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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview C-0316, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Ethelene McCabe Allen was born in 1934 to tenant farmers and spent most of her childhood moving around Wayne County and Johnston County, North Carolina. This interview is the third in a thirteen-part series of interviews conducted by her daughter, Barbara C. Allen. In this interview, Allen focuses on describing her childhood and relationships within her family. Beginning with a brief description of her parents' relationship, Allen moves to a discussion of how her parents disciplined their children. Allen recalls that while her parents exercised stern discipline, she and her siblings were never treated cruelly. Overall, Allen describes a happy childhood, although she also contends that her parents never displayed overt affection towards their children. Throughout the interview, Allen offers numerous anecdotes regarding her parents' work as tenant farmers, their leisure activities, and her mother's efforts to abide by prescribed gender ideals for domestic work. She briefly describes the effects of her father's death in 1958, when her mother and her younger brother had to assume responsibility for the family's farm. Most of the interview, however, centers around Allen's memories from her childhood during the 1930s and 1940s. Researchers will be especially interested in Allen's vivid recollections about her upbringing for their ability to shed light on the kinds of family dynamics that were characteristic of typical tenant farming families during this era.
Born in 1934 to tenant farmers in North Carolina, Ethelene McCabe Allen focuses on describing family dynamics that shaped her childhood, paying particular attention to her parents' relationship with each other and with their children.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
It is Sunday afternoon. We are back with Ms. Ethelene Allen. We had to interrupt our previous session because her grandson came by with his child and two stepchildren. All right, we were talking about your father. Please tell me his name again.
George Emmitte McCabe and he was called Emmitte. He was called "Little Emmitte" in his earlier days because he had an uncle Emmitte that he lived with after his dad died.
His uncle Emmitte was called Big Emmitte. Is that correct?
Big Emmitte and Little Emmitte.
When was your dad born?
1908, March 3rd. I think it was the 3rd or 2nd, I'm not sure now, I've forgotten.
We can verify that through Patricia, the genealogist.
Oh yes.
Where was he born?
I guess he was born in Elevation Township. I never heard any other.
As far as you know, but you're not sure. Patricia would probably have that information too.
Yes.
How old was he when he died?
The grandfather?
Your father.
Oh, my father.
We're skipping ahead to when he died.
He was fifty.
What year did he die in?
'58.
What did he die of?
A cerebral hemorrhage, a stroke.
He was living out here in Elevation Township when he died?
Yes.
In that house. Was he living in the same house that you had moved to on that last move of yours before you got married?
Yes.
How far was that from here, from where you all were living?
A mile.
A mile.
Can you describe his character to me? Can you tell me what he was like, generally?
It's hard to describe, I guess. I never really thought about it that much.
Did he get angry?
Sometimes he got angry! Sometimes he would—sometimes he would
lose patience with Mama. He might sling a cook pot out in the yard.
Why did he sling a cook pot out in the yard?
I don't recall what it was all about. But they were arguing. Mama could be critical of things, if they weren't like she thought they ought to be. Some people would even call it nagging. She could do some things like nagging somebody and that's the way he took it, maybe. Sometimes he'd get angry. But mostly he was fairly calm and relaxed.
Did he ever get angry with you or the other children?
Occasionally. More so at Cecil than anybody else, cause Cecil would try anybody. He was something. He got whippings, he got whippings bad enough I felt sorry for him sometimes, even though I knew he deserved them.
What was used when whipping children?
He had a razor strap.
Oh my.
Where he sharpened his razor blade when he shaved, that old timey razor blade. They didn't have the safety razors and they had a razor strap—a piece of leather like thing. Or sometimes his belt, if he was out somewhere and didn't have the razor strap, he could use the belt on him. Sometimes at the house I recall him using a belt.
On Cecil.
But now he never beat him with a buckle. He never beat him with things like sticks and buckles and things like that.
He never used a peach tree switch or something like that.
I don't believe he did. He would use a strap more than he did something like that. Now he did a time or two use plow lines—a rope, when that was the most convenient thing to use when he became angry or impatient with him. When he told him something to do and he didn't do it.
But he never struck you?
Oh yes, there were a couple of times I recall when he did, me and Maverene when we were little. We didn't move as fast as he wanted us to and he had yelled at us and we didn't respond as quickly as we should have. He put a plow line on us one time. He lost patience with us and was angry. It hurt, but we were pretty good little kids. We didn't disobey that much. We were afraid of those whippings. We saw Cecil get them. We didn't want any like that.
