Betty Allen interview with Mrs. J.H. Reeves, John Allen Drake Sr., Paul Fred Drake, Sarah Ruth Drake, Florence Collette, Ruben Pliny Pickens, Ruth Ann Pickens, and R.C. Sam Martin

The John Burrison Georgia Folklore Archive recordings contains unedited versions of all interviews. Some material may contain descriptions of violence, offensive language, or negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. There are instances of racist language and description, particularly in regards to African Americans. These items are presented as part of the historical record. This project is a repository for the stories, accounts, and memories of those who chose to share their experiences for educational purposes. The viewpoints expressed in this project do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the Atlanta History Center or any of its officers, agents, employees, or volunteers. The Atlanta History Center makes no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of any information contained in the interviews and expressly disclaims any liability therefore. If you believe you are the copyright holder of any of the content published in this collection and do not want it publicly available, please contact the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center at 404-814-4040 or reference@atlantahistorycenter.com. Interviewer Betty Allen is the daughter of interviewee Mrs. J.H. Reeves. At the beginning of this interview, Mrs. J.H. Reeves discusses lamb-shaped clouds and a superstition regarding sap harvesting. She then elaborates on a few superstitions, including how walking under ladders brings bad luck, the moons influence on babies due dates, curing swimmers ear, and how to cure boils and a poison ivy rash. Next, she describes Jacobs mud hole, a stretch of several days of rain, and when it is best to grow corn. She also discusses the Drake family doctor, other remedy, and dipping snuff. The conversation shifts to Ruth Ann Pickens (ne Rogers) fascination with the Civil War; she discusses the Battles of Shiloh and Pine Mountain, along with details of Virginias role in the conflict. Then, another interviewee describes farming practices, specifically discussing the moons influence on crops and hogs. Ruth Rogers Pickens then talks about her childhood, starting with cures for coughs and remedies for cuts, then games she played, including hide-and-seek, ante-over, and town ball. She then recalls some familys superstitions, including that her great-great grandmother was a Cherokee Indian who was superstitious that somebody would put a spell on her because of her heritage. She elaborates on the changing weather and its unpredictability, next discussing predicting births, animals, and the moon. Next, she talks about studying in a one-room schoolhouse, her familys favorite recipes, and her chores. She concludes with a story about the edge of Forsyth County and Cumming where sounds of rattling chains can be heard and a story about a haunted hill. Next, R.C. Sam Martin talks about African-American farm workers and home remedies they used to cure sore eyes, arthritis, elongating life span, and croup cough. Martin discusses his work on railroads and repeats the lyrics of Barbra Allen. An unidentified interviewer discusses home remedies for bad colds, sore eyes, and preventing common sicknesses. He then describes Sunday afternoon country cooking, religious songs and describes superstitions about hats, black cats, gophers, farming bean seeds and tomatoes, baby births, and signs for a hard winter. The conversation shifts to home life in the winter including stoves, bathtubs, quilts, and food preservation. He describes his school clothes and the flour starch his mother used to clean them, as well as attending school. He mentions that his mother believed in witches and then describes family deaths and embalmers. His interview ends with a conversation about Christmas gifts, farmland, and his familys house where all the children slept in one big bedroom. Betty Allen then interviews Paul Fred Drake, who shares stories his grandfather told him as a child about an escaped enslaved person and fishing. Allen Drake shares superstitions about the moon, corn, hogs, and graves then tells a few riddles, one about St. Ives, and one about squirrels. He discusses living in Roswell, Georgia, as a boy. To conclude his interview, he shares A Parody to the Raven. After he finishes, Sarah Ruth Drake briefly explains superstitions regarding New Years and sweeping dirt out the door. At the end of the recording Florence Collette talks about planting beans, the saying that a rainbow at night was a sailors delight, and superstitions about roosters, the weather, snow, long winters, and additional New Years superstitions. Betty Reeves Allen (19292003) was born to J.H. Reeves. She lived in Chamblee, Georgia. Mrs. J.H. Reeves was raised in South Georgia and moved to Atlanta, Georgia. John Allen Drake, Sr. (1928-1966) was born to Paul Fred (1898-1897) and Sarah Ruth (ne Adams) (18981974). He married Bobbie Ann Lancaste, and they had two children, John A. Drake and Roseanna White. They lived in Chamblee, Georgia, and worked at a funeral home in Alpharetta, Georgia Paul Fred Drake (18981987) was born to John William Drake (18551941) and Sarah Idella Drake (ne Allen) (18581930). He married Sarah Ruth Drake (ne Adams) (18981974), and they had two children, Joyce Eileen (1919-1994) and John Allen, Sr. (1928 1996). He lived in Alpharetta, Georgia, joined the armed services in 1918, and later worked as a butcher. Throughout his life, he lived in Jasper, Milton, Cross Keys, Gwinnett, and Chamblee in Georgia. Florence Collette (ne Phillips) (19121984) was born to Elder Bartow Alred Phillips (18801961) and Azillee Phillips (ne Westbrook) (18811960). She married Dewey Garlon Collette (19081987), and they had five children: Garlon Alred (19302007), Dorothy Lee Bates (19322016), Barbara Ann (19381938), Roger Monroe (19412008), and Mark Douglas (1943 2016). The family lived in Alpharetta, Georgia. Ruben Pliny Pickens (18901969) was born to William Pickens (18501926) and Mary Louvenia Pickens (18561925). He married Ruth Ann Rogers (1892-1974), and they had one child, William Rogers (19231997), and lived on a farm in Lilburn, Georgia. Ruth Ann Pickens (1892-1974) was born to Augustus Lovely Rogers (18491932) and Julia Ann Rogers (ne Frances) (18601944) near Duluth, Georgia. She married Reuben Pliny Pickens (18901969). They had one child, William Rogers Pickens (19231997), and lived on a farm in Lilburn, Georgia. R.C. Sam Martin lived in Atlanta, Georgia. How old are you? Fifty-five. That means you were born in ----1 1912. In what part of Georgia were you born? Around McRae, Georgia, and Helena. And that's what, South Georgia? South Georgia. And your family lived on a farm. Is that right? About three miles out from Helena. How many was in your family? Ten. Ten in all and you had about how many brothers and sisters? Two brothers and eight sisters, but two sisters died when they were babies. When you'll got sick in the country what did your mother do for you? Well, for bad colds she would give us castor oil to work our stomachs out and then she'd fix sweet milk and turpentine and we'd g~gle for sore throats. For boils, 01 boils people had in the country alot, she'd put fat meat on um to draw um to a head and draw the core out of an 01 boil. And then tell me, you were telling me about the flees, not the flees, but the,uh, nits ... 1 Oh, the 01 black nits in South Georgia? Yea. They cause sore eyes. wash our eyes out. " Mama"d fix-borax water and stuff and -2- they Were/real bad on your eyes? Qh yea. You told me something about some soot in the chimney? For cuts, cuts in your fingers or feet when you step on glass or nails or something like that, she'd, uh, wipe the black soot out of the back of the chimney to stop bleeding and keep um from gettin sore an infected. Well, what was it you'll wore around your neck? Ah, asafetida that smelt real bad on a cord. We'd wear it alL"winter. They thought that was to keep us from catching cold so bad. Did you believe it did, or did you just do it? I did what my mother told me to do, I didn't know. You were telling me something about some superstit10ns that you'll, that your mother and father really believed in, like the black cat. Tell me---- Ah--- (interruption) what that was? If were were goin down the road, if you had, ah, hat on they'd tell us to turn our hats around or we'd have bad luck if a black, black, cat crossed in front of the wagon we was riding in goin to town and to church or someplace. You didn~t have cars then? No. You had a horse and buggy? We had wagons and buggies and horses and mules. And you'll drove that to church? Uh hu. We'd lay in the back of a wagon and cover up with a quilt comin in from church at night 'cause daocdy was ah song leader in church and we had to go three times a day, two or three times on Sundays to church and stay Sunday night for church, and we'd be sleepy and tired and we'd take quilts and lay down in the back of a wagon and cover up comin back. -3- Did you'll