1
50
2
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/6954a572792bd70c120b2f894413f90f.pdf
810d79cc1c7d367165cbc84c6725ac45
PDF Text
Text
Interview with Mrs. Ethel Burns by Pat Morgan
I.
Childhood
A.
B.
C.
II.
C.
D.
E.
F.
V.
VIII.
(L)
Made small profits on large sales
Sold from catalogues
Not so money conscious
Did not take advantage of the rich
(S)
Older people with no children
Not many young people her age
Years being discussed
A.
B.
(L)
Community club
Carnival in the Park
1. jobs for local people
2. money for library
Feeling of inferiority of local people
Holthozers were accepted in their homes
Tourists as church workers
Local people's living depended on tourists
Types of tourists
A.
B.
VII.
Born in Rowan Co.
Moved to Blowing Rock
Father's business
A.
B.
C.
D.
VI.
(S)
Relationships to tourists
A.
B.
(S)
1915 - '20; age 10 or 12
Born in 1908
Change to need for money (S)
A.
(S)
Independent man
Story about Mrs. Cone
His love for mountains
His desire to build an inn
Father's background
A.
B.
IV.
Family
Involvement with tourists
Feelings about tourists
1. "summer people"
2. tourists in the home
Father's attitudes toward the tourists
A.
B.
C.
D.
III.
(S)
Father not money minded
)
�B.
C.
D.
IX.
Sunshine Inn and Mrs. Burns
A.
B.
X.
XII.
XVI.
(S)
No interference from government
Health department standards
(L)
Paid as a team--$25/week
Increase in pay over the years--$100/wk each
Loyal and hard workers
Discipline
A.
B.
(S)
Not cut out to be a boss
Did not scold individually
Work done by the Burns
A.
B.
C.
(L)
Year-round job
Waitresses went to school
Cooks went home
1. John and Maggie Jones
2. Room behind kitchen for summer
The Jones
A.
B.
C.
XV.
(S)
Nothing in town
Playing of games in dining room
Inn grew
A.
B.
XIV.
Description
Everyone was part of the family
Did all their own work
Waitress work
Guests stayed sometimes two months
$15.00 per week to stay
Meals at the inn
Closing at Labor Day
A.
B.
C.
XIII.
(L)
Entertainment
A.
B.
(S)
Father built in 1929
The Depression: the move to Blowing Rock
The inn
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
XI.
Others started seasonal rates
Yen for money grew
Father was a fair businessman
1. Taught children not to use credit
2. Most important lesson
(S)
Husband was dishwasher
She was maid
Work got easier
�XVII.
Guests' attitudes
A.
B.
C.
XVIII.
XIX.
E.
C.
D.
(L)
Jones felt too inferior to associate
Very humble
Jones boy could not play with Burns boy
Maggie couldn't understand any kind of segregation
John was afraid
1. Experience when Holthozer's store was built
2. Negroes were stoned
(L)
No bookkeeping
Not much attention to profit or loss
Experience taught her to estimate
Salesmen started to sell by portions
1. Bigger profit for inn
2. She didn't like that method
Wanted only enough money to get through winter
1. No money in bank
2. Watauga Savings and Loan
Change in tourist business
A.
B.
XXIII.
Couple had too much breakfast
Complained and unsatisfied
Left without paying
Business attitudes
A.
B.
C.
D.
XXII.
(S)
Jones' relationship to the guests and the Burns
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
XXI.
(S)
Jewish family unfriendly
Another family criticized service
Funny things
A.
B.
C.
XX.
Stayed long time
Mr. Dillon
1. disappointed at first
2. began to like it
3. came back year after year
Most of the guests were satisfied
Unpleasant things
A.
B.
(L)
(L)
1969--retirement after 40 years work
Transits people
1. Biggest change
2. Always on the go
3. More incontentment
Trade has more than doubled
1. Land of Oz
2. Tweetsie
Still room for improvement
Advertising
(S)
�A.
B.
C.
.XX:IV .
Difference in family- owned and non- family-owned business (L)
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
XXV .
B.
D.
Senator ' s son was coming
Mrs . Burns agrees to impress him
He came early
1 . tables wer e shoved together for lunch
2 . very informal
He didn ' t seem to mind
(S)
Didn ' t have any
Mr . Burns fixed up intercom
Bad response--idea dropped
Auctions
Movies
Other
Interference from government
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
X.XX: .
(S)
Guests found other entertainment
A.
B.
C.
.XX:IX .
Different games
1 . "Pig"
2 . Post Offi ce
Disturbed a guest one night
1 . he complained
2.
soon forgot about it
Music
A.
B.
C.
XXVIII .
( S)
Informality of the Inn
A.
B.
C.
.XX:VII .
Different attitudes in money making
Local people sold out because of a good offer
Real estate out- of- sight
Nothing like that in earlier days
Martin House and Green Inn
Games
A.
XXVI .
Chamber of Commerce
1 . posters in other states
2 . tourists came and were let down
New sign--" Sunshine Inn"
Use the money more wisely
1 . happy cust omers spr ead the word
2 . best way to advertise
(L)
Privilege license
Sales tax
Social Security
Withholding tax
Told how to run the inn
Getting out of the business
(S)
(S)
�A.
B.
XXXI.
Glad because of the things involved
Sad because customers were let down
One family in particular--the Butlers
A.
B.
C.
(S)
Came there for honeymoon
Came every summer after that until closing
By that time they had a daughter
�With Ethel Burns on January the fifth, 1975 at her home in
Blowing Rock with Pat Morgan with the Appalachian Oral History Project at Appalachian State University.
PM:
Could you give me your mother and father's names and
your brothers' and sisters' names?
EB:
Yes, you mean their full names?
PM:
Their full names, as much as you can.
EB:
My father was William (inaudible middle name) Holtho zer,
and my mother, Laura Ellen Holtho· zer.
~••
t
My brothers and sisters
suppose I just give you their first names?
PM:
Fine, that'll be fine.
EB:
June, Katie, the one you know Peg, Howard, Mary, Eugene,
and William Luther.
PM:
Very good, that's a nice, a nice sized family.
Mrs.
Burns, we have been talking abo'ut tourism and what it meant
to this section of the country, can you tell me when did you
go into the tourist business as such?
Just tell me as much
as you can about what you've done.
EB:
Well, personally, my time dates from 1929 when I ac-
tually got into the tourist business, but, of course, we were
affected by the tourist business all of our lives.
My father
being in store business--merchandise--of course, came in constant contact with the tourists then.
We spoke of tourists
then as "summer residents",. and "the summer people".
That's
the way we referred to them, we didn't call them tourists, we
just says they're "summer residents" or "summer people". And
while there was a difference, we realized that these were
�2
people who stood a little above us socially, and financially,
and at the same time they accepted us and we accepted them
as, really, people of Blowing Rock.
There was that feeling
of really high opinion of them because they did take an interest in our .•• oh, little everyday things that happened to
us here, the local people here in Blowing Rock.
that dates way back to my childhood.
So, of course,
Then there were so few
places around that people would take the tourists into their
homes.
They didn't have a business, but just their private
homes, and this brought us in, of course, closer contact
and association with the tourist people.
But I Slept on the
floor many a time in order to give my room to some tourist.
At the time I may not have liked it, but it was just a thing
that we accepted and did.
Then when we went into business--
really what we would say "the tourist business"-- it was no
great change, it just seemed like we just opened our home to
you the public, and we wasn't thinking of it in terms of
making alot of money, but really just of taking care of the
people who came to us.
time.
I think this was a change made in the
Then the season, really we opened in May, but we didn't
expect a rush business--and when I say "rush", it was rush
then, but certainly not like a rush would be today--really
didn't start until about the first of July.
~.c.k
Then we closed
everything--everything in BlowingAclosed--definitely at
Labor Day.
After
that time if you would see a stranger on
the street everybody would run out to see this new person on
the street, you know, and what he was doing because it was a
curiosity to see anybody on the streets after Labor Day.
So,
�3
that's changed tremendously, you know, from the past.
PM:
Well, tell me, in your childhood did your father ever
talk to you about tourists per se, or "those summer people"?
EB:
Oh yes!
Dad had a mind of his own really, and he was
very independent.
While he knew, as everyone else knew, that
we were dependent on as I said we called them "the summer
people" at that time, still Dad was a person that wouldn't
let them walk over him at all.
I know you've heard of the
Cone (spelling?) Estate, and the Cones.
Of course, Mister
and Missus Cone were living here at the time.
My father's
store had a basement and many, many times he would go to the
basement to maybe measure out potatoes or do work down there
and leave the store doors wide open, you kn ow, with noone
up there.
One time Miz Cone came in and she was a little
irritated because there was noone there to wait on her. So,
Dad eventually came up from the basement and Mrs. Cone says,
"Mr . Holthozer, don't you know somebody could walk off with
everything you've got?"
He just sort of grinned a little
bit and says, "Well Miz Cone, I didn't know you were in town,
or I wouldn't have been down there."
Of course, there is a lot of humor with it, too, but
Dad never let any of them, even though he was a very humble
person, and very kind person he still felt his ••• his authority
and his own individuality in his relationship to the summer
people.
I think this love for Blowing Rock and this life in
the mountains really, probably we inherited that from Dad
because he really loved the
mountains~
And I told you that
his ambition was to build a place where people of moderate
�4
means can come and enjoy the climate and the scenery.
PM:
He was from where?
EB:
Rowan County.
And he came, I think , because of malaria;
bad health conditions, there was alot of mosquitoes at that
time so his father moved his family here to avoid that situation.
PM:
Can you think of any other examples as a child in Blowing
Rock of your relationship to the summer people?
Perhaps
another story like the Cone story?
EB:
There are so many really pleasant associations with the
summer people.
