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In this recording Carl Woods discusses his childhood growing up in Plains, Georgia, intermittently joined by his wife Elizabeth Woods, from Climax, Georgia; they compare their experiences growing up in northern and southern Georgia. The recording starts with Carl Woods describing killing hogs and preserving the meat through smoking, as well as what they made with the meat, such as sausages. He also talks about making chitlins and other uses for the lard. At 8:38 Elizabeth Woods interjects with a description of how her family made sausages; they were careful about preserving meat and using as much of the animal as possible. At 11:50 the Woods talk about curing beef and other methods of preservation such as canning and drying. Carl Woods describes more specifically how to can beans, and they list additional examples of food preservation along with an explanation of canning tomatoes, corn, and okra. Next at 18:17 he describes how to make syrup. The process starts by selecting the right kind of soil and fertilizers, then harvesting and milling, followed by storage. He also explains how to determine if the syrup is strong, and she compares the process in Climax where farmers grew more sugar cane than sorghum. 23:20: Carl Woods then explains how his mother used lye to make soap and hominy. He notes at 27:20 that they didnt waste much. During the Cleveland administration cotton was very cheap, so his father diversified, adding wheat, corn, and other fruits and vegetables, to ensure that the family had enough food. At 29:25 Carl Woods reflects that there have been a lot of improvements in farming productivity. Also, there was always plenty of food between farming, hunting, and gathering. Carl and Elizabeth Woods both give examples, then discuss corn shucking and peanut shelling, and other forms of entertainment, including picnics, church meetings, and crochet. 35:28: Carl Woods asserts that his father did not believe in any superstitions. Elizabeth Woods says that her father planted based on the moon; they theorize that the moon could affect seed germination. They both recall examples of the moon affecting vegetable output as well as how certain vegetables do better in different climates. 44:15 The conversation switches to folk tales. Carl Wood tells a humorous story about a Presbyterian preacher, a couple ghost stories (one about an experience of his own), and a story about a prank that he played. Elizabeth Wood reminisces about her mother telling ghost stories while she ironed clothing. To conclude the recording, at 52:50 Carl Woods recalls going to school, which went up to the eight grade and had one teacher. Despite limited resources, he says that good teachers could still teach effectively.
Carl Woods (1892-1978) was born in Plains, Georgia, and later moved to Atlanta, then to Athens. In 1916 he enlisted in the Navy. He married Elizabeth Arline (1896-1982) from Climax, Georgia, and they had four children. Essie Morris (approximately 1911-?) was born in Hull, Georgia, and later moved to Colvert, Georgia. Lozie Reid (1899-1976) was also born in Hull, and later moved to Comer. She married Bea Bullock (1895-1958) and they had three children.
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Subject What AHC Cataloger will complete this for you, (LOC subject headinas only) Keywords Burrison, John Personal names See sUbject who for additional names. . liX'X:X) I (\' t .\ .~;.) 1..) \ \ () C'. t,,, \ . \ \ ~ :! ;,; 1'..\ ' l\\\v\(\ , I~ ( , \ \., <i~ I ,J, "'/ t '" 3 Corporate names Geographic locations Topics 'tJ\!"\\"\(' \\(')\f'\ ,tn\. e.c CL l' ")t"'\'" C/ ';.( t()) \.,/)\ ' ".\,.' " 011/ v' I c;C c',Cc> \ l e , .I ' ' ) du()~).Jt' Clr \ \.\ 4 II 1"oJk lOJ'c )! en pl.'Ur"'", ,follH t~Il."r.'I'i::urJ V!:lY ~)();J 19(0 l"II'~:$ JoaiJ Ut;ll "-?(,(J Hnf'vc;; L lri,JJ. CmtJ'L UOCd~J\.JP:J U()()J.'i~10. lh':; fl J']ou:\ l}.'ll1j(:,'1 lD10 'Cl'()pll,y'lh'i \I'() .J'.'ku'.i.u Ll~a, CC()C'1~Ln. Interview with Mr. Carl Wood, 170 Westover Drive, Athens, Georgia. He is 77 years old, was born in Plains, Georgia, Sumpter County, and lived there until he was 21. He has been retired for several years and spends long hours working in his garden and fishing. On the day of the interview he was working in his garden when we arrived but he readily stopped his work and we went into the house for the interview. There a bit of a problem developed because his wife wanted to help him with his talking but he needed little, if any, coaching from the sidelines and he talked smoothly and coherently except for the interuptions from his wife, Elizabeth. Collector: Well just tell me about hog killing day. What was a regular day like when you got up that morning and you were ready to kill hogs -- just what did you first do? That's more of a man's job, isn't it? Mrs. Wood: I don't know -- I had to work in it. Mr. Wood: First to kill hogs, watch for the weather. When the weather got right, down about freezing or a little below, usually in November, then they would kill their hogs which was, they usually would shoot em, stick em, and then they would scald, get their hair off. Collector: How did you scald? Mr. Wood: Usually used a barrel. Sometimes when we had unusually big ones we'd dig a pit in thefl ground and heat the water with -- build a log heap fire, put stones on it and then put the hot stones in the pit of the water to heat the water to the right temperature and when we had hogs that would weigh four to five hundred pounds you couldn't use a barrel, couldn't pull them out of it, and we l d use that method to scald them. Usually if they were small hogs -- didn't weigh over 200 pounds -- we'd use a barrel. Then when we dressed em, cut them up, usually let em chill overnight and then cut them up and then salt them down. Pack em in salt and let em stay there for about 30 days, take the meat up, wash it, and we usually used a little borax to keep down the skipperds, which worked and seemed to be no harm even though the government doesn't permit it in the sale of the neat here. And sometimes we would, we had a smokehouse we would then hang it, usually to hang it we'd need some white oak, we'd make splits out of wood, insert a knot through the pieces of meat, tie those and hang en on a pole, hang em up in the smokehouse and then if we wanted to smoke em we'd build a fire under it and smoke em. Collector: In the smokehouse? Mr. Wood: Yes. Mrs. Wood: They wouldn't have any floor at the bottom, you know. It would be dirt floor down there. And you'd just build a oak -- we smoked with hickory or oak. Mr. [Wood: And that's about all we did to it except eat it as we needed it. ?4UGHTER Page 2 Collector: Well how about sausage? How did you Mr. Wood: Well, we made sausage. Sausage grinder and take the lean meat and mix in a certain amount of fat and make the sausage that way and that we wanted to cure. Idy mother would make little cloth sacks about the size that you'd want a cake of sausage and we'd fill those with the sausage and hang that up with the meat. Sometimes smoke it a little. And it ryas very delicious aftbr it got -- it would go through a kind of a cure there and improve the flavor of the sausage quite a bit. Then there was the lard to take care of. We would pick the extra fat which was the fat backs and the trimmings from the other meats that was fat. Of course we'd trim out most of the lean, put it in the sausage and we'd build a fire around a big wash pot and put some water in there and put all this fat, cook it out. Have to be a little careful about the finish up and not scorch it and the cracklings would settle to the bottom and we'd dip the lard off of the top. Sometimes we had jars to put it in, sometimes we'd get lard cans from the stores and that lard would keep perfectly, poured up hot and glowed to slowly chill that way. And then the cracklings, we saved them and used them in corn bread to make crackling bread which we thought was a great delicacy. LAUGHTER Mrs. Wood: It was. Did you ever eat any? Collector: I don't like it. Mrs. Wood: You don't like it? IaUGHTER Collector: How about chittlings? Did you ever fix chittlings? Mr. Wood: Yes. My mother would -- liked chittlings and she would take them -- she had a different method -- and they were delicious. She'd wash them and put them in . brine and every third day for about nine days she'd change that water on those chittlings. And when she finished with them they were cured and would keep perfectly. And take those out and put, I think a batter of flour and fry em. They were quite delicious. Collector: Do you still enjoy eating chittlings? Mr. Wood: If I can get good ones, I do. Mrs. Wood: O000h, I don't know how long it's been. Mr. Wood: They were quite different than what you buy at the markets. What you get here are just washed, clean and packed. Usually they're frozen. Collector: Do you think the difference is in the way they prepare them? Is that why? Mr. Wood: Oh yes. Those went through a kind of a cure that my mother made, like meats you know, and they tasted quite different. Collector: How did she -- do you know how she fried them? What -- how she cooked them? Mr. Wood: Uh, she fried them just like you would fry a sausage. Just put in quite a hit of grease and fry em til they were brown. And they were very good. Collector: Well I guess those were exciting days on hog killing days. Page 