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Oral History Transcript
Appalachian State University • Collection 111, Tape 235
Interviewee: J.O. Shell
Interviewer: Barbara Greenberg
23 July 1974
BG: Barbara Greenberg
JO: James O. Shell
BG: This is a recording of Mr. J.O. Shell, done by Barbara Greenberg on July 23, 1974 at his son’s
home in what area is this?
JO: It’s Elk River.
BG: Well, tell me Mr. Shell were you born and raised in this area?
JO: No, I was born on Upper Shell Creek in Tennessee. And my father died when I was two
months old and my mother, she moved back to the Heaton area. And I was principally raised in
the Heaton area.
BG: What year were you born?
JO: I was born in 1892.
BG: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
JO: I had one whole sister, one half-sister, and four half-brothers.
BG: Was Shell Creek, was that area named after your family?
JO: Well, it’s been known as Shell Creek ever since I’ve known anything. My grandfather lived
there and went to school. I went down there and went to school on up to Shell Creek for a
while; stayed with my grandfather.
BG: Do you remember very much about your grandfather?
JO: Well, not too much.
BG: What did he do for a living?
JO: Well, he owned a farm up on Shell Creek. Worked on a farm.
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�BG: Was your father a farmer also?
JO: No, he was a carpenter.
BG: Oh, was he?
JO: Yes, he was a carpenter. I had part of his old tools until the ‘41 flood and I loved them. I had
his toolbox and tools sitting out on the porch and it washed a part of the kitchen away and all
his old tools away.
BG: Boy! I hear the flood back then, was it in 1940 or was it ’41?
JO: I believe it was ’41, but I’m not sure.
BG: I’ve talked to several people who lived out in the Foscoe area and they told me that the
flood really hit hard out there.
JO: Oh, it was hard here. I can remember a hard one in 1901. But I can’t remember much about
it because I was too young.
BG: Did the flood of ’40 or ’41, did that affect many of the farmers around here? Did they have
a real hard year that year?
JO: Yes, it washed a lot of their stuff away.
BG: Did anybody have any crops to sell or did they just barely have enough to feed their family?
JO: I don’t know of anybody that had anything to sell. Don’t remember anyone. But I do know,
remember it was stronger across the way. I had a good garden up there and it came and
washed the land away and just left a rock bar.
BG: How did your family decide how much of each crop they should plant each year?
JO: Well, I don’t know really, they just decided about what they could really take care of. Back
then people used horses you know, and plowed the ground with a horse. Some tried to plow
with one horse, some of them with two. And they mostly tended their crop with a hoe. Back
when I was a small boy.
BG: I bet you worked in the fields a lot, since your family was smaller than a lot of the other
families at that time.
JO: I didn’t understand just what…
BG: No, I’m just saying that you probably had to do a lot of work, a lot of chores yourself since
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�your family was so much smaller, is that right?
JO: Yes, yes.
BG: What were some of the other chores that you had to do?
JO: That was about the biggest thing that we did, was farm, but when I got to be old enough to
drive a team, my stepfather, he had a yoke of oxen, and he would put me out hauling for those
oxen. I’d make about $3 a day. I would give him six days and make $18 a week with that team. I
thought we were doing well.
BG: Can you describe a typical day for me when you had to go out and work the oxen? What
time would you get up in the morning?
JO: Oh, usually got up about four o’clock and got the horses fed, after that I drove the horses
and I would get feeding, get up and go to feed about four o’clock in the morning. Eating
breakfast started out in the dark and it would be dark when you got back that night.
BG: When you came home that night, would dinner be all ready for you?
JO: Oh, yes. And I can remember working at the Cranberry dome (iron ore that was mined in
nearby Cranberry). And I worked ten-hour days.
BG: How far was that to walk?
JO: It was about, something over four miles each way.
BG: Can you remember if there were ever any years when your family didn’t have enough
food?
JO: No, we always had food, except only during the 1901 flood I believe. Anyway, food got
scarce then and we didn’t have much, couldn’t get anything one time.
BG: Did your family plant their crops according to the moon?
JO: Well, to some extent they did.
BG: Can you remember any of the certain signs that were good for planting certain crops?
