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AUH f Y-L
This is an interview for the Appalachian Oral History
Program with Mr. C. K. Morris of Meat Camp, North .Carolina.
The interview is by Mike McNeely and today's date is
June 11, 1973.
Q. Alright, Mr. Norris, Let's start out with talking about
your, the farm you were born on. When and where were you
born?
A. Right up at that old house.
Q. What was the year you were born?
A. Eighteen and ninety-one.
Q. Okay.
Uh, ya...ya daddy was a farmer, right?
A. Yeah.
Q. How many brothers and sisters did you have?
A. I had three sisters and three brothers.
Q. Sounds like your daddy had a lot of help on that farm.
A. Well, right much.
Q. Let me get something here.
Uh, how big was the farm?
A. Uh...
Q. Acre wise...
A. Uh, you might say it's only about, about forty acres now,
till we added more to it.
Q. And how much of that forty acres was used for farming?
A. Well, I'll say about half of it.
�AOH # 71
Q.
What all did you grow?
A.
Crowed potatoes, corn,, cabbage, wheat, rye, buckwheat.
And we had our own fruit, had ? orchard with plenty of
apples. We kept cows, made our milk, made butter and
cheese. Kept chickens for eggs and for the market. That's
about all the farming.
Q.
How much of the vegetables and stuff that you grew, how much
of that was used for the market and how much for your own,
home grown use ?
A.
Well, it took right much to feed all them people. I'd say
about half, about half a that amount. And that, the surplus
was hauled to town. It was hauled to Lenoir, Hickory, and
Morganton. We bought our salt and flour and what groceries
we used then out of the store, we bought with surplus, and
paid on taxes. We h?d to have enough to pay the taxes. And
on this farm one time, the tax was only about $4, 00,
Q.
Was that with all the buildings and everything on it?
A.
Yeah, and now I pay a hundred or more. A lot of difference.
Q.
Did you have hogs on your farm?
A.
Yes, We raised our own meat, raised our hogs, raised a few calves
for the market. And there wasn't so many cattle in the county then,.
like there is now. Most every family had, oh, from three to six
cows. And they milked 'em-a big family used a lot of milk.
And they'd sell off the calf. A plump, good calf would bring
ten dollars,, ten dollars to twenty dollars, A cow would bring about
twenty-five. Mow ed, mowed the meadow with a mowing
siythe. You know what th$t is. Cradle it, cut the grain with a
cradle- you ever seen a grain cradle?
Q. I'm not sure. You got one up in your barn?
A".
There's one a hanging right out there in the back of that shed.
Q.
You shew it to me pfterwhile, and I'll get a picture of it.
I saw your cniltivstor, pnd you had & plow ?nd what else?
�A.
We had a lay-off plow and a cultivator. Where they cleared
the land - where they cleared , now they'd go in the woods and
clear , like that over there. 'That mountain, one time, was
in timber all over this bottom. Go in there, and cut that
timber and pile it and cut it, and saw it up, so they could roll
it in big piles and burn it. Burn the logs and the brush. And
if it was too bad, the first year they'd dig holes sndijilant their
corn and beans. Dig holes with a hoe. And by next year, thye'd
take - they used 9 lot of them, ole shovel plows. Just one plow like sort a like a. cultivator, you know, a lay - off plow. They used
them a lot in gauching up the land. They used mainly the hoe
in the steep land. A lot of land was used , farmed and never cultivated.
I mean they just dug it with a hoe. Stacked their hay, mowed with a scythe,
and stacked their hay out in the meadow. You've seen hay stacks, plenty
of them.
Q. There's not as m^ny now, though as there were.
A. No, no body stacks their hay anymore. Very few really. Back on Cove
Creek way, they.stack right much hay, back toward Mountain City.
Q. Did you let your hogs - I was reading somewhere that a lot of people let
their hogs run free back then.
A. Run their hogs, and their sheep and some cattle - run 'em out in the range. Turn
'em out in the spring and go and, go and get what was left in the fall. And
everybody had fences and some cattle just run out on the outside. They had
stocklaw then and everybody had a fence back when I was growing up. All
the fences were made out of rails. Made out a split rails, yonder lies
a pile right now.
