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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 E-0003, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Clay East spent most of his childhood in Tyronza, Arkansas. The son of a farmer and store merchant, East became a founding member of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. In this interview, East discusses a wide variety of topics, but focuses primarily on life in Tyronza, his conversion to socialist politics, and his involvement with the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. East begins by offering some general comments about the first meeting of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, held in a small schoolhouse in Tyronza. He addresses the nature of opposition to the organization of tenant farmers and sharecroppers. From there he moves back in time to address his family history and life in Tyronza. During the World War I years, East went to school in Blue Mountain, Mississippi. After graduating from Mississippi Heights Academy around 1917, East spent a few months at the Gulf Coast Military Academy. During the 1920s, East learned the service station business, and by the end of the decade, he owned his own successful service station. By that time, Tyronza was being ravaged by the Great Depression. Although East's business survived (and even prospered), others in the area were not as fortunate. While East watched the tenant farmers and sharecroppers in the area suffer, his friend H. L. Mitchell introduced him to socialism. East was a quick convert, and during the early 1930s, he and Mitchell helped to organize the Socialist Party in Arkansas. Emboldened by a visit to the area by a leading figure of American socialism, Norman Thomas, East and Mitchell decided to organize a union of tenant farmers and sharecroppers. East describes in detail how the initial meetings of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union were organized and his work towards encouraging membership. East was actively involved in the union only during its first years, but he offers an insider perspective on the union's formation and its early activities. In particular, he focuses on the issue of integration in the union (which he advocated) and the visceral opposition the union faced from farm managers, planters, and local law enforcement, particularly during conflicts in Marked Tree and Forrest City, Arkansas.
Clay East was a founding member of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. In this interview, he describes life in Tyronza, Arkansas, during the 1920s and 1930s; his conversion to socialism; his observation of the problems of tenant farmers and sharecroppers; and his role in the formation of the union during the early 1930s.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
One thing that we talked about in particular last night was organizing the union to begin with when we all went out to the schoolhouse at Sunnyside, right?
Yes. Tell me again how that meeting came to be. You were telling me that somebody had organized it in a car.
I told you that Mitchell and myself and I know that there were two other guys that was in the car and I think one of them was Ward Rogers, but we was just driving around there at home, and Mitchell had this thing all planned out even before we got in the car. And I was to be the president and Mitchell was to be the secretary. And the balance of that, now, we didn't have E.B. McKinney as vice-president at that time and I wouldn't say for certain whether he was elected that first night or not, I can't remember for certain about that. But anyway, he was vice-president… E.B. McKinney…
At that first meeting at Sunnyside School did you elect officers?
Well, before we even had that meeting, it was understood. Mitchell had
this all set up and planned even before we had that meeting. Now, the
way he tells it in his meetings and speeches and so forth, was that this
meeting was, uh, we gotthere late an all. That meeting was all planned
and we all got out there when we was supposed to. I never was a person…
I'm not the type of person to be late and I'm sure that Mitch rode out
with me and
Mary Hillyer was from the Socialist party in New York?
Yes, she was on her way to New Orleans and stopped off in Memphis. Now I
don't know what the occasion was for her stopping. At that time Norman
Thomas was very active and, uh … in fact when Mitch sent Brookins and
this other guy down into Crittenden County
What is the county seat of Crittenden County?
Marion. Howard Kurten was the sheriff and they had the roughest, toughest
bunch of gangster officers that they could collect. Those guys had a
press… uh, not a press… but a commercial appeal. A reporter came out to
West Memphis… and that guy's name was Bragg, the big guy down there, and
he went up to his house to see him and took his pistol and beat him up.
And a man that was a brother to the Governor of Arkansas, it wasn't
Futrell, it might have been the lieutenant governor's borther, but they
stopped him on this Harahan Viaduct that was going into Memphis. The
Harahan Viaduct was put into there and they had a toll on it and when
this toll was collected it was supposed to be a free bridge across
there, see, but after it was all collected and supposed to be closed up,
the local government was in there. In Crittenden County, the officers
kept collecting the toll off this thing. And the United States
government had to go in there and put signs up that this was a free
bridge. Crittenden County was an outlaw outfit, I'm telling you, the law
was.
Now, who were the guys that went into Crittenden County, do you remember?
Yes, Brookins was the one…
A.B. Brookins?
A.B. Brookins was the one that Mitch sent down there. It was the first trouble that we had had and it was the first time that anyone had been sent into Crittenden County.
Now, is Brookins a black minister?
Yes.
Now, where was he from?
Tyronza. But after…
And who went with him?
