[TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Why do you think that the League of Women Voters never got off to a strong and successful start?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Because when the women were given the vote they were all anxious to go to the polls and cast their vote, but unknown League of Women Voters would not permit candidate endorsement. They were told that the League was a non-partisan organization, that they could not take part in any party politics. Most of the women had favorite candidates they wanted to promote and they couldn't do that under the rules of the League.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You believe that this was a mistake?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I think that was a flaw in the first constitution of the League of Women Voters.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

There was no one special cause that it promoted then as the suffrage organization had promoted a cause?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No. The suffrage organization had the one and sole purpose of gaining the votes for women. [Mrs. Frank] Leslie's idea was when they got the vote, she should educate the women in the intelligent use of the ballot. Well,

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that was all right but there's no such thing as non-partisanship, do you think? I was a red hot Democrat.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

We all have our specific interests.

EULALIE SALLEY:

I didn't stay one but that's how I started out. I said if the devil himself ran against Jesus Christ and one was a Democrat, I'd vote for the Democrat.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

[laughing] Very good Mrs. Salley.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Anyway, that was what made a lot of women lose interest in that League of Women Voters. Now they started studying the different branches of government. You're a typical League of Women Voters woman. You are a highly educated sensitive woman. You are way over the heads of the rabble. You don't see from the voting box. I can get down on the level with the common voter and I don't say you've got to stick to one party or the other. I'll say, you vote as your conscience tells you. This is non-partisan. You can't take sides. I think that one-time non-partisanship was what destroyed a lot of the efficency of the League.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I think that they've modified this position somewhat in today's League of Women Voters. They don't endorse candidates but they support issues. They take a position on issues and support them.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. Well, that's beating the devil around

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the bush.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

That's a cute expression.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Don't you think it is? Don't commit yourself.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Tell me something about the Suffrage League in South Carolina. How was it structured? What was its organizational scheme——the top personality, the chairwoman and on down, how was it structured?

EULALIE SALLEY:

It was started really by Mrs. Harriet P. Lynch in Cherau, South Carolina.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Was she Mrs. or ‘miss?’

EULALIE SALLEY:

Mrs. She was a great friend of Senator [Willima P.] Pollock. Did you ever hear of him?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes, you spoke of him.

EULALIE SALLEY:

He helped us a great deal in Congress and then later in the legislature. He and Mrs. Lynch came down here to Aiken and helped us with this little league down here. We had a big parade. They rode in the parade. I have a picture that they made with Senator Pollock and Mrs. Lynch.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

This should be in Emily's book. * * [Emily Bull, author of Eulalie, (1973)]

EULALIE SALLEY:

It will be.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What does the ‘P’ stand for, Harriet P. Lynch?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I don't know what it stands for. [Powe] Don't put this in but he was supposed to be in love with her and I

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hope he was because I like such things.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes. She was the first chairwoman, I guess.

EULALIE SALLEY:

She organized the first League in South Carolina.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Under her was there a group of vice-chairwomen? How was it structured?

EULALIE SALLEY:

There was a Mrs. Cathcart in Columbia. I have it in my diary. I'll get that diary out when I get it to the office and I'll be glad to let you see it. It will give you the names of the officers of the first organization. I don't remember it, it's so long ago.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

There was a vice-chairwoman and you believe that the first one was from Columbia, Mrs. Cathcart?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. It was one of two people. It was either Mrs. Cathcart or Susan Frost of Charleston.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Oh, yes, Susan Pringle Frost.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. She was very prominent in the movement. That was before my day, before I got into the movement.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Under the vice-chairwomen how was the party organized?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Sort of hit and miss. They had no money. They had no organization to amount to anything. When Miss Cathcart got these funds, she sent a professional organizer

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down here by the name of Lola Trax. I remember her.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How did you spell Trax?

EULALIE SALLEY:

T-R-A-X. Lola Trax. She stayed in Columbia. I went up there and stayed with her. We organized up there. Then she came down here and organized a league here but they already had something of an organization in Columbia. They had several good hard workers up there and they've always had a live league up there. But they've never been active politically. I believe that if you want a bill put through you don't just endorse it. You get out and pick out a good man to put it through and work to get him elected.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

That was successful for you, wasn't it?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, that's what I did. According to the League of Women Voters, you could not endorse a candidate. That's what killed my enthusiasm for the League.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did Miss Trax stay in Columbia long?

EULALIE SALLEY:

She stayed about a week and she spoke before the South Carolina legislature. She got a very cool reception.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did she have meetings wherein she instructed the branches how better to attract members?

EULALIE SALLEY:

They didn't have any branches then. They had

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the one in Columbia.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I see. You had not then organized the Aiken chapter?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No, this was at the very beginning of it.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you go to hear Miss Trax?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, I went. I was a friend of Bertha Munsell and Bertha was one of the organizers in Columbia. Bertha Munsell. I stayed with her and Miss Trax stayed there. She organized this Columbia . . .

CONSTANCE MYERS:

She instructed you some in how to go out to your outpost and organize. What did she say to do? How did she say to go about it?

