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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 F-0036, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Nancy Kester Neale remembers her father, Howard "Buck" Kester, who founded the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and held leadership positions in the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen and the Committee on Economic and Racial Justice. According to Neale, Kester was a pioneer whose activism demonstrated the power that religious organizations could play in improving the lives of the southern underclass. This interview is at times light on specifics, but is a useful look at the role of religious organizations in the struggle for economic and racial justice in the South well before the modern civil rights movement gained strength.
Nancy Kester Neale remembers her father, Howard "Buck" Kester, who founded the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and held leadership positions in the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen and the Committee on Economic and Racial Justice.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
First of all you were born where?
I was born in Nashville
In Nashville?
Yes.
And then at how early of an age did you move to the mountains?
I was three I think. We met every summer. My folks had met at Blue Ridge Assembly, and they went every summer as far as I know. As far as I can recall after I was born, because they were so taken with the area. And they stayed in various cabins in High Top Colony which is where the family home became located. I was born in 1934. Then we moved in about 1937 or 1938.
What was it like being a child of Buck and Alice Kester?
I am interested in both.
They really were a team in a period of time where women most typically did not(most married wome) but were pretty much home bound and thought they must be. She was one of those women who had a career on the way. She was the most stable element in the home. She was the one, really I can't think of any job that he did that she was not half the team, or the other 100 percent. And that is not well recognized by people who have been writing. I have been very conserned about that and occassionally resentful about that.
Of course.
She has not gotten her due.
Almost every one that I have talked to that knew the two of them mention her. I will start off asking about Buck, and then they well say and of course there is Alice. Buck was the visionary. Alice was the one that kept him straight.
Exactly.
Kept him organized.
Ma has some of his writings that has not gone anywhere else at this point, a book that he wrote about the fellowship for example and it was so clear even though part of it was getting older where she used to catch him up in terms of repitition, in terms of tending to cliche of the language, it is so clear she would catch it. She would help him from doing that, or she would help him think it through a little more thouroughly. And she would always push him to do better in that kind of way. Just a very solid, able achedemic background so that she was very helpful to him.
What was her background?
She went to Westend College in Georgia. And then she had some physical
problems early on, some eye troubles, vision problems. Then when they
were in Nashville she was going to get a Master in Child Development,
and it altered her thesis, and the crunch came in terms of her vision
problems.
What kind of role did she play say in the travelings and the meetings and so forth?
All of the organizational stuff. She was the person who did all of the writing, the planning and so forth. My dad knew the contacts and he would say will you write to so and so about this that and the other and take care of that particular problem and see about setting these things up. She and I for years when I traveled with her, she and I did all of the ticky tacky conference work. We took the registrations, we took the money and made change for the registrations, and saw that people had their questions answered. So it was really a family undertaking in that sense. Many times when it came down to the camp at Swananoah or at Buck-eye Cove or other kinds of conferences we ended up in the kitchen, which neither one of us was very happy about but often oversaw the food while other parts of the conference were going on. So it was really to see that the whole thing went smoothly in all aspects.
More like the executive director titled the butler. What was he like?
He was a very complex man. Very complex. Very, certainly intellegent,
very strong ethical as you must know, ethical code in mind. A tremendous
amount of conflict about whether he was doing the right thing with his
life. Whether he was doing the right thing at the right time, with
whatever mission he felt that he had. Very interested in people.
Extremely wide range interests,
How did that reveal itself?
He would store things with all of the things going on in his work for
weeks and weeks and even months at a time, and the only place he felt he
could let that off was at home. So the things that he would be irratated
about mother and me would come up. They would just ticket off and he
would blow his stack, and then he would calm down and then he would
start over. He would never learn to deal with things as they came up and
to tend to business and work out those issues as they were small. I
think he paid a price for that. I think we all paid a price for that.