I'm almost certain it was some white man. But they wasn't rough on white men, but they beat Brookins up and put him into jail. They made a practice of that. They made a practice of beating the guys up in jail… theyhad a big leather band, I've been in their jail.
You've been in their jail in Crittenden?
I've been in jail and seen this big leather strap there… they didn't try to hide it or anything. And you couldn't get a reporter, nor a lawyer out of Memphis to go into Marion. They wouldn't take a case of any kind. You couldn't get them to go in there. They'd say, "Naw, we won't go in there, not to Crittenden County." And Mary Connor Myers, when she was sent down there from Washington, Roosevelt sent her down there when there was so much stirred up over it and that was the report they would never publicize it because it was too hot to report.
She went into Crittenden County?
Yeah, she went into Marion and Crittenden County and all and she helped
to break up the Capone Gang in Chicago and all, so she
What happened to Brookins and the other guy that went to Marion? Were they put in jail and beaten?
Brookins was put in jail and beaten, yes. I was in Memphis at the time and when I came home, Mitch told me that they had him up there in jail and we knew that we was going to have to do something to try and get him out of jail. So, we went to Marked Tree. I knew C.T. Carpenter personally, been knowing him for years of course. I might also add that C.T. Carpenter was a Sunday School supertindent. He taught a class in Sunday School and was I think at one time, I think, figuring on being a minister before he became an attorney. And my Dad told me about C.T. Carpenter. He said that in these J.P courts, he wasn't no good. He used words that they didn't even understand and …but anytime he carried it up to a higher court, he beat them every time. And he did, he was a fine lawyer and I don't know whether you knew about it or not, but he wrote a series of articles in a popular magazine at the time. Did you know that?
No.
Yeah, he wrote a whole series at that time about the Southern Tenants Farmers Union.
Do you remember what the magazine was?
I can't think right now, but Mitch should know that very well, because it was one, it could have been Harper's. But, I wouldn't say positively that it was. But he wrote a whole series of articles. I saw all of those articles. Had the magazines myself. But, I think it was his father that went to school with Robert E. Lee. Yeah, C.T. Carpenter's father. I know one of them went…couldn't have been Carpenter. I know it was his father that went to school with Robert E. Lee. But, we went to see Carpenter and when we asked him about getting these folks out of jail up there and when he come up with eight hundred dollars, he'd take the case and…
Who came up with the eight hundred dollars?
We did?
C.T. said you'd have to come up with eight hundred dollars?
Well, he didn't tell us that. He said that's what his fee would be see, and we just asked him. He didn't tell us you'd have to come up with it, but we asked him if he'd take the case and he studied the thing over and inquired into it and said that "Well, his fee would be eight hundred dollars."
Now, this was the case of who?
Brookins. Brookins and…there might have been several other guys in there.
Well, this, I'll give credit to Mitch for this. If it'd been left up to
me, why I'd have taken Carpenter and gone up there, but Mitch says "Get
a whole down load truck of folks and we'll go up there." So, we all went
up there and more than that, I had a damn big long six-shooter. I never
would carry it out, but on this day I did. And I also had some warrents
in my pocket so that even an officer from another county can't take a
gun into another county unless he has an occasion for it see. He has to
has an excuse like a warrent or something. So if you've got a warrent
for some guy and you can say that the last you heard, he was up in
Crittenden County and you wanted to see about it, but of course that was
never…but I was careful about it, I didn't want to take any chances,
because I knew what we was getting into. Well, when I went in and told
Carpenter what we'd come up there for, not Carpenter, but Howard Curlin,
the sheriff. Of course, I knew Howard damn well, me being an officer in
an adjoining county. But I went in there and told him we'd come up there
to get those guys out of jail. I think there was more than one, but
Brookins was the main one. I think even then we understood that he'd
been beat up. But Howard looked at me and he told me, he said, "you're
sure playing the wild." And I told him that every man had the right to
his own opinion and "I think that maybe you are." Well, you might not
know it, but Howard Curlin died on the witness stand.
Now this is at Forrest City?
Yes, this is at Forrest City?
O.K. Let's go on, I wont to get that story straight somewhere else on the tape.
All right.
Now, what happened that morning when you went to Marion? Other than your run-in with Curlin? Is that where the men acted as if they were crippled? and had all sorts of walking sticks with them? You remember that?
I don't remember anything about an occasion like that.
It might be something else.
It must of been. We had a whole truck load of guys out there anyway. And I guess that Mitch was correct in doing that, but I don't know if it did any good, because I think Carpenter and myself could have gotten those guys out. But anyway, we showed a little strength.