What about James? Did he get punished?
I don't recall him ever whipping James, but now James was a good little boy too. He was obedient. He was a good little boy.
Let's go ahead at this point and list your siblings and say when they were born. Now the oldest was Cecil. When was he born?
'31.
1931.
June of '31.
You remember the date?
June 3rd.
You were next.
September 10th, '34.
And Maverene?
September 10th, '36.
And James?
November 1st, '42.
What—does Cecil have a middle name?
Esco. Starts with an E. E-s-c-o.
Cecil Esco McCabe.
Aunt Nellie came up with that name. I have no idea where she got it.
Aunt Nellie gave him that middle name. And your full birth name?
Beulah Ethelene McCabe. I didn't have a birth certificate. There was a midwife that delivered me. Doctors delivered the rest of them. But she had had one and I think it might have been ten dollars to deliver—for the doctor to come out and deliver and it was five dollars for a midwife, so she saved money by having the midwife come and deliver me. I grew up with dark eyes. The others had blue eyes and I had the dark—the brown eyes, like Daddy, and a little darker skin. I tanned easily; it was fair skin, but yet it was—Maverene and the others had the light enough skin that they freckled slightly and I never had a freckle on my face. I just had really smooth skin and no blemishes, except that little tiny mole above the lip. They said the reason I was dark is because the black woman delivered me.
The midwife?
The midwife. She was a black lady in the community that did that. She was known as a midwife. She didn't make out a birth certificate for me. Mama didn't realize it was that important at that time. The rest of them got birth certificates but I didn't.
So all the rest were delivered by doctors? At home? Not in a hospital?
By doctors at home. Not in a hospital. The doctors came out to the home.
And the doctors were all males—white males?
Yes.
Who would make that comment about you being darker because of—
Oh my brother Cecil probably started it. He loved to pick and aggravate and do anything he could to—
Get a reaction.
Yeah. He loved those reactions, like throwing my paper dolls in the
fireplace to see how I would react to that. Of course I cried. I was
upset about it. Many years later when he said he was—he was
somewhat mischievous when he was growing up, but he was never mean, and
I disagreed with him.
Let's go back to your father. Did he show affection to you?
Not really. A lot of people didn't then. Actually my mother didn't,
either. They didn't pick you up and hug you. They didn't kiss you or say
goodnight to you or anything like that. When Maverene was born, I was
two years old that day. After that I knew I was on my own. Mama said I
would put myself to bed at night. If she looked around and missed me,
she might look for me and I'd be in there in the bed asleep. I'd go to
bed on my own and do for myself. I learned that I had to look out for
myself. I was fairly independent. I grew up to be independent and take
care of my own needs. But, you know, Mama took care of us, but I
remember Maverene sitting on her lap a lot, but I don't recall ever
sitting on either parent's lap, ever. I do recall one time visiting
neighbors. Walked to visit them, that next door neighbors down the road.
This was the black family that lived close to us that we thought so much
of. I played with the little girl named Dorothy. We called her Dot. We
had walked down and visited them. I remember—I might have
been four years old, it's one of my earliest
You remember all the concern they showed.
I barely remember—I remember the commotion that went on. I don't remember it all. It's somewhat vague, but I do remember there was a commotion about my disappearance and when I walked to the house and they found out I was not really lost. I didn't get a spanking for it or anything, for upsetting them, cause they realized that I just was looking out for myself. I didn't—they was afraid I had wandered off. They didn't know what had happened to me—they were looking in the woods
These were your parents looking, both of them, and the neighbors too.
Oh yeah. They had contacted the neighbors and they were all out scouring the woods and everywhere. But I didn't see it as a serious thing. A four year old doesn't see it as a serious thing.
Was your father easy to talk to?
He's not one I would confide in, anything. We kind of kept things to
ourselves. We didn't talk about a lot of things to our parents. We just
didn't. They didn't talk about a lot of things in front of us. No we
weren't what you would call close. I mean, we relied on them. They would
brag on me being a good student as I went on to school and made such
good grades. They would brag on how good Ethelene does in school and I
felt good about it. I knew my parents
You don't remember any men like that.
No, I don't remember any men that expressed their feelings like that.
Now, he was a tenant farmer while you were growing up and he died a tenant farmer.
Yes.
But he did do some other jobs along the way, didn't he?
