Interviewer:  {NS} This interview was taped July thirty-first, nineteen seventy-four. The informant is {B} of Marietta, Georgia. The interviewer is {B}. {NS} {X}
105:  Mm-hmm.
Interviewer:  {NS} Okay I needed to ask
105:  {NW}
Interviewer:  Some questions first of all to turn in with this. {NS} Um {NS}
105:  {NW}
Interviewer:  I need your full name.
105:  Full name {B}
Interviewer:  And this is {B} {NS}
105:  Marietta Georgia three double oh six oh.
Interviewer:  And your place of birth? {NS}
105:  Uh Marietta. {NS}
Interviewer:  Age?
105:  Seventy-one Januar- last January. {NW}
Interviewer:  Occupation?
105:  Retired. {NS}
Interviewer:  From what?
105:  Huh?
Interviewer:  From what?
105:  Well uh #1 {NW} #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  I was in the marble business for twenty years right here in Marietta.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
105:  And then I worked for {D: Hornby} manufacturing company making children's play clothes for fifteen years. {NS} I was in the shipping department there and uh uh had charge of the warehouse and shipping. {NS} Fifteen years and uh I did help {NS} Mr. Williams in the cafe some. Just at odd times. That uh {NS} and uh {NW} well uh that brings us up from nineteen twenty-three I guess. While I was with the chain grocery store from twenty-three to about off and on for a few years. Then I came in with my dad in the business in nineteen thirty and stayed in that for nineteen years. I said twenty it's right close to twenty. But he died in forty-nine and I liquidated in fifty. {NS} But uh. Prior to that I was w- in the #1 service #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  for three years when I was a youngster. In the military service. From nineteen twenty to nineteen twenty-three. And uh stationed in several places. Um Then I worked after I got out of the service I came back to Marietta and uh {NS} I've lived here all my life with the exception of about fifteen years in my early childhood from eight years old on up to {NS} oh I guess 'till nine 'till I was about twenty. And that's about twelve years there I guess. I left we left here when I was eight and I came back when I was twenty. That's right about twelve years. And uh then I been in and out a Marietta for about uh {NS} six or seven years but my parents my father lived here and my mother died in nineteen fifteen when I was real young. But uh father had maintained a put my sisters in school up in North Carolina the and uh then whenever he after the war he uh came back and established him his home again and brought all the girls back back home. And they lived here until they uh married off and so forth.
Interviewer:  So you were in North Carolina? {NS}
105:  A short time short time in Murphy I lived we lived up there and that's where my mother was. We were living there when my mother died.
Interviewer:  In in western North Carolina?
105:  In Murphy.
Interviewer:  #1 Mm-hmm. #
105:  #2 Uh-huh. # Out in the western part there. The last town in Murphy #1 North Carolina in the west part there. #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  She's buried up there.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
105:  And my father's buried here. He died in forty-nine but he's buried over here in the city cemetery. {NS} And uh I guess that's {NS} brings us up to my retirement I guess. {NS} {NW}
Interviewer:  Okay and you're baptist.
105:  Yes ma'am. {NS}
Interviewer:  Uh okay. Schools attended?
105:  #1 Well. #
Interviewer:  #2 And last grade completed? #
105:  I uh started school in Fairburn. We lived in Fairburn a while and I {NS} and um let me see uh uh about two or three years I'm not positive about that. Then we moved to North Carolina and I finished the eighth grade up there and went in the service. {NS} So um {NS} that's uh {NS} that um
Interviewer:  What branch of service were you in?
105:  Infantry.
Interviewer:  Hmm.
105:  Mm-hmm. {NS} Twenty-eighth infantry. Company I first division. {NS} Came over they got the first division name cuz they was the first division were the first uh infantry division that landed in um {NS} France during the World World War One.
Interviewer:  Huh.
105:  Mm. {NS}
Interviewer:  Whenever I have anybody in the infantry that always scare me because they were the ones that always
105:  #1 They had to do the mopping up. #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} # Yeah.
105:  Absolutely. You can send your planes over and #1 and do all this bombing and everything #
Interviewer:  #2 But you got to have the #
105:  but you got to have the infantry to go in there and clean up things. And #1 get the snipers and whatever the case may be #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  left over {X} {NW}
Interviewer:  Um. {NS} Clubs travel. Church.
105:  Well.
Interviewer:  Functions.
105:  I uh I been a member of the uh First Baptist Church there for {NS} let's see I was baptized in nineteen and twenty-six. {NS} Which is forty-eight years. {NS} And I'm a black deacon. I was made had that honor bestowed on me this past year. {NS} And I've been a deacon there for over twenty years. Twenty-four years I guess. Um then uh {NS} I uh belong to the uh Kiwanis club. I {NS} became a member of that in nineteen and forty-one. And uh I was asked to serve as secretary in nineteen and forty-six. And then they asked me for forty-seven and forty-eight right on through and I'm in my twenty-ninth year now. Finishing it up at the first of October. And I will #1 I been asked to serve another year so it'll make thirty consecutive years. #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  {NS} And uh back years ago used to belong to the country club {NS} when I played golf and the children were small and they got to swim and so that's out now because we don't play too much golf anymore.
Auxiliary:  No.