But he was probably one of the most loving kinds of people I will know
or ever have known. Certainly one of the most romantic person the way he
courted my mother all the way through. He wrote about her as his bride
endlessly, and felt about her that way even though they had many
differences. They were two different people. They did not come from
similiar backgrounds. They wrestled a lot of things together, and had a
lot
What kind of differences did they have?
Temperamental as much as anything. I think that was part of the base. It was not ideological. They came from families who had mixed feelings about what we call race relations in those days. But we were families. His mother certainly and her sisters, pretty much brothers, and her step-mother were quite supportive and loved them no matter what they did. So it wasn't as if they had to operate in a vaccuum without any kind of family support, an extended family support. They were different temperamentally. They were different in their styles of dealing with people, in their styles of approaching problems. My mother would be methodical. She thought that was pretty good.
And analytical?
And analytical, yes. He was much more tempestuous and had the fire and the flash and spirit. She could look at the whole problem and often see the gestalt of it, see the way things would fit, and if you do this sub-strategies and this kind of thing. She really helped him go through a lot of things very solid for hours.
The mind behind?
In a lot of ways. There were both minds working, but they tempered each other. She also greatly admired his courage, his speaking ability. It is hard to find people even though there are some people interested in that kind of rhetoric like Frank Graham, Scotty Cowan, and my dad and some others. There is a style of preaching and speaking that is magnificant. I will never forget hearing all of those people preach and speak and how stirring they could be. They could knock you right off of your feet.
I have read several of your father's sermons and such and in a way he reminds me of John Wesley. But Wesley was the driest, dullest man I have ever bumped into to read. Buck's sermons frankly are dry and dull it looks like. But yet people continually tell me that there was a stare off into the distance all of a sudden, and there was a drama to it.
Indeed, yes. But not calculated. It was very genuine. It was not a stage
act
How would you say they affected your way of life? Influenced your life?
We were a very close family. I went off to school when I was twelve,
because we were at Penn School at the time, and it was against the law
for me to go to school on the island at my front door (the Penn School
was). So I had to go twenty miles into Bueford by bus one way, and
twenty miles back in the afternoon by bus with white school children. It
was very very painful and very difficult. I did that from the third
grade through the sixth grade, and then through a series of
happenstances I ended up going to a progressive school in Summerville,
South Carolina for two years. That was an interesting experience, but
that got me away from a junior high that was supposed to be playing just
dirty sports and not have much else going for it at that end of town.
And into a situation where I was much more accepted into the student
body and so forth. I was not terribly not accepted certainly on the
Island. But until then I was with them constantly, as I say I was out of
school a lot going with them on various trips. One of my earliest
memories of that jaunt when I was
I am sure that you also felt the hostility experience towards the family.
Sure.
How did that affect you?
It was hard for a long time. Fortunately every place that I went there
was always children and families that we could relate to and be close
to. There were some of those at Bueford at the school not on the Island.
On the Islands where the bus ran back and forth, I ran into a lot of
hostility on the bus. On those days busing was no issue. It didn't
matter that we had to be bused twenty miles each day. But that was very
painful at times, but I always got
Are you familiar with the Everett Hughes statement "Every child has an inalienable right to authoritarian parents against whom to rebel."?
Yes, I am aware of the idea.
You need to have somebody to bounce up against.
Right.
What about in terms of the fellowship itself. I am sure that you met most of those people in and out of your home.
Yes I met a lot of them and their faces come back to me. You said Charley Jones. I could see him but I imagine he was probably fortish last time I saw him, maybe younger, he didn't have any white in his hair. It was quite black. I knew all of the names because I typed in the office for about three summers and made my summer income typing the address labels. So most of the names I saw sooner or later.
Were there factions within that group?
Oh sure. I don't know about factions. There certainly were different groups, different subgroups, with different interests, different ideas somewhat on what the goals ought to be, probably more intellectual groups, some more practical down to earth groups, some more oriented towards the institutional church, some much more radically oriented in terms of society and changes and so forth, and some that just wanted to work within whatever system exsisted. So there were a lot. I think that was healthy.
