Appalachian History

One of our cousins had a fight once with a fertilizer spreader, with an inanimate machine. He was pouring fertilizer into cotton rows with this spreader, a brand new expensive labor saving device, and he could not get it to spread the proper amount. It dropped too much, it dropped too little. He worked for two hours on the adjustments; then in a sudden tempestuous frenzy of temper he picked up a rock and beat the thing to bits. Throwing the broken pieces over the pasture fence, he yelled: "You dirty low-down evil contraption, stay there!" and going to the barn, he got out the old cow horn and from then on spread fertilizer as his father and grandfather had spread it.

This same cousin also had a row with a pig. This pig refused to eat when he came down to feed it. It pawed the ground and ran to the other side of the sty. "All right, said our cousin, "you either get some manners and eat when I feed you or you’ll perish to death."

He came to the sty the second day with a bucket full of buttermilk mash, and again the pig pawed and ran away. On the third day he said to the pig: "All right, damn you, you can just perish." On the fourth day, however, the pig ate ravenously as soon as my cousin put the bucket down, and from then on my cousin and this pig understood each other.

We slopped the pigs; we spread fertilizer and mixed fertilizer; and about us were the cotton fields and the fine blue hills, and on the walls of our houses were shotguns.

We drove into town to swap butter and eggs for coffee and sugar and black pepper; we swapped smoked hams for tobacco and cloth. We wasted opportunity, we wasted chance, but we held on to an attitude of living that some people had lost who did not waste opportunity and chance. We weighed and balanced many intangible things. We made up our minds about how we wanted things and where we wanted them.

I remember once my Uncle Wade saying to us he had decided when he was twenty-one years of age that he didn't choose to live more than two days’ drive from the Southern Railroad – he didn't intend to live any farther south than Greenwood nor any farther north than Pickens.

And I remember a great-uncle who started off to Texas and then returned, saying he found out in Mississippi that old Mr. No Account was moving right along with him, and he decided if old No Account had to hang on to him, he had rather deal with the scoundrel in South Carolina than 'way out in Texas. We talked about great rains and great winds and great droughts --- about all kinds of wonders. Once I remember Mary telling us she had seen an infidel. He was a Georgian, a fine-looking man, and he did not believe in God. Mary said to us Georgia was a wild place ---preachers drank whisky in Georgia.

We discussed ultimate destinies --- the asylum, the poorhouse, the graveyard, the jail. We considered chance and the power of faith over chance, and how strange and hidden was chance. We were caught by it like fish in nets and like birds snared in traps. And the race in our valley no more went to the swift than it had in Ecclesiastes, nor did the battle go to the strong, nor did riches come to men of understanding. When our time would arrive, it would arrive.


---Red Hills and Cotton, an Upcountry Memory, by Ben Robertson, University of South Carolina Press, 1943



Pickens+County+SC Ben+Robertson Red+Hills+and+Cotton appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

"That night, as Mutt and I lay on the featherbed that Grandma had made, we talked by the light of the coal oil lamp. We were working on a plan on how to get rid of Old Betsy. That cow just had to go, we reasoned, and soon. Our first plan was to throw rocks at her all the way to the barn, hoping she would fall and break a leg and become a part of dinner. Well, we rocked her to the barn every day for about a week, and not once did she fall. So it was time to work on Plan Two. Betsy was smart, be we were smarter than any old cow.

"Here was our plan: There was this small path that ran alongside this small cliff. Mutt would do about anything I ever told him to do, me being his bigger brother and all, so we came up with this great plan. How could it fail? We asked ourselves.

"I said, 'Mutt, you rock Old Betsy down the hill like you always do and I will stand in the path and wave my arms and cry 'Shoo, Betsy, shoo!' and she will run over the cliff and kill herself.' The next day, we figured, would be Betsy's last day on this earth. After all, how could a great plan like that fail?

"So, that next afternoon, old Mutt ran Betsy down the hill, throwing rocks at her and cussing all the way. I was ready. Standing in the path, I hollered, 'Shoo, Betsy, shoo!' I saw Betsy coming down that narrow path---800 pounds of speeding dynamite looking me straight in the eye. I was doing everything that I was supposed to do, waving my arms and crying 'Shoo, Betsy, shoo!'

"But that stupid old cow didn't understand one word I was saying. She hit me like a speeding locomotive and I went sailing over the small cliff intended for Betsy. When I landed, I hit hard. And boy, did I ever hurt. Nothing was broken but I sure was in a lot of pain for the next few days.

"On Saturday afternoons, Mutt and I always went to the movies. Most of the shows were cowboy movies, and Mutt and I just loved cowboys. Sometimes, the cowboys would ride bulls in the movies. That gave me yet another plan. Betsy hadn't won yet. No one could ever get me to say 'uncle,' and no cow was going to beat me.

"So I told Mutt, 'Here's what we will do.' I planned it all. I told Mutt that I would get on top of the barn and that he should run Old Betsy out through the barn door. 'As she comes out the door,' I said, 'I will jump on her back and ride her into the ground.'

