Oral History Interview with Oscar Bell

Interviewer: This is one in a series of tapes sponsored by the Kentucky Folklore Foundation. I’m in the home of Mr. Oscar Bell, who is 81 years old today. Mr. Bell has had long experience as a country store operator and owner. He started back in his teenage years as a clerk in the store of his father. And he and his father and brothers and sons have been postmaster of these stores, and has dealt with the local people. He’s of particular interest because he knew the family, and he also knows of the people in the area and the way they took care of their health needs in those early years. Mr. Bell, you say that you, when was your earliest recollections of anything along the lines of health? The way the people looked after themselves. Can you remember when you first had any encounter with any of the old doctors, or midwives, or−

: Yes, I remember (John Fork?) and do you want all of them? And (Ann Berks?) Nanny (Pile?). And let me see, there’s an old (?) woman over on (Sankan?). I can’t think of her name.

Interviewer: Robertson.

: Yeah, yeah. Roberts. And−

Interviewer: Can you remember any, the names are not that important, really. What is important, can you remember any time, any incident, any time when you had people doctoring on you for various things? Or your children or anything.

: Yeah. John (Floyd?), when I was about nine years old, doctored me. And he’d come and stay overnight. And (?) lean back against the wall, he left a greasy spot on the wall with his head. [laughs] I remember that. Then John Hill, he was an old country doctor. And he doctored me with pneumonic fever. And he also doctored my father and my two brothers at the same time with typhoid fever, in the year of 1930. The dry year. And so then we had, I’ve had a few doctors from . Most of the old doctors.

Interviewer: Do you know Dr. Roberts?

: In my later days, I haven’t had any sickness much.

Interviewer: That’s great. That’s wonderful. You look good for 81 years old.

: Yeah.

Interviewer: Very healthy. What was Dr. Clark doctoring your brother? Do you remember what he was doctoring him for when he stayed that long period, got the wall greasy?

: When he was doctoring me?

Interviewer: The brother. Was it you or the brother when he came over and stayed a long time with you?

: No, that was John Hill.

Interviewer: Was it?

: That doctored my father and two brothers. They had typhoid fever at the same time. Well that was the 1930s, the year of 1930.

Interviewer: Do you remember the flu epidemic in 1918?

: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was in World War I, wasn’t it?

Interviewer: Yes, sir. It sure was. Do you remember anything about that?

: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Quite a few people died at that time with the flu. And a lot of them would just use this old moonshine whiskey and doctor with it. They’d put herbs in that old moonshine whiskey and use it. For flu.

Interviewer: The doctors would tell you that’s the best thing to do for it, would they?

: Yeah. They’d say that’s good. Yeah.

Interviewer: It has a lot of medicinal value. Now when you were working in the store, did you deal in herbs and roots?

: Oh, yeah. We bought ginseng and goldenseal and May apple. And wahoo bark and slippery elm bark. And stuff like that. And (?) bought the May apple and would sack it up in old coffee sacks and haul it on the jolt wagon over to . And ship it out to Isaac (?) at .

Interviewer: Did some of these things that you bought from people who collected it, did some of the people in the community sometimes buy some?

: Oh, yeah. Yeah, they would. The goldenseal, they’d buy that. And sometimes they’d put that in whiskey and use for rheumatism, stuff like that.

Interviewer: Now in your early period, you say you had a grist mill there with−

: Yes. Run my own grist mill for several years. Give it on up after my father passed on me and my brother (?). Wore out about three. [laughs]

Interviewer: Was it water-powered? Or was it engine?

: Gasoline engine, with the big flywheels on it.

Interviewer: People bring in the wheat and flour−

: Oh, yeah. Come to the store and bring the, (turn the corn?), would run that, (turn the corn?) for them.

Interviewer: What kind of, what did most of the people, do you think, in that early period, did they buy at the store? Most of them had gardens, didn’t they?

: Oh, yeah.

Interviewer: Okay.