Now, was Carpenter actually needed to get Brookins out of jail down there?
Yeah, and we was lucky to get him out.
Now, did Brookins remain active in the union for awhile after that?
So far as I know, yes. He went ahead and did the best he could. But as I remember, he was crippled up.
Tell me where else the union had locals during that first year it was being organized. And how were those locals organized? Would you send out organizers and people hear about them and come in, or what?
No, we would set up for a meeting at some church house. Generally it was
a colored church house or a old school building or something like that
and this was all in around Tyronza to begin with. I never did ever tell
Mitchell what my ideas were, but I felt that if we would build a strong
union in Tyronza and let these other people come into that from outside
and go back and organize their own people, it would
How about Alvin Nunally?
Alvin Nunally, yes, he was very active and right in there with Mitch and I.
Now, was Nunally a sharecropper?
Well, he was a renter, see. But he didn't own his farm. As long as a man owned his own farm, he wasn't eligible to get in the union.
Now, how soon did Ward Rogers come down?
He came down right at the beginning of this thing.
And he had a church somewhere in Arkansas at this point?
Well, I'm not positive that he did. Now, Claude Williams did have. I believe he had a church at Paris, Arkansas, as well as I can remember. But, he was put out of his church on account of this.
But Claude didn't get active in this for awhile, did he? It took him a couple of years, or did he…was he active from the very beginning?
Yes, he…well, I wouldn't say…he came in there, I would say when Norman Thomas made his talk, see, and that was before the union. He was a socialist see? And that was the work he was interested in. And after he came in there and got acquainted with the rest of us, well, he followed through with the union members. But, he didnt did have a great deal to do…Now the guys that was actually active in there was Nunally and Butler andMitch and myself. And even Ward Rogers, the biggest thing he did, it looked like to me, was to stir up trouble.
You never liked Ward Rogers, did you?
I did not.
Why didn't you like him?
I thought he was a smart aleck and I don't like smart alecks. I thought he was a show-off and I still think so. I think that's what he did at Marked Tree, when he got up and made an assertion there, that was the damndest thing I know of when he got up there and made an assertion that we could go out there…that we could get a bunch and go out there and hang these planters. That's the poorest damn thing I know of a man…well, would you approve of that? Well, you're not on the tape, but you see what I mean? And I could tell you something else. I don't even like to put this on the tape in particular, because I might be wrong, but do you think I should?
Sure.
It was talked around that Ward fooled with Mitch's wife. and that's
another thing that I approved of in a big way, because
Mitch's wife didn't like this union, did she?
She never acted that way around me, of course, I wasn't around her a great deal, unless I go down to the house to she Mitch or see her around or something, but she was a very nice person. And I understood that her people didn't like Mitch and his socialist ideas.
Let me go back a little bit.
The first time that you ever heard you ever heard of socialism, was it the time you had that conversation with Mitch at the gas station?
That's the first time. Frankly, my brother, Joe, was playing ball around over the country and at that time, he was playing in a league at El Paso Texas. And Joe wrote to me and he…well, after the ball season he was trying to get a job down there and he sat on the Texaco steps out there day after day and he couldn't get anything. And he told me that if this dumb country didn't get into better shape, the whole country was going Communist and I didn't even know what the hell he was talking about.
Where was he in Texas?
El Paso. Of course, he'd been around quite a lot and picked that up
somewhere. And as far as socialism, at that time, I'd never had an
occasion to even read anything about socialism. Now I would say this, my
daddy, now he was sort of on my type…he was
Now where was this? What store is this?
My Dad's store in Tyronza. So, I had a room back there. They'd built a room on the store for someone to sleep in. These guys would back a wagon up there and haul all your groceries off.
Was it a grocery store, or a general store merchandise?
Yeah, it was general merchandise, that's what it was, it was a small
store and he had the only market in town. So, even the other merchants
and all, they had to buy their fresh meat and all from Dad. And my dad
had a lot of fancy groceries that the other stores didn't carry, they
didn't have any demand for it, but my Dad was one of the best merchants
I've ever seen. He had been on the road in Texas for eight or nine years
selling groceries and he had picked up all these items and so forth.
But, he had an exceptionally nice small store. He handled clothes,
shoes, whatever we
Now, I think I asked you the other day, but I'm not sure we got in on tape…what your dad thought of you being in the union. What did your parents think?
Well, my mother knew we was right, but naturally, she was worried about me, because it was a dangerous thing.
How old were you then, in 1932?
