Melissa Daugherty interview with Susan Daugherty, James Cragen, and Minnie Cragen

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In this recording the interviewer, Melissa Daughertys, aunt and grandparents, James and Minnie Cragen, tell funny stories and repeat superstitions. First Daugherty tells a humorous story about how bad the roads are in Louisiana. Then James Cragen tells a series of funny stories he learned from Mr. Barry, one of their neighbors from the North Georgia Mountains known as a great storyteller. The first two are preacher stories. Then he tells one in which a woman uses a mirror for the first time, followed by one about a stingy neighbor. At 06:40 minutes Minnie Cragen recalls superstitions from her childhood. The first is about how hoot owls can predict death, and the second is about a bird that sings"Poor Will's Widow, Poor Will's Widow." Then she remembers a superstition that her nanny taught her, that she should save all her teeth and hair in preparation for judgment day. Then at 09:33 Cragen tells a ghost story in which a young woman named Lady Wade is killed during a lovers quarrel at a resort near where she lived; after her death, the woman returned on Halloween to dance at the hall. In Cragens next story Mr. Barry tries to avoid sharing a ladle with a local man who chewed tobacco. At 12:10 Cragen tells the last funny story in the recording; it is about a woman who liked to perform interpretive dance that her parents felt was too provocative. From 13:27 until the end of the recording, the audio is static.
Susan Dauherty (1924-?) was born in Somerville, South Carolina, to Carl Francis (1895-1970) and Susan Lawton Daugherty (1902-1988), but lived in Atlanta, Georgia, most of her life, except for a few years in Athens, Georgia. She graduated from Agness Scott in 1948, then taught for a few years at Morningside Elementary before working at the Office of Aging in the Georgia Department of Human Resources. James A. Cragen (1901-1983) was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to Harvey Allen (1860-1939) and Emily Viola (1871-1946). In 1925 he married Minnie Mildred Banks (1904-1989), one of five daughters born in Gibson Wells, Tennessee, to Cassie (1874-1917) and James Hopkins Banks (1871-1966). The Cragens moved to Knoxville, where he worked for the Bell Telephone Company, then to Buckhead in the 1940s (before it was incorporated into Atlanta, Georgia). In 1937, they joined the Appalachian Trail Club, of which he later became the national Vice-President; and in 1955 they bought land in Dahlonega, Georgia. They had a daughter, Mildred Lain (1927-?), who in 1948 married Carl Francis Daugherty (1914-1988), Susan Daughertys brother. Mildred and Carl Daugherty had at least one daughter, Melissa.
FOLKLORE 301 Dr. J. Burrison Spring 1974 Melissa Daugherty May JO, 1974 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Biography 1 Story about the roads 3 Biography 4 Preacher's sermon 6 Preacher and his mule 7 Mirror present 8 Stingy man 9 Hoot owl 10 Whipper Will 1s song 11 Judgement Day preparation 12 Lady Wade returns 13 Man with chewing tobacco 14 Dancing girl 15 Miss Susan 1. Daugherty, my aunt, was born in Sommerville, South Carolina in 1924 and lived there for two weeks. She was born during the time when the mother went home to have the babies. From then until now, she has lived in Atlanta, except for eight years that she spent in Athens, Georgia. She attended public grammar and high schools and later graduated from Agnes Scott College in 1948. After finishing college, she taught the fifth grade at Morningside Elementary school for three years, from 1948 to 1951. In June of 1951, she got a job working with the Girl Scout organization. She stayed there for twenty-one years. During those years she moved to Athens, and lived there for eight years. This job did not require much moving around, but she was constantly going to see new places and meeting different people just because she loves to. She is presently living at 252-A Kinsey Court, in Atlanta. She has worked, since 1972, with the Georgia Department of Human Resources, Office of Aging. She acts as the regional director and coordinator for one-third of the state's programs for the elderly. She always hasW,:1people caring' person, working with or doing for others. She never stops. This job keeps her traveling quite a bit, all over the Southeast for conventions or meetings and visiting different people also assocaited with similar programs. She said that this particular folktale was collected at a convention in 1 New Orleans and was told as being true in that area, but she admits that it could j,sut as well been heard as having happened in the mountains of north Georgia or an~flhere else for that matter . 