stay there all day or did you go and come home? Sometimes we'd all spread lunch on the ground in the country, and I always loved for mama to cook cakes and fry chicken and stuff to take 'cause we thought it was. ah:,good meaL You had a lot of good food on Sunday? Yea. Country, good country cookin. Do you remember any of the, uh, religious songs that you sung in church? Well not right now I canl't think. But, I did know alot of um. Your father would know alot of um? Yea, daddy sang all the time. had to sit on the front bench. time. Me and my two oldest sisters We sang with~Kddy all the You were telling me about some other superstitions uh --something about the gophers. You want to tell me that? Oh, old golp-gophers that lived in the ground. We'd, uh, take our old tin tubs Mama washed clothes':; in out in the woods when we could find their, the gopher holes and we'd did a great big hole at tha end of their hole there, their cave they stayed in and, place that tin tUb way down in there, and th~d come out .to the end and th~d just fall down in the tin tUb and th~n we'd catch um and daddy'd take tha ax and split um half in two and we'd dress their legs and cook um and eat um, and we'd have to pare boil um to get um good and tender, and then we'd eat um, but we had tQ be careful about their mouths before th~'d died 'cause if they got your fingers in their mouths they wouldn"t let go 'til the sun went down, couldritt even ~ prize their mouth open. And your mother and father believed this? Yea. Did you, did you ever see it happen? No, not really) but that was everybody's belief about the gophers. -4- Do you know any other beliefs about animals, ah, farm animals or anything like that? Well no, not right off, I was so little I can,"t remember alot. Ah, Ah, lets see now. Tell me something about your farming pract1ces, ah, when did you'll plant the garden? Well, Mama always got her bean seeds and tomatoes and everything planted on good Friday. She'd start on good Friday, and from then on 'til weeks later she'd keep plant1n stuff in the ground and settin out tomato plants and everything. Daddy, he'd plant corn and alot of his stuff by the full of the moon. And that was, what was that supposed to mean -- good luck Ah (interruption) for your crops? Good luck and more vegetables and corn and potatoes and stuff and not, wouldn't grow all bushes, id make alot of corn and vegetables instead 0f growing big bushes. Do you remember any signs; uh, any signs that you had, that it was going to be , what kind of weather it was going to be. Any say1ngs or superstitions that you remember? Well when we'd see a rainbow in the sky, mama'd say, ah, 1t~ goin a rain tomorrow bause if the sun ashining and it's a raining at the same time, its goin rain again tomorrow. She believed in that. And what about,what was the s1gn of a hard winter? Well the squirrels and birds and all, they would pack up all kinds of nuts and take things to their beds an we'd find all kinds of stuff up under the edge of tha house and all where tha squirrels and all ud hide stuff and, uh, we'd go by that and think that we'd we goin to have a bad winter and daddy would cut alot of trees in the swamps and drag um up and we'd saw wood and saw blocks of wood for cooking in the cookstove, and we had a big old stove that we had to burn wood in. The first stove we had was just a 01 plain 01 flat top stove. But then daddy got a little more money one year and he bought mama a better stove that had a reservoir on the side of it where we'_ could have -5- hot water, and we'd have to draw two or three buckets of water at night to pour in the reservoir and the water would be warm all night ' cause the coals in the stove would stay hot a long time and then next morning early we'd get up and make a fire and we'd still have hot water the next morning which alot of people didn't have that was real poor. We was real poor too but daddy did get up enough money to bUy us that kind of stove. And you had, ah, actually a sort of sink like that was made into the stove. That's how you kept your water --? Yea, it was a kind of, ah, heavy cast iron, we called it a reservoir, and ah, it had a lid on it that you raised up to dip the water out with a long handled dipper to pour over your dishes and things. The only bathin-- ~Did you wash interruption) The only bathin that we could do, we'd, ah, get mama's 01 wash tub and put it back of the stove and pour some of that warm water in that tub and we'd all bathe, wash ~ff in that tine tub at night. You couldn't take alot of baths in the winter then did you? No, we didn't have nothing but just a little basin of warm water and a wash rag to bathe With. And you'll had --- this stove was, uh, heated by wood? By wood, uh um. Daddy would bank up alot of wood against the chimney outside for us to have fire With through winter. at night you'll slept under alot of cover? big Mama would put five or siX/heavy quilts on the didn::t have any blankets, we just had sheets and And, uh, Oh yea. bed. We qUilts. Did she make these quilts herself? Set down and piece qUilts,and I've pieced quilts too. I sit on one side of the quiltin frames With my mama and sew, and I'd make too long a stitches and sometimes she'd make me pUll um out. And where'd you'll get the rags from? From the material she'd buy to make our school clothes. -6- We didn't have but about two Sunday dresses and she'd make them and we'd wear um to church and come home and take um off.and hang um up and we'd go back that night and put um bac.k on. How did you'll wash the clothes that you'll---? Had an 01 iron pot and Mama built a big fire around it and heat the water and boil the clothes and pour redseal lye and she made her 'S'o'S'p to rub the the clothes on_an old _ for/<. rUbboard, and she'd lise that redseal lye and ~ke>gr-ease to make the gO?P, and uh, we had a battlin board, or battlin stick, that she'd beat daddy's old farmin clothes to beat the dirt out of um on that old battlin board, and then she put um in that old iron pot of hot water and boil um. The clothes got wore out pretty soon, didn,tt they? Yea, daddy's overalls where they got so dirty would be ragged and worn, and s~d patch um and he'd wear um. We wore patched clothes alot. In the winter time when it got real cold, we had to wear union suits, and we wore long stockings and we'd have to put the union suit legs down in our union SUits, but I was ashamed to wear um to school. When I'd get nearly 'bouts to the school house I'd pull my union suit legs out of my stockings and roll um up above my knees. (laughter) Ah, and how did you'll preserve your food? You didn't bUy much of your food at the store, or any did you? Well daddy bought sugar and coffee, and ah, he growed some of the wheat and stUff, some flour, I was real small then but I remember he used to bring some flour home and mama'd make some kind of brown biscuits 'cause tha flour wadn't bleached white or something. And this was wheat he had taken to town? 't He had growed the wheat hisself and we growed all the vegetables, everything. Mama'd can hundredths of cans of stuff every year for us to have. We had plenty of country food. It was good, we had plenty of hot soup and canned soups she'd fixed, canned fruits. She'd take peaches and apples and peel urn. We'd have to help her slice um, and she'd take a white sheet and lay um on top of the barn -7- or the smokehouse or somethin where the chickens couldn't get to um and let the hot sun dry urn out and that was our dried fruit for the winter. When it'd dry out real good she'd pack it up in white flour sacks and hang it up in tha smokehouse where the meat was and then if we wanted some hot pies, some fried pies or something, she got out and get some of that fruit and fix out pies. Well, how did you preserve --- You didn't have refrigerators? No. We didn't have anything like that we had ah-- When we had fresh sweet milk that she wanted to keep over, she put it in a jug and tie a rOpe around the handle of the jug and drop it down the well in the cold water to keep it cool. And the butter, you didn't refrigerate the butter? Naw, we churned every mornin. Mama fixed the churn at night and ah, daddy'd get up and sit at the backdoor" and I'd never forget seeing daddy sit at the backdoor With a white flour sack spread across his knees churnin that butter while mama was cobkin biscuits. And you'll ate this butter at meals? Yea, we had plenty of good butter. Now, how did you'll preverve your meat after you killed the animals? Oh, daddy, ah, salted it down, and ah, the side meat ~nd all he'd salt it down and pack it up in a big wooden box and the hams, he'd dig a hole in the ground and make a fire, ~~~c~h~e~~~~,P~~dS~~~~{8~nb~~f~rt~~tt~~r~a:~d~~~~0~h~f hams and, ah, he'd rubbed black molasses, some kind of 01 black syrup, molasses and stuff allover the hams xob and it made um real good and we looked forward to mama cuttin the hams. She cut um ,0rvSund?YSmostly when the preacher come home with us from church, and have that good ham and hot biscuits and everything. And that was a good meal on Sunday? , Oh yea. Plenty of good