Oral History Interview with Cabal Merritt, Jr.

A. Taylor: Could you please tell us your full name?

C. Merritt: Cabal Green Merritt, Jr.

A. Taylor: And when and where were you born in Garrard County?

C. Merritt: I wasn’t born in Garrard County.

A. Taylor: Could you tell us where you were born?

C. Merritt: Columbus, Ohio.

A. Taylor: And could you tell us your birthdate?

C. Merritt: February 20, 1945 1:00A. Taylor: Would you talk to us about your family life, your parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters?

C. Merritt: I don’t have any brothers and sisters; I’m an--the only child. My grandparents, my father’s parents were from Madison County. My grandfather I believe was born in Round Hill. My grandmother, I’m not sure where she was born, probably somewhere in Madison County, but I’m not for sure.

A. Taylor: Could we have their names?

C. Merritt: Anna Pearl Merritt was my grandmother. My grandfather was Pleasant Green Merritt. 2:00A. Taylor: Could you tell us your parents’ names also?

C. Merritt: Do you want my mother’s grandparents?

A. Taylor: Yes sir.

C. Merritt: I’m not familiar with. . .My grandfather was Wilkes Logan was his name. My great grandmother, I’m not sure what her name was. My grandmother was, uh, on my mother’s side, was Rebecca Logan Francis. She was born in Roland, Kentucky, Lincoln County. 3:00My grandfather was George Francis; he was born in Garrard County here. My father, do you want his full name? . Cabal Green Merritt, Sr. He was born in Round Hill in Madison County, in other words in Kirksville. My mother was born on Totten Avenue in Lancaster, Kentucky. 4:00Her full name? . . . was Tommie Mae Francis Merritt. Do you want the dates of births?. . . I can tell you my grandparents’ year. . . .Rebecca’s birthday was Dec. 22, 1885, and George’s birthdate, her husband George was 1886. My father’s father Pleasant Green Merritt birthdate 5:00was 1881 and his wife’s Anna Pearl’s birthdate was 1885. I remember when they all died . . . My grandfather Green Merritt died in 1969, December 22, 1969. And his wife Anna Pearl died in 1985, yeah 1965. My mother’s father George Francis died December 31, 1951, 6:00and Rebecca died in March 27, 1968.

A. Taylor: Now Stacey will ask you some questions about your childhood. . .

S. Roberts: Mr. Merritt, tell us about your childhood and what it was like growing up in Garrard County?

C. Merritt: Well, uh, I grew up here, I came back here. My father he worked for Curtis-Wright, as an airplane inspector because I don’t think he passed for the service because his fingers were web-fingers like mine. And I imagine that’s why he satisfied his obligation to the United States government. So that’s why I was born in Columbus, Ohio. And I think my mother would have had problems with me 7:00being born here because blacks couldn’t , go to a hospital here, there wasn’t a hospital, and Dr. Johnson wasn’t able to deliver because she would have had problems, one of us would have probably died. I think I was born by caesarean and that’s another reason I was born in Columbus.

C. Merritt: Growing up, I can remember when I was two, I had my fingers split at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. My father had insurance at that time which most blacks didn’t have hospitalization then; he had Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Most blacks didn’t have hospitalization back then. So, they rode the train, my mother and her sister, they took me up to Baltimore to John Hopkins. I don’t remember a thing about it. I wish I did, 8:00but I would like to do it again. I remember my mother said riding on the train made her sick to eat, but it didn’t bother me (he laughs). And uh, I can remember a little girl named Sharon. I’ll never forget her. She had cancer and her eyes were out. I don’t remember anything else, but I never can remember her, I was two years old, but I can remember her. So I imagine she’s been dead for years. . . .I can remember four years old, I can remember a great uncle dying. He was kind of a mental. . .I can remember one Sunday came walking in the house and he was on South Campbell Street. He walked over me, and I remember looking up at him, he was a giant, 9:00his mind was bad they said, and I can remember going to his funeral. And he had a daughter, a water-head baby; I never seen one before. . . . .I remember she died, and I decorate their graves on Memorial Day.

C. Merritt: At five, uh, we went to Atlanta; my mother went to school down there. My father, he didn’t do anything that summer, he was a schoolteacher, too, but he watched me all summer. They told me I would go out at night on the street and take a flashlight and shine it at people in their face. And I got sick down there. They said I didn’t eat too much at age five, but when I got sick, I started eating and I been eating ever since.

