Dutchman to American: The Life of Jake De Jong.

By: Jacob Vander Weit

Taking the time to sit down with our older generation to get their story is a wonderful opportunity. As a society, it is a shame that we tend to overlook them. With fading hearing, decreasing eyesight, a walk that has slowly become more and more a task rather than an involuntary action, and a fading memory; the younger, more upbeat, society tends to think that the older generation has no use. This thought is not only wrong, it is downright dis-respectful to the men and women who worked much harder for what they had than any of us will in our entire lives. I believe that we should embrace them and take every chance to bring the limelight to them, let them bask in the attention they so richly deserve. Bringing back “Life on the Pamlico” is a great way to do this. This is a great way to not only learn new things about a new friend, but, as in my case, a great way to preserve family history. It has taken me a little longer to get this to paper than expected. Procrastination isn’t the case here, laziness has nothing to do with this. It is the pure fact that I am not doing this just for a grade or a diploma. This is preserving family history. This task that I have accepted is probably the hardest thing I have done. This simply is difficult because of the fact that putting my grandfather’s life story onto paper or into words, it is something that requires perfection. I love my grandparents. I thank God everyday that I have all four of them still living. There is so much you can learn from them.

One of the most influential and strong willed people I have ever met is my grandfather,

Jake DeJong. He would never give up. He endured a lifetime of struggles to better his life and the life of his family. It’s amazing that someone would leave his home country. He left everything behind, his friends, his family, his job. He dropped everything to leave for a new country. The bravery is astounding, realizing the risk of nothing going right and losing everything. Growing up as a young man, a trip to go see the “Farm Grandpa” was a trip very much looked forward to. I believe my brother, Phillip, and I would refer to my grandparents on my mothers side as the “Farm Grandparents”, obviously referring to the farm they owned and operated. Referring to my grandparents on my fathers side as the “Water Grandparents”. Yep, you guessed it, they lived on the river.

These highly anticipated trips to the “Farm Grandparents” were awesome. I knew for sure that I was going to be a farmer when I grew up so going there was a big deal. To me, there was a special connection on that side of the family, particularly with the kids. We all, at some point in our lives, helped out on the farm. So us kids were around each other quite a bit. We all got along (most of the time) and enjoyed farm work. I always got excited to go there. Not only was I going to see everyone, I was actually going to help with the farm work. Obviously being an important part to the farm staying together and running efficiently, I would put on my boots and go out to find anyone doing some work to offer my expertise. Often I would find my grandfather milking cows, shoveling cow crap, or running a tractor. He was always the busy one. If there wasn’t much to do, he would make something to do, and then do it. Still to this day, you won’t find him sitting, but outside doing all he can to stay busy. He would always take a

moment to greet me and ask me how I was doing. After I would “help” him get back on track

doing whatever he was doing I would either get sick of being outside or else find someone else

to bother. After doing what I needed to outside, I would come back inside to find my grandma,

Annie DeJong, my mother, Irene Vander Weit, and a couple other relatives either making some

lunch or sitting and talking.

Now, I don’t know if there is anyone else in the world that is a bigger “The Price is

Right” fan then my grandmother. Whenever you would walk in the door it was on. The ageless

Bob Barker and his numerous beautiful models filled the TV screen. If there was a channel

devoted to “The Price is Right”, she would not only watch it religiously, she would own it.

Oftentimes, as a kid, I would want to watch something else. Slowly getting up, looking to see if my grandma was paying attention, I would slowly raise my hand to change the channel. This was not a wise move. You didn’t ever touch the TV unless you were turning up the volume during

that show. So, with no other choice, we would sit back and enjoy. My grandmother is a

wonderful woman. She has a wonderful sense of humor and is an overall happy person. Always

there to keep my grandfather, and anyone else who needed it, in line. If you were acting like an

idiot she would let you know.

As I pulled into the driveway of the old farm, not much has changed other than the skeleton of an old dairy farm in the background. Some people might look at that dairy farm and say it is a rotting waste of space. Not to any of us; this is where we grew up; this is a part of our family. I notice in the back, my grandfather doing something in one of the old barns. He is busy as ever, not ever taking the time to just sit down and relax. That is the way he is, a hard worker.

He notices me and makes his way towards the house. He greets me, extending his worn, leathery hand toward mine. We shake and we make some small talk before entering the house. As I

follow him inside I remember flashbacks of a time when the entire family was around. Thinking back to past Christmas celebrations at the DeJong farm. The dining room area was always filled with string of tables where we would have our meal. The seats occupied with the family I love.

With my grandfather at the head of the table. I can remember, when I was younger, when he would pray. His Dutch accent was so thick I had no idea when he was done praying. So I remember just looking at him and watching. When he would lift his head it was over. I think that everyone had the same problem as I did, because when he was done and lifted his head, it was like a domino affect. The meals would always lead to arguments on church issues. That was the kids cue to leave and go play hours upon hours of basketball on a full stomach. When the deliberation on the church issues was over and the tables were cleaned and put away, We would all come back inside for opening presents. I will never forget the picture of a large pile of presents underneath a midget Christmas tree. It never failed. Unwrapping our presents always led to wrapping paper fights and grandma always giving you the look when the fight was officially over. Then just times of going to the farm and walking in that very room and seeing

Grandma sitting in her favorite chair, with the TV tuned to, yep, you guessed it, “The Price is

Right”. Then going over and picking out our favorite Dutch

cookie.

Getting back to reality, I walk into that same room and discover my grandmother in her

favorite chair. The time is over for “The Price is Right”, but I can guarantee you that it was on.

Setting my recorder up on the table, my grandfather takes a seat. I sit right across from him, my

nervous hand presses record and he asks me what the subject is. Ironically I look at him and

smile. “The subject is your life, Grandpa.” He laughs and I ask him to begin where he grew up in

the Netherlands.

Jake DeJong grew up in a small town named Slieedrechd, which is about 15 miles

southeast of Rotterdam. This is where he had his schooling as a young man. He lived in

Slieedrechd for his first seventeen years of his life. His folks were not farmers. He had no farmers in his family. His dream was to be a farmer. His folks wanted him to go to high school and University, but he didn’t like that idea. He instead went to Agriculture school in Holland.

He would go for two years and 2 days a week he would go to school and the rest of the week he worked on a farm. He lived at home during this time and worked for a dairy farmer. The region was mostly dairy farming. The area he lived at was on a river. He did not want to be a dairy farmer. He left home and moved in with a dairy farmer for whom he worked for. He went to live and work for a man named Vem Beem. He did not receive any wages while working for him.

Vem Beem provided him with a place to stay and to teach him how to be a dairy farmer. The reason why he did not make any money was because if he received wages then he would be considered a worker and would not be allowed to live with the farmer. There was segregation in the area where he lived, by race but by class. The working man class had lower seats in theaters to watch a movie, and even in church.

Vem Beem was a nice man and treated him well. He lived with him for a year and went back to school. He attended a 2 year agricultural school across the river from where his folks lived. He went to school and lived at home for three more years. He graduated in 1939, then he

went back to the same farmer and lived with him. In 1940, the Germans overtook the area. So he decided to go live back home during this time. After a little while he went back to live with

Vem Beem for 2 more years where he did some more work. After those two years he went back

to live with his folks where he worked for another farmer across the river. To get across the river he needed a workers permit to get to the farm where he worked. If he did not have that paper, the

Germans would have taken him to Germany. One Sunday he went home to see his family and on

his way back the Germans tore up his workers permit and told him to go to another little town.

Obviously knowing that this was not a good situation, he decided it would be a better idea to go

home, so he did. So he stayed home. He did some military duty as a prison guard for a little

while.

Vem Beem asked him to come back and run the farm because he was going to enter

politics. His older son would have taken over but he was in the military. He agreed to work for

him and after he got married when he was 24, Vem Beem gave him a house to live in. So my

grandfather and my grandmother got married in August of that year and then went to live and

work for him in November. He stayed and worked until Vem Beem’s son came out of the

military. So my grandpa needed a new job.

So he went to work for a company who exported seed potatoes for 2 years.. At this job he

basically weeded out sickness and different varieties of potatoes. He would look over bags of

potatoes and check to see if they were okay. He would grade them and certify that they were

okay and then they would be exported. After this job, he went to work for an agriculture

extension service.

While he was working for the extension service, he saw an advertisement for people in

America that wanted a group of ten farmers to come over. His old employer, Vem Beem, told him that to him it sounded like a good idea. So he went to his employer at the time and told him that he had a chance to go to the United States and start farming on his own. His employer informed him that he better make sure that it was as good as advertised before he left everything to go to the U.S. So he thought it over and decided that he would take the offer. This is the amazing part. He had a good job in Holland and an opportunity to move up the ladder of that job.

Instead he left everything for a “chance” that he would have a better life in America. It was not only him, but his family of four. It was my grandpa, my grandma, my Aunt Ellie, and my Uncle

John. So packing everything up, they decided it was time to go. This wasn’t a quick plane ride either; it was a nine day boat ride over the Atlantic Ocean. That in itself had to be intimidating.

But it was all for a chance to live in this great country we take for granted. So they made the journey in December of 1951.

The boat ride took them to New York He immediately got on a train and headed down to

Atlanta where he then took a bus the rest of the way to Alabama to their sponsors. Their sponsors would finance them and help them with farming. His sponsor’s name was Belmont

Nickerson. As soon as he got to his destination, he was hard at work. Right when he made it to his house he had to go and milk cows. My Grandpa enjoyed working with him. He treated my

Grandpa and his family well. One problem arose with my Grandpa when he came over to the

United States, as did many immigrants that came. The language barrier was the biggest problem that arose when he came. Mr. Nickerson helped as much as he could with this issue. He would say a word and make my Grandpa and his family repeat it back to him. “Great patience. I could not have done what he did.” That is what my Grandpa said referring to the patience Nickerson had while teaching them the language. As time went on, my Grandpa worked very hard on the dairy farm. Working on a dairy farm back then wasn’t as easy as it is now. There were no

milking machines at the time, so everything was done by hand. One day his boss bought a milking machine but didn’t know how to hook it up. So my Grandpa hooked it up and that was the first time he ever used one, and according to him it was a wonderful invention. Ever since then he used a milking machine.

Farming with Nickerson was going very smoothly. The group, however, started to fall apart. The minister that came with them was not a good man and people didn’t agree with what he was saying and doing. According to my Grandpa, he should of been a lawyer, haha. Things were going well in Alabama, but more opportunities arose to change locations.

One of his friends, Chris, had cousins in Washington state. Since my Grandpa had no family here in the States, it didn’t matter to him where he moved. So Chris wrote his cousins.

Chris’ cousin returned his letter saying that they would need seven hundred and forty dollars to travel there. Money was tight then and my Grandpa didn’t have the money to do it, so that fell through. He still wanted to move.

North Carolina was another choice to where he could possibly move. He and Chris set off to North Carolina to check it out. They made it to North Carolina and liked what they saw. The only problem with North Carolina was that nobody would pay very much to work for them. A man they met in Alabama named Van Dorp lived in North Carolina and owned a farm. Van Dorp did not need anyone to work at the time. He found work with a oil jobber, whose last name was

Brinson. He owned eighteen hundred acres around the Terra Ceia area. Chris went to work for

Brinson and my Grandpa went back to Alabama to meet up with his family and asked Nickerson if he thought the job in North Carolina would be a good idea. Nickerson told my Grandpa that he could not make him stay in Alabama. He also told my Grandpa that he was looking at it wrong.

The money in Terra Ceia was in the tree business. The area was covered with forest and needed to be cleared for farmers. One of my Grandpa’s friends bought a farm and had it paid off in three years by using the money from the trees on his farmland.

My Grandpa and his family moved to Terra Ceia, North Carolina on March 18, 1953. He worked for Van Dorp and he lived in a house owned by Van Dorp. An opportunity arose to move back to Alabama when his sponsor told him that if he moved back there he would buy land to farm and sell it to my Grandpa. My Grandpa said he really had to think hard about that proposition. He did not take that offer and opted to stay in North Carolina.

Van Dorp was the big farmer in the area at that time. He owned thousands of acres of land. He tried to start up a dairy business but went broke. Van Dorp was very good to my

Grandpa and his family. He worked for Van Dorp for awhile. He had an offer to go and get a job in New Jersey. He went up and visited but did not like it at all in the “Concrete Jungle”. He came back and had a very interesting offer that was waiting for him.

Jesse Waters had one hundred acres to sell to a “good Dutch man”. The land came with one dozen pigs, a house, a barn, one cow, and a tractor. The offer was all that for twenty seven thousand dollars. He thought that was a good deal and took it. This is the same house that he lives in today. Along with building his own farm, he continued to milk cows for Van Dorp for a year and a half. He started to buy more cows for his farm and bought milking machines from a farmer in Grassy Ridge who was selling his farm.

At that time he had eight cows. He sold his milk to a company in Washington, North

Carolina. The farm grew, more shops and buildings were put up, more silos were erected, and more cows were bought. Time moved on and the farm was running well. The time came for my

Grandpa to retire. He sold his share of the farm to his partner and his son, John De Jong. They were milking one hundred twenty five cows along with around one hundred twenty heffers and a

few bulls. So at this time there was approximately two hundred fifty head around the farm.

When the heffers’ number got too great, they would sell some off. They sold their cows to places as far away as countries in South America.

My uncle wasn’t a big cow guy. He preferred to be in a tractor plowing or planting. His

love was doing farm work. So my Grandpa did most of the work with the cows while my uncle

did the farming. The biggest reason my Grandpa left that up to my uncle was because my uncle

was great at fixing things and my Grandpa hated fixing things.

Even after my Grandpa retired, my uncle would stop by and visited every day. I

remember when my Grandpa got out of the dairy business, uncle John’s kids would to most of the milking on a schedule. I helped out my cousin, Ryan De Jong, when it was his turn to milk.

Milking is no walk in the park. We would get up at four in the morning and round up the cows and start milking, before school. When we were done with school for the day, we would go right back to the farm and milk again. The farm was sold, except for the house and some property around it including the majority of the barns, in 1997.

My Grandpa and my Uncle John were very close. When my Grandpa sold his share to my Uncle, Grandpa wrote him a letter saying that he loved him. This was not often spoken but

was always known. When my Uncle died in 1999, my Uncle’s wife, Pat De Jong, read that letter.

It was a very hard time for everyone, but was especially hard for my Grandpa. That was his only

son. The letter basically told him that while they were working together, those years were the

best in my Grandpa’s life.

Thinking back on this project, I look at the courage it took for my Grandpa to leave his

home country and come to America. At one point in the interview, Grandpa explained how his

parents came over while he was in Terra Ceia and asked him why in the world he left Holland to

become a dairy farmer in America. The irony of this statement lies in the fact that he came to

America to avoid being a dairy farmer. But he enjoyed his work after he got into it. It was a great

privilege to be the one to tell the story of my Grandpa’s life. My Grandpa is a great man and is

someone to be honored. My entire family and I love him very much and I’m happy I can be the

one to preserve a little of our family’s history.

A great man and an even better Grandfather. John Irvin Morgan; Lending a Helping Hand

Helping others is one of the greatest gifts in life a person can do, and John

Irvin Morgan is a prime example of this. His generosity, dedication and contribution to the Mental Health Association, The Operation Santa Claus, and

many other organizations, shows that one person can make a difference in the life

of others.