3 Mr. '.Wood: Oh yes. And then of course there was the liver to take care of and we would take the liver and the heart and part of the lungs and cut it up and make a hash which we'd put in some pepper and some sage, of course some salt, and it was really delicious. Collector: Is that what you call souse meat? Mr. Wood: No. Mrs. Wood: Souse meat is made out of the ears and the snootle, nose, and you know the things like that is put in there -- the hog head and all of that -- and feet. They put all of that in and made the souse out of it. Mr. Wood: You see by using the feet in making the souse furnishes the geltain that makes it set up and they put, they cooked the head which has a skin on it of course, the lean from the head and they'd get that all off and the snoot and the lips of the hog went into it. Ears. And that was seasoned somewhat similar to the way sausage was seasoned. And you could slice it off and make you a sandwich out of it. It was delicious. Mrs. Wood: It was after it was fixed but, oh my! We didn't do ours like that. Ours was the small intestines of the hog. They were cleaned and scraped you know and all and they were just thin and had a sausage mill that ground the meat up in and then they seasoned it and they had a thing to put these casings on em you know. And run em down there and when you turned the little old mill it would, you know, the meat would come out and go into the casing. When it got it full you'd just stop it and wound it up. That's what we kept our sausage in. And then mama put hers in the smokehouse and _put em across on canes -- er limbs, er oak limbs -- or something or other in there and smoked it and, uh, put it up and it would keep. Collector: You just left it hanging in the smokehouse? Mrs. Wood: Yeah. Most of the time. It was lots of times mama would take it and put it up for the fall, I mean for the summer, all during the summer. She packed those sausage up if we had more than we wanted and have them to eat anytime we wanted. All you'd have to do was to take em out and warm them up. They were already made and everything. At that time they didn't lose much. Farmers knew how to take care of it. Collector: Un huh. Well the weather was -- it seems like it was colder then or something. Mrs. Wood: Yeah, yeah. We got down in south Georgia though after we moved down in Decatur County. Mr. Wood: Mama, she wanted information -- Mrs. 'Wood: Well I was going to tell her. Go ahead, you tell it then. It would get too, it wouldn't be season enough, I mean it would turn warm and maybe we had lots of meat that would spoil during that time so they finally found a (raze ?) where they could get it cured over at the Bainbridge, at the, where the ice place, you know take it over there and cure it over there. But I remember we went up, when I was teaching out there they had a pound supper up there and I was spending the night with a friend over there and we -- there was two of us girls -- Mr. Wood: Mama, she wanted information about preserving food. Collector: That's alright. Go ahead. Page 14 Mrs. Wood: And carried these, we'd have a pound supper, they fixed chittlings,. baked potatoes and carried it up there. LAUGHTER Collector: Whoever got that box had chittlings? Mrs. Wood: Yeah. LAUGHTER. I don't know who got it. I carried it though. I didn't have anything. See I just happened to be up at this house. I didn't have a way to get any pound of anything to take and that's what I carried. We was supposed to furnish it and have our partner to go with us, you know. I don't know who carried en down there from the table. LAUGHTER. I told em I'd take it though. Collector: Well, how about beef? Did you -- how did you keep your beef? Mr. Wood: Well, I didn't cure very much beef. Sometimes the people would cure beef -- usually in pirl&e brine. Maybe some :Mould put a little sugar with it. Make a kind of corned beef but we never thought it was too good and didn't fool with it much. Well it isn't. Collector. You had more hog meat then? I r. Wood: Yeah. It's rather hard to realize that people back then had no refrigeration whatever. And how they preserved food and kept it. But the methods they used worked very well. Peaches -- we usually canned those. And apples -- we didn't can very many apples. We'd dry them mostly. Collector: What process did you use in drying -- how did you? Mr. Wood: Well, they just sun dried them til they were dry and they would keep from then on. Collector: Just cut em off, peel them? Mr. Wood: Just peel the apple and cut it off and lay them out in the hot sun. Mrs. Wood: Slice em up and put em out in the sun. You needed a kind of a net you know to keep the flies from off em you know -- not let them get on em. Mr. Wood: 'To keep am clean you had to do that. Uh, several methods of canning things. The best method I ever saw with home canning with beans was to cold pack the beans and have a basin there on a stove and put about as much salt in each jar that would season the beans where when they were cooked you had -- you didn't have to add any more and then boil those beans in the jars, water coming up nearly to the top, for a certain length of time. Oh I suppose an hour or so, and then put the tops on, sea! it and raise your water level to cover em and then boil then that way for probably a half an hour or longer and that method of canning beans -- they taste exactly like they were fresh right off of the vine. I know my wife, when we lived at Smyrna, she canned some thata way and I have never tasted any canned beans that were as good as that. You couldn't to save your life tell the difference from those and the fresh beans. Collector: Um hum. Do you think they tasted better that way than they do in the freezer? Mr. Wood: Oh yes, that's better than freezing them. We freeze ours now. Page 5 Mrs. :food: LAUGHTER. We sure do. Collector: It's a lot easier, isn't it? Mr. Wood: Yes, it's easier. Collector: You had to do a lot of hard work back in those days, didn't you? Mr. Wood: Yes. Mrs. Wood: Don't you think it's time for me to quit now? LAUGHTER. We had -- I canned -- had a big stove out there and I take a big zinc tub and put the water on in the big zinc tub on the stove -- Collector: Outside? Mrs. Wood: No, in the house there and I'd, of course I'd have cloths down where it wouldn't burst the jars or anything like that -- pack em around and let em boil there three or four hours at a time there and then take em out and seal em up and they were good beans. They were cooked in the jars you see. And they kept. I didn't have any to spoil. Collector: Is this the only way you had to keep vegetables? I mean beans and -- Mr. Wood: Well some people would actually dry okry. Take the very small pods and take a big darning needle and heavy thread and run it through the stem and dry em and hang em up but it wasn't too good. Collector: It was kinda dry? Mr. Wood: And another thing about this home canning, there are some things that are very very hard to keep -- home canning. Okra and corn. But tomaters are very easily kept and we used to put up a soup mixture -- take about one-half tomaters and one-fourth okry and one-fourth corn. The acid of the tomaters will insure the keeping. And you can't hardly imagine how delightful that is. Get you a soup bone and cook it a while and then empty a quart of that in it, put in a few potatoes and you've really got -- LAUGHTER Collector: That was company fit for the preacher, wasn't it? Mr. Wood: Oh yeah, that's really good. Mrs. Wood: I've fitted lots of it. Mr. Wood: Oh, I don't say it's not impossible to keep corn, home canned, but it's very difficult and so is okry. But the tomaters, the acid of the tomaters, like that helps to keep any of those fruits. I suppose it is. That's the only reason I can figure out. Mrs. Wood: He's got a big garden coming along out there now and I don't knor what he's going to do with it. I just don't know. Mr. Wood: I'm gonna eat it. Mrs. Wood: He's got this one dorm here and this one out there too. AUGH'TER. Collector. Well, how about syrup making? Did you ever do any syrup making? Mrs. Wood: Oh yeah. Yeah. Page 6 Collector: Could you tell us about that? Mrs. Wood: I could tell you mine. He had sorghum and I didn't have sorghum. Collector: You had a different kind? Mrs. Wood: I had (ribbon ?) cane. Collector: 'dell let him tell the kind that he made and then you tell the kind you made and we'll compare the difference. Mrs. Wood: Alright. Mr. Wood: Well in making sorghum you have to first put it on the right kind of soil. Red soil will not make a good syrup. Mrs. Wood: It won't in cane either. Mr. Wood: And to fertilize it you don't want to use any potassium at all. The best fertilizer that we ever found to put on the sorghum to make syrup -- we'd just use the cotton seed meal. Mrs. Wood: That's right. Mr. Wood: Which had about 7% nitrogen and l potassium and Ogg phosphate. If you use a fertilizer with potassium it makes the syrup strong and it's not at all good. Now I see in the stores around here a lot of syrup that's made up at Blairsville, Georgia which the land up there is all red most of it, the sorghum, is not fit to eat. I tell you a test if you ever want to buy a quart of it, hold it up and if you don't see quite a bit of light through it, don't buy it. It's not fit to eat. Collector: Why is that? Is it strong and dark? Mr. Wood: Strong from the potassium, the natural