025: {X} {B} {X} {X} Ambulance there Highway man Interviewer: But it looked bad 025: It's just about everyday down there. {NS} Interviewer: But it looked bad 025: A lot's happened captain They've closed this road round to Gatlinburg {X} through there and the traffic all comes through here Interviewer: I see 025: That's what's the matter Interviewer: Uh-huh 025: They're- I reckon gonna do something pretty soon Interviewer: What's the date today? Do you know? 025: I don't know It's about the twenty-fifth I guess Sounds like it ought to be {NS} {NS} {NS} Interviewer: Think it is the twenty-fifth 025: It's the twenty-sixth Interviewer: Okay It's good It's good for old brains to know what day it Uh It is Now you started telling me before about this community Could you ex- Uh What- What is the community called? 025: Wears Valley Interviewer: And the uh Uh And what's your full name? 025: {B} Interviewer: And where were you born? 025: Right here Interviewer: Would you tell me something about your now about your uh your own background and about your family? {NS} 025: Well I can go on back to my great, great granddaddy first settlers ever come in here I've got a record of that on paper They come to this country in seventeen and ninety-four and settled when the Indians left and settled here that's the first white settlers was ever in Wears Valley and he entered land great grand- my great, great granddaddy my granddaddy's granddaddy anyway Interviewer: mm-hmm 025: and he entered land here so part of the generation is still here Interviewer: Uh-huh 025: and that was in seventeen and ninety-four and what land I've got- I've got around a hundred acres of land here, and what land I've got has never changed names Interviewer: {NS} Is that right? #1 Is that right? # 025: #2 {X} # Interviewer: This farm has been under the {B} that right? Now That was that That was your father's uh That was my grandfather's grandfather Uh-huh okay And that was on your- your father's side? 025: my father's side Interviewer: and where was your mother born? 025: She was borned in Gatlinburg My mother was wed But now she died when I was a baby and I can't give you too much background on the {D: Whaleys} because far as that end Gatlinburg is a long ways far #1 {D: at that time} # Interviewer: #2 Sure # 025: and she died She come to Wears Valley teach school and she taught the second school Little Greenbrier over there over there in the park there, little old school house is still over there Interviewer: Where'd your father meet your mother? How did they-? 025: She come to Wears Valley to teach school Interviewer: I see your your father How uh- How much formal education did your mother have? 025: Well now I don't know back then they I guess they had I guess they'd let them teach just kind of what they gotten out for high school, you know Interviewer: Uh huh and 025: Gatlinburg turned outside of school teachers and preachers Interviewer: Uh huh 025: A lot of them I don't know where they got their education Interviewer: How big was Gatlinburg at that time? 025: Well Gatlinburg was just back up there in the mountains that was all, it wasn't big at all Interviewer: Mm-hmm 025: Gatlinburg never did build up 'til the park took it over Interviewer: Mm-hmm 025: In nineteen and twenty-six My grandfather {X} Had a doctor Doctor Huffman he was a German doctor He lived over on Hills creek I got some fellows to go and get him and I stood three days getting him out here and I had to take him back and I had to take him back in a horse and buggy and then they was just {X} that was in twenty-six {X} store that's there now and another {X} there and Andy {X} built his hotel up there he had built that just to feed his sawmill man you know and it just wasn't- Gatlinburg was just a wide place in the road Just back to the mountains It wasn't no town Or no nothing and that's all built up since the park took over see that's what put Gatlinburg on the {X} was the park and they built that road across the mountain and the North {X} Interviewer: When did the park When was the park Did the park really start developing? 025: About thirty third-ish I don't know just exactly what year but early thirties Interviewer: And how far is the park from here? 025: Now the park comes from the watershed to that big mountain Interviewer: So it's just about a couple miles over here? 025: I guess, a little over that I can show you out there, but now I've always heard my grandpa say that Wears valley is six miles long and four miles wide Interviewer: Uh-huh 025: and uh right over here is just it ain't but a mile Probably over there I guess it would be according to that it'd be three miles from here {X} to the park. Interviewer: Right. Let me just get myself straight now in directions What What direction is that? 025: That's East here is East Interviewer: #1 That's East # 025: #2 East # and that back this way is West Interviewer: Okay 025: That way is South and George {X} north Interviewer: Right now how far is it from here to the Blunt county line? 025: Four miles Interviewer: Four miles Uh That would be 025: Due South right about South Southwest Interviewer: Now Um What's your address here? 025: Route seven's here Interviewer: Say that again please 025: Route seven Sevier Interviewer: Okay and the county? 