John Irvin Morgan was born on July 11, 1923 in Washington North Carolina. His parents are the late, John Lucas Morgan and Katherine Stowe Havcheub of the Outer Banks. John also has a younger brother, Richard Bailey Morgan. At the age of nine, John was selling The Washington Daily News on the streets of Washington, for three cents a copy, but every summer, John would visit his maternal grandparents (John Irvin and Janette Stowe) in Hatteras. John loved to go fishing and climbing with his grandparents. He enjoyed hanging around the waterfront, swimming at the Vandemere and Norfolk Southern Trestles, camping out on the bluffs and overlooking Blount’s Bay. John says, “Those were my happiest times as a kid, because the sound of the ocean was very peaceful and pleasant.” John’s grandfather, Capt. Irv Stowe, was the captain of a supply boat that ran from Hatteras to Elizabeth City, once a week, with cargo. The cargo consisted of boxes of iced down fish, lumber and hardware. Travel to and from the Outer Banks was by water, because of being isolated from the mainland by Oregon Inlet, to the North Hatteras Inlet to the South Pamlico sound on the west and the Atlantic Ocean on the East. John remembers when it would take two days to get from Washington NC to Hatteress. He says “There were no roads leading to Hatteress.” “You had to drive through the beach sand; there were no wall to wall cottages back then. “You would have to go to Kill Devil Hills to get to Nags Head, and then drive down the beach and catch the Four Cart Ferry in Barcelona operated by Toby Tillett.” “You would spend half a day in Manteo, and then drive over to Oregon, where there was the junction and then the rest of the way, the access was by boat.” Water transportation played an important role in the area. There were two boats that would come into and out of the areas, such as Elizabeth City to Washington and Oracoke to Washington. John says “Water was important contact with trade and commerce in the area, and there were logs cut along the river. John stopped spending summers in Hatteras, in 1938, due to an automobile accident at the age of fifteen, from spending a week at Boy Scout Camp. Charles, near Bailey North Carolina John says, “They had just dropped off Warren “Big-time” Whichard at his grandmother’s home in Grimes land. Lee Whealton was driving. Jimmy Nunnelee had accompanied Lee on the trip up to Bailey. Melvin Wheal ton, Lees brother was in the back seat with me. We headed out on Grimes land in this 1937 Plymouth turret top sedan coming toward Washington, when we pulled up behind two automobiles going at a slower rate of speed. Seeing the way ahead was clear, Lee accelerated to pass, when suddenly the car just ahead of us pulled out to pass the lead car, forcing us to shoulder off the road. John was told later, that the car had spun out of control, careened down to the right shoulder of the road, jumped a ditch and turned over four times in the field. John was admitted to Tayloe’s Hospital in Washington, where he regained consciousness. John’s right leg was suspended from a frame around the bed, with a shell pin through the knee and ten pound weights attached to ropes from the pin extending over the end of the bed. John also has a dislocation of the first and second cervical vertebras. Sand bags were placed on either side of his head. John was told to stay still and not move. He spent six weeks in the Hospital, and then later returned home with a cast placed on his leg. John says, “Walking casts were not in use at that time, so I was bedridden for the next six weeks, until the cast came off. In November of 1939, he was at recess; he and a friend were tussling. His friend picked him up and threw him down on the ground. John says, “The impact shook his entire spinal column. He adds, “It felt like a million pins and needles pricking my skin.” John returned back to Tayloe’s Hospital. The Doctor made arrangements for John to go to Duke Hospital in Durham. John stayed in Duke Hospital for two weeks, he returned home with his neck placed in a leather collar that he wore for six weeks. John returned to High school and graduated in from Washington High School in May of 1941, he was poor, but worked to go to college. John got a job on campus to help pay for school along with help from the State Rehabilitation Commission, because of his physical disability. John worked at the Book Exchange Soda Frontier, for thirty cents an hour. He also ran messages for Mrs. Mable Mallette, from Dean R.B. House’s office in the south building. John also worked during meal times in the cafeteria on Franklin Street. In the spring John would see class rings and graduation invitations, representing the L.G. Balfour Company. He received commissions on his sales. On December 7, 1941, John was working at the Book Exchange, when all of a sudden a crowd gathered to hear President Roosevelt making plans to enlist in the armed services. John enlisted, but was placed on the Four- F by a local draft board. John went to Raleigh to to try to enlist in the Navy v-12 program, which allowed students to remain on campus, while getting their military training. John was rejected due to his injury. While still in school, John began working fulltime at odd jobs and going to school on the side. He was asked by Dean Dudley De Witt Carroll to go home, get a job, save money and come back, to apply for readmission, because he was flunking out. John returned home and got a job working at the WRRF Radio station in Washington. He was an Announcer/Program Director/ Handy Man for two years. Shortly after, John was offered, and accepted a Sports Editor position at the Washington Daily News. From 1951-1964, John really enjoyed his job because he has a love for sports, whether basketball, football, baseball, you name it, but his favorite team is the UNC Tar heels. In 1965, John was elected to the Beaufort County Register of Deeds office. He was familiar with the position, because his father had worked there in the 1920’s and 1930’s. John worked there for seven four year terms doing administrative work.. He retired in 1992, but his retirement has not stopped him from working. John began to do Volunteer Work for a number of organizations, such as The Beaufort County Mental Health Association. John was inspired by his wife Geneva, an already active advocate for the Mental Health Association (MHA). He wanted to volunteer on the behalf of the mentally ill, disabled, and substance abuse patients. John became president of the Mental Health Association; he says “I want to be a spokesperson for the disabled people who cannot speak for themselves.” John handled all of the administrative work, such as arranging meetings with board members, handling bills, phone answering and etc. John and his wife Geneva‘s mission is to promote mental health awareness, provide mental health education and improve the care and the treatment of the mentally ill. John also became a Volunteer Advocacy for the very popular Operation Santa Claus.

Operation Santa Claus is an organization that helps families and people, who are less fortunate to have a Merry Christmas. The organization is provided with a needs and a wants list from the families, and then people go out and buy the goods from the lists, and donate them to the Operation Santa Claus set up areas, throughout North Carolina. The representatives of the Operation Santa Claus distribute the goods among the people who need it, just in time for Christmas. The Operation Santa Claus serves clients at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, The Caswell Center in Kinston, The Group Homes in Beaufort County, The Behavioral Center in Beaufort County Hospital, and the Beaufort County Developmental Center. John says, “We were able to reach 2,000 people.” John is also a volunteer for the Beaufort County Developmental Center, for the physically and mentally handicapped patients. John also handles all of the administrative work, there were no paid personnel and the funding from The United Way went to the benefit of the patients. John was also a volunteer for The Salvation Army Advisory Board, The Ascera Hospice Board and The Washington Housing Advisory Board. John was the Chairman and Secretary; he provided the meetings and met with other Officers pertaining to helping people in any way possible. When John is not volunteering, he is spending time with his family and church. John has been married for 56 years to his wife and best friend in the world Geneva. Geneva is a retired Pediatric Nurse and also an advocate for the Mental Health Association. They have two sons, John Morgan Jr. and Richard T Morgan. John says “Family is very important to me.” John attends The United Methodist Church in Washington, NC. He says “Church is very important; it is a spiritual connection for living a good life.” John, Geneva and their two sons get together on Sundays after church for dinner. John also likes to work in the yard at home and watch sports on television. John’s most memorable and happiest days of his life, when he was a young boy, was the summers he spent with his maternal grandparents in Hatteras. Those times inspired John to write and publish a memoir entitled A Pleasant Gale on My Lee. His memoir also talks about the many changes that have taken place in North Carolina since he was just a young boy. John was nine years old, when he started spending summers in Hatteras with his maternal grandparents, John Irvin and Janette Stowe. He loved to go fishing and climbing. He enjoyed swinging outside because he said “the sound of the ocean was very peaceful and pleasant.” John remembers when it would take two days to get from Washington NC to Hatteress. He says “There were no roads leading to Hatteress.” “You had to drive through the beach sand; there were no wall to wall cottages back then. “You would have to go to Kill Devil Hills to get to Nags Head, and then drive down the beach and catch the Four Cart Ferry in Barcelona operated by Toby Tillett.” “You would spend half a day in Manteo, and then drive over to Oregon, where there was the junction and then the rest of the way, the access was by boat.” Water transportation played an important role in the area. There were two boats that would come into and out of the areas, such as Elizabeth City to Washington and Oracoke to Washington. John says “Water was important contact with trade and commerce in the area, and there were logs cut along the river. John recalls the days when just dialing a telephone number was a process, when agriculture was a highly intensive job and when there were no computers. John says that back in the 1920’s, there was The Carolina Telegraph Telegraph. The way it worked, was you would call a number, the operator would plug you in and give you a number, example, a three digit number followed by a letter, then the operator would plug you to whomever you were calling and if the line was busy, then you would have to repeat this process again later. The adding machine was a more practical means of technology back then, as oppose to the present day computers. John says, “That you had to compute in your head, to determine how much change to give back to a person.” “Now you have a machine (cash register) that does everything for you. John says that the agriculture here in North Carolina was very rural and tobacco was the major crop and it was long manual labor. There was not much transportation then. There were a lot of unpaved dirt roads, and if you could afford a vehicle, your choice was a mule, house cart and later a pick up truck. Nowadays you have massive transportation. John remembers that in the 1950’s North Carolina Governor Kerr Scott started a program to rebuild North Carolina by paving the roads. He wanted to have farm to market Roads. John says, ‘This was a huge noticeable change, to see the rural roads being paved and having a farm to market economy.” All of this and more stories about the history of the Pamlico area and the Outer Banks can be found in John’s memoir. John is a self-publisher, the book proceeds earned $14,000 and the funding went to The Beaufort County Mental Health Association. John also has a Memorial Fund established. The Memorial Fund is a not for profit organization in honor of people who have past away, in which Hospice has served. The patients choose to make memorials. John is a member of The Advisory Board for the Oncology Mentally Ill Unit at East Carolina University Medical School. He handles any requests that have to do with the mentally ill. He also has a Nursing Scholarship available at East Carolina on behalf of his wife Geneva, a retired Pediatric Nurse. John’s wife of 56 ½ years says, “John is a really great guy.” “He is very active in his work and church.” “He is very easygoing and never says an unkind word. John’s longtime friend of 43 years Betty Ferrell says, “John has one of the best personalities that I know of.” “John is a wonderful man and very supportive in everything that he does.” “He is always willing to help others.” “He is very laid back. He loves people and sees the best in everybody. John has received awards for the Operation Santa Claus, and when Christmas is over, He starts working on the next one. Betty, also has read John’s book and she says,” John’s book is very interesting, you learn a lot about the Coastal area and how he lived, through his eyes.” “John is a great storyteller, he can make anything interesting.” “He can tell facts in a way in which you can enjoy it.” “John and his wife Geneva are just wonderful people.” “Every age group just loves them both.” “I don’t know anyone who has done anything more to help people then the two of them and they each do it with love and compassion.” “I am very fortunate to have a relationship with them over the years.” Betty Ferrell’s grandchild is named Mary Morgan in relation to John. John Irvin Morgan is definitely an example of someone who helps others for the better. When I first met John for the interview, I was a little nervous, but his presence, handshake and smile made me feel very relaxed. John has made me laugh several times during the interview. He is very easygoing and full of memories, as if the events occurred yesterday.

John Irvin Morgan and Christine Somerville

“The Critter Getter”

By Crystal Bartle Hasty

After a home cooked meal, Mr. Jerry Sawyer and his wife, Sallie Sawyer sat down to discuss his part-time business with me. Mr. Sawyer, better known as the “Critter-Getter” or Batman, explained to me what his business consisted of and how he conducted it. Jerry works out of his home located in Terra

Ceia.

Mr. Sawyer was born in Washington, N.C., on July 9th, 1953. He grew up in Ponzer, most of his life. The family farm, however, was located in Terra Ceia. The farm was around 1800 acres. Working on the family farm with his father, Robert Sawyer and his siblings, transitioned into he and his brother (Ricky) farming their 700 acres of soybeans, wheat, and corn in Terra Ceia to this day. Mr. Sawyer managed the hog operations for the farm from 1976 till 1999, in addition to assisting with the 700 acres. The hog operation was closed during the Clean Water Trust Fund agreement in 1999.

Jerry attended school in Pantego and Belhaven public schools until high school. Mr. Sawyer attended Pungo Christian Academy until he graduated in 1971. Jerry and his father assisted in erecting the school. During high school, Jerry played basketball and baseball for PCA.

Mr. Sawyer took about a year off from farming to pursue another career as a truck driver. Jerry and his friend Mike were responsible for transporting explosives for the government, coast to coast. Jerry always returned with souvenirs of the places he had traveled for his children. Mr. Sawyer grew tired of being gone from home and returned to the family farm.

As we all know farming is a very time consuming profession. Mr. Sawyer does however take sometime off during bear season. Mr. Sawyer takes a few weeks when bear season is “in” to pursue his other passion. Mr. Sawyer has been breeding bear hunting dogs for about six years. Right now he has about 20 dogs at any given time.

Mr. Sawyer with one of his favorite hunting dogs Fannie.

Mr. Sawyer’s prize possession is the bear that he killed and had stuffed in 1991. Mr. Sawyer even named his bear, Bruiser! Bruiser weighed in at a whopping 575 lbs, a beautiful black bear. Mr. Sawyer’s three children: Kim, Crystal and Paul have been known to set out on bear hunting adventures with him and his favorite hunting dogs. His daughter, Kim, has even killed her own bear while out hunting with her father. Mr. Sawyer states, “(he) is just helping to carry on a family tradition.”

Jerry started hunting with his father and family around the age of 5. Mr. Sawyer said, “He was small enough, that my dad would take you by the seat of your britches and help sling you over the ditches.” Mr. Sawyer also spent a majority of his time catching snakes in Hyde County. When asked what he did with the snakes, he said he would sell them. His family did a lot of trapping of different animals too.

The trapping and critter-getting seemed like a natural progression for him.

In 1999 after the Clean Water Trust Buyout, “Critter Getters” (now known as Adventure Wildlife Services) began and continues to be a part-time business for Mr. Sawyer. He thought there may be a need for his services, once a lot of local waterfront communities began development. Although, Mr. Sawyer states that most of his calls do not come from these developments. Mr. Sawyer believes that the people living in these developments probably appreciate seeing the wildlife, because there is not much around their homes.

When asked about his first critter getting adventure, Mr. Sawyer begins to tell the story. While grinning ear to ear, he goes on to explain the time when he was about 9 years old and his first critter getting activity. “My mama was out back hanging out clothes, when I brought her the oatmeal can”. He continues on to tell me how he captured a snake earlier in the day, and had placed it in the oatmeal jar.

Laughing, Jerry he tells me, “When my mama (Joanne) opened that oatmeal jar, to see a water moccasin starring back at her, she gave me the worst whooping of my life. “ Mr. Sawyer’s wife of nineteen years,

Sallie, chimed in with “it took him another 40 plus years to get back to “critter getting” after his mama got a hold of him!”

Mr. Sawyer is a licensed Wildlife Damage Control Agent. Jerry picks up where the animal control officers (dogs and cats) and wildlife agents (big game) leave off. Mr. Sawyer attended a class at NC State

University to become certified to start his business. He is licensed and regulated by the North Carolina

Wildlife Commission. Mr. Sawyer removes pesky wildlife such as: possums, raccoons, bats, birds, foxes, coyotes, squirrels, skunks, and bees, just to name a few, from homes and businesses. Jerry has even been known to get a cat out of a tree.

Photo above shows Mr. Sawyer cleaning up after blowing up a beaver dam.