Q. How was that meat from the cows and hogs that ran free around
wag -fotfesin the woods? Was it any good?
'
•w
^
A. Oh yeah. Well, they'd bring 'em in now, they drove - bring
•em in and put 'em in pens and feed 'em corn a while before
they killed 'env And they's a lot - now some of them,
they's sjpme run out and was killed just off of the mash.
Had lots of chestnuts and acorns, and them hogs would get
just as fat , and that was the best meat you ever tasted.
A lot of -'em noe, they'd bring their hogs in, they had 'em
marked, every man, you know, they'd get together. And every
man had a certain mark that he knowed his hogs. And then
when they brought 'em in, they'd sort 'em out. Get "em in
a pen, a lot somewhere, and every fella pick 'em out.
A lot of 'em'd go wild. Once in a while, they'd never get
'em. They'd be wild hogs out in the mountains.
�Q. When did ya'll have your - did you have an annual kill, or
you ju$t kill 'em at different times during the year of what?
A. Anytime, anytime, there wasn't no slaughter pens at that time
My neighbors'd go in and help each other kill hogs. Sometimes
they'd kill fifteen or twenty a day. A whole lot of hands go
in, keep water in big ole pots and barrels and fill a barrel.
And they'd kill their hogs and drag 'em in. I've helped kill
as high as twelve of fourteen in a day. Kill, maybe one man'
have two or three of half a dozen. Go in and dress his'n out
whatever he wanted to kill. A lot of times, they's killed
one or two at, a time. They didn't go in and butcher 'em all
day long lik;rthey do now. •-/• And I never treated 'em or never
really took care of 'em, just kill 'em and salt the meat in
big ole barrels. And where they'd stay, well I've seen old
buildings was good then like that one there and they's
just hanging a;; over up stairs.
Did they smoke a lot of it?
A. Yeah.
Q. Did they smoke it instead of salt it?
A. They had to salt it, It'd take salt - they had to let
it take the salt and then they'd hang it up and smoke it.
They salted it in them barrels and lets see, there's about
a month and a half to two months and then they'd hang it
up, and then they'd put that smoke under it.
Q. Did the smoke give it any flavor?
A. Oh yeah, that smoke flavor's real, well, you can get this
breakfast bacon that's got that smokeed flavor. It was
more of a smoked flavor then, when we smoked it in the ole
smoke houses than they did in this bacon you buy.
Q. That's sorta like getting charcoal broiled hamburgers now,
get the taste of it like that?
A. Yeah.
Q. Well, you didn't have refrigerators or freezers back then...
A. No, we didn't have no freezers, and we kept the milk and butter
in the , had the spring house. Built a house right up the
spring. The water run in, and they have a big ole
trough as long as that car that run that the water right from
the spring in there and they kept their milk and their, all of
their stuff that, they like to use a freezer now. All their
pickled beans and kraut and everything that stayed in that
water. And it was like that, it kept it cold. And they
kept their butter and they salted and canned a lot of their
meat. They canned that and salted as we do yet. And they
salted and tender loined and all that stuff"now, they put
in cans and it'll keep right on.
Q. How about your vegetables? You didn't keep them in your
spring house did ya?
�A. No, nothing much. We buried the cabbage, the potatoes
and rutabaga and all the root crops eventually we
.
And we buried the cabbage and they're burying a lot of times,
burying a lot of them cabbage and use 'em all winter and the
dig 'em up, and sometimes there'd be a whole big field of
'em. And in the winter, they'd haul 'em to market they didn't
need to use and make barrels of kraut. I've seen them ole
wooden barrels - the fifty gallon barrels of kraut. And they'd
haul it to market a lot of it to sell it, oh, in a pint or a
quart. Just measure it out. Used to haul it to Lenior,
and them niggers, you couldn't fight 'em off: of the wagon.
Q. How did you make kraut?
A. Well, ya have that - hack that cabbage up real fine, pack it
in a barrel, put salt on it. Put so much salt. And then they
weight it down, put a plank on the barrel, put a rock and then
they'd put weight on it. And it'd pickle that cabbage in
only a little while. It didn't take it long to pickle it.
And then you'd have kraut right on.