Interviewer:  #1 It's too hot now. #
105:  #2 Don't have any children. #
Auxiliary:  {NW}
105:  #1 Too don't have any too many little children around the house. #
Auxiliary:  #2 No. #
Interviewer:  Um Your mother's place of birth?
105:  My mother's place a birth was in uh Tennessee. {NS} She was born up in Loudon around Loudon, Tennessee there somewhere. That's where it's on record {X} {NS} Yeah I traced my family back to William the Conqueror ten sixty-five.
Interviewer:  Really? {NS}
105:  Yes I have a complete history of my family that part from ten sixty-five right on up through in the he came over with William the Conqueror he was of Norman-French descent.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
105:  And he came in and it uh {NS} which uh he didn't leave anything to us he said that one time the {NS} said that uh in the history of that that's uh {NS} says you don't have to remind English people of the name and the people {NS} that he had sixteen estates and two castles at one time. And of course the next king came in and #1 probably cut his head off and took 'em to give 'em to some of his subjects but uh #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  but the first. Do you want this now from the
Interviewer:  #1 Yeah I'm practicing. #
105:  #2 {X} # You are? {NW} {NS} I could talk long time on that
Interviewer:  #1 Yeah. #
105:  #2 {X} # {X} Well now the first uh {NW} Beck that was in this country that came over to the United States was in sixteen and thirty-five. That was Henry Beck. And he is his record of coming to this country is in the um Northeastern {NS} territorial history book. {NS} It's in the library that's where I found out some a this. He was shipwrecked off the coast of Maine {NS} he was eighteen {NS} and was shipwrecked off the coast of Maine swam ashore and lived to be a hundred and ten years old. #1 And he had another son that was #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
105:  his son. He married um uh fr- uh a lady from uh New Hampshire. {NS} Anne Frost. And uh they had a son named Henry. Henry Junior. And they had uh two or three sons. But one of 'em was a very famous doctor. Rodney Beck. {NS} And his {NS} history like thing is in the same book that gives #1 territories #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm. #
105:  I mean about that. I have copies of that with my files of my {NS} there and then Henry had a son named James. And he moved on down into Pennsylvania and he's in the uh Presbyterian church {NS} history there in Philadelphia where we got some information from him. {NS} Then James had a son named {NS} Jeffrey. {NS} Don't have too much on Jeffrey except that he had a son named Jeffrey jr of which is my Revolutionary grandfather. {NS} And he lived in North Carolina and he was a scout. And um {NS} he uh I have s- some records of him in my and his sworn statement. #1 He was eighty-two when he went before a judge #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  {NS} in the {NS} {NW} South Carolina to put in for his pension. And gave a history of what he did during the Revolutionary War. {NS} And that he went in and stayed a while then he came back out and they called him back and then later they called him and he said that he said he was sick and unable to go. And he hired a man {NS} and paid him I believe he said twenty dollars or ten dollars or something to go in his place and his name was Enoch Smith I believe it was. And uh that uh they gave him a letter {NS} uh stating about his stand with the um loyal forces so that if any a them came along #1 they wouldn't take his property #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
105:  {NS} or they wouldn't arrest him that he kept that on and he lived on the main road through there in north Carolina at that time. {NS} {NW} Excuse me. And then uh he uh came into the northwestern uh southwestern part of South Carolina old Walhalla. Which was Walhalla is just across the {NS} the uh line from from Georgia up in Rabun County you know where Rabun County is. Well Rabun County my great-great grandfather Solomon Beck and his brother Samuel were um they moved into Rabun County before it was ever a county. In the early eighteen-hundreds. Now my grandfather Solomon is buried up here in Cherokee County uh {NS} at uh {D: Shock Mount} uh Church um in yeah the church there right just Rock Church on the left as you go before you get to Ball Ground. And uh he is buried there he lived to be ninety-six years old {NS} and uh he my father has told me from time to time when he's mentioned that he uh was cutting wood and cut his foot with a ax and blood poison set up and he died from {NS} blood poison.
Interviewer:  But not
105:  At ninety-six #1 not #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  #1 Of course he was old age too #
Interviewer:  #2 At old age uh-huh. #
105:  but at the same time he wasn't strong enough #1 to #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
105:  #1 offset that #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
105:  or something. {NS} and uh then he had a son that's giving you my line of it they had several children but now the the most fantastic part of uh {NS} of this is in {NS} ten sixty-five there was a uh {NW} another man that came over. And uh {NS} heard his name was now you see you go to thinking about these and you sometimes you can't tie the names together. but uh her the {X} he came with them and then there was a lapse between uh {NS} uh ten sixty-five and the early um eighteen-hundreds {NS} that uh Nevilles. It was the Neville family that came in I knew I'd think of it later. And then my grand great-grandfather Solomon {NS} married a Neville of the direct line from the same one that they came across and there was a lapse of some seven hundred years #1 little over seven hundred years #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} # {NW}
105:  in there and then they
Interviewer:  Just happened to get together.