vegetables and she'd cook a chocolate cake nearly every Sunday, plenty of pies. We had --- Mama cooked good egg custard and sweet potato pies and stuff like that. . -8- Ah, when someone was going to have a baby, how could you tell when it was coming? Well, I used to listen to my grandmother and my mother talk some, but they didn't talk much around us back then 'cause --- they just didn't. They didn't believe in talking around children much, but I remember I overheard um alot talkin about some of my aunts a goin to have a baby and it was about due and everything and that ah, they watched the almanac for the full of the moon and all such stuff as that, and they knew that's when that baby was goin to be born and things like that. And then I'd, mama had an 01 colored woman that lived in a little bitty house on part of daddy~land there that helped mama alot when our little babies ~ born, and ah if the navel didn't look good, babies back then wore bands around their stomach all the time, and ah.piece of white cloth doubled and pinned real tight around it, and if the navel got red looking like it watn't goin get well or something, the1d burn cloths, old white cloths, and scorch um and place that scorched cloth on the baby's navel to heal up the navel after the baby was born. Did it seem to work? or did you ---- Yea, it did. Or maybe it was goin to heal anyway? It was goin to heal any way or something, but that's what they did and it helped. Ah, when they - when you wore your clothes to church on Sunday were they starched real stiff? Oh yea. Mama made, ah, flour starch. She'd take flour and stir it up in water and boil it on the stove and then let it cool and she'd starch our dresses just as stiff, sprinkle um down and she'd iron and iron and iron, and have our clothes just as stiff when we'd go to church and daddy's white shirts, mama made all daddy's white shirts and they was just as pretty. You didn't have electric irons then. How did you go about ironing the clothes? Oh,Mama had 01 flat irons and we'd have a fire in the fireplace, and we'd have to set the irons over on tha-- lean um toward the back of the iron and the front of um, the flat -9- part of the iron ud get real hot and we'd have to clean um good on a cloth and then iron the clothes with um and if wetlhave a fire in the cookstove cookin supper or dinner or something, we could heat um on the stove too, just lay um down flat on the hot stove and heat um, but we had to make sure they were clean before we put um on the cloth to iron because it would get um dirty. Do you remember any stories that that colored lady told you'll, or any superstitions or beliefs she had? The only thing I remember about her was her biscuits that she cooked in two iron skillets, and she cooked um in the fireplace and that house~that she lived in of daddy's was a little old one room thlng and had a fireplace in it, and we had to go by there goin to school and on our way back from school we had to walk two miles. We'd be so hungry and she' would have us a big pan of biscuits cooked in that big 01 iron skillet - o~ they were laying in one in them hot coals in that fireplace and another un turned down on'top of um, and they were so good. Mama'd give her~butter':albt;:i1l1dshe'd nave us some hot biscuits and we'd eat one before we'd go home that she'd have ready for us. Did she ever tell you anything about witches or anything? Yea, but I can't remember a whole lot about it. But one thing I know that if my mother had known about it, she'd -of whipped us I guess. We wore long union sUits to school when it was cold and, .ah, they was long legged things like men wear alot but they were for girls and we had to put the legs down in our long stockings and we didn't want to go to school with um in our stockins so just before we'd get to the schoolhouse, we roll the legs Up above our knees, and then pull our stockins back up and then before we'd go home that night that night, we'd have to put um back like they were 'cause mama's afraid we'd catch cold. What kind of school was it that you went to, I mean what--? One great big 01 room and everybody sit in that one big 01 room, and I was left-handed and one teacher they had there one year didn't want me to use my left hand and she made me cry one day 'cause she was tryin to make me hold the pencil in my right hand,and I went home and told my mother that I wasn't going bacK to that schoolhouse any more because I was afraid of her because she wanted me to use my right hand, and that she made me hold the pencil that day and it scared me. I was afraid she was goin to whip me. Mama got mad and wrote her a note and told her she better leave me alone and that she was left-handed herself and that -10- if I was left-handed that I couldn't help it. Did you'll have books that you brought home or--? Yea. We had, ah, I had a little 01 primer they called it when I first went to school,and then later on we got more books, but we didn't get to go to school very much 'cause daddy didn't have any boys 'til way later and us three oldest girls had to stay out of school alot and help daddy farm. Did you'll take your. lunch to school? Uh urn. Lot of time we'd take, ah, a meat and biscuits or if mama did have a little ham she'd cook us some ham, we'd take some ham and biscuit. We loved sweet potatoes in our lunch and so we'd take us a big 01 sweet potato sometimes and a piece of meat in our lunch. Did all children bring their lunch? Yea, and we had plenty of fruit. peaches, or whatever we wanted. of fruit. We'd take us apples or We had, always had plenty Did you have the same teacher every year or do you --1 Naw, we had that one that I didn't like that tried to make me write with my right hand. We had her one year I know, but I can't remember the rest of urn. Do you remember anybody dyin in your family and what you'll had to do then about it~ The only thing I remember is my granddaddy Cooper, that was my daddy's daddYtho,~died and I was real real young. I just do remember~eeln6nim laid out in a room there in my grandmother's house on,looked like a big slab, board or somethin and he had a white sheet over him, and they had placed nickels on his eyes. I remember that about seein him layin there dead. You didn't send him to an embalmer~ No, back then they didn't embalm people that I know anything about. And who took care of the burying and -- ? . .' pnly Well, I don't even remember that, the/thing that I remember most is him laying in there on that thing with that white sheet over him and them nickels on his eyes. I remember that real well because I guess it scared me or something, I don't know. But, ah, that was my granddaddy Cooper. -11- Do you remember, ah, a.ny of your holidays, ah, what, what, type of holidays you had? Did you have regular Christmas or did you have special holidays for plantin or anything like that? Ah, no, ah, not really, ah, one thing I remember about Christmas. I was real small, ah, I had a first cousin that lived over bac~~f us over there, and, ah, she was older then we were/~~~ came over there one day and my mama and daddy had gone to town and it was rl~~ close to Christmas and she started tellin us that there wasn't a Santa Clause. And, ah, I never did like her after then 'cause I always believed in Sant~ Clause. She told us that day that there wasn't any Sant~ Clause and tha~ if we'd look in the barns or in the cribs and around or in the smokehouse somewhere that we'd find what we were goin get for Christmas. So we did. We went out in the barn where daddy had the corn and we found two big sacks settin over in the corner there and we found three dolls that was for my two sisters older than me and myself. And ah, we found some fruit and nuts and some stick' candy,back then stick candy was all that weknowed anything about, but we liked it, and, ah, I remember the dolls wasn't alike. My oldest sister got the prettiest doll and my next sister and myself got a little 01 doll looked like a ragdoll, and then I wanted my oldest sister's doll. It was some kind of a china doll, it was real pretty I thought. And then after Chrtstmas I got that doll one day and she wanted it, and I was runnin down a hill there wi th that doll and she was achasin me and I fell d01m and broke her doll all to pieces, and she was mad:.. wi th me about breakin her china doll (laughter) You didn't get much else for Christmas besides nuts and fruit? Naw, that's all, maybe one toy, but we was so glad to get that stick candy and plenty of oranges, we, daddy always got a big sack of oranges. What kind of town was it that you went to when you wanted to bUy something? Well, there was one store there that mama bought all the cloth. She bought it by the bolts to make our dresses. She'd bUy a bolt or two of cloth and make all our school clothes, and dresses, and she'd bUy maybe another piece, then and make us a Sunday dress. Maybe we'd have two good Sunday dresses, but we'd have to take good care of um. -12- And all the other dresses were made out of the same cloth? Yea, just about the same thing, and I had one aunt that lived in Macon, and we thought that she was rich 