JO: Well, I don’t remember just exactly but a lot of times, certain things they wanted to plant
when the moon was new. And other things when it was an old moon.
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�BG: When the Depression hit, what were you doing at this time?
JO: In ‘30?
BG: 1929, ’30 yes.
JO: I was postmaster at that time.
BG: When did you first become postmaster?
JO: I was appointed in 1914, I believe in November. I forget what day in November. My
commission is in there on the wall (in another room); you can go in there and look at it if you
want to.
BG: Great. In a little while maybe I can even take a picture of that. Well, tell me a little bit about
you, when you were postmaster. What did you do?
JO: Well, I worked about every day in the post office. But sometimes, I’d leave my wife and my
daughter, when my daughter got old enough with the post office. And I got out and worked on
a farm. And I can remember as I was always lazy about milking my cows and people teased me
and said my cows would wait for me to milk them until after dark.
BG: How many years were you postmaster?
JO: Nearly 39.
BG: 39 years, boy. And in which area? In Heaton?
JO: Heaton, yes. The old building is there yet. Do you know where J.C. Ellis’s store is?
BG: On the left as you’re going back towards Boone?
JO: Boone, yes ma’am. The old post office is right in front of his on the right hand side of the
road. It’s there yet. That old building is.
BG: Let me see, what was the political scene like at that time? How did people tend to vote?
JO: Well, just like they do now, but you know we didn’t have any radios, television like now. You
watch news right off and sometimes it would be three or four days before we would get the
news. I can remember when Woodrow Wilson was first elected. There was a friend of mine, he
was about my age and we were kind of good friends you know, and together quite a bit. And I
knew he was a strong Republican you know. Just after we heard the news that Woodrow
Wilson had been elected to his first term. I saw him coming down the road. I stuck my head out,
just waiting until he got past the door and stuck my head out around, out the door and hollered
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�“Hurrah for Woodrow Wilson.” He turned back and looked over his should and said, “Hurrah for
a dad burn fool!” (both laugh). That really tickled me you know. I just fell back and laughed. And
then later on, after he became a man Mike changed from a strong Republican to a strong
Democrat. But he and I were always friends.
BG: Were the majority of the people Democrats at that time?
JO: No. Most of the folks in Avery County were Republicans and are yet.
BG: Was the Heaton area, was that Avery County at that time?
JO: Yes. At that time it was. But at one time it was Mitchell County, that was when I was just a
small child. Avery County was established in 1910 or 1911. I forget which.
BG: Did many people in this area have slaves at that time?
JO: Have what?
BG: Slaves.
JO: Sleighs? The children had quite a few. I can remember a mail carrier that carried the mail
from Boone to Elk Park. It gets slick and bad sometimes and he’d carry it with horses on a sled.
Jeff Billings was the mail carrier at that time. And he usually just had a small team of horses. He
would hook them to that sled and carry the mail on a sled. And then another time there was a
route from Heaton to Beech Creek. My brother-in-law, he carried the mail from Heaton to
Beech Creek. He’d tell me about snow drifts being so deep that a lot of times he’d be walking
there, he’d come to a snow drift that he would get a hold of the horse and pull him through
that drift.
BG: Boy, that’s some deep snow.
JO: The winters back then, you know, were even harder than they are now.
BG: I wonder why all of these changes are taking place like that?
JO: Well, I think the Bible is fulfilled because, you know, the Bible says that time will come that
you can’t tell winter from summer. It seems to me that its getting much lighter than they used
to be.
BG: A lot of people really believe that that’s what’s happening. Was there many “crooked
carrying-on” in the political elections?
JO: Well, it was about lit it is now, as far as I know. People…
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�BG: Somebody was telling me that they didn’t go out and buy your vote with money. They
would go out and then take you to the polls and make you sick.
JO: Oh, I never did get drunk enough to know anything about that. I never id drink any whiskey
much. I remember getting drunk when I was a little bitty boy. My mother let me go over to my
grandfather’s to stay overnight, my sister and I. And she told us to come home the next
morning early. My grandfather he was a good religious man but he always kept a jug, an old
stone jug sitting under his bed with a little whiskey in it. And he’s take it down before breakfast
every morning so he got his whiskey and picked him up a glass. He passed it to me, I just hung
on to it and drunk until he took it from me.