EULALIE SALLEY:

She said to get a group of women together and she gave us a sample of her constitution and told us what to do. It was really not much of an organization, I can tell you. We did mostly parades and circuses.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

That's attention getting; that's the thing to do.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Publicity stunts, that's what it really was and it got it. We made lots of enemies and men were just furious. Some of my best friends turned completely against me but I didn't care. There were men who just thought that a woman who was a suffragist wasn't decent. As one man said, "How can you sit at the table with a suffragist?" You were lower than a prostitute.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did Miss Trax advocate these publicity stunts?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. She said, "Attract attention. Do it in any way. Put on public theatricals. Do anything you can to attract attention." That was not Mrs. Catt Her idea was quiet, dignified. She was like you. She wouldn't have gotten to first base in organization. She was too technical for the common herd.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Which was that, Mrs. Catt?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Mrs. Catt. Mrs. Catt was a brain like you. She was scientific and she was, I think, the most brilliant woman that ever lived. She had ideas so far above all the rest of us unknown. All the women that associated with her loved and respected her.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

But Miss Trax was able . . . ?

EULALIE SALLEY:

But she could come down.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Where was she from?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I don't know. I think she was a western woman. A few western states came into the union with the vote. They'd never had it. I remember in speaking, somebody introduced Bertha Munsell. She came here from Colorado. They said, "We have a lady to speak to us today, a lady you've never seen before. You may not believe it, but she's a lady. She's a lady who has voted." And Bertha got up and she said, "I feel just like the ringtailed

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tiger in the circus." [laughing] And she was a curiosity. The men wanted to come up and touch her. She had voted. A marvel.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Amazing, those old attitudes.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, and so many were against it in the beginning because they connected us with Carrie Nation. Remember Carrie Nation and her hatchet, how she went around?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes. I understood that some of the other personalities in the suffrage movement had been interested in temperance too.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Mrs. Catt was originally interested in temperance. That's true, she was. Well, I never was. I'm of French descent and I was raised on wine instead of water. My grandfather thought the water on the plantation was contaminated. So every morning we were getting our allowance of wine for the day. I didn't know any different.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

It makes for longevity, doesn't it?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, it looks like it. [laughing] I guess when you're raised that way you have to get knocked in the head with a hammer.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What did you do at your league meetings? For instance, unknown when you got together at the state level what were the meetings like? What was the

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order of the meeting?

EULALIE SALLEY:

We usually had some man or several men in public office to come and speak to us. They spoke of organizing the women in the different communities around. There was no organized plan.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I'm talking about the Suffrage League rather than the League of Women Voters.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Oh, the Suffrage League. I don't know.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What did you do at the meetings?

EULALIE SALLEY:

The only real suffrage meetings that I ever went to, the one I went to was a big convention in Chicago when I slipped off.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You went up to Chicago from Aiken?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Uh huh. I never will forget that. That's an awful story. An awful thing I did. I wanted to go to this convention in Chicago. Miss Annie [Gregory] Wright in Augusta (I wish she was living) organized a suffrage organization in Augusta. She came over here and really organized the Aiken suffrage organization.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

But she did it in conjunction with you, didn't she?

EULALIE SALLEY:

She came and inspired me into it. and got me to do it. She brought a Mrs. [Mary Meade] Owens with her and together we organized this one.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What was Mrs. Owen's first name, do you remember?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I think it was George.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Is she there, do you think, in Augusta?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Oh no, she's dead. Everybody's dead but me.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What about Mrs. Wright's and Mrs. Owen's children?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Miss Wright was a widow, I mean she never married. The other one never had any children. Nobody left to tell the story. That's the sad part of it all.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes. This is why action must be taken now to record this very important chapter in South Carolina and national history.

EULALIE SALLEY:

There's a woman in Columbia that could really tell you a lot about the suffrage organization. Her mother was one of the very first in Columbia. She was ["Lottie" H.] Mrs. Alfred Hammond. The woman that you should see is Mrs. Goerge Buchanan, her daughter. I don't remember her first name. She's my cousin too. We call her Mrs. "Buck" Buchanan. Her husband was connected for many years with the Columbia Record and was professor of journalism at USC. She's well-known. She's a brilliant girl. Her name is Clara Hammond. [Buchanan]

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Clara Hammond. [Buchanan]

EULALIE SALLEY:

Uh huh. Clara can tell you more about it I imagine than anybody up there.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Tell me what you did in your meetings in Aiken when Miss Wright came over from Augusta.

EULALIE SALLEY:

We got these women together and persuaded them to join an organization. The thing that got them stirred up was this Tillman case.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Tell me about the Tillman case.

EULALIE SALLEY:

You didn't know about the Tillman case?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Mrs. Lucy Pickens Tillman?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes, you told me about that last time. I do know her. You used this one issue as a device?

EULALIE SALLEY:

That was the main thing that spurred me on to the whole movement.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

And it also spurred others.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Other women. It appalled women to think that they didn't have any right to their own children, that a man has a right to left you bear children and then take them away from you at will. That was the most dastardly thing on this earth.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

So you were able to get a group of women around it using this one incident as a focal point.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, the Tillman case was the one case that caused them to rally around that standard. The feeling was so great when we organized that suffrage club here in Aiken, so many men forbade their wives to attend the meeting or to join. One man told his wife, "Now, I'll kill you if you join those suffragists." She slipped off one day and said "I'm going to join anyhow. I don't trust that husband of mine. He might take my children away any day." I said, "Well, according to the South Carolina law he can do it." One day she came in her eyes were all red, her face was all bruised up. I said, "What's the matter with you?" "Well," she said, "after the last meeting I went home and my husband beat me up. Now, what would you advise me to do?" "Well," I said, "it's plain enough if he was my husband. I would either shoot him or poison him." She says, "Thank you, Mrs. Salley," and walked out of the office. I didn't think anything more about it.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

In a way, you were joshing.