105:  happened to came and br- join in union again.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
105:  They were fighting for England and then the they made it up and then they moved out of Rabun County {NS} in the early eighteen twenties. {NS} Uh uh late twenties and and he settled in Cherokee County in eighteen thirty-two whenever they took it over from the Cherokee Indians in Cherokee territory. {NS} And he moved in there in the Ball Ground Militia district. And he lived in that community there until he died in eighteen and eighty {NS} six or seven. {NS} Or something I think is something there near by the latter part of eighteen somethings. And uh his he had a son that was {NS} was Samuel {NS} which was my great-grandfather. {NS} And he fought in the Civil War. {NS} with uh Phillips' Legion.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
105:  And uh we don't have too much record of him but I'm still I have someone that I think {NS} has {NS} some uh {NS} news of that I mean has some records of him. He said he had a had a list of all the Phillips' Legions that were buried in Virginia.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
105:  So he could been. He carried his horse with him and saddle so that's one reason he got in there that uh {NS} they would {NS} they would enlist these men that they had their own horse and saddles. #1 They could take them with them and be in the calvary like. #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
105:  {NS} And uh {NS} so I'm hoping that I will find out if he is buried in Virginia or where he is buried. Don't know.
Interviewer:  Hmm.
105:  Then my grandfather which is Rector Beck. Uh he was born up there in Cherokee {NS} and uh forty-nine eighteen and forty-nine. {NS} And uh and my grandmother she was a Jarvis and her father lived over in the bend of the river at the end of the place where they where they lived and up on the hill from the house that sits down here {NS} on this road and then you go up on the little hill up there. There's where the they're buried my g- hi- her father my grandmother's father and mother and there's a {NS} #1 iron fence around the two graves with a double-monument there and #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
105:  And that's off a the uh route five above Canton there before you get to {NW} on up before you get to {X} Turn off to the right and go back over in the bend a the river. And uh {NS} then my grandmother's buried in Sharp Mountain and my grandfather's buried there by his {NS} grandfather and uh and I have some aunts that's buried there and an uncle. {NS} In that cemetery. I have four generations is buried right there in that cemetery. {NS}
Interviewer:  Hmm.
105:  So they were settled in that part there. {NS} So uh then that comes down that uh whenever I my wife {NS} wanted to trace her family back about sixty two or three something like that some ten eleven years ago and #1 I wasn't least bit interested in it #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  and I just #1 said I'll go along with it and see what you #
Interviewer:  #2 Uh-huh. #
105:  about it. So I went with her down to the archives and {NS} she says well maybe you can find something says you look up something maybe you can find something on your family. So I got the eighteen and eighty census and found it up in there in Cherokee County in the Ball Ground Militia district. And uh I uh found my grandfather. And um he was living next door to Solomon. And my great-great grandfather and uh there it was listed he and my grandmother and my Uncle Jeff and Uncle Russel and my daddy's. And then that just set me on fire.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
105:  When I saw his saw his name {NS} on some records that was eighty years old. You know that just it did does something to ya. And so from then on I've been trying to get all I can about it. And uh #1 then I've accumulated this other part that I told you about. #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  But the odd oddity of the of this how I got this record of him coming over my {NS} ancestor coming over with William the Conqueror in nineteen and forty-one {NS} there was some outfit in Washington was advertised in a magazine family records. So I sent 'em a dollar and got the Beck record in eight in nineteen and forty-one. {NS} And I brought it had all this information in it but it didn't mean a thing to me just #1 a bunch of words you see. #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
105:  And then after we found out about this {NS} uh {NW} just sort of remembered that we got that and she got that out and we still got it.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
105:  And uh we read in that and I read it over again and then I come down to a long toward the last of it find out where {B} came over #1 so I know it's the same one #
Interviewer:  #2 Yes. #
105:  one of from it. So that's that was after twenty years you see. {NS} Held something so ya ya ya see if you don't throw things away. But there's one thing you want to remember that we have learned in ours is to always put a date and place on something.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
105:  There's so many many records that are kept but no dates #1 no places #
Interviewer:  #2 Hmm. #
105:  things like that. And well you're lost except for names. #1 You don't know where it happened. #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. # Yeah.
105:  And uh so uh I have out here on the show you before you leave out here on the wall framed the a copy of the secession when {NS} when Georgia seceded from the Union. {NS} And there's my uh great-uncle's name's {B} on that. That he was in Congress he was a Congressman for two different times in Rabun County.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. {NS}
105:  And uh when they seceded from the Union it's got the date on it and so forth back there and everything on it it's it's something um
Interviewer:  #1 I'm real proud of too. #
105:  #2 Oh yeah. # And uh so uh then uh found uh that he was that they were born there and then my father he was {NS} then they went into the marble business my grandfather went to Georgia Marble Company in Tate and they moved to Tate. Some time I don't know exactly when but is in it was after that it was in the nineties I guess. {NS} Uh and uh then my father being a young man he uh decided that that he would travel and go from place to place like a lot of that work here a while and get enough of money and then they'd go somewhere else to another place. He was a marble man. He was a a turning lathe man that turned vases and urns and columns and stuff like that on a turning lathe and a blacksmith. {NS} And uh he was a good one too cuz he did all of ours when we were in the marble business down here. Twenty years. He was in the marble business for thirty years. But anyhow he was in uh {NS} uh {NS} up in Tennessee there at uh Loudon where the old Hiwassee River that comes right here heads way up in north Georgia up here and goes on down through into North Carolina and on into Tennessee and through uh Loudon and then it goes and enters into the Little Tennessee and the Little Tennessee of course you know how that goes and uh right on the bank of the Hiwassee River is where Loudon is. So we went in the courthouse and {NS} searched through the files and we found uh where uh um where he got his marriage license and they were married and who the preacher was and #1 there's a copy of that all on record. #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  #1 Married in ninety-eight. #
Interviewer:  #2 Hmm. #
105:  {NS} And uh so uh {NW} that was the beginning of that and then later on uh I don't know why you're interested in all this #1 this is going a lot #
Interviewer:  #2 Yes I am. #
105:  #1 {X} #
Interviewer:  #2 I don't know if they are but I am. #
105:  #1 Huh? #
Interviewer:  #2 I love all this. #
105:  Well {NW} anyhow we have made trips to try to find things of our family and uh so we've been into Nashville two or three times to the archives there.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
105:  And there's where I found out {NS} about my mother where she was born and such as that but uh I uh that's how it come us to go to Loudon on that. And uh {NS} all these archives are so cooperative in thing all you have to do is just give 'em a place or a date and something like that.