potassium in the soil. You see the red soils don't need very little, if any, added potassium. Collector: Well, how about in taking it to a syrup mill. Do you know hoar that's done? Mr. Wood: Well the first thing; on the sorghum, when the seed matures and the head ripens, then it's ready to make into syrup. And we stripped the leaves off of it, the fodder; cut it and cut the tops off and hauled it to the syrup mill. And -- Mrs. ;Mood: Ground it out. Mr. Wood: And we had a mill there that had three rollers in it and a long lever attached to the top of it which would make a circle of about 50 feet in diameter and then we'd hitch a mule to that and go around and around and then we'd feed the cane in there and the juice would come out and then we had an evaporator over there; we built the first under it, which was made in baffles and sections where the juice would flow down around and back again around those and come out at the other end as syrup. But to make it do that you had to feed the juice at the right speed and keep your fire right. Then while that was going on you had to have man there with a skimmer to skim it. A lot of the -- well you know the particles and things would boil up to the top -- you had to take those off to get a good clear syrup. And that was quite a task to make the syrup but we thought it was worth it.. Page 7 Collector: I imagine so. Mrs. Wood: Bottle it up in bottles and lots of them and sometimes they t d have big barrels and make barrels of syrup. Collector: Well you tell us about the way it's made in your county. The way its different from his. Mrs. :flood: Well I haven't been back dorm there now, I don't know. But the way they used to was to grind it like that; had also a mule hitched to it. He'd go around and around pulling the mill, you know, and the syrup would go down in there; I mean the juice would go down in the, it would go down, strained as it would go down through into the barrel or whatever they were catching it in. And then they would put it on in the evaporator, work it until it was made into syrup and it was made into syrup. They had the fire that some of those things were, uh, first ones that I remember was made big round kettles like this you know. They first started out with that and then they got the evaporators you know and made it quite different. It wasn't as hard on you as it would be with this big barrel, I mean kettle thing. So - Collector: Was this now sugar cane? Mrs. Wood: Yes. This was the (ribbon ?) cane. You don't have any of that up here. That's down in south Georgia. You strike that down after you -- I reckon from Macon on down. It's -- but they don't have near as much of that now as they used to. The season's got where it would be too dry on era and they just didn't get to make any production out of it much. Collector: How about hominy? Do you know how to make hominy? Did you ever make any of that? Mr. Wood: I know how my mother made it. Collector: Well, tell us about it. Mr. Wood: Well in those days we made our own soap. All the extra grease was saved and she had an ash hopper out there which was usually made by finding a holler log and cuttin out the top of it and buildin a frame and settin boards where they would come together at the bottom like the roof of a house at the top and then she'd put some straw in that bottom there and we'd take the ashes from the fireplace and put it in there and it got full she wanted to make soap, she'd start pouring water on that and the lye would come out. At end of that log she'd have a vessel there to catch it and she'd keep pouring that water and as long as that lye was strong enough, she'd use it. Take that and put it in a washpot and put it in there with the grease and boil it down and make what they call a lye soap. Which was usually semi-liquid soap that we had and it was strong and almost take the hide off your hands but it would clean things very -- very efficiently. And that's the way that that was made and that was the only soap that we had to wash dishes, wash clothes, or scrub around the house. Of course we'd buy a little bit of this sweet smelling soap for -- wash your face and hands on Sunday with -- LIWGHTi P Mrs. Wood: I never used that old so, I'll tell you that. Collector: Is this the same lye that they used to make the hominy? Don't they have to use lye? Page 8 Mr. Wood: Yes and to make hominy they'd take that lye and soak the corn in it and that makes the husk turn loose and take water then and wash it off. Mrs. Wood: And then put it back in and cook it until it's just done. Mr. Wood: That's the way they made their hominy. Collector: IS you did a large amount what did you do? Put it in cans? Mrs. Wood: Oh no, Mama always had a big pan that she put it in. It would keep you know if you -- in the winter time. We didn't cook it in the summertime. Always in the winter time. She had a big safe in there and she put it down in the bottom of the safe and kept it down there. If we wanted hominy, big hominy, why we had big hominy. Of course it was always cooked over, you know. Mr. Wood: We didn't waste much at that time because you had to make what you, what you ate. Most of it you had to make it. I remember back during the Cleveland administration when cotton ?rent down to 50 a pound or a little lower. Well my father knew that he had to get busy or we wouldn't have anything so we raised wheat and corn. Had a big lot full of hogs there. We had our own bread, our own syrup. We had good milk cows and plenty of milk and butter. To carry his hogs through the summer, he always raised a lot of peas and he l d take those peas and a lot of corn to the mill, grind the peas/ and of course run corn through behind it. It was alright with the miller. And he'd take his wheat bran and shorts and this corn, ground corn and pease, and make a swill of it and that's what he carried his hogs through the summer on. And they did well on it. So we used practically everything that we had. We had to. Collector: You didn't waste anything? Mr. Wood: Didn't uaste anything. Mrs. Hood: All scraps from the table and all went into the slops for the hogs. Mr. Wood: If that depression of the Cleveland administration had a lasted ten or fifteen years my father would have most likely have been a pretty well to do farmer. At least I knew we had more to eat and got along better during that time than we did when we went back to (?). Collector: All this 'time now you were living in? Mr. Wood: Gordon County. ollector: Cordon County. I don't guess you'd want to go back to living in the good old days, would you? Mr. flood: Sell -- Mrs. Wood: He says he's going to get him a log cabin back up there.. LAUGHTER Iir. Wood: I wouldn't mind it so much. I know there's been as much improvement in Earning as there has been in most anything else. One man -- now this is a little hard to believe -- but it has actually happened right here in Georgia -- one man on a farm is producing more than five men did sixty years ago. Page 9 Collector: Um, that's true. So you wouldn't have quite as hard a time on the farm these days. Mrs. :rood: All that hoeing and chopping and everything else. It had to come. l UGHTER. Collector: What do you think was the best things that you did that you enjoyed the most when you were growing u p that sticks in your mind and you think about then? tMr. Wood: Well I can tell you one thing. To begin with I'll say that any man that raises a boy in the city does him an injustice. Collector: -.That is this? Mr. Wood: Well the boys that I grew up with from te71to fifteen years old -- boys of that age are always hungry -- nearly always. The bunch that I grew up with, there wasn't a month in the year that we couldn't go out there and find something to eat. And the first strawberries were about the first thing that'd ripen in the spring and then there'd be the early apples and peaches and later on would be the muscadines and the grapes and then we had chestnuts, scaly bark hickory nuts, and they'd last on down and then over there they was wild grapes that would hang in big bunches and they would dry there and almost like raisins. We ate em, we thought they were mighty good and they'd be a few months in the latter part of the winter that we couldn't find anything to eat hardly at all. If it hadn't a been for the artichokes we could dig about and we thought they were really good. We'd get those and eat em. LAUGHTER. Mrs. Wood: We had it all the time. Down there at home. We had turnip salad and cabbage and collards and everything. We had always potatoes. Mr. Wood:And -- true --. We knew where all the holes in the creek that we most likely could catch a fish. We knew right where to find em. We had dogs -- rabbit dogs. Catch rabbits. Mrs. Wood: Go hunting. Kill squirrels and rabbits. Mr. Wood: So -- a bunch of boys -- there wasn't much time to be lonesome. I-Te always had something we could do. Collector: Could got out and wander around. Mrs, Wood: We'd take out and go fishing after -- say a Saturday afternoon and we'd come back with a big string of fish. We'd cook em. Clean em and cook em for supper. Collector: How about corn shuckings? Did you have corn shuckings? Mr. Wood: Yeah, they would have occasionally. A feller wanted a lot of corn shucked, and he'd invite the folks in and they'd shuck corn til about 11:30 and they'd have a big feed cooked up there at the house and everybody'd go. Eat a good meal. LAUGHTER. Mrs. Wood: I'll tell you one of the most -- the one that we used to enjoy the most was the peanut shelling time. They didn't have anything to shell peanuts and things in. We'd all get around and have a party and gather together and shell the peanuts until we had em all shelled and then we'd get out -- make chicken -- take. chicken and rice and cook it you know and we'd all eat that and then get out there -- we'd play twistification. Some of em would play (?). LAUGHTER. That was all fun. We were young. Page 10 Collector: Well, what did you do for entertainment. You know, when there wasn't a movie to go to and there wasn't -- Mrs. Wood: Oh, it wasn't hard. We'd go off on picnics sometime. Gather together and sometimes they'd have meetings at the church you know and go to the church and things like that. You didn't miss it. I didn't miss it. Mr. Wood: We had a croquet yard. Young people would come in there on Saturdays and we'd have the biggest time you ever saw playing croquet. Collector: Oh, I didn't realize that that game was popular then. Mr. Wood: Oh, yeah it was very popular at that time. Mrs. Wood: O000h -- we got it when I was a little kid. Santa Claus brought me, brought us a croquet set. We thought we was the stuff when we got out there and we had a good nice yard to put it in. It was on sand you know; it wasn't on the grass and we played croquet out there. Collector: How about some of the -- do you remember any superstitions that you abided by when you were growing up? Mr. Wood: Well I missed all that. Iiy father had none whatsoever. And he passed it on to me. Collector: So many of the people do have. Some of them believe with the new moon you do so and so. Mr. Wood: I passed it on to my boys too. Mrs. Wood: They used to wouldn't plant the garden and different things unless the moon was right. Mr. Wood: My father never paid any attention to that. However, one time I had about a half an acre -- it was an enormous briar patch and he had a hand hired and had him to cut it off and he planted it in corn on the new moon May and I remember my father said well I've always heard that plantin corn on the new of the moon was wrong but we'll see what happens here. Well the blackberry vines that grew on that was ten feet high and that means really rich soil. We planted that corn and the corn was the biggest corn stalks I ever saw and they grew to be fifteen feet high and two-thirds of the way up on the stalk, maybe there was a little ear of corn and that seemed, in some way, to confirm that idea of planting at the wrong time of the moon. Collector: After then was he careful not to plant on the full of the moon? Mr. Wood: No, it never convinced him. He never paid no attention to it. If anybody would tell him it was the wrong time of the moon he'd tell them he wasn't plantin in the moon, he was plantin in the ground. Mrs.. Wood: My daddy was plantin somethin out there one day and somebody came along -- we were livin at Pelmath (?) at that time -- and they told, they says you're plantin at the wrong time of the moon. He says I'm not plantin in the moon, I'm plantin in the ground. LAUGHTER. But I think it has somethin to do about it though. I think the moon controls lots of things -- it does the tides and the waves and things, and I think it can do the other things too. Page 11 Mr. Wood: Well, I tell you -- I think that perhaps the moon does have somethin to do with it but it works this way. I think at the exact time of the germination the influence of the moon may have somethin to do with it. But now if it happens to be dry and that seed stays in the ground or the moon changes before it comes up, I don't think it has any effect whatsoever. Mrs. Wood: I know one time they planted, uh, butterbeans, lima,beans, they run all over the fence at the back. It was those big old long, what do you call them, made out of those long strips, like they used to make the fences only this was just, they were just made out of, take somethin or other and make them long with -- how do you do those old -- Mr. Wood: I haven't the slightest idea what you -- Mrs. Wood: Well anyway they split out of, made just like shingles almost, you know, pickets 1 yeah the fence and they were growing, had the garden made out of that and mama planted -- they planted the garden down there and those butter beans run up there and they were just as thick as they could be and not a butter bean on the vine. Collector: You think that was from planting the wrong time. Mrs. Wood: I guess it was. Mr. Wood: No, I have an idea that it's quite different. I planted some Arsh potatoes in the garden once; some of the biggest potaters I'd even seen and the vines grew up waist high and they never made one form of a potater. I don't know where they came from. Again, a friend of mine who had a sister living in Now York state, that's while I was livin in Atlanta. He went up there in September and he came back and was telling me about -- said they had the most wonderful sweet corn that he had ever tasted in his life. Said I asked them to save me some of the seed; said when they send I'll let you have some of it if you want it. I told him I'd be glad to get it. Well it came and he gave it to me and in the spring I planted it. I planted it along side of, at the time I planted some other corn in my garden. The native corn grew about ten feet high and that sweet corn from upper New York state grew about knee high and tossled and never made as much corn as I planted. L&UGHTEP. Of course I could have saved what few grains it did make and in a year or two I could have adapted it but that's not a payin proposition. Mrs. .food: Well I don't think you can just pick up the products from one state, especially north, and then come down here and plant em. Now 1 1 11 tell you these navy beans and things like that, you bring em, they can grow up there, you bring em down here, they don't do any good. Mr. Wood: There are a few little riddles in agriculture that they haven't yet solved. Collector: What are they? Mr. Wood: We used to, when I was working for the government, for a long time they gave us what they called a weekly newsletter, distributed, and it told about what the Department of Agriculture was doing. I didn't know it until I read it but the United States Department of Agriculture keep men going all over the world examining plants and seeing if they can find a better variety that they can bring to the United States. Well the people in. Minnesota wanted a corn that would mature further north than the variety they had. When it gets cool in the fall the corn gets to about the roastin ear stage and doesn't mature out even though it has time before fall but it doesn't do it on account of the cool weather. Now the Department of Agriculture found them a corn that would mature in Minnesota two to three hundred miles further Page 12 north than any variety they had. And where do you suppose they found it? Collector: I don't know. Where? Mr. Wood: They found it in Ecuador almost exactly under the equator, in a valley up there about twelve thousand feet high where it's always cool, never hot, and never cold. The corn the natives there grew would mature alright and they told them down there that the corn they would get from up here wouldn't mature at all there. Wouldn't do anything. Mrs. Wood: No, you can't take any seeds from a certain place and bring em direct down here and plant them and get them to do what you expect em to do. They just won't do it. I don't know, they're not -- I guess it's the climate. I don't know what it is. Maybe the soil. I don't know what it is. But they just don't do that well. Mr. Wood: I could grow oranges in Athens if they'd given me fifteen hundred years to do this. LAUGHTER. Collector: Let's see. Do you remember any old timey stories that you might -- funny stories or fol4 tales? LAUGHTER. Mrs. ?,food: You better not get him started on that. Mr. Wood: Oh, we didn't have much of that. Tip father didn't take to anything like that at all. Collector: Well, I mean preacher stories -- that type of stories. Mr. Wood: Well, I heard one that I thought was very good that my brother told me about, oh, I guess it was about sixty years ago. He said the early days in Atlanta, the Presbyterian Church was doing fairly well and there was a young feller wanted to be a preacher in the Presbyterian Church so they sent him up into the mountains in north Georgia to see if he could do any good up there -- maybe establish a church or contact some other Presbyterians up there. Well, the story goes he was going up a little mountain trails three o'clock in the afternoon, came to a little cabin and he asked the lady if he could get a drink of water. She said "Why sure, stranger, thar's the spring and a gourd a hangin on the limb there. Just hep yourself." Well, he got him a good drink of water out of the spring and thanked the lady for it and he asked her, he says, "Are there any Presbyterians around here in these parts?" She said, "Law, no, I couldn't tell." Says, "John has catched and skinned every kind varmit that they is in this country. He got a stack of hides down there in the crib now. You can go down there and look through em to see if you can find a Presbyterian." LAUGHTER. Well, that kind of took the young feller aback. He says, "My good lady, you a livin in the dark." "Yes, I know it. I been a tryin to get John to saw two logs out the