EULALIE SALLEY:

No I wasn't.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You were serious.

EULALIE SALLEY:

I meant it. I'll tell you, I had the strongest feeling about it. I think I was ready to shoot any man who would do that. I had two children that I loved very much. If my husband had tried to take them, I would have killed him

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in a minute. The next morning I picked up the paper and I was just horrified. I saw where he'd gone out on a trip and come in. She'd given him a glass of buttermilk and he was overheated. He keeled over and died. Well, it served him right. She came in the next day, two days afterwards, long black veil. She said, "Have you heard of my bereavement?" I said, "Your bereavement! I heard of your good fortune." She said, "Now, what would you advise me to do?" I said, "Just between you and me, I advise you to leave town just as quick as you can." She left. I haven't seen that woman since. She killed that man as sure as day. And my husband was horrified. He said, "Well, I'm your husband and I'm an attorney but I'm going to refuse to defend you because you are going to be tried for an accessory after the fact." "Well," I said, "if I am tried and convicted and serve a sentence, that will attract every woman to my cause all the more because I'm sacrificed for a noble cause."

CONSTANCE MYERS:

And what was his reaction to that?

EULALIE SALLEY:

He said, "I'll be god damned."

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Oh, Mrs. Salley, you're great. Tell me what you did on your trip to Chicago to the convention. Do you remember what year that was?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

No. That's the disgraceful story. He told me I

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couldn't go. That's all you had to do was tell me I couldn't do it. I didn't have the clothes to go with Annie. My sister was visiting me from Boston and she had beautiful clothes. She was just my size.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Was this Annie?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Uh huh, Annie Wright was from Augusta. Mattie was my sister, Mrs. Hall.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Annie Wright of Augusta?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Annie Wright wanted me to go with her. Said, "If you go and you meet Mrs. Catt and Maude Wood Park and Anna Howard Shaw and all of those wonderful women, you'll be inspired and you'll come back home and you'll help with this organization. We'll go places. I want you to go." I said, "Annie, I don't have the clothes and I don't have the money." She said, "There'll be a way, and now you put your mind to it." So I put what little mind I had to it and I decided to borrow my sister's clothes. Then I wondered how I'd get that money. This is disgraceful. I'm convicting myself of murder and thievery. I got up early every morning. He Mr. Salley always carried a lot of money in his pocketbook. I salved my conscience by saying, whatever is his is mine and he said when he married me that a third of his he endowed me with. So, I'm entitled to a third. So every morning early I'd get up ahead of

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him and I'd take a certain amount out of his pocketbook, (he never missed it,) until I got enough to go to Chicago. I called up Annie and I said, "I've got the money. I've got the clothes. Annie, we can go." So we went. It was just a revelation to see the difference between the little women I had known and those big women. It just inspired me.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Where did you stay and how long was the convention?

EULALIE SALLEY:

We stayed three or four days. I don't know where we stayed. The rest of it is very vague.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you not remember the events of the convention, the speeches that you heard?

EULALIE SALLEY:

It was a national suffrage convention.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What year, do you remember that?

EULALIE SALLEY:

That's why I want to get at my diary. It will tell you the exact year and date. But I don't remember. It's been at least seventy-five years. That's a long time to remember.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes, but it did inspire you further in the cause?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, it just fired me to go ahead in that cause. Then later Dr. Shaw came to Aiken, she stayed with me for a while. She was a

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wonderful little woman. She was the most brilliant speaker I ever heard.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Tell me about Dr. Shaw.

EULALIE SALLEY:

She was the first woman who was ordained in the Methodist church. Did you know that?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I believe I read that. I had forgotten what denomination.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Methodist. She was a Methodist preacher and she was a brilliant speaker. I remember I called this big meeting at what we called the Opera House——which is now city hall. Before we went out on the stage she took my hand and her hand was trembling and cold as ice. She said, "My dear, aren't you frightened?" "Why," I said, "No!" She said, "I am. I'm always terrified before I speak but afterwards it all passes." And it did.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

But you were not terrified.

EULALIE SALLEY:

I said, "Well, it's a funny thing. I must be a fool. I'll never make a speaker because I've never been terrified." She said, "How did you make your first speech?" I said, I went to a big church meeting away out in the country and a whole lot of country people were there. We had a long petition. We wanted to have it signed to send to the legislature. That was about 1912, I think. We couldn't get anybody to sign it. I thought if

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we'd get to this camp meeting and get all these sensational people together maybe we could get some signatures on it. We got out there; this friend of mine Bessie Duncan went with me. We got up there and the Baptist minister said we'd have to come up on the platform and speak up there. Bessie said, "I can't do it. I can't get up in a Baptist pulpit and speak." I said, "Oh, go on, Bessie. We came here for this and you are a club woman." She'd been head of a woman's club. I'd never spoken in public in my life. She said, "I'm not going to do it. I just can't do it." I said, "All right, I'll make a stab at it." The Baptist preacher came out and introduced me and I went out and I spoke to that congregation for twenty minutes. I never batted an eye.

[TAPE 1, SIDE B]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]

CONSTANCE MYERS:

So all these people at the Baptist meeting, or many of them, did sign for you?