Interviewer:  #1 I didn't know they would have #
105:  #2 And they can take #
Interviewer:  #1 {X} #
105:  #2 Oh # they're just the most generous people that you ever saw. {NS} And uh we found out but I found out there that uh her father {NS} my uh grandfather Phillips. She was a Phillips. My grandfather Phillips was uh a sheriff up there at one time for many years. About eighteen or twenty years. And uh he died and my grandmother remarried uh and but in in the records it tells it asks the question where your parents were. So I di- I didn't go any further on my mother's side because her uh her grandfather was born in Germany and her grandmother {NS} I mean well yes from England.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
105:  And we just {NS} think that they maybe they just happened to be they came over on the same boat and there they met. And then they came on over into Tennessee.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
105:  And uh we think that uh. Who's the Pea-Picker that sings? Uh. {NS} #1 He call himself the Pea-Picker. #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
105:  #1 You know who? #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah Tennessee Ernie. #
105:  Tennessee Ernie. #1 We think that we are distant related to Tennessee Ernie. #
Interviewer:  #2 Ah. #
105:  Uh-huh. and uh but uh we haven't traced that to find out anything about that. But uh I I couldn't go any further any deeper with her.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
105:  With my mother's side of the family. But I did began come back and I started to search it more here. {NS} {NW} {NS} Then uh we've made trips to Virginia. {NS} Then that's where we found out some stuff about her family. {NS} {NW} And uh North Carolina. We been into the archives in Tennessee and Georgia South Carolina North Carolina {NS} Virginia. All of those and Alabama too. And uh just we didn't keep track of the expense. #1 If we did you'd a quit the second time #
Auxiliary:  #2 Yeah. #
105:  #1 we went around. #
Auxiliary:  #2 I know I know. #
105:  #1 {NW} #
Auxiliary:  #2 {NW} #
105:  So uh we wouldn't do that. But I found in the North Carolina census up there in the records I mean my {NW} great-grandfather Solomon sr had a copy of his will {NS} dated back in eighteen and eighty two or three something like that. And uh then that brings us right on back down to. {NS} Well now let's see I've got that and then uh Papa was uh {NS} in I have a sister and a brother was born in Memphis Papa actually married they finally moved into Memphis. {NS} He worked for a marble shop there. That's all he's ever done all his life you see He was raised up in the marble belt and so he stayed with it. Then he left Memphis and came to Murphy Marietta. And uh I was born over here on Roswell street across from the cemetery #1 there used to be #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  several little houses up there. And I had two younger sisters that were born here in Marietta between I was born in nineteen three and one of 'em was in five and one was seven. Then we moved to Fairburn about nineteen and eight sometime and then I had a sister that was born down there in nineteen and nine the latter part. And another one that was born in nineteen and twelve. Out in another place there but that was that and that was us. Five girls and two boys. {NS} Then in nineteen and thirteen {NS} dad moved to uh there was a demand for man of his ability at uh regal back there where there's blue. {NS} The regal blue marble is quarried in. {NS} And they built a lot of things from it so he went up there. And then we he moved us up there later. I remember we hauled our furniture over and put it in a box car and fastened it and then we all caught caught the street car there in Fairburn and came to Atlanta and then caught the train and came on up to Tate where my grandfather lived and we stopped off there two or three or four days 'til the furniture could get up to Murphy. And then when we got up there I think he had when we all got up there and we all stepped off the train seven children.
Interviewer:  Mm.