C. Merritt: And from there, I 10:00went on to first grade. It was pretty enjoyable. In the first grade Mrs. Susie Letcher Covington was the teacher. She was a real good teacher. She taught us phonics, how to say good morning; had a song “Good morning to you”, good morning to you. . .I learned how to sing that. And of course, she had a strap, and she would use it in the coat room. In those days we had a coat and people would bring their lunch and put it in there and you would put your coats in there and that’s where you got your whippings. And she had a rest period every day in the first and second grade, you brought your rug, and you laid down after lunch and took a nap, a short nap. I remember that.

C. Merritt: And in the third, fourth, and fifth grade I had Mrs. Sarah Evans’ class. She was a one-arm lady. 11:00She got her arm cut off in a car wreck. She always wore capes, and they covered her arm up. She was a good teacher, but she was probably stricter than my mother was. And I got several whippings in her room. And there was the third, fourth, and fifth grades in that room.

C. Merritt: I can remember several people, Mr. Monty Dawson, he’s an ex-football player and I think he’s on the board of UK. His father, I was in school with him. I think his father was about in the fourth grade. His three brothers came from Lexington, and they stayed in Buena Vista, no maybe it was called White Oak. Back then I guess a lot of people 12:00had so many children they couldn’t take care of them, and they would let someone else keep them for a while, I guess until they could get money to take care of ‘em. They stayed for one year and that was in the third and fourth grade particularly.

C. Merritt: In the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. There were several teachers in that room at that time—Mrs. Belle Gaddie Williams, . . .Mrs. Doneghy from Danville, she taught a little while, and Mrs. Bevel. . . .But there were probably more teachers at that particular time in that room than any other time. That’s when you stopped getting your whippings at the eighth grade.

C. Merritt: In the ninth grade, I had Miss Hamilton, 13:00Joyce Hamilton, she taught me. She was the English teacher that year, Joyce Hamilton, from Lexington. She taught because the schools in Lexington wouldn’t hire you if you didn’t have experience, so the teachers would have to go out to get experience and find a job like someplace over here to get at least a year’s experience before they would hire ‘em. . . . Some Cottons from Bardstown, two sisters, they taught here. . . . maybe in the 50s, ’56 or ’57. . .they taught here, Lavern Cotton and Ann Cotton. 14:00And Ann married a soldier before she left. They stayed about, at least a year a piece and they moved on. And Fredonia Shaw, she taught, she was before I got in high school, but I mean she was a teacher here. Then we had Clay Palmer, and he was a coach; he taught here from 1954 till 1959. That’s when we started basketball. We didn’t have basketball here until 1953 or ’54. It was a football school in the ‘30s, they played football until World War II. And they didn’t play anything probably for about seven or eight years. 15:00And then Mr. Wainwright came in 1960. He finished at Kentucky State College, and he was the football person. He finished at Central High School in Louisville and Kentucky State, but he coached us in basketball. He was a big man, about 300 pounds. He coached us, I believe from about 1960 to, I graduated in 1963. . . .I can’t think of the man who was here from Campbellsville, he only stayed just one year. The last year of the school was 1964-’65 16:00for Mason High School. . . .This is all Mason.

C. Merritt: And after that, other things we did when we were in high school, we had parties. We’d go to Mrs. Willa Ball, Janice’s auntie in Danville (J. Blythe’s aunt) and she really had some really nice parties back years ago. She lived out on Lebanon Road back then. And Mrs. Norma Boatright had parties at her house, and I think Mrs. Doty out at Gillespie Pike she had parties. We had lots to do, as teenagers, we would go to parties and things to do. We had sock-hops at school. In the library 17:00at school, we would dance in the library; that’s the only place we had. We didn’t have a gymnasium at Mason. We didn’t have a black-top court or anything. We just had. . ., when it rained, we just played on the driveway. We didn’t have a gymnasium.

C. Merritt: When I started school, we didn’t have a cafeteria. We had to carry our lunch to our rooms. Then we got an Army cafeteria. . .it was outside adjoining the building where you could eat inside, you know, for lunch We always had good meals; we had good cooks. Milk cost you three cents a half-pint; lunch cost twenty cents a day, a dollar a week, that’s what it costs a week.

J. Blythe: Great budget. 18:00I think it was twenty-five cents by the time I got to Mason.

C. Merritt: (he laughs). Twenty-five then?. . .

S. Roberts: You said that you attended Mason, was that the segregated school?

C. Merritt: Yes, it was segregated. I forgot to tell you about some things. When I was six, five or six years old my mother would take me to the show. I loved to go to the show (movies) on Saturdays and watch the westerns. I would watch them twice if my mother would let me. She would usually let me stay. We would have cartoons, comedies like the Three Stoogies, and a good western on. That was in segregation. They had a bathroom, but they wouldn’t let the blacks use it. So, I had to go outside. I always had to go outside because I had a weak bladder. I couldn’t hold my water, so we had to go outside to use the bathroom. I can remember that. 19:00We had to go to the Milk Bar where Lancaster Tabernacle Baptist Church is now. We could go there, the Milk Bar, a restaurant, and they sold milk, too. But you could go there and stand up and get you a hamburger, French fries, and a milkshake. You could get all that for about a dollar. So, you could go to the show for about a quarter then, when it first started, it was about fifteen cents to get in.