EULALIE SALLEY:

They signed. They didn't know what they were signing but they signed. I took it to the legislature. This is record and we had a friend, Sen. Niels Christensen.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Of Beaufort? [pronounced "Bewfort"]

EULALIE SALLEY:

I wish I could remember the year but my diary will show it. Niels Christensen, senator from

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Beaufort for many years, introduced the bill in the senate. It got one vote and it was his. He introduced it several years afterwards and that was the only vote it got.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What about Pollock?

EULALIE SALLEY:

He was federal, in Congress. Niels was a state senator and he became a very great friend of mine and helped me very much in Beaufort. I started a real estate development, unknown for him down in Beaufort. He opened a place called Pigeon Point. Anyway, it went on from there.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You've told me about the Chicago convention and your first speech at the Baptist meeting; what about the state Suffrage League meetings? What were they like? Did you talk about what you would be doing for the next few months, plot out definite plans of action? What kinds of things did you do?

EULALIE SALLEY:

There were some awfully good workers in Columbia and they directed the work. I have the minutes of the meetings, state meetings, by Miss W. L. Donovant. [Emma Anderson Donovant of Edgeville, S.C.] I have them all and they are accurate. Did you ever hear of Miss W. L. Donovan

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You told me

EULALIE SALLEY:

She's dead.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

It was very good of you and full of foresight to save thes clippings.

EULALIE SALLEY:

I kept them very accurately in the scrapbook. I don't know why I kept it. I hoped it would be of value to my daughter. I'll tell you who I helped a good deal with those. I don't know whether you know her or knew her books (you remind me so much of her)——AnneKing Gregory. She's written a wonderful book on the subject of woman's suffrage. I think Sandlapper published a book. Do you remember it?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

No, I don't know that book and I'm glad that you're telling me about it.

EULALIE SALLEY:

I had it in my library and somebody borrowed it and never brought it back. This book I'll give you, this book by Mrs. Frank Leslie.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I'll bring it back.

EULALIE SALLEY:

That has absolute facts and figures as compiled by Mrs. Catt and Mrs. Leslie. It should go in the archives in Columbia.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You do not want it back? You want it given to the archives?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I'll give it to you to use up there any way you want.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Thank you. I have given Emily Bull to read this week or until she brings it to you, For Rent One Pedestal by Marjorie Shuler. I think she'll enjoy that.

EULALIE SALLEY:

She's an awfully nice girl.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

She is and I'm glad she's doing what she's doing. I'd like for you to tell me about going into business in Aiken. How did you get started in business in Aiken?

EULALIE SALLEY:

That's such an old story. My husband and I were always at cross purposes. One day I said something about I was tired of the law. It was dry as summer's dust and I was going to burn up every one of those damn books.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Why were you tired of it? Were you reading them? Were you into it?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I'll tell you. I thought law books should be written for one purpose only and that was to tell me what rights women had over their children. That was what I was looking for and that's all I cared for. I was just that silly. He said, "Well, you just don't know what you want to do." I said, "I know what I want to do. I want to go in business." "Empty-headed little fool," he said. "The thing for you to do is to try. Do you know that if you went into business, I bet you a hundred dollars you couldn't make a hundred dollars in six months." I said, "All right, I'll take it." He said, "That's provided it isn't a business that will disgrace us."

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I said, "It won't disgrace us. I promise you that." I had been trying to buy a house. I looked around with all the different agents in Aiken and they were a bunch of blockheads. I couldn't find anything. So, I decided I'd go down to the city office and see what I could get. The city clerk, Mrs. Sarah Bush, was a friend of mine. I said, "Mrs. Bush, would you read me a list of the licenses you have for sale down here?" She said, "Why Mrs. Salley, what in the world do you want to know that for?" "Well," I said, "I've decided to go into business. I'd just like to pick out one, maybe two." She laughed and started and came to real estate. I said, "I'll take one of those." I said, "Go on." She came to insurance. "Well, I believe I'll take one of those. What will it cost me to take those two?" She said, "Twenty-five." "I've got twenty-five dollars. I'll take them."

The chief of police was standing there. Mr. Julian B. Salley was mayor at this time. He was just grinning ear to ear. He began to write them out. Think of getting licenses on real estate and insurance as easy as that! Now you have to sweat blood to get them.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Oh, it's very difficult. I went to get the licenses. Came back up town and went in the same

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building and rented an office. Didn't have anything. Had a telephone put in; hired a secretary. Bought some office furniture on credit and started up a real estate business. Started looking around. And first, everybody thought of all the jokes in this town, that crazy Eulalie Salley going in the real estate business. What's happened to Jule? [Julian B. Salley] This cousin of mine said, "He knows he can't stop her so he's just giving her her head." First month I made a thou sand dollars. Sold a big house and got a commission. I went to my husband and I said, "Well, here's my bankbook. I'll take that hundred dollars you owe me." "I'll be damned. I hope you're satisfied and you'll quit." "Oh, no," I said, "I've just begun." He said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going to New York. I'm going to buy myself some really good-looking clothes. I'm going to see all the shows in New York. I haven't seen a good show since I was married. And then, I'm coming back home and show you how to make money." He laughed fit to kill himself but he knew it wasn't any use. And I went to New York. Called up my sister who lived in Boston. I said, "Meet me at the Waldorf" at such and such a date. "I'm going to stay there a week. I've got eleven hundred dollars and I want you to go shopping with me." Things were cheaper then. I found out at the

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desk that any shopping you did, you could charge at the desk. Did you know that? I could just say I was stopping at the Waldorf and I could charge anything and have the bill sent there.