025: Sevier Interviewer: And the state 025: Tennessee Interviewer: And uh your occupation? 025: I've always farmed that's all I've ever known Interviewer: Okay uh and how old are you? 025: I'm seventy-six years old Interviewer: and your church? 025: Methodist Interviewer: What's the name of the church? 025: Wears Valley Methodist Interviewer: And uh- could you tell me a little more about Wears valley how many people are there you said it was four miles by six miles but how about the- um- how many- how many people are here? 025: Oh Lord I don't know Earl could you tell more about that that I can the biggest part of them A lot of them you know are Registered up Out there as farmer And the rest of them work still in {X} Here and yonder {X} I don't know. I wouldn't have no idea what the population is If you go back to the census a few years ago Interviewer: Uh-huh 025: That's the only way you'd find that Interviewer: Well 025: I couldn't tell you and nobody else can't tell you Interviewer: Is your general feeling though that are more people here now than before? or fewer? 025: Oh Lord There's several times more people than the last thirty or forty years ago They come and go You see when that park people were gonna run them out of the park They just went to the four winds {X} a lot of them come here just wherever they can {X} at the place you know might even come out of the park and people's just coming from everywhere else Florida and anyone then where they can buy a piece of land {X} building {D: there's a man} built right on top of that mountain over there Interviewer: mm-hmm 025: come from Florida here and they've come from other places you know Interviewer: mm-hmm 025: There ain't too many of the old timers here Interviewer: But you say there are more people here from from out of state than than uh now in the in the 025: well a lot of them it's hard to say there's there's as many as is the old timers and the people that's borned and reared here Interviewer: uh-huh 025: there's a side of people that's come out of the park Just like I told you and the other #1 places # Interviewer: #2 Yeah. # 025: Wear Valley's a land high in here and people is hunting it you just name it you just get on and sell the piece of land on pricing Interviewer: Uh-huh 025: It's nearly as high as Desmond Gatlinburg owner out in the city Interviewer: Is that right? 025: Yeah. I reckon it's just because that park Interviewer: Alright 025: people want people like Wears Valley Interviewer: I can understand that 025: They like to come in here and build they're coming here from other places anywhere they can buy there's people in here that you don't know they're here hardly 'til you hear something about them Interviewer: {NW} Do you uh- Uh uh Could you tell me something about the school you went to? 025: I went to- there used to be a school right up here on my land They called it the Crowson School. I went there 'til the end of I don't know probably nineteen ten or nineteen and twelve and then the Presbyterians come in here and build a school they call {X} and they run it awhile the Presbyterians and then they sold it to the county it's still going on and building new the old school house got burned up that I went to and they build a new brick school up here It's a {X} or something like that up to the school- #1 house # Interviewer: #2 Uh-huh # 025: I finished touch finished the rest of my schooling there Interviewer: At- at the Wear Woods 025: Wear Woods school Interviewer: Okay and how old were you when you stopped uh school? When you finished? 025: Well I was about eighteen years old when my dad died In nineteen and fifteen and I had to quit Interviewer: mm-hmm 025: grandfather was living but he's old #1 and I had to # Interviewer: #2 mm-hmm # 025: quit and build a farm {D: after} eighteen Interviewer: Was that about uh- What grade was that? Did they have- 025: Well that was just about when you go through up there is about what you get now in high school Interviewer: mm-hmm 025: {NS} just about Interviewer: Okay 025: or a little better Interviewer: yeah okay 025: They run them now- they run them through now {X} Interviewer: Alright, they sure do. 025: This is from the women up there in that {X} good teachers Interviewer: uh-huh 025: you had to walk the chalk line and you had to pass your grades before you got this Interviewer: Uh-huh. What- What 025: #1 Had to # Interviewer: #2 And what was- # 025: go to another one. Interviewer: {NW} yeah what was it uh uh the school named after your mother? Uh or was it because it was on your property? 