When were you born?

1918.

Were you born in Cherokee County?

Yes, Cherokee County, in Rusk.

Were you born at home or in a hospital?

Home.

How many brothers and sisters were in your family?

Oh, there were six--six brothers and sisters. I made seven; seven children in the family.

Were you the youngest or the oldest child?

Third from the oldest.

Were your parents born in Cherokee County?

Yes, both of them, my father near Alto and my mother over here near New Birmingham.

What is your earliest memory?

Well, the one that’s most vivid to me is when I was four years old, and I watched my grandfather rope a steer. And, it was a little bitty horse and the steer was kind of big and what they called at that time salty, and it pulled him off and killed him, and I was standing at the kitchen window watching and I said, "Oh Mama, Mama, that horse fell over on grandpa!" It wasn’t that far away so that just really sticks out in my mind.

Where did you go to school?

Rusk. Started first grade in Rusk and finished high school.

How did you get to school?

Well, most the time we had a neighbor that we would ride with them, and my father paid them so much money for the children to ride with them.

What kind of school supplies were you required to bring?

Just crayolas…crayolas, and a ruler, and a big tablet, and pencil, and some paste.

What did you wear to school?

Just little print dresses, little check dresses, little…just little dresses like all the kids were wearing.

What did the classrooms look like?

A lot like they do today, wasn’t a lot different. We went to school right there where the elementary school building, the old school building was--where the present school building stands.

Did the school have air conditioning?

No, no, many windows.

How was it heated in the winter?

A big old stove they called a hot burning stove I guess. It was a stove then it had a hood all the way around it so the kids couldn’t get to close to it.

What did students do for lunch?

We carried our lunch, and we all ate down under the hill and it was always in a brown paper sack. That was a prize if you could have a brown paper sack, and if you couldn’t, well, you’d have to wrap it up in a newspaper.

Where did you keep your lunch?

They had, in our room, they had little closets like, and we kept these lunches in there, and it always smelled like peanut butter.

What games did you play at recess?

Pop the Whip, and tag, and, well something like that. We didn’t have things to play with. We’d kindly have to make up our games.

What classes did you have and what was your favorite?

Course my favorite was always reading and literature and things like that.

What else did you take?

Well in elementary it was just regular reading, writing, and arithmetic or something closely related to that. Then in high school we had Latin. You know they don’t have it much now in local schools because it’s considered a dead language. Then just regular math and history, physics, and science.

Where did you live as a child?

Well, I lived in the same house all my life, and all the other kids would get to move. I just thought that would be so much fun to move everywhere and live in different houses, but when I married I lived in the same house I was born in.

Did you have electricity?

No, no, not until I went off to college than my family got electricity when the REA came through the county.

Did you have chores?

Yes, we had to bring in wood and we had to clean house and iron everything. I didn’t like to cook, so I didn’t cook much. I just did the other chores.

What were the roads like in the county?

Just old red clay, and I remember when the square around Rusk was just red clay. Didn’t have any concrete or asphalt or anything.

Where did you go to shop for groceries or clothes?

Groceries and clothes, we just went to Rusk. We didn’t go out of town.

What stores do you remember shopping at as a child?

They had a Mallard's Grocery store, and Ellis…N.B. Ellis Grocery store. Some of them still live here, and Joe B. Copeland Dry Goods Store.

What is the earliest kind of car you can remember?

An old Star. I don’t know who made it. Now that’s what my father and them had when I was born. Then they had it for say… when I was four or five years old, and I remembered it.

What was your favorite thing to do as a child?

Read.

What did you do for entertainment?

We played games, you know, like Old Maid, and Cribbage, and Touring and PollyAnna, and games that you don’t even hear of now.

What was your first job, and how much did it pay?

My first job was packing tomatoes. Putting them in rows in the boxes, and just got paid three cents a box for packing.

Did you go to the movies?