: We didn’t sell no milk or nothing like that. They all, everybody had that, you know. And they didn’t buy so many beans. They’d grow most of the beans. Dry beans. And we didn’t, back then, we didn’t sell so many groceries and canned goods or anything like that. They had that stuff, you know. It was mostly shoes and clothing, salt, and stuff like that. Flour and meal. And we’d bring that old salt bacon in old slabs, and cut that up and sell it to them. No fancy meats. Nothing like that. A lot of times, we’d have a bunch of hogs fattening. And we’d kill them and run them through the store, sell them out the store. We had, we didn’t buy milk. We had our own cows and milk. Everybody did that. We’d sell cow feed and something like that.

Interviewer: What about the healthcare of animals? Who looked after the animals? There weren’t any veterinarians around, were there?

: No, not then. Maybe there’d be a few fellows who’d be good to doctor a horse when he had the colic or something like that. And send and get them. Put soda in vinegar in a quart bottle and drinks the horses, and get them to burp and they’d soon get over the colic. And cows. What they mostly doctored them with is (?) a tablespoon to their navel and it would take up that (?). That was good for the cow. And grease their head from their head back to their tail on the back with fried up red pepper and stuff like that. Where they’re stiff. Limber them up.

Interviewer: Now this Dr. Clark, Dr. John Clark, that owned some land just below here, can you tell us all you know about him?

: Yes, he went all over. He wore broke down shoes and jeans britches. I remember that. And he’d go all over. And white yarn socks his wife had made him. And he’d go horseback all over the country with saddle pockets on his saddle, with his medicine all in there, you know. After he’d get there, why he’d go to mixing it and putting it together after he studied, went over the patient’s case. Most of the time, the patient had (side?) pleurisy. And they’d ask him if he could do all right with it. He’d say, “Oh, yes.” He had a funny word. He said, “I’ll manage that. You’ll be all right.” And if it took it, why he’d stay overnight and maybe the next day before he’d go home.

Interviewer: He didn’t mind staying time.

: Yeah. He wouldn’t stint you with his time. He’d just stay with them. Doctored all over the country. Horseback.

Interviewer: And he had a pretty big farm, too, didn’t he?

: Yes. Dr. Floyd’s farm in the (?)

Interviewer: How was he able to do all this farm work and do his doctoring, too?

: His family carried on with the farm work while he’s gone. He had a bunch of children. I don’t know, there were seven or eight of them, I guess.

Interviewer: His wife, did you know his wife?

: Oh, yes.

Interviewer: I guess she did a lot−

: She was a Jones.

Interviewer: She make the clothes and everything?

: Oh, yeah. She made them, she’d make them britches. They called them britches, you know. Jeans britches. [laughs] And had, had a bunch of goats. And they had, in the fall, when they got fat, they’d kill them goats and eat them. Then they had some sheep. They got the wool off of them, make the little (?) and (lancey?) and stuff that they’d get to make clothes.

.

Interviewer: Did she, did she grow any, did she make any butter and grow chickens and eggs?

: Oh, yeah.

Interviewer: Did she trade some at the store?

: Yes, they’d bring them to the store.

Interviewer: Get some cash that way.

: Yeah. They’d buy their salt and coffee. You could get a full pound of salt for a dime. And 25 cents a pound for coffee and the grain. And they’d grind them, you know. We’d bring that coffee in 150-pound bags.

Interviewer: It would be rough, in the grain.

: And that’s before I started working in the store, I was weighing up that salt, and weighing up that pounds of coffee, you know. I thought I had a good job. I kept the shelf full of that. And that’s the way it was sold, that salt and coffee. A nickel’s worth, a dime’s worth, and the pound.

Interviewer: Now the coffee, when you say, “in the green,” what do you mean by that?

: To grind. We sold old coffee mills, and they’d grind that coffee.

Interviewer: It was just green?

: Yeah, we brought on, even green. It would be just like it was when it come off the trees, you know? And they’d roast it in the store, then grind it. It was good tasting.