Yeah, he tried running a little restaurant for one—a grill, just a few short months but he—that was not his thing and he soon realized it.
Where was the grill?
It was near Four Oaks.
What did he cook—hotdogs, hamburgers.
Yes, just sandwich stuff.
And he owned it?
No, he rented it. He paid rent. He bought out the inventory and paid rent on the building.
You remember what it was called?
The Green Cat, of all things.
So that was a grill.
The Green Cat. They had one of those jukeboxes and people came in and danced. I do believe they—I'm not sure whether they sold beer there or not. I don't recall their selling beer there.
When would that have been?
But they had all kinds of drinks. I don't recall them having beer there
How old were you when he had that?
I was thirteen.
It would have been after the war—'47 or so.
I guess so.
It was just a few months.
Yeah, couple of months maybe, three months. Maybe from December until March. I think in March then we did start tending Mr. Henry Raynor's place. He was looking for a tenant cause his tenant had died and he didn't have anybody to—they usually were rented by December. People were—had their next year's plans made, so there was daddy without a place to go and so for awhile after he quit that store he put on—he worked on roofing—roofing houses and it was a very cold winter and Mama was concerned about him. Scared to death he would fall off a roof and get hurt. She didn't like him working on roofs. She was real concerned about that and didn't want him working there, so when he found the opportunity to rent that farm he did.
Where had he been a tenant before he opened up the grill?
Over at Smithfield.
Why did he leave that tenant situation?
I don't know. He—I guess like a lot of people they get tired of what they are doing and they want to change. He probably was about forty. He was close to forty and he might have looked back on his life and thinking he was getting nowhere and he would try something different. I didn't like that grill atmosphere and everything there. I just didn't like it.
What was the atmosphere like?
I don't know, just not the peaceful farm—some people came in and wanted to dance and they were drunk. You had to put up with people that had been drinking and were foolish.
So they didn't drink there but they—
I don't think they did but they would come in—maybe have
their own or something and come in there to get something to
eat—a sandwich or something—and play the jukebox
and dance. I remember a drunk woman coming in one time. She was foolish,
she was talking about "my dog died," and I
Where did you live?
We did live in a tenement—tenant house on the other side of
Four Oaks for just that maybe three months. It was an old house that
Gilbert Grady owned. He just had property and rented it out to make
money. He didn't spend much money on the place. There was no insulation
in it, of course, in none of the houses we lived in, or the one I moved
into when we got married. It came a blowing snow one—during
that time —probably in January. It snowed into one of the
rooms. Came through the roof somehow, up in the attic, blew down on
Cecil's bed. He woke up in the morning with his quilts covered with
snow. Course it was cold in the room. We had no heat in the house, just
an old wood heater that fired up in one room. Wind could blow through
the weather board and there was no, not even ceilings in his room, I
think, just old weatherboard on the outside. It was pretty open to the
weather and it snowed in there on him. I'll never forget that. We still
talk—he still talks about how it snowed on him one night
I'm sure it was surprising to wake up in the morning.
With snow on top of your covers.
But he was warm apparently enough.
Well, we had feather beds. We had those striped ticking feather beds and feather pillows. Goose down that people had saved from geese long time ago and they had made feather beds. You could drop into that thing, fluff it up and drop into it, put quilts over you. You were fully insulated. You didn't get cold. You could stay warm.
Did your mother work at the grill too?
She did. But it's not work that she was suited for either.
What did she do?
Oh, she made sandwiches, washed the dishes, and served the drinks and whatever they ordered.
What did your dad do there?
He operated the cash register and did whatever was needed, talked to the people, was the host, I guess you'd call it. He was a friendly person.
Did he name it the Green Cat or was it already—
No it was already named that when he bought it. He didn't name it. To
me, I—maybe I felt above
Did you do any work there? What did you do?
Oh I probably did do—I mostly would sit in there in a booth and do—I think there were little booths in there maybe but not tables and chairs. There were little booths you could sit in and drink a cola or eat your sandwich, whatever. People could play the jukebox and dance awhile, then go sit down, rest.
So you sat there and—
I would sit there and do my homework mostly, because that's what I had to do. I would be there but I would do my homework. At thirteen, some of the teenager boys would come in sometimes and flirt with me. I was indifferent toward them.
Had any of them ever been drinking—did they come in and—
No, no.
So you just didn't feel comfortable being there.