2 ---------------, Uh, for years the stories 'bout the roads in Louisiana 'specially down by the Bayou Country, uh, have been legend 1bout how hard it is to get around. An' there was a story that actually is recorded in the courthouse in one of the little towns about this man and woman that came in to see the Justice of the Peace, and they wanted a marriage license. 1 And the Justice of the Peace looked through the little cage there, in front of his desk, and he saw that there were five little children, they're just little stair-steps, standing beside this couple. And, uh, and the Justice said, "Now you say you want a marriage license?" And they said, "Yeah, yeah, that's what we want." And he said, "Uh, who's children are those with ya 1 ?11 And they smiled and they said, "They our children!" And he sa.id, "Well, don I t you think it's a little late for a marriage license?" He said, "Well, maybe so, but the roads is been so bad, we couldn't get here 1fo now. 112 Motifs: 1TlJ3 Travel to wedding ?x1526 Lies about mountain roads 3 UyptY yfsl-i+ prcfvye, 1-:) of rY\ y CWl'\+ I ') [)'jCU, ' l'11 dd)e- D.h6 )owey Y\~~f ~e, i'? k pi e,+ure- CA- lYJlm\Q, cu,d :rrVi\m_y LC!h:\ yY\~ )( l-t)e, -5h+e :5l1'.:l1 t) , Since I can remember, my grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. James A. Cragon, have either taken us camping in the Smokey Mountains or hiking and jeep riding in the North Georgia Mountains. They have, since 1955, owned about 150 acres of land outside Dahlonega, Georgia and have driven to and from there whenever possible for years to visit their friends or just to look in on their property. Among their north Georgia friends is an Anglo-Saxon mountain family by the name of Berry. Before old age took it's to~l, Mr. Miles Berry, the patriarch of the family, was looked to for guidance by the entire clan. In addition, Mr. Berry was known throughout the area as a story teller and leader of the old gospel harmony singing. He would never answer a question directly, but would tell a little story or allegory to make his point. Having been in contact with him, my grandparents have picked up sayings and stories and perhaps even traded some of their own. Both Mama and Jimmy were born and raised in Tennessee. Jimmy was born in June of 1901 in Nashville and Mama was born in November of 1904 in Gibson Wells. Jimmy grew up in Nashville, met and married Mama there and started his family there also. Mama was born on a farm, lived there most of her childhood and then later commuted between there and Nashville during her high school years. In 1925, she got married and became part of what was going to be a very transient family . 4 Working for the Bell Telephone Company, they left Nashville in 1928 to go to Knoxville. It was here that they first got involved with camping and hiking and associating with the 'mountain people.' In 1937, they joined the Appalachian Trail Club and Jimmy later became the national Vice-President and editor of the trail guide. By now, they had the old mountain spirit in their blood and decided they would like to own their own 'side of a mountain.' By asking around, they heard about an old abandon farm that had been allowed to go back natural. All that is left of the old farmstead is a hillside of daffodils that some forgotten woman had planted, that we pick each Spring. This property belonged to Mr. Berry and here began their friendship. My grandparents now live in Buckhead at 3459 Ivy Rd. and have since they moved there in the 1940 1s. When they first moved to Buckhead, it was considered to be one of the outer suburbs of Atlanta. Now, they have a multi-story commercial complex being built almost right in their backyard~ Since Jimmy is retired, it would not be at all surprising if they just went on and moved up to Dahlonega and lived there in their own farm house and garden of flowers . 5 One of Mr. Berry's favorite stories is about a-an old visitin 1 preacher who came through that part of the country periodically to conduct Bible services. An1 , uh, one of the ways that he got paid was, at the end of the service, .,,. the people would give him hams,,chickens, and other food stuffs, uh, in lieu of money. He, uh, on this particular occasion was preachin' on the subject of "It I s Better to Rece-- Give than to Receive". And he'd gotten to the point where he was just about bearin 1 down on 1em on the subject, when he suddenly happened to think about the hams an' 'the chickens that he was hopin 1 to get from those very people when he got through with ~service. So, , he stopped an I sort of to himself said, "But, this receiving ain 1t too bad either!" 