Mr. Sawyer recently obtained his ATF explosives license to remove beaver dams. Jerry will go out to trap and remove the beavers and destroy the dams that are damaging trees in yards, flooding farmland and damming up waterways

Mr. Sawyer’s calls vary from week to week depending upon the weather and the season, averaging 1 to 2 calls a week. Mr. Sawyer has worked as far west as Wilson and as far north as the

Virginia state line. He usually receives several calls from Morehead City and other beach areas throughout the year.

The calls that keep him the busiest are: bats. The “Critter-Getter” will come out to your home and set an excluder, which is a small tool used to let the bats go out of a small shoot with a trapdoor, but they can not come back inside. Jerry fills other holes and exits so the bats are forced to go through the tool. Then begins the task of caulking and filling all the holes the bats use to enter the house or structure. The bat removal takes anywhere from 2 to 5 days.

Bats are known for causing respiratory problems and rabies. Mr. Sawyer will, if contracted to, remove the bat guano. He takes many precautions when working with the bat population such as: wearing gloves, goggles, and a heavy duty mask.

Bats will continue to move from house to house or structure to structure. Holes only have to be dime sized for a bat to enter. Unless your house is sealed and protected, you could be next in line for an invasion.

Mr. Sawyer was asked, “What his most interesting job has been so far?” He and his wife both smiled and said “getting the squirrel out of the oven in the middle of the night”. Mrs. Sawyer then goes on to tell the story. She says that it was after 10 o’clock pm when an elderly lady called the house, (Mr.

Sawyer had just had gall bladder surgery less than two weeks before), saying there was something in her stove, and she could not get it out. So, Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer set out to assist the elderly lady.

This photo was taken of Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer on a recent vacation in the mountains.

Mrs. Sawyer is known for helping her husband on small jobs or when he needs assistance with a job. They arrived at the house located in Washington to find there was a squirrel in the oven. They opened the bottom drawer to the stove. The squirrel then ran farther into the oven. They tried about everything to get the squirrel out. They had placed a “tunnel” at the back of the stove, but the squirrel was

“having no part of it”, Mr. Sawyer said. The decision was then made to go to Wal-Mart and purchase a set of screwdrivers (of course they did not have a set with them that they need for this particular stove, they explained). After returning from Wal-Mart and taking the stove apart, the group sat quietly for about 15 minutes. The squirrel then made a mad dash out of the stove and onto the curtain, and then jumped outside through open window, free to roam amongst the pine trees again.

Another story Mr. Sawyer told me was a call he had received from outside of Greenville. He had to go and remove some coyotes. The coyotes were stalking this person’s yard, and were watching the small children outside of their home playing in the yard. How scary this thought is, if you have small children at home?

The bobcat is one that, Mr. Sawyer removed for one of his clients. Mr. Sawyer has had many adventures during his critter getting jobs. Mr. Sawyer’s job can be dangerous at times, hanging off the edge of a roof with bats flying past. A few years ago, he fell off a roof and broken his arm (It healed nicely, no problems).

When Mr. Sawyer is not chasing critters or expelling bats from his customers’ homes, he likes to spend time with his grandchildren. Mr. Sawyer has two granddaughters and a grandson. The girls

Ashleigh(age 1), Alyssa (age 3), and Carson (age 4) can be found on nice sunny summer days with their

Paw-Paw riding the combine or at their great grandma’s home having lunch. Jerry’s mother still prepares lunch for her two sons almost everyday. The grandkids are learning very quickly how to “get things done” on the farm. The children often help their Paw-Paw “feed up” the bear hunting dogs and the pair of emus

Mr. Sawyer has at home.

Above are Mr. Sawyer with his grandson Carson and granddaughter Alyssa, at the local rodeo.

Mr. Sawyer and his wife had several pairs of emus in the early 1990s that they bred and sold to market. Mrs. Sawyer would decorate the eggs, as crafting projects during the winter months, when the emus laid their eggs. The Sawyers’ gave up this venture after a few years citing there was not enough demand for the emus on the market at the time.

Our last interview took place after Jerry and his wife had returned home from Sunday services at his local church. Mr. Sawyer told me of many adventures he had.. There were so many, I had a hard time keeping up with my notes. When I left after our final interview, he was spending the evening with his grandson and wife playing a game of air hockey.

Mildred Tunstall

By: Kimberly Hopkins

It’s a nice quiet morning. The air is still damp and chilly because the sun has not yet

fully extended over the horizon. The birds are beginning to peek out of their nests. The moist

dew has not yet started to evaporate off of the crisp, green grass and the only sound in her ear is

the coffee pot percolating a fresh pot of Maxwell house coffee. Mrs. Tunstall pulls her glasses

up to her face and sits down to study her daily lesson in the Bible.

Mildred Tunstall was born April 9, 1932. Her parents are Mae Respess Ormond and

George Pink Ormond. Mrs. Tunstall is one of the nine children born into the Ormond family.

She has 5 other sisters and 3 brothers. Mrs. Tunstall was raised in Bath, NC in the Possum Hill

Community. Her family’s house found ground on a farm.

Since Mrs. Tunstall was raised on a farm, she had loads of chores to do. Her siblings and

she had chores like milking the cows, and gathering the eggs the chickens lay. She had to

participate in the indoor chores as well. She helped her mom set the table, cook, and cleaning up

the dishes after the meals. Of course she had to do school work first, but chores were also expected to be done before bedtime.

Mrs. Tunstall went to school in Bath. She graduated from Bath High School on May 25,

1950. Three weeks later she started her very first job as the Secretary of Bath High School. Mrs.

Tunstall was excited about starting a new job, but nervous as well. She worked at the high

school for two school years. Around that same time, Mrs. Tunstall met her first husband and they got married. Mrs.

Tunstall had two children, a girl and a boy. Mrs. Tunstall and her husband lived with Mrs.

Tunstall’s parents for about a year and then decided to move into their own house.

Shortly after moving to Belhaven, Mrs. Tunstall started working at Wachovia Bank as a

book keeper. As a book keeper, Mrs. Tunstall had a huge responsibility. She had to make sure

every stitch of money coming in the bank and going out of the bank was documented. She also

rechecked behind every teller to make sure no mistakes were being made. After working a while as the book keeper she moved to a teller position. Mrs. Tunstall worked at Wachovia Bank for about three years. She quit that job in the event of her mother getting deathly sick. She stayed out of work for a while to take care of her mother. Mrs. Tunstall’s mother died in 1970.

While coping with the death of her mother, her family needed money so she went out in search for a job. She took a job as the book keeper of Southern Bank in Belhaven. After working a while as the book keeper, Mrs. Tunstall then took a teller position for Southern Bank.

As a teller, Mrs. Tunstall had to manage deposits and withdrawals from all of the clients, and organize daily money reports. While working for Southern Bank, her father got sick. He died in

1975. Shortly after Mrs. Tunstall’s father died she left Southern Bank and took a job for the town of Belhaven as the Town Clerk.

Mrs. Tunstall’s job as the Town Clerk was to make sure the correct bills were being sent out, oversee that the bills were paid on time, filing necessary paper work, and giving out government reports. After working as the Town Clerk for about two and half years, Mrs.

Tunstall left and went to work for the North Carolina Ferry Division.

The North Carolina Ferry Division consists of about sixteen ferry boats. Mrs. Tunstall worked on the ferry boat out of Bayview named the Sea Level. Mrs. Tunstall was the first woman ever hired as a deckhand for the Ferry Division. She began her work as the deckhand in

1980. She was the first woman to ever receive an AB Certificate to work as a deckhand for the

Ferry Division.

While working on the ferry, Mrs. Tunstall embarked on many adventures. She was

recognized for saving an infants life and was then nominated for the Governor’s Excellence

Award. Mrs. Tunstall said, “I didn’t get the award, but it was an honor to just be nominated.”

If being nominated for such an award as the Governor’s Excellence wasn’t enough

excitement, the several articles written about the Ferry Division that Mrs. Tunstall was featured

in, most certainly would be the ultimate thrill. Mrs. Tunstall’s picture was featured in the

Publication Two-Way Traffic: Pathways to Progress in July of 1984. She also spoke about her

experience with the Ferry Division in an article published in 1995’s “The State” Magazine

(which is now called Our State). Mrs. Tunstall worked for the Ferry Division for sixteen years.

During those sixteen years with the Ferry Division, she met her husband Graham

Tunstall. Mr. Tunstall had moved to North Carolina from Delaplanes, Virginia. In Virginia Mr.

Tunstall worked for Fernie Laughinhouse as a farm manager for commercial cows. When Mr.

Tunstall moved to Belhaven he went to work for Lowe’s. After working for Lowe’s for 3 years he went to work for Motor Parts, where he is still currently working.

Mrs. Tunstall retired from the Ferry Division with sixteen years under her belt. After retiring Mrs. Tunstall started volunteering with cancer patients. If someone around her town needed transportation to their doctor’s appointments or needed transportation to their treatment sessions, Mrs. Tunstall would give them a ride.

Volunteering with the cancer patients isn’t the only thing that Mrs. Tunstall has a passion for. Mrs. Tunstall enjoys working with her husband Graham in their spectacular garden. After her and her husband grow their own vegetables, Mrs. Tunstall takes them inside to cann them.

She also has a knack for growing flowers. She has several beautifully arranged flower beds in her yard.

Gardening with her husband is only one of the many activities that keep Mrs. Tunstall on the go. Mrs. Tunstall also enjoys sowing. Throughout her entire life Mrs. Tunstall has sewn wedding dresses for family members, and she has sewn clothes for her children and herself. She

has also made a pair of shoes for herself.

On top of the sowing and gardening, Mrs. Tunstall also paints. She doesn’t stop with

little things like dressers and shelves. She sets her goals high. She told me just recently that she

wanted to paint her house, so she began taking down the items that were decorating her walls.

After stripping the border from the wall she began painting. In the last two weeks Mr. and Mrs.

Tunstall painted 5 rooms in their house. Along with changing the colors of their home, Mrs.

Tunstall redecorated the rooms herself. She added new borders and new wallpaper in one room.

She bought new bedding, new accents, and even made some new seat covers for her dining room

chairs.

Painting, sowing, gardening, and volunteering should be enough activities to fill up Mrs.

Tunstall’s time, but she still has other things that occupy her time. Mrs. Tunstall always keeps a

neatly arranged home. She keeps all the laundry clean, starched and ready for use. The kitchen

floor is always swept and the rugs are always vacuumed. The upstairs bedrooms are mainly used

for the family that lives far away and that comes to visit when they can, but Mrs. Tunstall still

keeps those rooms polished and looking cozy.

Mrs. Tunstall has 2 children, 3 step children, 7 grandchildren, and 1 great grandchild

that take up the rest of her time. Mrs. Tunstall’s daughter lives in Mocksville, NC and don’t get to visit that often, but Mrs. Tunstall’s son lives just outside of Belhaven. His family comes to

visit on Sunday afternoons after church services. Mrs. Tunstall and her family usually spend

their time gathered around in the living room talking about upcoming events, what is happening

in school with her grandchildren, what is going on at the adults jobs, local gab, and any other

news or conversation that may get started. Sometimes the adults start talking about the old times and when the grandchildren hear “back in the day” they usually scatter. One may go get on the

computer, the other watching television, and the other is usually trying to pet the neighborhood

cat. Even though they all have there own favorite thing to do when at grandma’s house, they all

have one thing in common; they all love a very special woman.

Mrs. Tunstall has lots of family that love her dearly, just as much as she loves them dearly. She is a very kind hearted woman, who would do anything in the world to help her

family. As every other person in this world, Mrs. Tunstall has problems of her own, but it don’t

matter what is weighing on her heart she always has a smile on her face.

That very same smile continues everyday even on Sunday night when it is time for all her

family to go home. As everyone departs, Mr. and Mrs. Tunstall says goodbye. Mrs. Tunstall

makes sure all the lights are shut off, while Mr. Tunstall double checks the door locks. They

return to their bedroom to get ready for bed. Mrs. Tunstall kneels beside her bed to say a quick

prayer, and then climbs into bed. She drifts off to sleep while thinking of what she is going to do

the next day.

Mizelle 1

Abbie Mizelle

Bryan Oesterreich

Hum 120

My Grandfather, Carl Jones

Carl Jones

One chilly February day I set out to interview my grandfather, Carl Jones. I sat down on the couch in the toasty living room, while my grandfather sat in the large, blue recliner in front of me as I began my interview.

My grandfather, Carl Taylor Jones was born January 12th in the late thirties to

Kathleen Boyd Jones and Carl Hooker Jones in the old Tayloe Hospital. Dr. John Cotton

Tayloe delivered him. He has three brothers: Larry, Donald, and Lindsey. Mizelle 2

Carl started school in 1946 at John Small School. Grades one through six was held here. After attending John Small School, he went to the old Washington High

School on 2nd street. Schools were still segregated during this time. While in school my

grandfather was involved in an assortment of sports. He played midget football for two

years at John Small School. The team only played three games. One game was tied and

two games were lost. In high school he played one year of junior varsity football and one

year of junior varsity basketball. His sophomore, junior, and senior years, he played

varsity football, basketball, and track. In 1956, his senior year, the varsity football team

played for the state championship, but did not win.

In 1957, during the Cold War, Carl was drafted into the US Army along with

Skybo Langley, Jack Warren, Kenneth Woolard, Cecil Mason, McCoy Lamb, and John

Tetterton, who all were from Washington. They left the Beaufort County Court House on a bus headed to Raleigh. That night they slept in the YMCA. The following day they took a bus to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. While in Fort Jackson everyone was examined.

Kenneth Woolard needed glasses. Kenneth was sent to the main post in Fort Binning,

Georgia, because of his need for glasses. Later he was sent to France. Everyone else was sent to Sand Hill in Fort Binning, Georgia for basic training. Here, my grandfather learned to fire a 155 Howitzer and was trained to survive in extremely cold weather. He also learned to fire a bar gun. While firing this gun one day the gun got hot from so many rounds being fired. The bipod slid down, so he straddled the gun to tighten the bipod and the gun went off. “That scared the you know what outta me.” After basic training, everyone was granted a five day leave with two days travel time for Christmas. Mizelle 3

A 155 Howitzer

In 1958, a train took my grandfather and his troop from Fort Binning, Georgia to

Savannah, Georgia. On March 15, 5,000 troops boarded the ship “The Patch” to set sail for Germany. While on the ship everyone was required to do physical training, which consisted of jumping jacks and squats. As the ship traveled further out to sea, the waters became rough. Some waves were 35 to 40 feet. Two or three guys broke their arms during physical training; therefore it was discontinued for the rest of the trip. The sleeping quarters in the ship were very small. My grandfather said, “The duffle bags were stacked about seven feet high in the middle of the quarters and everything you owned was in there. The trip was miserable.” The beds were six bunks high. My grandfather was assigned the top bunk. He said, “I’d always hit my head on the steam pipes, but I was glad I had the top bunk. One guy would throw up and it was like a domino affect. Mizelle 4

Everyone below me would have puke on them from the person above them.” The trip took about nine to ten days. “The first thing we saw was an Esso station (gas station).”

After unloading the ship, everyone boarded a train for a two day ride to Kitzingen,

Germany. It was freezing cold, but they made it to their living quarters. The living quarters were used by German soldiers during World War II. Weapons were then issued and orders were given to go to the stag area for weapon training. After the weapon training was completed, they were sent to Grafenwoehr, which were the training grounds that Rammel the Desert Fox used to train his soldiers during World War II. Here the

Russians were observed. When the Russians moved their troops, my grandfather and his troops moved also. He referred to this as being like a “chess game.” One cold night, my grandfather and some of his friends went to the Hillbilly Bar. A huge brawl broke out.