'cause her husband worked on the railroad, and she'd send us a little box every Christmas and she'd send us maybe a pair of pretty little stockins, long stockins that we had to pull up over our knees, and we was always proud of that and looked forward to gettin that box she'd send for Christmas. Did you'll have many acres on your farm? Yea, daddy had a two hundred acre farm and he was a big farmer ~nd he'd -- that was all he knowed to do was farm. What all did you farm? We growed everything, sweet potatoes, cotton, corn, peanuts, old velvet beans that cows eat. We raised them and th~d sting and scratch us when we'd have to pick um, and we wore long sleeve shirts to keep the old vines from scratching on our arms and all. Did you'll just do it as a family or did other people help you? Oh, daddy'd have to get somebody to help us pick cotton nearly every year 'cause daddy growed alot of cotton and hetl sell alot of cotton and that's where he'd make enough money to bUy us some cloth and stuff for our schoolclothes the next year, and to bUy ah some cloth to make sheets and stuff like that,'and. mama aipped snuff a.nd da.d.dy chewed tobaccer, and so they'd bUy that every week when the'd go to McRae, that town, McRae and Helena. How many rooms did you have in your house? We had one great big room and then a long kitchen bUilt on the side. Daddy bUilt~e house hisself, and, ah, had a little side porch, andra~~ittle bitty side room. And I never will forget this, it was so funny. I was kind of small, but I was still big enough to get up and build a fire, and ah, daddy had one of our cousins over there one year helpin him do some plowin and ah, he was about grown, and I was so sleepy when I went to go jack to bed after gettin up to start afire 'til I just wandered over there and crawled in the bed with that man, and time I got in the bed -~ ------------------------------- -13- I realized I was in the bed with my cousin. It scared me so bad I jumped out of the bed and hollowed and run in there where mama and daddy was. (laughter) You'll all slept in one big bedroom, all the children? Yea. Daddy had ah -- Mama put up a big curtain thing across part of the back of the house there and had two big beds back there for us girls. And then -- did you have a fireplace in that room? No. We just had one fireplace in that, all that house, and one chimney for the cookstove. And you'll mostly stayed in that one room? Un hum. One big fireplace there and we all sit around that big fireplace. What was, ah, the house, made out of? Log cabin, or --? Naw, it was just, ah, daddy sawed thp lumber he built that house out of at, ah, lumber yard. They had one big lumber yard there and daddy sawed ell thellumber. He cut the timber off his own land, and sawed the lumber and built the house himself, and he'd dug wells for people around there and built everybody's chimneys. He was a brick-layer? svrp Un hum. And he, ah, he had a syrup mill and When the farmers would grow their sugar cane every year daddy would grind the cane and make the syrup for everybody~'and they'd cook syrup all night. I remember that. Well did, you'll bought sugar, though, you'll didn't use th~? ' Yea, un hum, daddy'd bUy ah little two for mama to cook cakes out of. cakes and stuff like that. 'bout sugar/every week or Mama bak'ed alot of tea- What did you do With these teacakes? -14- We'd take some of um to school in our lunch sometimes if we had enough left over. What were they, little pies or something? No. They are little bitty like cookies, little flat teacakes, and ah, lot of time she'd make um out of syrup, little syrup teacakes, they were real good. She'd put spice in um when she'd put syrup in um to sweeten um. ~ Mr. Drake,you want to to tell me, ah, what year you were born and then go ahead and tell me your stories and how they were related to you. I was born in 1928. One story that I remember my grandfather's ~ told several times, it was about an old colored man that was freed after the Civil War, and he'd always been a slave and he'd always depended for, ah, his food from the master or the slave owner, and, ah, breakfast to him was not scrambled eggs but just, ah, whatever was available, cornbread, beans, or whathaveyou, and the majority of the time they drank water, and when he was freed, ~e started sharecropping, and he went to the local merchant to establish his credit, which, ah, at that time farmers only paid their bills about twice a year when tha crops were harvested. So he got his staples, ah, salt and sugar and ah, flour, and the store owner asked him, said ah, how 'bout your coffp.e, said don't you want some coffee, and he said naw he hadn't ever drank any and he said well everybody drinks coffee said oh, you need to ah, have that to get started in the morning, and ah, he said well how do you fix it and he said>~ just boil it, so he got a couple of pounds of coffee beans and at that time everybody had their own coffee grinder or the merchant would grind it, but he failed to tell this colored man this so he told his wife he said, ah, we're really goin fix it up in the mornin, said we're goin have coffee just like the master had and, ah, so she said well, ah, how do you fix the coffee, and he said just boil it so she dumped some beans in and boils the coffee and they had it the next morning for breakfast and several months later when he came back for more supplies the merchant, or store-owner was gettin it up and he said, well I guess you want some coffee, he said naw-sir, said I believe I'm agoin leave that to you white-folks said because I just don't think I can down that coffee, said I got a half a cup down but that was too much for me. So after questioning it, it finally came out that the way the coffee was prepared, the beans were not ground or either hammered up with a hammer, beat up, the, ah, man's wife just dumped them in ah pot ah water and she knew that everything she boiled had to have a piece of fat meat so she put a big piece of fat meat and boiled the coffee and that's the way it was served to him. -15- (laughter) That's real funny. Ah, Mr. Drake you remember anything about the, I think they called um painters back then, I think you said you remembered a little something about that but your father would probably remember more. Tell me what you do remember about it. Ah, my father is approximately sixty-nine years old now, and I've heard him tell several times, he was born and raised on the Chattahoochee River, and when he was a young man, well the only time he said he ever got to go fishing was when the weather was so bad they couldn't farm and then when it rained a whole lot he fishad off the backporch in the Chattahoochee River and the house was to the left right at the Roswell bridge and they was panthers, or as some people referred to um as painters. Panthers would roam up and down that river and,ah, they would scream just like a woman. Daddy came from a real large family, and he and his brother slept in kind of a sleepin porch affair, which ah, they are not popular now but back then there was alot of um, and they had shutters that they raised in the summer and in the winter time they let the shutters down, no wind~s and ah, he said at night these panthers would scream and the only protection they had was ab ax handle and he said he and his brother would cover up and then grab an ax handle and squeeze it real tight. But I know in the last, ah, number of years the chestnut trees in North Georgia have died, and they have been dead now ever since I have been a young man. And when the chestnut trees died, the panthers left. There's been no panthers in North Georgia and, of course, down in our section here around Atlanta, which is still considered North Georgia, there's been none here and daddy says that the, ah, chestnut trees have died, ah, about twice in his lifetime and the panthers have left and then he's related how they died, he's heard his father talk about the chestnut trees dying and the panthers would leave,but its something about the chestnut trees I think that panthers like,maybe part of the bark to sharpen their claws on or they might eat part of the bark or the leaves or somethin that falls from the chestnut tree. But~'thEvghestnut trees are coming back now so that means the panthers will be back. Mr. Drake would you tell us what year you were born in please? Ah, I was aWfully young when I was born, but they said it was 1898. -------------------------------------------------- --- -16- 1898. That will make you about ah Not about. It would make me 69. Ah, do you know any riddles or stories or proverbs that you Well, I just about forgot everything I ever knew. And ah, there's three things that I can't remember. One of um's names, and one of um's faces, and I can't remember what the third thing is I can't remember. But ah All I know is what I heard my mother and dad tell, course, talkin about ah, raising hogs like that when I w~s a boy, my daddy always picked out a pig with his tail curled to the right 'cause it always made a better hog then the other kind and alot of fellows that cut pigs tails off 'cause it