When were you born?

1920.

Were you born in Cherokee County?

Uh huh.

Were you born at home or in a hospital?

At home.

How many brothers and sisters were in your family?

I have one brother and nine sisters.

Are you the youngest or oldest child?

Oldest.

Were your parents born in Cherokee County?

I think my daddy was, but I’m not sure about my mama.

Were your grandparents born in Cherokee County?

Oh, let’s see, my grandparents, wait a minute now. My daddy’s daddy, I think so, and his wife, too, because his first wife was a Jones. His other wife was a Works and they lived over at Shady Grove, so that would be Cherokee County, Shady Grove is.

What is your earliest memory?

Oh great! About the earliest I can remember is washing dishes on a bench. That’s before I started school, and my momma always fixed [me a bench] ah, you know, right up at the edge of the table and all I had to do was get ‘em and wash ‘em and rinse ‘em.

Where did you go to school?

Maydelle.

How did you get to school?

I walked across a footlog, crossed the creek, and then I crossed a field over to Hollman's Chapel and caught the bus over there.

What did the classrooms look like?

Just real old. High ceilings and old. We had wood heaters back then.

What did students do for lunch?

Well I… we carried ours in [syrup] buckets.

What games did you play at recess?

Oh, what did we play? Hopscotch.

How much schooling did you have?

Well let’s see, I got to the sixth or seventh grade.

Where did you live as a child?

As a child, oh, as a child. Well, we lived over at Shady Grove for a while, then we moved to Maydelle and we lived there for a long, long time.

What did the first house you remember living in look like?

Oh it was real high ceilings. Old. You could see the holes in the floor, you know, where the planks go apart.

Did you have electricity?

No.

What kind of chores did you have?

We did the dishes. We did the floors. We cooked, and we went to, when we got that done, we went to the field. I’ve had to sit on my toesack--my sack I pick cotton in--we’d have to sit on that, waiting for daylight to come, before we could start picking cotton.

What is the earliest kind of car you remember?

Earliest kind of car daddy had was…oh…I guess it was in the 30’s. It was a Ford, and you know like you have a tail gate to the bed of the pickup but his was something; I don’t know what you want to call it, but it was something like a pickup but you’d have to raise the lid. It had a lid on it, and you raised it back so you could sit in it. Now what model that was, that’s back in the 30’s I imagine.

What was your favorite thing to do as a child?

Play baseball. At home, that’s what we did. That’s all we did. We went to the field and worked all week. We worked six days a week. Sunday was our day to play.

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

Okay, my first job was picking tomatoes…50 cents a day.

When did you first start dating?

Oh, when I first started dating. It was in the summertime, and I was about 19 years old.

Where did you go?

Church. Went to church at Maydelle.

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

What would it be? I would say….go get you a good education, and grow up to be a real nice person.