My grandfather fought with his back against the bar. A man was hiding under the bar with a hammer. When Carl’s foot came close enough, he smashed it with the hammer.

The MPs came and broke the brawl up and put everyone but my grandfather in prison.

They could not see him, because he was lying under the bar with his throbbing, swollen foot. Carl was on sick call, because he could not fit a combat boot over his foot. He was put on light duty for one week and was in charge of the latrine (bathrooms). While cleaning the latrine one day, one of the faucets was leaking. He tried to fix it, but didn’t.

He finally got so frustrated with the aggravating sound that he broke the faucet and accidentally slit his wrist. “Blood squirted everywhere when my heart would beat.” He

was sent to a German doctor to sew up his wrist and artery.

A few months after the latrine incident, the barracks had football tryouts. Carl and

Skybo tried out for the team. They ended up making the team for the Kitzingen Saints. Mizelle 5

They were on temporary duty while playing football. Out of everyone on the team Carl and Skybo were the only members of the team that had played football in high school.

Games were played in Nuremberg Stadium. This stadium was used as a marching ground by Hitler.

An overview of Nuremberg Stadium

After football season, Carl and Skybo were put back on duty in Grafenwoehr.

While on duty, Carl was in the advance party. The advance party consisted of ten to

twelve men. “A German boy came to base camp one day and asked if we wanted some

beer. Of course we said yes. He brought us back beer. It was bitter cold. The average

temperature was about five to ten degrees. Instead of sleeping outside we rented rooms

from our “beer boy’s” family. The wife would cook us breakfast every morning. We

stayed with this family for about three or four days.” If they had stayed in their tent they

would have risked getting run over by the convoy trucks, which were unable to see the Mizelle 6 snow covered tents. They were close to the Czechoslovakia boarder. They accidentally crossed into the communist country, which could have cost them their lives, but they were lucky enough to make it back into Germany.

A few months later, in August of 1959, my grandfather boarded “The Upsure” to set sail for the United States. “The beautiful blue ocean was calm, unlike the trip to

Germany. The light blue sky was filled with lazy clouds and seemed to collide with the ocean in the distance.” This boat ride was filled with sun tanning and reading books, not vigorous training drills. “It was like a cruise.” The boat headed for a port in New York.

Everyone’s first sight was the Statue of Liberty. The boat then began to turn away from

the port and had to go back for a man who had fallen overboard. “Everyone’s heart

dropped, because they were so anxious to get back on to American soil.”

After getting off of the ship in the cool comfortable weather, Carl rode to the

airport. “The airplanes were crappy looking, but I got on one anyway.” The plane headed

for Fort Jackson, South Carolina. The humidity was 100% and the temperature was 105

degrees as they unloaded the plane. “It felt like walking into an oven.” He stayed one week here to be processed out of the army and to muster his out pay. After this process was complete, Jack decided to take a bus back to Washington, North Carolina. Carl and

Skybo decided to hitchhike their way back home. Before Jack left he said to Carl and

Skybo, “Tell everyone I’m on my way when y’all get back home.” Then Carl and Skybo

went to the PX (the store on base) and bought pants and shirts with a palm tree print.

They changed in the back of the store and tossed their army uniforms in the trash. “Skybo and I looked like Cramer off of Sinfeld.” Back in those days’ people would pick up men

who were in service. An eighteen wheeler picked them up and hauled them from Fort Mizelle 7

Jackson, South Carolina to Fayetteville, North Carolina. They had a friend that lived in

Fayetteville so they went to use the pay phone and did not know that the phone system

had changed to the dial system. They were unable to get in touch with their friend so they

tried thumbing to Washington, North Carolina again. A sergeant from Fort Bragg in a

1955 fire red Chevy picked them up and carried them to Dunn, North Carolina. Night

was approaching so they got a hotel room from the only hotel in town. The next morning

they set out on their mission to thumb their way back home. They were unsuccessful, so

they rented the room for another night. The next morning, they called a friend in

Washington, North Carolina. “Dag on if Jack hadn’t already made it home.” Jack drove

to Dunn, North Carolina and picked up Carl and Skybo and took them home.

In 1970, my grandfather met my grandmother. Both of them were working for a

financial company. My grandfather worked for the office in Washington and my

grandmother worked for the office in Greenville. My grandfather would have to go to the

Greenville office for meetings and my grandmother would be sitting at the front desk.

“She was the prettiest thing I ever laid eyes on.” They got married November 13, 1971.

My grandmother had two children from a previous marriage, my Uncle Rob and my

mother, Jane. Carl raised them like they were his own. On April 12, 1972, my Aunt Paige

was born. My grandfather worked for the same finance company for 42 years. Mizelle 8

Carl and Cathy

Carl has four grandchildren, me, my brother (Tyler), and my two cousins (Josh and Emma). I am nineteen. Tyler is sixteen. Josh is five. Emma is one. He is very fond of us all. When Tyler and I were younger, my grandfather would put shaving cream all over his hairless head and all over his face. Then he would sneak out of the back door and come around to the front door and knock. My grandmother knew what he was up to, so she would make Tyler and I answer the door. He would scare the mess out of us. After a few times of this joke, Tyler and I would catch on when we heard the shaving cream can dispersing shaving cream in the bathroom. Tyler and I would then go out the front door and try to scare him. Now he tries this little joke on Josh. He also would tell Tyler and I about a ghost that lived in the house when we would spend the night over there. He said her name was Ms. Davis and she owned the house before they did. According to him she was murdered in the bathroom. When Tyler and I would go to sleep he would make howling noises down the hall and go outside and tap on the windows. Another thing he would tell Tyler and I was there were alligator-like monsters that lived in the Oakdale Mizelle 9

Cemetery and they would poke out your eyeballs. Then he would take Tyler and I riding through the cemetery. My grandfather had fun with his shenanigans.

Now my grandfather is retired. Since his retirement, in 2004, he has had a few things happen to him that the family thought was funny. For example, after one hurricane a branch had fallen on the power and cable lines that ran to the house. My grandfather gets the idea to throw a rope around the branch and tie the rope to the back of his car. As he took off down the road my grandmother ran out and yelled “Carl, No!” The power and cable lines, along with a few boards had ripped off the side of the house. Another thing that he has done is chased and emu out of the back yard. Some one in their neighborhood had an emu as a pet and somehow it managed to escape and wonder into my grandmother and grandfather’s back yard. My grandfather ran out of the house and chased the emu while doing a “shoo” motion with his arms.

Now he spends a lot of time with his family, working in his garden, and hanging out with his friends. We (his family and friends) all get to hear about his war stories.

According to Josh, my grandfather lost his hair in the war when a bomb exploded, which caused his hair to be blown away. Carl loves to recall the time that he spent in service. He was thrilled when I asked him if I could write this paper about him and I was happy to give him the joy of recalling all of those old memories. Before, I thought I knew my grandfather pretty well, but because of this paper I discovered there were some things that I did not know about him.

The Life of a Farming Mother

Written By: J. Nicole Davenport

On a day in 1935 the blazing sun beat down on her dark hair while she tediously picked cotton by hand. The ground beneath her feet was burning hot in need of relief she used her feet to dig through to the cooler dirt finding instant comfort. She was thirsty but knew that if she went to the house for water the walk back to the field would leave her as thirsty as she had been before. Her name is Kathleen VanHorn and this was just an average day in her life.

Born in 1920, into a farming family Kathleen soon became accustomed to hard work as a way of life. As a child she worked the fields with her parents, two sisters, and a brother. In addition to farm work she learned household chores like cooking and

cleaning from her mother. She and her siblings did not attend school as often as children do today, as Kathleen stated “We went to school about three months out of the year”.

The rest of the year they were needed to help work the fields and take care of livestock.

Kathleen’s family had a cow for milk, and chickens for eggs or sometimes for meat to eat. Her family raised hogs, and killed them for food during the cold winter months.

Until the time was right for the hogs to be killed her family survived mostly on coffee and biscuits. She tells about the food they ate saying, “There was not a lot to eat then it was tight, but we made it through alright”. As farmers her family worked constantly, mostly just to survive, there was little money left over for luxury items. The children received only one pair of shoes each year so they could attend school in the winter months. The lack of finances also meant they did without the luxury of transportation everywhere they went, they had to walk to get there. It was truly a different world than we live in today even the common age for marriage was different. People got married and started families, a lot younger than most people do now.

In 1937 at only seventeen years old she married Gilbert Snell whom she would stay married to until his death in 1994. After the wedding she left her family’s farm to start a life with her husband on a farm of their own. As time went by they raised not only corn, cotton, and beans they also began raising children. Kathleen’s first child was born when she was eighteen, after that she had a baby almost every two years until she ended up with ten children total. Though she had ten children only three of them were born in a hospital. It was common in those days for women to have children at home with the help of a Granny woman, commonly known today as a midwife. The midwife was usually an older woman who had children of her own and lived near by. When the expecting woman went in labor someone, usually the woman’s husband would go pick up the midwife and bring her to the house. Having a baby at home is nothing like the birthing

process today, they had no pain medication all births were completely natural.

It was not until her eighth pregnancy that hospital deliveries had become more popular, and she decided to have her eighth child at the hospital. Kathleen’s daughter

Faye can remember the birth of her younger sister well “Mom went into labor, me and my oldest sister Louise had to run down the street to find a neighbor to take her to the hospital. We were afraid and excited all at the same time.” Kathleen’s water broke before she got to the hospital, and the baby was born only five or ten minutes after she arrived. The doctors did not even have time to prepare her for delivery. The baby was a girl named Shirley, but was later given a nick name that has stuck with her throughout her life. Louise the oldest sister began calling Shirley pickles, because their family was growing pickles close to the time she was born. The name was eventually shortened to pic which she still answers to today. Kathleen had many children because she saw each one as a blessing from God.

Being a religious woman, and deeply devoted to her beliefs she followed the strict guidelines of the church. She did not believe in preventing pregnancy as a member of the

Church of God; she believed that God would give her as many children as he wanted her to have. She has practiced this religion all of her life and still follows its strict regulations today some of which include: women do not cut their hair, their hair is worn in a bun on

top of the head, women must wear dresses or skirts, they do not believe in birth control.

Out of the ten children Kathleen Snell had there were four boys and six girls, and they all

helped and did their part on the farm just as Kathleen had done as a child. Some

differences in her life after being married was the fact that there was a little more money

then. They certainly had more to eat than she did as a child and were even able to buy a

mule and cart which was used for traveling short distances. Though her situation had greatly improved the work was still hard and money was always “tight”. “Times were hard for everyone back then”, Kathleen recalls.

It was expensive to feed and clothe ten children even though they raised most of their food and wore many hand-me-down clothes. To help earn more money Kathleen even found time to do seasonal farm work outside the home. She worked for other near by farmers. She chopped peanuts and worked in tobacco. It was important then to have a strong family structure, because when their parents were working hard to support a large family, the older children had to look out for the younger ones. The family’s hard work

did not go unrewarded. Though the majority of their time was spent working when

Sunday rolled around it was time for some fun.

Kathleen and Gilbert spent Sunday’s with their children it was then that what they lacked in finances was made up for with plenty of quality time and love. They not only

worked as a family but they played as a family too. The most common games for them to play were baseball, and sometimes hide and seek both things they could do in their own back yard. Sunday was also a day for treats such as home made ice cream and cakes made from scratch, to make ice cream they had to take turns cranking the hand crank on the ice cream maker. It was a time full of peace and relaxation, in preparation for the hard work that would be done in the following week. Even though they did not have money to spare, eventually the family found a way to afford some of the new luxuries of that time period.

It was not until the 1950s that they were given the opportunity to enjoy many of life’s modern luxuries of that time period. In 1952 Kathleen and Gilbert Snell bought a house and eight acres of land for five hundred dollars, after that day life continued to improve for the Snell family. Kathleen’s oldest daughter Louise got married and moved out, giving her the opportunity to give something back to the family she loved dearly.

Louise used her income tax check from her job working at Belks to provide her family with their first electric lights. Kathleen recalls this day with joy, “We were all so excited we had never seen anything like that before, and we were proud to have those lights.”

Kathleen’s daughter, Faye, can also remember that day clearly, “I was about eight years old at the time we were excited about the electric lights but did not yet have enough bulbs for all of the light fixtures. I remember I had some pennies that day and I wanted to hide them some where my sisters and brothers wouldn’t find them. Never having had electric lights I didn’t know any better than to take my pennies and throw them into an empty light fixture causing sparks to fly and a blown fuse.” Electricity was the first step toward an easier life style for their family.

In 1957 Kathleen was able to get her first refrigerator, which was a big change

from using her out dated ice box to keep food cool. Before the refrigerator there was

only an icebox that held a large block of ice for keeping items cool. It was much less

efficient than the electric refrigerator they bought that year. Only two years later in 1959

Kathleen and her husband bought their first washing machine. This was a great relief and

convenience for Kathleen, who had been washing clothes on a wash board as long as she

could remember. “I washed clothes on a wash board and put them in a pot of water to

boil then I ran them through a ringer, and hung them up to dry.” Washing clothes on a wash board was hard work especially when washing for a large family, the new washing machine helped to greatly reduce the amount of time that Kathleen spent washing her family’s clothes. Though the 1950s held many good times for Kathleen and her family those were not the only good years.

In 1961 Kathleen watched television in her own house for the first time, it was only a small black and white television, but it caused excitement for the entire family.

Kathleen can remember that day well, “The first programs I ever watched on television

were soap operas, and I have been hooked on them ever since”. Some of the popular

soap operas of that time were “Search for Tomorrow”, “Guiding Light”, and “Edge of

Night”. Kathleen’s husband on the other hand found enjoyment in watching many

different westerns on television, and the children were there to watch whatever their

parents were watching. These were good times for the whole family Kathleen recalls,

“The ability to own all of these luxuries made us all proud, we all felt rich then.”

Television was only entertainment compared to the joy and necessity of having an

automobile. It was not long after getting electricity that Kathleen’s son Paul bought the first family car, it was a 1938 Chevrolet that he paid fifty dollars for. Having a car made life a lot easier for Kathleen as well as the rest of the family. They could travel to stores to buy food and other supplies, more often than they were able to before they were also able to travel farther from home than had ever been possible before. Though the car was very exciting for the whole family Kathleen was afraid to drive it. It was not until 1972 when she was in her late forties that she worked up the nerve to get her driver’s license.

Despite her new found independence Kathleen continued her life as a wife and mother with great joy.

Over the years Kathleen and Gilbert’s ten children all grew up, got married and had their own children except for their oldest son Buddy, who never married. They spent the rest of their time together, enjoying watching their grandchildren and great grandchildren grow, until Gilbert’s death in 1994. When her husband of fifty-seven years died from a massive heart attack, Kathleen was lonely and heart broken. The family who had always been very close pulled together to comfort one another in a time of great loss, and as they always had before, they managed to make it through another hard time.

Though she still misses her husband greatly even today, Kathleen has found strength and comfort in her large family. A family that has grown in numbers over the years until she can proudly state, “I have twenty-one grandchildren, nineteen great-grandchildren, and even one great great-grandchild” all of which she loves greatly.

