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AOHP
This is an interview with Mr. and Mrs. San Jones on the Castle
Ford Road on June 12, 1973. The interview is with Mike HcNeely.
Question:
Mr. Jones, would you tell me something about the farm you
were born on?
Answer:
It was sixty-five acres, X think.
I've cleared it here the
last few years, all ray life nearly. There's about as much land as you
can see.
Done everything that can be done to get it to work.
Qt
How many were there in your family?
A:
Nine.
Q:
How many brothers and sisters?
A:
Five girls and four boys.
Q:
Your dad had a lot of help on that farm, didn't he?
A:
Yeah, when we got up big enough. Oh we just growed corn, potatoes,
mostly theni"—-beans, and peas
anything like they do now.
little stuff like that.
Didn't grow
Pumpkins, just grow all the pumpkins and
string it and string it up and put it on posts and dry it.
Q:
Did you have any livestock?
A:
Yeah, we had hogs, cow or two and hog or two.
Chickens, geese,
guineas.
Q:
Were the cows and chickens used for meat, or were they used for
milk and eggs?
A:
No, just milk and eggs mostly.
Q:
How about your hogs?
Did you let them run free or did you keep
them in pens?
A:
No, we had a big lot back then.
That's about a acre a lot for *.-•
them to run in.
Q:
I was reading somewhere that some of the farmers let their hogs
run wild.
A:
My dad used to have forty—-one year had forty head.
Cholera got
�2.
amongst them, they was out in the mountains.
six.
That cholera111 kill them right now.
All died but five or
I've never seen but one--
I remember seeing them bring one old big hog in.
that far, I guess, out of his mouth.
His tusks was stuck
We had to cover that fellow,
you stick your finger, he'd make a dive at you, just like a snake
a-grabbing.at you.
mouth and all.
He'd eat you up.
Ah, they had him tied all over,
I don't know how in the world they ever, caught him.
I was just a little bitty fellow then, but I can remember it.
That's
been sixty year ago or more.
Q:
How often did they have a kill?
A:
Every fall.
They'd go out and shoot them down, with old war rifles,
anywhere they could find them.
Q:
How was the meat back then?
Was it as good as it is today?
A:
Well, I don't believe there was as any a fat hog, unless they got
fat on mash, they used to get awful fat on mash, Chestnuts and acorns,
Lord, there used to be worlds of them.
I picked one day, part of a
day after a big snow, about ninety pounds of chestnuts.
Early fall
and they'd been dry, you know, and they wouldn't open up, well they'd
open, but they couldn't pull out.
bring them out.
They'd take damp, you know, to
They come a snow, four or five inches, and I was on
Buffalo, and it went off a little while and boy, I mean to you, trees,
there was two or three growed up in one bunch there.
bushel or more under that.
I got a half
Boy I got all I could carry and I never
got started on them.
Mrs. J.:
Me and my sister used to pick them up, had four or five ^
trees out in the field.
went to school.
We'd pick them up in the morning before we
Sometimes we'd get three bushels.
Dad always took
produce down around Salisbury and down in there, he'd take them down
there and sell them for us.
�3.
Q:
Did you all use them around the house any?
A:
Mrs. J.
(Chestnuts, oh we'd eat all we wanted and sold bushels of
them.
Mr. J.
I used to climb trees to shake them out.
Mrs. J.
We never did shake them out. We'd just pick them up as we
went to school of the morning,when they started falling.
Q:
Was there a lot of fruit around here--berries?
A:
Mrs J.
Yeah, there used to be all kinds of berries, and apples,
and cherries.
Mr. J.
Anymore you don't get many a meal, once in a while. .. .
Now you couldn't get a cherry ham shuck for years around here.
Mrs. J.
Cherry trees just about all died.
And blackberries seem
they blight anymore, you can't get none of them.
Mr. J.
Hadn't picked a blackberry in four or five year, I don't reckon.
Mrs.J.
Sometimes you can get some wild strawberries if they don't
freeze.
Lot of time there comes a freeze about the time they're
blooming.
Don't get to bloom anymore.
Q:
How about huckleberries?
At
Mrs. J.
Are there any around here?
Ah, none to amount to anything, they used to be a good
many, back in the mountains, you know.
Mr. J.
We got, was it ninety-six quarts or something---over a hundred
one year?