I was thirty-two years old. I was born in 1900.
Were you married then?
Yeah.
Did you have any children?
One.
Your wife was a teller at the bank?
Right. And that was one cause of me getting my money caught in the bank
when the banks closed…I knew I should go get my money out of there. They
was closing all over the country and I knew within reason Ishould go get
my money out of that bank, but I thought, no that if I did that, they'd
say I had inside information
What did your wife think about your union?
Well, my wife's apt to think about things like I do, if you just want the straight of it.
You insist on it.
I don't insist, no, I see that they do. But, of course, she'd never had
any occasion…in other words, we was with the top bracket of people in
town…the Emricks (
You were fairly well respected in the town, because you came from what was considered an old-time Tyronza family.
Right and not only that, after I grew up, I had a hell of a reputation as
a boy, I was one of the worst in town, always into something. Even when
I was in school, when I'd come home from school…oh, this would sound
like I was exaggerating, but I…another boy and myself, his daddy had a
store there, his name was
In one year, you got one-hundred, fifty three.
Uh-huh. And the teacher was Miss Overalls, she just whipped us for anything.
Was that her name, Miss Overalls?
Yeah, she was a beautiful gal and she finally married a man there who had a store named Perkins. But when I would go to town, the first things the guys there would ask me was "How many whippings did you get today?"
How old were you then?
Oh, I must have been around thirteen or fourteen. And I'd think up all sort of things. One time, Ihad heard a clown do this, but anyway, I put up my hand and Miss Overalls said, "What do you want Clay?" and I said, "Miss Overalls, I got to go home." She said, "Are you sick?" I told her, "No, ma 'am, my little brother's got an itch and I got to go scratch him." Well, she give me a whipping for that.
I don't blame her.
Of course, all the kids in the school was a hollering and laughing and
she was trying to straighten them out. I could think of more things to
do. Well, was pretty good, he was right up with me, but he had a brother
named LePrell (
Let's go back to the union. That's what I need to get. Tell me, besides Brookins…we were talking earlier about having meetings at Negro churches in the area. Now how did you organize those things, by using black ministers in the area, or did you just make contacts with black sharecroppers, and going to meetings, or did…?
No, we'd just get word out. Word gets around that country fast…you'd
wonder. Dr. Amberson and all of us went down on Oscar Johnson's
plantation and we'd drive five miles down through the farm and when we'd
get there, they'd have a house and a desk in there with a guy sitting in
there with a tablet to get all the information down. And Dr. Amberson
would ask how they knew we
Now was this when you were working on the report with Dr. Amberson?
Yeah, on the survey. We made the survey see, on that.
Were you making the survey at the same time you were organizing the union? Is that the way you organized the union?
No, the unionists had already started and we was getting this information to try and get some relief for these people in there.
Now, tell me about the meetings, if you can remember. What happened, and how did you get them started?
Now, I can't even remember who set this meeting up, but there was a
little old building they used for a church, they called it the Dead
Timber (
When did you move to Bartlett from Tyronza?
Well, after we started this union… 'course, most of my customers were the
planter boys and big business. Well, the first guy after we got it
started, Jim Prestige (
To Memphis?
Yeah.
Do you remember exactly when the union moved to Memphis? Was it quite early, Thirty-three or Thirty-four?
Well, I'd say it was sometime, yes, I think it was sometime in Thirty-three and it could have been the early part of Thirty-four.
So, you really never had a headquarters in Tyronza, other than your and Mitchell's little places of business? And then, when you actually set up an office, it was in Memphis?
We didn't actually have an office there. That hall that we had in Marked Tree…
The Odd Fellows Hall?
It wasn't the Odd Fellows, that was in Tyronza. That was the Socialist Party that had that. But the hall that the union had in Marked Tree was the only building that the union ever had there, and I don't know if you could actually call it an office. Mitch's place was used as an office. He kept up the books, he was the secretary, see, and he kept the books and everything on it. And, of course, they did Mitch just like they did me, only they did him first. And, he wasn't well liked in town to begin with and boy they cut out that dry cleaning.
Was there another dry cleaner in Tyronza?
There didn't have to be. They had a cleaner come out there from Memphis, see, and there was also a cleaner at Marked Tree, four and a half miles away, probably more than one. So, they had no trouble getting their clothes cleaned, so they just dropped Mitch and not let him have them. Mitch wasn't actually too hot on the cleaning anyway. His clothes…you could tell that they had been to a cleaner when you got them, 'cause the fumes would let you know. I'm just telling you this, it's a fact. Now, Mitch studied that stuff and he knew how to spot clothes and he bought quite a bit of equipment. All he had to begin with was this presser, but a great part of his work was done out behind his building. He had a…I remember kind of a little bench of an outfit and he'd lay this stuff down and scrub it with this cleaning fluid and it was pretty hard to get all that out of there. Of course, he had a dryer and all that stuff, but well…things at that time, people weren't as frank as they would be today about their dry cleaning and so forth.