So good you know and I wasn’t used to it, and so I got so sick, my sister couldn’t take me home.
It was way up in the day, about 10 or 11 o’clock until I was able to go home. I didn’t know any
better and I just kept drinking. That’s the only, well, I remember getting drunk one time after
that. I was a small boy. I wasn’t but…Sunday school teacher.
Did you hear him sing at Elk Park Sunday nights? I got a couple of other fellers and went out
one night and had a pint of whiskey. We drank that pint of whiskey and all got kind of high on it.
That was my last. Well, another time I stayed with one of my friends one night. One of them got
so drunk he couldn’t get home and so we had to stay all night. And next morning I went home
and felt so bad. And my stepfather had a big old mule and he told me he wanted to plow that
mule that day. And I thought well, could I ever make it? But I finally got the old mule and wen
over to the field and after I was there I got to work, I got hot, and I got better and worked all
day. But that was my last time I ever got the old saying is “high.”
BG: Did a lot of the people around here used get, as you say, “high?”
JO: Well, no more than it is now, I don’t think.
BG: Let’s go back to your early life on the farm a little bit. Did you and your sisters, were the
jobs – the chores, were they divided that you had to do a certain think or did you all work
together?
JO: No, my stepfather would go off and tell us to do certain tasks, give us a certain thing and we
usually always got it done. If we didn’t we were afraid we’d get a whipping.
BG: Did you and your sister alternate jobs? Like you did something one time and the next time
it had to be done and she would do it?
JO: No, we usually just did little jobs both together. Of course, she helped in the kitchen you
know, and I didn’t too much.
BG: What type farm machinery, farm equipment did you use then?
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�JO: We just used old one horse plows and some two-horse turn plows, hillside plows you know
mostly. And then we used hoes for the rest.
BG: When modern farm machinery came out, what kind of effect did it have on the farmer?
JO: Well, on some of them, it was quite a help. But some didn’t farm enough to buy it and they
had to farm the old fashion way.
BG: Did it seem to give the farmer a lot more leisure time or did he have to spend a lot of time
taking care of his new equipment?
JO: It seemed like he worked quite a bit.
BG: Did your family ever grow any crops, any cash crops?
JO: I don’t remember it. Had many things to sell. Now, I raised beans after I got grown. I raised
them for several years. I sold them of course and then I sued to raise cabbage to sell.
BG: Would you sell your crops to big buyers or would you sell it to small buyers?
JO: Well, usually just small buyers would come around with a wagon or a truck you know. Buy
it. After I got older and raised more stuff, there was quite a lot of people hauling the stuff to
Knoxville and sold it.
BG: Did they get much better prices down there?
JO: They would get a much better price down there than they could around here.
BG: Would all the farmers get together and just make one big haul to Knoxville or would
everybody go separately and take their own?
JO: Why, they would usually have enough stuff just to take a load of their own, you know. We
used trucks. Of course we traded down around Johnson City and Elizabethton some back in the
horse and wagon days. They hauled it on a wagon.
BG: Did your neighbors help you harvest your crops?
JO: Well, some. They would, back in those days you know. They would clear a piece of land, and
they would get a certain date for a log rolling and a lot of the men in the community would
come and help pile the logs you know. And you would always fix up a good dinner for them and
have a good time. I remember I was going to a corn shucking one night after I was married,
after I was grown and was shucking corn and somebody hit me in the head with an ear of corn. I
never did find out who it was. I don’t know whether they did it accidently or whether they did it
on purpose.
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�BG: Can you remember any other stories about any particular corn shuckings when something
funny happened?
JO: Well, I remember we used to go to several but I don’t remember any specific accidents that
happened much.
BG: Did people give rewards for people who shucked the most corn or did you play games or
anything like that?
JO: Well, sometimes they would play games. They never got any rewards that I remember.
BG: It seems like families used to be closer together then, and the neighbors used to help out
more? Could you tell me a little bit about that?
JO: Well, if a person…if one certain person was building a new house you know, the neighbors
would come and help him on the building. And you don’t see any of that anymore. They always
have to do their own work. Nobody will help you free much. Of course people do yet, you know
some. But they were better to help each other seems to be, back several years ago than they
are now.