So, I bought some good looking clothes and we went to see every good show in New York. When the week was about out I said, "Mattie, yuu go back to Boston and I'll go back to Aiken." I'd had my first spree. I always will remember that. I bought a lot of little false curls and a little blue hat with ostrich tips on it. My mother and the two children met me at the train when I got back.

When I got off the train, they didn't know me.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What year was that Mrs. Salley?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Let's see . . .

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You probably know what year your first license was issued.

EULALIE SALLEY:

1915 was my first license.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Then you were already in the suffrage movement at that time.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you think that your participation in the suffrage movment and your meeting these courageous women spurred you on to the real estate business?

EULALIE SALLEY:

That set me on fire. That was it. Those women did that. And there was another woman who was in the beginning there——Patty Ruffner [Mrs. Solon Jacobs Jacobs] of Birmingham, Alabama. She was a wonderful speaker.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

At Chicago?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. She was a wonderful speaker.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

There were several from the South that were outstanding on the national level, then, weren't there?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, there were, but not many southern women took to it.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

No. I do remember seeing Ms. Jacob's name in Anne Scott's book. I also remember Sue White's name.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, I knew her.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Back to your real estate business. I'm wondering if you incurred any antagonism in the town by being a bold woman going into business?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Oh, my, yes. All the other agents fought me. One man said, "You've taken bread out of my children's mouth." I said, "If you unknown better man than that, I'm sorry for your children. Better get busy and do a little better."

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Tell some more incidents of discrimination, of antagonism.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Every man in town turned against me and a lot of my family were against me. They just thought that I had disgraced the family. They thought it was outrageous, that only bad women, prostitutes, were suffragists.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

But as far as your being in business was concerned——this is what I'm thinking about right now——were you discriminated against in a social way, in a business way?

EULALIE SALLEY:

As far as social, it didn't make any difference because I had a certain standing anyway. My family had been here always. I didn't care anything about that.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you have any trouble, for instance, with banks, other business concerns besides real estate?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

They dealt with you on an equitable basis?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. Mr. Dibble, who was the president of the bank here, the largest bank . . .

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Which bank is that?

EULALIE SALLEY:

The Bank of Western Carolina it was called then. It's no longer in existence. He was president of it. He was a very progressive old fellow. He was a nice man. He helped me a great deal and he'd lend money. There was no

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discrimination against me in the banks in a business way but the real estate men hated me like a rattle snake. I knew it was just jealousy but I thought I had a right to compete with them.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you [unclear] quite as well in a profit-making sense?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I did better than most of them.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you think that the fact that you were a woman gave you a curiosity value when people were looking for real estate?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, I was like the ring-tailed tiger in the circus. I was a curiosity Whoever heard of a woman real estate agent? Whoever heard of a woman who had the brass to get up in public and speak? That's outrageous to get up before the public and speak. I said, well, why not? Why am I disgraced because I'm married?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How about your reception to your being the first business woman in Aiken on a state level? Were there other enterprising women in the state?

EULALIE SALLEY:

There were. I was not the first one. Susan Frost of . . .

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Of Charleston.

EULALIE SALLEY:

. . . was the first woman in Charleston. She was an unattractive spinster from Charleston and she was

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not of a very good disposition. She was a very smart woman and she could meet any of them on equal terms.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Could you?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I think so. I tried anyway.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I'm sure that you could. What about in Aiken? Were there other business women?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I'll tell you where I had it on the people in Aiken. Most of my clients were the big rich northern "winter colony" people. I had seven very wealthy northern clients, like Mrs. Winthrop Rutherfurd and Mrs. Peter Roberts. They are . . . They would speak to their friends for me. I remember Mrs. Munsell, the one who was in Columbia and was a suffragist unknown was a cousin of Mrs. Joseph Leiter, a very wealthy woman. She came down here and I was introduced to Mrs. Leiter. It was through those people that I met the other people, other wealthy people, that the rest of these Aiken realtors never had a chance to meet.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Isn't that marvellous. The suffrage movement inspired you to go into business and then the suffrage movement provided you with leads that set you off.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, yes, yes. That was it.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did your business connections then acquaint you with people in political life on the state level?

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Is this how you came to know the politicians?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. Then you see, I lobbied in Columbia. I'd go up there and stay with Lottie Hammond and Clara Buchanan——they were my cousins, Lottie and Clara. We would lobby in the state house.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

This was for the suffrage amendment, wasn't it?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Then it was through suffrage rather than business that you came to know the politicians. Was it?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, it was through suffrage that I knew the politicians.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

And not through business.

EULALIE SALLEY:

No, not through business.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

That's what I want to know. Did you hear many complaints about discrimination against women in their efforts to enter business or enter the labor market while you were such a successful business woman? Did you hear other women talk about discrimination against women?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I don't think I did hear much about it. No. There's always been discrimination against women and I think there always will be. Do you read your Bible?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes.

EULALIE SALLEY:

There's that Saint Paul. Look at him. He had it down on us.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I think there's a tract now put out by a woman theologian entitled Jesus was a Feminist.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Uh huh. He had to be. This ignorant little granddaughter of mine said, "Well, he had three wives." I said, "He didn't have any such thing."

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What did she say?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I said, "Who were they?" "Mary and Martha," she said, "and the Virgin Mary."

