J. Farmer interview with Mary Edith Talley

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. The interview begins with Mary Edith Talley providing her biographical information; she was born in 1888, grew up in Blue Valley, North Carolina,. and had two brothers and two sisters. Talleys father worked for the post office in Washington, D.C., then moved to Highlands, North Carolina,. and later to Blue Valley, North Carolina, at the foot of the Scaly Mountains. She recalls walking to school and working when they lived in Highlands. Timestamp 5:45: Next, Talley reminisces learning to sing from the Christian Harmony Books at church. The conversation transitions to her parents education, her fathers house building skills, and raising cattle in the mountains of North Carolina. She then explains that her mothers father and uncles were soldiers during the Civil War who fought on opposite sides. Timestamp 12:15: Talley then discusses farming corn and weaving clothing. She changes the subject back to her father and describes his experience when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Timestamp 15:00: Returning to the topic of singing in the church choir, Talley tells a story about an old dirt road. Next, she talks about her sons health and how he lost an eye. The conversation switches to weaving, spinning, and washing clothes. Timestamp 22:30 Talley then tells a story about her husband betting a woman to enter a graveyard. She then switches to how to build log cabins. Timestamp 27:40 silence Timestamp 28:49: The interview concludes with Talley describing her favorite foods and how to bake biscuits. Biographical information about Mary Edith Talley has not been determined. Family history Mary Edith Talley has lived for over eighty years in the mointains of North Carolina. In an area no wider than thirty miles, she was bom), raised, educated, married, and where now lives in her old age. By choice her life is isolated. Other than an occassionai visit from a neighbor or relative, Vary rarely sees anyone. llor only son lives in the resort city, Highlands, only twenty rules up the mountain, but she said she had not seen bio for several months, (Neighbors told me that she had not been visited at all for several weeks.) She and her husband operated a small general store and post office on the main lighway to lightands for twenty-nine years, and she continued to work there until some five years after her husband died in 1958. Hier house is hardly ore than a tin-roofed frame Shack, and is situated several miles back off the main road. Its one room is heated by a wood-burning stove used also for cooking. There are two doors and to pane glass windows, one almost lirectly over her corner bed, a nere wooden frame padded with lengths of brown burlap and an old foather mattress. Along very old things that appear to be kept habitually, if not neatly, in tie ir right places is one outstandingly modern device--9n ancient electric refrigerator, Though over eighty years old, partially deaf, and somewhat blind, this old lady reflected in her speech and manner a love for the way of life she had lived in the hills for so many years, the old folks, and houses, and way and said she above all missed ve {sed to do things sf Narrator: Now, do you inind if I start by asking you how old you are, or is that a bad question to start with? Mrs. Talley: Well, I reckon it is. ffm eighty years and some montlis, No. And you said how long had you lived here? T. Ah, we lived here.... been married fifty......we was married in nineteen hundred and six, Vell I be durn, We didn't move here though, we moved...we lived eight years, and my children was both born in North Carolina, Yes Man, Up around close in this part? Were you in the mountains? And we, , . you say was we in the mountains? N: Yes, Miam. T.: Yes, worse than they are here, whole lot bigger mountains up here in Blue Valley. That's where I's raised, in Bllie Valley. N.: Oh, that's wonderful, flow many brothers and sisters did you have? I have two brothers ani two sisters. No on, that's good. Any of them living now? Yes, ny brothers is a living, ny sisters: dead, Now what were do you remember any stories or any tales you used to tell when you were children, or do you remember any tales your grandaddy used to tell you or your momma? T. Ah, 12a, maa, There's a so many that my Daddy used to tell ile he was in the Revolution - 100 in the wat, but he worked for the government and helped run a post office in Washington, D. C. And then hergot some pamplets from here from Kelsey, he's the one founded liighlands, Kelsey was. And he got some pamplots of advertising this country and he was