You were telling me about when you were living in Bartlett and you were going to a meeting and you heard about five men who were waylaying to meet you.
Oh yeah. Well, I know…the mayor, Bob Fraser, who was a friend of mine,
come over there and told me, says, "Clay, if you
He was the mayor of what town?
Tyronza.
Tyronza?
Yeah. And he told me, said "I don't know what they'd do to me if they
found out I'd come over here and told you about this, but I just
couldn't set there…I'd felt like I had my blood on your hands if I'd set
there and not told you. But they're fixing to get you." And I told him,
"Well, Bob, I sure appreciate your coming over here and there's one
thing you can rest assurred about, no one will ever be told by me that
you was over here and told me. Of course, he's passed away now, so I
don't have to worry about him, about them getting him yet. But, that
night, I got in my car and drove over there and where I was going to
hold this meeting and I turned off before I got to Tyronza…two miles
before I got to Tyronza, at Beasley Spur they called it. And, it was
only a mile or mile and a half to this schoolhouse. In other words,
Tyronza was up here, and Beasly was down here about two miles and this
little old school was over here. Well there was a road that run around
this way from Tyronza and this road here went out from Beasly. Well, I
went over there and I was the only one there. I held the meeting and I
never held a meeting that I didn't get a whole bunch of members signed
up. I'm not bragging or anything
Now where was that?
That was at the little Sunnyside Schoolhouse at Tyronza where we had our first meeting. That's where the union first started.
How many people signed up for the union that night, do you remember?
I would say, maybe say it was thirteen or fourteen, around fifteen. I think that everyone there, there wasn't a big crowd there.
Now, I might mention another thing in here. We had an old man by the name of Payne, and he was an Englishman from England and he was a sharecropper and his wife died when hisdaughter wa young. He had a daughter and she was about grown this time, Georgie, and she was…and everyone in the country knew old man Payne. He talked like the English. I couldn't tell a little dirty joke on him here, could I?
Feel free.
Well, it isn't too bad. Ritter and Emerson had the big store up there,
see, and they had a clerk in there, George Wier (
This was Mr. Payne. Now was he a member of the union.
He was a strong member and a good talker and he was really worked up over the way sharecroppers…and all…well, he had been in a union in England and he had a lot of experience there. In the mines, as I understand it. And, he was a real union man and he took an active part in that. He made all the meetings. I was thinking that he was set up as some kind of an official in the union. I can't remember what it could have been. I have never heard Mitch mention payne at all. He talks about Nunally, but well, of course he was active…Nunally, Mitch and myself were the most active in the union by far…until Butler came in, and Butler was a real strong man and a good talker.
Do you remember when Butler came down, how long you'd been working on the union?
Not very long, in fact he had to come before, because he was the man who
went and got the papers over in his county. So, he was actually
interested…most of these guys from the outside came in on account of the
Socialist Party. See the papers were full of this stuff about these
Socialists over in Tyronza. So, we had folks coming in there from all
over the country. And, even these speakers, even this girl from New
York, uh, Norman Thomas …was very active at that time and he told about
all these things and I think he actually more interested after he came
over and saw what was going on. And, we took him around and showed him
conditions and so forth, and he got up and went out to Norcross's
plantation
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Clay, I'd like to go back and get some more about you and I'd like for you to tellme about your early life and where you were growing up. Did you grow up in Tyronza.
No, I was born in Tyronza and we left Tyronza when I was about three or
four years old and we moved to Greenville, Texas. My Dad went there to
work for his uncle in his wholesale grocery business. And, we lived in
Greenville until either 1910 or 1911 and we moved back to Tyronza. My
Dad built a store and went into business there at the time and up until
the time I left, I lived
How many brothers and sisters did you have?
Well, I had three sisters and four brothers.
And your father was a farmer or a merchant?