BG: Where did you go to school, around here?
JO: Well, we had a school over at Heaton. I went there until 1910. I believe it was and then I
went to Melvin one year, down at Melvin College. But I had not completed high school at that
time. And in 1911, we had a high school, the first high school that was ever in Avery County. I
believe it was 1911 or 1912, I’m not sure. And I went to high school one year at Elk Park on the
side of the hill.
BG: Can you describe it to me, what did it look like?
JO: Well, I can’t remember too much of what it looked like. But I can tell you who the principal
was. Professor Pearson was his name. But I don’t remember his given name.
BG: How did he teach, if there were so many different grades in this one classroom, how would
he teach everybody something different at the same time?
JO: Well, they just have different classes, you know. And while one class was doing one thing
then he’d be teaching another class something else.
BG: Yes. Did you used to write on slates?
JO: Yes, we used to have old slates, you know and slate pencils?
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�BG: Penny pencils?
JO: No, I don’t know if they were. I don’t know what they called them, they didn’t have any
wood on them, you know they were jut a little pencil you marked with on the slates.
BG: They didn’t have any wood on the pencil, it was just like lead?
JO: They were chalk you know, they used a blackboard and used chalk a lot. Can you remember
seeing chalk?
BG: Chalk?
JO: Chalk? To write with.
BG: White chalk, yes, we used that.
JO: Well, we used that a lot back in my days, when I was going to school.
BG: What type of classes did you learn when you were in school? What subjects?
JO: I studied arithmetic and algebra, history and geography, and I don’t remember what else.
BG: What type of games did you and your friends used to play at your recess time?
JO: Oh, we played ball. They hit the ball and then they would run and if they got across before
they go to the based, why they were out. Somebody else took their place. And then we had
another one called “Bull Pen.” I know my uncle, he was a preacher, but he came to the school
house and played Bull Pen with us. But I don’t remember too much about how we played it.
BG: Did you used to make your own balls?
JO: Oh yes, made it out of cotton thread.
BG: Did you wrap leather around the balls, is that what you used to do? Somebody was telling
me they would take their mother’s old shoes that were all worn out and wrap leather around
the balls to make them last longer?
JO: Well, I think they did that some, but usually back when I was going to school they just were
thread ball. Just used cotton thread and rolled them.
BG: Was it hard to make one?
JO: No, no.
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�BG: Did the girls play these games with you or…
JO: Sometimes they would play ball some. I remember they used to have a game they would
call “Dare Base,” they played that quite a bit.
BG: Did a lot of the town people around here used to meet at one certain store in town and sit
around and tell folktales and things like that?
JO: I remember up there in Heaton, they used to do that and called it “Rover’s Story.” A little bit
you know around there, some people called it “Rover’s Story.”
BG: That’s a good name for it I guess. Were any of your neighbors or your family, were any of
you all involved in playing banjos and making music?
JO: No. None of my family did it. I had an uncle named James Heaton, he was a merchant,
wholesale and retail merchant there in Heaton and he enjoyed singing mighty well. He usually
always had singing for about two or three times a week. About once a week in the middle of
the week and then on Sunday and Saturday. And he preached quite a bit.
BG: Did you feel it was, or did the people feel that it was important to be real active in the
community?
JO: Be active?
BG: Active, yes.
JO: Well, I guess it was about then like it is now. People are about the same.
BG: It seems like it would, the more active you were, the more it would help your political
career and everything like that.
JO: I can remember Eddie Ray’s brother, and he lived up there at Heaton. After they put in a
Trailways bus, he would see that bus come in and say “Yonder, here comes the big bus.” That
was Homer, Homer, Jr. Eddie Ray’s brother.
BG: Does he live around, does he live…where now?
JO: I don’t know where he’s at now. He must be in California. He’s still in the service.
BG: Can you tell me the different between the things you did in the summertime compared to
the wintertime? Was the summer a lot easier, even though you had all your farming to do or
was it easier to fight off the cold in the wintertime?
JO: Well, of course we didn’t have so much work to do, you know. Everybody burned wood
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�mostly then. And had to get out and cut a lot of wood when it was cold and bad to get it in. I
remember that we always had a fireplace and we would, if there was a fire, we would get a
buckeye and cut it for back sticks. That was a stick to burn in the back and the other wood such
as hickory and sugar tree and maybe oak and so on, for to burn in front of that back stick. That
old back stick would be green buckeye and it would burn, last a long time.