Mrs. J.
About ninetyfseven^quarts, but the field that had so many in
it's been cleaned off, bulldozed out.
Mr. J.
Timber
them out, killed too lots pine
and everything. We found a bush one time, I don't know, I wasn't
with them.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
Had I went that day or not?
Yeah, you was off in the field here picking.
And one of my girls found it first, then one of my boys, and
she pickftd a gallon bucket! full and he finished his off on one bush.
�4.
The biggest huckleberries
it after that.
I always
there, you know.
Q:
I ever seen.
I never did see that many on
it up when I went over in
I think it's dead now, it's been destroyed.
How did they used to put up their fruits back in your mother's
day?
A:
Mrs. J.
Most the time they just canned them, cooked them and put
them in cans, sealed them.
Mr. J.
Now they made a lot of dried sweets too.
Mrs. J.
Of course apples, they dried a lot of apples, had dried
apples and they'd dry pumpkins and way on back before I ever remember, I was told, my mother told me how they used to dry their blackberries.
They dried them.
They dried their peanuts, string beans,
and they had what they called leather britches.
Mr. J.
They are good.
They'd just seal and dry them and put meat to them, they are
good.
Q:
How much of the crop that was on the farm was sold as produce and
how much of it did you use?
A:
Mr. J. We never sold---growed anything back then when I was a boy.
Mrs. J.
Since we
when,we lived out there, a lot of time,we growed
beans.
Mr* J.
We might have sold a few taters
Mrs. J.
We growed tobacco to sell and grain, what corn we put out,
we'd use it, have our own meal and so forth, take beans to market and
tobacco.
Mr. J.
We used to make seventy-five and seventy-six gallon* of molas-
ses here and never sold a one, we eat everyone of them.
My dad, after
we all left but my youngest brother and he would eat a snuff glass
full every morning, you know, for breakfast.
(chittling) molasses.
That's a half a pint of
�5,
Q:
Did you ever make maple syrup or maple sugar?
A:
Mr. J. I made a lot of maple sugar, I know how it's made ....
Well there was three pots, I think, one was an awful big one.
Just
out in the woods, had an old pole, and a fork in the pole laid in*it
and the lails across it. And we'd give out troughs, wooden troughs,
take . peck buckets and go around and dip it out.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
Tapped the sugar trees, sugar maples.
My dad used a axe, cut a place right handy and hewed out a
little old thin strips about that wide, stuck in there and drive it
in there, you know, catch your water.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
Makes a spout for the sap to run.
Sometimes it's clean, sometimes it'd just drip calmly, some
of it runs better than others.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
That boiling it down though.
I've boiled to twelve and one o'clock plenty of time.
Get
it down to pretty good syrup and bring it in home the next day or
night and boil it down to sugar.
best syrup I've ever eat.
I Hike that syrup, boy it's the
If I had a gallon I wouldn't take---wouldn't
sell it for a ten dollar bill, it'd cost more than that if a man
could get it. Dad made some for years, a little and sold it, they
was all gone, I understand it.
Q:
Did they use the sugar instead of white sugar?
A:
Mr. J.
No, sold it.
Q: How much did it bring?
&
: Mr. J.
I forget now.
Only good time was forty cents, fifty cents
a pound, thirty and forty, well the last he made he sold to a postmaster down there at old Jefferson, he got fifty or sixty cents or
more down there.
Mrs. J.
Now a---white sugar was cheaper than the maple sugar, buy
�6.
the white, would save money.
Mr. J.
Now there's a man over there on Buffalo, that would be,
he's a doctor, Sam was his name, Sao Perkins, and he tried to run it
on yarn strings, you know, to a-.-he had a outlet, you know, little
buildings where they bo He'd it down, you know,
It wouldn't run off
the hill, it'd just run a little, and just drip off, put out a lot
of money that-a-way.
Then he bought him a five-hundred or a thousand
peck buckets and had him a big trough, it was down there, and had a
hoXfe bored in there and they'd just carry it and pour it in that
trough and it run on down there where they made it, you know, they'd
catch it down there (in pots).
his buckets.
And somebody stole about every one of
I know he had five-hundred or more, ten quart buckets,
all along the row, somebody finally stole about everyone, if they
didn't
buckets.