Interviewer: I bet it was better tasting than it is today. [laughs]

: Yeah. It would be still, when it’s green, you know, it would be less on the pound. If it’s a nickel less, it made a lot of difference back then.

Interviewer: Can you, do you think, what would you say that most people, did they, in those way back there, did many people, or many people care, would you say, in the later days, you began to sometimes you’d have the town doctor in Monticello. Did many people ever have the town doctor in those days?

: Yeah, once in a while. When they get real bad, they would. My grandfather, he passed on in 1906. He had what they called a blood cancer on his neck. And Doc Reddish from come and cut it out and it bled him to death.

Interviewer: He actually performed the operation in the home?

: At the home, yeah. Yeah. Back then, it was (down home?) days. Even back that far.

Interviewer: How were most of the babies delivered?

: These old country doctors would deliver them. They didn’t have no doctors for that. These old midwives would go around deliver all the babies. All over the country.

Interviewer: When you mentioned Dr. Clark and his bags, those things that he had in there that he mixed, were those mostly herbs and root things that he put−

: Yeah, he’d have a lot of that stuff. Have little bottles powdered up. And then he’d put so much of each one.

Interviewer: Did he actually collect some of that, some of those roots and herbs?

: Oh, yeah, himself. He’d get out and he’d know all that stuff. Just get out and get it together himself. Then he’d go to the drugstore and he’d pick out medicine. And he’d mix that. I don’t know. He had no schooling, but pretty good knowledge, seemed like.

Interviewer: Do you know any old druggist that might still be living?

: No, I don’t. No, I don’t.

Interviewer: I’d like to talk with some of them because apparently they did−

: About everything around now is young. Not many of them old, just a year or two ago, some of the old ones passed on. There’s a Dr. Duncan down there. I’ll tell you one that will know a whole lot, and that’s Doc Roberts. He’s the president of the Monticello Bank. And he’s, he’s an old timer himself. And he knows a lot of that stuff.

Interviewer: Doctor Bob Roberts?

: Yeah.

Interviewer: I’ve interviewed him.

: You did.

Interviewer: I’d like to interview him again, though.

: Yeah?

Interviewer: I interviewed him mainly about when he was public health officer. But I understand he was kind of, he was country orientated. He did a lot of country doctoring.

: Yeah. He’s got a lot of that old time stuff in him. And he likes (it, too?)

Interviewer: He was born over here in , wasn’t he?

: That’s right.

Interviewer: He’s not as old as you are, though.

: No. No.

Interviewer: He’s a young whipper snapper. [laughs]

: Yeah. A lot of them Roberts just were born just across the mountain over here in the Roberts Holler over there..

Interviewer: Well in the homes, did some of the homes actually sometimes, too, collect things? Herbs and roots, and put them up?

: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Interviewer: Tell me about that.

: They’d gather this ground ivy and make tea out of it. And life everlasting, and make tea out of it. And wintergreen, that’s good for a cold. And maybe in some of them they’d put a little moonshine whiskey in it to keep it, you know, keep it from souring. Bottle it up, a big bottle of it.

Interviewer: Just have it there in the medicine cabinet, and when they needed it, they−

: Yeah. Didn’t have no refrigeration, you know.

Interviewer: So if you had a good mother that knew, or father that knew about these things, you could handle a lot of your−

: You know that the old women, if the baby got sick, they hear of it, and they’d go to that place, two or three of them. And they’d be as good as the doctor, because they know about what to do. My stepmother was good at doctoring children. They’d send for her, and she’d go and grease their chest and all when they’d have a cold. It wouldn’t be long until they’d be coughing that up. And get all right.

Interviewer: So there were women, even though they might not have been midwives, they still knew something about healing−

: No, she wasn’t nothing like that. But they’d usually go, the women would go to see about stuff like that.

Interviewer: Why do you think that there was so much community spirit? People were willing to go like that. Nowadays it’s kind of broken down.

: I don’t know. But they seemed to be together, a community, a little better than they are today. Because they’d see about one another, you know. And if there’s any need, anyway, why they took care of that, too.