025: No, it was- You mean that school here? The Fauston school? It come off of the Crowson land When granddaddy give it to 'em you know to- as long as it's used for school purposes and then when it quit for school purposes it went back to the original owner at the farm and then it come back to him Interviewer: Now Are most of your friends around here Uh-Uh Uh what do they do? 025: Well different things you know Different things {X} works the {X} Plant Lot of them works out here {X} Some works in Knoxville Interviewer: Mm-hmm 025: Around different places Interviewer: #1 What was the- # 025: #2 {X} # works I guess at the {X} plant Interviewer: Uh-huh 025: or out here at this knit- this here knitting mill over here in Sevier these uh people in here and the women all works at Gatlinburg Interviewer: What kind of work do they do in 025: Uh wash dishes and cook Interviewer: #1 Uh-huh # 025: #2 {X} # work at them motels and hotels Interviewer: I see 025: There's a set of women works up there Interviewer: Uh-huh 025: Just a set of 'em- I've got a girl that works up there She's been there I guess for twenty years She works up there {X} Western Union bus stop she sells tickets {X} There's a set of women that works in here from Gats- that goes to Gatlinburg that's where these three women been the other day when they come back home got crippled up there down there Interviewer: I see that's terrible 025: Anything. Some cleans houses and cleans rooms, some cook I've got a neighbor over here work years {NS} good cook, she cooks. Some cooks and some wash your dishes, some cleans house, some #1 does another. Whatever the need. # Interviewer: #2 I see. Uh-huh. # Uh, how long does it take to drive to Gatlinburg from- from your- from your house? 025: Ordinarily about thirty minutes Interviewer: Uh-huh 025: if you don't get held up down there Interviewer: No, this road you have to drive mighty slow 025: Yeah you've got to go slow Interviewer: {X} 025: Let's see it's about uh uh six, seven I guess it's about well it's thirteen miles from here to Sevier Well I guess it'd be 15 miles from here to Gatlinburg It's a little further from us highway out here to Gatlinburg and then it's to Sevier Interviewer: Mm-hmm 025: Course it depends on where you go to in Gatlinburg Interviewer: Yeah, sure. 025: Just go to the city limits it wouldn't take that #1 far # Interviewer: #2 Right # Uh. Have you belonged to any clubs or organizations like with the cultural Uh- organizations or farming organizations social organizations 025: No, nothing none that I know of I used to do {D: uh campaigning} lot of work through that office out there way back yonder measuring tobacco Interviewer: Mm 025: See they had to elect committemen you know, and I was a committeeman a long time And I measured tobacco for a number of years Work through that office- that's all I ever done away from home on the farm Interviewer: Would you tell me a little more about that What is- what was a committeeman? 025: Well they'd elect someone, they still do that you know from each district Interviewer: Uh-huh 025: There's a chairman and vice chairman and the ordinance they had five of them you know Interviewer: mm-hmm 025: the chairman he was the head man #1 he was # Interviewer: #2 mm-hmm # 025: on top mm They've still got that. Interviewer: you were the committeeman from this 025: I was for a long long time you know Interviewer: Is that- was that an elected office? 025: Yeah well you elected just for the people Interviewer: Sure. Sure. 025: With the- with the district Interviewer: mm-hmm 025: the district Interviewer: How- how long would you say you did that? 025: Oh I guess ten, fifteen- about fifteen years probably Interviewer: Can you tell me a little but about what the committeeman has to do? 025: Well he just go out there and meet you know, attend the meetings learn what you could and try to pass it on to your neighbors Interviewer: mm-hmm 025: help them out {X} my committeeman job was to do that {X} it's your job to measure tobacco anything else that needed to be done #1 you know # Interviewer: #2 excellent # 025: through the di-, to the district each- each district had a committee you know Interviewer: uh-huh Well that's what I was- I was wondering. You said measuring tobacco- was that I didn't understand what 025: Well you see tobacco's {X} you had to see if they had too much or not #1 enough # Interviewer: #2 Oh I see # 025: if they had too much, well they had to pay a {X} #1 if they didn't have enough # Interviewer: #2 Maybe if they- # 025: {X} Interviewer: I see measuring tobacco then was really checking to make sure people weren't raising more than their allotment 025: And I measured with a chain in acres and tenths but now then last year too I measured got to measure with the tape and it went in hundredths Interviewer: Is that right? {X} 025: It wasn't so bad where you could let a man get by you know with a tenth of an acre or something like that you know sometimes it just went to chains and tenths and they put it to the nearest whatever it was Interviewer: I see 025: but now then it get- got a little stricter the last year or two I measured I measured with a tape and that got down in the hundredths instead of acres and tenths Interviewer: #1 right # 025: #2 you see # and that hundredths is a whole lot closer than acres and tenths Interviewer: Yeah Certainly do they uh- are- are there pretty uh severe um fines? 