They organized then a community club, which
consisted of some of the local people and the summer residents,
too. And they really did a great, a great work for Blowing
Rock.
And they had every summer there a carnival in the park.
In order to, I think, really to have have better relationships between the local people and the summer people, they
drew the local people into jobs in this project that they
called the Carnival in the Park.
head of it:
But they were really the
they put it on, and all the money was donated
to the community for the library.
The reason for us having the
x good library that we have now •.• so, I'm not thinking of
humourous things now, but really things that were so helpful
to the community.
PM:
You said they probably had the summer festival in order
to have better relationships with the peoplecithe area, did
you ever sense that people from the area, not necessarily in
general, but different ones, resented these people coming here
and spending their time during the summer, while they went
�5
about their own labors?
EB:
I don't think there was a resentment, but I do feel
like the local people had a tendency to feel a little inferior to the summer residents, because if they were invited
into their home socially, we thought we were up in the world.
We felt like that was a great honor.
So, I'm sure there was
a certain amount of class distinction there; that we did
think they were a little above us socially, and, of course,
we knew they were financially, there was no doubt about that.
PM:
Did anyone ever tell you that, that gave you that im-
pression?
Say, when you were in school did any teacher talk
to you about this difference?
EB:
No, no, and I think probably I felt it less--and please
don't think I'm saying this egotistically at all--but my
family, the Holthozers, were a prominent family then.
So,
probably we were accepted into ' the homes of the summer residents more than others.
But I remember my friends say,
"Hmmm, think you're somethin', don't ya?" being invited to
any of their social functions.
And we really felt like we
were getting up in the world when we were invited into their
homes.
But I don't think this was the feeling among the
summer residents, because we had such a high, really high
class people as summer residents that you certainly wouldn't
associate any class distinctions within their minds, you
know, because they were anxious, really for us to come in
their homes and be a part
of them.
You said you were so
familiar with Flora McDonald, we had the Bardells, who for
years and years were residents of Blowing Rock, summer resi-
�6
dents.
And then the Cones and the Cannons.
These names
are familiar to you I'm sure, aren't they?
PM:
Yes, ma'am.
EB:
So we had such a .•• and they were church workers, they
worked in the church.
Dr. Bardell supplied in our church
during the summer for years, and years and years.
So, to
them this was home, and they were really citizens of Blowing
Rock from their standpoint, and of course, from our standpoint, too, we accepted them.
PM:
Were there any feelings at all about the fact that
these people were coming to your Blowing Rock to stay for
se~eral
months?
Did you have any real feelings either
negatively or positively about that?
EB:
Not then, not as a child, because we thought it was
great when they would start coming back.
We looked forward
to the time when they were coming back and we'd say, "oh,
the lardells are here" , or "the Cannons are here", and it
was really something that we'd looked forward to.
Now,
whether or not we unconsciously were conscious of that fact
that our living depended upon them, that everything we had
~e
was dependent on this business, that mayAhad something to do
with it, though at the time certainly I didn't think about
that.
And I don't think my father did either, because my
brother-in-law was working in the store, my father's store,
Missus Cannon came in to buy a rug which was then a fantastic price for a rug, I think around ten thousand dollars.
Well, to me that's a big price even yet.
of business through catalogues.
But Dad did a lot
He would keep the catalogues
�7
and order for the people from the catalogues.
come in to select a rug.
So she had
I think on a ten thousand dollar
rug maybe he would make a profit of maybe ten dollars.
By
that time people beginning to get more and more financially
conscious, you know: make money, make money.
But I remember
Dad saying why should he take advantage of Miz Cannon just
because she had money?
It, really, didn't cost him anything
but a three-cent sta•p, and he was perfectly happy with his
profit of ten dollars.
So, the local people then didn't
try to take advantage of the people just b ecause
they
had money.
PM:
Do you recall ever having any friends, children of the
summer people, who you looked forward to seeing come back
every year? Any type of relationship like that?
EB:
That's something I expect would really give you an
insight into the tourists, the' type of tourists that Blowing
Rock had during that period, early period, because it seemed
to be older people who had no children, or people with grown
children who maybe wasn't too enticed to be in Blowing Rock,
that came, and so really I don't remember people of my own
age, like playing with them, or those things.
I just don't
remember it at all, because it seems that it has been
really a place where elderly people came, and retired people,
the
and notAyounger generation. Even that early there was definitely that because there was really not much for young
people to do, and I think they preferred the beaches, you
know, and so we just didn't have many young people.
And
while I haven't thought of it, I really don't remember
�having playmates among the summer residents.
PM:
Approximately what were the years that we've been
talking about?
EB:
Was it 1919?
'20? '30?
Yes, I expect from 19 and 15, '20, because these were
the things that I remember when I was ten maybe twelve years
old.
PM:
Could you tell me when were you born?
EB:
19 and 8.
PM:
1908.
Okay, you gave the example of your father or-
dering the ten thousand dollar rug and you mentioned that
at that
a~ ~s~~
time people weren't that interested in making
all that much money, they hadn't quite reached that point,
do you have any feeling as to when they began to feel like
they needed to make more money on that ten thousand?
Using
ten thousand just as an example, as a figure, when did
people's attitudes begin to change, and maybe you have a
feeling as to why it changed?
EB:
I don't think I could see the change, I can see it
maybe not in myself because I don't think my family was
ever money-minded too much.
a lot of money.
Really our aim wasn't money,
But I could see the change in maybe
public
places changing their rates from ••• like they would have
seasonal rates, you know, then they certainly had an idea
they'd make more money at one time .•• They were money-conscious.
I think the fact that they did change their rates
during certain periods.
Now, of course, the horse show has
always been one of the busiest periods during the summer and
many of the places would up their rates due to the fact they
�9
knew they were going to have a lot of people , there was
no doubt about it, and they would get as much money as possible.
And to me that's taking advantage of people. And so
you
see, this yen for money certainly growing all the time.
PM:
Did your father ever speak or talk about the jump in
prices?
EB:
Were they going on when he was running his business?
I never heard him talk about whether he would make a
big profit or a little profit.
fair-minded man.
He was reall y such an honest,
He said "a fair profit", and while he was
a good business man, from this standpoint my brother when he
worked in the store, Dad would caution him: "Now, you give
absolutely accurate measure.
Don't you give a bit over, or
don't you give a bit under."
This was honest, and while he
wouldn't give an ounce he didn't take an ounce from the other
person either.
And he definitely felt an over-charge was not
a fair profit.
PM:
Can you thi nk of any particular saying, or any particular
principle that your father taught your brothers and sisters?
Well, sometimes we've been told certain a saying like "a
penny saved is a penny earned•, do you recall any of those
sayings that stuck with you?
EB:
We were certainly brought up with this:
Dad was con-
stantly telling us never to buy anything you couldn't pay
for.
You're aware of the credit cards and all of this, we
was brought up on that:"Don't buy anything unless you can
pay for it."
And we didn't, and this influenced me all my
life, and really now I just never buy anything on credit,
as popular as it is to do that.
In fact, the salesmen at
�10
the Inn would get thoroughly disgusted with me because I
insisted upon paying for everything as it was delivered to
me.
Credit companies would not take my name as a reference
because I never gone in debt on anything.
But that was
really the outstanding thing that I remember my dad teaching
all of us, and certainly it has paid off in the long run.
PM:
Well now, let's get to about 1929 and just tell me a-
bout how you got ••• What you were doing in 1929 and the
business that you got into.
EB:
(bo; I+) ·
It was during the Depression and my father had filled
the place.
I think a fulfillment of hopes, thinking of it
as it was when he came in:
you never dreamed it could be
operated as a public place because it had none of the conveniences of a tourist place.
But my husband and I came up
not long after the place was completed, and we just went in
and started cooking, really, like we did at home.
So, we
gained the experience as we went along.
PM:
Your father built ••. What did he build in1929?
EB:
The Sunshine Inn.
PM:
The Sunshine Inn.
And what was his reason for building
the Inn?
EB:
In order that people--and he really had this on his
heart, I think--that people could come to Blowing Rock and
enjoy it without having to pay such fabulous prices.
And
for that reason all through the years we kept our prices
down when they were going up all around us and people said,
"Why don't you go up? You have to."
I think knowing Dad's
dream of that kept me from going up on prices all through
�11
the years.
PM:
Now, how did you get into the business of the Sunshine
Inn itself?
Was there anything happening in 1929 that got
you back here?
EB:
The Depression.
My husband was laid off, he was working
at the Southern Bell, and he was laid off.
out work: we had to do something.
So, we were with-
And like I said, we knew
nothing about this but it was something to hold on to and we
were thankful that it happened just at the .time that Dad
needed someone to operate this Inn.
And while we were ig-
norant at it, the tourist people then were not very choosey.
I mean, they accepted things as they were, and if things were
not convenient, if we had just one public bathroom, if everyone ate at the one long table, they accepted that and thoroughly enjoyed it.
PM:
Describe what the Inn was like in 1929 and how you
actually operated it around 1929 .
EB:
Well, we added to it later, but from the beginning I
think we had a fairly large kitchen with just a home range
and we cooked on a coal stove.
The pipe was constantly getting
clogged up with soot and we'd have to take it down, clean it
out every week. But we had no cabinets.
I think groceries and
things probably we just shoved under the table, I don't
remember.
But we certainly had none of the cabinet space,
and the storage space, that you would think of that a hotel
or inn might have.
room.
We had about eight bedrooms, one bath-
One bathroom • • Everybody used the bathroom,
bathroom.
that one
And the dining room, we had one long table and
�12
everybody sat at this table.
Really, it was just like one
big family because they seemed to enjoy this type of .••
We didn't have a menu.
We would carry the food and put it
on the table whether they liked it or not, but they really
seemed to like it, and people would comment how nice it was
just to have the food served and not have to be bothered
deciding for themselves from a menu what they wanted to eat.
