Appalachian History

"So you wonder why I have spent the last ten years of my life behind this meat counter," said Jack Gallup. "You think I ought to be doin' something better, do you? Well, I'll tell you. For one thing, I never would study in school and I dropped out at the end of the fifth grade; and another thing is, I have never been able to get any money ahead because I spent it on gasoline and liquor.

I am not much over thirty, but I might have saved up enough money by now to start a small business of my own. I know the grocery business and I know the meat business from top to bottom. My uncle's store has a good trade and I do all the buying for the meat counter and stand behind the counter to cut it and weigh it. Particular people come in here and it's my business to please them.

In the course of time, you know, a man can learn anything if he puts his mind on it. I could have learned something out of books when I was in school, but I wasn't willin' to put my mind on it. I was interested in marbles and baseball and in playing pranks on the other boys and in deviling the teachers. A good lawyer here in Tucony once told my mother I'd make a good lawyer if I'd only study, but I wouldn't.

What little I know I've learned right here in this store. In sellin' meat I learned some arithmetic because I had to, and I've learned to speak fairly good English from educated people who came in here to trade. I've always kept my ears open, and that's easier than studyin' books and worth more; I never could see much in books.

I remember at least one thing I heard a teacher say. It was somethin' about paying too dear for your whistle. These people who get a book education have to pay too much for it. I may not be right but that's my way of thinkin'. Anyhow I wasn't willin' to pay the price. It may be worth it to some people but not to me.

Have I always lived in Tucony? Most of my life. I was born out in the country six miles from town on a farm my granddaddy bought when this was a wild country, and I had my fun fishin' and huntin' and trappin'. I went to school when I had to, and I worked in the cornfield when I had to, but my daddy had to lick me sometimes to make me do it. I reckon the way I lived out in the country is what makes me so strong and healthy.

When my daddy moved into town so my sisters could go to high school, I got a job as an errand boy in a grocery store, and I don't ever seem to be able to get away from groceries. When I was growin' up I got several other small jobs, but I didn't keep any of 'em long. I got to runnin' round nights with the boys and we used to drink and prowl about, and sometimes times we got into fights and landed in the cooler. It cost my daddy a lot of money to get me out of trouble, and it was at a time when he had mighty little money. I don't know why it is but when I get liquor in me I want to fight. I'm just a plain fool.

Finally my uncle took me into his grocery and put me behind the meat counter. I got drunk once in a great while and he always threatened to fire me but he never did. He's a queer old duck, but he's good-hearted. He hates to see money go out of his hands but he'll give a bunch of ripening bananas to some of his kin to help feed the chillun. Some people would rather give things to strangers than to their kin. Not my uncle. He abuses everybody who works for him, but he is good to them in many ways. He'll do anything for them except raise their wages; some of them have been with him a long time.

He and his wife work hard - she with her butter-making and he behind his counter or an the road looking after his branch stores in neighboring towns. He drives his own automobile and he goes like the devil was after him. He says time's money, and money is what he wants. Two or three times he has run his car off the mountainside and rolled over and over, but he's so tough he was back at work in a day or so. He growls and says he's nearly dead but he goes on. I once told him he wasn't fit to die. I expected he'd beat me over the head with a stick, but he only laughed.

Spencer Mull,
Brevard, N.C.
interviewed August 7, 1939 by A.W. Long
Folklore Project of the Federal Writers' Project
for the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA)
online at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/wpa/27060407.html

"Yes, I am working on a part time job as cook, but you don't need to ask what I'm doing the rest of the time. What don't I do? I get up early and sometimes wash out clothes or clean house. You'd be surprised at the dirt these roomers bring in; they never think of wiping their feet on the mat. My mammy gets dinner ready for the girls when they come home from the mill, but she won't wash up the dishes. She leaves them for me to wash when I come home. And then the family expect me to get supper. Sometimes I find my mammy and my youngest sister--they always sleep together and are just like twins--layin' on the bed waitin' for me to git 'em somethin' to eat. After supper me and another sister go out and work the garden until dark. So you see I don't have time to git lonesome.

"I hardly get time to go to church either. My family was Lutherans in the old days, but there ain't no Lutheran church here and we are all mixed up; we go to different churches--when we go at all. One of my sisters bought a good second-hand auto and we sometimes spend Sunday visiting our relations in the country. They always have plenty to eat, and I like a change of vittles sometimes. And it's good for sore eyes to see somebody else wash the dishes.

"One church we don't go to is the one down there by the mill. They have lively times down there, they tell me. When I go to church, I want it to be like a real church, and when I go to the movies I want somethin' else. I'd go to church oftener if I had the right kind of clothes; but when I have a nice dress I may not have a good hat or decent shoes, and when I have a good hat and shoes maybe I haven't a nice dress. I don't care very much about clothes, but I like to look as decent as anybody else. So I go to church when I feel like it and when I have respectable clothes; and it's nobody's business but my own."

Miss Ophelia Mull
Brevard, N.C.
Interviewed June 26, 1939
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940
http://tinyurl.com/2hvvlk

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Ophelia+Mull Brevard+NC Lutherans appalachia appalachian+culture appalachian+history history+of+appalachia