back end of this cabin so we can have a winder and the triflin rascal won't do nothin but run them traps. Can't get him to do it." ;dell,. that really took him aback Luther. He looked right seriously at the lady, says, "My good lady, did you know that Jesus Christ died to save sinners?" Says, "Law, no, when John was into town last week and he never heard nothin about the poor feller being sick." LAUGHTER. Collector: That's a good one. Do you know any more tales like that? Mr. Wood: I couldn't think of another one right now. Mrs. Wood: Yes, he's got -- he's full of em. Page 13 Collector: How about ghost stories, witches tales. Do you know any of those? Mrs. Wood: My mother used to tell em to me when I was a kid. Collector: Do you remember any of them? Mrs. Wood: Not too much of em. She'd always go up there -- get her clothes ready to iron you know. She was up in another room there; I believe the house we lived in had nine great big rooms in it and they were always puttin clothes, leave em up in a bedroom back up there you know, not usin. Soj she had the lamps -- that's all we had then -- take the lamps and go back up there and she'd spread somethin down on the floor down there and put the clothes on it, sit down there and sprinkle the clothes and get em ready to iron and we'd get her to tell us a tale and she'd begin to tell us a story and, oh, we wasn't payin no attention to it, and when she got through with it, that she was nearly through ironin and just about the time that she finished tollin the, I mean sprinklin the last piece, she blowed the lamp out and you could see us a tearin. We l d already heard the ghost story. LAUGHTER. Mr. Wood: I remember an old man name of Stobbs, talkin about a ghost story. He said he was, he was walkin along by a lonesome road one night by a graveyard, had an old iron fence around it and a gate there; said he looked over there and there was a great big somethin white right between two graves. Ile thought he could hear just a slight rustling noise or somethin and he said the first impulse he had was to get away from there as quick as he could and then he said that he thought if he did he'd never know what that was. So he walked up to the gate and he said, you know I couldn't hardly make my hand unlatch that gate, but said I did and I went on in and went down there and what I found was a big white cow that had somehow broken in there and didn't get out and was lyin down there between those graves. LAUGHTER. Collector: That's a scary thing to see, that white sittin in there. Mrs. Wood: Yeah, I heard more ghost stories and everything else but I don't remember em now. Mr. Wood: I remember one night when I was a young man walkin the road, oh, just about ten or eleven o'clock. I was just comin up a little rise. It was pretty dark and I saw something white out there coming right toward me. I didn't know what it was. It was summertime of course. But I made up my mind I was going on and I did. So when I got down there it was a boy that I knew and we sat down there and talked a while and he told me years later that, of course we were in our shirt sleeves and both had on white shirts, he said when I saw you coming I got me up a stick. Collector: I imagine you all really used to play tricks on each other when you could catch somebod y in a bad spot, didn't you? Mr. Wood: I remember one time I was going up the road; some boys knew that I'd pass back a little later; while I was gone, he went in the house and got a sheet and wrapped it around that cedar tree knowing that I would have to pass right along by. Well when I got there I saw it and I recognized what it was. I eased over there and got this sheet off of it and folded it up and put it down in the limbs of the tree and the boy told me after that, said you know we wondered for a good while what became of that sheet before we found it. No, my father passed it on to me that all ghost stories and things of that kind and superstitions were for the birds and I tried to pass it on to my boys. When they were eleven, twelve years old I would have bet a man anything, we lived right close to Westview Cemetary, that one of those boys would take him a blanket and go right over there in that graveyard and sleep between two of those graves and think nothin about.it, And they would have. Page 14 Collector: What was a regular school day like back when you were going to school? Mr. Wood: Well, we'd usually go to school at 8 o'clock in the morning; didn't have graded schools exactly like they have now. Of course the little fellers would have the little primer and the first reader. So on up to what would now be close to the eighth grade. Usually had one teacher. And the school that I went to was built long and had a door on each side of it; had two stoves, one on each end. Well we'd get enough wood and kept it fairly comfortable and the teacher would assign us lessons and, you would think, they had an old blackboard made out of a few boards there painted black, and you would think now, under such conditions, that a teacher couldn't dispense much knowledge but a good teacher could, and in that you would be wrong. Those who finished that school under this particular teacher that taught there so long came out, finished the seventh grade there, with a better common school education than our schools are giving us now. That is they were more thorough in what they took. Now I remember this old man. He loaned money and he knew his interest. Well he would give us practical problems and he taught us every kind of interest that the bankers, the annual interest and compound interest and the way the bankers figure it and partial payments and all that kind of thing. He taught us that and we learned it and I never forgot it. And then when we got to studying measurements, studying square and cube root, which I doubt whether they teach in the common schools now at all. Do they? Collector: Well i.-i the upper grades; high school. Mr. Wood: Yeah, well we got it in the seventh grade. I remember when we was studying square and cube root he gave us a practical question. He says now we'll take for instance, we'll, it may not be that close to it, we'll say that this school room is 20 feet wide and 30 feet long and 10 feet high. He says I want to know how long a line it would take to go from the corner of the ceiling diagonally across to the corner of . the floor. Do you know we boys sat there and in a few minutes we figured that out. And was right too. It's a simple problem. Mrs. Wood: I'll never forget when I learned it. Mr. Wood: You square the three dimensions and add them together and extract the square root and there you are. Mrs. Wood: You run into algebra, take the square root of that and cube root and things of that. Oooh I remember working on one account one time and it took us two pages to work it. Collector: Well, how did the one teacher teach so many different classes? He taught first grade through seventh? Mr. wood: Yes. Well, it took talent. I tried some teaching like that.. Mrs. Wood: I did too and I didn't like it. Mr. Wood: Never but once did I try to teach the three lower grades, four lower grades. Mrs. Wood: Taught a school out there close to Dawsonville, Georgia. I don't know whether you've ever, you know where that or not. Collector: Uh huh. Mrs. Wood: Well, anyway, it had from first through to the seventh grade and I had all the little ones and big ones and everything else. Let me tell you that's a -- whoo ! Page 15 Collector: What was recess time and lunch time -- Mrs. Wood: At ten o'clock and lunch time was twelve. And then had another recess in the aftornopn about three. Two or three o'clock. Collector: What did the children do? Mrs. Wood: Played. Mr. Wood: Usually played ball or something like that. Mrs. (good: Hop scotch or somethin another like that. Games. They, oh had a pretty good, nice time. Mr. Wood: No, I am becoming increasingly more convinced that these elaborate plants for schools are, in graded schools, are definitely not needed. You can get as good or better results with a lot less outlay of money and less effort. Collector: How? Mr. Wood: Because I know, I have been there. I suppose that in what schooling that I received I was lucky in a way to have graded school under this old man and the high school that I attended. I didn't know it at the time that I was going to the best high school in the state of Georgia but after -- Mrs. Wood: This is the old A & M, Seventh District A & M. Mr. Wood: But after associating with high school grads from all over the state and talkin with them I found out it was superior to all others except these (?) prep schools. Mrs. Wood: They have a reunion of that old school every year and -- Collector: Do you go back? Mrs. Wood: Yeah, we been going here regular. I don't think we've missed a time in a long time, have we? Miss Floyd goes with us too. She's one of the -- her husband and Carl -- Mr. Wood: Mama, this is on tape. Mrs. Wood: Oh, yeah. LAUGHTER. Interview with Mrs. Essie Morris and Mrs. Lozie Bullock. Both born in Hull, Georgia, Madison County. Mrs. Morris lives in Colvert, Georgia and I4rs. Bullock in Comer, Georgia. These two shall towns are about five miles apart. Mrs.. Morris is fifty-eight years old and I4rs. Bullock is sixty-nine. On the day of the interview Mrs. Bullock came to Mrs. Morris' house and the collector had told them ahead of time the type of things