And the people just really seemed to enjoy the simple things.
And I feel confident about this that while we may not have
a
had.Avery expensive and exclusive hotel, we had people prefer to stay with us rather than go to Mayview Manor.
(Begin Side Two)
PM:
We were talking about the Sunshine Inn that your father
built in 1929 and you just described the Inn.
Can you des-
cribe some of the people that came to see you?
Tell us
something about some of those people.
EB:
Well, when they came of course, they were perfect
strangers, but they didn't stay strangers long . hecause in no
time they were just part of the family and accepted us as the
family.
Now, we had cooks, the colored couple, that cooked
for us for thirty years, and we had at that time a local
girl, two, we only used two then, as waitresses.
They girls
not only wait on the tables, but they helped with all the
cleaning up the rooms, you know.
thought of using canned food.
Of course, then we never
We peeled our own potatoes,
and we peeled our apples, we made our cakes, our ice cream,
we killed and dressed the chickens, and the girls even helped with those things.
And I paid them five dollars a week.
�13
Five dollars, and they gladly did all this extra work.
They changed there later.
I remember one girl who ••• This
was years later, but to see the changes that went about,
we gradually had about ten waitresses and maybe by that
time we were using busboys, too, or at least one busboy.
But this young girl, waitress, and I think probably she was
the- only one that was not a local girl that worked for me
during all the years--but she decided their work was too
hard and she thought I should hire a helper for every waitress.
That is, this extra girl would carry the food in and
place it on the table, and thereafter
the waitress had
gotten their drinks and the meal was finished, then her helper would clear the table and reset the table.
Really, what
it amounted to, the girl was picking up the tips and not
doing the work.
That was just one unusual waitress that I
had and she didn •t stay with us long, because most of the
girls stayed year, after · year, after year, and they, too,
became part of the family.
PM:
Now, how long did a guest stay at the Inn when they
came to stay?
EB:
Oh, they came probably the first of July and they stay
July and August until we closed it Labor Day.
PM:
And back in 1929, around that period, what would it cost
someone to stay at the Inn?
EB:
Around fifteen dollars a week, including three meals a
day, and let me explain "three meals a day." Breakfast was
big, they would eat a huge breakfast; then we didn't say
"lunch", we said "dinner" in the middle of the day and that
�14
consisted maybe of a meat and seven, or eight, or nine
vegetables, and a salad and dessert.
And the~e thing
was what we called "supper", only it wasn't dinner it was
"supper."
We would serve maybe two meats and maybe as many
as nine vegetables.
I was holding up
we always did.
the
I remember I used to count to be sure
standard and having as
many things as
Usually about nine, including the fruits
and vegetables, you know.
three meals a day.
And the people ate consistently
I think invariably they gained weight
during the summer, but they enjoyed it, so that was all
right.
PM:
What would these people do for two months while they
were staying here at Blowing Rock?
EB:
There was no entertainment of any kind at Blowing
Rock, no attractions, no movies, no auctions, nothing they
could do at the inn except for getting out and walking and
taking hikes.
If the weather was bad they stayed at home
and sat around and talked to each other, or else if they
became restless and wanted a little more activity they would
get in the dining room and play games, and even move back the
chairs and dance, just entertain themselves.
PM:
So the guests would entertain themselves, and would
mingle and mix with all the other guests?
EB:
Oh yes, oh yes, and I think we were really so fortunate
in having this type people who did enjoy other people, and
it wasn't long until at the end of the season when they
would begin to leave and go back home, they would say to
each other, "See you next summer," and next summer they
�15
would see each other because they looked forward to coming
back with the same crowd that they had enjoyed the summer
before.
PM:
So, we had the same people year after year, after . year.
What would happen during the non-season after you
closed at Labor Day?
What all happened around the Sunshine
Inn?
EB:
We just hibernated practically.
we looked forward to that;
In a way, of course,
as much as we enjoyed the tour-
ists we did look forward to everything being quiet and not
having to work so hard.
Really, though, you may not think
pf it as a year-round job, but it
was~
because we're do-it-
yourself people and we did our own work.
We'd start painting
rooms, or doing repair work, or things that we
~ould
do
during the period that we were closed that we couldn't do
during the summer.
So really, it was more or less a year-
round job.
PM:
What happened to your waitresses .and help?
What would
they do during the winter?
EB:
The girls were usually high school girls, so, of course,
they in school during the winter.
Our cooks had a little
home down off the mountain and they did what everybody else
did, we ..• Somehow or another, I never knew, but we managed
to make enough money in the summer to survive the winter,
so our cooks, the old colored couple, would just rest up
during the winter.
PM:
Now, where would they stay during the summer?
EB:
We
had a room right back of the kitchen and that was
Maggie and John's room.
�16
PM:
Maggie and John, what was their last name?
EB:
Jones.
PM:
And they stayed with you throughout
EB:
Throughout the summer, yes.
summer?
They had their own room:
just real convenient, just open the kitchen door and go right
into their room.
While I'm sure at first they must not have
had their own bathroom, eventually we did add their own bathroom
and also another room for additional help.
So, we grew, and, of
course, then we did everything on our own.
The government--the
state, the county, the town--didn't bother us.
They could have
cared less how we run and operated, and run our business, and we
were entirely on our own.
We didn't have to bother
. with Social
Security, sales tax, privileges, licenses, unemployment tax,
which we did have to bother with later.
And, of course, then,
the health department was beginning to take an interest in
the
public eating places, and establishments, so we had eventually
to change to their standards.
They were very lenient with us,
I think they were with the older places, but we certainly had to
make certain changes and adjustments and probably that's the
reason we put in more bathrooms, and changed equipment in the
kitchen to meet the standards of the health department.
PM:
Do you recall how much Mister and Missus Jones were paid
when they were working for you?
EB:
Did they start in1929?
Yes, and I paid them together, as a husband and wife.
They
were a team so I paid them twenty five dollars a week in addition
to their meals and their room, which they thought was great, and
r~
I thought it was pretty good myself really to have paid
them that much.
But before they left I think I was paying them
�17
instead of the combined salary of twenty-five dollars a week,
anywhere from eighty to a hundred dollars each a week: that's
how much things changed during that period.
PM:
What do you recall about Mister Jones and Missus Jones as
they worked around the Sunshine Inn?
EB:
Oh, they were just so loyal to the business.
In fact, they
were just as concerned and interested in the business as we were,
and certainly so conscientious about their work.
to do and they felt responsible for that job.
the cooking.
They had a job
It just wasn't
Every morning John would go in and light the stove
and while the stove was heating up he would go out and sweep all
the walkways in the front, and the front porch.
They seemed to
take it for granted this was their job, and they did it.
And if
you happened to help them out, or to do some of their job, they
resented it, because they felt like, ''Well, I'm not living to
my bargain to do this job," and they really resented it.
And they
felt a concern if business wasn't good, in fact, they hesitated
to take their money if we wasn't doing a good business.
They
said, "You haven't made this, so I hate to take the money that
I know is hard for you to pay."
But this was their attitude
toward us and toward the business, too.
PM:
Did you ever have to discipline any of your employees, not
only Mister and Missus Jones, but any of the other employees?
How would you all settle the problems?
EB:
I think just like a family.
If the girls 9ave us any pro-
blems, I always hesitated on pointing out a girl in
something
that she had done that was not quite what we wanted her . to do,
but I don't think I was ever cut out to be a boss.
Even though
�18
I felt they needed corrections, I was very hes·d .tant to correct
them.
I would sort of beat around the bush, you know, and call
all the girls together for a"family conference", and we would
sit down and somehow or other I would work around to this thing
that had bothered me and not point out that "You're the guilty
one," but it was something that had to be adjusted.
So we had
no hard feelings then between our relationship and the same way
with John and Maggie.
Invariably people are going to make mis-
takes--sometimes burn up something, or burn some food--Maggie
would be so distressed about this.
She'd say, "Missus Burns,
if I were in your place I wouldn 't put up with me.
fire me."
I would
But then I had that feeling of closeness to Maggie,
I would say, "Maggie, if I never made a boo-boo myself then I
might fire you, but as long as I make them myself then I can't
condemn you for making them."
we had with our help.
That was the relationship that
In fact, I never says, "You work for me.
You work with me."
PM:
Is that what you would say?
EB:
Oh y.es, and that really works.
You get more loyalty from
your help, and more work, really.
PM:
Did you work just as hard as they did?
EB:
Oh yes!
I nev.er would ask them to do anything I wouldn't
do myself, and I can't think of a single thing that I didn't do
sometime or other: from a-waiting tables, cooking meals, washing
dishes, and cleaning rooms.
I went into every, every bit of it.
It didn't bother me.
PM:
And was your husband doing the same thing?
EB:
Oh yes, oh yes.
PM:
Did he ever wash a dish?
�19
EB:
At the beginning of the season and in order to cut down on
things financially while things were slow, he was the dishwasher.
He .was the dishwasher.
And I was
the maid.
Here such a good
relationship existed between our guests and us, that while I did
all of the maid work ... And we had a lot of fun with it because
I'd knock on the door and say, "This is Mary the maid, may I come
in?"
Invariably they'd open the door and say, "Well, you don't
have to bother our room, we've already made up our beds and
straightened up our rooms, so there's nothing to do."
maid work got easier and easier.
So, my
That's the type of people we
had; that they really looked after themselves.
PM:
They'd continue to come back over the years?
EB:
Oh, year, after year, after year, after year.
PM:
Now, what was the shortest time, do you recall, right at the
very beginning that people would stay at the inn?
EB:
Oh, people just never came for any less than two weeks.
just didn't have any overnight guests.
We
If we were thinking from
a financial standpoint that would have been great because you had
to change sheets constantly, you had to clean rooms constantly,
and really, it was good for us to have people come and stay for
a long period of time, both from the work standpoint and from a
financial standpoint.