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How cute. Tell me further about your business in Aiken. This, you say, commenced in 1915 and you continued right on through even though you had children.

EULALIE SALLEY:

I still go to the office.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you find that you had to split your allegiances, that you had a difficult time balancing?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No, I didn't. Now that seems strange I had these two children but I was very fortunate. My mother was a remarkable woman and I depended on her for everything. She spoiled me to death. I never got loose from her apronstrings. She stayed with me until she died. When my first child was born, Eulalie, old Georgia Jenkins, the old nanny who nursed me, came to me and took that

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baby in charge. She stayed with me until my son resented the fact that he had to be seen on the street with a nurse. I didn't really have the care of the children and that left me free to go.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you ever feel guilty?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No, I never did because I said, why in the world should I stay and do the work that Georgia can do in taking care of these children? I don't have the mentality of a child. Why should I sink to that level and waste my time on them? That was an awful way for a mother to be.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Well you gave them time, I'm sure.

EULALIE SALLEY:

I said, I can provide other things for them. I'm with them at night and I'm with them at meal times. I'm with them most of the time.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Then you must agree with the remark that's in circulation now that it's the quality of the time that you spend with your children that's important, not the quantity.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. That's right.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Were you ever called from the table, from Christmas or New Year's dinner or Easter, to handle a real estate deal? Did your family ever resent it or did anything of that sort ever happen?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No, it didn't.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You could arrange your time.

EULALIE SALLEY:

My mother was always interested in building houses and she loved to draw plans of houses. She always dreamed of building a house and she'd draw these plans. I've built houses for her.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You were in partnership with your mother!

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. She was just as interested as I was. I had her support.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

She was Mrs. Chafee?

EULALIE SALLEY:

She was Mrs. Chafee.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What was her maiden name?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Her name was Eulalie Gamble. That's her picture there.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes, with the red hair.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

She's stunning.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. She was supposed to be a beauty.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Was she from Aiken?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No, she was from Georgia, Augusta, Georgia. She had a brilliant mind. She was a wonderful musician.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Seems that there were ample opportunities for women who developed themselves even though they had not the opportunity to go out into the world of employment.

EULALIE SALLEY:

She had always felt that women were downtrodden.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Then you heard some of this kind of thing at home?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Uh huh.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Before you sallied forth?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. She believed that women were downtrodden.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What did your father think about the situation?

EULALIE SALLEY:

My father died when I was a very small child. I really never knew him.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you have big brothers?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No, I didn't have a brother.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

An uncle?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, but they were not close to me.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You didn't have a strong male figure?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No, I didn't.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I didn't either. My father died when I was about eleven.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Nobody in the family

CONSTANCE MYERS:

But your mother believed that women were downtrodden.

EULALIE SALLEY:

My mother was the main thing in my life.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Tell about her influence.

EULALIE SALLEY:

She was a fine musician and a beautifully educated woman.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Where?

EULALIE SALLEY:

She was educated in Baltimore. Her father was a graduate of Heidelberg University and he believed in education. It was right after the Civil War, he lost everything except his land, but she was sent to Baltimore to this college.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Goucher College?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No, it was called Petapsco Institute. I doubt if you've ever heard of it.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

No.

EULALIE SALLEY:

She was the first honor graduate there. She was a finished musician. They wanted her to go on the concert stage but my grandfather wouldn't hear of that. My grandmother was a French woman and she spoke beautiful French. Her family always spoke French at home.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

It's a matter of some interest to know what lies in the background of a woman who becomes active for women's rights.

EULALIE SALLEY:

They were people of culture.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Mrs. Salley, I thank you very much for your time today. I think that you have told me some

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remarkable incidents from your life. I appreciate it very much. I hope that some day soon I can come back and we can explore things further. In the meantime, I am happy for Mrs. Bull to hear what we've done today.

EULALIE SALLEY:

She'll let you have those tapes, if you want.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

And I thank you so much.

[TAPE 2, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Mrs. Salley, tell me some of your recollections of Faith Baldwin.

EULALIE SALLEY:

The most interesting person that I knew intimately who came to Aiken was a German baroness who called herself Madame Adele von Loesecke, though that was really not her name as I found out later. She spoke frequently of Faith Baldwin and Mrs. Auer Anchor. She was very secretive about where she had been and where she had lived and what she was to those two women. They were not related to each other but she had not been a governess to them yet they had been in her care. At that time Faith was just beginning to write and she would send her writings to Madame Von Loesecke to have her criticize them.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you remember how this woman spelled her

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last name?

EULALIE SALLEY:

L-O-E-S-E-C-K-E. Madame Adele von Loesecke, but that was an assumed name. I never knew what her real name was.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What was her living style in Aiken?

EULALIE SALLEY:

That of royalty.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Can you describe it in some detail?

EULALIE SALLEY:

She had the most magnificent furnishings in her house which were sent here from Germany. She had silver with huge crests on them, magnificent linen. Her table arrangements for the luncheon were done by her German butler. It would be a big mound of flowers with fluttering butterflies all over it. The butler collected butterflies and he would mount them on the finest wires and as he moved about the table these butterflies would flutter in the air. I've never seen anything as exquisite. He waited on the table in white kid gloves.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

And you had lunch with her every Thursday?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Every Thursday. I was the only guest who was ever invited to the house.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

She was in seclusion.