Lord, they made hundreds of gallons of
syrup, they didn't make sugar, they just made syrup, you know, and
sold it.
Anybody with any sense a-tall would know that it wouldn't
run on yarn strings.
Q:
How about sawmilling around here?
A:
Mr. J.
That's pretty . . . .
I used to sawmill before I come to this country, I ain't
done so much since I come, well I've done some too.
1,'ve packed them
and I've rolled logs, burnt, cut the timber, ball-bust.
Mrs. J.
I ain't dome none of that, but I've cut timber.
Q:
How did you get the trees off the mountain, down to the mill?
A:
Mr. J.
Have a---easiest is by team.
Of course, I worked where
they had to ball boot them down, off of the
in Avery County some too.
River.
.
I've worked
That timber'd run eight miles up the Pigeon
But that brother seemed he was going broke so bad
two of them
one of them die"d just a while back.
twenty-seven years.
(Greg Scott)
'.ti "rr-r.-rc r:r":—i,-:':
there was
I worked for him
He sold out, bought them a truck,
�7.
went to hauling extract. Biggest extract plant that used to be down
there at Canton in the world.
used
Don't know if it's there or not, but
be there. Canton is eighteen miles, where our camp is
there.
Right on the Pigeon River.
Q: Did the railroad help any with the sawmilling?
A: Mr. J. Yes, it did. They hauled it in on trains, they got to the
right place where you loaded it. Yes, they did. And I worked
Creek where they hauled it all in for several miles.
get it off the mountain and to get on the train cars.
But you had to
Averaged
seventy-five thousand a day. Didn't matter what you taking in on
it.
That's more than they cut here in two or three months.
band mill.
That was
I handled lumber there twenty-seven feet long, twenty-
seven inches wide.
Of course, I handled most of the dry lumber,
loading cars. Old hemlock logs, splinters sticking out that far.
Had to use hand leathers and a apron here.
Hand leathers come in on
the inside of your hands here. Boy, it'd just ruin you.
Mrs. J. Ruin your hands if you got one of them hemlock splinters.
Mr. J. They cut little old "lathes," about two to two.and-a.half
inches wide and about four foot long, I think. And a eighth to a
quarter of an inch thick, and they are the hardest, and they are the
hardest things to bail. Boy, that's what they'd give a new man.
They test them out on that. Now if he could stand that, he could
stand anything.
Q:
Is this train that came down through Todd the same one that went
through Boone and up to Linville?
A: Mrs. J. No, this went back into Virginia.
Mr. J.
I don't know what they've stop that one from running
to Ashe County, have they, Jefferson, I don't think. No they had an
awful bunch out the other day. There was a string of coal here as
�8.
long as from here to that garage, just
. So big.
That's the way they get their coal in down there.
They sell it
cheaper than they do in Boone, cause they truck it in up there.
Mrs. J.
I don't know.
That train run up here a lot.
They hauled a
lot of extract back then, stuff like that.
Mr. J.
Lord, I boarded down in West Jefferson one time a while.
helped beat the first rock made them hardtops.
I
West Jefferson, Old
Jefferson, over through there.
Mrs.J.
After they took this up, the train just run from Abingdon to
West Jefferson.
Mr. J.
They used to come in, a heavy
load, there'd be two engines to it, to a load.
Why, it'd jar the whole town nearly.
It'd just chug-a-chug-&.
It would, about jar the town!
Mrs. Jones adds something which is inaudible.
0:
Did this train down here get washed out with the flood of '40?
A:
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
No, it wasn't here then.
Taken up way back yonder.
It was took up before that time.
They discontinued it.
See that grade over there is on that grade is on railroad
grade there.
Prom Todd to Pleetwood.
it had a wide road.
Best grade in the state, if
It is, the longest stretch there in the state of
North Carolina.
Mrs. J.
W«ll, it ain't wide enough for a highway.
If it was wider,
it'd be a good road.
Mr. J.
Well, it's just twelve foot down below Brownwood, Fleetwood.
You can't hardly pass on it from there.
ThereJs places you can't.
And it's washed out, fell off like it is right over yonder all along
the highway down through there.
was a week ago, I reckon.
dangerous.
I went down there last Friday.
I'm afraid to ride on that road much.
It
It's
�9.
Q: Was the train in here during the depression, or was it stopped
before that too?
A:
Mr. J.