025: Well they don't do that anymore, they cut you down now you're just allowed so many hundred pounds Interviewer: I see they don't measure 025: Yeah they go back over your records you know and get what you have raising Now then it's just if you got a half acre of land and you just they allot you a thousand twelve hundred or sort of whatever your last few years has been you know. They ain't gonna measure tobacco and if you got too much where you just can't sell it Interviewer: Right 025: got to sell what your allotment says to unless you can buy some they got plenty of it people like me I ain't got no tobacco this year I can't tend it and fellow that been renting it to for a number of years he got him a job, went to work and so you can't just hardly get anybody anymore I ain't got no tobacco this year I'm gonna try to get someone to tend it next year and save my allotment after so many years you know. It used to be five, I don't know what it is now, you don't tend a thing, you'll lose your allotments Interviewer: I see what uh What was what- where do you- where did you raise them did you just have a 025: huh? Interviewer: Did you raise it? Did you just have a Where did you raise it on the farm? The tobacco. Did you have to put that up in a special place? 025: Well you had to hang it in the barn you know Interviewer: Did you cure it yourself 025: Oh yeah yeah Interviewer: Now did you raise all Do you mind if I smoke a cigarette 025: No no, I smoke all the time Interviewer: Uh- The um uh What I was wondering about was if you uh- you could raise all you wanted for your own use 025: you could way back yonder, I know people you could well known people they'd raise this old bull faced you know they called it bull faced just an old strong tobacco people could raise that for their own use Interviewer: How do you spell that? 025: what? Interviewer: That's bull? 025: The bull faced {X} Interviewer: Bull face. F-A-C-E 025: it's just an old big green oh it's strong Interviewer: #1 {NW} # 025: #2 {X} # It'd kill a man that hadn't never been smoked Interviewer: {NW} 025: If you don't smoke {X} just pour it down Interviewer: okay. thank you 025: My son he comes here and he smokes a lot {X} Interviewer: Have you traveled much? 025: No. Been down to Florida a few times Interviewer: Uh Did you ever live outside of the county? 025: Oh no. I'll never live nowhere but right here born here Interviewer: Now we talked about your your mother was from Gatlinburg you know Gatlinburg you don't know much about her her parents 025: Well I know a little. Interviewer: Tell me what you know 025: {X} The Crowsons you know Interviewer: First tell me about her and then we can concentrate on the Crowsons but what How do you spell that family name of hers? 025: Whaleyf. W-H-A-L-E-Y-F Whaleyf. Sevier county is full of them Interviewer: Okay and now just tell me tell me whatever you've been 025: I don't know about {X} She She died before I could remember and uh she come to Gatlinburg and was raised up there come down here and taught school father married her I was born then when I was twenty one months old, she died my grandfather he finally wound up here and I took care of him when he died had been here about three years all of {X} and the Reagans Maples and {X} they're all kin folks fella come here one time talking to me about {X} burial lots {X} and he's from Gatlinburg and we got to talking and he said "How do you know so much about Gatlinburg?" Interviewer: {NW} 025: I said everybody in Gatlinburg {X} Interviewer: {NW} Do you know anything about the about the Whaleyfs what--where they came from originally? When they came to this country? 025: I think now I think the Whaleyfs come from North Carolina I've seen that they put out a piece in the county paper about where all these people come here and I kept it, but I don't know where it's at I think the {X} There's two bunches of the Whaleyfs There's brothers Johnny Whaleyf and ol' Billy Whaleyf and one bunch of them settled in Gatlinburg and the other in big Greenbrier and they call one the Greensbrier Whaleyf and the other the Gatlinburg Whaleyf my mother come from the Gatlinburg side Interviewer: I see 025: And this roadway out in Severa Well now if you can get ahold of him well course you ain't you're just interested in my part of {X} Interviewer: I'm interested in anything you've been 025: I asked him one time tried to find out how much kin me and him was he's sheriff {X} Stayed sheriff here for twelve years and uh he said "I can't tell you" He said my mother was a Whaleyf and my daddy is a Whaleyf said my daddy is the big Greensbriar Whaleyf and my mother was the Gatlinburg Whaleyf but he couldn't tell me much and I went and asked his brother and he knows a little more than he did when it comes to a showdown their mother and my mother was first cousins as children Interviewer: I see Do you know anything about when the Whaleyfs came to this country to the United States from England or Ireland or Scotland? 025: I don't I don't know Interviewer: okay 025: When they come here If I can find that old county paper it told but I don't know where it's at now it's here somewhere they give a record of that you know which come here first the Whaleyfs, {X} Reagans and the Maples all I do remember in that there's an old man with the name of Gatlin Up there and I don't know what will happen to him but that's where it got its name Gatlinburg {X} Gatlin Interviewer: I see He was one of the original settlers 025: He was one of the first Interviewer: Did your father farm all his life? 025: Well now my father got crippled up the horse run away with him and broke his leg and he's crippled up. he couldn't do much farming he had a grocery store around here store He kept several {X} things like that Interviewer: Moving things in and out 