The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History
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The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History University of Arkansas 1 East Center Street Fayetteville, AR 72701 (479) 575-6829 Arkansas Memories Project Earl Franklin Cate Interviewed by Scott Lunsford, Eric Johnson, and Bob Cochran April 19, 2010 Sonora, Arkansas Copyright 2010 Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas. All rights reserved. Objective Oral history is a collection of an individual's memories and opinions. As such, it is subject to the innate fallibility of memory and is susceptible to inaccuracy. All researchers using these interviews should be aware of this reality and are encouraged to seek corroborating documentation when using any oral history interview. The Pryor Center's objective is to collect audio and video recordings of interviews along with scanned images of family photographs and documents. These donated materials are carefully preserved, catalogued, and deposited in the Special Collections Department, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville. The transcripts, audio files, video highlight clips, and photographs are made available on the Pryor Center Web site at http://pryorcenter.uark.edu. The Pryor Center recommends that researchers utilize the audio recordings and highlight clips, in addition to the transcripts, to enhance their connection with the interviewee. Transcript Methodology The Pryor Center recognizes that we cannot reproduce the spoken word in a written document; however, we strive to produce a transcript that represents the characteristics and unique qualities of the interviewee's speech pattern, style of speech, regional dialect, and personality. For the first twenty minutes of the interview, we attempt to transcribe verbatim all words and utterances that are spoken, such as uhs and ahs, false starts, and repetitions. Some of these elements are omitted after the first twenty minutes to improve readability. The Pryor Center transcripts are prepared utilizing the University of Arkansas Style Manual for proper names, titles, and terms specific to the university. For all other style elements, we refer to the Pryor Center Style Manual, which is based primarily on The Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition. We employ the following guidelines for consistency and readability: • Em dashes separate repeated/false starts and incomplete/redirected sentences. • Ellipses indicate the interruption of one speaker by another. • Italics identify foreign words or terms and words emphasized by the speaker. • Question marks enclose proper nouns for which we cannot verify the spelling and words that we cannot understand with certainty. The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas ii Arkansas Memories Project, Earl Franklin Cate Interview, April 19, 2010 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ • Brackets enclose o italicized annotations of nonverbal sounds, such as laughter, and audible sounds, such as a doorbell ringing; o annotations for clarification and identification; and o standard English spelling of informal words. • Commas are used in a conventional manner where possible to aid in readability. Citation Information See the Citation Guide at http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/about.php. The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas iii Arkansas Memories Project, Earl Franklin Cate Interview, April 19, 2010 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Scott Lunsford, Eric Johnson, and Bob Cochran interviewed Earl Franklin Cate on April 19, 2010, in Sonora, Arkansas. [00:00:00] Scott Lunsford: Okay. Great. Well, Earl, thanks for [camera clicks]—uh—bein' with us. Uh—today we're talking with—uh—Earl Franklin Cate. And— uh—my name is Scott Lunsford. We are at Earl's place out here—out in Sonora . Earl Franklin Cate: Sonora. SL: . Arkansas. It's just outside of Springdale. Uh—it's—uh— what's the county road? EFC: Three ninety-nine. SL: Three ninety-nine, just before you get to the—uh—Beaver Lake—uh—bridge out by Sonora. Um—the—uh—today's date is April the nineteenth . EFC: Mh-hmm. SL: . two thousand ten. And—um—we are—uh—here for the Pryor Center. We're doing a high-definition audio and video recording interview with—uh—Earl first. We'll do Ernie here in a few days. And then we'll [camera clicks] try and get y'all together after that. Um—we're gonna take this recording, and it's gonna be archived [camera clicks] at the University