BG: Burn a lot slower.
JO: Yes.
BG: Can you tell me something about the houses back then?
JO: Well, there were not many people that had very good houses. Just two or three roomed
houses about what they mostly had. Some of them only had one room. And you never saw any
carpets on the floor very often.
BG: Really? I thought that a lot of the ladies used to weave their own carpet?
JO: I never knew of anybody weaving any carpet but, I can remember the spinning wheels. They
used to take wood and make yarn out of it. And use yarn for whatever they wanted to make
like socks and so on.
BG: A lot of the people raised their own sheep then?
JO: Oh yes, there was quite a few sheep then but there are not that many now.
BG: I don’t know, why do people not raise sheep anymore around here?
JO: Well, dogs go so bad until I had to sell. I’ve raised sheep I guess, for 30 years. And gos got so
bad, they killed the sheep, so I had to sell mine. Sold them two years, two or three years ago. I
haven’t raised any in about three years.
BG: Can you remember what the attitude of the people was when the first cars came to the
area?
JO: Yes, I can remember that people, they thought it was something great you know. And I can
remember the first one I ever rode in. One of my friends that lived in Banner Elk bought one of
the first cars that was around. I’d been somewhere walking and he picked me up between
Heaton and Elk Park and gave me a ride and that’s something I can remember the first time I
ever drove one too. Back then you didn’t have to have any license, you just bought your car and
went ahead and used it. It was like with horses you know. But that didn’t last too long until you
had to have a tag for each car.
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�BG: How fast would those first cars go?
JO: About 20 miles per hour. That was a pretty good speed.
BG: Well, how did most people feel towards the car? Did they welcome it?
JO: I think so. I think most of them appreciated them.
BG: Can you think of any specific changes that started coming into use?
JO: Well, I don’t know of anything special that happened. Of course people began to buy you
know quick as they, people didn’t have money then that they have got now. And they would
buy a car when they got able.
BG: What about the railroads? Can you remember the first railroads?
JO: Yes. I can remember a little narrow gauge that came from Johnson City to Boone. And I
don’t remember, I believe it was the 1940 flood that washed away so much of it between
Cranberry to Johnson City until about oh, I don’t know. Its been discontinued I guess about 20
years. They called it E.T. & W.N.C, the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad, but
most people called it the “Arbuckle.”
BG: what was the train ride like? Was it hot and smoky and anything like that?
JO: No, no, it was a mighty good one. People you know riding the train. Sometimes they would
have a special trip. I can remember going to Boone one time on a special trip. Just for the trip
you know, no business. Just for the trip.
BG: Did you take many trips that weren’t for business very often or did you usually go places for
business purpose only?
JO: Mostly for business purposes.
BG: Can you tell me the difference in a weekday compared to a weekend?
JO: I have to understand just what you mean by that.
BG: Well, did you do farm work on the weekends the same as on the weekday?
JO: Oh, yes. People used to work six days a week. Now they only work five. They used to work
ten hours a day and now they only work eight.
BG: Did everybody in the community go to church on Sunday?
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�JO: No. But people went to church very little back then in those days. Of course, there were not
near as many people as they are now you know. There just were not that many people like
there are now. But they attended church very little back then. Like they do now, about the
same amount.
BG: Were the church services different then compared to how they are now?
JO: Well, not too much. Preacher usually preached the Bible you know, couldn’t be much
difference.
BG: Some people have told me that…what was I going to say? Oh well. What were funerals like?
JO: Well, they were different when somebody died in the community. Somebody made a coffin,
they didn’t go to a store and buy it. There wasn’t any place to buy it. Somebody would make it.
They would be buried in a homemade coffin. Now they wouldn’t know what a homemade
coffin was I don’t guess.
BG: I don’t guess so.
JO: I used to remember this fellow named John Harmon back in the Beech Mountain section
that made coffins. He usually kept a few made ahead, you know, for people. But a lot of times
they would make your coffin after they died.
BG: Were the graveyards scattered throughout the area or did people like to be buried on their
own land?