No, I didn't like it. I was glad when Daddy changed. I liked it on the farm.
Did he hire anybody to work for him there?
Yeah, he paid the brother of the former owner. I think he had worked for his brother. He hired him. He was an Allen. They were Allens, Daniel Allen had owned it and Raymond Allen was the brother. He trusted Raymond with the cash register too. I think he was losing his profit there so he eventually had to call it quits and go out of business. People were breaking in to his storage room, too, and stealing cigarettes and drinks.
He sold cigarettes there.
Yeah. Of course they had to sell cigarettes.
What kind of drinks did he sell? Cola, Pepsi?
Yeah, all the kinds they made then. But they would steal cases of them out of the storage room.
So you think the theft became so great that he just
Oh, I think so. Yeah. Yes. He was losing more than he was making and I always felt like Daddy was too trusting. He was very ethical and moral and he expected everybody else would be, so he trusted people to be as ethical as he was. They just weren't. Some people take advantage of somebody like that. I mean I'm not accusing anybody. I don't know what happened, but something I thought about.
So he went into roofing then.
Oh, he hired out to a roofing man and worked with him for awhile, not long, before he got the—
It must have been tough to do that in his forties.
Yeah. Daddy was a little overweight anyway. He had the little round—large waistline—and climbing up and down on top of the roof. He was not used to that kind of thing.
So was it—
And he was—Daddy was always kind of slow deliberate mover. He was not a fast paced person. He didn't care for that. He was never a carpenter or anything like that. Now he worked for his uncle and I believe I talked about that before, didn't I.
At the sawmill.
He was good with math.
But—and he handled the lumber, I don't know what all he did at the sawmill. I don't know if he sawed logs or whatever. But he was young and able then. A teenager. Up to about twenty probably. He could do about anything then.
So was this something he did—the roofing—just until the opportunity to farm came up again. He had missed the season for hiring on as a tenant, was that it?
Yeah. So when this opportunity came up we—he jumped on it. He and Mr. Raynor got along really well. The whole Raynor family and us—we got along really well. Mr. Raynor was a good landlord and he really appreciated Daddy being a good tenant.
That was then the last landlord he worked for.
The last place. And he died when James was sixteen and James stayed on. James and Mama stayed on there and worked the farm. Leonard helped them. They worked the farm.
Leonard is your husband.
Mr. Raynor let them stay he was not about to run them off and get somebody else. If they were willing to do it, he was willing to let them stay. So he stayed until he graduated. Then the year he graduated—and he turned eighteen in November. His year he was in his senior year so he was eighteen in November and he stayed on and farmed through the next year. Then along that fall when all the crops were sold they let Mr. Raynor know that they would be moving so he got another tenant. I don't think he had another tenant though. I think he rented the land to somebody and the house he rented it to somebody to live in, just the house, but not the whole farm. I think somebody in the neighborhood, somebody tended the farm, the land, and the tenants just probably some kind of day laborers or something.
Was it unusual back then to allow a widow and a teenage son to farm a place after the—
Didn't happen too much. Cause James had never taken much responsibility. He didn't even have his driver's license when Daddy died. So he had to become a man real fast and get his driver's license and work the tractor. He had never even worked the tractor before. I think Daddy did all that. It was one of those tough old tractors—old tractor that was hard to change gears and all that. But James managed it and he did it.
Your husband helped out.
Yeah, Leonard helped him some. Without his help James probably couldn't have managed it. He at least told him what and when to do things. He relied on his experience to know when he had to do certain things and he would help him get the machinery right to do it.
When to plant, when to fertilize and all that.
How to plow. He probably helped him with the cultivators and how to
plow. Now when Cecil was growing up we had mules, we didn't have a
tractor. Cecil had to plow a mule. In fact, I think we had two mules and
daddy
When did he get the tractor? When did your dad get the tractor?
I guess it was after we moved to that Raynor farm, cause he had to buy a mule. He had sold everything. He had to buy new things to farm with, so he got a new mule. Then later on he bought a tractor. He stayed there a number of years, I don't know how long. Well, it would have been about ten years I guess, from age forty to age fifty.
When did that house burn down?
There was a family living in it, but I don't remember when.
It was before I was born, wasn't it?
Yeah.
Before '67.