105:  And the mother and then met him makes it nine you see {NS} I think he had to get #1 he got about a three-seated hearse to haul us all over to the house. #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  #1 He'd already got the furniture #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  #1 and put it in a home #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  and uh put it in the house that we had {NS} and uh then uh we lived there in nineteen thirteen and then we weren't there that was in the fall. And then uh mother died in January of nineteen and fifteen. So you see there was uh {NS} a sister three years old and uh another sister that was sixteen and uh so af- shortly after that was whenever the War broke out in nineteen seventeen. {NS} My sister was married and my brother older brother {NS} which was uh wasn't but sixteen but he told 'em he was eighteen and went on into the {NS} volunteer {NS} and went into the service and I tried to {NS} tried to get in there with him and tell 'em I said well I'm his twin brother. {NS} They they shook their heads and said no. {NS} We can't take you. {NS} And so {NW} {NS} that was that and the topic then {NS} the War broke out and there was a demand for a mechanic {NS} in {X} Virginia the shell factory. {NS} So he {NS} inquired and got the um {NS} the uh {NS} school at Montreat, North Carolina run by Presbyterians. {NS} {NW} and they uh said that uh yes they could they had room for 'em. So they sent all four of our sisters up there Papa was able to pay their tuition and uh board and so forth by working in the {NS} in the shell factory. And then he went to the shell factory in {X} Virginia. And left me in Murphy. And I went to school what time I didn't play hooky.
Interviewer:  {NW}
105:  And uh so I uh until uh nineteen and nineteen the fall of ninety after the War at some time in the latter part of nineteen nineteen. Dad came back to Marietta and uh started in the marble business with a distant cousin. And uh I uh was still in school and then in March of nineteen and twenty I decided I wanted to go in the army. {NS} So I sent the papers down here for him to sign for me and told him that I'd like to go in I think it'd be good for me and all and he wanted me to go on and finish school and he said he's send me the tape and that's where I made the mistake by not #1 going on and finishing school. #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm. #
105:  And then uh {NS} he signed 'em and sent 'em on back up there and he put on there the correct date that I was born January the twenty-sixth nineteen and three and was seventeen years old. {NW} And I changed the three to a two
Interviewer:  {NW}
105:  #1 and the seven to an eight #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  #1 before I gave it to the recruiting officer. #
Interviewer:  #2 uh-huh. #
105:  #1 #
Interviewer:  #2 #
105:  And that was my first #1 forgery. #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  #1 And the last. #
Interviewer:  #2 The first. #
105:  #1 First and last was right there. #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  But I never regretted it a bit in the world
Interviewer:  Yeah.
105:  cuz I got in and I got some of the best training. And from a physical standpoint I think it has been the reason that I'm as active as I am it has helped me to live these seventy-one years plus. And be as healthy and all as I am. And uh {NS} so I spent three years in the service {NS} came out in nineteen th- twenty three. And I stayed in Murphy for a short while {NS} and worked. And then I came back down later on {NW} and started to working with my dad. He was in business with another man so I had I was working just like any other hand and I started s- to uh {NS} setting our monuments. #1 Taking them out to the cemeteries and putting them up #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  for them. And uh then I did that for little while then I {NW} went with {D: A-N-P-T} company and worked for them for two or three year {NW} excuse me.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
105:  Get talking too much and sometimes I get cough. #1 Maybe I am talking too much. #
Auxiliary:  #2 {NW} #
Interviewer:  #1 I know maybe that #
105:  #2 And uh #
Auxiliary:  {NW}
105:  {NS} Then in nineteen and thirty {NS} {NW} {NS} I came back with him {NS} and stayed with him until he died. I would sell and set and all like that I did everything that uh I could do for our business and {NS} later on in nineteen and {NS} uh {NS} well it's some time in nineteen right after nineteen and forty we bought the other man out and I had half interest and he had half interest. {NS} And then later on in his later years he lived to be seventy-five like about a week. Being seventy-five before he died he had changed his {NS} the half he gave me half of his and gave my sister my younger sister mind {NS} the other half #1 so I had three-fourths interest and she had a fourth interest. #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  {NS} Course nobody was there but me and him so that was left {NS} quite that way. {NS} And uh then {NS} when he died I liquidated soon as I could. I filled every order I had and then we sold the property and uh the machinery {NS} paid off our debts {NS} and uh {NS} then I uh {NS} I thought I was gonna try some insurance and I tried it for about two or three months and I did I saw it wasn't for me because it was something that I didn't care for. And then I uh {NS} went with uh {NW} mr Williams nuh {NS} for a while in the cafe business. {NS} Couple of years. {NS} {NW} And then mr Hornby {NS} wanted me down in his business {NS} and he gave me a {NS} good offer {NS} so I {NS} I changed and went down there with him and {NS} stayed with him almost fifteen years {NS} before I retired I retired when I was with him. {NS} I was sixty-nine I mean sixty-six {NS} in sixty-nine. And then I just uh put in my social security and began to draw that and I just piddle around work #1 a little time here and there and not try to make over what I was supposed to. #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  {NS} And uh {NS} then I well while I was in the cafe business I started to thinking what I wanted to do when I retired. And I bought me a piece of wood working ma- {NS} -chinery. And I started that #1 twenty years before I retired. #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  And kept adding a little bit along and the children would all ask me says well dad what you want for Christmas? Or what do you want for your birthday? I says well #1 you can't get it so you just give me what yous gonna put into it #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  we'll just get it all the money together and I'll buy what I want.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
105:  And I have a dandy equipment. Wood shop and uh I'm real proud of and uh just picked up another piece this morning that I wanted that I'd want {NS} had a belt sander a little {NS} belt sander that {NS} worn out so I bought me a knew one this morning. {NS} I'd ordered it a couple of weeks ago and so I just picked it up this morning. {NS} And uh I'm working on some stuff right there with mr {B} You might know mr {B} He's in the educator he's with the he was with the uh city school for a number of years he is retired from that but he's working in the county school system now. He's over there in the estimates or something where they
Interviewer:  Finances #1 I think I've heard his name. #
105:  #2 {X} #
Interviewer:  #1 It's something in finances I heard that. #
105:  #2 Uh-huh well it's it's in #
Interviewer:  #1 Yeah. #
105:  #2 Purchasing in the that uh #
Interviewer:  #1 Yeah. #
105:  #2 Well anyhow #
Interviewer:  #1 Yeah. #
105:  #2 if you ever meet him you'll meet one of the finest men you ever saw. # Cuz he is just wonderful. {NS} And we're working together on he at one time he was in the field working for the Atlanta Seeding Company selling uh #1 stuff for them for different schools and everything #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  #1 so he's well-known for that and so #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
105:  we're making some uh #1 stuff for the Hebrew academy there in Atlanta. #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  You've heard of it I know. And we're working on that now. {NS} And uh that brings me just about up and we've been married over forty-eight years now. #1 And we're looking forward to our golden anniversary in nineteen and seventy-six. #
Interviewer:  #2 Oh yeah. #
105:  #1 #
Interviewer:  #2 {NS} #
105:  #1 We #
Interviewer:  #2 That's a nice time to have an anniversary. #
105:  #1 Isn't though? #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  #1 And uh how many have you had? #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} # Only five.