Mutt said, "Ralph, do you think you can do that?"

I said, "Sure I can."

Well, I climbed up onto the barn roof and readied myself. Then I called out, "Okay, Mutt, let her rip!"

"Out the door came Old Betsy, sailing straight away. I leaped off the roof and landed right in the middle of her back! Away we went--down through the barnyard, out through the gate and into the backyard of our house. Betsy and I were headed straight for my mother's clothesline. Betsy decided to take me right into it. I caught the line full in the middle of my neck --- the darn thing almost took my head off! As I fell, Betsy went one way and I went the other, landing on the ground, square on my butt. Yep, some cows just never learn."


Excerpt from Why Daddy Sold Old Betsy, by Ralph Hall, Ithaca Press, 2009

Ralph Hall, born 1936, was raised in Melvin, KY.



farm+chores Melvin+KY appalachia appalachian+history +history+of+appalachia Ralph+Hall

That spring, I gathered up suitable pieces of scrap lumber wherever they could be found in order to construct a brooder house. Many of these boards came from a discard pile of surplus materials at the mill where Daddy worked. He often reclaimed a lot of useful items that were otherwise destined to be hauled off to the town dump.

The seven by eight foot structure had a shed roof and was only five feet high at the back. The sacrifice of head room in the design limited the space to be heated during March and April. Initially, the only source of light was a large window installed at floor level. Its southern exposure brought an abundance of afternoon sunshine, providing some solar warmth before the balmy spring days arrived.

Our neighbor Bernard Butler sold us a small top-loading coal burning stove. A removable round sheet metal hover radiated the warmth downward.

Daddy suggested an easy way to hoist and securely dangle the stove in midair. He appended a wire bail to the hover and attached a snap buckle fastened to one end of a rope pulley. A lip on the top of the stove helped keep it suspended about six inches from the floor. This gap allowed the chirping chicks to go to and from the heat at will.

The lifting device was easy to operate and gave enough working room to remove the ashes from the stove as well as to clean the area where the chicks nightly huddled. A fresh bed of wood shavings every day restored the space to spic and span sanitary condition.

The stove had a regulating apparatus of sorts to control the updraft, which in turn helped govern the rate of combustion. There were two opposing mercury-filled metal chambers, each one shaped like a small pancake, that acted as a thermostat. Their expansion when heated caused the damper to open and slow the coal’s burning rate. As they contracted, the closed system got the fire going again.

This assemblage wasn’t perfect. When falling temperatures called for more heat, the movable plates that regulated the draft didn’t always respond properly. Also, the small stove required constant restoking. Given these circumstances, the habitat of my little charges needed fairly constant monitoring, both day and night. The first two weeks were critical, a time when young chicks are really susceptible to chills, and the greatest losses occur.

My vigil began several days before the cute fuzzy chicks arrived. I lit the stove, kept the fire going to dry out any dampness, and made sure everything was hunky dory. Maintaining a uniform environment demanded discipline. Once we settled the chicks in the brooder, I had to set an alarm clock and get up at least twice on the chilliest nights to keep close check on our investment. Once I had dressed and bundled up for these nocturnal visits, a bright beam from a flashlight pointed the way. Sometimes the heavens, luminous with the full moon’s radiance, projected my shadow along the pathway.

Opening the door to discover cozy warmth insider the brooder house both soothed my shivers and reassured me that all was well. I routinely added more coal and waited for the embers to burn brightly before returning to the house and crawling back into bed.


Excerpt from 'The Day is Far Spent,' by Kenneth A. Tabler, Montani Publishing, 2006
b. 1926, Martinsburg, WV



chicken+house farm+chores appalachia appalachia+history history+of+appalachia

I've got a '40 John Deere, and I've got the biggest part of equipment for it, and it's . . . it's up there in the barn. It'll still run. And we . . . we worked around here and worked for other people and, you know, in a small community like this, you . . . you helped other people and they helped you. And there was no money exchanged. You was a helping somebody, and then when you got ready to house tobacco they would help you, and . . . and that's the way you worked it. It's not like it is now. You know, you got a transaction of money anytime that somebody helps you, where back then you didn't have.

Back in the late . . . I guess it would be in the late '40s, there was a . . . there was a log barn there, and my uncle built the other barn around it which you can see over there and it's got his initials cut in the . . . in the logs, and my grandfather's initials were cut in the logs.

They kept mules in there and they . . . they also had a "A" over the top of it that was kind a loft where they stored their . . . their corn that they took . . . they took corn . . . they didn't take money. When they ground the corn they took a toll from the corn, and they . . . they stored that up there, and then if you would want to come by and buy, if you had money to buy it, they would sell the . . . the meal to you or sell the corn to you or whatever.

Caption reads: Laurel County, Kentucky. A pair of jacks - there are tens of thousands of such teams. This pair owned by Erwin Hensley of E. Bernstedt, hauling coal. Pre-1954, no other date.