6 Another one of Mr. Berry's preacher stories is about an ole fella who came around over the mountains o--- ridin' a mule. And uh, he would serve at the various churches on the Sunday that he happened to be there. And so, uh, in this, on this particular Sunday, uh, it was a hot day and he liked to drink a lot of water while he was ma--- preachin 1.l And so the boys thought they would play a trick on him by puttin' some white lightnin 1 into the pitcher of water. And course he didn't know what white lide--- lightnin 1 tasted like, so he didn't realize there's anything wrong with it, and drank the whole pitcher full. 2 So by the time he got through with his sermon, he was just about flyin 1 low. Now, uh, when he got, when he went out to get on his mule, he, he put the saddle on the mule hind-parts-before.3 And the good, uh, congregation people looked at it and said, "Preacher, don't you think you've got.that saddle on wrong?" And he said, "No, looks alright to me." Well, they said, "Well, wouldn't it be a lot more comfortable if you turned it around the other way, so you could kinda face to the front?" And he said, "Well, lookee here now, you don't know which way I'm a-go in' ! " Motifs: ~X445 Parson refreshes himself during sermon 3 X445.l Parson takes a drink of liquor during sermon X443 Parson's poor horsemanship Tale Type: 18J6A The Drunken Parson 7 Another one of Mr. Berry's stories is about, uh, how the people would go down to the settlement an--- an' ta~e things that they had made an' for staples. But the women would never go down, it's just be the men that would go down 'ere. And, uh, so one, owone of those trips, the, uh, the old man, uh, decided his wife had been a mighty good wife ana he'd just buy her a present. So, he's lookin' around in the store an 1 finally he saw somethin 1 that appealed to him an' he figured it would be just the very thing to buy for his wife. He bought 1er a little hand mirror. And he took it back with her--- with him and, uh, when he got 'ome, he made the--- a big ceremony of presentin 1 it to his wife. And she took it, and'she'd never seen a mirror before, an' looked at it and she looked at it, she looked at it, an 1 finally she said, "So that's the jussy you've been goin 1 down there to see every ti--- every month! 111 Motif: 1Jl795 Image in mirror mistaken for picture Another one of Mr. Berry's stories is about one of his neighbors that was real stingy. An' seems as though this ole fella had a lot of property an'-- an' he after he'd accumulated a lot of money he moved off down to the settlement. So Mr. Berry heard about somebody that wanted to buy one of his farms and wrote him a postcard to tell him about the farm, uh, the man wantin' to buy the farm. So, uh, the the ole man came up an' Mr. Berry went with 'im an' they went to see this other fella an' the other fella bought the farm. And so the stingy man said, "I sure do appreciate you makin' arrangements for me to sell this farm, Mr. Berry." And said, "I would pay you for that penny postcard, if you had change for a nickel." Tale Type: 1704 Anecdotes about Absurdly Stingy Persons 9 When I was a child an' livin 1 in the country, there was a superstition that if you heard a hoot owl at night near your house, that was a sigh that there'd be a death in your family within a year.l Course, as a child, this frightened us, so we found out that if you hear a hoot owl an' he keeps hooting an' you want to stop him, you tie a knot in the corner of your sheet an' the ole hoot owl will quit an 1 go away. And believe it~or not, it works, that knot in the sheet strangles him. Motif: 1Dl812.5.l.27.l Hooting of owl a bad omen Tale Type: Death's Messengers 10 When we 1d go campin' all through the years, we'd be ri-- 1round the campfire in the evening at dusk, and we'd hear this bird in the distance saying, "Poor Will's Widow, Poor Will's Widow." Sound very much like a Whipper Will, but it isn't. An' the same superstition,,,,when you hear this "Poor Will's Widow", that was the-- a story of a woman who'd been very ill, an' ill, an'ill. Poor Will was her husband an' when she died this Whipper Will who'd been around the house all those years would sing each evening at dusk, he I d sing, 11 Poor Will Is Widow, Poor Will I s Widow. 