Q. Was that kraut better than what you get over at Watauga?
A. Two to one better! Way better. That old chopped
really good. Take a dish of that kraut on a cold
and put a little sugar and black pepper on it and
it raw. It's good cooked too. I love it raw and
It was really good.
kraut was
winter day
just eat
do yet.
Q. Do you remember any days like Christmas or Easter or your
birthday or anything? What was Christmas like back when you
were a child?
A. Well, we didn't have much Christmas. I gotta stick or two
of candy and an apple or two, and a orange once in a while.
We didn't have but way little Christmas. Most kids got a
few sticks of candy. Didn't have no toys. Very few toys
at that time.
Q. Did you have a Christmas tree?
A. Sometimes we'd have a little Christmas tree. Sometimes at
the closing of school, they'd have a big Christmas tree and
the kids would all getta, all getta a little package, a few
sticks of candy, orange, apple or two, and that's about it.
Baked ole molasses sweet bread for a cake. I love it now
better than anything you can buy.
Q. You ever make molasses yourself?
�A. Oh yeah, we made our own molasses.
Q. How do you do that?
A. Well you grow the cane and pull the fodder off of it. Go
in and top and pull the fodder off and run it through them
rollers and catch the juice. Run it through a cane mill.
You ever see a cane mill?
Q. I think so, yeah.
A. Two; big ole rollers, and you ground with a horse. Horse
pulled it. Big ole pole round and it just went round and
rounf. Stick that cane in and it squeezes juice out. And
they had a furnace and a big ole boiler sitting on it. And
they boiled that sown and made molasses. I've ground cane
a many a time till I'd just about freeze. And then the
kids'd come on and play on the cane stalks and have a good
time. Boiling molasses, ah, nearly every family back then
made their own molasses. Some of 'em made a hundred gallon
or two. But the average family didn't make but twenty or
forty gallon. And then they didn't have to have much sugar.
Sweetened a lot - and they made tree syrup.
Q. Maple syrup?
A. Maple syrup - maple sugar. I can remember my mother sweetening
her berries and fruits with the maple sugar. They'd have big
ole dishpans full of it and just go and shave off whatever
they wanted and put it in their fruit.
Q. Mr. Walter was telling about a guy that still does that,
when he makes pis molasses, he just boils it on down to sugar,
cakes it up, and goes and sells it to the stores.
A. Oh yeah, there's a few that still makes that tree sugar and
tree syrup.
Q. Did your mother use that much in her jellies when she was
making it?
A. Well,,1 don't know whether they used it much. They didn't
make much jelly at that time. I don't know whether they
used any in jelly or not. They could have, I guess. I
guess it would really be better flavor than the white sugar
now. I can remember when you could buy brown sugar. They got
it in big barrels. I've got some barrels now. Four hundred
pounds of brown sugar and you could buy it for $20.00, five
cents a pound. And the white sugar was a little bit higher.
And they weighed it out in, from a pound on up to whatever
you wanted. Dipped it out with' a scoop and put it in bags.
Q. Yeah, its already bagged up.
A. Yeah, it's up to four hundred pounds usually in a bag. And
a, and the first fertilizer that ever come to this county
come in barrels. Two hundred pounds in a barrel.
�Q. What did you use before fertilizer, before it came in the
barrels?
A. We didn't use it. We didn't have it. We just planted
without it.
Q. Did you use any, like cow manure or anything?
A. Yeah, we used what manure we had. We used manure, and the
earth growed the rest of it.
Q. How about the feed for the animals? Did you just feed them
some corn that you grew or did you go buy some of that or
grind it up...
A. Well, we ground into, I had it ground, some of 'em fed the
biggest part of it just whole. Feed your cattle whole. They
had some ground. They'd have the buckwheat and rye, they had
the small grains ground, but most the corn was just fed whole.
Wasn't no hammer mills. Just a flour mill and a corn mill
was all the mills there was then. There wasn't no thing as
a hammer mill. All water power. Back yonder all the mills
in this country was run by water. Big whole water wheels,
you've seen 'em.
