MARY ORA HILL NORRIS B

MARY ORA HILL NORRIS b. 1915 MONOLOG Interviewed by Joe Norris Larson on January 11, 1986 St. Mary's College of Maryland St. Mary's City, Maryland [Mary Ora Hill Norris was born near Chaptico, St. Mary's County, Maryland, in 1915.] In the house before I was born, when my mother was first married and came there, there wasn't but two rooms downstairs, and two rooms upstairs. There was a hall, two rooms downstairs, and the hall went upstairs. And I remember her saying when she first came there, she cooked by the fireplace and I don't know how long she was married before she had the room that she used for the kitchen built on, the chimney that was on the outside of the house that the two rooms ... they had to cut through that to make a flough hole for the pipe for the new room that they built on. Then she had a wood stove there to cook on there, I can hardly remember where everything was at. Years later she had another room built on, and she used that for the dining room, but that was, well, I was grown, I guess, when that was done. That's the room that was on the south end of the house. That's the room that she built on then. She used that room for the kitchen and the other for the dining room, and the sitting room. There wasn't no place for the sitting room, so you sat there in the dining room. Big chairs in there that we could sit in. The bedroom was there across the hall, and then there were two bedrooms upstairs, and there was four of us children, two girls and two boys, so, the two boys had one bedroom, and Mazie, my sister, and I had the other room. Mazie was my whole sister, Lottie was my half-sister. Lottie was married and gone a month before I was born. Dan Lacey was my half-brother. Momma was married ... her first husband died. She had two children by him, Dan and Lottie. Bob Lacey, Robert Lacey. But Dan and Lottie were both married before I was born. Lottie was married in December, and I was born in January. But momma married daddy, I don't know how many years after ... I'd have to go to the Bible to find that out ... later on ... the children were still little, Lottie and Dan were, well, they weren't real little, when momma and daddy were married. And in the kitchen we had a table in the center of the kitchen and we had a wood stove ... and I can't remember what she had her dishes in. There were no wall cabinets, nothing like that. She had some kind of cupboard that she kept her dishes in ... and then years, well, I was in high school I guess, when she had the room built on the back, and then she used the room that she built on was for the kitchen; and the room that she used before we had that one built on she used for the dining room. And what we had been using for the dining room she made the sitting room, a living room out of it. And I remember more about that than I can even before then. She had a cabinet built in the kitchen, we still didn't have running water in the house, had no running water and we had no electricity, until the REA came in the county -- it was the beginning of the electricity company, it had to be in ... it was in the '30's, I'm sure, but I'm not sure what year it was. It changed everything, it changed a lot, up until then we didn't ... well, Leo, my older brother, was clerking at Mr. Fowler's store, and he subscribed to the Evening Star, I guess, and that, until you got radio, and got the news, that was the only way you got the news was from that and the county paper, The Beacon, we got the Beacon every week. And after we got electricity in of course, we got the radio, where you could get the news, but the paper and the county paper was the only means of knowing what was going on. And if someone died in the neighborhood someone would get on horseback, and ride around to everybody and let 'em know, that they were dead and when the funeral was going to be. I can remember that very well. We had kerosene lamps, but no, we did not go to bed with the chickens. We would sit up 'til ... well, we went to bed early, but we didn't go to bed at sundown. In the wintertime, momma would sit there by the wood stove, at that time it was the dining room. And she'd sit there and take her wool sometimes she'd have to get her wool from Mr. Lacey, her stepson, and when he sheared his sheep in the spring he'd bring her the wool. And I've seen her sit there, and of course, she had to wash it, and get all the trash out of it and everything, then she, I don't know what all she done to it, but she had to oil it, she used hogfoot oil on it, I remember that; hogfoot oil: you boil your hogfoot ... feet, and you don't put any salt in it, in 'em, you just boil 'em in clear water. And the grease from the hog feet, the fat, she'd put it into a pan and put it on the stove, and just stew the water out of it. When she got all the water out of it, she'd put it in a jar and save it, and it was her hogfoot oil. And that was what she used to oil her wool with. She'd sit there and picked her wool, and card, card her rolls, and when she got enough roles carded, she'd sit her spinning wheel up. We used to keep it upstairs in a closet, and she'd bring it downstairs and set it up and she'd spin her wool and she'd knit socks or sweaters or whatever we needed, or piece quilts. I've seen her sit there and piece squares, and make her quilts, all done by lamplight, and daddy would go in the kitchen and he'd sit there by the old wood stove and keep the fire going until he went to bed. And he would sit there with his splinters that he had gotten to make his baskets. He'd go out into the woods and he'd get his white oak saplings about as big around maybe as a half a gallon jar, a small one, and he'd bring it to the house and get all the bark off of it. He must have done it in the spring, I guess, I can't remember if it was the spring or fall, I really can't remember that. But he ... maybe he'd get it in the fall when the sap left it, I presume, that was when he got it. It seems to me that was when he was working on it, was in the fall and winter. And he'd bring it in there and get a piece of leather or something and tie it around his leg and takes his splinters and shave 'em down with that piece of glass until he got 'em as smooth as he wanted, just a piece of broken window glass. He'd get them thin and smooth. And he'd make his baskets out of 'em. He always had something to do, him and momma very seldom sat here and held their hands, they were always doing something. I don't think I ever saw momma sit there and hold her hands and do nothing. It would be knitting or piecing up quilts in the winter, or doing something all the time. And I used to quilt. I don't remember when I started quilting, I really don't remember when the first time was when I sat down at a quilt, it wasn't that I was that young that I don't remember, but it, I just don't remember when, but I guess I was out of high school when I started quilting, she'd make a piece of quilt up and put it in the frame and I'd quilt it out for her, she wouldn't even have to touch it. I used to love to quilt. And when we got electricity, we had better light at night to see what we were doing I used to go upstairs and crochet at night by lamp light and my mother used to tell me that I'd ruin my eyes, but of course, my eyes were good then, but and I couldn't sit, I was like her, I had to be doing something, and now I'm getting to that point where I can't hardly see. She was a wonderful woman. She'd get up in the morning by sun-up, or before sun- up, cause daddy would get up in the summertime, 4 o'clock, before morning, and he'd go up and feed his horses and water 'em and momma would cook breakfast -- it was all done on a wood stove.

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