In December of 2000 Kathleen’s family was once again struck by tragedy, when her youngest child Connie died after a long battle with cancer. Her death greatly affected

Kathleen as well as the rest of the family. After all of her years of struggling to make it through the hardest of times, the worse thing Kathleen would ever have to face was

losing her own child. Being a devoted mother the pain she felt was overwhelming, but with the help of her family she once again found a way to survive.

It is now 2007 Kathleen who will be eighty-seven years old in July still spends the majority of her time caring for her family, especially her oldest son Paul Snell, who is called Buddy by most people. Buddy was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at only nineteen years old, since then the muscles in his body have slowly become weaker. After he lost the ability to walk he found other ways of getting around, he did mechanic work to a golf cart and used it as a mode of transportation around their property. In the past ten years his health has declined greatly he has been in and out of hospitals with pneumonia, and finally ended up in the Belhaven hospital on a respirator. His mother has been there for him every step of the way offering all of the support she can possibly give. She visits him each day making the forty minute trip from Roper to Belhaven with one of her daughter-in-laws, Nancy. Kathleen spends everyday with her son even at eighty-six her most important job in life is to be an excellent mother.

My great-grandmother Kathleen Snell has dedicated her life to loving God and taking care of her family. Her perseverance and enduring love have taught generations of her family the importance of hard work, taking care of each other, and most importantly love. Being the mother of ten children, and doing farm work that involved hard physical labor, was no easy task. Through good times and extremely hard times, she like many mothers was the glue that held her family together. I am sure that her children as well as the generations that have followed them have a deep appreciation for who she is, and what she has stood for through the years. She is the true definition of America’s farming mother.

Stephanie Braddy April 15, 2007

The Intriguing Life of Nora Grey Foster Braddy

Stephanie Braddy, Renae Braddy, Nora Braddy, James Braddy, Jessica Kirk; (Snook in back)

Along the Pamlico River that runs into the Pamlico Sound and out into the

Atlantic Ocean, a small, light blue house still stands and is where my grandmother, Nora

Grey Foster, was born. It’s a time when the shorelines were sandy, the water was crystal clear, home-cooked meals were plentiful, farming was popular, and people worked hard for a living. But this is just the beginning of her life.

Early Years

Nora Foster, who prefers to be called Granny rather than grandmother, was born on September 21, 1924, to Ruth and Samuel Foster who lived by the river at Pamlico

Beach. She was their second child. The house that she

grew up in only had one

room to begin with. It

came from North Creek

and was put together with

pegs. Her daddy added

three small bedrooms onto

the house by the time she

was seventeen. There was no running water, no inside plumbing, and no lights.

They had to work hard every day from the fields to the river. She worked by chopping corn, picking potatoes, cotton, and tobacco for “a very, very low price per hour.” Not only did she work in the fields, but sometimes she would go into the woods to pick blueberries and briar berries. “We lived out of the garden and river. We ate fish,

oysters, crabs, collards, and everything that goes into a garden.”

Granny and her sister, Sadie, also crabbed. The two sisters would go out in a

boat, which their daddy provided, armed only with a crab line and dipper for scooping the

crabs up and into barrels. Not only would they crab out in the boat, but they also waded out along the beach and caught soft crabs. Since the water was clear, they could see the crabs swimming along and just pick them up.

During these years she attended school for ten and a half years at the local schoolhouse. “It only had three rooms and…they would pull the slides [which] would separate [them]. We had four or five grades in one room.” She attended high school in Belhaven, which was considered to be quite a distance away from home back then.

There was a school bus that would pick her up down the road so she didn’t have to walk all the way to school. Although she loved school and enjoyed learning, she wasn’t able to graduate because she was needed at home to take care of her younger siblings which involved ironing, washing, and cooking.

She and Sadie would not only wash clothes for the family at home, but also for other people. Granny started, “We didn’t have a washer; we had a scrub board. We had to do [most of our] washing outside. We didn’t have inside plumbing or lights. We had to get our water from the spring that was up by the cemetery up there. It was running all the time and it was pure water. We had to go up there with tubs. No matter how cold, we went and filled those tubs up. And if it got rough then we’d lose half of it before we got home and so we’d have to make another trip.” She chuckles.

Back then, her momma used to make clothes out of flour sacks. “She sewed them together and that’s what we had when we were growing up.” She would also sew blankets, make dolls, and all sorts of neat items. Granny only remembers her daddy buying shoes for all the kids. They would line up at the shoe store and each would get a pair for that year.

While she was growing up,

playtime consisted of swimming,

sewing, and building castles on the

beach. They would also head

down to Belhaven sometimes on

the boat to visit the marina that is no longer there. “They didn’t have any sidewalks like today. Instead it was boards and the streets were dirt.” Not only that, but she enjoyed helping her mother take care of the luscious rose garden near the Pamlico River and loved spending time with her grandmother – Mary Greaves.

She even started cooking outside on an old stove that her momma had thrown out.

The first meal she cooked was fish and cornbread and this profession helped her provide for her future family and even the neighborhood.

Good Ol’ Home Cooking

Cooking is perhaps what people remember the best about my Granny. She would cook breakfast, pack lunches for her children (if they didn’t want to eat in the cafeteria), and have dinner on the table by 5 o’clock. Sometimes her sisters would bring their families over to eat her tasty meals. But her siblings’ families weren’t the only visitors to her home when she lived in Belhaven. “[The kids] in the neighborhood knew when I was going to have supper and showed up.” She welcomed the children into her home and fed them as long as they washed their hands and behaved.

She still continues to cook today although she tends to fix only one meal a day.

Perhaps her most famous meal among the family includes juicy collards, dumplings, cornbread, potatoes, and a small serving of meat. Every now and then she’ll cook it and invite her children and grandchildren over for dinner. She also cooks collards for the

Foster family reunion, but if you’re not there early, you’ll miss out because they go fast.

Not only would she cook, but she would also can about 600-800 quarts a year from the various fruits and vegetables that would come from the garden. She no longer does any canning, but when she fixed jam (grape, strawberry, pear, blueberry, and figs are among the most well-known) it was always enjoyed by not only herself, but her children’s families. She would make sure that each family got a sufficient amount of her home-made jams.

Singing and Church

When Sadie and Granny worked in Washington they continued to follow their singing which had originally started when they were younger and were singing at church with the choir. This time, however, they were on the radio at

10A.M. every Sunday morning before church. The radio station they sang at was WRRF in Washington, NC. The pair would also sing in churches and even sang with Bill Monroe (and if you don’t know who he is, he’s known as the Father of Bluegrass). “We had an audience. It’s nothing

like today, but we had [one]. We did that

for a while until Sadie up and got married.”

Granny not only sang in church, but

after she was married, she made sure

everyone in her family went to church on

Sundays. She would set out their clean church clothes for that day and they weren’t allowed to get them dirty. She also was a

Sunday school teacher, which was something that she enjoyed doing.

Work

Granny left home around the age of 17 and worked in Washington with her sister

as a waitress at Brown’s Cafeteria and a small coffee shop. When she married and

started a family, she moved to Belhaven and worked at a sewing factory for 6 years. The

sewing factory was located across from where Wachovia bank is now. She was offered a

job as supervisor at another sewing factory in Washington because of how well and fast

she sewed. She declined because it was far from home and she didn’t want to relocate or

move away from her family.

While working in the sewing factory at Belhaven, the managers would list the

names of people who produced the most materials (skirts, shirts, etc) for that day. “I

made more than anyone in the factory and didn’t like my name up there on the board. So

I started sewing for another girl beside me, Nancy, and put her tags on mine instead.”

She would cook breakfast for the family, work while they were at school, then come

home to cook dinner and do all the house chores that needed to be done.

Family Life

A few years after starting work in Washington, she married a young man by the

name of James Lynwood Braddy (everyone knows him as Jim) on July 5, 1945 in the

town of New Bern. “We chose that date ‘cause it was when he was home and right after

the 4th of July. Two witnesses were there, they were getting married too, and they signed our marriage license and we signed theirs.” At the time of their marriage he was still in service for which he had been drafted into during World War II at the age of 18. He was in the military for a couple years and they lived in a lot of places from the army station in

South Carolina to Virginia.

Granny and Jim had grown up together down on Pamlico Beach. “He did the same kind of work for a living and he grew up the same way – the hard way.” She would often visit him on his parents’ farm, and he even taught her how to drive.

Patricia, Jim, Granny, (unknown girl), Wayne, Kenneth, Melvin

Their first child, Wayne, was born on September 20, 1946 followed by Melvin on

March 8, 1948, Kenneth on November 18, 1950 and the last child was Patricia who was born on March 23, 1954. When Granny went into labor with Kenneth, the roads were flooded with water and it was raining. “The roads were blocked ‘cause they were going to pave them.” She and Jim had to wade through the deep water to get to McKinley

Foster’s house. He was a friend of theirs and owned a jeep which could take them through the blocks and water. That’s one night that Granny remembers well. Granny also remembers that as a family, they would go to the mountains or up to

Aunt June or Aunt Celeste’s house. They would also go out on the big shrimp boat

whenever Jim was home (he worked on a tugboat so he was gone about every two weeks) to catch shrimp, crabs, and fish. What they caught that day would be cooked on the boat for dinner that night.

They lived in Belhaven in the area known as West End, but ended up moving to a

place outside Belhaven sometime in the early 1950s. After living there for 10-15 years,

they had a house built that was further inland so it wouldn’t flood as much from the

heavy rains and swelling that the hurricanes brought with them. The house was built in

1969 and 1970. Kenneth’s graduating class of 1969 put the roof on the house, which makes him proud to have helped build his family’s new home.

Around the time that the new house was being built, Melvin and Wayne were drafted into the Vietnam War. Wayne was sent to Germany and Melvin was sent to

Vietnam. Kenneth attended college for two years before he was drafted into service, but he stayed as a teacher for engineering.

It wasn’t very long after that Jim became sick. He was diagnosed with lung cancer which was caused by his smoking habit and passed away in 1976. It was devastating and was hard on the whole family.

In 1978, an acquaintance showed up at Granny’s door. His name is Fenner

Forrest Cox but everyone calls him Snook. He knew Granny was having a hard time so

he offered to help pay the bills and take care of her. They’ve been together for about 30

years and she loves visiting his home where he has a large garden, chickens, goats, and other various critters. Despite being together for so long, Granny hasn’t married him.

“Jim is the love of my life and I hope to see him one day.”

Later Years

In 1998, a pot-belly pig by the name of Porky became Granny’s pet to keep her

company. Porky learned how to sit, stay,

and she was even potty-trained. However,

when Porky grew bigger, she accidentally

knocked Granny over and it was decided

that Porky should stay with Snook.

After that incident Granny picked

out a chocolate toy poodle who she named

Frisky due to his extremely large amounts of

energy. She has had him for about 7 years

now despite the fact that he has diabetes,

allergies, and other medical problems. He is

her sweetheart and she enjoys him being

with her.

Her recent years haven’t been all about pets, however. Whenever she gets the

chance, she cooks for relatives, family reunions, and get-togethers. She also enjoys

having company over and loves to talk about anything and everything. She tries to keep her house looking nice and it’s definitely a comfortable spot to stay or visit. Most relatives who walk through her door find it hard to stay awake on one of her comfy couches, because when the sun is going down and her soft voice sounds like a lullaby, it’s hard not dozing off. Her house is definitely a comfortable spot and always feels like home.

Although she’s home most of the time, she likes going out to eat and even cruising around the countryside with anyone who will take her. Her granddaughter,

Michelle Daniels, and great granddaughter, Michaela, often visit her and occasionally take her out to eat when she’s feeling well.

Daughter, Mother, and Wife

Almost every year, Granny revisits the

home in which she was born to see her other

siblings and their children at the annual Foster

family reunion. The water is no longer clear,

the beach has washed away, and no one lives in

the small, light blue house along the shoreline

these years. It was the starting place of a

woman who lived an interesting life from

singing on the radio to working in the fields and fishing. She is quite a character and wherever she goes, people will definitely notice her and remember from the nurses at the hospital to the carpenters who replaced her roof.

She is the forever beautiful and caring woman we have all come to know and love – Nora

Grey Foster. Page 1

Stephanie Buck Cultural Studies Life on the Pamlico March 26, 2007

It was a beautiful, cool day when I drove down to Bath Creek to meet my Uncle

Starley Stell. I was greeted at the door by my Aunt Cynthia Stell. She walked me over to the barn where my uncle was at. As I walked through the door, I could feel the heat and smell the aroma coming from the wood stove that was located left of the door. After I walked in, Starley asked me to sit, so we sat at his picnic table that was covered with a red and white tablecloth. We then began to discuss his life over the next few hours before we toured his farmland.

Boy on a Farm

Starley Lewis Stell, Jr. was born to Starley Lewis Stell, Sr. and Irene Harris Stell on April 28, 1947. He was an only child; however he had a happy childhood growing up on his family farm which was bought by his grandfather back in the 1930s. As a young boy, he enjoyed playing with the neighborhood children. Starley remembered, “I loved playing football with the other children in the area.” He really enjoyed the freedom of being a kid which gave him time to enjoy life.

At the age of ten, Starley started helping his father on the farm by priming tobacco which took a lot of effort and time. Starley sometimes felt that working on the farm could be a tedious job, but as an adult it became one of his passions that he looks forward to every year. He said, “I worked this farm all my life. After my daddy got sick, I moved right into doing it (farming).” He farms as a hobby, because he has a full-time job at PCS Phosphate. He told me, “My farming is a hobby. It is something great that I can get on the tractor and get my mind off of my other job.” Because Starley farms as a Page 2

hobby, he and his close friend Guy Cutler actually purchase farming equipment that the

two share, because Starley said, “Neither one of us had enough land to justify buying

some of the products we needed.” Surprisingly, he does all of his farming work himself

which gives him a sense of accomplishment and enjoyment. In the future, he said that if

either of his two sons would farm the land after he was gone it would probably be his

youngest son, Steven, who is studying at NC State in the Agricultural department, but he

is not sure whether or not the tradition would be carried on. However Starley will

continue to farm until he is unable to continue this favorable hobby.

School Life

Starley attended Bath Public School in Bath, North Carolina. When Starley was in

school, he already knew that whatever his teachers said was right. He still remembers that

if he got into trouble at school and got a whipping he knew he was going to get another

one as soon as he got home. Starley said, “Even as a small child, what my teachers said

would be gospel to my parents. So, if I misbehaved and got into trouble at school, my

parents were sure to get me when I got home.” He said that his parents knew that if he was in trouble at school that they would never question it, but they would punish him too because he needed to learn to behave and respect his elders. He realized that when his own children started in school that many parents did not take the word of the teacher, but questioned their authority when it comes to their children misbehaving. He knew that if his children were “acting up in class and got into trouble” they would be punished as well when they got home. Well he had it easy finding out whether his sons were behaving or not, because he was on the advisory board for Bath schools. By being on this board, he had firsthand access to the principal, school board, and teachers of his son’s schools, so Page 3

as a parent this worked to his advantage. He got a chance to see whether or not his

children were behaving or not. He said, “I never had so much trouble with my oldest son

Ley behaving, but my youngest Steven was more outgoing and would get into trouble

more often.” It was funny hearing him say, “Ley could not lie to anyone, so if he got a 40

on a test, he would tell me as soon as he walked in the door. Steven was different,

because he would always say, ‘School was fine,’ whether it was or not.”