Q. Like down at Mr. Winebarger's mill?
A. We take wagon loads of grain up there, of buckwheat, raised
buckwheat, and go and have it ground and then use a lot of
it for flour. And ole buckwheat cakes are good. And then
they haul it. They'd have that flour ground and put in ten,
twenty-five pound bags and haul it to Lenior and all down
south, Lenior, Morganton, Hickory, Statesville. And sell to
the stores. Swap it for wheat flour and we bought our salt.
We'd buy a hundred pounds of salt for sixty cents ($.60) then.
Q. Wow!
A. In Lenior, that's what it cost.
Q. Did you truck it down the mountain in wagons?
A. Oh yeah, there wasn't no trucks.
Done it all in wagons.
Q. How were the roads?
A. Muddy a lot of the time. Real muddy. Sometimes there'd be
a row of wagons as far as from here to the creek, right along
together. And they'd all camp out of the night, tie our
horses and cattle up and feed 'em. Lot of time we got to
make our bed on the ground under the wagon. After we'd get
a load off - after we'd get a load off the wagon, then we'd
have hay and stuff we'd fetch on our load for our produce,
you know, and then we'd sleep in the wagon. And it was fun
when the weather was good. I'd enjoy it now. But it was
rough going, when it was pouring rain or snowing.
Q. You had to go in the winter?
�A. Oh yeah. We'd go when it was cold weather. Oh, we had a lot
of apples then. Haul apples, potatoes, chestnuts, beans, shale
wheat, buckwheat flour, meat, butter, and stuffed hams - people
then sold a lot of hams. The farmers have more meat than they
could use, and they'd haul them and sell them to the stores.
And you didn't see much loaf, well, in this part of the country
they didn't. Very seldom did you see a loaf of bread in the
store. They didn't - well down in the bigger towns you could
get loaves of it some places. And you go in and you could buy
sausage and beef and
. We done our own cooking.
It was fun. Build a fire outside and cook potatoes and cabbage;
we didn't take time to cook beans. Fried taters and onions.
Tie our team up and feed 'em and while they were eating, we'd
get supper or breakfast. Fry eggs and meat. And hit was they was a lot of fun in it. Whole lot of hard work and
hardships too.
Q. Do you remember any incidences where a wagon didn't make it
all the way down? Where there any that ran off the road?
A. Well, not much. There's a woman or two got killed, run off the
road on a wagon, way down at Blowing Rock Mountain. And once
in awhile they'd be a team run away and tear up everything.
But not hardly ever hear tell of any. Once in awhile you
hear tell of a train running over a team and killing them.
And it took about four days to go, four or five days to go
to Lenior and back, sell your load out. Took about two days
to go and get your load off and get back home - and two more
to get back. And if it was slow selling, it took another day
Sometimes you'd see twenty-five or thirty wagons in town selling
produce. They peddled a lot; they'd go from house to house,
done a lot of peddlin'. And sometimes they'd buy half a
bushel of potatoes, apples, bushel - bushel of potatoes, maybe,
and a bushel of apples. Oh, the next house, maybe they didn't
want nothing, maybe the next one you'd go to would buy something. That's the way we got rid of a loy of it.
Q. What was the price of farm products back then?
A. Well, potatoes was a dollar or less a bushel. And apples sixty cents to a dollar a bushel. And cabbage was seventyfive cents to a dollar a hundred. Now we didn't get eight or
ten cents a pound back then like they do now.
Q. Did your mother, here at the house, did she bake a lot?
A. Yeah, they baked corn bread and biscuits, fried buckwheat
cakes , made light - homemade, light bread, baked pies,
cookies, sweet bread, that ole molassey bread. And that was
all done in an ole skillet by the fire.
Q. When did ya'll - ya'll get a wood stove?
�A. Finally, I can remember. I helped work out money to buy the
first wood stove my mother ever had to cook on.
Q. Which did she like better, working on the fireplace or the
cookstove?
A. Oh, it was much better to have a cookstove. Easier to do the
cooking, than it was by the fireplace. But that ole cornbread
and light bread baked in them ole skillets, it would melt in
your mouth. It was the best cornbread I ever eat. She had a
great big ole oven she baked light bread in. Loaf bread, they
call it now. A great big thing. And she'd mix her - make
up her yeast and get her dough ready, put it in that big ole
oven and she just heated it real slow, barely warm, you know.
