JOIE CARROLL: Tell me a little bit about yourself?
JOSIE CARR: Well, I've always lived in Whitley County, and I taught school for
about 40 years in the Whitley County System. I farm a little, I make a garden, I’m quilting a little. I have quilted five or six quilts this winter and I've got one on upstairs and I’ve got one downstairs I 'm a--making [working] on.JOIE CARROLL: When were your children born?
JOSIE CARR: Well, the first child was born in 1935.
JOIE CARROLL: How many children did you have?
JOSIE CARR: I had two and in [then] ten years later, [I] a had a boy and they
both teach.JOIE CARROLL: How old was [were] you when you had your first baby?
JOSIE CARR: I was twenty-two years [old].
JOIE CARROLL: What was it 1ike to have a baby back then?
' JOSIE CARR: Most of the time then, you had your babies at home, although I did
have a nurse and he was born about 4:00 in the morning and of course, I had both of them and I raised the baby then on the breast.JOIE CARROLL: How old was [were] they when you weaned the baby?
JOSIE CARR: Well, usually both of my children just weaned theirselves
[themselves at] about nine or ten months, they just quit, they wanted eat and they wanted to drink milk, so I fed them just what they wanted to eat.JOIE CARROLL: Did you feed them off the table?
JOSIE CARR: Yes, I ' d mashed [mash] the potatoes and anything soft, oatmeal and
stuff like that and they were really healthy babies, very seldom [they] ever had a cold all winter.JOIE CARROLL: Were there times when you didn't have enough food like during the
Depression?
JOSIE CARR: No, I was lucky about that, I always had plenty, of course, we both
worked. He worked in the mines and back, then if you got $25 or $30 a week you were really a--working and I was teaching school and I was making $48 a month. Back then, you could buy a sack of flour for 29, cents now you have to [pay] three, four-or- five dollars for it and we had a farm and raised cattle and we also had our own milk and butter. Raised our own hogs and sometimes we would have eighty to a hundred head of cattle and we raised a garden--raised for eighty to ninety bushel[s] of potatoes every year and we sold that, we just lived real[ly] well.JOIE CARROLL: Any particular illnesses you can remember?
JOSIE CARR: When Arlis (??) was a great big child, we found out he had a hole in
his heart and he was kindly [kind of] weakly [weak] after then, but we had him under [the] doctor’s care and he went on to school and made his master’s degree and he taught seven years before he died and he was twenty-six years old. My younger son made his degree when he was eighteen and started teaching in Shelby County and the principal said, “don’t you tell these children that you’re only eighteen,” he said, “they’re older than you are.”JOIE CARROLL: Did you have any favorite home remedies that you used?
JOSIE CARR: I always used Vics Save and things like that. I made them catnip tea
if they cried with colic, and we used calamen [calamine??] if they had a sore mouth.JOIE CARROLL: Today, kids have hundreds of different toys and things to play
with. What kind of playthings did your babies have?JOSIE CARR: Well, my husband made the toys, and I made the dolls, I made a great
big doll for Christmas every year for my children, even if they were boys, they loved the dolls and I would make other stuffed toys like cats, dogs, bears. They just had anything they wanted to play with, and I know I give [gave] my younger son a choice to go to the store and I stood on the outside, I said, “you go in there and find you[rself] anything you want [to] find. And you know what, he came out with a hatchet.JOIE CARROLL: Did you tell them any nursey rhymes?
JOSIE CARR: Oh, I taught them all of that, Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, and
all of those.
JOIE CARROLL: [What] About clothes?
JOSIE CARR: I made all [of] their clothes.
JOIE CARROLL: Did you have cribs, playpens, or anything like that?
JOSIE CARR: Yes, I had walker, but my husband make [made] them, he would make
the round walker and we also made the swings, we made swings out of tires, best days in the world.JOIE CARROLL: Did-they have any problems taking naps during the day?
JOSIE CARR: No, if they got tired, they would lay in [on] the floor and go to
sleep and I would throw a little cover over him if he was cold.JOIE CARROLL: Who helped you with the baby?
JOSIE CARR: My husband and my sister-in-law.
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