EULALIE SALLEY:

She was coming to my office occasionally but the understanding was that I was never to introduce

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her to anyone. She never met anybody.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What was her relationship to Faith Baldwin?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I never knew but I have Faith's letters saying, "I can tell you that I lived with her for a number of years. Then she used to take me abroad. But there are two years in her life that I cannot tell you about. That is a closed book." So I never knew what happened. Then, all of a sudden, she called me one day in great distress and said, "Come to me. My butler is going to kill me." She had a Swiss nurse and a German cook. Then she had this butler. I don't know what Coastal was.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You called him Coastal? His name was Coastal?

EULALIE SALLEY:

We called him Coastal but we really never knew what he was. I went immediately over there and he said, "Madam is indisposed. She cannot see you." I said, "Coastal, I must see her." He said, "You cannot." My husband was a lawyer and I went back and I said, "What must I do? Madam Von Loesecke called me and asked me to come over and told me her life is in danger. And I want you to go over there with me, see what we can do." So we went over and Mister Salley got the sheriff and we took him on. We met Coastal at the door and we said, "Something is going on here. We don't know what it is.

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We're not accusing you of anything but we're warning you. If anything happens to Madam von Loesecke, you are entirely responsible for it. And the house is being watched." In a few days she left.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What became of her estate?

EULALIE SALLEY:

All of her things were packed up, crated and shipped to Germany. She went to New York and took a small apartment there and just as she was crossing the street, soon after she got there, she was knocked down and killed by a taxi.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How eerie. It's both eerie and melodramatic.

EULALIE SALLEY:

I always believed that that man did it.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you have any correspondence with Faith Baldwin about this episode?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I had a letter from her not long ago when I was writing my book——I keep saying that, when Emily was writing this book. I wanted to put her in there and I wrote to Faith and I said, "What can you tell me about Madam von Loesecke? She was such a mysterious character." She said, "I lived with her when I was a little girl but there are two years in her life that I cannot tell you about. About her end, I can say nothing."

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How mysterious.

EULALIE SALLEY:

I believe that she was a member of the

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royal family who was in hiding. That's what I believe.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

The environment that she maintained for herself supported this belief fully.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. She was a beautiful woman. She held herself like a queen. She had that bearing and her manners were so exquisite. You knew right off that she was not an ordinary person. She lived in such secrecy.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did knowing her affect your life in any way?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No, I was fond of her and I was distressed at her unknown end. But it confirmed my belief all the more that she was royalty and it was some political reason that had exiled her.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I wonder how it is that Faith Baldwin spent years of her childhood with this woman?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I don't know.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

A mystery.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Some day Faith Baldwin is going to visit me, she told me that she would, and she would tell me more but she couldn't tell me now.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Where does she live now?

EULALIE SALLEY:

She lives somewhere in Connecticut. I have her letters downsairs on file. I've had two letters from her.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How did you meet her in the first place?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Madam von Loesecke?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Faith Baldwin.

EULALIE SALLEY:

I never met her. When Madam von Loesecke came here, she was brought here by a woman equally as fascinating. She called herself Mabel Anchor and she was married to a first cousin of the king of Denmark——Auer Anchor. She was the one that bought the house and equipped it and brought all these servants here and they stayed here a while. I knew them very well. She was the one that payed all the bills and stood for everything that she wanted. On her birthday——she called her Auntie but I know she was no relation——she said, "May the fifth will be Auntie's birthday. Go to Augusta and buy the finest Cadillac they have and give it to her as a birthday present." And things like that Mabel did. Suddenly, Mabel disappeared. She spent a whole winter and then she and Auer disappeared and I never saw or heard of them again.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

The entire situation is mysterious, isn't it?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Then the whole matter just closed, shut right down. When I started this book and wanted to put something in it about Madam von Loesecke, the most mysterious person who ever came to Aiken, I remembered so

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many times she mentioned Pussy, as she called Mrs. Anchor, and Faith. She always spoke of Faith's writings and that she was going to be a great novelist.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How old was Faith in those days?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I don't know.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

It was before her career . . .

EULALIE SALLEY:

She was a young woman. She was just beginning her writing career and she would send her first stories to Madam von Loesecke to correct unknown But I imagine she was a very young woman. She had lived with her for two or three years. She lived with Madam von Loesecke.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Under what circumstances and why we don't know.

EULALIE SALLEY:

She didn't say. She said, "I wish I could tell you but I can't."

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Perhaps this German baroness was in hiding a good portion of her life and acted as a governess.

EULALIE SALLEY:

That's what I thought. She might have been governess. You see, Mabel Spang was the illegitimate daughter of a Mr. Spang of Philadelphia one of the wealthiest men up there. There was a terrific lawsuit which she finally won and got millions by proving that she was his daughter.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Was this unknown of Mabel Anchor?

EULALIE SALLEY:

That was Mabel.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I suppose you've met many many interesting people. This must have been one of the more fascinating chapters of your career.