To see how people liked the simple things
and the simple way of life, and the plain food and everything, it
came to me from a man that we had .•. Of course, alot of people
wrote in for reservations!
they were coming to.
They had no idea what kind of place
But we had a Mister Dillon from Florida who,
I think was awfully disappointed when he came in.
He evidently was
pretty wealthy, and he had written to us for a reservation, and we
�20
had confirmed his reservation.
His son brought him up, he
didn't drive, he was rather an elderly man, and I sensed the
minute he came in that he was disappointed, that he expected a
little more elaborate accomodations, you know.
Also, his son
was, I think, at first skeptical. But it was a little late so
they spent the night.
But the next morning, and this he told
me later, "We went over to Mayview Manor and looked around, and, r•
he says, "we both had a feeling that Sunshine Inn wasn't quite
up to what we thought it was going to be, so we went to Mayview
Manor."
But the man didn't drive, and he told his son, "Since
I don't, I'll just go on and stay down at Sunshine for a few
days anyway."
So, it wasn't but. about two or three days until
he was just the happiest old man.
He said the simplicity had
really been great for him, and the friendship, because we had
a lot--I guess we'd say--"old maids" who were delighted in
entertaining this old widower.
His wife had died just a month
or two before and he was really depressed, but he came out of
it and thoroughly enjoyed it.
And he told me later that he
wouldn't stay anyplace else for anything in the world and he came
back as long as we were in business, every summer.
PM:
How long did he come?
Do you recall?
EB:
I believe about twelve years.
And that was the nice part
about our business because we kept having the same people over,
and over, and over.
And they seemed to fit in perfectly.
Of
course, everybody· has a few instances when things are not too
pleasant.
PM:
Can you give me an idea of some of those unpleasant things?
EB:
Well, we had one family come in, and I say this through no
reflection of the Jewish people, but they were Jewish and they
�21
asked to see the rooms and they were very, very critical.
And
they were not at all friendly to the other guests, which horrified me.
They had accepted the rooms, though and were going
to stay, but I just had a feeling I don't know whether this is
going to work out too well or not.
So, I said to him as we
went to the door, "I don't believe you're going to like it here.
I just don't think you're going to like it here at all."
I
says, "We have the nicest, friendliest people, most congenial
guests in the world, and I just don't believe you'll like it."
So, that was one instance where .•• It just didn't happen often
because it seemed like we were unusually fortunate in having
the cream of the crop.
PM:
Can you recall any other unhappy--we don't like to think
of all the unhappiness, but I think it kind of gives a balance,
we do have those times when it's not happy.
EB:
Oh yes, I know we have to face them because they do exist,
and too, I think it shows not always when there's criticism,
and it has taught me certainly to be very lenient and understanding of eating places where things might happen that you
certainly don't want to happen.
Oh, we were just swamped!
But we were so rushed one night.
And I think really that I was aware,
but not entirely aware because I was in the kitchen, and this
family sat in the dining room and evidently didn't get but a
few of the thing$that we served for our evening meal.
I was
rushing between the kitchen and the cash register and I went
out with a big smile, you know, expecting him to say he had enjoyed the meal, which I had grown accustomed to.
let me have it.
But boy! he
He said I ought to be ashamed of myself for
�22
cheating the public like that.
And he was really, really in-
dignant about it. And my feathers fell just like that, but it
was due to the rush and the girls just didn't get around to
serving him, and serving him all the food we had and he was too
impatient to wait for the food.
Those things happen at every
place, I'm sure of that, too.
But I think about the funniest
thing that happened:
s~aying
A couple came in to eat, they were not
in the house, but they just came in to meals, and they
had been coming in for several days and on the morning they ·
were leaving they came in for breakfast.
Very nice, and had
really complimented the meals everytime they'd eaten there.
On that morning, though, that they were leaving they came in
and ate cantiloupe, and they ate oatmeal, and we served as an
order, too, eggs and two slices of bacon, or sausage, they ate
that with toast.
Then they ate hot cakes, then they ate French
toast, then they ordered another order of eggs.
Now, we never
hesitated to give people everything they ordered because we advertised all they can eat, and all you want, for the same price.
So, they ordered the second order of eggs and when the girl
took it in they started fussing.
suit them.
The eggs were not fixed to
They were either too soft or too hard.
Well, she
took that order of eggs back and got another order and she
brought those and they just wouldn't do at all.
worst tasting eggs they ever saw.
times.
They were the
She took those back.
Three
Really, the people at the table next to them said it was
just really terrible the way they talked to the girl in their
criticism of the food.
Of course, everybody knew they'd eaten
so much nothing could taste good to them at that stage.
The
�23
girl finally sent for me to come in and talk to them myself,
so I went in and I said, "Really, we'd do everything we could
to please them and get their order straight, but if they were
not happy with it then we ·
money."
certainly would not take their
So, they ended up by not paying for their breakfast.
I think that was the point all the time.
But you run into that,
invariably you have a few who are very critical, and impatient,
but we certainly were fortunate in having very, very few through
the years.
PM:
What was the relationship that Mister and Missus Jones had
to your guests? Did anything happen that would kind of give us
an idea of what that relationship was as far as segregation
goes?
EB:
Oh, Certainly Maggie and John had no thought of associat-
ing with our guests.
They would have hated that more than our
guests would have resented it because the guests would come into
the kitchen and talk with Maggie and John and compliment them
on their cooking abilities, but Maggie and John would never, in
any way, take advantage of what they thought their place was
then.
As colored people they felt like they had a place
and
they stayed in it, even to the extent that if we who felt as
close to them as anyone could possibly feel, like they were part
of our family, but they, in their humility, if we'd sit down at
the table while they were eating they'd put their plates
in
their laps.
PM:
They'd still sit there and eat?
EB:
Sit there there yes, but not with their plate on the table.
Now that I don't know whether it was just part of their humility
�24
or if they felt the difference in the color, or why they did
that I don't know.
But to me it was significant of the •••
being the difference between the black and the white, as it
was considered back during those days .
PM:
What about the relationship with their children and your
children?
They did have one son?
(Begin Tape #2, side one)
PM:
We were talking about the Jones' nephew who lived with
them and just the relationship that the nephew had with your
own children as he was growing up.
EB:
It was just like
brothers, especially my younger son,
and believe it or not his name was Sweet.
We called him Sweet.
They had no ••. no consciousness that one was black and one was
white.
They could see no reason why they couldn't eat together,
they couldn't sleep together, they couldn't take trips together.
They saw no reason at all why they couldn't associate just as
brothers.
And they did, really.
But at one point where they
wanted to go off on a trip and spend the night to a ballgame,
Maggie, bless her heart, she was just the greatest, she took
Sweet aside and said, "Sweet , you just can't do do this.
just don't do this."
You
She says, "Colored people just don't go
off with white people like that," she says, "You just can't do
it."
And the same thing she told him when Ronnie wanted to
spend the night in Sweet's room, "No, that just won't do. You're
black and he's white and that won't do."
But Maggie accepted
it as such.
PM:
Did Maggie ever make any statements as to how she felt a-
bout being segregated?
�25
EB:
Just one or two times.
Not so much on segregation, the
difference between the black and the white, as people not
associating together, even the whites with the whites, which
seemed down through the years people became more and more, I
guess the word's selfish, they wanted to be by themselves.
So,
if there was any problem with that someone sitting with anyone
else at a table, she couldn't understand that.
wonder
She just would
what they would do when they got to Heaven.
But and too
of course, I heard her then so many times say that the nurses
of the families that had Negro mamies to look after their children and they, too, seemed to have such a close relationship
and Maggie would remark that she just couldn't understand how
that relationship could be so close and yet be such a difference in their social standing, and in their opportunities.
So
she did feel it to a certain extent.
PM:
What about her husband, did you ever have any feelings
that he felt that way?
EB:
John, he was I think maybe just really afraid to say any-
thing along this line.
Now John told me this, I don't know
I
that it's true, but way back when my father was building the
~
store and they were making brick to buildAstore, John says he
helped, came up from his little place down there and helped
make that brick, and he said there was such a feeling even then
between the blacks and whites that he was afraid to stay up here,
and that there were times when they had gotten stoned, I mean
had rocks thrown at them, you know.
So, John seemed to have a
fear there of ever expressing his own opinion.
back from that period.
Maybe it dated
�26
PM:
Well, tell me about your attitude about business.
did you approach making · money as such?
Let~s
How
put it this
way: how did you keep books, and how did you determine the
prices that you were going to charge?
EB:
Well, to begin with, we didn't keep any books.
Like I
said, it was our own business so if we made some money all right
and if we didn't then that was our bad luck, too.
But as far
as bookkeeping, we just didn't keep any books, or we didn't
have a cash register.
Then, of course though, as we bought
wholesale I was conscious of prices in terms o.f the menus that
we were serving.
For instance, I knew that for two dollars we
could not serve T-bone steaks, and I was conscious of the fact
that certainly while country ham was one of our main attractions,
especially on Sunday ·morning, the time came when we could not
serve country ham at seventy-five cents for breakfast, you see.
And I was conscious of prices from that respect, but during all
those years I don't think I ever sat down and figured actually
how much a meal would cost me and if we took in enough money to
take care of the cost of the meal that I had served .
PM:
Well, how would you price breakfast, for example?
What
would go through your mind when you would finally say that this
breakfast is going to cost seventy-five
cen~,
or a dollar, or
however much it cost?
EB:
I guess really through, from experience.
I thought,"Well,
we're not going to lose money on this breakfast, we may not make
any, but we're not going to lose money on this breakfast."