And it'd rise a way up - just puff a way up there. Be that
thick. And then she'd put coals under it and she had a lid
to fit it, a cast iron lid. And it'd rise up there, and she
put the coals on that thing, heat it slow and after a while
it'd just finally turn - when it got done, there'd be a good
brown crust on it. And it was really good. A lot better than
this bread you buy now.
Q. How often did she bake?
A. Oh, only once in a while. Maybe every two or three weeks, to
make that light bread. They didn't bake it every day. They
made biscuits and I can remember when most people, they eat
cornbread for breakfast and biscuits every Sunday morning.
You wouldn't believe that.
Q. I believe it. I love cornbread.
A. I do too. I eat it, most the time, twice a day. They didn't
have wheat flour to make biscuits every day. And you used
eggs and shortening on the old cornbread, and it like you do
biscuits and it was pretty good.
Q. Did you ever have corn fritters?
A. Yeah, I've seen my mother bake corn sweet bread. Bake
it like they did the ole molassey bread, put molasses in it
and it was good. But I'd rather have that old molassey sweet
bread now than to have any you could go to the store and buy.
They baked what they called gingerbread. Great big, thick.
They baked it in cake, make them cakes to fit the skillet.
It was really good. Put ginger in it and that ole gingerbread was hard to turn down, when you're hungry.
Q. Your mother had to buy a lot of spices at the store didn't
she?
A. Yeah, they bought the grain spice and ground it.
�10
Q. Really? Did you have one of those things like a pepper thing
that you ground?
A. Ground the coffee - ground the coffee in the bean. They bought
that coffee green and they parched it, parched that coffee and
they - seen my mother a many a time parch that coffee in a one, them ole skillets. And they had a coffee mill. I've
ground coffee - you seen them, hadn't ya?
Q. Yeah.
A. Hold it between your knees, grind that coffee. The coffee
then, now you got real coffee then. There wasn't no dope in
it.
Q. Did they do the spices the same way?
A. leah, done the spices the same way. Pepper. Gosh, that
ole pepper. You get it in the grain and grind it, you
didn't have to make anything black to taste it. Ah, it's
a gettin' now, you can make your egg black now, and hardly
taste it.
Q. How about, did they dry a lot of stuff?
A. Dried berries, fruit, dried berries, apples, cherries of all
kind. Beans, dried beans, dried pumpkins, they dried a lot
of stuff. I can remember when my mother didn't have more than
two or three dozen cans. Dry that stuff and cook it. And
them ole dried beans, they was worth it.
Q. I've heard of drying apples - I've seen people drying apples
and beans and all. But I've never seen 'em dry cherries or
blackberries. How did they do it?
A. They used to dry lots of blackberries and cherries. And they
didn't do too much canning and they didn't have no way of
freezing it.
Q. How did they do it? Do you remember?
V
A. Well, they had grates, and they had good, big crates they'd
put 'em on. And when the sun shined good, they put 'em out
on....
Q. The apples they'd slice up and cook....
A. Slice up and dry it out. They dried the bigger part of their
fruit at that time. Dried sweet potatoes. My daddy used to
grow a lot of sweet potatoes. He didn't grow 'em for the
market. He'd just grow 'em to have plenty to use. They cooked
them and sliced 'em up and put 'em on crates. And when it
rained, they'd take 'em in and set them around the fireplace,
so that if they ever stayed out in the weather, they's spoil.
You had to keep them dry.
Q. Back then you had the spring houses, right? So that's where
you got your water. When did you build your well out here?
�XX
A. Oh, it's been about forty-two years or longer.
Q. Where was your spring house located?
A. We didn't even have a spring house here. There's a spring
down under the bank there that we used - we just had a box
down there. And we kept pur milk and stuff to keep it cold
in there 'til we dug the well. I was aiming to pump the
water from over yonder, but the spring went dry. And the
people built way up on the hill somewhere and they carried
their water up the hill. Why, they'd carry, some families
would carry as far as from here to the hog house over yonder.
Didn't think about a well or a pump. No, carried their
water from the spring/
Q. How often did you take baths back then?
A. Well, once a week, and you're lucky to do that.
Q. If you had to carry water that far, you wouldn't take it very
often.