I don't know how long it's been took up.
It was way
before you and me was married, wasn't it? Yeah, and we've been
married for thirty-eight years.
Why it's been forty some years,
I guess.
Q: What was life like around here during the depression?
A: Mrs. J.
It was pretty tough, and pretty scrimpy.
You had to
make do with what you had.
Mr. J. Well, I lived on Three Top
worst depression
Mrs. J.
back in Ashe.
That there
that was before we was married.
. . . pulled leaves, gathered herbs--~anything to buy
what was necessary.
And the rest of it they just had to do with
what they had.
Q: What types of herbs and all did they gather?
A: Mrs. J.
Oh, they was different kinds.
wood leaves,
bark
Tfi'ey gathered beech-
, beechwood bark, and witchhazel
was what they call it. And they peeled Shawneehaw, black-
berry briar root . . . .
Mr. J. Sassafras roots . . . .
Mrs. J. Sassafras roots
fras big roots.
Shawneehaw
I've had to gather many of those sassatake out to the mountain, and pull
Shawneehaw.
Mr. J.
I've treked for a mile and a half, two mile, all I could
tie up and carry. Don't get big, really.
Mrs. J. Wild cherries, wild cherries.
Mr. J. Used to pick a lot of Balm of Gilead buds, but they got so
cheap now you can't make nothing.
Q:
How much do those herbs bring?
About thirty cents a pound.
�10.
At
Mrs. J.
pound.
Oh, some of them bring from a penny to three cents a
No, Shawneehaw or the bark from Shawneehaw root sometimes
up to eight, nine, ten cents.
Witchhazel leaves usually runs two
to three cents and the bark sometimes all the way from one to three.
Mr. J.
Beetwood leaves now bring as high as thirty-four cents or
more.
Of course, everything's so high, you can't buy nothing now.
Sold a lot of them for thirty-three or -four cents a pound.
Mrs. J.
So funny.
You could get a lot more for what little money
you did get out of the store.
Mr. J.
Anyone got that price then, they'd got rich.
I been a-buying
flour over yonder at 221, used to, 1 guess for two, three, or four
years at two dollars for Blue Ribbon.
Mrs. J.
A box of matches now cost you fifteen cents.
them here around for a .nickel.
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
Used to get
A big box of soda was a nickel.
Now it's $2.65.
A glass of snuff was a quarter. Plug of tobacco was---it run
about a quarter---200 to a quarter.
Q:
How about your salt?
A:- Mrs. J.
like that.
Salt run about eighty---about a cent a pound, something
We'd go buy rice.
Get rice for two or three cents a pound.
Box of Quaker Oats cost you maybe twenty to twenty-five cents.
Mr. J.
I bought some side meat for five cents before I was married
staying with my brother-in-law.
Q:
How much does it cost now?
A:
Mr. J.
Five cents a pound.
I looked down here at Jack's Grocery the other day, there's
a piece about that thick and so big
first meat, I don't know.
Seventy-five cents!
pound.
Mrs. J.
Meat's got ridiculous now.
, looks like
Seventy-five cents a
�11.
Q:
Was there a scarcity of jobs during the Depression?
A:
Mxz.J,
Mrs. J.
Yeah, it got awful scarce.
People that had anything to do, they just didn't have the
money to pay to have it done.
So they just had to do what they could
do theirselves and let the rest go.
Mr. J.
I remember two first checks or payrolls any monthly checks
I ever drawed was during the World War. I was just a boy, and wasn't
grown.
First one was $37.20 and the next one was $27.20.
Q:
What were you doing?
A:
Mr. J.
sand.
Doodling saw dust at a mill, cutting eight to ten thou-
Had a help awhile.
And I'd do that with a wheelbarrow by
myself, cutting eight and ten thousand feet lumber.
Now you talking
about a job, and that sun coming in on you. Couldn't stand it now, I
bet you. I think I got two dollars a day, I think.
Q:
Were there any government programs around here, in the Depression?
Like WPA, CCC.
A:
Mrs. J.
They had the WPA awhile.
mainly on it.
A lot of the men could work on
There was just so many people that needed work, they
couldn't work them all. But they did work some.
Mr. J.
Q:
I never did work at it, myself.
They were pretty hard days then, but do you remember any of the
good times during the Depression?
A:
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
Not too much.