saved five bushels of corn. It took that much to fatten the tail. Course, I don't, never did try that out to see whether that's so or not but I do know that where they curl their tail to the right it makes ah better hog then the other way. ? could tell u You were telling me something about some superstitions about the moon. You want to retell those for me. Well ah, the moon governs the tide and everything like that. I know you can dig a hole such as a grave then on certain times of the moon why you won't have hardly enough dirt to fill the grave back up and other times it'll) it'll ah be away too much, you'll have a whole lot of dirt left over, and an, Tell me, tell me, about the man that was in the grave that couldn't get out. Well this fellow was digging ".'Eih' grave by hisself and the ground was pretty soft, and he dug it too deep before he thought about it, and he couldn't get out and it was late in the evening and it was in the summer time and he just . lay down there in the grave and went to sleep, they was agoina have the funeral the next morning and during the night a possum hunter come along and slide down in the grave there and woke the old man up, and the possum hunter jumped up and tried to get out and .this old fellow raised up and said, say mister you can't, said damfd if he didn't though. H (laughter) That's real good,that's pretty funny. me too about some, ah, about when you 'fuu want to tell that for me. Ah, you were telling should kill hogs. -17- you wanna kil~num when it's cold. Used ~~I~was ah boyl NJvember was the time to kill ~~~~~of November was generally about the right time, a.n course they always said November never lost any meat, but times is changed now, seasons is changed from what it was when I was a boy. You could kill a hog on the full of the moon and you'd get a whole lot more lard then it would on the decrease of the moon. Course some people don't believe in the moon but the moon governs the tide and I guess it governs alot of things. Tell me those riddles you were telling me earlier. Well, I remember one when I was a kid 'bout a fellow agoin ~ to st. Ives, says, as I went to st. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, each wife had ~~ven sacks and each sack had seven cats, and each cat had seven kittens, kittens, cats, sacks and wives, how many !'!Sos :_goin to st. Ives. I don't know how many there ;ere. You told me another riddle. There was how many? There was jUst/~grn to St. Ives There was just one started. Yea, but he met a man with seven wives. Oh, so there's was just one ~ltogether. Yea, there was just one goin to St. Ives. Well, I'd ah said seven. The question was how many was agoin to St. Ives. Yea. There was just one 'cause he met all them other people. You told me another riddle. Do you remember that one? Well that was about the squirrel in the hollow log, said this squirrel was in the hollow log eighty feet long runnin back and forwars and each time he run it he run it two seconds quicker than he did the time before, how long will it be before he has his head sticken out both ends at the same time. -18- I don't know the answer to that one, do you know it? I never did figure that out. (laughter) I never went to school but ~ree months in my life and two of them was in my brother's place, and I never did, ah, was too much on figures. Where were you born, Mr. Drake? I don't remember, I was awfully young when I was born. It was back over close to New Town they said. Where is that, near the Chattahoochee? Somewheres close to the Chattahoochee River. Mr. Drake, you were telling somethin about a pumpkin. ~ou wanna tell me that? Why Well, 1'1hen I was a boy!iI wa;y 11ved down in Roswell on, over, on the Roswell side on the river and my uncle lived right across the river and ah he raised some pumpkins one year, and he took the prize for raising the most pumpkins. He raised fifty-two pumpkins on one vine, so they said, I was just a small boy but then on down below the river, right below h~s barn there was an island out about half way the river, and ah, what I was agoina ~IPtAfJget to, this he had a sow and ten pigs to go off one ~ fall and he figured thevriver had got up and washed um and drowned um, and didn't think no more about it, next spring they come back and they was great big shokes, and he followed um down river and they'd knawed a hole in a pumpkin vine that had growed over to the, that island, and he followed um through there and they'd wintered all the winter in that old big pumpkin just hulled it out. Course, I wouldn't tell that for the truth, that's just what I remember hearing um talk about when T was a boy. I don't remember seein the pumpkin and that's been a good long while ago. I don't think they raise.Cthose big ah pumpkins now. . . Ah, I want you to tell me about the raven, but ah, I don't think you want to tell it --- you said you didn't want to tell it while were --- (interruption) That's just a parady of it, it's just down, it wouldn't do. Well, I tell you what, we'll go in the other room and you -19- just tell it while we're not in here. (laughter) well it ---- And, here's a parady to the Raven: Oncetupon a midnight dreary While I'm drinking I grew wee.ry And. I drank my quart of whiskey only wishin there was more ;suddenly there came a rap--tappin ~here was someone gently rapping Rapping like the very devil just outside my chamber door. Tis some chip thought I \!!.ishing ..,-M-'A To my room to gain admission I will rise and let her enter even though it be a whore So I rose and open'd the portal And there stood there such a mortal As in all my wishin dreams I had never seen before And each palpetating bubby W8S so soft and white and chubby That my spirits rose within me Just my spirits nothing more Twas the eighteenth of December How well do I remember Twas the nineteenth when she left me And my little dream was t6v_ex_l>ler Now all that's left between us ~c Is one infected penus And that penus every mornin, every evenin drippin on the bathroom floor And I murmer views for~3otten ever time I change the cotton No more rapping, no more tappin Not for uncle, never more. This fellm'( went to the doctor one day and told um, and ask um, the doctor, says how long will it be 'fore you can castrate me. He said you don't wanna be castrated, and he said yes I do to, I know what I want. And he says well, says ah, it won't be but just a few minutes, says wait, so he waited and put um up on a table and used a local anesthetic. Just as he got through performing the operation, the man come in and said, doc, how long 'for you can circumcise me, and this other fellow said, by God, doc)that's what I wanted. (laughter) That's real funny. This, ah, this old fellow was ah preacher at a local pream'~,he didn't get to preach very often but whenever he did get ah crowd before him, why he'd ~entl~ preach, so ~e.hrll~ -20- there's a crowd at the church one Sunday evening havinah singing and he got up and got to preachin to um, you know, and after he got through he said well says while my daughter urinates on the piano, says, I'm agoin open the dOOTS to the church and receive members by profe~sion of faith, transfer, or castration. I think he meant resteration, but he didn't --- and I never did hea~ whether he got any members by, by castration or not. ~ Mrs. Drake you want to tell me what year~you were born and then tell me that superstition that you have? I Well, I was born in 1898, and I've heard this old sayint, this superstition, that on New Year's Day never to sweep your house, and get the dirt out the door, never to sweep the dirt out the door, because you sweep all your luck away. /~ My name is Florence Collett. I was born in 1911, and ah, my grandpa Rutherford told me this story a long time ago. Whenever Y.9u, you put a horseshoe in the fireplace and they kept ~ in this cookstove, the fireplace, and if the ho~se come up close to your house, next to your kitchen so th~d burn their feet and they was scared, they'd go way. If you plant beans when the signs are in the arms or the fountain,:well you'll have beans, but if you plant um any' other time, you won't have anything but blooms. Mrs. Drake, I think you~ some little sayings about the weather. You want to recite those for me. ~ Yes, this is one that I've heard for years and years, and its kind of a sailor~ saying. It says, evening gray and mornin red, brings down rain upon his head. Evening red and mornin gray, sets a traveler on his way. Wasn't there another one about, ah sailor, another sailor's saying. Another un that regard for sailors was ah, rainbow in the morning sailor's warning, rainbow at night was sailor's delight. Mrs. Drake you know some superstitions about the weather, about when its goin rain or anything like that? Well, I've always heard that, ah, in the winter time when ther~~s a ring around the moon, and you counted so many stars, how many stars you counted in that ring it'd be that many days before you had rain. -21- And then too, there was something about the rooster crowing at midnight. e. Oh yea, if, t~, you hear the roosters crowing before twelve o'clock, its goin be fallin weather within three days. You know something about snow? Yes I've always heard that when we had a snow and it stayed on/t~~~round three days without meltin, that there was another one~follow it within a week. 