Yeah. I don't remember. Several people lived in that house. It was a family of blacks that had moved into it. They had lived in another house and burned it down before they went to that one. They moved in that one and then it burned. I think what it was, if they were old chimneys and they probably had a rip-roaring fire. It was too much for the chimneys and it caught fire in there and burned out. The same thing had happened at the other old farmhouse they had lived in. That was the end of that place. It was a few years after Mama moved out. I don't remember how long it was.
Then—was it then—who did your mother go to live with then?
Oh, she and James had a—they rented an apartment in
Smithfield. He worked at some store. I don't remember—some
store clerk or something. He got into shipping and receiving clerk.
Mostly receiving clerk, I guess, when things came in. He worked at that
later, when he moved to Raleigh. He got married, he and his wife moved
to Raleigh, and that's when Mama moved in with me. So she came to live
with me. She didn't want to live in Raleigh. She didn't know anybody in
Raleigh and she wanted to be here in the country where she
could—knew people and could be with people she knew and get
to visit her sister, Aunt Nellie. She visited her a
How much education did your father have?
I think sixth grade was about as far as he got. Through sixth grade.
You sure it was through sixth grade. I was thinking it was through third grade.
Noooo! I think he got sixth grade and Mama got seventh grade, but after seventh grade then you went to high school. Eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh was high school and there was no twelfth at that time.
And where was high school then?
In Four Oaks.
It was in Four Oaks.
You had to go to Four Oaks.
So what kind of school did they go to?
Some little country school that had all grades in it. A little small country school, little square school house where they put everybody in there. I guess they had outhouses then, they didn't have running water. A well and outhouses. People took their lunch to school: a biscuit, a piece of salt-cured meat that they had fried at breakfast.
You're talking about when your parents went to school.
Yes, when parents went to school. You asked me how much education they had.
So, he worked as a tenant farmer, he managed a grill, and he was a roofer. Did he ever do anything else?
Not that I know of.
Did he ever hire out as labor on other—
No.
What did he do for leisure? Did he have leisure time?
Listened to the radio. Sit and listen to the radio.
Sit and listen to the radio. Do you remember if he had a favorite program on the radio?
I don't remember programs.
Did he like music most of all?
Well, now, we did listen to that Grand Ole Opry thing a lot, country music, when that was on. I can't remember.
That's okay.
I remember one that—a mystery that they played. There were
some soap operas on the radio that Mama liked to listen to when we were
in the pack house sorting tobacco, getting it ready for the market, she
would—there was certain shows she liked to hear. Daddy would
listen to them too. Young Widow Brown.
That's okay.
I didn't pay them any attention.
She liked the soap operas and I recall she still liked the soap operas when they went to TV. We would sit shelling peas and she would want to watch the soap operas. But he liked the Grand Ole Opry. Were there any comic routines he liked?
Well Mama liked it too. I don't remember the comic routines. There were some of course, but I don't remember.
Did he sing at all around the—
Oh, he played a harmonica. He didn't sing, I don't recall ever hearing him sing, but he played a harmonica and he could do a really good job of it. He had his little—he called it a breath harp. He'd pull it out of his pocket or in a drawer wherever he kept it. He would play it once in a while but he wasn't into it that much; we'd have to ask him to and he could do that freight train sound with it. Blow the whistle like the freight train. He could do a lot—he had some musical talent. And he could dance. He danced some out there at that place. That's one thing Mama didn't like. She didn't dance.
The grill?
She didn't dance. Course I think he danced with some woman one night.
She didn't like that at all.
So he was a good dancer.
Yeah, he could dance. Kevin got some of his talents from daddy, I think.
And Kevin's my younger brother, your youngest child.
He's very talented in a lot of ways. He can dance, he can draw pictures, he's good with math. He was in the math—not super bowl was it—what was it.
I don't remember.
Some kind of math competition that he was a member of.
And your dad was good at math, too.
And both my parents read well. They didn't have any problem. They had used their time in school and learned a lot. They weren't ignorant, you know, they knew a lot for—and they continued to read.
What did your dad read?
Well, he read newspapers. He always subscribed to a newspaper.
Which newspaper was it? Do you remember?
I remember the Goldsboro News Argus and probably the Smithfield Herald back then. Those kinds of papers. The local paper. Whatever was delivered in that area. I don't recall if he—he might have got the News and Observer part of the time.
Patricia recalls him reading
Yeah, I think he did. He got the News and Observer.
So, all the time you were growing up, while he was tenant farming, he subscribed to the newspaper, local papers, and read them?