JO: Well, some often wanted to be buried on their own land but now the graveyards in Heaton,
I can remember the first one that was buried there. And it’s a pretty big cemetery now. But
there are a lot of differences you know, in funerals in those days and today. People just had to
take them to church in a wagon, with a horse and a wagon. I can remember when my mother
died. They took her to church in a wagon. That was back, I guess in the ‘30s or ‘40s.
BG: Were there not any laws about where you could bury people and where you couldn’t bury
people?
JO: They used to have cemeteries around certain places in the community, you know, they
would all have a name. Now line the one up there at Heaton, one named the Heaton Graveyard
and there’s another one across on the other side of the river called Smith Graveyard, and
another one back over on the mountains a little further called (inaudible) Graveyard. You see
people mostly named them after people that were first buried there. They would start their
own graveyard, you know.
BG: So they were not really like church graveyards then?
JO: No.
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�BG: Did they have a service at the…like a graveside service or did they hold the service at the
church?
JO: They had both. They would have a funeral at the church and then the preacher usually
talked some at the graveyard.
BG: Was your family involved in any crafts in any way?
JO: Not that I remember.
BG: The crafts that people speak of today were really just your livelihood in a way. Its how you
kept going you know, making your own clothes and spinning and weaving and all that.
JO: People used to make about all their clothing you know. I can remember a fellow down at
Shell Creek whose name was, he was a Miller and his wife had knit a pair of socks. He said, “I’ll
give you a quarter for the pair of socks,” Yes, I guess you would like to cheat your wife out of a
few cents. I can take them down to Woodrow’s store and get 25 cents for them. Now, I don’t
know whether that’s true or not, but they told it to an old gentleman.
BG: The mother used to knot all the socks for her family?
JO: Oh, yes.
BG: How many pair of socks would you have?
JO: Oh, two or three I guess. Didn’t have many. Just enough for a change you know. Of course
some would have more than others.
BG: How many pairs of pants would you have? Just those that you worked in everyday and then
another pair for Sunday?
JO: Yes. I can remember when I was just a boy. Usually a boy wore knee pants and he was
sporting a pair of pants and a little shirt. One Sunday a couple of boys would come to spend the
Sunday with me and we went swimming just a little ways over the hill on what they called
“Gator Branch.”
I noticed that one of the boys he was in a little hurry to get his shirt and pants on before I had
mine. I took out up the road after him, he was about a quarter mile ahead. He got ready and
just threw my pants way off above the road on an old brush pile. I had to crawl in that brush
and get my pants.
BG: Did you get him back?
JO: Oh, I threw rocks at him all the way back.
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�BG: Can you think of some more old stories of experiences that you had that would be
interesting to us?
JO: Well, I don’t know of anything that would be very interesting. Of course, you know it
wouldn’t be interesting to me anyway. After I got to be older why I had the experience of going
to Georgia quite a lot. I bought a farm down there, between Greensboro and Madison. I bout a
326 and ¾ acre farm down there for $3,300 I believe it was. I kept it from 1927 until about 16
year I think it was. I would go down there every three or four times a year. We kept renters
there, kept cattle down there.
I would buy cattle down there and bring them back here and sell them. And I had quite an
experience going to Georgia and back.
BG: You own quite a bit of land today don’t you still?
JO: Well, they have my tax at about 471 acres. And than a couple of lots at Heaton.
BG: What were land taxes like back when you first started buying land?
JO: Oh, they were cheap then. Land was cheap too.
BG: How much did you pay for most of the land that you own now?
JO: Now, this house, you see what it is. About 30 acres, maybe about 33 acres of land was the
first I ever bought here on Elk River. I bought it for 1,800 dollars.
BG: 30 acres for 1,800 dollars?
JO: And then I bought another 100 acres gross on the other side of the mountain called Fall
Creek. I got it at a sale. A man owed them 2,000 dollars for the mortgage to somebody else and
he didn’t pay for it, they put it up for a public sale and I got those 100 acres of land for 500
dollars. When UI went to the sale there wasn’t anybody there and I thought that would bid
against me. His name was Ed Lewis, and when the man brought the sale up he said not to start
for less than 500 dollars. He turned around to Mr. Lewis and said “What will you give me for
it?” I said, “Oh, I reckon I’ll give you 500 dollars.” So I got 100 acres of land for 500 dollars, he
had been asking 2,000 dollars for it. “The buck stops here.”