J. Blythe: Was the Milk Bar directly across the street from the theatre?

C. Merritt: No, it was where the church is. It’s Tabernacle Baptist Church there now. That’s where the Milk Bar is, uh, was. The U.S. 27 Restaurant was right next 20:00to the show. It was a pretty nice restaurant then. Let’s see. . .

C. Merritt: The greatest thrill I think I had in high school was when we beat the Christmas Tournament in 1962. We didn’t have a gymnasium , and we practiced at night, when the whites, they practiced in the afternoon, and we practiced at night. Well, Mr. Billie Peters, he lived almost to where Rocky Top is (now—on U.S. 27 in the Bryantsville, White Oak area approaching the Kentucky River in the northern part of the county). His son lives there now, Thomas Peters, and he would bring him (Thomas) to practice. And he would bring him/them, Sterling Smith, he lived almost down to Herrington Lake, he would bring him, them, him to practice. And we had to practice at night. 21:00And we beat all the county schools and that was the greatest thrill in basketball because we beat everybody without a gym. We got jackets. I still have my jacket. We got it in 1963 when I graduated. I still can wear it, it’s a little tight, but I can wear it (he chuckles).

J. Blythe: You were on that team. I remember.

S. Roberts: Do you remember Mr. Charles Jones on the team?

C. Merritt: Yes, yeah, he was the best player. He could jump probably for his height person of his height. At 5’10”, he could jump probably with a person at 6’2” with no problem.

S. Roberts: What position did you play?

C. Merritt: Forward.

S. Roberts: You mentioned earlier 22:00that your father went to Columbus Ohio to work. Did any of your other family members leave Garrard County?

C. Merritt: Yes, my auntie, my mother’s sister. She went to Detroit; she lived in Detroit where she died there. Uh, she was two years older than my mother. She had an older brother who went up to Detroit and later moved back to Cincinnati.

S. Roberts: So, they went there to find work?

C. Merritt: Well, she didn’t (his mother’s sister). I don’t think she worked much, but he (his mother’s brother) did. He was a welder and a pretty good mechanic. He welded in Virginia in World War II on the ships. That’s what he did, I guess, to fulfill his obligation. . .everybody had to do something if you didn’t pass for the Army. You had to do something, 23:00and that’s what he did.

S. Roberts: After graduating high school, did you or other family members have higher education?

C. Merritt: I went one year to Morristown College in Morristown, Tennessee. I went one year. Of course, my mother went all she could go. She went to Columbus, Ohio State University, Miami of Ohio, and University of Kentucky. She got her masters in Ohio State in 1949. My father he finished Knoxville College, where she (his mother) finished Knoxville College. They finished the same year in 1933. He (his father) was a little bit behind 24:00because he had to work, and he didn’t have any help at all. His father was a sharecropper and he wanted to be a. ., he was a small man, and he didn’t want to be a sharecropper or a laborer. So, he had enough mind to, he made it through college, and he got his master’s degree. He was a principal for, I say, I don’t remember how long he was principal, but he taught in Richmond from 1937 to 1977, when he retired. When they integrated the school system, he went to Madison High, and he was Assistant Principal there (in Richmond, KY). All together he taught 40 years in Madison County Schools, I mean the Richmond City Schools, they were then, they weren’t consolidated like they are now. 25:00And my mother she taught 44 years. He taught in Tennessee, Clinton, Tennessee when he got out of Knoxville. He couldn’t get a job here when he got out, so he taught in Clinton Tennessee, that’s this side of Knoxville.

S. Roberts: So, what was it like have both your parents being principals at different schools?

C. Merritt: I didn’t pay much attention to it when I was growing up. I was proud of them, but I didn’t really like it too much. I didn’t have too many problems behaving too much. You were an example to other people too much. But it’s a big challenge having two parents in positions like that. It is harder on the child than it was them because you have to, you were expected to uh, 26:00always expected to do better and that’s something that I never did like.

S. Roberts: Well, I’ve talked about education, now I’ll turn it over to Allyse and she will talk a little bit about church.

C. Merritt: Ok.

A. Taylor: So, could just tell us about your family’s involvement in church and the place of religion in your childhood?

C. Merritt: It was very important. When I was growing up my grandmother was a strong Christian. And her husband he was, well he died when I was six, and I don’t remember much, but he was a deacon here. And my grandmother was, she was always faithful; my mother was, too. Sunday, you know, it was just like you was going to school. 27:00You got up and there was never any question whether you were going or not. You got up and put your Sunday clothes on and I do that until this day. That’s a habit I’ve always kept.