And we went to movies. We weren't like a lot of children. And we always got something for Christmas now. Now he was not wealthy, but he saw that his family was taken care of, where some children didn't get anything for Christmas. I learned later—I heard —had somebody tell me one time they were always envious of us because we always got something for Christmas—nice gifts for Christmas. Dolls with doll furniture and things like that, that—
What kinds of presents did you get?
Oh, we always got a doll when we were young enough.
You and Maverene.
We each one would get a doll. I remember a Princess Elizabeth doll cause
she was young at that time. They made a doll. It was really pretty with
the pretty hair. We got a Princess Elizabeth doll. One of us, I don't
even remember now which one it belonged to. And there was one called
Sunshine. I remember one called Sunshine. We got nice dolls. We might
have got a Shirley Temple doll at one time too. I seem to recall one of
those. And we got things like globes of the world, maybe a bank, coin
bank that was a globe of the world. We got gifts. We went to Goldsboro
when we lived down there and of course at Smithfield when we lived in
this area. We would go to town and go shopping and Daddy would always
give us a little bit of money to spend. For ten cents you could buy
something pretty back then. It didn't take a whole dollar,
There were dime stores.
They were called dime stores and you could buy things for a dime.
Up in my area there are five dollar stores.
I remember the first time I bought a lipstick and Mama allowed it. I was too young to wear it, but she allowed it. I wore it to school in sixth grade. I paid ten cents for a tube of lipstick at one of the dime stores in Goldsboro. We went to Mount Olive and shopped sometimes. We would go to the movies at Goldsboro on Saturday night when we lived. A lot of Saturday nights we would go to the movies.
You lived in Wayne County for six years. Well, we'll get back to that. So you think maybe he showed his affection for you through making sure you had something for Christmas?
Oh, yeah, he cared for us and he cared about us and he was proud of us, but you know, he didn't talk about it. I guess he figured we would assume that. He didn't have to say it. That's the way people were back then. They didn't say things.
Did he curse?
When he got really angry he would sometimes. But that was rare. It was
rare. He wouldn't let us say anything like that. Cecil I think cursed
Mama one time and he wore him out
Did your parents keep books in the house?
We had very few books. Mama would buy a modern romance magazine once in a while. I read them because that was all I had to read. I had library books and I checked out a lot of library books. I read a lot of the library books—the classics and all those.
What about your father? Did he read books?
I don't recall him having books. Of course they had a Bible, but they didn't read that regularly either. I remember the magazines she would read. He read the newspapers and that was about—probably about all the time they had to put into it.
Did he play any instruments besides the harmonica?
No. That's the only thing I ever knew about him playing.
He danced. Did he play cards?
Not really. I don't think he was interested in cards. Never with men, anyway. I recall when I was a teenager, my brother liked to play cards. We would get together and play cards—Rook, with some of the neighborhood kids. But I've forgotten how to play it now. I wouldn't even know how to play cards. We played a few games of cards back then with neighbors—Dillard Durham and different neighbors. It was just a fun thing. There was no gambling or betting or anything like that.
Did your dad ever smoke or dip snuff?
He dipped snuff. He and Mama both dipped snuff. That was the stylish thing back then. They had their snuff boxes and they dipped snuff. My grandmother dipped snuff.
That was Hattie Crocker.
Yes. Now the other grandparents—I don't know if they used any of that stuff or not. It's rather doubtful that her daddy did because he was a very clean-living man from what I heard her say. He was a clean-living man.
You mean Ransom Barbour.
Yes, Ransom Barbour, her daddy, Mama's daddy.
So both your parents dipped snuff but they didn't smoke.
No. Daddy would get a pack of cigarettes during tobacco curing time. That's when Maverene and I tried some one time. He had part of a pack left over after the tobacco curing season, laid up somewhere in the house. He just put them up and forgot about them. Cause he didn't care for smoking. He really didn't care about smoking. But he would smoke and puff it around his head to keep the mosquitoes from biting him when he had to sit up with his tobacco barn when he was going up on the heats. You ran it at a certain heat and then when it got to a certain color of curing you had to get the heats up higher. He had the thermometer in there so he could tell. It had to be on—he knew how to cure tobacco. But with an old wood-burning furnace you had to keep throwing in the wood. You had to know how to feed it, so he had to stay up all night some nights to cure tobacco. He would puff a little smoke around to keep down the mosquitoes. Sometimes they would have old trash tobacco that they would—maybe left from a previous season that they threw out or something. They would burn it—set fire to it—and burn it around the barn to keep mosquitoes down, from biting you.