I expect that all the way around many fared about as good then
as they do now. A lot of them fared just as good, if not better than
they do now. We have to work awful hard now-a-days to get by.
Back
then you had to work hard to 'get by, so you get just as much pleasure
out of it.
Mr. J.
I figure
one girl's been a-working three years, in June, out
�12.
at I.R.C.
And she's made—worked out more money than I bet I work
out in twenty years, twenty-five.
got more than I've seen of my own.
one today.
She's spent a fortune, she's still
She's got a lot of bonds, got
She's got money at the Building and Loan and at the bank,
and paid for a car.
Bought sewing machines, electric irons, and
enough to fill that car full several times.
Paid for a house, clothes,
and everything.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
Q:
My iron.
We got the iron and give it to her.
That's right, you did.
But she got i1^ though.
What were the first electrical appliances you got?
A good one.
Do you remem-
ber?
A:
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
Yeah, no-no, it was an old refrigerator.
Refrigerator, and next was the washing machine.
That's it down yonder.
Kelvinator--that fellow called it
Kelvinator.
Q:
Yeah, that's what my grandmother called it.
A:
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
Did you get a radio?
Yeah, we've got one.
We've got several.
Got two now, one's shot and the other
won't play at all, unless you cut it off---I
no more.
Transistor radio's what I use now.
Q:
What were some of the programs you listened to?
A:
Mr. J.
Q:
Yeah, some of the first ones.
A:
Mr. J.
On the radio?
Oh,"Amos and Andy."
Mrs. J. "Grand Ole Opry," "Amos and Andy."
Then sometimes on Sunday,
we'd get singing and preaching.
Q:
Where did y'all go to church?
A:
Mr. J.
Up here at the top of the mountain, now.
up there on Three Top, we went to Kraut.
When we lived
�13.
Q:
Was the church a pretty important part of your life when you were
growing up?
A:
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
Yeah, it was.
Had to walk two or three mile off the mountain.
three-quarter of a mile nearly straight down.
them.
Paid no attention to it then.
Mrs. J.
else.
Well, there's
Big, deep snows on
That's the God's truth.
People used to really go to church better then than anytime
They got cars and they'll take off somewhere else, you know--
not stay at home.
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
I walked sixteen to eighteen miles many times before . . . .
They used to---Sunday mornings would come, you'd have to get
up and work-—do what you have to do, and then get ready to go to
church, walk, and come back home.
Mr. J.
Fix you something to eat.
We'd used to ride the horses back or go in a wagon when I
was lust a boy.
know, walking.
I'd see old men coming when with the canes, you
And buggies, yeah, a lot of buggies.
I'd go, "What
in the world is the matter with that man, has to have a cane."
Blame, I've had to use one or two times, some crutches.
I've had to
use crutches.
Q:
How often did y'all have services?
A:
Mrs. J.
We usually have services once a month, a preaching service,
Sunday School every Sunday.
Q:
How about revivals?
A:
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
Usually had one revival a year.
Now it's two.
And this man that runs the church, he has to
get somebody to do the preaching, so we can have two to pay now.
much money.
Too
Some type of helper, I don't care how--the pastor up
here weighs 274 pounds.
And he can preach, preach up a storm.
And
he has to get somebody else to do the preaching when we have a revival.
�14.
He's a big man.
Q:
Who is he?
A:
Mr. J.
Mr s. J.
Herbert Goodman.
Goodman.
Q:
How did that church get it*
A:
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
name?
Do you know?
No, I don't.
No, I don't know.
I've been in this country thirty-seven
years in March, I reckon.
Mrs. J.
That church has been established a long time.
I don't
know how it got its. name.
Mr. J.
Yes, that's been established maybe ninety years, I guess.
Well, they've had it a long time.
Q:
I guess Mr. Grogan up yonder would know.
A:
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
He'd know a whole lot about it.
He might come near to telling you how long it's been/
He's been a member up there for years.
conversation about his brother.)
month.
(Tape goes into
He's got a birthday right next
He's eighty-seven or eighty-eight year old. I'll have to
look it up one of these days, in the Bible.
Bibles--tore all to pieces.
Now I mean ole-timey
Bible like that now, oh, a i n ' t a-telling
what it would bring, would it.
Mrs. J.
Yeah, those people out at the flea market offered $75.00,
didn't they?