in Kansas at the time, he'd homesteadedfKansas and never had married. And he cone down here, and.. and married and built a house, le bought six hundred acres of land to begin with. That's in this Blue Valley. You don't where it tis, but the foot of the Scaley Mountains, N: Yes, Mam. 7.: Where do you live, anyway? N. I'm from Anderson. You all I heard don't know much about some of these :: mountains, then, No, Miam. And my sister had bad luck. She kindly lost her mind, and she died in Milledgeville, Georgia a year ago last summer. Yes, Miam, T. : Have two brothers and they're both 11ving. One of them was in World War One, and the other one wasn't. N.: What do you remember about your childhood, though? What do renember about some of the things that your... I know you must have, you probably had soule stories, not Sore mbo T.: We lived five miles from any school when we's in way here in Blue Valley at the foot of the Scaley Mountains. We 1 ived there, and that was a 11. I went to school til Broadway, up on, I don't know what Blue Ridge it was, but I had to go though the woods. And my older sister didn't want..didn't want to go to school noway, and I had to quit on that account. And I come toward Brown's and stayed... Sre o bough this ., Two liti '176 #tect to didn't have school no more than three months of school in a year, begin in July and get it out before Colt weather. (Laughter) Not have to have any fire, and if we did have to have any fire we just set up an old stove and stuck the pipe out the window. N.: 01, goodness, T.: Now, we had hard times, and we walked that fer, all four of us for what education we got we walked that ten miles a day, I'd come here on what they call Clear Creek just above here. To school. And right to foot the Scaley Mountains, N.: Ah, that's wonderful. T.: And, they didn't have., have many books at that time. And I didn't "1) go very far in school. I wan'd wrote over. Now, you didn't hear anything said about grades, noway. Then you just had your book... reader and a little blue back speller, Ha, ha, ha, ha. And we didn't know a thing in the world about grades. But one woman, Rice woman, she was a....she was a just herself an old maid, and she teached, and she had a good education for the tiine, and she told me once if I had two more books I'd complete element ry school. But I didn't get in, and I went to school to a few more teachers and then I went to the llall House at lIighlands to work and worked one summer there, and come home, and I's already engaged, and married a Talley. He's been dead now ever since, well, he's been doad ten years in January. And I come back home when we took him to Highlands. The hospital closed up there, but still there was a doctor there, and it las so far to get a doctor down here in the wintertime. We inoved to Highlands in one of my son's houses, and liver there,.ah, lived there about three months, I guess. He didn't live quite that 1 ong, and they brought back to Waedonia Church down here and buried him. He's buried there now, N.: Do you remember when you were a little girl singing any little songs or anything? T.: Well, after I got to going to school and I vis...I stayed at that Brown's and some of them could sing. My daddy could sing some, and my mother could start a tune in an old Christaih Harmony Songbook. N.: Ah, yea, those were wonrierful. Those were wonderful things. T, Yes. And I. Then I got to singing the teachers. Some of them would sing a song one morning, read a chapter in the Bible. And I learnt to sing a 110ile there. Then, and the Sun, we had no Sunday schools for years, Sunday school organized up here at Clear Creek, not where the church is now but further up. Up the creek, And I learned to sing some from the super intendent, lle could sing songs out of a hyom book, old people called them lihyynn loolas "H (Laughter) Mostly. By the way they were spelt, you now. Hyymn I had no education. Vy mother didn't. Als, she'd went to a school they'd used to have schools that would make up a little bit of money and have a two week.. 