Did you ever see him drinking, drink alcohol?
I don't recall ever seeing him drink it but I do recall maybe six or eight times in my lifetime that I saw he had been drinking some.
What did he act like when he had been drinking?
I really don't recall that. I don't recall him drinking enough to really
notice the difference in him. I know he would drink enough that Mama
knew he'd been drinking and she would fuss at him, because she despised
alcohol. She despised the use of it and she did not want him spending
money to buy it because we needed other things. She had seen where some
men would buy alcohol and drink it and let their family go hungry. But
he never did that, now. Mostly in the fall, when he sold
Had anybody in her family drunk too much?
I don't know. Now, her dad didn't. I'm sure she had seen people that did. Aunt Nellie's husband, Uncle Alton, he drank some.
I recall that.
Yeah.
Let's talk about your mother now. Tell me her full name.
They didn't give her two names at birth—it was just Beulah Barbour.
And Beulah is spelled B-e-u-l-a-h, right?
Correct.
Now she named you Beulah Ethelene.
Right.
Why was that?
Well, she wanted a little girl like her, I guess. She named her little girl. I don't know why she didn't name Cecil after Daddy. You know a lot of people did. They named their first boy after the daddy, but she didn't. I guess there had been two Emmitte's already and she didn't want to do that. So he was Cecil E but it was Cecil Esco instead of Cecil Emmitte.
What is Maverene's full name?
She was just Maverene.
She was just Maverene. And James—what is James' full name.
James Edward.
James Edward.
There are a lot of James Edwards in the world.
You've always felt funny about the Beulah in your name, haven't you? Did they try calling you Beulah at all when you were a little girl or did they just go by Ethelene?
No, Ethelene. I would tell them my name was Ethelene McCabe and that's all they—and I don't know that I was even aware of the Beulah until some time later. I just—they just didn't call me that and I didn't—it was not written like that, so I just didn't even pay that much attention to it. Somehow I just didn't—didn't like those old—I thought they were old-timey names and I didn't like them.
Beulah, you mean
Beulah and Eulah—and a lot of those names like that.
What other names were kind of old-fashioned sounding.
Bessie and some of those. Minnie.
But you liked Ethelene.
I didn't have any problem with Ethelene.
And Maverene.
It was different. It was easy for people to remember that I was
Ethelene. But I've met a lot of people since then who are named
Ethelene. Some of them are younger than I am. I wondered if they heard
of my name and named them after me.
When was your mother born?
1913, December 10th.
Where was she born?
Oh, in Elevation Township, I'm sure. Somewhere around that Hickory Grove community, Lassiter settlement.
How old was she when she died?
Let's see, was she 78 or almost 78. She died December 1st, I believe she
died December 1st, I can't even recall—
—sparrow trap.
That was my sister Patricia who called to talk on the phone and we had to pause. Now we're picking up again. I asked you how old Grandma was when she died and when that was. When did she die?
And I think it was December 1st and she was buried maybe the 3rd.
What year?
Her birthday was on December 10th, so she would have been 78 on December 10th and she died just before her birthday.
It was in '91.
Yes, in '91, the first year I had worked at Raychem. I had gone to work there in January 28th and she died in December.
And I was in Russia then, wasn't I? With Suzanne, but I had spent some time with her in the hospital that summer, I think, after my first year at grad school or was it the previous summer before I went to grad school? Anyway. Let's not —
I'm not sure.
What did she die of?
Well, she had had heart attacks and she finally—and her heart damaged. It was in too bad a shape to do anything for her, so she just lived in a nursing home a short while. She had made the statement she didn't want to be there on her birthday, so she died a few days before her birthday. No, she died—you were in Indiana at that time, at the time she died, because—
Okay, that was after I had already returned from Russia.
You had returned from Russia.
And I think I did spend some time with her.
Yes, you stayed in the hospital. She was in the hospital that summer. They thought she would die. You stayed with her some.
Then I went back for my next year of graduate school.
Yes, you went back to Indiana and she died in December.