I
guess I thought more of volume that anything else, because if
we had enough people then we'd take in more money and that would
take care of the cost of the meal. As for actually sitting down
�27
and estimating the price of the meal and our profit, later,
of course, all bf the salesmen began to push portions, well ,
you know, "a portion of meat will cost you so much,"
but I'd
get real irritated with them and said, "Well, I'm not concerned
in portions," because our meals, , meats, were put on platters
and we'd put enough portions on that until we had no doubt.
We just didn't want.' to run out,so portions didn't mean a thing
to me.
And it was hard, really, to estimate the price of maybe
a twenty-five, thirty pound roast in regard to portions because
some people ate so much more than others.
we couldn't count on that, you know.
The way we served
We'd let people have as
much as they wanted•
PM:
Why do you suspect that the salesmen were pushing portions,
and encouraging you to go by the portion route?
EB:
Profits.
To really give us a bigger profit, I think. Then
I would know just exactly how much my meat was costing me.
that was the big item of course, the meat, it
~s
Well
now; it was then.
So, I guess really, the way I estimated . was I paid a hundred
dollars for the meat for a meal.
Well, we'll serve maybe a hun-
dred and fifty people, so I guess that's the way I really judged
whether or not we were going to lose money or make money.
Be-
cause we could estimate then on the people we were going to
serve.
If this amount of meat will serve that many people, then
I'm not going to lose money or I'm going to make money.
PM:
When you say I'm going to make money, would you say twenty
per cent, or fifty per cent?
Were you trying to just make a
little money, or a lot of money, or break even?
EB:
We were trying to make a living, that was about it and
�28
really we were pretty well satisfied with the living because
we felt like if we made enough during the summer to live on
during the winter we were doing pretty well.
PM:
When you say "to make enough to live on," do you mean
enough to buy your own food, to buy your own fuel and have
a little spending money throughout the winter?
EB:
Yes, and we thought we were doing pretty well to do that.
And when you think about it, that's pretty good to work those
months in the summer and ·then loaf the rest of the time, although we really didn't loaf.
wouldn't
rou
That you can say is pretty good,
say, really?
PM:
I feel good about it.
EB:
We didn't have money in the bank.
In fact, I don't think
really either of us thought about how much money we were making,
we just took it as it came.
If we made some money, okay, if
we didn't,okay.
PM:
Did you save money over the years?
EB:
Yes, at the end of the season I sort of estimated how much
would it take for us to get through the winter and if we had it
on deposit and if I felt like we could afford a hundred or two
dollars I'd put1in Watauga Savings and Loan, and it's amazing
if you put it there and forget about it what it can do. That's
part of my living today I'll tell you.
PM:
Well, can you tell me how has the tourist business changed
over the years and when did you retire, 19 .•• ?
EB:
About five years ago.
PM:
That was 1969?
EB:
Sixty-nine.
�29
PM:
From 1929 to 1969, that's forty years, how did the business
change?
EB:
The good and the bad?
Well, I think the biggest change was the transits people
that came in, people who were on the go.
We had alot more over-
night guests than we had back in the old days.
And then in the
contentment--I guess contentment's a good word--people were so
content with the simple things, I mean not much entertainment,
they didn't have to be entertained.
But as years went on, it
seems that that was the main thing they looked for in a tourist
town was all the attractions, the recreation facilities, and
the entertainment.
this line?"
"Well, what have you got to offer along
So, that definitely was the biggest change, the
restlessness of the people and their demands for entertainment
and recreation facilities, which was unheard of in the earlier
days.
PM:
You know, this area has certainly changed in those ways
and they offer people quite a few things I think to do.
you see that as positive?
EB:
Do
Is that good or is that bad?
Why certainly, it's helped the tourist business, there's
no doubt about that.
Whereas I would say it has doubled, the
tourist business, over doubled since we first started.
And I
expect it's certainly due to these attractions that have come
in:
Land of Oz
and Tweetsie. We still, if we want to progress
as a tourist town, have a long way to go in attractions for the
young people.
Of course, from years back we had horseback rid-
ing and hiking, those were things put on the brochures about
Blowing Rock, but the young people don't care for that now. They
want actual entertainment, some kind of amusement, and we've
�30
cJI'"&
got a long way yet to entice the young people in.
And we Astill
sort of a retired, older people's tourist town.
PM:
Can you recall any particular effort you were involved in
getting more and more people to come here, maybe through the
Chamber of Commerce, or •.. ?
EB:
We contributed to the Chamber of Commerce, but I don't
think I was very cooperative in the advertising.
Their ways
of advertising to me, they would put all the posters, and do
all the advertising in other states and along the highways.
Then people would come here but be disappointed becau"'e they
didn 't have the recreatio
be they had expected .
faciliti es or attra ctions that may-
It was the same way at the Inn.
very little advertising.
Just in this past summer you see a
great big s ign, "Sunshine Inn", dmm here.
new.
Well, really, that's
That's new, \'e didn't have anything like that.
like rather than
We did
I felt
spend money putting out signs and advertising,
if I could put that mane
place more attractive for
into something that would make my
the people who came there, to me that
would be a bigger advantage than all the signs that I could
put out on the hig ways , because then tho se people were happy
and satisfied and they would go and tell others, and to me that's
the best way to advertis •
And I felt like this
as the same
with Blow-i ng Rock, though certainly we cooperated with the Chamber of Commerce and all the projects that the town
et forth as
the aim to bring in more touri s t trade.
PM:
Your Sunshine Inn was a family-owned, run, operation, there
were other attractions or homes t hat were not family-owned, could
you tell a difference between the family-owned and the operations
�31
that were not family-owned, in the way they wer
EB:
operated?
Yes , yes , the people who-- I hope I ' m not s ying something
that sometime later anybody might resent--but this certainly
is refle cted on the local people a d their attitud e toward
business .
Because i
r ecent years we have gotten so many , es-
pecially from Florida , m .n or people who have come in and
ought
motels , or have go e into businese here.
They seem purely t
think of it fr o
"We
a financial
and this is our aim, a n
tandpoint:
ant to make mo ey ,
r gardle "' s we 're going to ma ke mo ey."
The local people, when it' s a local person, he doesn ' t have that
attitude at all .
It ' s more th
inst ad of making
tation .
i te e t of the entire town , and
alot of money , j u t have a good repu-
So that local feeling toward bu
ines~
how s I thi k in
all the places , the e s tablis ments , that we have now .
PM:
Are there 1
any establi shment s r n , or
different
o~med
by people fro
or different state· , owned by them
area~
have them op rat
by s omebody
el~e?
nd th n they
Do you know of many like
that nO\<V ?
EB:
Do you mean that th
PM:
Rig t .
EB:
Yes .
lo aJ people have sold out t o?
It' s happening more and more an
very, v ery few, eve
local people .
rig t now there s
the motelR that are -""d and
People fr o
oth r se ction s
o ght th em , and operat e them.
f
p erated by
t he countr
h v
come in
nd
It ' s dist re ssing t
me that
o mariy of the busi e s e s and the shops up the street ,
0
all of them are going out of the hand s of local people.
PM:
Is there any particular r aso
that loc al people ar
busines
0
for it other than the f ct
ju . . t getting 'tired of their
and selling to
.hoever com s in?
OvJri
particular
�32
Well ,
EB:
y s
and I '"' .r . talkine; about it t is morning i
ur f eel ing toward the tourists and them taking the b sinesses
in Blowing Rock.
He says it '
not that feeling of" res
tment,
b t it's the feeling that the e people can have money , mo tly
retired p ople ,
a
a f ford.
1~0
can afford alot more tha
the local peopl e
And thy will offer maybe such a f nt
f r a buf'i es s , t at th
lo a J peopl
for that pri ce , and they ' ve
got the
oney to do it.
O\I
But this
And this is what
rese ts becauce he and his wife c:ir- e li ing i
apart el'.1t
ric
will certainly sell it
has re ulted in real e tate going out of sight.
my so
t ic
a litt
r h re now of min, and they 1ould like v ry much
t o hav . ah me, yet he s ayc all th ese p eople with so much money
come in her
an
pay such fanta tic prices for thing
no chance in the world he can have a home,
real
no~
there's
at the price of
state.
PM:
You didn't sense th·s back when you were a young girl?
RB:
No , oh no !
PM:
Prices weren ' t being pushed up?
EB:
No , no and certainly local people o n d and operat ed m s t
of the busi e s es, if not all of them back then, I expect th
id.
r M:
Do they operate them with the same philosophy that you did
of having a good busines
caring about maki g
EB:
You know, I t i
and a good reputatio
lot of money?
I can say tru.thfully that i
of the local people becau e I think of now the
and the inn right above us, th
t e attitu e
Marti
Hol:.... ,
Green Inn, it seemed that they
really enjoy d operati g their pla e
in, not wit
v..itl cut really
and having the tourist
the idea of making alot of money.
come
I r ally belie e
�33
t hat wa
the att i tude of
most of t e l ocal people . Back then
especiall y.
PM:
One th "ng I j st wanted to hit on , you ' v e already t al ked
a bout it, can you r e call any of those game
people played , in
your pa rlor I guesc , when t hey came in as tourist s , a s summer
peopl e ?
EB :
There ' s one they ca ll ed " Pi g" and I cannot r e e ber t he
details of t he game , but I remember it wa s ver y hilar ious and
evident l y t he pi g woul d put h i s f inger by th e s ide of hi s nose
and t hen t here wa s a l ot of holl ering and whooping.
On e t ine
we had a senator, v·e ry eld erly, ret ired s enator there with hi s
wife , and his health wasn't good and he had a nurse the r e with
him .
All of t he guests were in the dining room playing Pig,
and of course, there were other games we played as children
that you wouldn't think that they would enjoy, but they thoroughly enjoyed.
You know Post Office and all this, they tho-
roughly enjoyed it.