'vel What's this about the leaves ah being thic~.k, what's fuis a sign of? Well, when tha the summer and goin be a hard c leaves are awfully thi~k the shuck on the corn is winter. on tha tree in real thitfk, it's And you told me something about, ah, some, ah, New Years superstitions, ah, 'bout a man comin in, you want to tell that for me? I think it was, ah, something about if a man's the first one. in your door, something about some chickens. Ah, I have been told that,ah, they said, on New Year's Day if, not to let anybody, any visitors in your house before there was a man walked in your door, and if he did, why, you'd have a good chicken year. And what about cuttin out a dress on Friday or on New Year's, what was that? On, yea, don't ever cut out a dress on Friday unless you can finish it that week, or you'll never live to wear it out. _ $1 COS 2- Mrs. Drake you want to tell us that saying about the lambs. Usually when you, when you, see the little tin#y bunches of white clouds goin across the sky, especially in the fall or winter, why, ah, that little bunchespf, they say that's little bunches of sheep, and it's a sign of rain. And then I think there was one on, ah, something about ah, if it clears off in the night, you want to tell me that one? Then another, another old saying I've always heard is where if it has been raining for several days and the clouds will -22- break away long about night and it clears off durin~ the night, you get up the next mornin and its clear, it 11 soon cloud up again, it won't stay clear if the clouds pass away during the night. And then you were telling me something about old people's vitality and something about February. Do you remember what that was? Well I guess that's more medical than anything else. . Usually, ah, of course, you know in the fall of the year all the sap goes down and they say that an old person's vitality and strength goes down with it, and ah, if they can't survive that winter and make their comeback with the rising of the sap, why they, that's when they usually die. And then you were tellin me something that was real funny about the sheets, tyin the corner of the sheets. I've always heard that if you wake up in the night and hear a screech owl, and, of course, they sound horrible, and if you'll just reach down and get the corner of your sheet and tie a knot in it you'll choke him to death. That's real good. That's a new one on me, but what about the old one about the umbrella, of course, we've all heard that, but tell your version of it. Well, I've always heard that if you opened a umbrella in the house it was aWfully bad luck, and I pretty near always believed that myself. Did you ever hear any -- about anything about walkin under a ladder? Oh yes, I've always heard never to walk under a ladder, but I never did pay too much attention to it. Do you know what was behind that saying? No, I don't think I ever did hear why that was ever mentioned. Mrs. Drake, you want to tell us that about the baby's hair. Yes, I've heard that if, if, ah very young child, say about three or four years old)had real long, thick hair and never did grow or do any good, just wouldn't eat and stayed poor andQfuiiOri~y~lookin, why, if you cut that hair off it ad thr0;Ja1I that strength back to their body. And(~~W can you tell when a baby's going to be born? .scV'Il.WI'\~ ----------~~ ---~-----~------ ~ -23- Usually on the change of the moon. ~ Mr. Drake, what do you do if you get water in your ear? Ah, always around, if your swimmin in a creek or river or somethin like that, and you get water in your ear and it seems like its sloshing around and you can't get it out, you pick up ah flat rock and, ah, that's been heated by the sun, and hold it against your ear with your ear pointing down, and the, .ah, heat of the rock will pull the water out. Mr. Drake, my mother told me one way to take ah care of a boil. How do you take care of um. Ah, take ah an irish potato and cut it in half and the raw' part put it against the ah boil or the risin and bind it on there and it will draw it to a head Ah, another 01, very old ~emedy, for an ear ache is to go into the woods around a ah rotten stump or rotten log and get what is commonly known as a betsy bDg, its a very hard back bug, and it's divided down its back, and it looks like it's precut and you break it open and it's got a drop of blood and you let that drop of blood go into your ear. It will, ah, cure an ear ache. And another old ah remedy, which I have had used on me and then I have since used it for a bee or a wasp or yellow jacket sting, its better if you have actual chewin tobacco and, ah, put right against it but you can chew a cigarette, and ah, bind it against it and it will ah take the soreness and the sting of the insect out. Mr. Drake, how do you ah take care of poison ivy? Ah, poison oak, or poison ivy, take a banan,a peeling, tha inside, ah the part that's ah next to the cob, and rub it against the ah infected area or where the poison oak or ivy is. ~ Mr~. Drake, tell us about the fog. Well if you've ever noticed, ah awful thick fog, in the mornings and if the fog rises it will come back in the form of rain, but if the fog comes to the ground, it . will clear up. And you were tellin me somethin about Jacob's mud hole. Do you remember what that was? -24- (laughter) I've always heard that when the clo~ds came out of the South, and we'd had several days of rain, the clouds out of the South, it watn't gonna clear up, 'cause that was called Jacob's mud hole. Tell me about the corn, Mr~. Drake. Well, I've always heard that when you was growing corn, and it was growing in tha spring time, why you could walk down between the rows and you could, course it was the joints popping, but you could hear that corn growin. That's actually true itn't it? Well, I suppose it is. It was told for the truth. (laughter) What was that about the ah fire burning and the snow? Well, way back when people burned wood in open fireplaces, they put on a big oak log, when it would burn down and not make too much fuss, cracklin, why, you could hear the snow poppin in that wood. And then you told me somethin about ah a dishcloth, and then some thin about a fork, what was that? (laughter) If you ever dropped a knife, there was a woman comin to see you, if you dropped a(fojk;jit would be a man, but if you dropped a dishrag, there was somebbdy~comin a whole lot nastier than you was. And then you said something too about a knife and your friendship. What was that? Don't ever give anybody a sharp instrument, expecially a knife 'cause that will cut your friendship, and accept a nickel or ah penny or something like that but don't ever give it to um. Tell me that one about sweepin under your feet, and about the plant. -25- Well, I've always heard that if you ever swept under your, if anybody ever swept under your feet, that you would never marry again. And when someone gives you a plant or a shrub of any kind that is dug up from the yard, don't ever thank um for it, cause it'll die. How do you take care of a cold, Mrs. Drake? (laughter) I always heard if you went to a doctor for a cold, why it'd get well in two weeks, but if you stayed at home and doctored it yourself, why you'd get rid of it in fourteen days. Did they have many doctors back when you were a little girl? We just had one 01 family doctor. Did he cure just about everything you had or was he just a quack? He wasn't ah quack by any means but, ah, of course, he watn't up on his ~Ob like they are now but, ah, he was hard to beat. We d calIon urn for everything. Tell me that sayin about movin on New Yeats. Well, I've heard for a good many years that it was bad luck to move on New Year's Day because if you did, a member of your family would die within that year. Mrs. Drake tell us about the sas---sweet gum tree. (laughter) Well, I've always heard of, ah, trees that you get tooth brushes off of, and old people used to break those off and chew um down to real soft and that's what they dipped their snuff with. ~ I've always been fascinated with the Civil War, and ah this one story I've heard from ah several times and it's always been from older people, I c~n't swear to the truth of it, but jobs were pretty scarce right after the Civil War, and it was in a county in Virginia, and ah, ah -26- ordinary's job came open so that was not a real choice ~ job, but at that time there was about five men ran for it, so just before the election, they had a kind of ah political rally and ah several of the men started makin speeches,and they were allotted a certain amount of time and the first one got up and said he'd lost an eye at the Battle of Seven Pines and he thought he was qualified for the job. And the next one got up and said he'd lost an arm at the Battle of Shiloh and thought he was qualified. Another one said he'd lost a leg at the Battle of Pine Mountain, and ah thought that