she was looking for.. The collector turned on the recorder and they talked about life as it used to be. Collector: Can you tell me anything about how you preserved food in the old days? How you kept it when you didn't have, before you had freezers. And if you didn't have enough cans to can in? Mrs. Morris: Well, uh, Mama always fixed leatherbritches;when the beans were young and tender she gathered them and breaked their ends off the beans and strung them on a long string and hang them out in the open air to dry. And it would take about two or three days and after they were dry, in the wintertime she'd soak the- overnight and put them in a pot with some pork and cook them for about three or three and a half hours and they were real good. Collector: Did you dry these in the sun or the shade? Mrs. Morris: Dry them in the shade. We l d hang them where the sun wouldn't be on them. They would be tough if you hung them in the sun. Collector: How about some of the other vegetables? Do you remember how you put up collards or cabbage? How did you keep those? Mrs. Morris: Well, collards -- daddy would run furrows in the ground close together and he would pull up the stalks of collards and set them down in there and cover the roots up just like he was transplanting them and then he l d go to the ;roods and gather pine limbs from the trees and make a kind of a little shelter over the collards and that kept them from freezing during the cold weather. Do you remember how he fixed them? Mrs. Bullock: fell, that was the way they did and the leaves would get bleached and they would be white and tender and they'd be real good. Mrs. Morris: Keep all the winter. Mrs. Bullock: That's the way they fixed celery and a good many other things you could bank them that way and they'll bleach out and be real good. Mrs. I-:orris: Well, you remember how mama pickled beans? Mrs. Bullock: Uh, well, uh, as well as I remembered, she just broke them up like she's gonna cook them and packed em in a churn and put salt on em and I don't know whether she put vinegar in them or not. I think so though. She must have put a little vinegar. Mrs. Morris: I think she put water with them, too. Mrs. Bullock: Yes. They had to be covered in water. And then when got ready to eat em she'd soak then a little while and put them in a pot and they would have a kind of sour taste. It would be -- Page 2 Mrs. Bullock: But the funniest thing about those leatherbritches was getting them cleaned. LAUGHTER. Those beans that she dried, we called them leatherbritches, and it was really a job getting those things cleaned up good. They had hung up in the flies and the dust and everything else all over them. Mrs. Morris: Brandied peaches -- she would gather the peaches and peel em and put them down in a big churn and put one layer of peaches and a layer of sugar until she got the churn full (?) and they made their own brandy and they were real good to eat with vegetables in the winter time. How did she make hominy? Do you remember how she made hominy? Mrs. Bullock: ilell, back then they couldn't buy lye like we can. She would save the ashes out of the fireplace and they laid a little thing they called a hopper -- a little trough like thing -- put the ashes in this and they wet the ashes real good and just a little bit of it would run down, drip out the end of that trough -- they left one end of it open -- and they had to set something to catch that lye. And that's the way they got the lye to make their hominy. Then they shelled the corn and they put this -- covered the water and put some of this lye in there and let it set awhile and then they could take all the husks off the corn with that lye and that's the way they made their hominy. Ifrs. Iioiris: And then the hominy was ready to cook and eat. well, mama always preserved peaches with syrup sometimes didn't she? Don't you remember she used to make preserves with syrup because we couldn't get su-ar? Mrs. Bullock: Everybody made their own syrup back then. And they used it for sugar because there was lots of times they didn't have sugar cause it was too far to town to go jet some every time you needed it. And they used the syrup instead. Mrs. Morris: And the way we used to have to do the milk to keep it in the surer time -- if we didn't draw water and put it in a tub we'd let it down in the well a part of the way -- put it in the bucket and one day i was puttin milk down in the well in the bucket and I let the windless loose and it busted the jug of milk and we ha d to have the well cleaned out. And sometimes we put meat down in the well to keep it overnight cause we didn't have an icebox or anything to put it in. Mrs. Bullock: Yes, if we wanted to have a chicken for Sunday dinner that was the only way we could dress it the day before. Have to have some way to keep it cool to keep it from spoiling before Sunday. Mrs. Morris. Uh huh. And do you remember about hog killing days: we used to kill hogs -- everybody together? Mrs. Bullock: Yes. That was a big day. Mrs. Morris: All the neighbors would go in together and kill hogs. All of them have a hog apiece and they'd gather up all the pots and put them together and heat the water and always they had to go over in the woods to the back neighbor's house andget a jar of white lightning to tie em on the hog killing day. And I remember one time when we was killing hogs and they got into the white lightning too often and they killed one neighbor's hog and when they got through they forgot about it and the next day they went back over there where they was killing hogs and there lay the man's hog they had forgot to dress the day before. LAUGHTER. But the women always had a good time too. They'd get together on hog killing day and dip their snuff and talk and then when they'd get some of the hogs dressed they'd bring the liver in and they'd fry liver and sometimes dress the chittlings and have them for super that night and then the next day wasfalways such a busy day for everybody trying to get the lard and sausage and everything put away. Do you remember what a job that was? Page 3 Mrs. Bullock: It really was but there wasn't a thing about that hog wasted. Every thing was saved and fixed so it could be eaten by the family. But those were really good old days. You think back when they used to have those corn shuckings and the men would shuck corn and cut wood and things like that and the women would quilt and have a big day and that night they'd have a big square dance to end up the day. Mrs. Morris: But always that meat was hard to process. You had to take all the skin off and cut it in little pieces and put it in a washoot. Do you remember the day that they put the lard in the hot pot and it caught afire. LAUGHTER. ;`rs. Bullock: Yeah, I remember that day. Mrs. Morris: And we all had to get real busy getting the fire put out and then we'd put the lard in cans and put it in the smokehouse and we'd salt the meat down in a box and cover it up to keep flies and insects away from it then we'd grind the sausage in a mill, season it with pepper and salt and then we'd pack it in little sacks, then hang it up in the smokehouse to dry. And we'd then strain the lard and save the cracklings and we'd put the cracklings in corn bread and biscuits. It made it real good. Collector: Tell us about how you used to cook on the fireplace. Mrs. Morris: In our homes we always had a big fireplace with a rock for a hearth. We didn't have brick back then like they do now. And this rock would get real hot in front of the fire and we had little ovens-like; a little pan with legs on it with a cover, a little iron pan. And we'd make the cornbread and put it in this little oven and get the lid real hot and put it over the bread and lay hot coals over that and it would bake some real good cornbread. And you could make pies or just anything else like that. Mrs. Bullock: I can remember when we used to bake potaters in the ashes, coal, would burn wood and those ashes; we'd put the hot ashes onto the taters and we'd have baked potaters and we'd sit around at night and eat baked potaters and enjoy them. Mrs. Morris: And back in those days we didn't have potato curing houses like we have now. We'd have to plow up the potatoes and pile em up -- we'd go get some pine straw and make a bed on the grcund and we'd gather potatoes and lay em in this pine straw bed. And then we'd go cut corn stalks and stack em up around the hill of potatoes an; put dirt over it. We'd have to leave a little hole and put, and put a bucket with the bottom out of it and that's so we could reach through there into the potato bed to get the potatoes in the winter time. That's the only way we had of keeping the potatoes through the winter months. Mrs. Bullock: We used to just grow about everything we ate though. We just planted everything in the garden and saved everything that we grew and we grew Irish potaters and sweet potators so we'd have enough to do us through the winter. Collector: How did you keep your Irish potatoes? Mrs. Morris: We'd take the Irish potatoes and put them under the house or some cool dry place and they would keep through the winter without any protection. They were not like the sweet potatoes -- they didn't have to be banked and bedded. They could just be kept under a house in the open. And they used to dry beef. We didn't have freezer lockers and things to keep beef in and they'd kill