105:  #1 Five well #
Interviewer:  #2 {NW} #
105:  #1 you have a long way to go then. #
Interviewer:  #2 Oh yeah. #
105:  And uh we have three children. A boy two girls. And we have eight grandchildren. Five girls and three boys. And one great-grandson two and a half years old. {NS} {NW} So we're blessed.
Interviewer:  Oh you are.
105:  With uh. Well we just blessed with everything.
Interviewer:  #1 Mm-hmm. #
105:  #2 That's what we'd say #
Interviewer:  #1 Mm-hmm. #
105:  #2 We just thank God every day for all the good things that he has given us and uh # all that's only thing you can do we {NS} uh we read of all the meanness and everything in the papers and all but there's still good people and {NS} it's just a few that gets in the papers and {NS} #1 get reported #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  but so many people besides that. And our youths are not {NS} gone they're {NS} they're a few that makes you think that what's going to happen to the youths all going to the to the devil and and hell when they die but uh that's just a few. Just because you find the rotten app- #1 in the barrel that don't mean the whole barrel is #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
105:  bad. So and you you can just look around and see how many fine young people #1 and you're in the teaching industry there you #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm. #
105:  you know that. That you you'll have two or three maybe in your class that's #1 that's not what you'd like them to be #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
105:  but just think about how many you have in there that are.
Interviewer:  I know. And so many times the good ones are kind of ignored because of the bad ones.
105:  #1 That's that's right uh-huh. #
Interviewer:  #2 And you think only about them who's bad. #
105:  Because you have to kind of #1 pay more attention to them. #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
105:  And uh Joan has had so much experience in {NS} teaching. And especially with the colored.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
105:  #1 She had two schools in Louisiana that she had uh #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
105:  all #1 they were all colored #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  she went over into the colored district and uh and taught one year I know and
Interviewer:  Yeah she's told me about it.
105:  Yeah. She's told you all about that so that makes it that way. And uh well that brings us up we moved here. Our last child was born when we was living up the street one lot. She was eighteen months old when we moved here and the eleventh of next month we'll be here thirty-six years. {NS} So it's almost like home.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
105:  One time we have the streetcars in the front yard and the trains in the back yard.
Interviewer:  {NW}
105:  You meant you don't remember the streetcars.
Interviewer:  No I'm not from here.
105:  #1 Oh you're not. #
Interviewer:  #2 Uh-uh. #
105:  #1 Well we used to have the streetcars come right through here #
Interviewer:  #2 I just moved. #
105:  and they took up the tracks and cemented there {NS} and widened the street just a little bit. And uh {NW} that was in the late forties. And uh {NS} We put up with it quite a while but it's it's nice now but you see they talking about rapid transit they headed right here but they didn't
Interviewer:  #1 Mm-hmm #
105:  #2 They took it up #
Interviewer:  #1 mm-hmm. #
105:  #2 thrown it away just like at a lot of other places. #
Interviewer:  #1 I know living here. #
105:  #2 Yeah. # {NS} And uh {NS} I guess I guess that brings us right up to {NS} #1 this particular point now as far as I know. #
Interviewer:  #2 Okay. # Um let me see well I've got your father's birthplace would be Cherokee County is that it?
105:  Cherokee County. Uh-huh that's the only {X} you'd say that because there wasn't a town. {NS} {NW} {NS}
Interviewer:  Okay. Mother and father's education?
105:  Uh that I don't know. My father said at uh one time he went to Waleska but uh I don't know how many how many one or two years at Waleska actually finished his school up at Tate. {NS}
Interviewer:  Okay and your father was {NS} uh his occupation?
105:  He was uh he was a uh marble what you might say he was a marble {NS} in the marble industry. {NS} {NW} {NS}
Interviewer:  And your mother?
105:  Mother was just a a homemaker.