C. Merritt: And my grandmother was in a club with Janice’s grandmother (J. Blythe’s grandmother) the Deacon Wives Council; they had a club called the Deacon’s Wives Council. At that time, it was pretty unique. They did a lot of things to help the church. For example, they might want to buy a cloth for that table or buy the table and help the church out like that. They would have dinners, meet once a month, socialize, talk, and take up dues. That was like that. At Christmas, you would have a nice dinner. They would meet, play bingo, exchange gifts. 28:00I liked that and I really did like that.

C. Merritt: And they had a Men’s Progressive Club. Janice’s grandfather (J. Blythe’s grandfather) belonged, he was a great member in it, and we had that, and it was a great thing. It started at about 1917 and lasted until about 1995. There was a lot of people that joined the church that year. And uh, I think Rev. Redd probably was the Pastor. . .but anyway, they wanted to give them something to do, and they had this club started and it lasted from 1917 to 1995.

A. Taylor: What did the Men’s Progressive Club do?

C. Merritt: It was like the women, they would meet, eat, take up dues. I liked that (he smiles). They bought things around here (inside the church) different things. 29:00A. Taylor: And your family were members of this church (First Baptist Church)?

C. Merritt: No, my father was a Methodist. He was a member of St. Paul Methodist in Richmond (KY) on Francis Street. . . .He went to church here (in Lancaster) a lot because my mother and father they lived with their parents. And he would come down here on weekends and go back and he’d live with his parents, and she stayed with her parents. He taught up there and she taught down here, and they lived with their parents. And that’s the way they lived until he retired in 1977. He finally gave up his house in Richmond and sold it and came on down here and stayed ‘til he died.

A. Taylor: How would you describe a typical Sunday service at First Baptist?

C. Merritt: Years, it was a lot of people. We had two choirs; we had a senior choir 30:00over here (he is pointing to the locations in the sanctuary) and a junior choir over there. Uh, the senior choir had gray robes and the junior choir had maroon robes. . . .Both choir stands were full and that’s something we haven’t seen in probably forty years. People died out and the church hasn’t replenished the people. The people that are converted now aren’t the type of people who will lift the church up, they are kind of outcasts , they don’t have more or less anything to offer. They don’t gel with the group. So you know the ones that’s here we just carry on as long as we can. I don’t see much future in this church. I don’t see much (growth) unless you have something 31:00economic and a lot of people come in, but I don’t see that.

A. Taylor: Do you recall your baptism?

C. Merritt: Yes, I have a picture of my baptism (he shows it to us). I was baptized in 1954 by Rev. C.G. O’Banner. I was converted under Rev. C.B. Thompson from Nicholasville in a revival. I was nine then.

A. Taylor: Can you recall the names of the people that pastored this church?

C. Merritt: I can go back to . . .let’s see. . .probably around about 1938, Rev. G.R. Redd. 32:00He pastored . . .from about 1938 - 1945, no, it must have been earlier than that, it must have been in the 1920s . he was the second longest pastor of this church. It must have been in the 1920s he pastored here.

After him was Rev. Childs, I can’t think of his first name; he pastored from 1945 to 1953. (CHILDS). Then, 33:00there was Rev. C.G. O’Banner. He pastored from 1954 to 1961. Then from ’61 to ’67, Rev. S. G. Redd, he was the son of Rev. G.R. Redd. Then, from 1968 to 2000 Rev. Evans pastored; he pastored; I believe 32 years. He had the longest from the start of the church. The church started in 1858, no 1851. It was started by slaves 34:00out of the Lancaster Baptist Church. They thought it was 1858, but the pastor did some research on it, and it goes back to 1851. It goes back several years before; they couldn’t read and write much I imagine, and they lost that time. So, they went back to the Lancaster Baptist Church records and found 1853 or 1851. . .they dug it up and found it. It started on North Campbell Street. Everybody used it. I think they called it the Republican Church. They used it, the slaves used it, and I think they had church in the afternoon they had church. Maybe another church used it, too. 35:00We had a history, a lot of records, Mrs. Sophie Owens had a lot of the records, I believe, but when she left her and went to the nursing home, and they threw it away. . .. She lived to be 103 and she was the secretary for years, and I know there was a lot of history, but her children weren’t interested in anything, . . .so a lot of the history is, you know, gone.