BG: The land down here where the Elk Falls are?
JO: No, I own some land below the falls.
BG: You don’t?
JO: No, that belongs to the government.
15
�BG: I went swimming down there. It was so cold, I did it and every muscle in my body froze up.
Did you go down to the big one? Did you go down to that?
JO: Yes. My next-door neighbor went down there and he jumped off the top. That is what
about 65 feet isn’t it?
BG: I’ve seen people jump off. Not me!
JO: I wouldn’t want to do that!
BG: Didn’t you tell me about the mailman who used to ride ½ down the falls and jump the rest
of the way? What’s the story about the mailman?
JO: I don’t remember, but I do remember a mailman who was carrying mail to Beech Creek and
one day he came to eat, got his mail, then started back to Beech Creek and the water was up
pretty high. It had been raining hard. Along by night he came back with a wet mail bag. He said
the creek was so high it swept it away and he found it down the creek. So I took the mail u of
that bad, fried it, and delivered it. Every piece of it, then sent the bag back.
BG: Well, what happened to the mailman?
JO: He didn’t get hurt, he went on. I’ve got a piece that was written about him, rowing the
branch. I’ve got it, I’ll let you read id you would like to.
BG: Let’s talk some more now.
JO: He never would ride a horse. He walked. He would just about run downhill. But he walked
fast the entire time. He just had one hand, lost one hand back in his young days.
BG: Can you give me a comparison of your feelings of life compared to today to when you were
growing up?
JO: Well, I don’t think it was any better. Of course there were not so many people back then
and it seemed that things were not as hurried when I was young.
BG: Do you think having a small community school was better than having the larger schools in
big areas now?
JO: I think you can have better schools by having them small, but it seems like now such as
Avery County. At one time they had three schools, and now they have one. People have to
come from Beech Creek and Plum to Newland for school. That’s awful far for them to travel to
high school. But still people think it’s better; I guess they think it is because they still continue
them all in one.
16
�BG: Would you say that life is easier now or harder?
JO: Well, people don’t work as hard as they used to back then. But it seemed that people were
stronger then and could enjoy it better. You know the Bible speaks of a generation that will get
weaker and modern. It seemed to be that its getting that way, don’t you?
Of course you know people are a lot wiser than they used to be, because they didn’t know how
to make automobiles and airplanes, and like that.
End of interview
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
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Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region.
The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students.
Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU.
An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school.
This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1965-1989
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Artist
Shell, J.O. (interviewee)
Greenberg, Barbara (interviewer)
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:13, Election of Woodrow Wilson, 01:28, Heaton Postmaster
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with James Oliver (J.O. Shell), July 23, 1974
Subject
The topic of the resource
Shell, James (1891-)--Interviews
Farm life--North Carolina--Avery County--History--20th century
Avery County (N.C.)--History--20th century
Avery County (N.C)--Social life and customs--20th century
Description
An account of the resource
James Oliver Shell was born on January 26, 1891 in Shell Creek, Tennessee where his grandfather owned a farm and worked as a carpenter. His father died when he was two months old, so his mother reared the children living with her father. Mr. Shell had one sister, a half-‐sister, and four half-‐brothers. As a young man James O. Shell moved to the Heaton community of Avery County North Carolina and was a farmer and served as the postmaster in Heaton from 1914 to about 1953. He died on July 4, 1980 at the age of 88.
During the interview James O. Shell reflects on working his farm, local politics, and playing baseball as a youth. He discusses log rollings, corn shuckings, and the how neighbors helped each out. Some other topics he discusses are Tweetsie Railroad, homemade coffins, local cemeteries and playing baseball.
Creator
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Shell, James Oliver
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
23-Jul-74
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited.
Format
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MP3
Extent
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17 pages
Language
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English
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
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Shell Creek (T.N.)
Avery County (N.C.)
Avery County
cemetery
coffins
corn shucking
Education
Elk Park
ET & WNC railroad
farming
Heaton
local politics
postmaster
railroad
rural mail delivery
Tennessee
Tweetsie Railroad