Ellis Warlick and Lewis Wills interview with Pauline Warlick and Dorothy Cobb

The John Burrison Georgia Folklore Archive recordings contains unedited versions of all interviews. Some material may contain descriptions of violence, offensive language, or negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. There are instances of racist language and description, particularly in regards to African Americans. These items are presented as part of the historical record. This project is a repository for the stories, accounts, and memories of those who chose to share their experiences for educational purposes. The viewpoints expressed in this project do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the Atlanta History Center or any of its officers, agents, employees, or volunteers. The Atlanta History Center makes no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of any information contained in the interviews and expressly disclaims any liability therefore. If you believe you are the copyright holder of any of the content published in this collection and do not want it publicly available, please contact the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center at 404-814-4040 or reference@atlantahistorycenter.com. In this recording, Pauline Warlick discusses folklore and superstitions, such as a woman buying warts off her grandmother's finger in order to make them go away. Warlick tells a story about seeing a light move from the woods to the mountains, which she credits as being the angry spirit of her neighbor's son, who was killed in an accident. A few minutes of the recording are silent, followed by soft rock music and a broadcast of a basketball announcer at an Auburn-Georgia Tech game. The transcript includes an urban legend of the origin of Talking Rock, which is not included in the recording. Dorothy Cobb stayed silent throughout the interview. Pauline Warlick (1888-1979) was born in Ellijay, Georgia, to John P. Cobb (1862-1933) and Belle Sutton (1866-1898). Warlick did not attend school. She married William Warlick by the age of 21 and the couple lived with her parents and two brothers, Homer Roy (1890-1978) and Max (1894-1980). She had two sons, William Cobb Warlick (1911-1993) and Don P. Warlick (1914-1975). William Warlick worked as a bank bookkeeper. Dorothy (1903-1997) married Homer Roy Cobb, Paulines brother, and had two daughters, Jeannette (1923-1933) and Annabelle Cobb (1930-2012). The family lived in Ball Ground, Georgia. Remedies; Basketball COLLECTING IN THE ELLIJAY VALLEY The sources for the following are Mrs. Pauline Warlick and Mr. Roy Cobb of River Street in Ellijay. Mr. Cobb chose to remain silent, for the most part. "BUYING A'vIART" "Your grandmother had a neighbor, I think her name was f'1rs. Bick, who was helnin' her get rid of warts that wuz hotherin' 'er on her little finger. And she told her, the way to do it wuz to buy it. So sh e gave her three pennies and she said, 'Now you take these three pennies, and hide 'em someplace, and don't tell anyone where' you hid the pennies, and leave 'em there for a few day s, and th e warts 'ull go away. I "So. sh e didand sure enough and un' in just a few days the wart, uh, disappeared. She only had one, but it was just in a place where it would bother her, uh, on her little finger jus' where it wuz connected to her hand. So, that's the way to git rid of warts." "When the snake stops \vigglin'" rn,"ell, when I was a little girl, and lived on the farm, uh, some of th e heln ',Iould kill snakes, and the snakes would stop wigglin' .... I thought that WHZ very strange . and so I asked about it, and thev told me, well the snake won't stop wigglin' until the sun goes down ",mEN TO PL.ilNT POTATOES" '~he superstition is that if you don't plant potatoes by th e moon, they won't come up." "HAINT TALE" "I went out on t, he back porch, uh, and I lookt out and saw thi s strange' Ii te movin' out of t,h e wood s on the south m!1lR mount in " and I wuz fascinated, an' I \'/atcht it, and it moved up over th~ailroad, and passed over the bottom . . lands,' 3nd it diss3pnearred into a th icket of trees." Warlick: "How fast "laS it moving?" "'lIe11 , it wasn't movin' very fast, it wuz real slow . a strange kinda lite, it was not an airplane, it was too low, I could tell that." Cobb: "It wuz on the ground." "Well, it started down on the ground, you know, and jus' moved from the mountin's and jUB' went straite across, over the railroadand, as I watched it', jUs' passed over the creek and dissappeared into the thicket.of t'rees on the little knoll, the little part of the farm we call the little knoll." Warlick: "Did you th ink it was a real haint?" "Vlell, it, uh, gave me a weird feelin'to watch it." Warlick: "Did you feel that it was a real haint though?" "Oh yes, un-huh. II "It happened rite afterone of the neighbor's sons wuz killed and the neighbor's son often went hunting on our farm, 'cause we suspected he 'us the one that killed our cow, and hel wuz killed in a very horrible accident. That wuz about a week after he wuz killed. "GHOST LIGHT" "T''lany years ago, uh, my.grandfather, I hadn't even been born yet,however my mother wuz a little girl,uh, when it hanpened, and she told about he had gone to a neighhor' s house and, uh, they were expectin' him to return. '~Iell, it wuz very, very late at nite, very dark, and he had a little lantern with 'im, and so they kept lookin' out expectin' to see 'im comin' \rith that lantern, and they were watchin', aniafter ~ while, they saw a lite a' comin', and naturally they thought it was their father returnin , homw. And it just kept mavin' closer an' closer~nd then it just moved in a strange way- they knew it couldn't Uh been a person 'cause of h;-k the hite, it moved up to a certin' ~ and then disapDear~'d, so ,uh, it wasn't their father at all. There they'd been watehin I, kexpectin' him to walk in any minite. II Warlick: Wvlhat did they think it was?" , "\\Tell they locked all the doors, they jus' didn't know. "They wuz afraid it mite 'uv been uh, a ghost(laughing) That's your ghost s~ory!" "You see, there wuz my mother there and her sisters, a r1 waitin' their father's return, watchin' for this lite, see. You see, they only had lamplite inside the houses, and lites were very important to 'em." Wills: "Did they ever find out what it was?" "They never did find out what it wuz. Sometimes very much later, their father did return, but they were quite frightened by that time, and they never did cuite know what that lite wuz they had first thought wuz their father." "LEGENDS CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF T,"LlGNG RO~K" Talking rock cEeek runs under Ga. highway no. 5 several miles south of Elli~ay, Ga. \fuen we asked several natives how it got its name, we received these answers. "The reason it's named Talkin' Rock is 'cause there's a rock that has written on one side, 'Turn me over.' iffuen you ,turn the rock over, the other side has written on it, 'Turn me back!' That's why it's called Talkin' Rock." "Talkin' Rock got its name from a place in the creek where t he water bubb le s over some rocks, and sound s jus' like people a t.alkin'.!f "Talking Roc k got its name from a place where th ey is a great big rock that echoes everything that yOll say." A PDF transcript exists for this recording. Please contact an archivist for access. Professor John Burrison founded the Atlanta Folklore Archive Project in 1967 at Georgia State University. He trained undergraduates and graduate students enrolled in his folklore curriculum to conduct oral history interviews. Students interviewed men, women, and children of various demographics in Georgia and across the southeast on crafts, storytelling, music, religion, rural life, and traditions. As archivists, we acknowledge our role as stewards of information, which places us inaposition to choose how individuals and organizations are represented and described in our archives. We are not neutral, andbias isreflected in our descriptions, whichmay not convey the racist or offensive aspects of collection materialsaccurately.Archivists make mistakes and might use poor judgment.We often re-use language used by the former owners and creators, which provides context but also includes bias and prejudices of the time it was created.Additionally,our work to use reparative languagewhereLibrary of Congress subject termsareinaccurate and obsolete isongoing. 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