Mr. J.
tore.
out.
There's plenty of
if it hadn't been
Two of my oldest brothers got in to it when the rest were
And they tore it all to pieces.
that big.
END OP SIDE 1
Oh, the back on it was nearly
�15.
A:
Mr. J.
That's nine years, I guess.
Got gone in ' 2 And
6.
I had to send off—my name wasn't in it.
brother had it Virginia.
Someone else had it.
My
Had to write on it there, and he sent
that pages that had his on it.
I' took it.
Don't know how I'd ever
got it that day.
Q:
Were there a lot of doctors in this area?
A:
Mr. J.
Q:
What did y'all do when you couldn't get a doctor?
A:
Mrs. J.
No.
Well, if you couldn't get one, you had to do the best
I could.
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
There's one that lived up here for years.
There's one that lived right up the river here, and there's
one at'Boone that would go out on calls.
Mr. J.
He's dead now.
a good country doctor.
to.
One over on Creston---Three Top.
He was
He always went out, "hoss" back, or used
Finally got one at Todd.
Mrs. J.
Well, if you really had to have one, if you fine them at
home, well he'd go up the river here.
Mr. J,
People died then of appendicitis, and they just called it
indigestion or something; colic or something.
Yeah, it killed a
many a one, and they didn't know what was the matter with them.
Mrs. J.
Well, people used to---they wasn't no doctors around
handy, and they just had to doctor the best way they thought.
they got better, it's all right.
If
If they died, it had to be all
right, because it's all they had.
Mr. J.
They weren't experimenting like they are now.
live twenty-one days with double pneumonia.
Had a brother
Sight a man ever been
in that country.
Q:
What were some of the home remedies that your mother used?
�16.
A:
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
Used boneset
or my mother did, and catnip . . . .
Ole penny royal-— for colds or anything like that, they'd
make a tea out of penny royal.
And lots of times whenever a baby
was cross, wouldn't sleep, they'd take a catnip block, and make a
tea, and give it to the baby.
And they used camphor for other things.
Colds and colic or anything like that.
camphor in water .
Mr. J.
Give them a few drops of
.» .
We used to take two or three drops of camphor in a bowl of
milk, and give it to a baby and it'll ease him right now; or else
it used to for colic.
Mrs. J.
And for people who had chest colds or fevers, well, they'd
make a poultice from, ah, roast onions and mix sulphur or something
with them, and make a poultice and place it on their chest to break
up the fever.
Ah, there's so many of them there old remedies.
I
couldn't think of all they were.
Q:
What was sassafras tea used for?
A:
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
Yeah, people used to drink a lot of that.
Yeah, they used to drink that in the spring of the year
for a tonic.
Mr. J.
Yeah, those winters.
Mrs. J.
Yeah, and sometimes they'd drink it instead of drinking
coffee.
They'd make a tea out of it and drink it instead of coffee.
Mr. J.
It's cheaper now than coffee.
Mrs. J.
Ten ounces for a $1.75.
Back during the Depression, why, coffee was so high and
we's so low on money, we had to parch rye around here and make
coffee out of it.
Q:
Mr. Jones, you said your wife knew some of these old farm super-
stitions.
A:
Mr. J.
Could you two give me some of them?
I don't know.
I know I'd never like to plant nothing
�17.
when the moon points was up.
I don't know if there's anything
in it or not, but I never did likfe to.
I put out some onions one
time when the points were up, and I couldn't keep them in the
ground.
Mrs. J.
Superstition is a pair of cedar trees.
Little, ole cedar.
If you plant it, by the time it gets up big enough to shade a grave,
why you'll die.
Mr. J.
All kinds of stuff like that.
Why you can plant it, and my mother argued argued there was-~
something in it.
You planted corn or beans, put the heart down and
it won't hardly freeze.
And I tell you what.
You just go right
there and drop corn and beans and see if they ain't worlds of it—
lots of it ain't even hurt at all, and the other just cooked.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
I've seen some that-a-way, but I don't know . . . .
My mother tried
if she could.
she tried to plant a little on Good Friday
She always planted with the eye down, so she could
have some early beans.
something in that.
I tell you one thing, I believe there's
You can plant a whole row through there, and
there*d come a big frost there, and it'll kill some dead and won't
hurt some.