11 11 While we're on superstitions, an 1 I might add, that we had a woman who lived with us, there were five girls an 1 she was very superstitious and having to control five gir--- young children, she used her superstitions very strongly. An' one, another one of them was when we were children, an' our teeth would be loose, she 1d warn us very cautiously, not to swallow 1em and not to throw 1em away when they came out, because when Judgement Day came we were gonna have to account for every tooth and hair on our head. So, when a tooth would loo--- come out, I had one special little hiding place 'cause I was very small child an 1 I'd crawl around under the corner of the house by the steps, an' I had a special spot that I'd dig up and 1 bury all of my teeth an 1 as much of the hair when they'd cut it as I could, cause I didn't want to have to go scatterin 1 around looking for hair an' teeth when Judgement Day came . 12 In the same area where I lived as a child, there was a summer resort, mineral springs. They had a great big hotel an' a great big dance hall, and I'd sit at night on the porch an' listen to the music an' wish I could go over, but I was not allowed to, because it was a sinful place. But, one night, there were two men, this beaufiful young girl, that they were both in love with and these two men got to arguin' over 'er. An 1 when she's dancin' around,,one shot at the other and killed her. So the legend went, that every year, which was around Halloween,l she would come back ,2 and she would dance an' dance around the dance pavilion3and visit in the hotel ,4 which was just a relic later. An' ever after that, at Halloween time, all the young people would get together an 1 go to the ole hotel an' look through the corners of the rooms and the big walls and go to the dance hall to see if we ~ould find Lady Wade dancing around. Motifs: ~E587.2 Ghosts walk on Halloween E334.2.2 Ghost of person killed in accident seen at death 3 E379 Friendly return from the dead-other motifs E337 Ghost reenacts scene from lifetime 4E338 Non-malevolent ghost haunts building 13 There was the same place up in the mountains where the Mr. Berry lives. There a-- had a big porch that they sat on every Sunday afternoon an' people from all through the country would come by to see them. This one particular man who had-- who chewed tobacco an' he wasn't very clean with it, his mouth, the corners of his mouth were always soiled with tobacco. And at the same place, they had a well near the house an' they'd draw the buckets of cold water an' they used a communal dipper. So the, Mr. Berry drew the bucket of cold water an' passed it around, the dipper around to all of his guests, to different people, came to this man an I he said, "Well you have a drink." Mr. Berry said, "No, you have a drink." So he turned while the man was drinking and when he-- got back an' the man threw the rest of the water out of the dipper an 1 handed it to him, Mr. Berry didn't believe he wanted to drink out of that same dipper like that, so he turned it way around"gtj:j, his mouth was close to where the handle was. An' the ole man with the tobacco looked up an I said, "That I s a funny thing, you drink jest exactly like I do out of that dipper." 14 This beautiful young girl who loved her dancin' an she made a career of it, an it was an interpretive type of thing. An' her parents an 1 her family were a little embarrassed over it, an 1 they told her they didn 1t believe that was the type of dancin I she should do ~hu;l:?lic~ which she had been doin 1 An' she couldn't understand why, but they said, "Well, it isn't anything--, it gives the men the wrong idea, the type of thing you're doin1 ,~.' And she said, "But I don't feel t)}at anything wrong." But it did bother 1er. So she decided, being a devout young Catholic, that she would go to the Father and make a confession an' ask his advice. So, she told him about it and he said, "Well, do you---do you do anything wrong, have you had any trouble?" "No, and I don I t think it I s wrong." She said, "Just a minute Father an I I 111 show you," So she gets out in the middle of the room and she dances an' she slings her hands, an' she flings her feet and her legs around. An' about that time these two Irish char women stopped at the door. They looked and their eyes opened, they looked at each other an' one of 'em said, "Faith an' begorra, look at what is penance for today, an 1 me with a hole in me pants!" 15 GEORGIA FOLKLORE ARCHIVE& CATALOGUE COLLECTOR \V\ 2- \,~so, ~u..0\.,,,.-\-(roanent" address and phone number: , . II GEORGIA FOLKLORE ARCHIVES CATALOGUE INFORMANT s v'...:,O.V\ L bD'"'oh ,_, tcr- ,g address and phone number: ;l,_'.,,;)._ A \.Z,~""""c C.."\-. 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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.
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