Who fit where?
I can't put people in all of those groups. I would put that Chapel Hill
group in that intellectualist group. I know that there were some
difficult time in Chapel Hill I am sure. But I had some sense that they
were in some ways
Have you ever heard of Leslie Bleal?
I saw that name and I have not.
There was a column, a continuing series of columns, in the early issues of Profetic Religion. It is a sygnia. I had figured that it might have been Scotty Cowan, because Leslie Leal, Leslie the Faithful sounds very Scotch to me.
That's interesting. I am not aware of that. You have not gotten that from anybody?
No one has been able to tell me.
That is an interesting mystery to find out.
I am going to keep asking.
Can't help you.
I wish I had gotten to know Buck, Scotty, Jean Smathers.
Yes, he was another one that I had liked very much. And Jean Cox too.
Were there any internal dissentions?
Oh certainly. Fine of life. Again, for the same kinds of reasons with different kinds of priorties of them with these different groups, different kinds of ways of perceiving the world and what ought to be done about social conditions. Are you thinking about anything in particular.
No I am just probing.
Sure. Yes, at different times there would be an emphasis that dad ought
to go do stuff out in the field when he was working harder at Buck-eye
Cove, because that is what he thought that was what he was supposed to
do. And that is when he ran into trouble, because he suddenly found out
that people were disapproving his not having been out making money for
the Fellowship and doing other stuff. When as he understand it the
expectation was that he would help build the conference grounds at
Buck-eye Cove. That knocked him off of his pants for quite a while. I
think one of the things that the Fellowship could have profited from was
is known today about good communicaiton skills. Not everybody, but
people would carry a lot of stuff along for a while and then it would
suddenly come out. Whereas if eveybody would have been a little bit more
forthcoming sooner, it would not have worried so about conflict and seen
it as o.k. and healthy, then they could have worked stuff out sooner I
think. But there were people who would get mad, and people who would get
discouraged and want to leave and whatever. But I think there was an
amazing bonding effect going on here at the same time, because these
were people and families from all over the thirteen or fourteen states
who were under amazing duress in their
Your father was executive director, secretary of two different periods. Why did he leave the first time? Do you know?
I wish I had plenty of time to think more about that. Lets see. He went from the Fellowship to the Folk School or to New York?
I think it was to the Folk School but I am not sure.
Maybe it was to Penn School the first time. We went to Penn School in about 1943, because we were there for the war years. So it seems to me that the first chunk must have ended about then. I don't know exactly. He got periodically discouraged. He was not a person with the early part of my life repeated that pattern until I noticed it, and began to watch it. He was not very comfortable even in arranged institutions like the Fellowship. He would get restive. And I think he tried to serve as the Executive Director, and I have had that kind of role many times since, it can be a very difficult position. Some people expect you to be the legs of the organization, and just walk through and they are the thinkers. And there is another perception that you are also a mind and you are expected to use it in behalf of the organization. And with those different kinds of expectations you can get in binds.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
interesting situations, and I don't know if you want to get into that.
You probably don't. But I think there were a lot of attractions about
the Penn School situation and mother was Principle. There was first
What was he?
He was the overall administrator for the whole place. We had farms, large extensive farms. We had shops where technical trades were taught all kinds, and the academic part. It was building school as well as a day school. It was a large operation. Besides the money-raisingfeature working with the board of trustees, a lot of whom were from the north, north-east, and a lot of constant communication trips to New York two or three times a year. There were a lot of attractions about a lot of interesting problems, because you don't get into that kind of role within the black community when you are the only white family without some problems of that black community of some who will be comfortable with you and some who will fight you.
I have been in that position before.
I would like to hear about that.
The second time that he was the director of the Fellowship are you familiar with why he left that time?
Well, I am trying to think of what came before that. It is hard for me to put the sequence to it right because I really have to put my mind to it. It seems to me that the Campbell Folk School was before or after. I have to think.