Interviewer: Would you say, were the country churches stronger? Or were the churches−

: Yeah, I’d say it was back then. But we’d go to the same church we did all the time. , just across the river over here, . In 1825, this was established. And old big (?) church is the oldest church in the country. I forget now just what year it was established. But they come from Big (?) and set up the church near .

Interviewer: Was Dr. Clark a member of the church?

: I’d say he wasn’t so much thataway. He wasn’t so much. I just don’t know whether he was a member. He didn’t come to . That was out of his community. He’s over in another community.

Interviewer: Were there many people living back over in Clark Holler?

: Yes. There’s been several people all the time. And there’s more now, though, than there was back then. Because it’s getting (thicker?) settled than it was. more homes over there.

Interviewer: People over now in Clark Holler, are they seemingly as prosperous as they used to be or not, would you say?

: Well, I’d say it runs along about the same, I guess.

Interviewer: Are they farmers now? Or do they work out?

Bell: They work on, public work, mostly. It’s not a good farming section, I’d say. Pretty well, they’ve got to make a living some other way. Coal mines, lumber mills, and stuff like that.

Interviewer: So even as long as you can remember, they’ve always sort of done public works.

: Yeah.

Interviewer: More than just farming.

: Yeah. They’ve about had to.

Interviewer: There’s not much land.

: Yeah.

Interviewer: Just subsistence is about all they can do.

: Yeah.

Interviewer: You know, that’s an interesting term, “public works.” When I think about it in my modern mind, I think about public works, I think about government works. But when you say “public works,” you mean what?

: Railroad, mining. They worked on section, you know. Coal mines. And these old sawmills, Brown and Sterns, all the way along back there, they run a mill for years, you know. Lumber mill. A lot of fellows in this community worked out there.

Interviewer: Could, let’s talk a little bit more about Dr. Clark. What kind of man was he? What was his character? How would you size him up?

: Well, they counted him just a little bit on the windy side. He’d, it kind of tickled him to hear him make the expressions he’d make. So he seemed to be a little bit thataway. I remembered him when he’d come to the store. It was kind of interesting to hear him talk. You’d listen at him all right. He’d talk about different things.

Interviewer: He seemed to be a pretty well read man?

: Yeah, he seemed to be pretty well thataway. He seemed to study that doctor line pretty well. Read all the books he could get to. And it seemed like he remembered well after he’d read things.

Interviewer: Did he have any formal education that you know of?

: No. I’d say no.

Interviewer: Just self taught.

: Yeah.

Interviewer: The strongest thing was that he just knew a lot about the woods and the things that grew out there and how to use them?

: Well, not so much, I’d say. Not so much thatway. I don’t know. Fact was that he got hooked up in this doctoring. But that was the way his mind run. Right smart thataway. He studied these herbs and things. And seemed like the country had a lot of confidence in his doctoring. And he had pretty good luck.

Interviewer: He could diagnose, diagnose.

: Yeah.

Interviewer: He spent a lot of time.

: Yeah.

Interviewer: Well how do you think that very unfortunate event happened where he shot a man? How did that happen?

: Well, it was at his home, at his barn. These fellows was in his barn. And they went out, him and his son, he shot and killed Johnny (Wurley?) and (Kada Wurley?) was about to kill him, but they didn’t. They let him by. He thought they was going to kill him, too.

Interviewer: How old was he then? Dr. Clark?

: I just wouldn’t know. I don’t know how old he was. He died. I don’t know. I’d say must have been fifty year old then, when that happened.

Interviewer: And then he actually served−

: They send him to the pen for two years.

Interviewer: Then when he got out, did he practice medicine?

: Don’t think so, so much. Don’t think he did. As he was getting on up there, his day was about over. You know, every fellow has his day. And whenever it gets on up so old, it’s about over.

Interviewer: That was really a tragedy, though, that that happened to him like that. And I mean, I guess he brought some of it on himself. But it was a bad situation.

: Yeah, probably. The men probably shouldn’t have been there.

