to kill any more till he sent me word . " He got mad said he was gonna
tell them all off . He swore tnar he rode that horse up to where they was and
cussed them all out. I know he was l y ing' cause if he ' d rode that horse up
there he would have nad to ride it across two train trussels and there's
no way he could have done tnat . Thursday week here comes the deputy sheriff
and sentence my daddy and me to Boone to go to court . What it was, the company
was sueing Ed Shipley f or putting diseased sneep off on 'em . Jud was sueing
Ed Shipley for putting then off on him . Well, they called the case and they
said, "tell us your ousiness up there with them sheep . And I told him I
was the butcher for the Boone Fork Lumber Company. I told, I had had orders
to kill two sheep a week and a beef . I was supposed to take the best two
out of the left hand side. The judge was sitting up there behind me and he
said, "look around here son." Buddy I could ' 9- went out the top of that
court house . He said , "what do you mean the two best out of the left hand
side?" And told him the right hand side had more snotty noses and nasty
behinds and germy sheep . You know from that day till this they never did
settle that unless they compromised some how. Tnis fellow I was telling you
about natl this old leather saddle. Nice saddle. I had one . Anyway he was
a big old fat fellow and he had that open end saddle on that big old horse
he was riding. There was this woman that lived up above us, she could plow
as good as any man ever could. She could take a team of horses and handle
them better than a man . Well old Ben went up to her house on that big horse
and while he was there , she turned that saddle around on his horse and you
know he rode that horse all the way back down there to Foscoe before he turned
that saddle around, nearly ten miles . You should have seen that fellow .
He was sore and black and blue up under there where he ' d rode that saddle
backwards all that way . Yeah . We had our ups and downs; ups and downs .
Interviewer:
Did you get to go to school very much?
Mr. Ruppard: I never got to go to school over two months in my life. I
was talking to a feller the other day . His daddy was the only teacher I
ever went to. He smite me . He hit me . He was a little feller . . . Ralph
Wilson's daddy, Frank Wilson, alittle fellow . Rignt there at Willow Dale
where I'm telling you, right over there a little farther. There was an old
well there, That ' s the reason they built the st:hool there. They cleaned
that well out a little later and you'd be surprised at the old dead dogs
and cats and chickens and things they got out of that old well . Right
on above now us boys had us a swimming hole. It was long as from here
that old building up yonder and it was about ten or twelve feet deep. About
middle ways there was an old apple tree limb sticking out over the water.
And we were playing 'mad dog ' we called it. \{ e were always playing that,
us boys .
I could run then .
The person that was it would say, " innie minnie
miny moe, catch a guinie by the toe," then you would light out after them.
I had caught all of them except for one boy . He went up that apple tree and
I went up after him . He started out on that limb and I was right behind
him. Well he got out there and I started shaking the limb . Ee fell in
the swimming hole and nearly drowned. I ended up having to jump in there and
pull him out. Well there was this girl up there watching and she says she ' s
going to tell the teacher . I lite out after her to make sure she tells
�10
the truth. Well she told him and he sends me to get a switch. You needn'.t
come back with one with just one switch on it, it had to have two switches on
it. He switched me, boy he switched me.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region.
The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students.
Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU.
An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school.
This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1965-1989
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview.
Pursley, Tommy
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Rupard, Carter
Interview Date
6/17/1974
Location
The location of the interview.
Boone, NC
Number of pages
10 pages
Date digitized
9/16/2014
File size
7.54MB
Checksum
alphanumeric code
9452ab507801e9bf1d4f158da784e47a
Scanned by
Tony Grady
Equipment
Epson Expression 10000 XL
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records; 1965-1989; W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection; Special Collections; Appalachian State University; Boone; NC). Any commercial use of the materials; without the written permission of the Appalachian State University; is strictly prohibited.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
AC.111 Appalachian Oral History Project Records; 1965 - 1989
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
111_tape292_CarterRupard_transcript_M
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Carter Rupard [June 17, 1974]
Language
A language of the resource
English
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Pursley, Tommy
Rupard, Carter
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Farm life--North Carolina--Watauga County--20th century
Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
Mountain life--North Carolina--Watauga County
Logging--North Carolina
Sawmill workers--North Carolina--Watauga County
Rupard, Carter
Description
An account of the resource
Carter Rupard talks about growing up on a farm in Cove Creek with his many siblings. He says that they "lived better than we can now" and that "we hardly ever went to buy anything unless it would be a poke of flour ever once in awhile." His family was totally self-sufficient with their farm, and they had to work very hard every day of the week.
Banner Elk
Blowing Rock
Boone Fork Lumber Company
butcher
Carter Rupard
courting
Cove Creek
Doctor Fybes
Doctor Perry
farming
Irdell County
Johnson City
Judge Wagner
liquor business
logging
Matney
North Carolina
sawmill
Shull's Mill
Watauga County N.C.