A. Taylor: Could you tell us about church events that you remember, like Easter, Christmas?

C. Merritt: For Christmas, we always used to have Christmas trees, but we don’t have ‘em now, we don’t have Christmas trees anymore. We would bring gifts at Christmas. We always had fruit baskets, the Sunday School would always 36:00have or give away fruit, sacks of fruit and nuts. They would give those out. You take your birthday money; we would give a penny for each year. We do that still, but it won’t buy the fruit. . . .but that’s how they did then. We’d always have the fruit. Then we’d always have Easter egg hunts ; we don’t have them anymore. And uh, we had a good choir when Rev. O’Banner was here. There was a big bunch my age that accepted the Lord round at the time and we always , Mr. and Mrs. Crother Anderson were good mentors. And he had a good voice; he went to Lincoln Ridge where he went to school 37:00because they didn’t have a high school for blacks then. So, he went down there to finish. And he had a good baritone voice, and he knew music and how it should be done. And he taught us a lot about singing. And today we can sing without music.

A. Taylor: And you sang in the choir?

C. Merritt: Yes, I sing in the choir. I’ve always sung in the choir. I say I’ve sung, let me see, about every since I was.. about 56 years I been singing.

J. Blythe: Mr. Merritt you mentioned that Mr. Crother Anderson went to Lincoln Ridge, where was that located?

C. Merritt: Almost to Louisville.

J. Blythe: So that would be Lincoln Institute?

C. Merritt: I’d say so, I believe they called 38:00it Lincoln Institute. I’ve heard it called both. That’s where it was.

J. Blythe: Thank you.

A. Taylor: Any other events that brought the families together in the church?

C. Merritt: We had Family Day in later years. That was a kind of a big event. You had Senior Day; we still have that. That was started by James Davis; he’s deceased. Uh, his sister, I think, it was before Thanksgiving, she died, and he kept that going probably for ten or fifteen years. And we still have it.

A. Taylor: And what takes place at these events?

C. Merritt: You have a sermon, an afternoon sermon, a church comes in, the preacher preaches, 39:00and you take up your offering. And that’s how some of the groups (church) made money (to support the church). And the preacher, of course, got his part. That’s the way Baptist churches, black Baptist churches do. We used to have evening service. We did when I was young but that stopped because of low attendance. We used to have B.T. U, Baptist Training Union and that was nice, back in the 50s. . . .It teaches you, it’s kind of like Bible Study, but it was not as efficient as the Bible Study we have now. We now have more direct Bible Study now. We’ve learned probably more from the Bible in the last 40:00nine or ten years. There wasn’t a lot of teaching years ago; people didn’t even bring a Bible to church. We just came, we didn’t have Bibles, probably a lot of people weren’t that good readers. You had Bibles but you didn’t use them (he laughs). But now everybody has Bibles.

A. Taylor: Could you give us the names of some of the families who went here and still come?

C. Merritt: There’s nobody left that’s in my family. My mother just died three weeks ago. She has a niece and nephew; they haven’t been back here for years. 41:00The ones that left never did come back here. Their father, George Francis, Jr, he was a faithful member; he was in the family. But other than that, nobody that really came.

A. Taylor: You said your uncle was a deacon and you’re a deacon, what are some of the responsibilities as deacon?

C. Merritt: A deacon visits the sick if you know, visit them at the nursing home; pray for people usually when you go. Some people you might give ‘em a piece of money, two or three dollars, depending on the shape or economic shape they’re in. 42:00The sick and the shut-in, at Christmas time, I visit them and take fruit to them. It’s two or three people I carry fruit to, gifts, I give one a gift and one fruit. And on Sundays, you have to open with devotions. You sing a song and pray, count the money. Of course, I’m the treasurer, I write all the checks and pay all the bills. Sometime, uh, I help mow grass, just about anything, you know those things like that I do. 43:00A. Taylor: How long have you been a deacon?

C. Merritt: Forty years, been ordained forty years.

A. Taylor: We’ve talked about church activities; do you recall any community activities that brought people together in the county?

C. Merritt: Yeah, before we integrated, this was the auditorium (the sanctuary of the church). We had a curtain. The hooks were there (he points) and they were up there until we remodeled two years ago. We had our plays here. You had senior play, you had eighth grade/class night plays. We had recitals. That was really nice. On Sunday afternoons, we had recitals, once a year we had a Glee Club and good. 44:00That was nice! And that’s about all we had wasn’t it Janice (J. Blythe) here?

J. Blythe: From the school, yes. Were there other activities in the community?

C. Merritt: You had your festivals, your fall festivals, fall festivals at school. You had carnivals; you would have different games. I remember one game, apples, you would apples and I can’t think of all the things. We had a lot of things to do; we had a lot of fun. We had hayrides. Her grandfather (J. Blythe’s grandfather) used to take us on his tractor; we’d go to Wells Landing . . .in Boyle County, a long way. We had wiener roasts down there on a farm. . . .We had May Day. In May, the first , we played 45:00Stanford Lincoln and they always beat us in basketball. We never could beat them in softball. At times we would have games, a few times we would play, and we would win. In school, we had fall festival, Halloween, and May Day.