He went to the college from the Fellowship.
So the New York year and the Folk School came before that stint. The Folk School Stint did not turn out to be as productive as he thought. Again some of his real creatvie ideas were blocked by one person inparticular.
Who was that?
At the Folks School he set up the first to my knowledge I believe he said
that in that whole area there was no training program for veterans. They
were back from the Second World War and they were not finding any work.
And it was a very discouraging experience. And here is a man who is a
passifist declared and
Was it killed by the trustees?
I think it was. And I think he had some other marketing ideas but I can't think of what they were. But I think he tried to do some other things that were considered too intivative. But they would have been passe now. They were just not ready to follow him. Although many folks, it happened that three or four other families left after my parents left and have not been associated with the Folk School since. But they are just very dear people and they did understand what my parents were talking about.
Back to around 1956-1957 when he left, do you know anything about why he left the fellowship at that time?
Well he had always kind of thought of himself as a kind of a teacher. I
think a lot of preachers talk about how they got into sociology
department, or what ever else of the preacher types. He always enjoyed
that. He had always had good student response even from the student days
on when he did an immense amount of lecturing on college campuses and
university campuses all over the country. In a way that was kind of a
strain that was always there. He had the earliest school association of
course with Penn School undergraduates. The Folk School was with adult
educaton. And there were some interesting things about being a part of a
academic community. And I think at that
There is a letter in the files that he wrote right about that time. He was trying to raise funds through a couple of foundations in our school I think the Buel Foundaiton too, that indicated that he thought that a member of the Fellowhship was trying to block their getting funds. Do you know anything about that?
I don't know anything about that. I know that kind of thing can happen and does happen, and did happen sometimes, and I wouldn't be surprised. He was the kind of person, and I have thought about it a lot, whose presence he was not a hostile person, he really tried to work with all of the different components in any community, but somehow groups would crystalize. He stood out enough or his ideas were strange and unusual enough that would bring out the people who would fued and say no I do not like that, I am opposed to that and I will block it. And there are always a few of those. So I am not surprised.
What about the role of women? In that group?
Wonderful. I think that is where I got my early starts. I wish many times
I could have had some talks with him since my own evolution I guess.
Probably, and I would like to do some writings about this area sometime,
I think the role of women in some of these organizaitons and I don't
know about the Union, I have real conserns about the explotations of
women sometimes in unions. I have seen it happen in community
organization work. But in the Fellowship and the Committee on Economic
and Racial Justice as far as I recall all of the discussions about that
history it probably was outstanding compaired to the rest of social life
where women were very equal. Nell Morton there was no problem about her
succeeding The only question was how would she do it. What her style
was. She had her own particular style. There were women
You had in the south the tradition of church womens groups involved in this side of issues also, and they tended to be very small. What were his parents like?
I never knew any of my grandfathers. I knew about his father Edwin from
the stories and the family accounts. My grandmother I think was a very
remarkable women. There were three children and he was the youngest. A
women who was interested in what went on around her. Very clear kind of
ethical code. One of the things I had the worst trouble of that part of
the family rearing is that part of the family said if any one does
anything for you owe them. It is not like anything could just be a gift.
You then owe them. So if anybody did anything for my Grandmother she
would bake them a pie or she would fix something to return the favor. It
was a whole different value system. She was very clear about the rights
and wrongs of how to relate in the community. And what her children
should and should not do. They were strict with the children. When they
disobeyed they got whipped. My dad got into
I am interested in this whole area, of roles, family roles and such. I have done some preliminary research on the liberal stuff of the south. And looking at Methodist ministers of Alabama I came up with a hypothesis that most of those I knew came from a family of an absence or a weak father and a very strong mother.
Not particularly true in some ways. And this is a very strong father. In the area of disiplinarian is very present, but in a way he left the rearing to the mothers decision. And much of my dad's rearing was in my aunts hands, and his older sister's hands. That is what I understood and he balked. Apparently my uncle when my dad was born said to my grandmother give him to her.