A. Didn't have no bathroom in the houses. Outside toilets.
They wouldn't such a thing as a bathroom in the house. No
where in this county and its not been many years so there
wouldn't a bathroom in none of the houses that are here, in
this part of the county.
Q. How big was the house you were born in?
A. Oh, it had about four, four to five, five rooms, I guess.
And some places, they just had one or two big rooms, old log
houses. Three or four beds in one room and the kids slept
in
little beds you pushed under the big ones.
Q. Yeah, tumble beds. I've seen those.
A. And they didn't have a whold lot of room, like they build
houses now. Wasn't a bedroom in every little corner.
Q. Did your mother have to make all your clothing?
A. Bigger part of it. Weave, she had a loom and she'd weave the
cloth, weave clothing - made our clothing. And they made shoes.
There were men had shoe shops round and made most of them, wore
homemade shoes - men and the women. They had a few shoes in the
store, but the bigger part of the farmers wore homemade shoes.
A lot of the women - the women's dresses drug the ground. And
they wore button shoes up about that high. You never seen
them, did ya?
�JL/C
Q. I've seen pictures of them.
A. And the dresses drug the ground.
Q. Did they go to the store and buy the cloth to make their own
dresses?
A. Well, they went to the store and bought some, but the most part
was homemade. Wove at home. My mother had - she'd card the
wool and spin it. She had them spinning wheels and then she
had a tig ole.Toom that she wove that cloth. I've wore homemade clothes many a time, many a day. And they'd make their
underwear. They didn't wear much underwear, like they do now.
They'd make their pants and coats and vests and all like that
out of homemade - outa wool. That old wool'd get next to the
hide, it'd just scratch ya. It'd rip you to death. Wool and they knit your mittens and knit our scoks, outa that homemade wool.
Q. She didn't have a sewing machine, did she?
A. No, my mother never had a sewing machine in her life.
Q. She did all of it by hand?
A. Did it by hand. My aunt done a lot of sewing for people.
She had a sewing machine. Lived up the road here. But my mother
done all her sewing by hand. And the bigger half of the women
did it. Made their own dresses and their men's clothes and
everything by hand - sewed by hand.
Q. They made their quilts too, didn't they?
A. They made their own quilts. Wove their own blankets. Old
yarn blankets. Now that old wool blanket, it'll keep you
warm.
Q. Scratch you to death, but keep you warm.
A. They was really good and they'd last for years and years.
Had feather beds. They kept geece, and picked your feathers
out of them and made bedx. I sleep on a feather bed all year
round now. We've got two or three feather beds. My mother made
it in her life time. And I still sleep on it.
Q. Was the church really important in this community?
A. Well, more than it is today. About everybody walked to church
And ole timey preacher. And they got up there and preached,
we sat on ole benches. Had four legs on 'em shaved out of a
round piece like a chair post. No back. Hardly a few of 'em
had benchs of this - seats made out of plank. But back as Ion
as I can remember they sat on them old split logs. And they
all went and they enjoyed the meeting, they enjoyed the sermon.
And sometimes the preachers had to walk four or five miles.
And he's get maybe fifty cents or a dollar for two sermons.
And they all - and the preaching was over and they all walked
out and ever - out this road they all walked together. Where
�13
one or two would drop out, and they'd stand and talk and they
enjoyed themselves, much more than they do now.
Q. How often did you have meetings?
A. Well, they had it once a month, a lot of churches. Just have
it once a month, two services. Then they'd run a week or two
of revival, sometime during the year, usually in the fall of
the year. And they'd have a - have a real, live one. One
of 'em get happy and they'd really have a time.
Q. Was the preacher a hell-fire, brimstone preacher?
a mild one?
Or was he
A. Well, they - sometimes there'd be one preacher for eight or ten
years before they change. And then maybe they'd set a new one
amd maybe he'd serve a good many years. Now they have to have
a new one about every twelve months, don't they? A lot of
churches. They change right often.
Q. Did the preacher - what type of sermons did he preach? Did
he tell the people what they were doing wrong or did he tell
'em something they wanted to hear, like...