Interviewer: They were just fooling around. Someone told me that even after he was not licensed anymore, that sometimes he would counsel people. Mr. Bell the (?), what’s his name.

: Yeah. (Virgil?)

Interviewer: He said that one time, you heard the story about him doctoring somebody that they couldn’t get well. The doctors were trying to help him, and he told them he couldn’t practice, but he told them what to get. Have you heard that story?

: No, I don’t know if I heard that.

Interviewer: But in that earlier period, before that unfortunate event, would you say that there must have been a lot more like him around, you think? In other communities?

: Yeah.

Interviewer: But you don’t know of any other?

: In the time he was doctoring?

Interviewer: Back in the early part.

: Well, there was Dr. Bryant over at Denney’s Gap. He come in this community. They found him a little above Clark, a better doctor.

Interviewer: Did he have a little more education?

: No, I’d say probably more than , but he still didn’t have any. You know, not many had any education back then. Take off to a little school and go maybe a while and quit. Didn’t have much education.

Interviewer: How much education did you have?

: Eighth grade only.

Interviewer: That was good for that time, though.

: Yeah.

Interviewer: You were well educated. My granddaddy had about eighth grade.

: My father didn’t have no education. But he was a true businessman. And his mind covered different things. As well as a merchant, he was other, covered other fields, too.

Interviewer: What other fields did he got?

: Well, farming, for one. On back there, he worked in the (stave woods?), making staves. And he was a boss over a bunch of men. He ran a crew of men. That’s about what he done. Of course he worked on the farm some after he first come in here. My mother stayed in the store, he worked on the farm.

Interviewer: It’s come to the end there.

[End Side A. Begin Side B.]

Interviewer: These men like Dr. Clark, did they also do work that might now be done by dentists and things? How was that, how did people get their teeth−

: He’d pull teeth. Yeah. He had an old homemade forceps that he used to pull them teeth. They’d go to him from all over the country and get him to pull them teeth. Of course, a lot of times they’d go to the dentist, and most of the time, a lot of them would just go to John Clark. He’d pull their teeth.

Interviewer: Were there, were there any other things, he didn’t do any surgery, did he?

: No. Don’t think so. Probably he’d splint up a broke arm or a broke leg or something like that. He could do that. Wouldn’t do much cutting.

Interviewer: Wasn’t much place to go for that.

: No. No, that’s right. Wasn’t much.

Interviewer: As you said with your granddaddy, you had to get a doctor to come down.

: Yes. Yes, that’s right.

Interviewer: Would some of those herbs that he had and things, would that relieve pain for people? They had some things. I’ve heard that slippery elm bark is good.

: Yeah. He’d put poultices on big boils and things without some of these herbs, he’d do it. And draw them to a head. Where there would be carbuncles on their neck, or something like that, he’d gather them poultices on them.

Interviewer: How did people die? Most people died in their homes, didn’t they?

: Yeah. Yeah.

Interviewer: Rather than the hospital?

: No (?). My father-in-law, he made coffins. They called them coffins, you know. All over the country. They’re just homemade coffins. And they’d send for him. He’d take his tools and go to their place and make them a coffin. When they didn’t have the lumber, he generally had it already laid away of his own. And he’d make it free, furnish the lumber to make coffins. And we, in our time in the store, we kept this black sateen to line coffins with. That’s the way they made them. Carpet packs, and line them coffins. Wasn’t no caskets brought in the country back then.

Interviewer: Could you tell me something about when a person died? What would be the, what would you do? You’d first call for the coffin maker, and he would make it.

: Was what?

Interviewer: What would you do when a person died? Besides calling for someone to make the coffin. What would happen then? Kind of tell me about the way they treated the dead people.

: Well, the community gathered and dig the grave. You know, they didn’t have no one like that. You’d just get together and dig the grave and they’d go and bury him. The third day, they’d generally bury them on the third day that they died.

Interviewer: Did they sit up with them?