Interviewer:  Don't say just a homemaker. {NW}
105:  Huh?
Interviewer:  Don't say just a homemaker.
105:  A housewife?
Interviewer:  Yeah.
105:  Alright. #1 Housewife and a homemaker. #
Interviewer:  #2 That's a job. #
105:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  #1 {X} #
105:  #2 But she was. #
Interviewer:  #1 Yeah. #
105:  #2 She was one of the wonderful wonderful person. #
Interviewer:  And with what? Seven children?
105:  #1 Seven children. #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} # She worked. {NW}
105:  Yeah but she got some help out of the #1 {X} #
Interviewer:  #2 Oh I'm sure. #
105:  When we lived in Fairburn {NS} back there when the last my youngest sister was born in nineteen twelve we lived out there on a little farm. But we didn't farm but in ba- in the back of it there there's we always had a nice garden always had two cows for milk for the children. And Papa would raise his pigs every year for his pork meat and uh and the lard that uh mother would have rendered and we'd can and pick berries and have fruit and there was a orchard behind us we'd #1 get all that. #
Interviewer:  #2 Sounds nice #
105:  #1 Oh isn't wonderful? #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
105:  And we kept our milk and butter in the well. #1 That's where we got water. #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. # Yeah.
105:  Drew it out of the well. When we moved to North Carolina the first time we ever had running water in our house. {NS} But you know back in those days they all didn't have that and all the houses up there didn't have it. Cuz we moved into another house up there that didn't have water. We had a well. Off the back porch. And we moved into another hou- that was the house that mother died in. And then we moved to another house that did have it you see. So I I figure that I've had a a real rich life.
Interviewer:  Oh yes.
105:  And mine is uh {NS} so much that I come up with just so it says that I we've been married forty-eight years and says every once in a while you'll come up with something that you that you did that you never had told me before.
Interviewer:  Yeah. {NS} Um Your wife's age? {NS}
105:  She is six let me see eight si- sixty-six now.
Interviewer:  Uh okay that's enough for that. I was gonna ask the first thing on here is to ask you to draw {NS} a floor plan of your house. And just label the rooms.
105:  Oh my. That would be quite a quite a chore.
Interviewer:  Okay you can write on the back of that. {NS} {X}
105:  {X}
Interviewer:  Might be on about three. {NS}
105:  {NW}
Interviewer:  Um these are really hard
105:  Uh-huh
Interviewer:  Would you have a different name for uh something similar {X} {NS}
105:  Um {NS} something similar to the {X}
Interviewer:  Something similar to the {X}
105:  Oh. {NS} Okay. {NS}
Interviewer:  Um the open place on the front entrance {NS} the open place on the flooring {X}
105:  {X} {NW} {X}
Interviewer:  I know.
105:  {X} park {NW} {NS}
Interviewer:  In the fireplace the thing that you lay the wood across. {NS}
105:  Well it's iron or the grate for coal {X}
Interviewer:  What would you call the place above the fireplace where you could put an ornament or a picture?
105:  The mantle.
Interviewer:  {NW} #1 Just like you have #
105:  #2 And #
Interviewer:  #1 right there. #
105:  #2 we have three of 'em in our house. #
Interviewer:  Oh really?
105:  Yeah we had one over there and one right there {X}
Interviewer:  You using 'em?
105:  No not now. We did when we first moved here. {NS} We had uh we had a percolating heater in the dining room. We used coal. {NS} But this was an open grate the coal was in an open grate in the front bedroom.
Interviewer:  Love that.
105:  Oh well {X}
Interviewer:  Um
105:  {NW}
Interviewer:  The big round piece of wood with that bark on it that you burn in the fireplace? {NS}
105:  A log. {NS}
Interviewer:  What would you call the kind of wood that you use to start the fire?
105:  Um lighter knot. Uh kindling. {NS}
Interviewer:  Um How about something you'd get when you cut down a pine tree? Which wood that you could light the #1 {X} #
105:  #2 That's called lighter knot. # {NS} Which that that's the heart of it it's real rich. {D: Iron rigs} And they call them lighter knots too {X} It's real {X} It's had a lot of {X} burn quick. {NS}
Interviewer:  Now it's playing so much of this I don't know. {NS} Um what do you call the black stuff that the smoke might leave in the chimney?
105:  {X}
Interviewer:  There was a {NS} oh this was a fire that burned down and left nothing but
105:  Embers. Coal {NS} embers. Ashes. {NS}
Interviewer:  What am I sitting in?
105:  Chair. {NS} {NW}
Interviewer:  {X}
105:  Oh yeah.
Interviewer:  Um what is the largest um piece a furniture for two or three people to sit on?
105:  Sofa. {NS}
Interviewer:  The piece of furniture in your bedroom that has drawers in it and you can put clothes in it.
105:  Desk with drawers. {NS}
Interviewer:  Did you ever hear of an old fashioned people saying anything?
105:  A chifforobe {NS} Um we had one of those {X} our first bedroom we had a chifforobe. Open the doors back drawers on one side and you could hang clothes on the other.
Interviewer:  {X}
105:  Oh yeah. {NS}
Interviewer:  The room where you sleep is called?