We had been up—Patricia and I went to visit you and stayed a few days with you during Thanksgiving season. I had to be back to carry the mail on Saturday because I was substitute mail carrier, in addition to working at Tyco, so I had to deliver the mail on Saturday and I had to be back and so we came home and I delivered the mail on Saturday. I went to see her on Sunday and the nurse called me over and said, "I don't know if you realize how—what condition your mother is in—that she could go at any moment. I said, "Oh yes, I fully understand that." I said, "I was uneasy about leaving, but I did go to Indiana, and just got back." She said, "She could go at any moment. We wanted to be sure that you understood that and won't be surprised." I said, "Oh, my sister and I both understand." I don't think my brothers did, but we did. She died that night while I was there. I was about to leave her and she just suddenly drew in a deep breath and was trying to breathe. Her arms and wrists, fists curled in, and she was gone. It just struck her and she was gone. So I didn't have to wonder about how it had happened or if she'd been neglected or anything. They were good to her. They were caring nurses.
Where was she? Was she at Johnston Memorial or Wake. It was Wake Memorial, wasn't it?
No, she was not in the hospital. She was in the nursing home up at Clayton and right now I can't think of the name of it, but it was up there at Clayton.
She was in the nursing home.
One close to Maverene. Maverene had made the arrangements.
Were you with your dad when he died?
No. I had—I was there when he was bad off but we
didn't—my Mama and I didn't have enough experience in life to
realize that he was dying. He complained of a severe headache. He said
it was just so bad it was just blinding him, but he had been out in the
snow tending to a curing
barn—tobacco—potato—sweet potato curing
barn and keeping a little heat in it. We had a big snowstorm. I was
there and waiting for Leonard to come and get me and he couldn't get the
car out. He had to go get me on the tractor and I rode home on the
tractor. I didn't realize Daddy was
Was there a telephone?
No, we didn't have telephones.
And you couldn't go get a doctor or couldn't think of it.
No. It was way the next day around noontime before—she rung a bell until a neighbor walked to her house, a nearby neighbor that was a good friend of Daddy. He walked back home, well he, I believe he walked over here and got us—told us to go over there. Leonard got the tractor and drove it back over there. We couldn't even go on the car. The snow was so deep. It was the deepest snow. I think it was about a 15-inch snow.
Wow, that's unusual.
It was very unusual. It had started snowing that morning and we expected it to quit. I went to work and then we—work closed down and Leonard was supposed to go pick me up at work. When he tried to go, he couldn't go.
You were working at the Jerold plant.
I was working at Jerold at Smithfield, sewing. Sewing factory. I was 22 years old, no, 24. I was 24 at that time, when Daddy died. I had worked there a couple of years I think, when he died. The neighbor got us to go over there. Then he drove his tractor to Four Oaks and it was still snowing and sleeting, just awfully cold, but he drove his tractor and almost froze getting to Four Oaks, three miles away, to contact a—and get an ambulance to go out. The ambulance had to come from Smithfield. They didn't have a Rescue Squad in Four Oaks with ambulances, so it had to come from Smithfield. It could get down 301 Highway but then it couldn't get out here, so they hooked a wrecker truck to the ambulance and pulled an ambulance out there to take him to the hospital. And he was dying at the time.
Was the road along there, along here paved at the time?
I don't believe it was paved at that time.
I don't think it was.
It was paved sometime after that. It was a dirt road. A lady brought me home. A very brave lady brought me home from—. She volunteered and brought me home. A Dorothy Parker. Her son is mayor of Four Oaks now, Lynwood Parker. I will always be grateful to Dorothy Parker for bringing me home.
She worked at the Jerold plant?
She worked and she was a supervisor at Jerold. She brought me home and dropped me off and managed to turn around and go back to Four Oaks. When it was closing time then, Leonard was going after me and he couldn't get there. He got over there on the tractor and he said, "I am sure glad to find you here." Cause he didn't know what he was going to do, that I might be stranded somewhere and no way to get anywhere. It was a bad time.
So they brought the wrecker truck, pulling the ambulance to get your dad.
Jimmy and Maverene, I think Leon Johnson called him at Four Oaks. He called him from Four Oaks. They had phones there. He called them and they—he put chains on his car and drove from Clayton and brought Maverene to the hospital, so—. They were with him when he died.
You couldn't get to the hospital.
Well, Mama wouldn't go with him. She was scared to go with him unless I went. Leonard was going to go, but he—he started shoveling out to try to get fixed so he could get the car on the road and get Daddy's car. Maybe he would drive that. He couldn't never even get that on the road. So Jimmy came with his chains and took us to the