Both. He had nice grocery store and then he farmed on the side when he first began. He had the only butcher shop in town. We killed our own beef, so of course, he bought a lot of cattle, and on Sunday, we'd get out and a bunch of us on horseback and buy up cattle. Many…quite a lot of the time, he'd buy a cow out there, never had seen it. Just ask them about it, what kind of shape it was in, what it would weigh. And when they told him, he'd say, well, I'll give you so much for it, and he'd buy it sight unseen. Then on Sunday, we'd get out and horseback and round these cattle up he'd bought and take them down and put them on the pasture on the farm, see, a woodlot he called it, it was all in timber…it hadn't been cleared up. Then, generally, over the weekend, we'd send the butcher and myself out and we'd kill the beef. That would generally be on Friday and that give the beef time to cool off. We'd have to kill them late at night to keep the flies off them, see. So, we'd go out and kill the beef. At that time I was only about fourteen years old.
Did you have refrigeration or electricity?
Ice.
Ice. How about electricity?
No, we had gaslights and that was furnished by gasoline that was
underpressure…a hollow-wire (
Now, you would kill the beef on when, Sunday night?
On Friday. that would give it a chance…we would get it in and put it under refrigeration. And now, that ice was shipped in there by rail, see, by or in three hundred pound cakes. And they'd have an ice plant. At that time, they had an ice plant at Harvard, which was about two miles from Marion, which was about twenty some odd miles from home. But they used that ice for cooling and I'd say along about 1912 or something…that country was called swamp country and it was.
It was part of the Delta?
It was Delta country, but they called it swamp country and they called the Arkies that lived there in that country" "swamp angels" and these guys come over there from Tennessee and around, they called them hillbillies. So, in the wintertime, they had no roads, they were impassable in the wintertime. They had mules until they run a dredge ditch in there through Dead Timber Lake, which had sunken when Real Foot had had an earthquake in that country and Real Foot Lake sunk and Dead Timber lake sunk. That's where it received its name, all these trees had sunk, there was a lot of big walnut trees in there and those stumps. They got out and cut this timber from boats. They'd get in boats, see, and water was around this big timber, so they'd get in boats and cut this timber and float these logs, drag them out …well, the sawmills, that was what opened up the timber country. Sawmills had what they called tram roads, which runned manybe five or six miles down through the woods. That's all that was in there and theyd drag these logs up to where they could get them loaded on to the carts which was iron-wheeled carts. And the rails on these tram roads were just wooden timbers and of course, those were flange-wheeled carts that they put on there and they was first drawn with oxen.
What's a flange wheel?
Well, a flange wheel is like what a railroad has, has a flange on the side to keep it on the rail and they had the same type of wheel on those carts. They was drug in there, and these places they would drag them with those oxen, mules and all couldn't stand up, they'd just bog down. They couldn't use mules in there until that country was drained some…but where they'd drag these logs through, there'd be a rounded out place and they called those lizard roads. And they was all over that country, even up in 1914 or 1915, there was still traces of these lizard roads in the woods up there, where they had drug those logs out.
What was the town of Tyronza like then, did it have paved streets or anything like that?
No, that was just before we came back from Texas, a mule bogged down there on main street and they couldn't get him out and he died in there. And that is approximately where the post office was built when my Dad had his last store there which was during the time he had it, which was when the union was in operation.
Now, how big was Tyronza? About how many people lived around there then? In 1930.
I'd say around 500.
Around 500 families? Oh, it was a little community.
Yeah, small.
And were there other groceries beside your Dad's store?
Oh yeah. Ritter and Emerson was the largest store there, but it had been there for quite a long time and it was a big enough that old man Jim Chandler, who was the bad man in Tyronza, most of the stores back there, had a real bad man and Jim was the bad man in Tyronza. He'd get drunk and ride into town on his horse and he'd ride in through the door and buy his tobacco and stuff and they was afraid to say anything to him. On Sunday, everyone would meet the train on Sunday morning. They would get a paper from the train and they went up…no much other place to go… and they was always a big crowd at the depot on Sunday morning. In fact, there was generally a bunch of people that would meet the train, which ran twice a day. But old man Jim…
And get a paper? They weren't necessarily meeting somebody who was coming in?
Oh no, no. They went up to see the train come in, just to meet it. Oh, there'd be maybe a couple of hundred people up there, just to see the train going through.
And they'd buy a paper from the train?
Well, they'd buy a paper, yeah there was a guy who would get off the train with an armfull of newspapers, see.
Where were they from?
Memphis.
Was the train going north?
Well, the train was going to Kansas City…that was the Crystal Railroad
(
From the Mississippi River"
No, there was two rivers there. The St. Francis and the Little River. These rivers would all get filled up and it seemed at that time that they had more rain than they do now.
Now what county was Tyronza in?
Poinsett County.
And what was the county seat.
Harrisburg.
How far was that from Tyronza?