But one night I think everybody was es-
pecially having fun, it was sort of noisy you know, laughing
and talking, and this old senator had a room on the same floor
as the dining room and he was a rather dignified person anyway,
~( 'ffil ; ~
and suddenlyAin the room got quiet, just quiet as could be, nobody made a noise, we looked up and in the dining room door
stood this old man in
knees.
his night shirt that just came to his
And he was a little withered up sort of man anyway.
He looked like something out of a story book standing there in
the dining room door, but he was just as stern, he wanted to
know what was going on in there, that his sleep was being disturbed.
He went back to his room, but the next morning he came
�34
to me, "Miz Burns, you weren't in there last night in all that
noise, were you?"
I sort of hung my head and said, "Well, I
was in there."
PM:
What did he say about that?
Did he ask you not to do it
again?
EB:
No, no he didn't.
but he soon got over it.
Evidently he was irritated at the time,
They had been used to a little
more formality than we were able to offer at the Inn.
bit
His son,
too was a political figure, so they were looking for him to come
up and
they wanted us to put on just a little extra, you know,
when he got there.
So, I had agreed with his wife that I would
put bread and butter plates on, you know, and really put on a
little bit, spread it on for him.
It happened that he came in
right while they were eating the noon meal and they were ready
for the noon meal so instead of all that formality nothing could
have been w0rse because we just took two tables and shoved them
811
together withAthe informality.
It had no dignity to it at all.
But he was perfectly happy.
PM:
What was the music that they liked?
Was it local people
coming in performing for them, playing the instruments that they
play, or phonograph, or record player, or did they have any
music when they played these games, or when they entertained
themselves?
EB:
No, we just didn't have any music.
If ever anybody wanted
to tap their foot and clap they did it, but not any
real music.
I think that was one thing that we ••• Down through the years when
you walked into a dining room you expected to hear music of some
kind, the soft music you know, we never used it.
Just the last
�35
few years my husband got interested in intercom and he rigged
up something where we could have it, but the reaction we had
to that was certainly not good, because any number of people
said, "Oh, why did you put in that music?"
because one thing
they enjoyed about coming there was the quietness and peacefulness, you know, and that they didn't have to listen to all
this music.
And so that was sort of symbolic to me, too, of
what people, of what they enjoyed.
You
know , I wonder some-
times if it's good to people to have all this music and noise
while they're eating?
PM:
Do you recall from 1929 on when people began to change,
and didn't play the parlor games and entertain themselves?
EB:
Just about the time, now, I don't remember dates, I don't
know how many years it's been that the auctions came in.
Of
course, then, people begain instead of staying home in the evening and sitting around talking or singing--they sang, but no
musical instruments--they would go to the auctions.
And before
we retired the house had been entirely empty, as quiet as a
mouse after dinner.
Everybody'd be gone to the auctions, or a
movie, or up on the street window shopping, or off to see some
kind of entertainment.
PM:
As time went on and you were in business, you said at the
beginning you really didn't have to worry about the government,
the town, the state, as far as running your business, how did
that change over a period of time in terms of your relationship
to the work, what you
EB:
ha~e
to do?
I just don't remember how long we operated without, shall
I say , "interference" from the government or the state, that
�36
certainly it was over a good many years.
And I think maybe
the first thing came the privilege license that we had to pay
to operate and that we had to pay for every chair that we had
in the
~ining
room.
This came as a privilege license from the
state, and then later from the town, too, we had to pay the
license from the town.
(Begin Side Two)
PM:
We were talking about the different licenses and the af-
feet the government had on business ..•
EB:
Like I said, I can't remember exactly when it started, but
I do remember that gradually these men began to come in and ask
ahouf
questionsAyour business, and if you were doing so-and-so, and
if you were ... Really, it seems to me like when the sales tax
started, that thing;tbegan to get complicated then because they
were constantly checking.
They were doing their jobs, but at
the same time taking alot of our time and alot of our money,
too.
For many years, what we made was ours, we had no taxes
of any kind, but then before we closed
ther~ocial Security,
s~l<S
there waSAtax, there was withholding tax--that I resented more
than any other tax--there was withholding tax, unemployment
compensation, that's the one I mentioned, though.
You know
the expression, it took a Philadelphia lawyer to keep books
after that because these reports had to go in.
And not only
were these taxes put on us, but they told us exactly how to
run our business, too.
Now, this was true.
They told us how
many we could hire, how long they could work, under what conditions they could work, they could work so many hours and that's
hard when you're not working by the hour as you don't in the
�37
tourist business.
And at what age you could hire someone.
Really, I guess if I would say I was thankful to be out of it
that was the reason because of the things that were involved
in a small business like that.
lie
PM:
Come 1969, you were glad toAgetting out of the business?
EB:
From that standpoint, yes.
For sentimental reasons, and
certainly tradition, made me very sad to . leave
i~.
And I
think the fact that we had been there forty years, that we'd
build, and it wasn't just that that I hated it, too, because
we'd left so many disappointed people.
These people that had
been coming to us for years and years and counted on spending
their vacation with us, they were without a place to stay because
you know it's hard to accept a new operator after being used
to one for forty years.
You know, no matter how well they do,
your old people are going to find something that's wrong.
So,
about their management, I not only felt hurt in a way for my
ownself, but to think that I had let these people down, which
I was getting really to the point where I had no choice.
We
had been in business long enough and we were giving out under
it.
But you feel, "Oh, they're going to be so disappointed
this summer when they come back."
PM:
Is there any one particular family, or couple, or single
person, that you recall came back more than anybody else did?
EB:
Well, we had any number of people who came as long as
ten, twelve years every summer, but I suppose that one that
really stands out is Mister and Missus Butler.
He was a busi-
ness manager at Elon College and he and his wife spent their
honeymoon with us when they were married, then they never missed a summer, until
we went out of business and then by that
�38
time they had a daughter, I believe about twelve, fifteen
years old. .
PM:
Well, I've certainly enjoyed talking to you and hope
you've enjoyed it.
EB:
I've thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm afraid I haven't
been much help.
(The End)
�
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.
Morgan, Pat
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Burns, Ethel
Interview Date
1/5/1975
Location
The location of the interview.
Blowing Rock, NC
Number of pages
43 pages
Date digitized
9/22/2014
File size
27.4MB
Checksum
alphanumeric code
26038cec110dad3b109b51bc825c7ab7
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_tape353_EthelBurns_transcript_M
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ethel Burns [January 5, 1975]
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
Morgan, Pat
Burns, Ethel
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
Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
Depression--1929--North Carolina--Watauga County
Mountain life--North Carolina--Watauga County--History--20th century--Anecdotes
Burn, Ethel
Description
An account of the resource
Ethel Burns grew up and eventually took over the Sunshine Inn, an establishment that housed "the summer people" or the upper-class tourists who came to Blowing Rock over the summer for vacation. They housed them and provided three meals a day for fifteen dollars a week. She recalls that everyone felt a sort of reverence for the summer people but her father "still felt his authority and his own individuality in his relationship to them." The tourists didn't have much to do in Blowing Rock in those days, only hiking and walking and spending time with the other residents.
bed and breakfast
Blowing Rock
Chamber of Commerce
community club
Ethel Burns
Great Depression
Land of Oz
Rowan County
segregation
summer festival
summer residents
The Sunshine Inn
tourist business
Tweetsie
-
https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/files/original/9f48b49954b52c43cb73602febcad365.pdf
d59c60b3fb713691e42b6d2806d37422
PDF Text
Text
Peggy Dotterer Interview
This is J ane Efird with Marlene Deaton for the Appalachian Oral History Project ,
July 17 , 1975 .
W ' re speaking with Mrs . Peggy Dotterer at her home in Hot Springs ,
e
North Carolina .
Q.
I just want you to start telling us about the history of the Hot Springs
and who first built the hotels around hre .
A.
Ah , this is history as I have gotten it from my family and my grandparents
and ah, it is not authentic as far as dates nor bave I ever researched all this .
These are just fond memories of a past era .
And my life began in Hot Springs when
I was , came back here when I was about ah , a little over two years old .
first home here was in the old Hampton Cottage .
time .
And my
And I lived there a very short
My father was ill and my father died there .And my mother was the youngest
daughter of the Rumbos .
And so , I ah) my roots are pretty deep in Hot Springs from
ah family ties and from the fact that I have lived here .
And whenever I ' ve gone
away from here , I have been irrevetably drawn back by what I can ' t t ell you exactly .
So, I have seen it from partially the hey- day and I have also listened to glowing
tales of days that came before my time on in to very sad to say , when we no longer
can be classed as a tourist town of any kind .
was the famous Mountain Fog Hotel .
many people , summer after summer .
And it was ah , still being visited by a great
And it was the type of tourism that we no longer
have . You came and you brought your trunk .
was small .
And you spent the summer .
they do now , one night stands .
close friends .
And you came by railroad train when I
Ah , you didn ' t move from place to place like
And these people came so often that they became quite
And the hotel now as I visualize it , from this standpoint , was a great
big rambling ah , wooden structure a.r:rl the front
road station .
And the first hotel that I remember
and it faced the rail-
Because that was the center of arriving and leaving .
And then , it had the
two wings tbat went back and the middle was kind of a courtyard and on the back wing
near the bay was the big ballroom and there were very gay activi ties there .
D:l.ncing
every night , orchestras brought in to be there all summer and the thing , one of the
things tlB.t was featured besides the gay social life was the curative waters of the
mineral springs . And those mineral springs are not looked upon now as they were then
�2
but that was the era of the farm , when people were very eager to go to places of
that nature and they believed greatly in , mm, the curative powers when they don ' t
anymore .
And then ah , I was twelve years old when the end of the hotel as a real
thriving tourist business of that era which is a very beautiful memory to me . of what
people did and what they were like in the life there.
to an end by the beginning of W
orld W I.
ar
And ah , that ah , was brought
And my uncleJ by that time, was running
it because my grandfather was quite elderly and he had divided the ownership of it .