Mrs. J.
Used to plant you one to make you a few potatoes.
Plant
them about when the sun was in the moon, in the dark of the moon.
I heard once about, something about, there was a family asking when
was a good time to plant potatoes.
moon."
Told them 'bn the dark of the
So they thought that was getting out in the night time and
planting, using lanterns.
Mr. J.
You know there's a lot of people won't cut wood only at
certain times.
They won't walk after it. Yeah, they won't, at
certain times, cut their wood.
Q:
I was talking to a fellow the other day, yesterday, and he
�18.
said that he'd be putting the boards on the barn.
And if you put
them on when either the moon was growing or was full, it would bow
them out.
If the moon was shrinking, it would set them in there
tight.
A:
Mrs. J.
Well, I know there are times that you can put boards
on a barn, and them dirty things will just cup up.
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
The moon points it up when it does that, I know.
And I have seen them on buildings that way where they|ve
just turned up.
Mr. J.
Ixwas madder—I couldn't even see hardly.
Those wouldn't
set in there at all.
Q:
Isn't there one about planting corn?
I think, if it's
if the
moon's full, you plant your corn, it'll grow higher.
A:
Mr.J.
Mrs. J.
No, it'll grow higher, I think, on the new moon.
I think that when the moon's new, if you plant your corn,
why it'll grow taller.
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
Yeah, some people plant in the moon.
Yeah, I always planted in the ground.
attention to it much.
it.
I never did payono
Wanted to plant something I always planted
Old-^people used---they used to have certain signs when they
planted everything.
You can get these here gardening books
and they still go by the signs in planting root crops, planting
you know, stuff that grows above ground.
attention to it.
I never did pay much
I just went and planted when I got ready to.
Q:
What did they use for fertilizer back yonder?
A:
Mrs. J.
Well their
the only fertilizer they used back then
was just the litter from the barn and stables, because they didn't
buy it, they didn't have it.
factured it
Well, back there I reckon they manu-
nowhere around here, where they could get it.
But they
�19.
used the litter from the barns, and in their big fields where they
put their corn or something like that, why they didn't use anything.
Most of the time, they just cleaned out new land.
They'd tend it
till it gets so it wouldn't make nothing and then they'd let it grow
up and try a new patch.
Wood land then
was
had a lot of, you know,
weeds had rotted on it so long; so long as it had lay it there.
just planted in it, after they cleaned it off.
They
But, when it wouldn't
make any more, why they'd let it change off and clear them off another
patch, and try it.
Q:
Did all the gardening with horse drawn stuff, didn't you?
A:
Well, they usually had a patch that they kept their stable litter
throwed on, that they did their gardening on.
Mite small.
My mom
and dad always used their stable litter a little on their garden.
She always had a pretty garden too.
Q:
Yeah, they didn't have tractors back then, did they?
A:
No, no, they used a team to do their plowing with, or oxen.
oxen a lot.
use a horse.
Used
And if they wanted anything cultivated, why, they had to
They have cultivated with oxen too.
I've drove oxens.
I don't like it.
Q:
How is it different from driving horses?
A:
Mrs. J.
Well, oxen can be so stubborn.
won't budge at all.
They won't budge
till they get ready to.
ever they get ready, then they'll go on.
you can make him go on.
They can just bug up and
When-
But a horse, most of the time,
One of them old oxen, when he's stuck, he's
just going to stay there til he's ready to go.
Q:
Did the farmers make the yokes for the oxen themselves?
A:
Mrs. J.
Yeah, some of them did.
knew how to make them made them.
that made them.
They used
some of them that
Maybe one person in the settlement
�20.
Q:
Did they have a blacksmith around here?
A:
Mrs. J.
Q:
Where did y'all go to school over here?
A:
Mrs. J.
at Trout.
I guess they did, I don't know where though.
Well, I went to school at Deep Gap, and he went to school
He lived back in Ashe, he's from Ashe,
Watauga County.
I went to school in Deep Gap.
I was born here in
Well, I first went to
school at the old schoo}, one room school building on
Creek.
x
And then they put the schools together and took out a lot of the one
room schools, and took out some of the county schools.
Mr. J.
seen.
I remember the first air
car and the first airplane I ever
I bet you don*t---can't remember that.
Q:
No.
Where was it?
A:
Mr. J.