During high school, Starley was a member of the Future Farmers of America

(FFA). In his senior year of school, Starley became the Secretary of the FFA. Because of his work in the organization while he was in school, Starley became an honorary member of the group not only for his time in the organization, but especially after he helped Bath high school with their farming projects. Also, while in high school, he played sports like football and basketball. “I loved football. I played center on Offense and guard on

Defense. Back then we did not have enough guys to make up a full offensive and defensive team. Also, my football team during my senior year of high school we went third team All-State which was great.” Starley regaled of his accomplishments in high school, but he built on these accomplishments and worked his way up in life towards his next adventures in college and in the military.

Military Man

After high school, Starley decided to attend Pitt County Technical Institute. He pursued a career in Basic Electronics which was a one year degree. He said, “I loved math and really enjoyed learning more algebra while in college, because my electronics courses dealt a lot with math concepts.” He thoroughly enjoyed his experience at Pitt, because the training he received there carried him on through his later work at Texasgulf Page 4

(PCS Phosphate). After he finished at Pitt, Starley was on the 1A list to be drafted to do a tour in Vietnam; however, he lucked out by quickly signing up for the Army Reserve.

Starley said, “It was either I joined the Army Reserve or National Guard, or I was going to be drafted. People got drafted if they did not join or they didn’t go to a 3 or 4 year school.” Because Starley was placed in the Army Reserve on September 7, 1966, he did not get drafted and deployed out to tour in Vietnam. At this time, most men that did not sign up for the National Guard or get put in the Army Reserve were on an automatic trip to fight in the tragic war that was taking place in Vietnam. So, as a young man, Starley got lucky that he was never deployed, because many men during this time never came back from their tour of duty overseas.

While Starley was in the Army Reserve, he went to Georgia for formal training camp which was six months of basic training and advanced individual training (AIT).

During the year, the reserve required him to work in the army camps two weeks a year and one weekend a month with four months active duty or he could be called up for accelerated drills which required him to work every other weekend. The Army Reserve assigned Starley to a position as a communication specialist. He had to set up communication lines at the reserve centers which involved setting up phone lines and radio lines. Because of working in communications, he was in fact involved in the Cage system which used Crypto (a secret code language used in military bases). Eagerly he said, “I thought this was so exciting, because to get into the buildings to do my work I had to have a secret security clearance and guards were always surrounding the buildings.” He said they would send these secret codes by typing them up on the typewriter and sending the papers to the other facilities to be decoded. He really seemed Page 5 to enjoy this type of work and was so proud of the work he did while in the Army

Reserve. While he was working in the Army Reserve, he also got another job that he continues to work at even now which is in the electrics department at Texasgulf (PCS

Phosphate).

Texasgulf/PCS Phosphate

He began working at Texasgulf or what is now called PCS Phosphate when he was only 19 years old. He started at the bottom of the chain in the electrical department making a minimum of $2.09 an hour (which he says was a lot of money in those days).

He started working as a shift electrician helper and he worked up as a lead. He then became the head of his department over four other men. Soon after he stopped shift work, he was promoted to an electrical craftsman. During this time, he worked with lights, reciprocals, motors, transformers, and controls on interlock belts. Even though he worked in a dangerous department, Starley said that in the forty years that he has worked for

Texasgulf he has never been hurt on the job. Also, in over 30 years, there have been no fatalities only a few burns or possible lost fingers. In 1977, he was promoted to working as a foreman in the mines. In 1990, he transferred from working in the mines to being a

Control Equipment Specialist, but in this job he really did not have interaction with people. He mentioned, “I started to miss the interaction between people in the work area, because now I mainly worked on projects which did not involve being around many other employees.”

Starley now works as a General Foreman over the mine, wheel, and bucketwheel division. He is also in charge of 35 other employees and some forms of maintenance work. Starley is in charge of a seven million dollar department each calendar year, so he Page 6 controls the money over his salaried employees, the parts needed, and travel expenses for all of his departments employees. Because he is a General Foreman, he actually gets to travel around the country to look at the electrical parts to make sure that the parts are running properly, because it will cost the company a lot less money if they can fix the parts rather than if they have to replace the parts.

Soon Starley will be retiring from PCS after 40 years working for the company.

He has put many days into this corporation and he is beyond excited to finally be able to retire from the company. He said, “Because I waited out my 40 years with the company, I will get a 70% pension of my current salary, so that is why I stayed on with the job this long.” For a retirement present, Starley actually went out and bought himself a new

Harley. He said, “I named her “K” which stands for my 401K plan I will be getting.” I got a good laugh out of that one. He was so proud to see that sleek black Harley sitting in his garage surprisingly his wife, Cynthia, even enjoys riding on it.

Family Life

Starley actually met his wife, Cynthia Ann Dail, through mutual friends down in

Ernul, NC. He told me of their first date together which was actually quite funny. He said, “I went on a double-date with Gloria Forbes (his date), an Elks-boy, and Cynthia.”

What was funny Starley was dating Cynthia’s best friend Gloria. Some time in the near future Cynthia and Starley were both single. Starley went up to his friends house Mike

Cutler who convinced Starley to call Cynthia up to go on a date. Well, Starley said,

“After I started dating Cynthia, I never dated anyone else.” The couple dated for about two years before they finally got married. They married at Macedonia Free Will Baptist

Church in September 1972. They were married in a traditional style country wedding Page 7 surrounded by their closet family and friends. After the wedding, they actually moved into a house down on Starley’s family farm in Bath.

In 1975, the couple had their first son “Ley” or Starley Lewis Stell, III. Starley said that Ley was a shy, quiet child. He said, “Ley was such a good kid that even felt guilty if he did anything wrong.” Ley has always been his mama’s little boy. A few years later in 1982, Starley and Cynthia made a new addition to their family when they had

Steven Alton Stell. Steven was an adorable blonde-haired boy; however, he could have been no more different than his brother Ley. Steven was a rambunctious child. Starley said, “Steven is so much like me.” Steven was always getting into some kind of trouble.

Steven was a sweet, lovable child, but he was a free-spirit. So, Starley said that Steven was always his boy, because he actually reminded him more of himself than Ley did.

Steven seems to be more ambitious to work on machinery and the farm just like his father. Starley said, “When my father was sick Ley would help out by taking care of his granddad by helping his grandma in the home by bathing and cleaning up. Steven was the more subtle type in this situation, but he helped out a great deal by keeping the yard mowed and doing any outside or mechanical work they needed taking care of.” I think that Starley’s sons both have a little piece of him in them, because Starley is the most lovable type of man that would do anything for his fellow man, but he is also such an outgoing person. He knows how to be there for his family, but also can get down in the dirt and work on about any type of machinery imaginable. While talking about his family, he shows so much pride and love for his sons and his wife, and it is comforting to see a man that is so concerned about his family’s life and well-being.

Community Man Page 8

Starley is also much involved in his community of Bath. He is a member of the

Bath Christian Church in which he has been a deacon for several years. He is also a member of the Ruritan Club of Bath. In the Ruritan Club, he has served as the president and vice president of the club. He meets with the club once a month. In the club, he participates in many fundraisers to help raise money for people in need in his community like they raised around $60,000 for a man in the community that had leukemia. Starley was also involved in the areas Tri-Centennial event that was for Bath North Carolina’s

300 year old birthday. Also, it was a celebration not only because the town was 300 years old, but also because it was the oldest town located in North Carolina. Starley said, “It was an all year event. We had so many fundraisers with pig-pickings and fish-fries.” He said that the fundraisers raised money for different organizations which in turn put the money back into the community by helping the elderly in the town, helped send children to camp, and many other needs that needed attention within Bath. Starley really enjoys all of the organizations that he is involved in, and they do so much to help people in need within the community.

Hunter and Fisher Man

Because Starley’s home is right next to Bath Creek, he says that he really enjoys fishing down at the creek. He loves to take out his boat and go fishing so he can have a calm and relaxing day. He also loves to go hunting. He said that he hunts quail mostly which he takes his bird dog out with him to hunt with, but he also does do some deer hunting too. Starley and his friend Guy were actually hunting down on one of their other friends Eddie Smith’s hunting preserve. Starley and Guy were going to lead a bird hunt for some men Eddie knew. Starley had stirred up the birds for the men to hunt, so he Page 9

decided that he was going to go up in one of the stands to see if he could kill a deer so he

could make some sausage out of. Well, he gets up in the stand and sees this great big doe

walk out of the woods. He said, “I couldn’t get a clear shot of the doe, so I got down on my knee to set up a shot. Then I got a cramp in my leg, so I stood up to shake out the cramp and the deer started to run off. Then the deer stopped and I got a good shot in her.”

He then went down and got Guy to help him load the deer up, but the doe was so big that it would not even fit in the back of his truck.

The next day, Starley went hunting again with his friends and he was back up in

the stand when he saw three bears come out of the woods. It was a mama bear that

weighed around 250 pounds and two baby cubs that were about 100 pounds each. Starley

said, “They were breaking off corn from the corn field, so I decided to take a shot at the

big bear. I remembered Eddie told me that if I ever shot a bear once keep on shooting till

you know it’s dead, so that’s what I did. I shot her once and she fell to the ground. She

then lifted her head, so I shot her a second time. Then she leaned up a third time, so I

popped one more off at her which finished her off.” He was in shock at finally killing this

bear, because that is such a hard task to do. He was so happy about killing this bear that

he decided that he was going to get its head mounted on the wall. He tells his hunting stories with such excitement and the smile on his face just tells it all that he will always

enjoy his hunting.

Future

Starley is not sure what the future will hold for him, but he hopes to continue with a long, memorable journey. After his retirement, he hopes to do some traveling with his Page 10 wife, Cynthia. He also will continue farming each year and doing some form of consulting work. Also, he plans to spend some more time fishing, golfing, and hunting for fun. Another exciting event that will take place soon after his retirement in April of

’07, Starley and Cynthia will be new grandparents, because their son Ley and his wife

Connie are expecting their first child in May of this year. Starley is so excited that he will soon be a granddaddy. Starley is so thrilled about what the future will bring him and his family after his long awaited retirement. I hope that he has the best of luck in all that he does at the present time and in the future.

The Story Lady By Carol Parker

Carol Parker a student at Beaufort County Community College Interviewing Mrs. Mima Dixon

Mima S. Dixon, (Story Lady) is a woman who has diligently spent 30 years of her life in all phases of public work, meeting her objective as Library Children’s Outreach worker. She loves reading and sharing her talent with children, young and old.

Mima S. Dixon was born in Ransomville, N C, on February 24, 1947, to parents John

Calvin and Frances E. Satterthwaite. Mima the younger of two girls, her sister Hattie was eighteen years older, so Mima basically grew-up an only child. Her family moved to

Washington, N.C., when Mima was still a baby. Mima has lived in North Carolina, all her life.

When Mima was growing up, things were very different, people use outhouses, some people had bathroom on the back end of there houses. Mima's family bathroom was on their back porch, and there was only a toilet and a small tub to wash up in. If you wanted to take a bath, you would use a big washtub on the back porch. They did not own a Television set, so Mima and her mother would go to their neighbor's house to watch Television. Back then most people likes to watch Gun Smoke.

When Mima was twelve years old she started working in Tobacco fields with her uncle.

She would hand-off the tobacco, which meant, she was on the back of the tobacco truck, pick up three stems of the tobacco and hand it off to the tier. Then the tier would tie the tobacco up and stack it in bundles. She worked in her uncle fields until he died, and she no longer wanted to work in tobacco fields.

In the summer Mima's cousins would come to visit, and when they came they brought a friend with them name Bessie, who was Mima's age. They became very close friends. Mima says, "We use to play trick on my cousins, like this one time when our cousins were old enough to date. They had dates with some guys from our neighborhood and they wanted us younger girls to help them get ready for their dates. So my friend Bessie and I would attach bows to the back of their dresses. They were so mad, that they told my mother and boy did we get in trouble."

"We were always doing crazy things like that."

Mima was raised as a Free Will Baptist, while she was growing up, she would often sing in the church chorus. Now she devotes much of her time in her church working with the youth.

Mima says, “The high-light through-out my life has been my church, working especially with the youth."

After finishing high school, she went to Durham Business School in Durham, NC where

she graduated in 1969, receiving her Diploma for Secretarial Science. She then started working

at Beaufort County Community College then known as (Beaufort Co. Technical Institute) as a

secretary while enrolled in College Transfer Program.

In 1970 Mima was married and had two children Stacey Dixon and Dwayne

Satterthwaite; and has three grandchildren Omar, Rashadda, and Shaquana Dixon.

In 1974 she graduated from Beaufort Co. Community College receiving an A.A.S. degree

in Library Science, while raising two young children. Mima at that time worked as a Library

Technician in Beaufort County Community College. This is when she met and became good

friends with Betty Ferrell, now a Librarian at Beaufort County Community College.

Betty Ferrell, a librarian at the BCCC has known Mima for over thirty-five years, since she started working there. Mima was the Librarian then who hired her. According to Betty,

“Mima is a remarkable person, kind, likeable, capable, efficient, reliable and dependable; really goes out of her way to help you if she can. We had a lot of fun times working together. "When I first met her I knew I would like her, she is just that kind of person, easy to get along with."

There were many times when would get together and do something with our children, who were young at this time. Mima's children and mine hit it off real good"

Betty says, "I have had the privilege of hearing Mima read stories to the children. She is very good with children and they like her a lot. She can change her voice for the different characters in the books, like this one time around Halloween, she came in dress-up like a wicked

witch and read a scary story to the children, and she really looked so funny."

According to Betty, there was never a dry or boring moment working with Mima, "There was this one time we were going to a meeting, and there was this young woman Judy, riding with us, she was really a striking person, tall and pretty. Well, we stopped, at this little shop to get something to eat; I think it was in Selma, NC. We were coming out of the place and a guy was

driving up the street, he was looking so hard at Judy that he ran his car right into the trash cans.

We laughed so hard and still we laugh about it today."

Betty says, "There was another time when we were both working in the library, and it

was very quiet, because no one was in here at that time. The president of the college, then came

in and set down in the chairs over by the big windows looking out at the beautiful scenery, (the beautiful dogwood threes, and the flowers that were blossoming in the yard), relaxing. He fell asleep and started snoring so loud. It was so funny, that we had to go run in the back room, because we were laughing so hard."

Betty says, "We really had so many good times working together. We often play tricks on each other, I remember this one time when Mima had hid my favorite coffee cup from me, and then she could not remember where she had hid it. So we searched the library over and over

again looking for my coffee cup, and finally we found it hidden behind some pile of books on the

shelf. We just laughed about that too. I think Mima will always be young, because she loves to be around young people. I remember when she was working here, and she went back to school

part-time, while also raising her two children, by then she was no longer married. She is a very

strong person".

In 1980, Mima transferred to East Carolina University to be a part-time student in Library

Science. She later purchased a home for her family. Mima then became interested in reading to

children. In 1982, she organized a neighborhood summer Tutorial Program for grades

kindergarten to High school. The Tutorial Program is a program set up to help children in grades kindergarten to High school to improve their reading skills.

Mima says, “When I was a young girl, I always like to play school and be the teacher. I the idea of helping children, getting them motivated to read. I think that’s why I started the Tutorial

Program to help children kindergarten to high school to improve their reading skills. I only work

three days a week and I love what I am doing.”

Also in 1982, Mima, has received the Scottie Cox Library Award and also joined The

Library Science Society, she became their treasurer. Mima has served on the program for Boston

Avenue Community Association Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. She still set aside time out of her busy life, for hobbies and other interest. Mima likes collecting unusual Roosters coffee mugs, cross-stitching, and reading; while she is attending college, at ECU and working at Beaufort Co.

Community College as a Librarian.