105:  {X} {NS}
Interviewer:  Uh What's the general name for tables and chairs and sofas? {NS}
105:  General name for tables and chairs and sofas? {NS} Furniture. {NW}
Interviewer:  The thing that hangs that hangs at the window to keep out the light.
105:  Well it could be a shade or a curtain or a drape.
Interviewer:  And what would you call a {X} {NS}
105:  They were a oh they was a curtain.
Interviewer:  And wooden things outside the window. {X}
105:  Roll blind. Shutters.
Interviewer:  Um a little room off the bedroom to hang you clothes in.
105:  That would be a closet.
Interviewer:  Uh if you don't have a built-in closet what might you use?
105:  Well um let's see. to hang #1 something to hang your clothes in? #
Interviewer:  #2 Mm-hmm. #
105:  I guess it would be a chifforobe.
Interviewer:  What's the room at the top of the house that's under the roof?
105:  The attic.
Interviewer:  The room that you cook in?
105:  Kitchen.
Interviewer:  {NW}
105:  #1 {X} #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} # Uh What do you call the little room off the kitchen where you can store canned goods and extra dishes?
105:  That's the pantry.
Interviewer:  What do you call a lot of workroom things that you're about to throw away?
105:  Trash or something like that uh
Interviewer:  What would you call a room that's used to store odd and ends in?
105:  Storage room I guess {X}
Interviewer:  What would you be doing if you were sweeping the floor and mopping the floor and um washing the dishes and um straightening up the house?
105:  You'd be cleaning up.
Interviewer:  What do you sweep with?
105:  Broom.
Interviewer:  #1 Okay if the broom #
105:  #2 A vacuum # You could sweep with a vacuum cleaner too.
Interviewer:  You're giving me exactly what they asked for.
105:  {NW}
Interviewer:  This is so hard. If the broom is in the corner {NS} if the broom is in the corner and the door is open you would say the broom is where compared to the door?
105:  In the door the broom is in the corner. It would be in the corner. Yes.
Interviewer:  Asking where's it's location compared to the door?
105:  Well and the door was open? And the broom is in the corner? Still be in the corner. {NW}
Interviewer:  Years ago on Monday women usually did their
105:  Washing.
Interviewer:  On Tuesday?
105:  They do their ironing.
Interviewer:  What might you call um both washing and ironing together?
105:  That's uh doing the laundry.
Interviewer:  Okay and the place in town where a bachelor might have his shirts done? {NS}
105:  At the laundromat. {NS}
Interviewer:  Um how do you get from the first floor up to the second floor in a two-story house? {NS}
105:  Steps. {NS}
Interviewer:  Would you use a different term for those inside the house and those outside? {NS}
105:  Well I I wou- I don't think I I would I don't know if there's any difference in 'em. You have a staircase inside and the steps from outside. That's the way it would be.
Interviewer:  Um
105:  {NW}
Interviewer:  What is built outside the door to walk on and put chairs on #1 {X} #
105:  #2 Porch. #
Interviewer:  Um
105:  We have two #1 one on the front and one on the back. #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
105:  #1 #
Interviewer:  #2 #
105:  #1 I built the one on the back myself. #
Interviewer:  #2 Oh really? #
105:  Mm. #1 Screened it in #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
105:  #1 put the top on it and all. #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} # That's I'd like to have something like that.
105:  I've got that.
Interviewer:  What would you call uh a porch that was big and had columns on it?
105:  Uh {NS} It'd be a A veranda some of 'em call 'em the verandas and then porch too you see.
Interviewer:  Is there any different name for one that would run along the front and the side of a house? Like a {X} {NS}
105:  I don't know if there would be any difference there or not. It's still a front and side porch.
Interviewer:  Okay If the door is open and you don't want it that way you would tell someone to blank the door.
105:  Close the door. {NS}
Interviewer:  What do you call the boards on the outside of the house that lap over each other?
105:  Lap boards. {NS}
Interviewer:  Okay um everyday I take my car and blank into town.
105:  Drive.
Interviewer:  Okay yesterday I blank into town.
105:  Drove.
Interviewer:  I have blank into town every day this week. {NW}
105:  {NW} Drove.
Interviewer:  What do you call um the part of the house that covers the top of the house?
105:  The roof. {NS} {NW}
Interviewer:  Uh what do you call the little things along the edge of the roof that carry the water off.
105:  That's gutter. {NS}
Interviewer:  Uh {NS} Going up to the roof and say you have a house and an ell. What do you call the place where the two come together?
105:  A house and an ell?
Interviewer:  Ell E-L-L. {X}
105:  House and an ell. Well now I don't know if I know that. {NS}
Interviewer:  Okay what would you call a little building that's used for storing wood?
105:  Wood hou- wood wood house or coal house.
Interviewer:  Okay and a building that would be used for storing tools? {NS}
105:  It'd be a tool tool house. {NS}
Interviewer:  What do you call outdoor toilets?
105:  They are still called outdoor toilets.
Interviewer:  #1 Mm-kay #
105:  #2 {NW} #
Interviewer:  any other words that might be used?
105:  Well some of 'em use 'em as johns.
Interviewer:  Yeah. If you had troubles and were telling me about them you might say well blank's troubled too.
105:  Um well um blank troubled let's see. It'd be I have troubles too. {X}