Way back in Ashe County.
First airplane
(car)
I ever seen.
twelve or thirteen years old.
said, "all take a peek."
Up on what they call the "Bluff."
I was going to school---about
Went past the schoolhouse.
Rose something or another.
got to see it, it was gone out of sight.
stayed all after
Teacher
Before we all
After that he come back and
a little piece at church, I mean, schoolhouse.
We'd
go there and boy we thought that was the awfullest that had ever been.
We'd look at it, go over there, reach in it, look at that car.
Mrs. J.
I can't really remember the first car I ever seen, but 1 can
remember the first airplane I ever seen.
We were living in Virginia
at that time, and they's, gee I forget now whether there was five or
how many there was in the bunch.
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
Five or seven.
Went over in a bunch.
They was the first ones I can remem-
ber.
Q:
What did you think of them when you saw them?
A:
Mrs. J.
Oh, I thought that was something great.
All them airplanes,
�21.
I just don't remember the first car I ever seen.
Mr. J.
Well, I do.
Mrs. J.
I sort of remember one Dad ever bought.
He got an old
"scooter," strong armed as I am I'd run it up in the trees every time.
Q:
How much mileage did you get in those old cars?
A:
Mrs. J,
I don't really know.
I was too young really to know any-
thing about them.
Mr. J.
Didn't have any roads then.
Back in '27, with only gravel
roads, if you got thirty-five mile,you's flying.
boys taking me to see my girl.
road, and you were flying then.
I know.
One of the
Hit thirty-five mile on that old.gravel
They thought that was something.
Q:
How many miles to the gallon of gas?
A:
Mr. J.
I don't know.
There was-—according to what model it was,
I guess.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
I don't know myself . . . .
I don't remember for my life.
now.
They's quite a difference from
Now one son-in-law, he told our daughter here---he's got one of
them, I reckon you kinda call foreign made
1 reckon it's made in the
United States or it's made just like one of those foreign cars.
I
think he gets about thirty-five miles.(to the gallon)
Q:
I get about thirty-two on my Volkswagen.
age.
You were talking about courting.
That's pretty good mile-
What all did you do?
What did
you do on your dates?
A:
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
Q:
I'd just go and sit all night is all I done.
We'd just sit and talk.
Stay till about eleven or twelve o' clock.
We never did go anywhere.
Go to bed.
He'd come visit, sit and talk.
I went everyday.
Did you ever go pick berries or cherries or work in the garden
�22.
together?
Mrs. J.
Mr. J.
Oh, we might have gone out together and pick cherries to eat.
They were going to clear out the pig-pen one time, but I didn't
stay long.
Mrs. J.
I come back.
I was scared of it.
I don't know, we might of got out and worked cutting cabbage
or something, anytime that we'd be a working.
Q:
Can y'all think of anything else that I haven't asked you about?
A:
Mr. J.
I don't reckon.
After you leave, I can think of a whole
lot.
Mrs. J.
Whenever a fellow's trying to think of something,
ever think of
Q:
it.
We appreciate you giving us this information.
he can't
�
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
2014-02-24
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 Sam Jones, June 12, 1973
Description
An account of the resource
Sam Jones was born in Deep Gap, North Carolina around the early 1900s on a farm where he grew up. He worked at a sawmill.
Mr. Jones starts the interview talking about growing up on a farm. At this point his wife joins the interview, and they begin talking about berry-picking and produce. Mr. Jones also talks about working at the sawmill and the importance of the railroads in transportation. They both talk about their experiences with the Great Depression including topics of picking herbs, working, and church. Mr. and Mrs. Jones discuss the lack of doctors in the past and different home remedies they used. To end the conversation, the two recall the first time they saw a car and airplane.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
McNeely, Mike
Jones, Sam
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
6/12/1973
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.
22 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_tape84_SamJones_1973_06_12M001
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Todd, NC
Subject
The topic of the resource
Farm life--North Carolina--Watauga County--20th century
Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
Depression--1929--North Carolina--Watauga County
Sawmill workers--North Carolina--Watauga County
Mountain life--North Carolina--Watauga County--History--20th century--Anecdotes
berry picking
Deep Gap
dried fruit
farming
Great Depression
herbs and roots
home rememdies
livestock
maple syrup
railroad
Sam Jones
sawmill