And he felt that there would certainly be no tourist business here and so he made
a lease with the government for the German Prisoners to be interned here .
And the
most interesting part that stands out in my mind from them coming , they had a
wonderful German band and it sat down on the lawn there and played all the gorgeous
German music of the Blue I.anube and all the waltzes and Strauss W
altzes .
not only heard it from them but it echoed off of the mountains .
And you
And the officers
were interned in , in the main hotel and the sailors ah , they were merchant marines
who were taken .
golf link .
An
They were interned across the road in what had been a part of the
ah , that of course went on through the war and then when the war
was over , it was an army hospital for a short time .
have the real old fashioned ah , summer hotels .
Rlt never , never again did we
And it had been the heart of the town .
And of course , there were future attempts for tourism here because we were on 25- 70 .
And that for a time was the main road .
And it was for a good many years .
all the traffic from the mid- west through to Florida .
It brought
And we lBd ah , a season of
winter people on their way down to Florida and on their way back .
Bu~as
were built , fewer and few people , fewer people came this way at all .
And it ' s very
sad really for me to have seen it go into the decline that it ' s in now .
very definitely the last stroke was the opening of I- 40 .
highways
But , it
And we tried very hard to
ge1j, bring the roads through here , but it was a sort of a political deal with who
we tried and they got I- 40 and it completely took , took the through traffic away from
us .
And even t he motel down there that was the motel of the town then ah , is now ,
it ' s grew but you don ' t see too many people there .
And the ah , cafe that was ah ,
the best one that we had is now is a liquor store , an AB:: store .
nice place , eating place there .
That was a real
And for a time we had no eating place and now we
�3
have a sort of a one down town here which ah , doesn ' t stay open very regularly and
isn ' t patronized much.
And there is really no ah , r esemblance whatsoever t o this
town as I lrn.ew it when I was growing up .
rooted here and loved it very much.
Tennessee .
My
And my family was always very ah , deep-
And there was a very_close tie in with Greenville ,
f amily had come from there .
Jr ., the president ' s son .
Ah , one of my aunts married Andrew Johnson
And the Greenville people patronized Hot Springs and for
many years they drove a railroad train over here and had an annual picnic long after
Hot Springs .l:ad faded away as being ah , a real tourist center .
They still came and
ah , had their picnic down in the old hotel grounds like they had always done .
then that passed interval .
It wasn ' t done anymore .
And
So I , I can ' t ah , I can ' t see
that we have much hope for tourism as we have knownit , but there may come a time when
this will be a sort of a retirement center .
And about the only thing we have to
off er now is very lovely soenery , ,very quiet atmosphere , and very nice all- year- round
climate .
Of course , we don ' t get terribly cold here and ah , our SUilllllers are just as
nice with a very cool m
ountain night .
And yet just ah , when or who we will attract
ah , enough of people to change the place drastically , I ' m not sure whather it will
talce a long , long time or not .
Q.
And now can you think of anything that you ' d like to.
W
ell, ah , you said that you remember some fond stories that your grandparents and
your parents told you .
Could you start , you :Im.ow , tell ing us some of those about
the ah , the old , the tourist business so long ago?
A.
Well , the tourist business long ago was just possibly , as I remember it , is
m
uch as stories passed onto me .
I must say the greatest number of stories ever passed
onto me were the things t hat went on during the civil war because that w
growing up , that was still very vital in their minds .
had happened a
d t here
I was
The epis odes were things that
are two stories of Civil W days .
ar
And one of them was that
ah, my grandmother was living in a little cottage back upon the hill and my grandfather
had gone off and he was on the Confederate side and so she was there with the children
and she ah , the soldiers were coming .
They were on the other side and we had trouble
here apparently with what they call bushwackers , deserters anything .
the mountains and they simply came in as marauders .
They hid
~ut
They weren ' t fighting for any
in
�4
cause.
They were, it was just a good chance f or outlaws to express themselves .
And
so when she heard of them coming , she was really a very gallant lady , and she went
out , got an old colored man to help her , and she went out and burned the bridge t hat
led over to the hotel .
Then , another story is , is when they were they came and they
were taking everything they had and she had taken up the floor in the rarlor and had
a horse in there that she loved very much .
They were going to lead the horse away
and she threw her arms around the horse's neck and the man went off with her hanging
onto the horse for dear life .
And so , the young officer on the Union side said · well ,
if the lady loves the horse that much , give it back to her . "
So , she saved it .
Then ,
this other story they used to tell was that there was a battle f ought down at the Hotel
Grand .
I guess you ' d call it a squirmish .
And the ah , this young Union soldier was
was killed and he was fatally wounded and he died in my grandmother ' s arms .
They
were out trying to help both sides .
You were
That was the way of war in those days .
out killing, but you were you had a heart f or the other
~ide
as people , human beings .
And so , when he died in her arms , he had lovely golden sort of curls and she cut off
some and sent them to his mother .
And it was a life-long friendship by way of never
meeting but writing back and forth t o each other always .
And as far as as tourism
was concerned , I think that this description that I have in this article is about the
way it was and the way ah, the first way I remember it and I say in here in order to
describe the life tl:at centered about the second hotel , we quote from a , of a , from
an article written by one of the writers in that
the
Carolina used to publish.
rom t:be pamphlet tl:a t
I say although many came for the curative
value of the water , many others of tbe South ' s elite came summer after summer to enjoy
the gay social life and whether that would be gay social life today I ' m not sure but
that was their type of gay social life .
And I go on to say mountains
has become famous and I can remember the thing that stands out in my mind , something
that people loved then and I don ' t know whether they ' d love it now or not and that
was t he amateur theatricals .
W were al ways having ah , somebody getting up amateur
e
theatricals to be put on the stage of the ballroom and I can well , the thing I re-
�5
member was a man sitting in a chair , ah, smoking his pipe and remembering his
former sweetheart .
And I can remember that I was with a sweetheart number; number
1 when I was about five years old.
W walked out on the stage and stood there.
e
And of course, he lad what his memories were recited, in some kind of verse that
had be en written local .
And I can remember all these theatricals, sort of brought
in a local picture of life around here .
And they used to have people in the hotels
that were called the entertainment and they not only ran t he hotel , but they felt
responsible f or keeping t he guests very well entertained .
And we did have horse-
back riding and there were trails around here and there ' s an old road on the mountain back of the cabin I used to live in , that was called Dead Park Road .
originallY, I remembered is wide enough for a buggy to go
OL
And
and the people from the
motel would be taken out buggy riding up on the mountain and ah , ah around the hotel
there were things like ah
i g watermelon cuttings where the where they would pick
the watermelons in the garden dovm here , put them in a wagon and then the man would
ride into the center and then we ' d have a watermelon cutting and all the guests would
be there .
gether
thing .
And so it was the type of entertainment t!at would bring the people torather than everybody going out like they do now and doing their
-Own
It was an era of ah, enjoying social activ planning social activities of rather
a grandiose nature,
I ' d say .
many ideas like
The
Bapt~st
people weren 't really sold over to too
I can remember these beautiful evening dresses and they had
the dresses had trains on them and there was a loop
int~
d of, on the edge of· the
dress and the ladies put these over their wrists and that lifts the train and then
they waltzed and I was very small and used to sit on the back porch and and look
-
in at what was going on and I thought that was the most beautiful thing I ' d ever
seen, all these ladies holding their
running in t he fields with
One of the young ladies just asked me if I knew ah could remember any.. of the ah
sgrt· of famous people or
famous ~ to~me
mind is O' Henry , the author .
people and the one that stands out in my
And he had married a lady from Asheville and he
�6
came down here on his second honeymoon because he ' d already been married before .
And I remember , I don ' t know i f this is out of place, but I remember they served
mint julips up at my house and there were quite a l arge crowd that came and participated in this event and so I got to see the real live O' Henry .
And we had good
friends that came but as f or really famous people, I ' m not sure that I can remember .
Let me think i f I can remember anybody .
W had a great many New Orlean ' s
e
people-the far south people because I guess t hey found this so delightful for summer .
Q.
You don ' t have to tell us about famous people but any certain people that
you you know were good, just real good friends with or anything like that .
A.
You see , I was pretty young and ah , so my friends were some of the children
down at the hotel and I missed that very much after there was no more hotel because
that ' s where I f ound all my playmates .
It ' s been s o many years ago I ' m not sure I
can remember anybody by name particularly but I do remember the that people talked
about later by the family.
And they had , evidently , become close personal friends
and they were mostly far south people and I wish I could could remember better , but
you don ' t remember too well when you ' re my age .
Q.
Tell us about ah the first inn and then when the second one was built , and
each of the owners - ah, how the ownership passed down through the generations .
A.
The f irst that made this part of the country famous was t he era of the drovers .
Do you know anything about the drovers?
W
ell, ah , by way of the Buncombe turnpike
which went through here , M
adison County, through Hot Springs , they used to drive the
there were pigs and turkeys and those were the two most famous things that you heard
of being driven through down to Charleston , South Carolina , down t o the coast and
probably in between .
And inns were spotted all through Madison County because of
the drovers and you see that was a profitable thing .
they also had to provide feed for the animals .
turkeys and pigs .
The man stayed in the inn and
I ' m sure they had cattle as well as
And t he local farmers could sell the grain . So , I guess I would
say that probably Madison County was as prosperous in the drovers era as it was , ha s
ever been since .
And the first inn that I ever heard of was run by the Neilsons .
And I knew descendents of that fami l y w were G
ho
arretts and the one of the Garretts
�7
that I knew real well was named William Neilson so, I ' m certain of the tie in there .
And that was not on the present site of the present hotel , it was down the river a
ways on the other side .