made him qualified, went on down the line 'til the last -,man got up and he seemed to be in pretty good health, and he told um, said he didn't know that havin a physical defect was ah requirement for that job, but he wanted to go on record and say he was the most ruptured man in Virginia. _~ During the Civil War there was alot of strange things that happened, and ah, in the upper part of Virginia, which is now known as West Virginia, there was a stalemate, and ah the Northern and the ah Southern troops faced each other, and at night they would, ah, picket lines would kind of ease forward and they would swap tobacco for coffee and vice versa and they would chat awhile. They ah, were just, more or less, in winter quarters so they were together one night and some Yankees and Southern boys, and Yankee boy asked this Southerner if there was any kind of entertainmen~ said yea, said there was ah pretty good lookin aeg~-girl lived right over the hill, so he took him down, introduced him to her, and ah, he stayed around aWhile and he left him, so the next day, ah unexpectedly, the battle erupted and there was some pretty fierce fightin and this Rabel looked over and there was the Yankee right beside him just afirin away and he said, hey man, you on the wrong side, he said, naw, I just found out what you guys was fightin for. -27-~ Allright, you want to tell me your name and your age and what part of Georgia you were born in. Seventy-seven years old, born fifteenth of March 1890, that was all there was around here was farms. You know, when I moved to Lilburn as postmaster in 1925 there watn't but Mach Harmon, myself, and Carl Bramblett and Helmer Johnson was all the people that was on salary. You want to tell me some of your farming practices, about when you planted the crops, ah tell me the superstitions regarding that. I Well, let's see, you know, we planted I~sh potatoes on the 22nd of February, 1923, let's see and I've forgotten what time of the moon, but I never seen so many Irish potatoes in my life, I peddled um to Atlanta and sell um you know. We'd pick blackberries, scuppernongs, and carry chickens, butter, and eggs. And we bought calves and then raised um to be cows you know and then sell um you know. My wife bought one and give ten dollars for it and then s~ld i~ for $100 was it, ah 110 0: 2~ ~.. - -20. What did you'll go by, ah, what position was the moon when you planted these crops, or was that about the hogs? Well that was about the hogs. The crops we kinda planted by the moon you know, then we didn't fertilize. That was the trouble we didn't---. I raise more corn down there on four acres of land than my daddy did with three horses and twenty acres of corn. (laughter) You want to tell me some of the cures that you had when you were a boy, how you took care of colds and, things like that? Well ah, we'd, ah, use these different herbs you know, bake um, and save um, if you got out maybe a neighbor have some you know. You know we'd pass around our ----. Would you tell me your name and your age and where you were born? Ruth Rogers pickens, age 75, born near Duluth, Georgia in 1892. Mrs. Pickens, I think you said you knew some cures for some deseases. You want to tell me those? ____. ---.J -28- Well, for cough syrup, get pine buds, button willow, beach bark, pine tree bark and make ah syrup and take for bad colds. What did you do for, ah, cuts or anything like that? For stickin the nail in your foot, make a poultice of ah, octagon soap and sugar, and put on it. The Ni~ers remedy was to get the nail and burn it in the firep lace and then lay it up over the door. That's a new one. I haven't heard that one. (laughter) Ah, you want to tell me some things that you'll did when you'll were a child, maybe some games that you'll played? We played hide-and-seek, ante-over, and, town ball, we called it. How do you play town ball, do you remember? Like softball. And how did you play ante-over? Ah, throw tha, have two sides, one on either side of the house and throw the ball over, the one on the other side catch it, and you keep on 'til they all were out. Did you'll play any games inside when the weather was bad? My mother would let us run around the beds, pull it out in the middle of the floor when we were real small, and we'd just have the biggest times. OUr dad wouldn't let us do it though. He didn't like the racket. Do you know any other superstitions that you remember that your mother told you or your grandmother maybe or any stories ornddles.? Well my ah great-great grandmother was a full blooded Cherokee Indian and that was all Indian territory up in this part of the country too then, and my father's sister wouldn't step across a stick that was laid across the path you know, she'd pick it up and lay it out of the way. Why was that? Superstitious that somebody'd put a spell on her. Do you know anything about ah, What the signs of the weather, -29- what kind of weather it was goin to be if you see a certain sign. Ah, well for ah cold winter if the corn had thick shucks on it or if the squirrels had ah heavy fur or if the mules had heavy fur, cattle, that was the sign of a hard winter. Do you remember anything about ah, why bab- when you could tell babies were going to be bornZ No, I don't know anything about that. My mother told me that, ah they, on the full of the moon, they usually said a baby would be born. UsuallY,all four of mine were born on the change of the moon, its either the quarter or the, ah, the first quarter or the last quarter. Do you remember any riddles that you learned when you were a child, that you could remember to say? I can't recall any right now. What about ah, ah, beliefs about animals on your farm? Well, we only had cattle and hogs, and the mules, we usually kept two mules, and ah, we'd kill tha~hog before Thanksgiving, then later on before Christmas we usually killed two more. What phase of the moon did you kill these hogs? We killed the hogs on tha decrease of the moon in order to . have alot of lard, uh-hu. And you'll did this, you actually believed this? Yes, my mother did. She--- My father did the killin, but she rendered up the lard and she always wanted a nice supply you know. What would happen if you killed it on the increase of the moon. Well, they, it would be all meat and no lard. The meat would just get bigger and bigger. -)0- Did you go to ah any type of school, Mrs. Pickens? I just went to the one room schoolhouse, had eight grades. Did you take your lunch with you Mrs. Pickens. Yes m'am,. And what did you take in your lunch. Usually baked potatoes and ah, biscuit and ham or biscuit and sausage in the winter time and, ah, custard, and pies and things like that. Did you have any special holidays for plant in crops or ah, anything like that? I don't recall any especially; Mrs. Pickens, will you tell us some recipes or how your mother mad.e bread or your grandmother? Well ah she'd make her own yeast by ah boiling hops, and mixin meal and flour in it and then they'd, ah, set it up, so mUCh, I don't remember the exact amount>and leti it rise 'til it doubled in bUlk, and then they'd kneed it down, and make out their loaves, and they baked it out in the yard in the brick oven. But I can't tell you the exact amount that they used. What type of ah fruit did you have in your pies? APples, peaches, cherries, strawberries. How did you keep these ah, did you dry these fruits? Canned um. (canned um. You didn't ever--- We did dry apples' and sometimes peaches and we used those in fried pies. Mrs. Pickens, I think you know some more cures. Catechu weed poultice for swellings, that's a weed that grows in the field my mother would gather it ah, boil it -)1- down to ah solution and then mix flour or meal with it, make a poultice and it'd bring out the swellin. And collard leaves would bring ah abscess to a head, just bind it on the place, and ah my brother got his leg hung in this school desk and she went to the branch and got white mud and bound on that wrench place to take the swelling out of that. ~ Mr. Pickens you want to tell me about those ah weeds you went to the woods to get. Go to the woods to get Mayapples, burdock, yellow root and ah make, put up to dry, you know, and then ~ff seasons been good you'd have that to take it out. ~r as a they and drank tea, and drank it for ah, ah, that grows you know, and then fever and makevtea outta that iJ. Mrs. Pickens, what was that you were telling me about the Negroes? N~\ers made boneset tonic. It's a weed get yellow root for it. Do you remember any other things about the Negroes that lived around you, their beliefs or superstitions? No, I don't believe I do, right now. Mrs. Pickens, you want to sing that little song for me and give me the background of it. Hard is the lot of poor woman kind, she's always controlled and always confined, controlled by her parents 'til they become wives, then slaves for their husband the rest of their lives. (laughter) That's just about like grandma sang it. Where was she when she sung this? Sittin in the rockin chair by the fire. That's real good. Do you know any others that they sung back