A. Ah, he went to the Bible for it. Told 'em their wrong doing.
Q. What church did you attend?
A. Meat Camp. Right over here. I went ot differnet churches.
Went to Howard's Creek. You know where Howard's Creek is?
Went there part of the time and went to the Rich Mountain
to that church. Sometimes we'd go way down yonder to Fairview
way down toward the river. People wasn't too selfish where
they went to then. Now they have to - there wasn't so many
churches as there is now. Built a lot more as time passed by.
Q. Were there a lot of community activities centered around the
church?
A. Well, not too much.
Not like it is now.
Q. Did ya'll have any square dances then?
A. No, they wasn't no - wasn't nothing of that kind a going on
in this part of the country.
Q. What did ya'll do for recreation, when you weren't farming?
A. Well, we'd go a fishing or squirrel huntin1 or something of
that kind.
Q. What did you do when you were courtin'?
A. Well, we walked out there to our girlfriend, whereever she
might be. Sometimes we'd go to church, sometimes we'd walk
out and pick cherries in the summertime. Sometimes they'd have
a candy pullin'. Gatherin' in all and have music. Not too
much dancing. There wasn't many people could dance.
�Q. Did they "flatfoot" a lot around here?
A. Well, not too much.
Q. What type of music did you have?
A. Had a fiddle and a banjo. Once in a while a guitar, French
harp. My daddy and a neighbor, they went lots of places and
made music. My daddy was a fiddler and my neighber was a
banjo-picker. They'd go to the closing of the school, sometimes to a neighbeor's house, make music - a few of the neighbors
would come in. They'd just set and enjoy it. Close of the
school, they usually had 'em come in. They'd give 'em a
dollar or two at the close of the school.
Q. Tell me something about the school around here, like the
size of it, and the people in it?
A. Well, these old school houses where they walked, I've known
teachers to walk five or six miles to teach school. And there
wasn't too many One teacher was all they had, and they teached
up to about the seventh grade. And then they had to go - they
went to Boone then to finish up. The eighth or tenth grade,
something like that. Go to Boone - go to town for the rest
of it.
Q. Tell me about life during the Depression.
A. Well, we got enough to get by with, but it was hard going, we
just had to work a day or two to get a little chew meal to help.
And we're lucky to get by with it. People didn't have enough
to eat. They got by, but Their clothes were pretty bad, hard
to get a day's work. Dug roots and drained the wood and dug
roots and gathered herbs to help keep clothing and something
to eat.
Q. How about - were there a lot of moonshiners?
A. No, not much. There's never been - oh there's a few around.
Right many in Wilkes County. And if they had to get something
to drink, they went to Wilkes and got the most ot it. I can
remember when you could buy corn whiskey for sixty cents a
gallon, and it was pure corn. And they was - there was one
man that made it, I'll never - my mother got some for my
grandmother once, take it back here between here and Todd,
on the Big Hill. He had a bonded outfit and they come around
and check 'em once in a while. Gaugers would come around they wasn't allowed to have so many barrels, you know. He'd
come around and they always knowed when he was coming, then they
would get it down to where they wasn't in no trouble. And
theycould sell - I don't know how much they's allowed to sell.
I was too little to know much about it.
�15
Q. Do you remember any government programs?
the CCC?
Such as the WPA and
A. No, no, well, I remember when the WPA worked here. They bought
'em a lot of mules to farm with. They were army mules that
was brought here when the war was over with Germany. And they
had people take 'em and work 'em. Farm 'em too, try to raise
'em something to eat. And they worked 'em on the road. They
worked a whole lot - the WPA worked at a building that highway ,
They let 'em work ehm mules, to farm with and, I don't know,
they all just gor old. Last one I ever knowed of, well it had
a picture of him. An old white mule and man a following the
plow. And they said the best they could estimate his age, he
was fifty-five years old. He was a relief mule.
Q. Oh, the mule was fifty-five years old.
A. He was fifty-five years old, the best they could estimate
his age. H<=: was still a pulling the plow. I never did get
one, I didn't use 'em. Had my own work horse. We plowed it
off a lot, plow, harrow with 'em, seen'a few worked a mowing
machine. But they was too slow to do much more with a machine
Most of it was with things like that out there. Pitch fork,
I've seen 'em use. I've seen 'em use old hoemmade pitchforks,
three-prong, I've got one. I'll show it to you. I've got one
that I guess is two hundred years old.