Mima says, “I began to realize at the end of 1985, that I was long overdue and burn-out as an employee of fifteen and a half years at Beaufort Co. Community College and five- years as a student at ECU, and raising two teenagers”.

So in 1986 Mima Dixon graduated from ECU with a B.S. degree in Librarian, Minor:

Elementary Education, and Concentration: Reading.

Mima says, "I have worked as a Girl Scout Leader, served on the Service Unit Team as

Troop Organizer and Trainer, and I have Conducted numerous Workshop in the following areas:

Introduction to Junior Age Level, and Song& Games”.

In1989, Mima became Media Coordinator for Vanceboro Farm Life Elementary

School in Vanceboro, NC. Mima was working a part-time job as Instructor for Introduction to

Library for Edu students at Craven Co. Community College, fall quarters of 1996, in New Bern,

NC, until she retired in 1999.

Mima however spends much of her time in public work with youth, reading bible stories

at her church to children in Sunday school, and doing puppet shows with varieties group of

children. Mima does puppet show for many of her storybooks especially when the puppet

characters fit the book she is reading to the children at that time.

In 2000, She began using her talents of reading and doing puppets show for children

when she became Activity Coordinator for BHM Regional Library & Beaufort County

Partnership. Traveling to different school, childcare center, libraries, and some church day care

center, loving to read stories’ while getting the children involve and having many chances to use

her puppets.

According to Mima Dixon,” I have three favorite books: One Hundred Hungry Ants; by

Elinor J. Pinczes, Hattie and the Fox; By Mem Fox, and The Corduroy; by Don Freeman, but my favorite puppet is Omar, because my grandson Omar gave him to me, “but I do have many other puppets and hundredths of books that I use with the children.

Carol, a student at Beaufort County Community College has had the opportunity to be in a class with Mima Dixon. She says, “Mima is a joy to be around. She makes you feel like you can do more. We had the opportunity to see Mima talent at work when Mrs. Beeman asks her to read a story for our class; she read in such a way that it draws you into the story.”

Carol says, "One time I was watching this movie that came on TV called the Story Lady.

Jessica Tandy played the Story Lady in that movie. The movie was about this lonely old Lady

who came to live with her daughter and son in-law. They had busy lives, but Jessica was lonely

and bored so she would prepare big meals for their dinner. When they came home and they did

not eat, saying," We don't eat big meals." One day Jessica went out and she saw this sign advertising Purchasing TV time. So she purchased Television time and would read Mother

Goose stories on air, and dress like Mother Goose. The show became a hit, and school children would run home from school to watch it. A top TV stations offer her a contract to sign to do her show on their station. The person in charged of the TV station had a daughter who was left home

alone, and Jessica was ask to stay with her. She could read and tell stories so wonderful that it

made the children and parents stop whatever they were doing and listen to her tell or read a story.

Mima reminds me so much of the woman who played the Story Lady in that movie, because she

has that talent to read and draw the children into the story. In fact, I went out and purchased the

movie from Wal-Mart because I liked it so much.”

Mima Dixon, (The Story Lady) has filled her life with many opportunities to help and

encourage Young children to love reading, and improve their reading skills. Such programs as

Library Children’s Outreach worker; devoting time in her church working with the youth,

neighborhood summer Tutorial Program, and as a Girl Scout Leader, serving on the Service Unit

Team as Troop organizer and trainer. I think we all can learn much from her.

Angela P. Spencer Cultural Studies Interview Feb. 20, 2006

Ira and Lizzie Holloway: A Lifetime together

Nestled back in Sladesville North Carolina lives a beautiful couple named Ira and Lizzie Holloway. It’s hard to imagine that they are both in their nineties. Sitting side by side in matching recliners, they remind me of young teenagers enjoying each other’s company except uncle Ira, who has Alzheimer’s, is dozing off without a care in the world. As Aunt Lizzie begins to tell her story, her eyes light up as she begins to recall her days of growing up with Uncle Ira and raising their family.

Aunt Lizzie was born on November 8, 1914 to the late Hezekiah (“Papa”) and Martha Silverthorne in Sladesville North Carolina. They owned their farm in which they raised vegetables, cows, cotton, pigs and chickens. Uncle Ira was born November 29, 1910 to the late Ira Sr. and Heggar Holloway in Sladesville who were farmers also. Aunt Lizzie had three brothers and one sister who died at the age of twelve. She begins when they were five or six years old playing on the same road of which they still reside. “He lived a couple of houses away from me, and we would get with the other kids who lived on the road and played stick ball, hop-scotch, hide and seek, and marbles” she says.

“I was a pretty good child growing up” she says with a smile. Aunt Lizzie attended the all black Hyde County Training School in Sladesville, North Carolina which housed grades one through eleven. During that time, there was one teacher for each grade level. As she sits and strokes her silver crown of hair, positions her gold-rim glasses on her nose, she recalls the days when she walked three miles to and from school. “You know back then we didn’t have cars, so we had to walk.” Everyday she wore a denim cloth book-bag made by her mother around her neck and shoulders that had pockets on each side to put her books. Aunt Lizzie hesitates and says “back then the winters were colder than what they are now.” “I almost froze my behind off walking back and forth to school with all those books.” “Papa was able to buy us coats and rubber boots to wear during the cold winters.” “We didn’t have gloves back then, so my hands were like ice, and I was frozen stiff by the time I got to school” she says shaking her head in disbelief. Once she arrived to school, everyone would cuddle around the cast iron wood heater trying to warm up. Eventually, everyone would warm-up by lunchtime only to face the harsh, cold three mile walk home later. Growing up for Aunt Lizzie, at times, meant having to stop going to school to help her parents on their farm. They didn’t have hired help to work the fields, so they became the hired help. She brags “I was a good child, never gave anyone any trouble.” “You did what you were told or you’d get a whippin’ and I didn‘t want no whippin.” After they finished planting the fields, she and her siblings returned to school. When it came time to pick the corn and tobacco, Aunt Lizzie and her siblings had to work the field sometimes causing them to miss the first month or so of school. She begins to smile and laughs softly, as she remembers her pretty little tin lunch pail that her papa bought her. “Most of the children back then brought their lunch in a paper bags. I was the only one who had a tin lunch pail. “I loved my little lunch pail” that is until a boy named Denis came along. “He use to pick at me somethin’ terrible” until one day she got tired of it and she started “beatin’ him across his head with my pail, I ht’em so many times until I broke it.” Dennis began teasing her by saying “Miss Lady you’ll car’y it now in a paper bag” she says as she bursts out in a loud soft laugh. “I really loved my lunch pail.” After walking three miles home from school, she and her siblings didn’t start their

homework instead headed into the fields with their burlap bags to harvest the corn and cotton with their papa. After she graduated at the young age of eighteen, Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Ira got married during what she calls Hoover times (hard times) on December 12, 1931. The following school year Hyde County added the twelfth grade to the school calendar, but she says “I did not go back because I was married by then.” At the beginning of their marriage, she and Uncle Ira worked twelve hour days chopping mile-long rows of cotton and corn for $.50 a day for a local farmer. As many couples did during those days, Aunt Lizzie eventually had to stay home to take care of her daughter Margie. A year later she had another daughter Ida. Times were hard “we had a small garden of vegetables, so I did a lot of canning of okra, tomatoes, corn, peaches and apples for the winter months.” When the girls got older, they were able to help with the canning. There were times when the weather destroyed their crops and Uncle Ira couldn’t farm. In order to provide for his family, he took a job working for the state chopping weeds on the sides of the roads. After many years of hard labor on and off the fields, Uncle Ira was able to have his own plot of farmland. Aunt Lizzie recalls how she and the girls (who were up in size by then) each had a mule and wooden plow to work the rows. Aunt Lizzie had to scoop out the drains that ran along the fields and keep up with the girls. “I worked hard back then that‘s probably why I have problems with my back all that bending and scooping.” She brags with a wide smile across her face of how good her girls handled those mules. She says “they never gave me a bit of trouble when it came to working in them fields. They worked and plowed the fields like they were men.” Ida and Margie always told Aunt Lizzie they worked enough to retire before they left home which she would always laugh. There was a time when Aunt Lizzie had to get the faithful whip and “whoop them good fashion.” Aunt Lizzie expresses how Ina (the baby girl) was always the pickin’ one. One afternoon she had popped some corn on the wood stove, when Ina and Margie started fighting over it. They fought so hard that Margie tore Ina’s shirt, so Aunt Ida had to bring out the faithful elm whip and tear ‘em up! Ina being the baby thought she could get away with a lot of her picking. She often threatened to tell her daddy. Aunt Lizzie always countered by welcoming the challenge knowing Uncle Ira wouldn‘t dare step in. “I didn’t have to discipline them often.” “They were good kids not like the kids today.”

“Kids today are not like we were growing up.” “You didn’t talk back to the grown folks back then or you’d get a whoopin.” “If any other family adults learned of your bad behavior, you’d get another whooping from them.” “Today parents let their children do what they want instead of what the bible teaches of “spare the rod, spoil the child.” As her girls were growing up, they rarely became sick and when they were she would give them Creomulsion cough syrup, rub them down with alcohol for fevers or make sassafras tea. This tea was a common anecdote to what ailed you at that time. She would pick the leaves from the plants that grew along their ditch bank and boil them into tea for the girls to drink. Once her girls became adults, Aunt Lizzie started her career cleaning crabs during the season for Clarence Jeanette Crab House in 1951 in Sladesville until it closed, she then went to Blue Channel Crab House in Belhaven for nine years and returned to the oyster house in Germantown (now Rose Bay Oyster) where she worked from 1976 to 1987 because it was closer to home. She was 73 years old when she stopped working. Aunt Lizzie remembers working in the cold oyster house which had a small wood stove for heat. However, the owners used bad wood which made heat nonexistent. The crab house was so cold that she ended up with frostbite to her feet. She couldn’t wear her regular shoes for over a week Uncle Ira started working at the local saw mill for $0.75 a day “that was good money back then” she states. He worked at the saw mill, raised vegetables, cows and hogs of which he sold to make money in order to build the house in which they still live. The man who built the house was paid $0.75 an hour and Aunt Lizzie’s father furnished the timber from his land. The local lumber mill charged $0.55 an hour to cut and smooth the timber. Uncle Ira and Aunt Lizzie moved into their new home on December 12, 1950 when their daughter Ida went off college. They did not have electricity for their new home until 1952 after saving money from working in the tobacco fields or running water until 1965. Washing clothes entailed two big wash tubs and a washboard and a lot of pumping water from the pump out by the well. “I use to scrub so hard till I‘d scrub a hole in the piece I was washin” she says. “We didn’t have a refrigerator back then, so we had to buy blocks of ice from the ice man which costs $0.25 to $0.50 a piece.” “That was some of the prettiest ice I’d ever seen, it was crystal clear, just pretty.” She remembers how the ice man would take the ice to the house for his white customers and his black customers he would make them

walk to the road and get it. She really didn’t care for him too much. She then explains how they used a wooden-icebox to place the block ice and keep their milk, meat and eggs from spoiling. Aunt Lizzie is still doing her own cooking. She informed me that she made eight homemade fruitcakes this past December. “I love to cook, but I don‘t cook like I use too” she says. My mother-in-law Alice (who is Aunt Lizzie’s niece) says “I wish I knew you made fruitcakes I would’ve got you to make me one.” Aunt Lizzie tells her “if you buy the stuff and come down here I’ll walk you through making one.” Alice gladly accepts the invitation with anticipation of enjoying her future fruitcake. Do you make the all famous poon-bread (molasses bread) I asked? Regretfully, she told me no because she didn’t care for it.

St. John Missionary Baptist Church, Sladesville North Carolina

Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Ira are members of St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Scranton, North Carolina. She joined church at an early age. “I was baptized in the Pamlico Sound in Germantown North Carolina about two miles from here” as she points in the direction of the Sound. She has been a devoted member for over eighty years. During her early years she was a member of the usher board and later became a mother of the church. A position she still holds. On May 14, 2006, she was awarded an appreciation plaque for more than eighty years of dedicated service at St John Missionary Baptist Church. As I begin to end my conversation with Uncle Ira and Aunt Lizzie, she tells me that young people don’t realize how blessed they are today. We (young people) don’t have a clue of the hard times we endured to make it from day to day. She’s right we don’t appreciate our elderly as we should.

Uncle Ira and Aunt Lizzie have been a part of each other’s lives for over 75 years. As faith would have it, Uncle Ira died unexpectedly on February 1, 2007 he was 96 years young. Aunt Lizzie now sits in Uncle Ira’s recliner missing her friend of a lifetime.

Mrs. Charlotte Adams

By Minonja Moss

One day when the sky had a light blue canvas with the sun at its horizon, I sat down with

my aunt Charlotte Adams; you will know her as Mrs. Charlotte Adams. We sat down in the

living room of her cozy little house. It was nice and warm because it was cold outside. She has a

round plump face that has caring all over it, her eyes is brown and sits behind her small frame

eyeglasses. She speaks softly and very lovely and she loves when people come and sit with her.

Charlotte Adams was born on October 8, 1919. He parent’s names were Charlie and

Narciss Peed. She grew up in the small town of Aurora, North Carolina.

When she was a child her parents tended farm land for Nat Hooker, Wallder Hooker, and there was no relationship between the two. They didn’t live that far from her father. “Daddy tended right much land because he had nine children.” She had to go to school and help her father tend - 1 - the land. She attended S.W.Snowden, and she attended there until the 7th grade when she had to

drop out. When she dropped out she had to help her father (Charlie) work on the farm. She had

two sisters that also had to drop out to help on the farm. The other children were not old enough

to work in the farm. The school was smaller than the school is now. It was about four different

teachers in the building that she was in and they had “right many students in the building.” She

told me that when she was in school her favorite subject in school was spelling and math. She

loved going to school. They only thing that she didn’t like was that she had to walk two to three

miles a day to get to school “even if it was sun shine or rain,” because there was no buses. When

she was in school she told me that she used to play baseball, ring around the roses; hop scotch,

“running right down behind one another to see who could run the fastest.” That was fun to her.

She said that there are some differences now from back then seeing that children didn’t have to

walk to school and they had cars to get to school and where ever else they wanted to go. They

only had one school in Aurora then and now they have two schools. And they aren’t cold when

they get to school because they don’t have to walk two or three miles to get to school in the

winter. If they weren’t on time they would get into trouble. For example, they would get a

wiping or they had to stand in the corner. “That’s all that I remember about punishment in school

cause I wont that bad.” Her parents, brother, and sisters and she lived on Peedtown road until

their house burned down then they “move up the creek.” Even when they moved her daddy kept

on tending the farm and he tended for Mr. Hooker. Her father had to use a mule and plow to till

the land before he could plant the crops. They had to get around town in a horse and cart or a

- 2 - horse and buggy. She said “very few people had cars.”

This is me enjoying the memory Her mother did other work besides taking care of the family and working on the farm, she washed cloths for three different families and they were Broom, Hooker, and Bonner. That meant that Aunt Charlotte and two of my other aunts had to walk five miles to get the clothes then take them to Narciss (their mother) and she would wash them and fold them, then they had to take the clothes back to the three different families and that meant that they had to walk ten miles altogether, there and back home.

They only had one boy and he was the baby of the family. So he didn’t have to help out much on the farm that much. The girls were the oldest so they had to do the work that meant that they had to work on the farm a lot more.