J. Blythe: Were there community activities for Labor Day, the Fourth of July, Memorial Day?

C. Merritt: I can’t remember, but I’ve heard of things at Memorial Day, but not during my time. Fourth of July, I’ve heard of things, but not in my time. No, nothing.

A. Taylor: I know you mentioned earlier about your father being in the service, were other members in the military?

C. Merritt: No, he wasn’t in the service because of his fingers. 46:00But his first cousin was in World War II. He was more or less a, as most blacks, a valet or something. He never did any fighting. But my great uncle, he went to World War I with Janice’s grandfather (J. Blythe’s grandfather); they went to France. He was a team sergeant; they handled the horses. He was pretty good with horses. They used a lot of horses then. He was in WWI .But we weren’t a family of veterans. I wasn’t, I’m not a veteran either.

A. Taylor: Could you tell us about the kind of work your family members did? I know 47:00you’ve talked about some. Was there any other type of work they were doing?

C. Merritt: My grandfathers, both grandfathers were share-croppers. My daddy’s father, that’s all he ever did. And my mother’s father he was a sharecropper until, .probably in the ‘30s. He and his brother, they drove a team and hauled tobacco, rocks , and things for the school. They hauled for the foundation of the grade school before this one (the Lancaster Colored School); they hauled the bricks for it around 1910. My mother said they had two horses, Roy, and Henry. She used to love her father’s horses. 48:00He and his brother both, that’s what they did. But, uh, he learned plumbing when he died, he was a plumber, a good plumber. He did tin work, uh, back then, when they did gutters, they used lead bars to put the gutter together. You would use an anvil-like tool to put the lid on it and you’d put heat and that would put your gutters together. So, I don’t know if he had cancer or what, but he died when he was 65. He was run over by a car in a ditch 49:00in a car one time, too. That might have hurt his lungs, too. Before he died, he smoked Camels, and he smoked a pipe, too. Cause we all smoked, except my mother, she never smoked. My grandmother she never smoked. My grandfather chewed tobacco all his life; he never smoked. He had his pipe and wanted to smoke, and he was in bed. I lit the pipe and it just about burned both of us up (he chuckled). I was about six years old then ,I think I was.

A. Taylor: Did your family own property?

C. Merritt: Yes, we did.

A. Taylor: Do you own property?

C. Merritt: I had to sell all I had, my mother was in the nursing home. My father and his brother and his father bought a farm in Union City, that’s up in Madison County. 50:00Uh, they had 22 acres. . .they had that. So, I had to sell it when she went into the nursing home, my half to put it on the nursing home bill. So, my cousin, my first cousin, Anna Mack, she lives in Lexington, she owns it now. And uh, my father had two little houses, he had a shot-gun house and a big house, close to the stockyard, he, and his brother, they bought them in 1944. But when it burned, he didn’t want to fool with it, so he sold it, and he bought another house in 1956. They rented it, but I had to sell it in 2004. And my mother had her father’s 51:00house, he built it in 1939, and she bought her brother and sister out. And they moved, they built the house on Campbell Street, and they built the house for $3000 then. And my father’s house cost $5600, the one he rented. And the stockyard burned the weatherboard off the side of the one we lived in in1955. And that’s all the property that they have owned.

J. Blythe: Mr. Merritt, what are the names of some of the families belonging to First Baptist Church over the years? I remember several names, but could you share some of the names? 52:00C. Merritt: Bufords. The one’s who is a state senator, some of his descendants. . . .Donna Taylor:, she lives right in front of Walmart in Lincoln County. It’s a little subdivision. . ..she’s the only one here… ..Tom Buford. We are descendants of Captain Benjamin Logan of Lincoln County. 53:00. .We came from around here. My grandfather came from Preachersville, but I don’t know who our descendants were.

J. Blythe: Who were some of the people who sang in the choir, particularly the senior choir?

C. Merritt: Mr. Herbert Burdette, Mrs. Mag Burdette, Mrs. McPherson, Mrs. Childs, Mrs. Bessie Gwynn, Mr. Sam Middleton, Mrs. Francis Overstreet, let’s see. . .that’s all I can think of right now. There’s a picture back there somewhere around here. . .( pointing to the rear of the church). 54:00J. Blythe: You’ve talked and given us good information about the school and so forth, could you talk a little bit more about the Lancaster Colored School? Do you remember anything about it?