: Oh, yeah. Yeah. In my sickness, they come and sit up, not for me, my father was sit up so many nights that he never had his shoes off. Just sat up. And other folks were, too, they’d look for me to pass on. Because when I had that spinal meningitis, the doctors told my father, said, “If he gets over it, his mind won’t be right. Or he’ll be a cripple.” Or something. But I was young, and I outgrowed it. And I reckon my mind is all right.

Interviewer: It sure is all right. It’s in good shape.

: Yeah.

Interviewer: Now your doctor at that time was Dr. John Hill, was it, when you had that? Or was that Dr. Clark? When you had spinal−

: Yeah. I had, they had a doctor from town. Cook, Dr. Cook. Way back there. He’d come out.

Interviewer: It was so serious that you had, they wanted to call the best.

: Yeah. Whenever you had a serious case, you’d generally go and get the town doctor.

Interviewer: so let’s kind of look at degrees of problems in health, on balance. If it was just something minor like a cold or flu or something, the mother might be able to subscribe, to take something out of the cabinet.

: Yeah, that’s right.

Interviewer: And then if it was more serious, you’d go to the local country doctor.

: Get one of these old doctors.

Interviewer: Then if it was more serious, then you might try to get−

: Yeah.

Interviewer: Why was that? Was it expensive to get a town doctor?

: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of, they’d use these old doctors until it got real bad, and then they’d go and get the town doctor. Of course, it wasn’t much back then, ten dollars. A lot of them couldn’t afford it, you know. And maybe Dr. Clark wouldn’t charge over three dollars, six dollars, or something like that. And on his trip out, maybe there would be two or three pick him up, take him to their home. Before he’d get home, why he’d be at four or five homes on that one trip. They’d hear of him on the road. They’d go get him and take him to their house.

Interviewer: How’d they hear that he was coming?

: How’s that?

Interviewer: How did they hear he was coming? Or someone was sick?

: They’d go to his home. He went to this place, then they’d go, he went on to another place. They’d just keep after him till they found him, you know. And take him to their home.

Interviewer: How were the roads back then?

: Rough. Just mostly horseback. Too rough for a buggy. So just old jolt wagons and horseback.

Interviewer: That’s the reason it had been so bad for the town doctors to even get there.

: Yeah. Well they’d have to come horseback, you know, way on back there. They’d come horseback.

Interviewer: It would take a long time.

: Yeah. I had my arm broke one time, a doctor come. The next day. I fell out of the barn loft one evening. And the next day, they went and got the doctor. He come from town. It was Dr. Douglas. And set my arm. And it’s just like that now. Of course, I turned it on off thataway, (?)

Interviewer: Took so long for to get it set that it began−

: Yeah. That’s right.

Interviewer: You’ve had a lot of experience farming. In fact, you still do a lot of cattle and hay and everything.

: Yeah.

Interviewer: Think back about the veterinarian work. Who did that, mainly? If your stock had some real serious problems that you couldn’t handle, who would you call on?

: For the stock?

Interviewer: Mm hmm.

: Well, on back there, we’d just doctor them ourselves. But on up my brother, me and my brother, of course we get the veterinary. Sometimes to delivery calves that we can’t deliver ourselves. A lot of times, (?) or help, would deliver them ourselves.

Interviewer: Were there any people in the community that were sort of lay veterinarians, like the doctors? Didn’t have much education, but knew a lot.

: Yes. There’d be some they kind of depend on to doctor a horse or something like that. But most of the time, they all knowed about the same because they’d meet at the store and they’d talk over these things. And they’d use, they’d remember what John Jones said. And use the same remedy that John Jones said to do. So, like that.

Interviewer: I guess the store was kind of a central point, along with the church, wasn’t it?

: Oh, yeah. I’ve sold many a dollars’ worth of goods, and listening to a bunch even talk on the bible and stuff like that. I’d be busy, and there’d be a bunch around the old wood stove, talking what was going on in the community and all. And you could, as well as being busy, you could find out what was going on.

Interviewer: They talk about politics?