[My mom] grew everything. She grew potatoes and corn and beans and broccoli. Just anything that we could grow in this location, she'd grow it. And stick her own beans. Last year she canned probably fifty quarts of beans and gave 'em to the neighbors when she didn't eat 'em herself.

Back when the older generation, which is deceased now, they had a June meeting every year and they congregated at the graveyard and had big meals and everybody brought a dish and . . . and that's where that . . . I can relate back to that is . . . is a lot of the history that I'm telling you about because, you know, I had heard people talk about there.

But the . . . like I said, there's only one of my mother's people that is living, which is her sister, and my father's people never migrated into here. They . . . they were all over, out of state and everything, and they never came in. But the . . . the Wilsons, they . . . they had a reunion year every year.

But, like I say, after my mother has died and my aunts and uncles, they don't . . . they didn't have any last year.


1991 interview with Euell Sumner
(b. 1938 in Cane Creek, KY)
Family Farm Oral History Project
Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History
University of Kentucky
Interview edited; orginal transcript here



Laurel+County+KY farm+chores appalachian+farming appalachia +history+of+appalachia appalachian+history

"The log cabin no longer adorns the landscape. Instead, is the stately mansion, indicative of wealth, of taste and of hospitality. There are spacious, nicely painted barns, hedges, orchards, well-fenced, well-tilled fields. Steel bridges span the turbulent streams, and macadamized roadways wind among the valleys and skirt the rising hills. Where the wigwam once stood, temples dedicated to the deity now dot the surrounding scene.

"The farmer has become a prince. The telephone has put him in touch with all his neighbors. The daily paper with the markets of the world, is regularly at his gate, and ere he goes afield he may scan its pages, and know the commercial history of the universe.

"The sickle, the hoe, the cradle, the flail, are the ancient farm implements about which he tells his grandchildren. All the modern scientific, up-to-date methods of farming are employed in Harrison County. Instead of bathing at the back porch pump of an evening, the farmer now adjourns to his porcelain bath tub.

"The gas grate has succeeded the back log: the swinging crane and the Dutch oven, the spinning wheel, and the perforated cream skimmer have disappeared. The tallow candle is regarded as the 'light of other days.' Where the rifle once adorned the chimney piece is a portrait in crayon or oil of 'mother' or of 'father.'

"In the parlor are music and books; in the kitchen sunlight, conveniences and comfort. The farm today, in Harrison County, is a scene of art, of taste, of plenty, of comparative ease, and delightful independence. Gone are the 'good old times,' and the Harrison County farmer has fulfilled the poetical idea ---

“The farmer’s the chief of the nation;
The oldest of nobles is he,
How blest beyond others his station,
From want and envy, how free.”


HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF HARRISON COUNTY, OH
1909 Souvenir edition of the Harrison County Democrat
source: www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohharris/scan0001_1.pdf

"Well, of course, we had to help with the housework, all . . . we had to do the sweeping and the dishwashing and the scrubbing of floors. We . . . we just had wood floors, no . . . with no paint on 'em, no nothing on 'em, and . . . and we scrubbed those with . . . with the lye soap and . . . and . . . and, of course, swept 'em with a broom. You didn't have any vacuum cleaners or anything of that nature. We'd all pitch in. Sometimes even . . . I mean, the boys, I'm s-. . . remember them helping scrub the . . porches and things and, you know.

"But the chores of girls were to . . . of course, we had to go draw water from the well and . . . and bring it in. We had to . . . Mother always did the milking, but we had to h-. . . I remember we'd have to "bug the beans." You'd go out and pick the bean bugs off the beans. And you'd go out and you'd pull weeds out of the onions. You'd...I mean, all kids did that. We would have to just do everwhat she wanted us to do, which was anything a child could do, I guess, that would make it a little easier for them as parents.

"Dad worked in the field, we'd have to carry him water to drink, and if he was far away where it would interrupt his work a lot, we'd take his lunch to him. Mother'd cook and put it in...well, we'd carry it in buckets, you know, as in...things she'd get lids on...that would keep the...from getting it dirty or spilling it. But most of the time he was close enough that he'd come in and eat. But I remember carrying his dinner up on that hill to where he would be so far back hoeing corn.

"I'd walk up to my Grandmother Frazier's every day at noontime. My brother and sister, if we could get all of our jobs done, why, Mother'd let us go up there and listen to "The Midday Merry-Go-Round" which was a comedy-type show out of Knoxville. Minnie Pearl was on it, and you've heard of Minnie Pearl, and all of her comic . . . comics. And she would . . . and then there was Rod Brassfield. And I remember all those . . . now I've forgotten 'em, but . . . but we'd just sit there and listen and laugh."



Florene Smith
b. 1929
interviewed July 24, 1991
Whitesburg, Kentucky

Kentuckiana Digital Library
University of Kentucky Oral History Program

related post: "You would wear yourself down winding it up"


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