And then the first hotel that I ever knew of here , whether
it was built by the Pattons or bought by the Pattons , I ' m not certain because I ' ve
seen it written both ways .
And all of our history , even though it had been written
down in late years , perhaps isn ' t absolutely authentic as to ownership , but we always
seemed to be quite proud of the fact that the man who later became the Civil War
governor of North Carolina , Governor Vance, was a clerk at our hotel .
And the first
hotel was the one that my grandfather bought and he bought it from the Pattons .
And
I never have known why but the deed says "the Pattons and Grand Master Rascal ," and
what a grand master was I ' ve never known .
So , the days when my grandfather first
bought it was just prior to the Civil War and so after the Civil War was when its
greatest development came .
And then he came back after the Civil W and
ar
hotel and a resort of those days .
the sta e coach line .
South Carolina .
, opened up the hotel as a resort
So , his chief interest then was the hotel and
And he ran a stagecoach from Greenville , Tennessee to Greenville ,
Of course, it didn ' t carry many passengers at one time and the most
famous stories that have passed around the ·family about the stagecoach were that they
didn't keep up the road very well and it was on the old Buncombe Turnpike which WBnt
down by the river .
It was full of great big boulders and they ' d have floods and
nobody would fix up the road and it was pretty rough on the passengers and the stagecoach.
And so , Grandfather mounted the stagecoach one day with an axe in his hand
and he cut down the toll gate because he said he had paid enough tolls for them not
to use any of it to fix up the road .
So , then , there became an agreement whereby
he kept up the road and didn ' t have to pay any toll.
And his main interest was getting
a railroad through here and it took a good many years to get it through Hot Springs .
It came as far as W
olf Creek , Tennessee and then they ' d have to come on from here
by a horse-drawn vehicle .
And it was very rough terrain we had that made it difficult
to put a railroad all the way through here .
But , about the late 18e0 1 s , and I have
the exact date somewhere because somewhere I rave a letter that he wrote from Greenville ,
s .c.
to my grandmother and he says that last night they got the railroad through which
�8
means he ' d been to a meeting .
And so, of course , it was the days of the railroad
when people tourists moved by railroad that was my early childhood that was most
impressive to me and I can remember looking out of the windows with my aunt and seeing
how many people got off the afternoon train and the Negro porter would have the ,q ags
up in the car and the people all came strolling down the main road under the trees
to the hotel .
It was a very long walk , but you might say they arrived by railroad
and then by f oot .
grea t deal .
And that didn ' t last for much of my life , but it impressed me a
And I spent a great deal of my lif'e around the hotel because my grand-
parents lived there and of course it was wonderful for a child to be able to go into
his grandfather ' s hotel dining room and eat whatever you wanted to .
And we had a
great long family table and this old Nigger man tl:nt we all called Uncle Simon waited
on tables and Uncle Simon always went around behind us fussing about what we did and
didn ' t eat .
And so , but , all of this was way back in my early childhood and I didn ' t
get very much of it before VAVI came along and that was the end of that .
The present
building t hat we have down that we have down here now the present brick building has
never been used except temporarily as a small inn which was never. r.un very long by
anybody and it ' s n ever been very successf ul .
center came t o i ts end wi th WWI .
To me, t he Hot Spr ings as a tourist
It might have gone on a little while longer had
the building not burned in t he 1920 1 s , but my thought is that it would have terminat ed anyway because lifestyles were changing •
Automobiles were coming in and I
n ever considered it at all the same t ype of tourist resort when the automobiles came
and the boarding "houses and the motels .
didn ' t even have bathrooms in them .
Of course , t he f irst tourist cabins , they
They were just little well ,
The firs t ones I remember , it was just a little log building , but suprisingly enough
people traveled in those days and they weren ' t v ery particular about it and then of
course , motels became j ust like expensive hotels .
To give you a little of t he history of the place , now this i.s. not authentic history ,
this is as I got i t from my family .
The Indians used to meet here to use the water .
It was a meeting place of various tribes of Indians . And they were discovered , we ' ve
a lways been told , and then the story is of t wo men , the scouts , who were watching
�9
for the Indians and they were had gone on out
around .
a~ad
to see if there were any Indians
This was during the time when I guess they had squirmishes with Indians , and
they discovered them near Hot Springs .
But , it had been known , as far as I ' ve always
been told , by the Indians long , long before that and I wouldn ' t doubt at all but what
it had not been used by the Indians
becau~ e
even though they say now days that you
can get in the bathtub and get just as much benefit , I ' ve always felt that mineral
water of the type we !ave is really very superior .
than Hot Springs , Arkansas .
the hotel was going on .
It was always rated even better
W certainly saw some very interesting cures here when
e
I well remember a family friend that they lifted off the
train on a stretcher and he took the baths and before he left at the end of that
summer he danced in the ballroom .
And he became a lifelong family friend and would
come back and visit us even when there was no longer a hotel here .
are curative values I can assure you .
And so , there
And my family , my mother and my aunt always
felt that whatever you had , if you ' d just go down and take a bath and drink the mineral
water there you ' d be fixed up fine and so the two things the things they emphasized
then were the curative values and then they went in big for the type of entertainment
that people liked then and enjoyed .
The widows were not too terribly
though they were much more so than they
are now , but they developed a scheme by which in the month of February , I think from
Christmas on , it was probably pretty slow . : You see , the fall was very lonely here .
It would sort of linger along til perhaps November and I guess they didn ' t mind the
slow season in there when they didn ' t have people .
And then they ' d contacted some
people in Akron , Ohio and rented them an entire wing of the hotel .
filled it themselves with their friends .
Thereby , they
In February was mild then and the early
winter was the part that was cold and so they used to help out that way .
you would get picked up because April was quite a warm spring month .
And by March
So , I don ' t
think they had to struggle through too many winter mont hs and then I imagine that
they had a few people that came and went regularly such as the Drummins who used to
go through the country
the country store and they always had to put up some-
where , And Hot Springs had a good m
any boarding houses back in those days for people
�10
that did not stay at the hotel .
And right back of this house , right over there
there ' s a famous old boarding house run by Lancefords .
in the summertime even after the days of the hotels .
accomodations all over town .
then .
And ah , it used to fill up
And there were boarding house
And Hot Springs doesn ' t look at all now what it looked
So that main street ' s become acrossed with bridges of that was where people
lived and the stores and the post offices and whatever other business buildings like
the livery stable which every town had one then .
t'ha railroad station when I
was growing up .
Ah , somewhere in my possessions and I ' m not sure where right now because things
are kind of mixed up , I rave a little book that you just called a brochure that were
mailed out and I would say the greatest advertisement was word of mouth and I think
people became more familiar with a place because somebody went there that liked it .
.
\
Ah , because people didn ' t rave radios , t . v . s , and barely even newspaper advertisements .
M
ost advertising , I ' d say the greatest, by word of mouth .
Ah , well , the efforts were made you see by the building of superior court
here .
And all along , through the year , as I described to you a little bit ago ,
in those days .
there were
Trat was
And I remember we didn ' t have a lot of automobiles travelling here as early as they
did other places because our roads weren ' t very good around here .
I know when
I learned to drive a car in 1925 there wasn ' t a paved road around here anywhere.
The road over this mountain that you came over was practically single-laned and
a dirt road and the first road I remember didn ' t even have
It was just a dusty road .
rock
The dust maybe hid you in the summertime .
So, the efforts
have been here to encourage tourists , but the ah , things just haven ' t worked out .
If we had maintained a steady tourist travel it wa.ild have certainly required ah,
very good roads that we don 't have because when the railroad travel went out entirely
at all.
Ah , people moved only by automobiles , tourist travel .
can understand what I thought it was .
And you
�11
No, I don ' t remember .
Ah , of course, I was very young during the days of the
hotel and it was all very glamorous to me and I thought it was lovely .
And I
ah, thought it was quite beautifully run because my grandfather ran it I guess .
And it was a tie-in with the family and this house that we ' re sitting in right
now was built by my grandfather in 1868 and it has been completely remodelled .
But , you can look over there and see a picture of it as it was .
And as it was,
as I lived in it as a child and in fact until not too many years ago before it was
remodelled like it is now .
It was my grandfather ' s home .
My
mother was born here .
And ah , it has never been, except for rented for a short period of ti.me a boarding
house while the family lived in Asheville a little while during the days of
southern
company, the Civil W aftermath and it ' s always been mentioned
ar
by the family . It was never owned by anyone else .
�
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.
Efird, Jane
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed.
Dotterer, Elizabeth
Interview Date
7/17/1975
Location
The location of the interview.
Hot Springs, NC
Number of pages
11 pages
Date digitized
9/16/2014
File size
8.11MB
Checksum
alphanumeric code
8df455f77e2183ea64b8c3af6459e207
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_tape300_ElizabethDotterer_transcript_M
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Elizabeth Dotterer [July 17, 1975]
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
Efird, Jane
Dotterer, Elizabeth
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
Hot Springs (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
Community life--North Carolina--Hot Springs--History--20th century--Anecdotes
Description
An account of the resource
Elizabeth Dotterer talks about growing up in Hot Springs, North Carolina, where many tourists would come and stay over the summer. She explains: "It was the type of tourism we no longer have. You spent the entire summer." After the outbreak of WWII the nature of tourism changed. Dotterer reflects fondly on working at the hotels and spending time with the summer tourists. She explains that the opening of the I-40 highways had a big impact on tourism as well.
Andrew Johnson Jr
Asheville
automobiles
Buncombe Turnpike
cars
Civil War
drovers
Elizabeth Dotterer
formal balls
German band
German prisoners
Greenville
Hampton Cottage
Hot Springs
hotel entertainment
Hotel Grand
Madison County N.C.
Mountain Fog Hotel
Native Americans
railroad
Tennessee
tourist business