Thirty miles.
And Marked Tree was in the same county?
Yes.
And it was how far fromTyronza?
Four miles.
Four miles. And was Marked Tree larger than Tyronza?
Yes, it was about three times as large as Tyronza, maybe more.
And you ran a gas station?
Right.
And how many other service stations were there?
There were two other stations there. A brother-in-law of mine had one and the Fair brothers had the other one.
And then there was Mitch's dry cleaning plant.
Mitch's dry cleaning plant.
And a couple of other stores? and a cotton gin?
Right.
Was that about it?
No, there was a drug store. And Dr. Mc Daniel had a little office there. There was also an Odd Fellows Hall. The town at one time was built, all of it, right along the railroad track, facing the railroad track with a road between the buildings and the railroad track. And that's the way most times back there were built at that time…built right up to the railroad track because all their supplies came in by rail and they wanted to be as near to that as they could, because they had to haul all that stuff by wagon.
Supplies were what? Tractors, farm equipment?
Oh no. Groceries, flour, lard, sugar and everything that you'd sell out of a store.
Was cotton shipped out by rail, too, after it waspicked?
Yes. It was ginned and baled there and it was shipped out into the compress and the compress would take a 500 pound bale of cotton and put it under this high pressure and when they got through with it…a bale of cotton at that time was about five, maybe, yeah about five or six feet long and it was three feet one way and about four feet the other and was baled with these steel straps, which they still use. They'd send it to this compress and then compress down into a round package that would be about one-fifth the size that it was when they received it.
Where was the compress? In Memphis?
Well, yes, they was in Memphis at that time. Later on, they built a compress in West Memphis after it opened up …well, that was the time the union was going on.
You said there were 500 families in Tyronza.
No, I didn't say that.
500 people?
Well, I said there was between 500 and a thousand.
And around Tyronza, out in the rural areas, there were a lot of large
plantations, there were a lot of sharecroppers and
In the beginning, these farmers, such as my grandfather, who came from Tennessee over there, they'd purchase this land that had been cut over by the timber companies …lumber companies. And I suppose there was some in there that was homesteaded. But, the most of it was purchased from the lumber companies.
Your grandfather purchased his from a lumber company?
I'm not absolutely positive, but I would say that's where he purchased it.
And where did your grandfather move from?
Savannah, Tennessee. And he came there in a wagon and he made many trips backwards and forwards.
Is that your father's father?
Yeah. He made many trips backwards and forwards in the wagon. They'd know people all along the road and they'd stop and spend the night with them…maybe stay a day or two. People would visit then and enjoyed themselves a little more than they do now, I think.
Why did he move from Savannah to Tyronza? To become a planter?
Oh no. He was never what you'd consider a planter. He was just a big farmer. They didn't have planters in there at that time. Most of them were men who owned small farms. Maybe, ordinarily, anywhere from fifty to a couple hundred acres of land. And they worked this land themselves and had some hired help. And as the sawmills played out in there, it left…the sawmills used mostly colored labor, a big lot of it. The white guys was mostly bosses. The sawmills used mostly colored labor…there was a lot of the timber cutters, now, that were white guys… One thing that I wanted to bring out as we go along here, is in those days they had a world of bank failures and the bank was set up to take care of the big boys. If a bank was closed up…
This was along about 1929?
Yes, along in there and even before that. There was always banks going
broke, see? And when a bank went broke, they'd have an associate bank
from whom they borrowed money and so forth. Well, if a bank went broke,
all themoney…all of their assets would revert to the associate bank
until that indebtedness was satisfied and then if any was left, then the
little folks got it, the depositors, see? And that was the case when
Roosevelt closed the banks and they changed them up. So, there's a lot
of those things that people don't understand now about that bank deal.
It was an odd thing. Canada had different set up and they didn't have
bank failures and I guess China had the best system of all. When
O.K. Tell me more now about your grandfather moving from Hardin County. Tell me something about your grandfather.
Well, he was a soldier in the Confederate army. He was wounded in, I believe it was his right arm here. He showed me the scar and of course, he's told me. Then, he was taken prisoner and spent a year or so in Rock Island Prison and at the time that he was in there, he said that a dog or a rat didn't dare come around there, because those guys were starving. The Northern people was really starving them out, see? As I understand, Yankee soldiers in the South weren't treated much better, but the Southerners didn't have the damn stuff to feed 'em with. So, the Yankees got it back on them by not feeding them. They had the stuff to do it, but they wouldn't feed them. They had an epidemic of yellow fever while my granddad was in prison and he missed it. He was just a small man, just 140 or 145 pounds, but he said that he was considered one of the strongest men in the Rock Island Prison.