Really?
Yes, and to some extent it worked. And my aunt who was five or six years
older and now about 86 years-maybe 84 this year-was responsible for the
care and feeding and welfare of Howard Kester. That was pretty heavy for
a young girl and yet she took the responsibility seriously and was
devoted to him, although she did not understand a lot of things he later
did. But everybody in that family as far as I could tell were pretty
active members. My
No.
And everybody until my dad's generation in every generation there had
been a master tailor way back to Cologne Germany in the Kester family.
It used to be Koester. That generation broke the mold. He was a master
tailor and could look at a man and tell which sholder was a little
higher and a little forward and size them up and go and make them a
perfect suit. Fantastic ability. She he developed that into what became
his dry-cleaning business. And he was very busy with that. He was active
in the Presbyterian Church. The family had come from Quakers, as you
probably know earlier. Since there were no friends in Beckly, I don't
know when they became Presbyterians, but somewhere in there they
transfered to the Presbyterian Church. And he became an elder in the
Presbyterian Church. I would like to say a little something for the
record about the comment that he was a member of the Klu Klux Klan.
Because that is often brought out to show how far my dad came. His and
the family's understanding of that was at that phase in some chapters of
the Klan it was seen more as a country club, and a lot of country clubs
exsisted that was invariably all white orientation today anyplace in the
country. But kind of a place for white men to get away from women,
anybody. They had to do their own boy things. And it was not seen as
hostile, as far as I understood, hostile anti-anybody thing. In fact I
have one very good example of the way my grandfather operated. He had a
pair of matched bay, absolutely beautiful horses at one time. And he
decided to sell them. And the family was never well, off never. And he
could have gotten a pretty pennye for those matched horses and the
carriage. Instead he gave them to an old country doctor who was black.
And this was in Beckley I believe, I am not really sure. That is my
feeling. And everybody around him said why did you do that? When you
could have gotten loads of money for those horses. And he says because
he needed them more than anybody else. To me that sets things in
perspective, that you could belong to
Back to the fellowship itself, what do you see as the differences of the fellowship under your father as compaired to under Nell?
Again, I was not immediately involved very direct. I was off in my own direction at the time. My sense of that is the difference in style. Again that was the more intellectual group, or intellectualizing group. They had not been out in the corn fields so much or been threatened with guns or ropes. And that sort of did things once they had experienced it, or had not lost their pulpits at that point, which a number of people had. But it was a little bit more intellectual style, a little bit less of a fervor I think and drive. But then early on the organizaitonal development you need that kind of drive. So I don't know that it was inappropiate or less useful for the life of the organization at that time. It was different. It was real different. For me being used to and confortable with the old style with a lot of preachers and a lot of vim and vigor and a lot of lay people who were conserned and interested and active and groups who would get into it from the south, it seemed kind of a cooling off period to me. But that could have been just simply somehow a group that sort of distanced themselves a little bit or seemed a little more distant. But that is just an impression I got.
This is entirely off the subject but it has just occured to me. A book has been written this past year on the Claude Neel Adventure. Are you familiar with it?
No I didn't know it.
A history professor at the University of West Florida researched it and spent a long time interviewing people who were participants in the venture. And it won a book award, but he has really gotten an amiable book as a result of that.
I would like to see the book I guess as much as Wiston liked it and talked about that particularly.
Sure. Buck almost getting interested in it himself there. It struck me
too.
Part of the Chapel Hill group. Again they all have kind of a reserve, which Scotty and my dad and some of the others, maybe it was because I saw them up close and I didn't have the experiences of sitting in on their own discussion but a little bit more reserved. But I remember him as being fairly active person and vigorous. I can hear his voice talking. But also quiet overall. I don't know how better to describe that.
Nell Morton?