: Yeah, they’d talk about politics. And about, a lot of times, they’d be talking about the highways going to come, and houses were going to come with it, dodging mountains and things. The old folks didn’t think much about this new machinery and stuff. You know, they’d try to pick out a way that there would be a good road. Before it ever was built.

Interviewer: And the stores, I guess, was the closest thing to an undertaker. You did provide some of the things that made for the coffin.

: Yeah. And back then, there wasn’t no telephones or nothing. A lot of them get the habit of coming to the store to get the news, you know, all over the country.

Interviewer: Did you all take a paper?

: Yeah. We’d take the paper.

Interviewer: Would they read the paper there? Sometimes? Or talk about−

: I used to take the (?) on back there. See, we just got three mails a week back there. It was Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Three mails a week. And then after we got down the store, it come three mails a week, in 1949. Then the mail got to be daily mail. And it come from there. And it come from Stearns there for quite a while. I had two mails a day that would be from Stearns and from . They’d meet down there, a lot of times.

Interviewer: Did you begin to sell any patent medicines as they came in?

: Oh, yeah. We had all kinds of patent medicines. Sold a lot of them. (Wanacordia?), and (Black Gulp?) and all kinds of pills, and cold medicine, stuff like that.

Interviewer: So you increasingly became sort of a drugstore, in a way, didn’t you?

: Yeah. They depend on you to have a lot of stuff. Castor oil, Turpentine, (?) of all kind.

Interviewer: Can you think of some more of those medicines?

: Well, I don’t know. I don’t think of anything else.

Interviewer: You mentioned Sloan’s liniment.

: Huh?

Interviewer: Didn’t you say Sloan’s liniment.

: Yeah. So Sloan’s liniment, Japanese oil. There’s mutton tallow salve. A lot of them that I don’t think of. [laughs]

Interviewer: Did you ever sell anything like gauze, or anything like that?

: Any what?

Interviewer: Any gauze, the preparation material. You know, like gauze or bandages.

: No. Not so much. Later, of course, we had that. But not back there.

Interviewer: Did the people, when did they usually come into the store? In the evenings, or−

: Well, they happen all day along. About mail time, there would be more. Sometimes I’ve seen them, they’d come horseback with that (?) for the mail. I’ve seen horses hitched all the way down the road to the mail, to the store. To get their mail. And come from different communities around. They didn’t all have the mails, and they didn’t have the post office. You know, little stores.

Interviewer: When did the soft drinks come in? You didn’t have them way back, did you?

: Yes. My father sold them. Didn’t have no refrigeration. [laughs] We’d have a tub of cold water. And of course that wouldn’t keep it too cold. The ceiling, this strawberry pop, when they pulled it, it would be so much soda in it, it would blow up, sprinkle the ceiling. [laughs] Had the ceiling all bloody up there, looked like.

Interviewer: Well in that early, early period, did most of the people make their own alcohol, moonshine? Just make a little bit for themselves?

: No, no. That was just a few that make that moonshine. [laughs] Not many of them could make that, you know. There used to be a government still over on . And we’d grind meal for him, and take it, have it, an old jolt wagon for our mules, haul it over. Maybe 25 bushels. Grind that much on our old mill, take it over, and he’d make that government liquor out of it. And they put it in big barrels, and have a warehouse. And load it up in that warehouse. And I remember one time, a bunch, they got him a (bracing bit?) and bored up through the floor, and bored into them barrels, and emptied. They’d go turn the barrels over, they wouldn’t have nothing. They done emptied them out. [laughter] And that would make them about turn a somersault, and they’d head over after you. A full barrel would get empty, you know.

Interviewer: Well when did it become illegal to make your own alcohol?

: How’s that?

Interviewer: When did it become illegal to make your own alcohol? Do you remember?

: Has it ever been like that?

Interviewer: That it was legal?

: I don’t think it’s ever been.

Interviewer: The (?) were some great makers of alcohol. They used to make it, I know, in the homes, a lot of the people made it.

: They did?

Interviewer: Yeah.