C. Merritt: The Lancaster Colored School. Well, it was gone before I came along. But I remember it was an apartment house until 1966 when they tore it down and sold it and they built those three houses. The PTA bought the land back then. And my mother gave that history, have you heard that?

J. Blythe: Yes, we’ve listened to the tapes.

C. Merritt: Well, they bought that and the P.T.A. bought that land back then.

J. Blythe: How long were your parents married?

C. Merritt: Forty-nine years and nine months. 55:00They got married in December 26, 1935. They had to leave Kentucky and go to North Carolina to get married. They couldn’t marry then in Kentucky then. Teachers couldn’t marry.

J. Blythe: Why not?

C. Merritt: Teachers couldn’t marry; women weren’t supposed to marry. Teachers, that’s why you had a lot of misses. They weren’t supposed to marry.

J. Blythe: Like Miss Lillie. . . so when did that law change?

C. Merritt: Probably after about 1935, that’s why my mother had to leave.

J. Blythe: Was it for black women only?

C. Merritt: It was for all women, I think. There were a lot of white women who were misses, they weren’t allowed to marry because they weren’t allowed to marry. 56:00J. Blythe: Interesting.

C. Merritt: See, my grandmother taught for a while, but she went to Berea, but she got put out in 1903. ..

J. Blythe: The Day Law… C. Merritt: She went to Kentucky State. But I don’t know if she ever finished. I had some papers on it , but if I run across them, I’ll share them with you. But I have had to move so much. . . but she had to leave Berea.

J. Blythe: She was at Berea until the Day Law prohibited her. . .and she left. What were some of the important values and beliefs that your family promoted when you were growing up that’s still important to you now?

C. Merritt: Well, they always had a strong belief in God and church. And they really believed in education, a lot, which I didn’t. I didn’t like it too much. My grandmother, she was uh, out of ten children, she was the only one that went on. 57:00I got a picture of her, and she’s the only one that went on. She had a sister who was pretty prominent, but she didn’t go any further than the eighth grade. But she was the only one that was education minded. Now her husband, he didn’t go ‘til about the third grade; he didn’t have much education. And his brother he didn’t go at all. .He never knew how to write his name, Uncle Ed. A lot of World War I veterans, they couldn’t read or write. Of course they didn’t have to go to school, they mostly worked all the time, and they didn’t go (to school).

J. Blythe: Any other important beliefs or values that you still adhere to based on your family raising?

C. Merritt: Be honest and 58:00forthright. That’s one of the main things I think that I can say that will always be with me. Be honest, truthful, and fair. That’s the way I’ve tried to live.

J. Blythe: Tell us about some of the work that you’ve done. I know you’ve been a deacon and . . .involved in the community, but you have been retired for a few years, what have you done with your life in terms of work?

C. Merritt: Five years (retired). From retirement, I work in the cemetery (the Duncantown Cemetery) and keep it from trying to grow up to be a wilderness. And we level stones about once a year, when we have the money to do it, to keep them 59:00from falling over, filling graves. When I worked, I took, uh, I would give more to the, I paid somebody to pay them, when I was working about the last four or five years. I worked over there when I was about nine years old. My uncle would take me with him and just kind of enjoyed doing it and it became a hobby for me (working at the cemetery). Regarding work, I worked at Trane for 39 years. . .

J. Blythe: So, you commuted to Lexington every day?

C. Merritt: Every day, I went 26 years and only stopped one day, in 1998. Other than that, 60:00during the blizzard in ’78, ’77, I never stopped. I kept rolling.

J. Blythe: What were your responsibilities at Trane?

C. Merritt: I was over copper. I had the responsibility for copper pipes and tubes with the coils, when they reached the line, to be tubed. That was my main responsibility. I worked in the coil department just about the whole time. If you know anything about air conditioners, we made air conditioners for large buildings and helicopters in Lexington. Of course, now they make air conditioners for homes other places. But since I’ve been gone, I don’t know. . .That’s been my whole life. 61:00I worked for a short time, about a year and a half, at a grocery store in Lexington. I didn’t like it too much; it didn’t pay much. And of course, the money would never going to be what I made at Trane’s, no benefits. I did pretty good there.

J. Blythe: Do you recall some of the black businesspeople and people who had small businesses in your lifetime? Could you talk a little bit about those that you can remember?

C. Merritt: Um hum. Mr. Albert Hood, he was a shoe, he worked on shoes right up here behind the funeral home (William H. Johnson), where the government building is now, there was an alley there, he worked there. He had a shoe shop there. He fixed shoes. Mr. William Johnson, he was the undertaker there. His daughter, Miss B. (Beatrice Bogle), she took it over until state 62:00closed her up in 1978 because she didn’t have embalming, she couldn’t pass the embalming test, she had to close up. Let’s see. . .Mr. Herbert Burdette had a store down here, right down the street here. He had about the coldest pop in town. You put your ice in there and get your pop for a nickel; it would go right to your head then; you had real pop then.