I liked her. She was an impressive woman I thought. Again I didn't pull to her as a very young person, as a child, in the same way I did to other women such as Odious Weney from the YW and Miss Layman and I guess Miss Cox and some of those others. But she seemed warm, she seemed real (those are trite words) genuine, certainly genuine, they all were genuine. I remember her as being quite tall, because I was pretty small at the time, besides being impressed with her presence. She was certainly articulate. She certainly had a good head as far as I could remember. I can see her in my mind.
Miles Horton?
I did not have much direct experience with him. I just had heard of it all second hand. I know my parents did. But I don't have any personality impressions. I know that there was a meeting there at the school. I remembered that had happened and so forth, but I really don't have enough to go on for any really clear impressions of him.
Can you remember what kind of relationship there was between your dad and Miles?
No I can't that is a gap.
Jim Dobrowski?
Was he communist. Did he become a communist?
It is kind of ify I think. Some people say that he difinately is and
others
I think my dad thought he was … Were there two Dobrowskis? Two brothers?
I think there was only one. There may have been two I don't know. Jim was the one who was rather close to Miles through most of his career.
Gosh, I could have misstated. I don't know.
They started off together in 1934, but then sort of went there seperate ways shortly thereafter.
I heard my dad talk about Jim Dobrowski. I have no impressions of him being at the house or anything. All that I flashed on which could be incorrect. So you need to check it out elsewhere that dad believed him to be or knew him to be a communist.
I think that he thought very surely that he was.
I think that he was divisioned. Because he became very strongly anti-communist. Once he checked it out. That was part of mother's urging him to check it out. She was real conserned about what the implications of that hold. Lee's system might be as contrasted to socialism.
Do you have any idea when that might have been?
Whenever it was he went and ahd a meeting with the head of the Communist Party. That was pretty much after officious, and he left and said he would never ever have anything to do with the Communist Party. And he began to work against them at that time. Because he couldn't stand sacrificing man's mind and that was his main objection.
James McBride Dabbs?
Very familiar name again, but I can not give you much in the way of associations.
Howard Odum?
I can't help there either.
Jean Smathers?
Yea very positive. He was part of that group of Scotty Cowan that I was
mentioning that was very zesty men who were terribly courageous. There
What about his wife?
That is kind of a blank in my mind. I don't know.
Anything to add to what you have said about Scotty?
Was that Lucille Smathers?
I don't know what her name was. That is kind of a blank too.
I have some material I think of her.
She is still alive. And I need to get up there.
If we go to the house I can look that up.
Her son Mike is now pastor at Bigly.
Really, that's fasinating.
I just found that out on this trip. Jim Holloway?
Nothing. I have no click there at all.
Will Campbell?
Oh yes, The last time I saw Will was when my dad died, I went back from
Salt Lake. I had just been in Black Mountain and came back when they
said that he was dying. He died while I was enroute. And when I had got
to Black Mountain the funeral services had already been planned
entirely. And I was distressed because so many people had not been able
to say their good-byes to him that were really close to my dad. And
while he was in intensive care, rediculously they don't let anybody in,
so only a couple people got to see him and talk to him. So I set up a
memorial service that Saturday. He died on Tuesday. And I set it up on
Saturday. And he always wanted either Jim Smathers or Will Campbell to
do his funeral service. That wasn't possible because it had already been
set up. So I went to the phone in Black Mountain and called and Will
Campbell happened to be where the one
I have a copy of that.
You have that, I didn't know what you had. So that was the last time that I had any time to speak with him, and that was very reassuring. He left right after the service. But he was there the day or so before and helped handle the reporters. I don't know if you have the stuff that came out in the papers. I brought a lot of the stuff. Would you be interested in any of those?
Yes I would.
Not all of it is exactly accurate. There was a lead editorial of the Citizens Times and the Charlotte Observer has them, the middle section of the Carolinas News and dad wrote that.
Are these extras.