025: Yeah he sold goods and then he'd hold a lot of extra equipment {X} He done a lot of that because he's cripple and his leg wasn't set back right you know he couldn't you know get about the farm them days you had to do a lot of walking the farm you know you couldn't ride the tractor you didn't have them Interviewer: alright sure How long did it take to get to Knoxville on a wagon 025: I think they'd doing leave here early maybe they'd camp somewhere it'd take a day or over over a day I guess I know they'd be gone nearly a week Interviewer: How were the roads set up then when you were a boy? Was-was this- this highway here 025: No it was just a normal dirt road and it'd get so muddy you couldn't get over it and you went out through this hole there in the mountain and went out and come out way over on Pigeon Forge you cross two mountains to get outta here Interviewer: alright 025: this here road down here was just built bout 1920s it was finished up and {X} at first it just had a one way road down through there you had places you could pass I think that started about 1920 my granddaddy worked a lot down there. he's old a lot of it is free work and then a lot of it they'd give people contracts you know {X} find somebody else and the way they done that they took these old hammers you know and grip. somebody hold the {X} you know Interviewer: uh huh 025: you can see down there {X} on that road if you just know where to look Where they'd put them dynamite in there you know and you shoot it off even the steel part of the old rail holes Steel in through them rods Interviewer: Is that right? 025: That's the way they built the first Interviewer: Did they have a name for that place where they'd go through the mountains? was that called something? was that 025: you mean through the old road? Interviewer: yeah 025: Well it was just a stone mountain you went on through and then there a {X} go a little less the distance and then you went across the pine mountains and then come out over there try more of that apple tree {X} right below Pigeon hole where you come out Imagine the bridges weren't very good either Interviewer: you had to cross the creek used to when I wanted took long time to cross the river down there for years 025: Is that right and I think these {X} bridges you can tell all them old bridges they must have been built in the late teens right along {X} Interviewer: Now was Pigeon Forge called that because it-uh it got it's name from 025: I don't know I've heard, but I don't remember what people--Pigeon Forge got it's name Pigeon Forge when I first born out there we built our flower {X} Pigeon Forge was all on the other side of the river Now it's all along this side of the river next to the highway There wasn't nothing much on that side {X} business places much is all on the other side it's three stores over there right together on the other side of the river and that old water mill and they ground wheat flour {X} and people in here have to go to the flour mill you know to get their wheat Interviewer: The Uh- uh tell me now about your about the uh about your your uh father's side of the family I'd like let's go all the way back to 1790. So they came in 1790 just go ahead from there and tell me Do you know where they came from in 1794? 025: Well now let's see. I'd have to Interviewer: Just do the best you can recall 025: I don't I don't know whether they come from North Carolina North Carolina you see took in a big territory here back then. It even took in Lord's creek in the lower end of the county but the biggest part of these people come from North Carolina I don't know The Croustons come from North Carolina I've seen some more where they did come from and I just wouldn't be positive about Interviewer: Now Tell me Uh uh What you can recall about those your uh about the Croustons the Crouston family 025: Well now let me get something in here {NW} You can write a book on {X} Interviewer: I'm surprised no one has 025: {NW} I got this accidentally {X} Do you wanna read this? Interviewer: Well why don't you just look at it and tell me about it I'd rather you tell me about it 025: I'll just sort of tell you and not read it Interviewer: That's right sure and we can pick up any 025: {X} Let me see if I can find where they get that from It don't say where they come from but they come here and bought land and {X} and Cage Cole prior to 1800 and then they moved to some of them moved to Jaws County Tennessee and 18 and 7 and eventually returned to Sevier county and then it goes on tells this great big long story who their children was you know and so but it don't tell where they come from but a lot of them went one place and one the other now a week or so ago they was six Croustons come here some of them was from Arkansas all brothers and sisters {X} wife she wasn't a Crouston and some of them from Mississippi and some of them from Arkansas and they been here before I took them down here and showed them the old Crouston cemetery and they think we're kinfolks. I guess we are because we got the same names you know a lot of the first name Richardson Aaron from west and things like that {B} Interviewer: family name your first name 025: No it ain't a family name I don't know. my mother that said name and I don't know