a beef and hang up the quarters in a smoke house. And it'd get dry and you could cut it up and still make hash and things out of it but people liked it just cut it off and eat it, and they called it jerky. Page 14 Collector: Did they just cut it off and eat it dry? Mrs. Morris: Un hum. They just cut it off and cat it dry. Raw and dry. And daddy used to got the corn out of the field and carry it to a grist mill and have a meal ground and he did our wheat the same way. !,Te carried the wheat to just the regular grist mill and we'd get different grades of wheat, flour rather. We'd get what we called seconds and bran and just the regular flour. It was dark; it wasn't white like our flour is today. But it was real tasty. Collector: You said that you used syrup in preserving poaches. Do you know how they made syrup? Mrs. Bullock: Well, just about every family planted syrup cane in those days. Their had just a regular field of it. And they would let it get ripe. It was usually in August or the first of September when it would get ready to cut down and they would go out there and strip the fodder off the cane and cut it down and then cut the heads off then they would load it on a wagon or whatever they had to carry it on and then carry it to a syrup mill. There would be somebody in the comr..unity every year with a syrup mill that would make syrup for everybody. They'd haul the cane over there and then they had a -- something that mashed up, kind of ground it up, and they would press the juice out of it and then they'd have a big vat they'd put this juice in and cook it and then just cook it down until it would be a thick nice syrup. And real good. And they used that syrup for a lot of things.. Even to sweeten their coffee with when they didn't have sugar. And they just did a lot of things back in those days that we don't have to do now but I wouldn't go back to those days but they worked hard back then but they could get through with their work and get more visitin done than we can get now. Seems like our time is all taken up but back then, with a big family of children, a mother could get through with all her housework, washin, ironin, cookin, and everything and then go visit the neighbors and stay til bedtime at night. Carry the whole family and the children would play blindfold or somethin like that til everybody was just worn out and the men and women would just have a good time talkin and tellin how their gardens were doin and how many eggs they were gettin and about their baby chickens and things like that until it was time to go home and then they'd all get out and walk a path and go back home in the dark. lAUGIITER.. Mrs. Morris: And a lady in the neighborhood would put up a quilt and invite all the ladies in to help her quilt in the afternoon and always served refreshments. I enjoyed it so much. Collector: What was the refreshments? Mrs. Morris: Usually we'd have teacakes and once in a while we'd have lemonade. That was quite a rarity. Collector: Oh, because you didn't have lemons -- you had to buy them? Mrs. Morris: That's right. Collector: How about sassafras tea? I've heard people talk about they used to have sassafras tea. Did you ever have any? Mrs. Bullock: Yeah, I have. Collector: Did you like it? Mrs. Bullock: I liked it a lot. Page 5 Collector: How did they make it? Mrs. Bullock: And mama would go or she'd send us out to dig up -- they's just a certain season of the year that you can do this but we'd go out and hunt these sassafras bushes and dig up the roots. And they were just nice -- they were a pretty color. Collector: What color were they? Mrs. Bullock: I-Tell, they're a kind of persimmon color, I guess you'd say. And we'd wash those roots real good and mama would put them in a big old black kettle and just cover them with water and boil it. Collector: How long? Mrs. Bullock: Boil it for -- not too long. Maybe thirty or fourty minutes. Maybe thirty or forty minutes or something like that and then we'd put a little, uh, sugar if we had it; if we didn't we put a little syrup. LAUGHTER. And drink it and it was real good. And it served as a tonic too for us. Collector: Did it have a good taste? Bullock: Yes, it was real good. I liked it a lot. And most everybody did. We didn't have iced tea to drink then. Or hot or cold tea so that took the place of it. Collector: Well, when you put sugar in it, or I mean syrup, did it taste like sugar does? Bullock: Well, not quite as good. It gave it the sweet flavor but it didn't -- it tasted a little syrupy. It didn't taste just quite as good as the sugar did. Collector: Uh huh: Well, did they make you drink sassafras tea sort as a medicine or did you just drink it cause you liked it? Mrs. Bullock: Well, we drank it because we really liked it and then they thought it was good for us. Collector: What was it supposed to do for you? Mrs. Bullock: LAUGHTER. Well, give us strength -- build us up. LAUGHTER. We took it instead of an iron tonic or something like that. Back then they used a lot of different kinds of roots and things for medicine. And we made a lot of our own medicine. We'd, mama would make, uh, she'd make, if we had a real bad cold and needed cough syrup she'd take some syrup or honey and put some sulfur in it and that's what we took for cough syrup and it was real good. Collector: It killed you or cured you one. Mrs. Bullock: LAUGHTER. Yeah, that's right. Collector: Do you think you'd like to go back to the old days or how that compare with today? Do you think you had a better time then than you have now? Mrs. Bullock: No. No. I wouldn't exchange back. It was too much drudgery. Too much hard work. Collector: But don't you think people were closer together than they are now? Mrs. Bullock: Well, they were. They thought more about each other and less about Page 6 other things. And they enjoyed life but we enjoy life because it's our custom now. But I wouldn't exchange for the reason that we didn't have any conveniences of any kind. Every bit of work was done the hard way back then. But people here stronger then than they are new. Collector: Why do you think this is? Mrs. Bullock: :dell, I don't know. It might be we have too easy a time and we don't keep up our strength and then we -- it might be that that kind of medicine was better than the kind we take now. Collector: LAUGHTER. It might have done more for you than you thought it did. Mrs. Bullock: Yes, that's right. And then instead of drinking a lot of coffee and tea and stuff like that, everybody drank more milk. Collector: Um hum. Mrs. Bullock: Children and grown people. They ate the kind of food that was really good for them. Collector: Um hum. dell, what do you, when you look back when you were young, what do you think was the best times that you had and what did you do that you remember most that was the most fun? Mrs. Bullock: Well, I guess when I was in my early teens. That was the time that you just enjoyed everything. Collector: But I mean one specific type thing. Was it the all day dinners at the church. Or the -- Mrs. Bullock: ;?ell, I enjoyed going to singings more than anything. I liked to play _end sing and my daddy was a singer and I always enjoyed going with him and we had a lot of singing and playing at home and that was one thing the whole family enjoyed and I think that was one of the outstanding things in my life. Collector: Did everybody in your family sing or play? Mrs. Bullock: Yes, they did. They was six girls and we all played the piano. Collector: How about you, mother? What did you do that you think was the most fun? Mrs. Morris: Well, like I enjoyed the musical side of our family more than anything from my earliest recollections. It was such a pleasure for everybody to come to our house and sing and which they did real often. Collector: You all had a piano? Mrs. Morris: 4;e had a organ when I was a child and then in later years we had a piano. I well remember how -- now I wonder how my mother stood all s is of us girls there just one waitin for the other to quit playing so they could.. L.YUGHTER. It was just continuous from day in to day out. Collector: Wasn't it kind of a rarity for anybody to have an organ? Or a piano? Wasn't this sort of special thing. Mrs. Morris: ?dell, not everybody had one by any means. Page 7 Collector: So you were sort of special. Mrs. Bullock: LAUGHTER. And we made good use of our ability to play and sing. We all played at church and we sang in the choir at church and we knew when Sunday morning came we were going to church. Everybody got up just knowing they were going to church just like they did -- theywere going to school on a school day. And we all got ready and got in the wagon and away we went. Collector: Well, could you tell about some special things that you did on -- things that you can remember. About church and all day singings and preparing the food. Mrs. Bullock: Well, we had a lot of all day singings back then and our church wasn't a quick-over thing. We l d stay a lot of times til one o'clock and the preacher would preach an hour. We just expected that when we went and everybody sat and listened to him. LAUGHTER. Oh, Law. Collector: Well, you had to get up kind of early didn't you to -- Mrs. Bullock: Yes, we did. Lots of times we wouldn't live right near to a church when we were small. There wasn't a lot of churches and there wouldn't be one right near to us and it would take us some time