'bout two week subscription school. And she went to some of them and lernt enough to read just a little. My daddy had a good education. Ile come from Massachusetts. And he had a good education for the time, And he was born in eighteen and thirty. N. : Well l'11 be darned. Well, that's a long time ago. T, : lla, he come here and bought that six liundred ac,., he had a brother*- in-law, and they's two knolls way up yonder where we had to cone from, Six miles, five miles tramp, anyway. And the roads, there wasnt roads, it was just a sled road or a trail then you had to come. And he bought..uh, built him a house, le built a kitchen first and went to baching. And then he married Adeline Burl, and he built on more to the house. And he ained that other kno11, they's just most alike, just watween, betwext and up agein, you know, and he .... he,.,a..sathe one his brother-in-law wanted to come and his sister didn't. IIe said she was raised in, she was born in noster, Massachusetts and she couldn't never be got away from there, (Laughter) In the times people raised most of what they cat. And if they didn't have enough, they done without the rest, They had no money hardly at 'tal. I can remember,,a,.oh. the first nickel I ever seen. I thought it was awful (pretty)." Laughter) Just didn't have no money. llad to raise sone stock, you know. Some cows, and have a yearling maybe to sell 'bout the fall of the year to get money ton. I don't know, you could sell it for three or four dollars, and get the noney to pay the taxes. Now I can remember all such as that. llave to sell a yearling to get the money to pay the tax every year. My father didn't have, well he didn't ... he knoved several trades, but nothing that fitted in this country much. And he was... he served as assistant postmaster in Washington, D. C. during part of the Civil War, which was back in the sixties. Do you remember anything about the Civil War? Va uh, my mother just could remember that. She was born in eighteen and fifty nine, and up in the sixties toward the last she could remember some of her uncles and her daddy being and they'd lie out. They didn't much want to fight, you know, against the government. Some of thelli didn't. Some of them went to the Union arny. My granddaddy and an uncle, Mac, chat other har used to lie out under a rock house and her" children would.., their wives would cook them something if they happened to have it at home. And the children would slip it out to 'un to live on, Oh, that ones..that ones lived right up the creek here years ago. And, and, he would, he'd slip in, maybe, in time of a snow or something. Try to cut his wife a little wood. Theil vomen had a time during that time, I've heared ny grandmother say that they did * E * - mayber , mayba I'd be two months in the time of the spring or maybe tvo OC Chree that they didn't have a bite of bread. They have.. found 'um Some Irish potatoes. That's about what they had to live on, Nier mind the children. And, uh, the militia. They's a militia around, and they worted right against their own people. They'd throw your bed... they'd search your Iyers to see if your husbands had come in, you know, she said. And they'd find the local sack and sifter and throw hit over" the house! Throw down their bee guus that they, where they had bees. That was against their own people. But they done a 11 that. They was a need that mother remembered as long as she lived,.,was one of the militia that she hated so bad when they'd come, Do you what kind of...dd you ever go to a family reunion or did yoii ever remember.... Family reunion? Didn't ftave nothing like that back then, I've went to tuin of late years. uk Yes, Man, I'm trying to be of Do you remember any stories ... chat you ever sat around when you were a little kid. I know you must have sal around anrl your iardy told you stories. T, : Yes, he told lots of them about the Civil War, but I can't hardly put fum together, I was just a child. lle's been dead cver since nineteen hundred and ten. N, Coodness, I can't remember much, but anyway. They... Some of them up there would tell about nothing hard' to eat, just hardtac. And some of them would kill a dog, and said, their, oh where there just a yard or so of or just divide 'un off in yards, you know, And, uh, they said one yard of a dog's blood was perfectly good. My granddaddy was in the war, but; he was on one side and tiy daddy on the other, My goodness, That must have been something. Oh, hit was something. And, no nan folks at home to plow their land, fort to raise them a little cor, the women and children. And they would pull up the old com stalks, I've heered say "Pull up the old corn stalks and trop their old corn where their stalks fold up. Nobody to plow. And make a little something that way. And they made their own clothes, and kniththeir own stockings. They'd have some sheep. And they'd shear fim, and card and spin, I've sheared a sheep a many a time. (Laughter) Shear ing a sheep, huh? T.:8 Get the wool, and wash it and cord it and spin it. Double and twist it and get it reacy to knit stockings and socks out of. I've knit a many... well, T*e got some wool as How that I knit, I ain't using '1118, but I've got um. Still 1101d on to um? T. : Um hu), Remonber any little stories or