Researchers: Brain-freeze (they laugh).

C. Merritt: He had good bologna. He didn’t sell a lot of things. People would pass him and go to the A & P. Then my grandfather and uncle, they were plumbers together, until he died. And my uncle, he plumbered up until he died. Let’s see. . . .Mr. Herbert Adams was plumber, he worked for Elliott Hardware 63:00and then he went out on his own. He taught Chester Powell, no Chester Kavanaugh the trade and now he’s a plumber in Danville now. Uh, Charles Owens had a slaughterhouse. He killed hogs for people from November to January. He made enough there, that’s all he ever did. And let’s see. . .Mr. Rice Jones he was a bricklayer, but he always worked out of town mostly, at UK and those places when those jobs started up. George Weathers was a concrete finisher; Raymond Scott , uh, let’s see. . .. my auntie, she was a teacher. She taught at Paint Lick, 64:00Davistown, Mason, and Lancaster High School; she taught at all of ‘em.

J. Blythe: That would be Mrs. Marie Francis?

C. Merritt: Yes, and she around all over the county.

J. Blythe: Did she teach at Oakdale in Flatwoods?

C. Merritt: She might have taught there a little while. Mrs. Mag Burdette taught out for years. Mr. Van Perkins was a good carpenter.. . . I don’t what his name was, he was a Hood. He was a good carpenter. End of part 1 Part 2 of the interview: S. Roberts: Based 65:00on your life experiences, what advice would you offer to future and younger generations?

C. Merritt: I would uh, advice ‘em to at an early age, they should accept Jesus Christ as their Savior first, and their life would be less stressful. And I would advise them to study the Bible because that’s the what’s gonna get you out of this world and into the next world. And teach ‘em to be more respectful, be more honest, don’t do everything for money. Uh, learn how to give, give back 66:00to the community you live in; try to be a strong family member, a role model. Be a good husband, if you’re married, be a good husband, a good wife; be truthful, and faithful. Be faithful to your job, you know, don’t just be working just for a paycheck. It doesn’t make any difference what you’re doing, do it right well. My mother always taught me that, “whatever you do, do it well.” And whatever you do, that’s what you should do. Don’t cheat. That’s what some of the things I would tell ‘em, the younger generation.

S. Roberts: Those are very good concepts. 67:00Is there anything else you would like to add about your life in Garrard County?

C. Merritt: I think it’s probably the, as far as living here, it seems to get better because as time goes on, all the places around you are no better or no worse than Garrard County. Garrard County has never been a prosperous county in my opinion, and it’s a county where you’ve always had to leave the county to go to work. It doesn’t matter if you’re white of black. I wish somebody would explain why the economy has always been that –a-way. All around you, the counties are more prosperous. There’s a lot of money here, but it’s tied up in a few people hands. You know, your 68:00job market, you’ve always had to leave here to work. Now very few people can make a living here. And that’s one of the things I’ve really never understood, and I’ve never really liked it. But otherwise, I do like the weather because it seems like around you, your weathers always worse. Y’all had the worse weather, well, the ice storm, well, it did hit the county, but it didn’t hit here as hard as it did you all (in Madison County—the research team). And you’ve had, Madison County has the worse weather. And all the counties around you have the worse weather. You have more tornados, more wind damages. I don’t know what causes that either. But maybe we’re more centrally located in the United States. But you notice that’s one good thing about it. It could change, but so far is hasn’t 69:00yet. It . . .It’s a lot of potentials for this county, this town. But I think the land and the way it’s laid out it kind of handicaps the growth. You don’t have a room to expand, uh, like you would need to. It could happen, but, you know, I can’t see it happening in my lifetime.

J. Blythe: Mr. Merritt, I know you’re married. How long have you been married and tell us your wife’s name please.

C. Merritt: I been married to this wife, uh, eleven years. My first wife I was married for 32 years. . .

J. Blythe: . .before she passed away.

C. Merritt: Um hum. . .I married when I was 22. 70:00A. Taylor: Could we have your wives’ names?. . .Yes sir.

C. Merritt: My first wife’s name was Mary E. Merritt. This one is named Martha E. Merritt.

A. Taylor: Well, if there’s not anything else you’d like to add, we just want to thank you for your time and your willingness to give us this interview and help us with our project.

C. Merritt: I’m glad I could be of service to you.

Research Team:Thank you so much. Thank you it’s been a very good interest. We appreciate it very much.