where she got it there's very few {B} in the country at that time that a lot of around here is named from me I know {X} was named from me I thought maybe that'd tell where they come from Interviewer: I see well maybe I can look at that after a while um were any of your uh- um- ancestors in the uh- the revolution or the civil war 025: Not as I know of Interviewer: I wonder did the people in this uh- part of the country uh- were they much involved in the civil war? 025: Well they have a lot of people in here that lived to be old that was in the civil war Now the revolutionary that's a {X} Interviewer: Yeah that would have been 025: they were {X} grandfather was in the living in the Civil War His grandfather on his mother's side and several people in here went to and later on {X} and a lot of them went {X} Went to Spanish then the world war come up and Earl's daddy was in World War I and uh then World War II, they just cleaned the country up {X} and then the Korean war my boy was in the Korean War Interviewer: How many children do you have? 025: I've got four three girls and a boy Interviewer: Are they all still around 025: My oldest girl, she lives in Seymour she married a fella there and she teaches schoolers teaching school blood in my family I reckon that don't come from the Crouston side she married there and he's got a farm he carries the {X} she teaches school at {X} high and I've got my next girl she never married she works at Gatlinburg all the time has for years she comes on Saturday stays 'til Monday and goes back and then I've got another girl that's married and lives over here she's got two children a boy he lives in Sevier and works in Knoxville he's got two children I've just got four grandchildren right up there his two children Interviewer: {X} Where was your wife born? Huh? Where was your wife born? She was born here in the valley And what was her family name? Lawsons her and Earl Lawson? Her and Earl's daddy was first cousins and brother's children Now Sometimes you call it where is is there a difference between Wears Cove and Wears valley? 025: just the same it started as Crouston's {X} the old record shows it was Crouston's {X} and then uh it goes on and an old man with the name of Ware he was willing when they come in here and begin to run the Indians out and I've heard my grandfather say that he went out here in the gap of the mountain and cut two saplings down {X} call it improvements and started up a Wears Cove then later on they sounded a little better to call it Ware's Valley Interviewer: I see 025: and it's people still called it Wares Cove or Wares Valley Interviewer: I see 025: and everything that happens down on Walden's creek or over this side of Townson is on the Wears edge it's the Wears Valley rule that it happens in Wears Valley It was two killings right close together down here on Walden's Street a few years ago and they had them all in Wears Valley it give Wears Valley a bad name it's on the Wears Valley Road that's called the Wears Valley Road from the time you leave 441 down there you get to Townson Interviewer: Now where does that road go? 025: Which road Interviewer: The- where does this road go from 441 to 025: It goes to 73 over here in {X} Townson and that Townson road comes from Maryland goes on around Belmont you know Interviewer: Sure 025: up to Gatlinburg and hits 441 Interviewer: Sure 025: No it don't it goes {X} Newport that 73 {X} Interviewer: Well the up yeah that's right if you're going through Sevierville that goes too 025: {X} 441 comes across the mountain {X} then 411 411 and 441 meets {X} Sevierville and 411 comes through Newport and that way is {X} that's 411 that goes across the mountain in the north {X} 441 that goes to North Carolina through Gatlinburg Interviewer: How long would it take you to drive from From Sevierville to North Carolina 025: I've been through {X} Captain, I don't know. It'd take you my boy's over there now {X} but we used to go to Florida once in a while and drive both ways I went the other way on the bus to Newport and I went this way in a car and went through Georgia this way. I mean down to Sevier county down in Chattanooga I don't know. I guess you I guess you can make it in a couple hours Interviewer: drive through the mountains don't you 025: that's slow. you'll get behind them old big trucks and they hold you back and then they start downhill, they go fast you know I'd say it'd take you couple hours to go to {X} {NW} a bit closer go down through the Cherokee country Interviewer: Yeah I've been over there, but I didn't know what the distance was from here Where Could you tell me a little bit about the Lawson family background? What- are they from 025: No. As far back as you can trace them My old daughter grandson I mean my granddaughter married a preacher from from uh- {X} {X} Chattanooga and he got a {X} The Croustons come-uh the Lawsons come here after the Croustons and I don't know where they come from He-he found out where they come from and {X} the biggest part of people come from North Carolina it's like I told you. North Carolina took in a great big territory it took in. I don't know it took in a big part of the {X} and all of Sevier County I guess you see North Carolina hits right over yonder {X} through Greenville and right around through there Smoky Mountain Interviewer: Sure How old's your wife? 025: She is let's see. She's four years younger than I am And I'm 76 She's 72 years old {X} next birthday Interviewer: And she's also Methodist? 