Movies. After I was, you know, I was a teenager in high school when I went to the movies. And probably the first show I saw, I think, was "Ben Hur".

What did it cost to get into the movies?

Just a dime.

What movies were popular?

Well I’d go to see a lot of Betty Davis. Betty Davis pictures. I loved her, and I’d go see a lot of those. Just didn’t go to the show a whole lot like in high school and all.

What was your favorite television or radio show when you were a child?

Of course we didn’t have any when I was a child. [Later] we had radio, we listened to Lil’ Abner. [We listened to] anything that was on because it was, you know, it was such a novelty to us, of course.

Did people tell you ghost stories when you were a child?

Yes, yes, yes.

Do you remember any of these stories?

No. They were all just real gruesome and real scary. We’d all just end up with our heads under the covers and everything. Scared.

What kind of music did you listen to as a teenager?

Just mostly gospel.

Who was your favorite singer or musical group?

Of course we listened to mostly Stamps Quartet. They’ve been called Stamps Quartet for a long, long time. Then they’d just be that. When they’d still have some more people getting certain type music, they’d still called them Stamps Quartet. I guess that’s what I listened to. Wanted anything else we had a Victrola, that’s kinda like a record player; we’d have records playing.

What do you remember about the Great Depression?

It was great, and it was big, and it was bad, and … we didn’t used to have any money at all. At all! Now a girl in high school, you can’t imagine just having, maybe a nickel a week.

How did it affect Cherokee County?

Not anybody had any money. We had food to eat always, 'cause we raised the food, but you didn’t have any money to spend. And like you have cokes and soft drinks and every thing like that, well, we’d have to get out and pick grapes, and make grape juice, and you could grow a few rows of popcorn. And then you’d have to buy a little sugar and syrup and everybody would make candy at somebody’s house. Just didn’t have anything that cost any money.

What do you remember about World War II?

I graduated. Out of our graduating class, well there was four or five boys on the very front row. All of them went to World War II, and all of them killed. You know, in our graduating class, it just kindly hit us. And then I was married at that time, and my husband didn’t have to go, but so many of my friends did. They were in the National Guard and they were mobilized first. And so, there were so many people here in Rusk, where it was just the women. Their husbands were gone.

Do you remember when you first heard about Pearl Harbor?

Yes. I was coming home from Dallas and they announced it. They said, "United States, we are at war." It wasn’t declared till the next day or two.

Do you remember war rations?

Oh yes! Sugar, shoes, you’d just get about two stamps a year. And two pairs of shoes was all you could get. So, if you wanted those to be keds type or dress pair, but then that’d be it .You’d just have two for the whole year.

What do you remember most about the 50’s?

'Course I was already teaching school then, and it was just how the girls dressed. We just thought things were changing so fast, and it wasn’t really, but we thought it was.

Do you remember what you were doing when you heard that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated?

Yes. I was in Palestine, and I was eating in the cafeteria. And some of the students… it was right next door in the newspaper office, and some of the students, journalism students, were over there that day, watching the paper being printed and all. I was in the cafeteria. and one of my students ran in and said, "Oh, Mrs. Dear, President Kennedy’s been shot." I really didn’t believe it at all. Then after a while, someone else came in. Then we went back in to the… the bell rang and we went back into the building. And the principal called a faculty meeting and said, "Teachers, the President is dead." And we went back [to our classrooms]. And school was in such a turmoil, that they turned out school, and buses ran, and we all went home.

Do you remember what you were doing when the first man walked on the moon?

I don’t remember what I was doing especially, but you know, we watched it on TV. A lot of people didn’t believe it. And it was on TV and everything. You’d go back to school the next day and they’d say, "I don’t believe that." I said, "Well, they didn’t just make it up."

If you could give me one piece of advice before I leave high school, what would it be?

Just keep on being like you always are. Just do your best in everything, and be true to yourself. You have certain ideas and standards and all, for yourself, and hold on to those. And try to meet them.