then, anything like that. Ah, just sit down ah minute and let me think. o. K. Mrs. Pickens, you want to tell me that about the road and the superstition around it. There's this superstitious place in the road between ah, our home at the edge of Forsyth County and Cummin, and you -)2- could drive along there at night and either something would come down and get on the back of the buggy or stop the ho~se, and sometimes there'd be chains sound like rattlin or a hoop arollin across the road. What was this game that the children played with the hoop, I don't think I've heard that before? ~ Mr. Pickens, you want to tell me about those hants. Just rollin a hoop with ah stick, some ad have a little crooked iron you know they'd hold, hold up against the big 01, ah wheel and just roll it allover tha yard and the road. Yea, that was three miles, about three miles southeast of Lilburn. One Sunday night I was comin up that hill where it was noted as being ah hanted hill and the mule began to put her ears up, you know, and begin snortin snortin, and I went to workin on her with my SWitch, and ah, finally I got her about ---- it was just like she was scared to death. The rock on the side of the,road was noted as ah back in the I~dian days, some~a~j~~killed and the blood was spattered on that rock, and as long as it stayed there it showed that, of course, I don't know whether it was blood or not. But you know it was red like bbod. It was actually red? . Yea. I'm R. C. Sam Martin and I was born in Madison County, ~') near, near Iler, Georgia, in 1928 and for a good part of my early life until I was thirteen or fourteen years old, I spent either the summers or and all weekends, with, at my grandfathers, and ah, grandfather kept ah, negro workers on the farm. These workers were from prisons, local county prisons, and at that time it was legal to ah, to keep ah prison labor on your farm if you could provide for um as well as the county could. In most cases the farmers could provide better then the counties, and were allowed to keep ah negroes for, ah, to work the farms. And ah, during the time that I was growin up the, I guess there was, I remember twenty or twenty-five nigers that ah that served time ah at grandpas. And ah one of the things that ah, that I remember about um was the cures that they had for well most any ailment. I can't remember too many but one ah, in particular, was a cure for warts, and ah, I had some on my hands and one of the, one of the negroes ah took ah, ah, needle and scratched the wart until it bled ~ \~'j -33- and then, take a grain of corn and, and ah, put some of the blood on it, and you drop it on the ground to a chicken. The chicken, of course, would eat the corn and tha~the wart was supposed to reappear on the chicken's leg and ~ I, I was quite convinced that was true because, ah, the negroes showed me the chicken and the wart was surely there, along with numerous other warts. But at, ah, until I was ah ~ittle older, I believed firmly that the ah, wart could be transferred from your hand to the chicken through the grain of corn and the bhod. And most of the cures that I recall that they, that they mentioned some way involved blood because ah, that seemed to be their thinki~~ou must transfer tha desease somewhere else. ~ Mr. Martin, you want to tell me those cures that your grandmother told you. Well, one was that night air was poisonous, that it was deathly poisonous because the, everything that was bad that had settled on the earth rose at night, and ah, the air was poisonous, it was actually, to hear her describe it, I always assumed that it would absolutely kill you almost instantly, but it watn't she didn't mean it quite that bad. But she would refuse to allow ah window opened at night even in the hot summer time she kept the windows closed in her room, and if you opened a window in another part of the house she'd shut her door tightly so that she wouldn't breathe the night air. And what was that about the snow and the water? The ah melted snow if you saved it, melted snow water would cure sore eyes. And what was that about the vinegar and the honey, do you remember that? Vinegar and honey would ah cure remedies that my grandmother ah a. ..-I~r; f;.s aat erlti~ These told me about. are What did she say about rich food? You should eat bland food and preferably not deviate too much from a diet, that you establish for yourself, that you should eat foods at boiy temperature or room temperature without heavy seasonings, that-it would add to your life as much as well eating bad food w~d take away from your -34- life span just as smokin or ah keepin too long a hours or, any other thing that's harmful that is known to be harmful to your body, that ah, deviating from a standard diet or eating enriched foods would also shorten your life span. Was there something about the sugar and turpentine? Yes, that was, that was a remedy for crup, ah, I'm not sure that that's not true though. (laughter) I think that it works. You take, ah, turpentine and put it on sugar for a child that's cruppy, ah, or that has the crup or conjested. I don't know what the doctor's would describe that, conjestion of the chest and it does work. I don't know whether it's good or bad but it seems to open up your ah breathen apparatus some. (laughter) And you said you worked for the railroad, and that you've heard something about gander dancers. You want to tell me about that? That's gandy dancers. There's alot that I wish I could remember to tell you about it. Ravin seen it, I know the first time that I ever saw aTcrew of gandy dancers, to me it was absolutely astounding to watch um work because of the amount of work they could do through ah, the rhythm of a song and ah, and ah leader who, ah, who carried a stick and tapped ah rhythm on a rail on that railroad track and the, ah, the workers would follow his rhythm and then work or move enormous weight such as rails and with crossties attached, movin um through rock, and ah, it wmtld take ah bulldozer to duplicate what ah few men with a si~ger to establish the rhythm for the movement of ah, SOJth~t they'd all move together. The, ah, they sang verses of a song and then at the end of it the crew, ah, sort of hummed together, and then moved ah, the rail together. I think you said you remember one little verse. You want to recite that for me or sing it, whichever one you can do" There was no tune to it, so I shouldn't have any trouble I~~ ~ singing it but, it's ah, this was done to ah tappin ~--d d rhythm just a steady tap on the rail with a stick, with a broomstick it appeared to me." One verse was, I don't ~ mind workin from sun to sun, but I want my mon~y when the payday comes. Line-rail. And then they would hum - um--ah. And then the rail moved and it was astounding to watch a railroad track move left or right to this rhythm. -35- Ah this, this is a song that probably everybody's heard ah. It's Barbr!:n Allen, butit was be ing sung when I was, when I was little, and ah, it's, it's been popularized since then, ah, the, the full story behind it I don't know, I guess the song itself is self explanatory, but it goes, it goes like this. In Scarlet Town where I was born, 'l::here was a fair maid dwellin, made every youth cry well -a- way, her name was Barbra-. Allen. Twas in the merry month of May, when green buds were aswellin, sweet William on his death bed lay, for love of Barbra' Allen. Then slowly, slowly she got up, and slowly she came nigh him, but all she said when she got there, young man, I think you're dyin. He turned his pale face to the wall, and bu.sted out acrying, farewell, farewell my darling, farewell dear Barbra Allen. Sweet William died on Sunday, and Barbra died on Monday, their parents for love of them did die, and they were buried Easter Monday. AcWhi}ejrose grew on William's grave, a red rose grew on Barbra's, they twined into a lover's knot, around the green briar. A PDF transcript exists for this recording. Please contact an archivist for access. Professor John Burrison founded the Atlanta Folklore Archive Project in 1967 at Georgia State University. He trained undergraduates and graduate students enrolled in his folklore curriculum to conduct oral history interviews. Students interviewed men, women, and children of various demographics in Georgia and across the southeast on crafts, storytelling, music, religion, rural life, and traditions. As archivists, we acknowledge our role as stewards of information, which places us inaposition to choose how individuals and organizations are represented and described in our archives. We are not neutral, andbias isreflected in our descriptions, whichmay not convey the racist or offensive aspects of collection materialsaccurately.Archivists make mistakes and might use poor judgment.We often re-use language used by the former owners and creators, which provides context but also includes bias and prejudices of the time it was created.Additionally,our work to use reparative languagewhereLibrary of Congress subject termsareinaccurate and obsolete isongoing. 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