025: yeah Interviewer: And what about her formal education? 025: Well she got just about what I got through this school up here down at the high school {X} Interviewer: She probably spent more time at the at the Wearwood School though 025: Yeah she did come done here there's another school up there in the valley and they was closer to it called the ten school but she don't know if she ever went there, but her sister and her little brother did I guess about all the schooling she ever went was Wearwood Interviewer: Now you say you were in You made a couple trips to Florida You ever been any place else outside of the county outside of the 025: No course you went through different states to get to Florida you know I had an aunt and uncle live down there I used to go down there once in a while and see them 'til they died Interviewer: Have you ever been North or West? 025: No I only ever been out {X} Interviewer: How far- How far west of Tennessee, beyond Knoxville have you been? Have you been to Chattanooga 025: No I've been to Knoxville go down there now for the doctor down there in the hospital when it was a hospital Interviewer: And then over in North Carolina Have you been much beyond Asheville 025: I went there {X} you have to go through Nashville most of the time to get to Florida Interviewer: No, no, no 025: Asheville, North Carolina Interviewer: Oh you go to oh I see that's how you go I-I was thinking you go through-go through I was thinking you're going the way I come up 025: {NW} You can go different ways but we got to going that way on account of dodging Atlanta it's needing to get through Atlanta you can go this way and you miss Atlanta Interviewer: Yeah. I see 025: We go lot of times and it take you hours to get through Atlanta, Georgia {X} and another thing they do down there you get down there and maybe in six months or a year you go back and they'd detour you and you get lost somehow Interviewer: yeah 025: we went down there one time and the boy he had a map didn't matter we just kept getting deeper and deeper and deeper down in the Interviewer: {NW} 025: nigger town and I got scared and I told him. I said "Let's get outta here and hug somebody." he said I'll find it directly {X} So we got up to a little store and I said you stop I'm going in there and ask this fella where 441 is when-- he said "right there see you're right on it and said right there is the state penitentiary {NW} that nigger downtown {X} Interviewer: I know just where you were that's uh on the uh East side of Atlanta but- and I- I'm just trying to get some idea about your um about your travel you haven't--you haven't done um you haven't been anywhere out You been up to Bristle 025: No I've been Greenville up to {X} Greenville Interviewer: Yeah Yeah 025: I've never been out of the state {X} Interviewer: You mean Greenville in uh-Tennessee 025: Yeah Greenville's up there in {X} Interviewer: Yeah I was saying yeah I've been up there I don't think you meant Grenville, South Carolina 025: Used to go up there {X} Interviewer: What was that-- when you were uh- that was your work? 025: Uh no that was {X} it'd be dependent where you thought you could get the most and who done your hauling some of the ones {X} some of them ones {X} get a little better pool {X} some go to--they got good market now Newport, but they didn't have a thing Interviewer: What do you mean a better pool? Just-What does that mean? 025: sometimes the buyer the man that buys the tobacco {X} they give you a little better deal treat you a little better get a little more out of your {X} Interviewer: I see 025: you know back them days people go a long way for a few dollars Interviewer: {NW} sure 025: {X} you know the warehouse man would give them a kick you know {X} and they'd persuade you to go of course they'd get paid both ways we had to pay them and then the warehouse would pay them {X} {X} double pay Interviewer: {NW} 025: {X} {X} what they take out of it you know you've got five hundred dollars worth of tobacco, they'll take fifty dollars out of it {X} the insurance {X} they tell me that these fellas are {X} they pay it and then we pay it get double pay Interviewer: how did you uh um handle that stuff when you're taking a considerable distance like that did you have a what did you pack it in? 025: {X} big baskets at the warehouse they'd furnish it in the baskets you know {X} then when you got ready to take it all you had to do was to load her up Interviewer: I see 025: each grade was on a big basket you could put two, three hundred pounds on that basket Interviewer: The baskets these baskets were at the warehouse 025: They belong to the warehouse they're responsible for the man that got them for you the man that was holding your tobacco was bringing you the bush Interviewer: you didn't do the {X} When you were doing the hauling you never did the hauling yourself 025: {NS} Interviewer: Did any partners ever do that at all 025: Oh yeah A lot of them did {X} {X} didn't have too much you know {X} now then they can take in baskets you know and then when you get there they got them high lifts you know and then you scoot them under there {X} on scales hanger and it used to be then back before they got to furnishing the baskets people had {X} had just taken put each crate you know and {X} take a tobacco sticker and put two on the top and two on the bottom and make them {X} bout like hay bale is on there a little longer turn your leave in and your head {X} Interviewer: The uh the the head is what part of the leaf is the head? 025: {X} you know and the upper for the leaf is the the end of the leaf {X} Interviewer: but you talk about it as the butt or the head? 025: Yeah Interviewer: I see and then what's a tobacco stick? 