: Well, I didn’t know about that. As far as I can remember, it was against the law to make moonshine.

Interviewer: It could have been back beyond in the nineteenth century, but they did used to make it in the homes. As you said, it did have, it was good if used right, you know. It had great medicinal value. And I wonder why sometimes how if it was so hard to get and people didn’t have the money, how they were able to get enough just to store their herbs and roots in.

: On back there, way on back there, that’s all the government doctored a soldier with, was whiskey.

Interviewer: And like you said, during the flu epidemic, the doctors were saying, “Just use some alcohol. Try to get people calmed down.” Must have been hard and frustrating for people, because if they couldn’t buy, they (?)

: Yeah.

Interviewer: What church, were you a member of the church?

: Oh, yes.

Interviewer: The .

: Yes.

Interviewer: Well how did they stand on−

: I was about fifteen years old when I joined the church.

Interviewer: How did they stand on alcohol? Pretty well that it was the demon?

: Yes. If a member got drunk or anything, he was took up in the church. And he had to come up and make an acknowledgement for being drunk.

Interviewer: If he didn’t straighten out, what did they do?

: If he kept it up and kept it up, didn’t come up and acknowledge it, turned him out.

Interviewer: I heard that. I’ve heard them say that was true.

: Oh, yeah. They turned him out.

Interviewer: How about on things like dancing? How did they stand on that?

: On what?

Interviewer: On dancing.

: Well, they never did have so much trouble thataways. If he’s drunk and carrying on thataway, they’d bring a charge against him, you know? He’d have to come and acknowledge it.

Interviewer: How much of the community, would you say, just roughly, were members of the church in the early period? How many people, percentage-wise?

: Most of them.

Interviewer: Is that right?

: Most of them. Right. Very few would be just outstanding and wouldn’t come in. They had the revivals, and them that was like that, they’d work with them. A lot of time women (?) and they’d come in. Well, of course there’d be a few of them that wouldn’t, but most of them was back then.

Interviewer: Were the ministers paid? Or were they lay farmers?

: Yes. Very small. They wouldn’t get, wouldn’t get very much. They’d pass the hat, and whatever they got, they were thankful to get it. Just whatever it was. And of course it wouldn’t be too much.

Interviewer: Like you said, have to keep some of that to keep the church up and everything.

: That, no expense, cause they all (met him?) and done the work, you know. Built, the house is built over there. I think there’s been three houses there. And the community would come in and build (?)

Interviewer: I see. Or repair it when it needed it.

: Yes. But in the last few years, we got a pretty nice church over there. It’s been, of course, that cost money to redo it and work it. It was built in 1913, 1913 when they built it. But it’s been worked over. It’s a pretty good house. Pretty good. And lately we built the Sunday school room to it. And all the classes goes in that Sunday school room. And the men folks, they have classes in the church house. That’s all that is in there, it’s just us men folks.

Interviewer: Do you all pay your minister now a little more? Or does he work as well as minister?

: Yeah, he works. He’s a carpenter. He helped do a lot of this. Joe Mar? He used to live over (?) He helped do a lot of this work on the building. Sunday school, of course, now it costs us to do things like that.

Interviewer: Going back, back from now, in your church, can you remember some of the men that were ministers there?

: Oh, yeah. Wiley Jones. And (Vant?) Roberts. And Reuben, Reuben Jones. (Pierce Skid?), C. C. Farmer. I forget his other name, but it’s C. C. Farmer. And there’s another one or two that I don’t remember right now.

Interviewer: Did these men, back in the early period, especially, did they come to the homes when people were sick? Along with the doctors?

: Yes. Once in a while, they’d come. Not so much like they do today, though. They go out, the minister does all the sick homes, more than they did back then. They’d go. But now a pastor will go to anything in his church bounds.

Interviewer: Goodness. You’ve been a member of the church for what, something like 65 years now.

: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I felt good about going then, and I still feel good about it. I ain’t afraid to go, because I’m ready.

Interviewer: That’s very important. Thank you so much for this interview. Very good.

[End Session.]