anything you used to tell the kids sitting around the place? ?, Well, somehow I can't recall any, but the could tell what time a certain battle was fought and everything. All about the Potomac River. He was up there in Washington, 9. C. And abogut Abe Lincoln's assassination. He didn't go ane, it was Fiorbe's Theatre, Anui he didn't go out that night. He said he didn't know for why, unless he was tired. Te didn'know anything about it. The next day it come out the leadlines in the paper that the president......and he lived a few hours, John Wilkes Booth, if you'll remember, murdered him. And chere was a woman in it...a, Surette, Surette woman. And there's a plot...ayliegular plot laid to kill every one of the U.S. officials. But they got Lincoln. And I believe there's one more wounded that died. They had that plan all laid. And he didn't go out that night. He said they kept the bed where Lincoln died... blood... he lived, I believe, about two days 'fore he died. The blood.., he said the last time he was ever in Washington that bed was never been disturbed just a bloody bed where Abe Lincoln lied. My goodness. Do you remember any little songs or anything you used to sing when you were a little girl? I didn't sing very much. I didn't now what a tune was, until I got to going to Brouns and they could sing a little. 01d Christain harmony songsAnd I caught on to some singing then, and finally, wlly, I got so I sung in a choir all the time til my voice failed me, Well, one song that they used to sing is: lligh over the hills the mountains rise, I can't remember very much of it, N.; Go ahead, T, And then that teacher that learnt is the songs used to sing llark, the llerald Angels Sing'. N.: Go ahead with your sons. Go ahead and finish singing your song, To: I can't sing it, because I forgot it. That's just the first line of it, that's all I can remember. And then there's another one, Thein Browns had a Christain llarmony and a Temple Star book, Big pasteboard, like books that time I stayed there. llu hu hu hu, the purple sound, hamonious to thx mine car, (Cough) I've had hay cover, and it's ruined my voice, Well, an you remember any songs like "Barbr A11en", or... T.: NO, I didn't get...I just got Christain songs, out of a psa 1.111 for church N.; Tell me something else you can remember about when you were a little girl, Well, I can remember when there wasn'tra, and my other had a child when she married daddy. And she was seven years older than me. And we lived about a mile from my grandfather's up in yonder in Blue Valley. And about every Sunday afternoon daddy and mother go over ansl visit granddaddy, and they had some girls at home then.. gown, and, had to go and visit. And I can romeuber a certain rock on that old xan road up younder, TI ain't on that were the road goes now towards where we used to live, I'd walk and run get tired, and I'd be a big rock sticking out of the bank like and I'd get up there and get on daddy's back like, you know, and he'd hold my legs and ride. (Laughter) I remember lots of that. Theys tot of the trees along the road I used to travel, or trailway. as I can remember now if I was to see fun. They'd 100k natural tone, I ain't been back in there since about 146 I think, where I was raised. There's a good road goes in there. Forest service made a good road, but he got a car , but I don't drive. And so I don't get to go often. N. Would you like to go back in there and see it again sometime? T.: Well, I would if I could, but I can't. I want to go to.... My son's mostly blind. Ple lad a blackout, about two years ago in August, And his glasses, lle's got diabetes, And I have too, is glasses when he fell, put one of his eyes out, le laid in Nashville hodpital, oh, it was about seven weeks I think. They thought they could save that eye but they couldn't, Just had to let it go, and then later on why it got affecting the other one and they had to... he had to go back and have it took out. And then he had a catarac on his best eye, and they took she got hit took off about a year ago. And he can see a little 110w, They run a store. I see he can see a little, but not much to uusiore. He can see things off around 11. Not much to read. N.: Ny grandmother used to tell a little Gry about #tock Robin Have you ever heard that? T, : I don't guess I have. N. I wish I could remember it so I could tell you, but I've forgotten. T. Ah la, Daddy used to tell lots of them, but I can't remember, Can't remember much, but I just aint thought on 'um er for So many years now, N.: Voll, I guess I'11. go and let you go to "lighlands and see your son, Didn't you say you were going this afternoon to see him? T, i