025: huh? Interviewer: a tobacco stick? 025: a tobacco stick is what you stick the tobacco on you know Interviewer: Oh it's tied to 025: tobacco sticks are sharpened at each end and you go {X} and stick them in the ground {X} {X} then you haul it in hang it up then sticks are about four inch four feet then you hang them about four five inches apart six further apart the better better ventilation you can get Interviewer: Do you have any of those around here tobacco sticks? 025: Yeah Interviewer: I'd like to see one before I leave 025: have to go out to barn Interviewer: if you have enough time after a while I'd like to see one of them not really uh not quite clear in my mind {X} how old is this house? 025: This house was built in 1872 it's a hundred and one years old Interviewer: Is that right? would you uh make a I'd like to make a diagram of the house and get the names of the rooms what you call the rooms and also I want and then I want to go back from there to the house that well course this is the only house you've ever lived in 025: Well I my furniture I don't know where I was born here I guess I was born and my dad had a house down yonder {X} Interviewer: Is that a log house? 025: No it was a framed house this house was built by my grandpa {X} Interviewer: uh-huh {NS} Well could you make a a diagram 025: I'd have to get out here and look Interviewer: I know all I want All I want to know is what 025: this way is forty feet this ways you see this {X} first built this one and then built that one out yonder there later this is the main house that was built Interviewer: Okay so the front of the house is facing West that's right and then what do you call this room we're in right here? 025: well that's your living room Interviewer: do it ever call it anything else? 025: No Interviewer: Alright and is that just 025: that's a bedroom and there's another big room bout the same size of this one {X} Interviewer: and what's that called? Is that a 025: {X} don't even sleep in there used to {X} bedroom, but now there's no beds in there got a organ two organs in there and a piano {X} Interviewer: What do you call that room? 025: I just I don't know Don't never had any particular name for it Interviewer: well if you were gonna tell somebody to get something out of that room how would you 025: we'd call it the back room I would just call it the back room {X} Interviewer: Okay and then what's back behind the 025: Now that's a hallway out there back then that was a see the little room on each end? we took this one right here for a bathroom back on the other end there is a {X} Interviewer: Okay now that goes back pretty far So you practically have another whole house back there 025: {X} built that you know kitchen and a dining room and then there's a {X} screened in porch on each side of Interviewer: How about on the sides of the on the is that on the north and south sides of the house? 025: that'd be on the north northeast and southeast side north southeast that a way northeast this way {X} be it southeast or northeast or Interviewer: And uh how bout the um so behind the hall then is a there is a you say a kitchen 025: kitchen and a dining room Interviewer: And which is on the um which comes-which is on this side the kitchen or the dining room? 025: {X} Interviewer: {NW} 025: When you got something to hide Interviewer: Well I don't want to be nosy but I just wanted to get a 025: {X} clothes that's been laid back and outgrowed we don't never throw nothing much away here Interviewer: what do you call that room where you put those things 025: just call it that little room up there on end the head of the stairs Interviewer: Is there a bathroom upstairs? 025: No Interviewer: just three 025: bathrooms down here ain't nobody here, but me and her we don't need but one bathroom Interviewer: so there really are three bedrooms upstairs 025: Yeah there's three up there Interviewer: Okay there isn't a porch up there though 025: No Auxiliary: three bedrooms and a little utility room Interviewer: I just wonder did you ever call that a plunder room? Did you ever use that expression? you ever use that expression? 025: I guess so I don't know Auxiliary: {X} 025: You can You can give me a little information {X} so he can tell you as much Interviewer: {X} I'm glad to talk to you but I 025: {X} you got on your Auxiliary: {X} and let him talk to you Interviewer: I am glad that both okay okay 025: {X} Auxiliary: {X} Interviewer: What uh Uh uh Now {NW} 025: {X} Interviewer: okay 025: Now we have the the old {X} I mean everything in line Interviewer: uh-huh 025: {X}