Had he joined the Confederate army or was he drafted?
Oh, he joined it.
Did he live in Hardin County at the time he joined it?
Yes.
His family was from Hardin County?
Yes, and I don't know whether he was on a furlough or what, but he was home one time, and my grandma used to tell me about it. Said he was working down in the field or something and she saw a bunch of Yankee soldiers coming up on horseback, and she yelled at him. His name was Harstons, was what she always called him, or Hossy. And she hollered, "Harston, the Yanks are coming!" And they saw him or something. Anyway, he was always bragging about it, said he outran those damn horses and got away from them. They was chasing him horseback and he was running afoot.
How do you spell his name?
H-A-R-S-T-O-N. John Harston.
Do you remember about what year he moved over to Poinsett County?
I wouldn't know, but it had to be back before 1900, because I was born in 1900 and they lived there then and I know they must have been living there for some time. Because, my Dad built a home with my grandad. It was a store and half-house and was a good house.
Do you know how old your Dad was when he moved?
Well, I'm not so sure about that. But, if I was born in 1900 and my
mother was eighteen, and when my dad and her married, he was in Tyronza
then, so he'd had to been there several years.
Now, when did you first leave home? You went away to school somewhere?
Well, I, yes, I had dropped out of school. In fact, I had dropped out to work in the store. My dad was looking after the farms more at that time and I dropped out and I didn't go to school the last half of that year. And a teacher from Blue Mountain, Mississippi came by and I don't know why he ever came to Tyronza, but he came by and talked to my dad. My dad always wanted we kids to get an education, so anyway, he signed up for me to go to school in Blue Mountain, Mississippi and after that there was …old man John Emrick sent his boy, John and his brother Joe, they went to Blue Mountain after I was down there. But, I went to Blue Mountain one year and the following year I went to Gulfcoast Military Academy.
Now, is that the same Blue Mountain that is now a women's college?
Yes. It was then, but Mississippi Heights Academy was a boys school and
it was owned and operated by J.E. Brown, the principal there. Blue
Mountain College was a Baptist college
And you were at Blue Mountain. What was the name of the school again?
Mississippi Heights Academy.
Was it a military academy?
No.
Private.
Private, yeah. Well, the war broke out…
World War I.
Yes…while I was there. I know Professor Brown, he was an Irishman and
proud of it and looked the part. He used to brag, said he'd had all his
limbs broked and some of his ribs and he'd been shot through and
through, I think three times. And when he was teaching school…of course,
he had a deputy's card, which anyone could get back in that country. And
he had a pistol in his pocket at all times. Carried a little old pistol
in his right-hand hip pocket. And he had his finger off, right here on
his left hand. I know, he reached up and grabbed me by the hair
What did you study at Blue Mountain?
Well, I was taking eight studies and I studied physical geography, plane
geometry, grammar, …he put me back to take grammar A, because I couldn't
remember how far I had been in grammar…and rhetoric and Brown was strong
on the health problem and I took physiology under him. The book that we
used in the physiology class was Martin on The Human
Body and that was the first book that a doctor studied when he
enrolled for an intern. And he went strong on that.
And the next year…how old were you when you went to Blue Mountain? Seventeen?
Seventeen?
And then, the next year when you were eighteen, you went to Gulfcoast Military Academy?
Yeah.
Why did you go down there?
Well, the reason I went down there. I roomed with Enid Kennedy, a boy
from Chevril (
Now, let's go back to when you went to the Gulfcoast Military Academy. You got in there the next year because you wanted to be in a military academy.
Yeah. Well, that's one reason my dad let me go down there. He wanted to keep me out of the service. So, I went to Gulfcoast and well, the freshmen were referred to as rats for the first year.
Were you a freshman?
I was a freshman. And these older men, they did what they called "ratted" these boys. In other words, you was in there and it was pretty cold down there and the company I was in, they had us in what they called the armory. And it was just a big wooden, open-frame building with cots down each side of it. And it was pretty cold in there and of course the older men would tell one of these "rats" to go in there and "warm that toilet seat up for me." Make him go in there and set on the toilet seat, didn't want to set on it while it was cold, see? And…
What did you study down there? Same kind of things you'd studied at Blue Mountain?
Yeah.
Did you pick up any of what you'd call "radical" ideas at either of these two schools?
None whatsoever.
You were still totally nonpolitical?
Well, I was strictly independent and I didn't take any "ratting" see, so
I dropped out at the end of the year and one