No, No, I'm not a going. I'm not teady, I ain't ready. I'm going to...Ive got to take me some clothing and stuff, I've got to wait on somebody to take me to the truck or something. Yes, viam. We11, appreciate you giving me all the information, leurs b lod Asterka do con The Touching come cothing and stuee. (Here I turned the recorder off an attempted to leave, but Yrs, Talley insisted I stay a vlhile longer,) black? No: I, There's an old back Owens back down here. Well there's two twins. The woman had a big family. She was... well, I forgot who she was, but she arrica a Owens and he wasn't mucli account. And, well, her husband got killed in the Civil War, And she had two twin sons, and one of them was named Yoses and the other was Aaron. They was quaer, and... Iet's see, when he was... it tas when his wife died that they was t'e graveyard, and lie was, he was just all mouth and didn't act like he had any sense hut he did have or he couldn't have made.. told all the things I've heared him tell. They said he hurried up at the said he vished they d hurry up and git this thing over with when his wife was buried. (Laughter) Wish they'd hurry up and git this thing over with..let's have this thing over with, Ali, bly, goodness. Shoot. Well, the women would leave. You couid cord and I could cord, and spin. I never did weave very !!!LCI, but I could shear the sheep and cord and sping., had a spinning wheel, you know, Spin the thread on, and then, then go to knitting or weaving you sone.ro One kind of cloth they twilled, and they wade that for men's suits and pants. And just the plain, they called it Unsey, to make dresses out of Several linse dresses in time. But they lived hard. And I do my vashing like they used to, yet, only I've got a ruh board and they didn't have that, They didn't even have a scrul board then, tid they? No, I got a wash pot turned a bottom upwards out there now under tha oak to keep it fro catching water, and I'11 have to put it in somewhere a-fore I leave. Do you still plant your garden here? Yes, I planted it. It rained so much last summer tha it vadn't as good as common. But I still, I made a lot of vegetables, I get it pioved, and then I...turned.. and then get somebody if I can to lay it off, and I do the rest with a boe from then on, Ah, that's great. Do you remember any ghose stories? Ghost stories? Yes, M'am. No, I never believed in thein and no such... didn't belleve there's such a thing and I just don't know none of them, *Ell, now, I've heared somebody tell..I believe that 'as my husband tell... about 01d.. They got into kind of a bet, and one woman said she wadn't afraid to go to a graveyard after night. Well, I've always said I wasn't, TE's not the.. it's not the dead I'afraid of., it's the living. (Laughter). It's the truth. The dead's not going to bother you, The woman went to the graveyard. She'd bet*um so much, you know. And, of course, some of them was a-going to hide to scare her, And she had on a apron, and they sail she must stick down a stick at the grave she stoped at so they'd know she had been thar. Well she stuck down the stick and it caught in her apron, you know, and hung, and she... (Laughter). and she thought something tiad caught her. (Laughter). I bet she was scared. Ya, she was sared. She was scarect if she wasn't scared...scarey, (Pause) That old graveyard down here at Macedonia Church all It's on clear Creek, but it ain't as large as one., that's vliere my parents is buried and my husband, too. Down here at Macedonia Church. And to build their houses they put., Theyd build a house, the old people would, and hardly a na il ever in it. They'd split boards for their doors, and pin * um together, and cover a roof,... They didn't have no shingles, They'd cover the roof with #um. And take poles, some of oum would, and weighit their boards down. Put 'um on lengthwise heavy, you know, not, say they didn't have no nails. That's the way of it. Did you ever live in a house that old that hact that kind of roof on 10? No, I've lived in one., I., ve built one when we move from here. This is where my husband was raised. And we moved on a piece of land. a hundred acres of land that my daddy give me and built a log house. An awful good in. They's awful good poplars and chesnuts up there and they'd hew 'um, maybe one might...and hew'un off, you know. Platten the sides. And split some of 'wi. And then they'd... they'd dob,.,they d build a chimney and., fireplace, and they'd dob their cracks with red mud. Seal them up good and air tight, Yea. Seal.lum up good inside. And they split their flooring, 000. I've gobra puncheon right out there now, part of one come out the