- 3 - When she turned twenty she went to Philadelphia. When she got there she moved in with her older sister and she started to work at a pants factory. She left her two kids with her mother until she came back. Her children’s names were Mabel and Clarence and they both attended

S.W. Snowden that is what they did while she She worked to the pants factory for about 5 years and then she moved back home. Then when she came back home she got married. She married a man named Ellis Hamilton.

Mrs. Adams attended Wreeping Rachael Freewill Baptist Church. Aunt Charlotte was a trustee in the church for about three or four years. She ushered in the church and then she went to the choir until she got sick then she hasn’t been in anything since then. The church is now called

Peed Town Baptist Church. She attended that church since she was a little girl with her family.

Charlotte said back then white was white and black was black and that meant there was no mixing of the two. Blacks use to work for the whites in the kitchen, cleaning, and taking care of the children. Mrs. Adams use to work in the kitchen for a white family. She was single while she was working for this family.

Next she (charlotte) got married and began tending a farm. At this point the farms were not theirs (her and her husband) they tended for a man named Mr. Midgette. They grew corn, beans, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, cotton, and cucumber. She said it was about 35 acres of farm land. Not only working on the farm she had two small children that she had to raise, and then to add to all of this she worked at an oyster house and a crab house. She said that “she worked a many many of hours.” The most of the week she worked at the crab or oyster house when she wasn’t needed on the farm.

- 4 - This was some of the land that she owned.

Then she added hogs and cows to the farm. Right after adding the animals she brought

the farm from Mr. Midgette. The cows were milking cows. She didn’t sell the milk from the

cows they kept the milk for the family and gave some to Mr. Midgette. The cows would feed off

of an empty field. They would have babies and they would give them to Mr. Midgette. The hogs

she kept until they reached 250 lbs then she sold them. They kept some of the hogs for the

family. They made sausages, bacon and anything else they could get off of the hog except hog

head cheese. The corn that was grown on the farm was grown just to feed the hogs.

The reason that they had cotton was because her husband wanted to grow it. He wanted

to grow it because you could get a lot of money for it and that help put things on the farm.

Working with cotton they had to hire people to help to do the cotton because they weighed it out

everyday to see how much they had. Aunt Charlotte and my grandmother, which was her sister; - 5 - her name was Minnie Moss worked together to make sure that the cotton was being picked correctly. Then the cotton was taken to the cotton gin, which was located in Washington, NC. It was put into bales and then they would leave after they were put into bales, because they would get paid at that point.

Everything that she grew she said except the corn she sold, which was used to feed the hogs. She also grew a large garden for her family and her sister’s family. She told me that back then family was very close. Her and her sister took turns taking care of each other children. She said that today families are close but not as close like they use to be because people don’t want to look out for each other, they just want to try to out do each other in many ways. She tended land for about fifteen years before she sold the land to Texas Gulf, which is now named PCS

Phosphate. After she sold the land she went on to work at the crab and oyster house full time.

This is some of the land that she sold to Texas Gulf.

- 6 - She also said that she keep the garden that she had. That was fresh vegetables for the family. She told me that the vegetables were also used for family get to gathers. She remembers that when the whole family got together they had “a plenty of food.’ They always went to different houses within in the family they always had fun and enjoyed the time that was spend with each other. She went on to tell me how back then family was a lot closer. Aunt Charlotte said that families back in the old days were closer because they helped each other in the farm, with the children and any other way that they were needed. Today the families don’t do that much for each other they walk around trying to out do on another, and then when you need them they always come up with an excuse to not have to help you do something.

Her children once they got older started there own families. Her daughter (Mabel) had eight children and she worked on a farm then when she left the farm she went to the crab house and worked there. Her son (Clarence) went to work at Texas Gulf, which is now called PSC

Phosphate. He got married and had four children. They all live close together and they still share that bond that has been in the family for many years. Even when her children got older and had their own children she kept on growing her garden until her husband died. Then she stopped growing a garden.

A year or so later after her husband Mr. Ellis died she remarried a man named Oscar. Mr.

Oscar worked at the school as a janitor. He didn’t do any kind of farming just work at the school.

Aunt Charlotte gave up all of the farming and worked at the crab house and oyster house until she “took off and got sick.”

She enjoyed working at the crab house, and oyster house and farming. “All the things that

I did I enjoyed.” After she stopped farming she enjoyed taking care of house work. She also helped raise her grandchildren. She has twelve grandchildren, twelve great grandchildren, and

- 7 - she has nine great-great grandchildren. When they all get together every Christmas “we have a house full.”

While talking to her grandson Stewart Ham, he was telling me how she used to tend land in a place that they use to call “new town”. That was also land that Mr. Midgette owned and she tended it for a while. But when you go over to the “new land” they have now built house on it.

Stewart how she raised animals and she had a cow named “Lil Sue.” She was in a picking crab contest in Morehead City and she won a television. She was the fastest crab picker in the Aurora packing company. She tended two gardens one behind her house and then one beside her daughter’s house. Her house used to be two stories and then when they remodeled the house they took the top story off. He told me how she has two birthdays and that is because of the mix up within the court house. Aunt Charlotte said that she on celebrates the birthday in October.

Stewart taking a trip down memory lane

- 8 - While talking to my aunt Charlotte I learned a lot about my great grand parents and how things were in the olden days. She was a very hard worker and she loved her family very much. I want to be half of what she is at her age. This woman has showed that she has done a lot in her life time. She has put a new point of view on a hard worker, she didn’t mind working when and were she was needed. Made sure that she had and her family has things that were needed. I have really enjoyed talking to my aunt and learning things that I didn’t know about her and about how things were back in the old days.

- 9 - Mary Spivey

\... / Final Draft

Cultural Studies

March 26, 2007

Glenn, Yvonne, and Mary Spivey at the kitchen table } ~/

From Farm to Factory and Loving It All The Way

How often do you hear someone say "I enjoy my work. r love my work?" In a

world where so many are completely dissatisfied and unhappy with their chosen

occupation, one uch person stands out. His name is Edward Glenn Midyette, most folks

can him Glenn, and he resides right here in Beaufort County where he has lived pretty

much all of his life. Glenn's love for his work didn't just happen though At a ree nt

meeting with Glenn and wife, Yvonne, he revealed the story behind his love for his work.

1t all started with years of hard work as a child growing up on a farm back in the 1940s

and early 1950s. Glenn grew up as the older brother to ix younger sisters, which in the 40's and 50's meant a lot of hard work because he was the only male sibling The hard work began at an early age, too.

On the Farm:

Glenn remembers getting pretty involved in helping his father, William Midyette, on the family farm at the age of eight when he as a third grader at the Old Ford School

"I had to miss a lot of school, about fifteen days a year maybe," said Glenn His job starting out as a third grader on the fann was to do the harrowinoJ which is what they called smoothing the ground after it had been broken up. Two mules pulled this piece of equipmen that was about ten feet wide. Of course, Glenn was the one keeping those mules on track.

Glenn's third grade picture Something else Glenn helped with as a third grader was setting out tobacco He recalls vividly the day he stayed out of school to drag the rows down to make them flat so his granddaddy could set out the tobacco plants. He did this by taking a mule and hooking a log behind it that would cover two rows. Glenn says his granddaddy "always liked to fuss," and this particular day wa no exception. He "fussed" that Glenn was not staying far enough ahead of him, because Glenn would make a nm up and down the field and would stop to let the mule rest since it was sweating. But after Glenn's dad told him of the complaint, Glenn went ahead and fi Ii hed about three acres before stopping to let the mule rest. He then took the mule back to the stable where it ran into the pasnlre and fell over dead. "And mules cost you something back then, too," says Glenn. "I won't in but the third grade then. So we had to go out and bury the mule the next morning" This must have been a powerful lesson for an eight year old about the importance of periods of rest along with hard work.

The farm was located on Highway 264 west of Washington., which his dad had bought when Glenn was about three years old. I was the old Grimes Farm that had been divided into 50-acr farms and sold for $7,000 each. Glenn remembers that his dad was able to pay off the Farmer's Loan on the property in only seven years; property that included a house, packhouse, chicken house, milking barn, smokehouse, two tobacco barns, and an outside toilet There was a write-up in the newspaper about Glenn's dad paying off the property in seven years I Glenn with his mom and dad and other family among the tobacco plants.

On the property was an old house that was said to be an old tenant house or an old slave house. Glenn does remember living in that old house for a brief time until they built the newer house, kind of small, that had no running water at first, but did have electric lights.

"A little bit," says Glenn. Back then, the term "electric lights" meant just that, "lights."

They had no electrical appJiances, just mostly lights The refrigerator was an icebox, literally Big blocks of ice were delivered to put in the box to keep things cool. There were no deep freezers AJI the meat was kept in the smokehouse They burned coal instead of wood in a thick cast iron stove for heating the house. Glenn's mom u 'ed a washing pot outside to soak the family clothe in boiling water and then wring them out with the wash board. She eventually got a wringer washer and an electric refrigerator

By the time Glenn was in the sixth grade at the John SmaJl School, he 'started staying out of school a lot I would do mo t all of it, m st anything [on the farm]," he said. Things like getting up at 4:00 in the morning to take tobacco out of the barn, or getting up at 5:00, before school, to take tobacco off the sticks so it could be graded

Glenn recalls that their farm produced, orne of the prettiest tobacco around. Th yeven had pictures published in one of the farm magazines.

Glenn in the tobacco - field at age 12 or 13.

By the time Glenn entered the seventh grade at Washington High School (yes, the seventh grade was high school back then), his dad was really depending on him a lot since he wa the only boy in the family. He missed over forty days of school that year in order to work on the farm; so many days that he failed his grade and had to repeat the seventh grad the next school year Of course, he didn't really mind missing school because "1 hated school," says Glenn. Glenn's wife., Yvonne, says' He was very, very smart but he hated school" "I was good in math and sp lIing, but I didn't have to study for it, it just come natural," said Glenn. English, geography, and history didn't come so naturally

It was along about this same time, age 13 - 14, that Glenn was the one to take care of the ten acre cotton crop. Since there were no harvesters back then, the cotton had to be picked by hand, so he and his dad would drive into town and pick up 15 - 20 people to help pick the cotton. The pay was. 03 cent per pound and a really good picker could pick up to 300 pounds per day. They could just drive into town and load the truck up any day with people who were ready to pick cotton. The cotton was taken to market at

Singleton's on West Third Street. Sometimes the line would be so long with farmers waiting to sell their cotton that it might be '100 or 2:00 o'clock in the morning before he finished getting the cotton to market. "Daddy always came up the next day to get the money. Don't know how much it sold for," said Glenn.

In the eighth grade, Glenn's dislike for school continued. About half way through th eighth grade, he quit school. That didn't last very long, though, because the truant officer came and sent him back to school. During that school year, he did get a few weeks of respite from the hard work. It all started in his shop class when the students were making knives They used a 4-5 gallon bucket with gasoline in it and they would light it in order to heat their knives. One of the other students thought there wasn't nough gasoline in the bucket one day so he decided to pour in more hile it was burning You guessed it; the flame immediately came up the can. So he threw the can down, and it went all over Glenn. "It burned all the skin off my legs," said Glenn. "I didn't enjoy those six weeks out of school"

After going for about half of the ninth gracie, Glenn quit school again. This time it was for good. He continued farming with his dad for about a year. By this time they had 18 acres of tobacco and they still used mules, though they did have a one-row tractor

But the next year, Glenn's dad quit farming

On to the Factory:

Now that Glenn was almost 17 years old, he went to work at the Sampson Shirt

Factory here in Washington. He was hired as a bundle boy but in a few short months he began to take more responsibility at the factory by coming to work at 400 or 5:00 o'clock in the morning to light the boilers that heated the building and made stearn for the irons, and he would stay late in the evenings to clean up and sweep the floors. After six or eight months at the shirt factory, he was offered the opportunity to become a sewing machine mechanic. The mechanic from the main office in Kinston trained Glenn for about ight months. "After that, I was ready to take care of it by myself," said Glenn. So he did just that All those years ofhard work on the farm proved to be good training for him as he ventured into the world oftextiles and sewing machines. There were approximately 100 sewing machines in his care at that time. In fact, throughout his 18 years as a mechanic at the Sampson Shirt Factory, Glenn trained a lot ofmechanics. "J trained five mechanics all at once. Which J didn't know it all," he said.

The Wa hington Garment Factory was Glenn s next job. He remembers learning a lot there. Once again, he was a mechanic and also trained other mechanics, including one female who continued to work there until they closed a couple of years ago. After about five years, Glenn went to Coastal Apparel in Belhaven to continue working as a mechanic.

There were other jobs where Glenn was able to put to use everything he learned on previous jobs and on the farm growing up He orked at Pan lico Canvas on 264 west of

Washingtc)J1, where they made Army tents and bags. His next job was Belvoir Manufa turing where he eventually became the Vice-President of the company that mad hospital gowns, sheets, and scrubs. He was in charge of getting the work flow going and since he had two mechanics there, he only worked on machines when necessary After being at Belvoir for about a year, the company bought a new double-wide mobile home for Glenn and Yvonne to live in out behind the plant He left his home in Washington just like it was, furniture and everythino , and went to Belvoir to live for about four years.

Following the job at Belvoir, Glenn had a offer to go to Haiti to work. He knew some people who were starting a plant up there. All ofthe arrangements were made to 0-0 when he received a better offer from a plant on the other side of Greenville that made golf clothing for women He had done some work on the side for them and when they found out he was moving to Haiti, they offered him a po ition as their plant manager. He never made it to Haiti. There he was in charge of"whatev r come up." He worked ther for about five years until the market for expensive golf clothing for women began to decline

When he left there, he started driving everywhere, 200 - 300 miles per day checking out all the little upholstery shops and plants. "I finally built me up a business," he said. "I was working 80 - 90 hours a week 1n the early 90' s." There were a lot of little plants that couldn't afford a full-time mechanic, so they hired Glenn to work a day here and there.

He traveled as far as Mount Olive twice a week.

'For the last 16 years, I've worked on my own and enjoyed every minute ofit. I enjoy my work. I love my war '," says Glenn, who will be 69 years old in 0 tober of this year. Glenn at work on one of many sewing machines

It Hasn't Been ALL Hard Work:

Now, if you wand r did the hard-working young boyan the farm and the man in the factory ever have time for anything but work, the answer is "yes, of course." As a young boy, Glenn and his family visited his grandparents in Smithton on Sunday to spend th day There he would hook up with his cousins and roam the fields, hang around the creek and maybe do a little fishing, listen to the radio, play croquet, or pitch a few horse shoes. Oh, and they were "real" horse shoes, too. Not the ones like folks use today.

There was more fun for Glenn when be had a pony that he enjoyed riding, a black and white pinto. Sometimes he would ride the pony up to Wharton Station and get together with some friends to ride. He had friends in the Wanoco Community that he hung around with, also They went on hayrides down to Tranters Creek. He had lots of friends He went to church pretty regular, too, at Cherry Chapel where he got saved and joined the church. Glenn dressed in his Sunday best

Today, Glenn likes to take time out from being a sewing machine mechanic to tend the lawn or garden or set out flowers (Does that sound like more work?) He also enjoys fishing, especially on the James River during croaker season. Sometimes he and Yvonne take trips to the mountains with some of the rest of the family (there are two sons and four daughters along with sons-in-law and four grandchildren). However, those trips are usually only for about 3 days. "I' e never taken a whole week off," he said. Now why is that not surprising? For someone who "enjoys" and "loves" their work like Glenn, a week would be too long to be away Glenn and Yvonne with most of the family on Easter Sunday Glenn and the six sisters he grew up with