Q. You've given us a lot of information. I've just got one more
question. What's your philosophy of life? Do you have one?
A. No, I don't think I have one.
Q. Why do you think you've lived as long as you have?
getting along pretty good here.
A. Well I just worked hard all my life.
day, eat cornbread.
You're
Drink lots of water every
Q. Molasses bread too.
A. Molasses bread and I get along pretty good.
Q. Have you got anything you'd like to add to what we've already
talked about?
A. No, I couldn't think of anything more that would be of any
interest to you.
Q. Well, thank you very much.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
In 1973, representatives from Appalachian State University (ASU) began the process of collecting interviews from Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Caldwell county citizens to learn about their respective lives and gather stories. From the outset of the project, the interviewers knew that they were reaching out to the “last generation of Appalachian residents to reach maturity before the advent of radio, the last generation to maintain an oral tradition.” The goal was to create a wealth of data for historians, folklorists, musicians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in the Appalachian Region.
The project was known as the “Appalachian Oral History Project” (AOHP), and developed in a consortium with Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now Hazard County Community College) both in Kentucky, Emory and Henry College in Virginia, and ASU. Predominately funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities, the four schools by 1977 had amassed approximately 3,000 interviews. Each institution had its own director and staff. Most of the interviewers were students.
Outgrowths of the project included the Mountain Memories newsletter that shared the stories collected, an advisory council, a Union Catalog, photographs collected, transcripts on microfilm, and the book Our Appalachia. Out of the 3,000 interviews between the three schools, only 663 transcripts were selected to be microfilmed. In 1978, two reels of microfilm were made available with 96 transcripts contributed by ASU.
An annotated index referred to as The Appalachian Oral History Project Union Catalog was created to accompany the microfilm. The catalog is broken down into five sections starting with a subject topic index such as Civilian Conservation Corps, Coal Camps, Churches, etc. The next four sections introduced the interviewees by respective school. There was an attempt to include basic biographic information such as date of birth, location, interviewer name, length of interview, and subjects discussed. However, this information was not always consistent per school.
This online project features clips from the interviews, complete transcripts, and photographs. The quality and consistency of the interviews vary due to the fact that they were done largely by students. Most of the photos are missing dates and identifying information.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1965-1989
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Scanned by
Wetmore, Dana
Equipment
Hp Scnajet 8200
Scan date
2014-02-24
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with C.K. Norris, June 11, 1973
Description
An account of the resource
C.K. Norris was born in 1891 in Meat Camp, North Carolina where he grew up on a farm.
Mr. Norris talks mostly about growing up on the farm, such as raising crops and livestock. His family would haul their produce to Lenior, Hickory, and Morganton to be sold. Mr. Norris talks a lot about food throughout the interview including how to dry fruits and vegetables, make sauerkraut, use spices properly, grind coffee, salt meat, and make maple syrup. He also describes other aspects of his childhood including church, school, and the Great Depression. Mr. Norris also talks about WPA's affect in the Meat Camp area.
Creator
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McNeely, Mike
Norris, CK
Source
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<a title="Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/195" target="_blank">Appalachian Oral History Project Interviews, 1965-1989</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
6/11/1973
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright for the interviews on the Appalachian State University Oral History Collection site is held by Appalachian State University. The interviews are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Appalachian State Collection 111. Appalachian Oral History Project Records, 1965-1989, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Any commercial use of the materials, without the written permission of the Appalachian State University, is strictly prohibited.
Extent
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15 pages
Language
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English
English
Type
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document
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
111_tape71_CKNorris_undatedM001
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Meat Camp, NC
Subject
The topic of the resource
Norris, C. K.--Interviews
Farm life--North Carolina--Watauga County--20th century
Depressions--1929--North Carolina--Watauga County
Watauga County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--20th century
United States--Work Projects Administration
C.K. Norris
cane mill
church
dried beans
dried fruit
farming
Great Depression
Hickory
hogs
Lenior
livestock
Meat Camp
Meat Camp Church
molasses
Morganton
North Carolina
sauerkraut
spices
spring house
wagon
weaving
WPA