old house when we bought out yonder. I'11 be durn, This one I got my wash tub set on, it now out there. How did they make the ..the,.,the,, low did they chop the boards? They just used an ax? Make boards? No, To inake boards they.. Well, they have to chaw off.cut the cuts. Well, it used to be didn't have,.. well they got to having some cross cut saws, but they used to just crawl on a log with the ax and cut *um. And then they would hew the bark off, And they had something they called a frow. You've heared the Saying a 101, That's as dull as a frows' and a frow vas. And they set the blocks up and measured just so fur, you know, and hit it, drive it down, split off a board, Go back the same thing, and split off another one. I've had some of them. Well that old crib out yonder's covered with boards. S about rotted down 110W. You still keep any livestock around here? Any cattle or anything? Well, of course some people does, I couldn't. I couldn't afford to feed a cow, and... I had an awful good cow. But I couldn't afford to feed her, and do the milking and churning and as much as she give and as much butter, and nobody to eat it but no. I just couldn't do it. So I just had to do without. i git a little milk.., buy some. And my neighbors gives me some, They used to have the woods full of stock through here, Blue Valley, too, 'til they got the 10-fence law, They just.. why you'd see where I was raiser come in from on the mountain, maybe, somewhere fifty or [wenty head in a drove, Scrub cattle. Wasn't of these nice runs like they is nowadays. They had the horns, you know. Great big old horns under um, I remember a a cow ve had we called the old wells cow!' And she had.. they!...somebody had tipped, cut the tip off her horns, you know, and screwd on a... I don't know what you'd call Tum, but a,... Just like you'd put on a steer's head. Round things? Yea. (Pause). (llere Mrs. Talley was checking food cooking on the stove.) What's your favorite kind of food? Fruit? Food, What's your favorite kind of food? I dont know...I don't got ye last. I 11 part deef. Pood, Spoon?, What's you favorite thing to eat? To, beans and "ITish potatoes. And we have.., used to I had a orchard out yonder, but there's been nobody tending it, so this free here's all I've got, and it didn't bear last year. It got killed. And, people used to live entirely..., they didn't know what bumak Nixonika biscuit bread was. Biscuit bread? Used entirely their corn. And if they run short in the sumortime before corn cone in they gris bread. Take a piece of tin and stick holes in it with 8, you know, any that made it rough on one side. And I never dld like that. You grit it down in roastin' car and bake it. And then they... corn bread! was the favorite bread, Ilve heard a tale on mand who come somewheres else lip here te llighlands. He got some flour, and they was poor people. His name was Love. And if you had a book that treats on, let's see, Gone With The Vind, the tale "d be in that, And several more, llor did it go? Well, anyway, he finally got hold of some flour and he sot over there. lle was all tales, though, I don't guess any of it was $o, lle took some of it home, and his wife baked some biscuits and said the first thing he knover the children had one or two and put down on the floor ant putting coals of fire on um to see if they'd walk. (Laughter). Daddy and mother kowed that: man, but it as afore ny cine. I didn't. Ah. Remeber anything else he used to tell? They thought they startapins, you know. You know they'd saw 'un draw their feet on, he tarapin or turtle., draw their feet all in out of sight and can't get lun to nove, I've knowed people to put a coal of fire on their back, you know to da un *walk, and that's what them children was up to. To make them biscuits walk, Now I don't guess that's so. He was always telling something. (Here Mrs, Talley began cooking a gain, so I turned off the recorder, tool several pictures, and left. Slie was very cordial, and asked 110 to come back to visit her again soon.) 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 in a position to choose how individuals and organizations are represented and described in our archives. We are not neutral, and bias is reflected in our descriptions, which may not convey the racist or offensive aspects of collection materials accurately. 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 language where Library of Congress subject terms are inaccurate and obsolete is ongoing. 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 emailing reference@atlantahistorycenter.com. Your comments are essential to our work to create inclusive and thoughtful description.