Yes. And you probably have a copy of what he thought about meeting George Washington Carver and how that turned his life around. And I think that is all there.
Looking back now, I was born in 1933, I grew up in sort of the same society as you did. I lived in the black belt in Alabama for a couple of long years and I drive back through that section now and I am really struck by the changes. And so few people are really aware of what life was like, even the black young people. It is a different world. Looking back on all of that, what kind of impact did Buck Kester and that group have? What contribution did they make to where we are today?
Well it depends on if you see things discretely or in a continuous line.
I tend to see everything connected. Obviously the organization was not a
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[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
He talked about the neccessity of always trying, no matter how difficult or how unsuccessful, and he often felt unsuccesful, not in his eyes neccessarily. But he felt that he had just not made a mark. And when he got older that is what he wanted. In his younger days he felt that people had to try, they had to try to make a difference in their world. They had to try to trust the gap, and this was true for southerners more than any other group. He thought the south was a very special place in this world. The south had sinned as much as any other region. He said if we could make it in that sense as much as any region in any place in its behavior, but there was more potential in the south for growth and development and learning than anywhere else. He said once a southener makes his mind up on race you know where you stand with that person. You can always count them, because they can't waffle like they can anywhere else. It goes to the soul of a person. He believed that very much. And I think all of those people did, men and women. That they had to try, they had to make a difference. They tried conferences, they tried small group decentralized efforts, they tried bringing in big names. I can remember meeting Eleanor Roosevelt at a conference when I was four years old they had in Nashville. They tried a whole variety of kinds of techniques so that they could shape the circumstances and try to change things for people. They really did believe that they were changing things for themselves for the better if they changed it for other people. It was not sort of like the disinterested kind of notion. But everybody was helped or hurt by the ways the things were shaped. So in that sense I see a continuity. And I think Sawsar Chavey's operation could build on some things that had gone on before probably as much as the STFU ism.
That is the grandchild isn't it? STFUism?
Oh yes, I think so. I think that is very clear. A lot of these people
crossed over from different organizations were belonging to all of them
or some of them. And it was a very interesting group to my knowledge
there
Many a price was paid for years.
Yea,
For many of us in that realm that tradition has been lost. Anything you would like to add?
I don't know. It is a wonderful thing to think about. This is mainly
Primarily yes.
I have more wonderment about the committee and I am interested about what you put together, because I don't know much of what is going on, or what has at all. It certainly was as if we lived with another human being, it was that real movement in a way, the small movement. It was I think partly because of our lifestyle, you have to understand that the office was upstairs. And my mother was up there typing, and getting together the files, and sending out the thank-yous, and asking people for more money and doing all of those kinds of things. And then they would go and work in the gardens and cutting down the trees, and so it was all interspersed. All of our life was kind of mixed. So it was just daily routine. My dad got up at four o'clock every morning, shook down the cold stove that was next to my room, so I got waked up in four in the morning and put on the coffee. And would drink his coffee then, and a lot of his work was done before dawn. By eight o'clock he had done a substantial amount of writing, that was when my mother got up and rise and shine and the household would begin to move. I was not like going some place to an office. It was all part of our life. And when I worked I went upstairs to do the typing for the fellowship. So it was very much a part of life. And I suspect that it was for a good deal of many other people too, because they were taking some risks and becoming involved. But you couldn't take those lightly in those days.
Anyone else you think I should see?
Well it is too bad that you can not get to Charles Jones, maybe later, when he gets better.
I would imagine that Dorcas could tell me as much as Charles.
Very possibly. Also the other one that we mentioned. Mrs Smathers might.
I believe that she was very active as well. I would think so. It is
ashame
I was told not to bother talking to his step mother.
Well
Does that make sense?
I think so.
O.K. Then I won't bother.
You saw him, and I think Bob Martin said he did plan to interview him, and I think you just have to wait him out. There is really a limited amount of knowledge and information but it is not as accurate. Part of …
END OF INTERVIEW