to get to church. Interview with Mrs. Alma Bell who lives on the outskirts of Royston, Georgia in Franklin County and is sixty-eight years old. Collector: I wonder if you could tell me, in the old days, how you kept it from spoiling when you had more than you could eat up that day? Mrs. Bell: Jell, the way I did my sausage I'd get the, all the pepper and sage and all and put in it;then I would take the dried shucks off of corn and take the shucks and tear them apart, then I'd spread them and put my sausage in them and then I'd tie each end and I'd dry then and it was real good.. Collector: Did you hang -- how did you hang it up to dry? Mrs. Bell: Yes, I did. I'd run a cane through it and put the cane up. Collector: Did you have a special place that you hung it for drying? Mrs. Bell: Well, in the cooler place. Collector: In the smokehouse? Mrs. Bell: Yes, in the smokehouse. Collector: Uh, how long did it take it to dry before it would be ready to eat? Mrs. Bell: Well, summers from four to five weeks. Collector: About how much did you have in one thing of shuck -- about a pound or? Mrs. Bell:Just about a pound. Just about one cooking. I'd take it apart and use it all. Just about one meal. Collector: Well, did you -- how much of this did you put up? Did you put all of your sausage up this way? Mrs. Bell: No, not all. I did can some. Cook it and canned it. Collector: How did you do this? Mrs. Bell: Well, I'd just fry it til its done and pack it in a can and cover it with grease and then seal it. Collector: Uh huh. But then if you didn't have enough cans then you put the rest of it-- Mrs. Bell: Yeah, well, my husband liked it. Collector: Which way? In the shucks? Mrs. Bell: In the shucks. Collector: Uh huh. Which way did you like it best? Mrs. Bell: Well, I liked it in shucks alright but I have put it in brown paper and just make a (leak ?) and roll it and then dry it and there -- that's good. Page 2 Mrs. Bell: That's really good. Collector: How did you fix it? Mrs. Bell: I'd roll it in brown paper instead of shucks. Collector: Uh huh. Mrs. Bell: I've used both. ('.) and then I'd hang it and I have used Collector: Well, how do you fix your sausage now. Do you still fix it that way? Mrs. Bell: [dell, no I freeze them. Sometimes I can some but I mostly freeze them. It's more handy. Collector: Uh huh. Mrs. Bell: It's more handy. Collector: Well, did you think it tasted better in the old days than it does 'to freeze it? I3rs. Bell: Well, yes, I think so. I think my appetite calls back to that. LAUGHTER. Collector: Well, how about some of the other things. How did you preserve the beef when you had a beef? Mrs. Bell: Well, I have cut some and put it in a churn and put salt and put more beef and hit would -- I didn't lot it set over more than a week. Collector: Then what did you do? After the week, how did you, what did you do with it then? Dirs. Bell: Well, we have put a little pork in it to make sausage, grind in a little sausage and make pork and then I'd can it -- the sausage. Collector: Uh huh. What was the recipe for -- do you remember the recipe for the sausage where you put beef and pork together? How you mixed it? Mrs. Bell: No, I don't. Background Voice: Half and half. Mrs. Bell: I didn't put hardly half and half. I didn't put as much pork. I didn't put half. Collector: What kind of seasoning did you put in it? Mrs. Bell: Well, I put some pepper and some sage to make it taste -- and some salt. Collector: Uh huh. Yes. Well, how about cabbage or anything of this nature? How did you preserve your cabbage? Or collards? Mrs. Bell: Well, I've taken care of my cabbage -- I'd make it into kraut. And let it stay in the salt.-- salty water about nine days and then I'd take em out and can em. Page 3 Collector: Well, did you put the whole cabbage in the salt? How did you do that? Mrs. Bell: No, I cut it just right fine but I cut it just a sack full and then I'd put it down in the churn and then I'd pour salty water over it. And put something to hold it down in that water and then I n d taken it out in nine days and put it into the dish pan and bring it to just a little boil and then can it. And it was real good kraut. Background voice: Uh huh. Mrs. Bell: And my green beans -- I have brought them to a boil after I'd break them and spread them out on a table where they would cool and then I'd pour salty water over that and make pickle beans. Collector: How did you -- did you put them in a big container and put the salty water over then or how did you do this? Mrs. Bell: Yeah, I put it in a churn. Collector: And how long did you let it stay in the churn? Mrs. Bell: Well, summer's about eight-nine days. Collector: And you took them out and canned them? Mrs. Bell: Canned them and they was pickle beans. Collector: Well, did you take them out of the salty water and wash them? Mrs. Bell: No, I didn't wash then. I took them out of the salty water and put em in water just enough to cover them in cans. Collector: Uh huh. Well, how about milk and butter and stuff? How did you keep this? Mrs. Bell: Well, I'd put my milk in cold water in a, some kind of a pail, you know and change it very often and then the next morning what was left, we'd just put it into feed the pigs. Collector: Uh huh. Well, I have heard of some people putting it down in the well. Mrs. Bell: Well, I have cooled it down in the well. Yes, I have. Put it in the bucket and lower it -- lower it down to near the water and fix your rope to where it can't go dot-n. Collector: Did you ever lose any milk that way? Mrs. Bell: No, I was lucky. I didn't ruin the well. LAUGHTER. Collector: What happened if you did? Mrs. Bell: Well, I don't know. I never had nothing like that happen. Collector: Well, uh, how about syrup making? Did you ever -- Mr. Bell ever do any syrup making -- making syrup? Mrs. Bell: No, he didn't but he carried the cane to other mills. H Page4 Collector: Well, how about drying fruit? Did you dry -- how did you keep fruit? Peaches and apples and things like that. Mrs. Bell: Well, my family liked dried apples. I had dried apples but none of my family didn t t like dried peaches and I nevar dried none -- I just canned them. Collector: Uh huh. Well, did you ever find it a problem with having enough cans to can your stuff? Mrs. Bell: No, I've always had, I guess more cans than I got filled. LAUGHTER. I had plenty of cans. Collector: Uh huh. Well, do you knew how to fix hominy? Have you ever made hominy? Mrs. Bell: No, I never have. Collector: Uh huh. Mrs. Bell: I never have made hominy. Collector: Well, tell me about hog killing day -- what was hog killing day like? Mrs. Bell: Well, it's a real busy day for the whole family. Collector: Did you just -- was it a get together back a long time ago in the neighborhood where a lot of families got together and killed hogs. Mrs. Boll: Yes, when our children was growing up the neighbors helped each other and when the children all got grown then they didn't have to have no help. Cause they could help each other. They did it themselves. Collector: Uh huh. Mrs. Bell: And the way I did my, we used to do that meat -- just salt it down and let it stay in salt for about six weeks, then take it up and washed it and hang it up and lot it dry and then I have made a paste, you know, and put on it. Collector: What kind _ paste? Mrs. Bell: Well, I just take water and flour and maybe popper and a little sugar and put it on it and then wrap it in brown paper and then let it dry out and it was real good -- Collector: `fiat -- was this the hams? Mrs. Bell: The hams. Yeah. Then later on in years I went to sugar curing them. Collector: How did you do that? Mrs. Bell: Well, I put three cups of salt and a cup of brown sugar and some black popper and then some red pepper and also a little white sugar and brown sugar both and just rubbed it just as quick as you could get to it while the meat was hot and then just wrap hit in paper and let hit, just hang hit up -- it was real good. Collector: Uh huh. Which do you like best? The sugar cured? . Page 5 Mrs. Bell: Oh, the sugar cured. I believe I like the sugar cured the best. Collector: Uh huh. There's really nothing that tastes like ham is there? Mrs. Bell: That's right. Collector: Well, can you think of any funny stories that happened when you were having hog killing day or anything unusual that happened? ;rs. Bell: No, I don't think of anything. I guess everybody was too busy. I know we was real tired at night when all of that was over. Cole ctor: How about making the lard and the cracklings? Didn't you have to do this on hog killing day? Mrs. Bell: Oh, yes. We'd cook out about two potfuls if we killed two hogs at a time. And we'd save some of them. Some of them, some of the family, liked cracklings, some didn't. I guess the dogs mostly got that. .....\" ( I ,'; '..:1 11 Ii. \.(; ; ; ) 1?//tJ>, ~/~'(J',J~,~t~ (~> ltJi~s;z~~'9~A'/llv ~4Jzt;eev ((I?l z,/L- )/, (tt-(},>t7 '1.J(4- / 1lj/10' tII~ ;;!fYU~~ ifl/Uv, ;l~ 13J.J!.Y(fJ~ i; I
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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. Kenan Research Center welcomes feedback and questions regarding our archival descriptions. If you encounter harmful, offensive, or insensitive terminology or description please let us know by emailingreference@atlantahistorycenter.com. Your comments are essential to our work to create inclusive and thoughtful description.