of The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas 1 Arkansas Memories Project, Earl Franklin Cate Interview, April 19, 2010 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Arkansas in the Special Collections Department in Mullins Library, Fayetteville campus. We'll preserve it forever. We'll give you a DVD of all the raw footage of this recording. Uh— we'll scan what photos we have from your family photo albums and artifacts that you've got around the house here. Uh—you'll get copies of that. That'll be on the DVD, as well. Uh—we will transcribe this interview, so you'll have a printed transcript that we'll send to you for your approval. And if there's anything in this interview that you don't want the rest of the world to know, [laughter] we'll take it out. EFC: All right. [00:01:37] SL: Or if there's something that isn't . EFC: Yeah. SL: . really clear . EFC: Right. SL: . about what we're talkin' about and we want to clarify it, why, we'll clear all that with you, and we'll . EFC: Okay. SL: . make sure that you're comfortable with what we're doing. When all that's said and done, we'll—we'd like to—uh—post this interview—uh—in its entirety, printwise, as far as the transcript, and audiowise. But we'll also—uh—put some The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas 2 Arkansas Memories Project, Earl Franklin Cate Interview, April 19, 2010 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ highlights of this video—uh—on the web of this interview. And—uh—all that will meet with your approval. EFC: Okay. SL: If all of that's okay with you, Earl, [EFC laughs] then we're gonna get started on this interview. EFC: All right. SL: If it's not, we'll stop and wait for lunch. [EFC laughs] EFC: Okay. SL: Is it . EFC: Let's go. [00:02:19] SL: All right. Let's go. All right. Um—well, the first thing we have to start with is when and where you were born. EFC: Well, [clears throat] Ernie and I were born in Marshall, Arkansas. That's Searcy County. Uh—it was December 26, [19]42. Uh—that was at my grandmother's house there where we were born. And then Dad was in the service at the time, and he didn't make it up in time when we were born but—uh— yeah. And both grandmothers were—my dad's mom was there, too. SL: So was it a home birth? Was it . EFC: Yes. It was at Grandmother's . SL: You were born in the house. The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas 3 Arkansas Memories Project, Earl Franklin Cate Interview, April 19, 2010 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ EFC: . house, and they—and they didn't know she was—that Mom was gonna have twins. [SL laughs] They delivered me first and the—in fact, the doctor was packin' his stuff up and gettin' ready to go, [Eric Johnson laughs] and my gran—one of my grandmothers said, "Well, somethin's just not right here, you know—uh—there's somethin'—you know, she's not doin' right." So he—well, I'll be darned if they didn't find Ernie. [Laughter] In fact, they even put him in the oven overnight 'cause it was in—cold in the wintertime. SL: Is that right? EFC: 'Cause he was a little underweight. I mean, they didn't have the gas on, but [laughs] . SL: Yeah. EFC: . I mean, it kept him, you know, like an incubator. [Laughs] [00:03:33] SL: So this is . EFC: He was smaller. SL: . this was at your grandparents' house. EFC: It was at my mom's mother and father's house in . SL: Uh-huh. EFC: . Marshall. SL: Uh-huh. EFC: Yeah. The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas 4 Arkansas Memories Project, Earl Franklin Cate Interview, April 19, 2010 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [00:03:41] SL: And what was your mom's maiden name? EFC: Brown. SL: Brown. And so . EFC: Yeah. SL: . her grandparents' names were? EFC: Her—her folks—well, you know, Stacy was her mom's name and—and W. E. Brown, he was a barber in Marshall. He had a barbershop. SL: And what was your mother's name? EFC: Florence. SL: Florence Brown. EFC: Mh-hmm. SL: Did she have a middle name? Do you . EFC: Almeda. SL: Almeda? That's neat. How do you spell that? Do you know? EFC: A-L-E-M-E-D-A, I guess. I'm—or A-L-M-E-D-A. I'm not positive about that. [Laughs] SL: We'll look it up. [Laughs] EJ: That's an Arkansas name. EFC: Yeah. [00:04:15] SL: Um—so—um—the oven, was that a [EFC laughs] gas—was that a gas stove? Or was it a woodstove? The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas 5 Arkansas Memories Project, Earl Franklin Cate Interview, April 19, 2010 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ EFC: Yeah, you know, I don't know.