EULALIE SALLEY:

That was the most fascinating. It was.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Let's think about Jeannette Rankin a little bit now. Can you remember when you first met her? On what occasion did you first meet Jeannette Rankin?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I didn't really meet her on that occasion but I was in Washington, 1917, when she took her seat in Congress as the first woman. I happened to be there at a meeting of the League of Women Voters and I saw her when she walked in to take her seat. I can see her now. Jeannette said, "How can you remember that?" I said, "All I remember about it was the thrill I got seeing you walk in. To prove that I was there, I can tell you the hat you wore. You wore a big black chiffon hat." She said, "I did and it cost me a fortune." She loved clothes. She always had beautiful clothes. She had lots of money. She was a rich woman.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you know what the source of her money was?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. She was the largest tax paying woman

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in the United States. She and her brother owned this Montana ranch and it was the largest body of land on which taxes were paid. They owned one million acres of land which was more than anybody else in the United States except the King Ranch owned. That's where the money came from. She did a tremendous amount of charity. Her interest was largely in young men. I know of two young men she sent through the University of Georgia. The reason she had this home unknown in Georgia was that she was terrifically interested in the poor women of Georgia. She taught them to make unknown quilts out of scraps of material that they had. You remember all the quilts on the clothes line by the roadside? She was the instigator of that.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did she hold classes?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I don't know whether she did or not. What she did for the women in the beginning . . . unknown She stopped at Watkinsville, which is just outside of Athens, hoping some of them would go to school. She built a ten bedroom house, a tremendous house, there and gave them free board in that house.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I wonder how she attracted them there. What kind of publicity campaign did she put on to make these women acquainted with her presence?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I don't know how she did it but she had a

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way of making friends with everybody. She was as democratic as anybody could ever be. She was a politiccian from her heels on up. I saw her when she walked into Congress.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you remember what year that was?

EULALIE SALLEY:

It was 1917.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Was it?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, I remember that. Then that term expired and she didn't run again. Her brother helped her with her politics but she didn't run again. She ruined herself. There was a question whether we should go into war and everybody wanted to go into that war. They called on her to vote and she stood up and said, "I love my country but I will have to vote "no." And hers was the only "no" vote. Then she didn't run again until World War II and she happened to be in then. Again she voted "no."

CONSTANCE MYERS:

She was a pacifist?

EULALIE SALLEY:

She was a pacifist.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you know in what other ways her pacifism manifested itself?

EULALIE SALLEY:

In the fight for peace.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did she belong to any specific organizations that fostered peace and pacifism?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. There is an organization that fosters peace and I don't know the name of it. I'll try to find one of the books that she gets out and gives. It's sort of an almanac but it's all of the women who have fought for peace, black and white, with pictures and things they have said about it. There is a peace organization and she was the head of it.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I was going to ask you whether or not you concurred with her negative vote in both instances.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes I do. I don't think anything is settled that way. There have been several men I've wanted to shoot but I didn't and I'm glad that I didn't. It's only in anger that you do these things. I think any question can be settled by negotiation. I don't believe in killing.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Then you concurred with Mrs. Rankin on both questions——her position on women's rights and her pacifism?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

When did you see her again after that first instance?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I never saw her again until the fall of 1970.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you and she correspond?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I never wrote to her. I'd keep up with her in the newspapers. I knew what a busy woman she was, though I do have a letter from her dated November 10, 1970 after my visit to her in Watkinsville, Georgia.

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She spends a lot of time out on her ranch. She was very busy and she didn't have time to bother with me. I was so busy myself. When you have a real estate, a landscape gardening business, and two or three other interests you don't have time to run down things like that. But one day I picked up a newspaper, a year and a half ago, and I saw Jeanette Rankin had gone with a speech on peace to the Georgia legislature in Atlanta. I sat down and wrote her a letter and I said, "Jeannette, I haven't seen you in nearly fifty years and I'm thrilled to see that you have a little home so near me in Watkinsville, Georgia, which is my home state. I would love to have a talk with you. Would you give me a half hour of your precious time if I drove over there? I am nearly ninety years old but I will make the trip." Vernon [Edenfield] was sitting there, this boy who lived with her. She said, "Vernon, don't answer that letter. Pick up the telephone and tell her to come tomorrow. I remember her." And he picked up the telephone and he said, "This is Vernon. I live with Jeanette Rankin and she's just received your note. She doesn't want to take the time to answer it but she wants you for lunch tomorrow. Will you come?" I said, "Will I!" and I went. Took two friends with me and we had a wonderful time.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you take your daughter?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I took Sally Carr, my granddaughter and a friend. She said, "A half hour! I never heard of such a foolishness. Why, who in the world could talk about what we've got to talk about in a half hour? You're spending the day." I never enjoyed a day so much. And I said, "Now, Jeannette, when will you come to see me?" She said, "Let's see. Today is Wednesday. I'll be there Friday." She was a minute woman. I said, "That's wonderful." She came and she stayed the whole day. She came early and she stayed 'till late in the afternoon. I never saw her again.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Can you tell me, Mrs. Salley, what you talked about on the day that you spent with her at her home in Watkinsville?

EULALIE SALLEY:

We talked about the old suffrage days.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you?

EULALIE SALLEY:

When we were fighting so hard. And when we were going to Congress and interviewing the different congressmen and senators. My bête noir was old Senator [Benjamin Ryan] Tillman who was a ruffian from South Carolina and who was the chief enemy of woman's suffrage. I had an interview with him. After I had my interview with him, I told her about it, reported it to her.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Can you tell me what exchange took place

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between you and Mr. Tillman?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, I can. I went in there and I told him that he had a very fine son and he should be ashamed of himself. He'd married a lovely girl of an aristocratic family and he had two lovely girls and he had deeded away those girls without their mother's consent. That was the law in South Carolina. A man owned his children just as he owned the cattle on the ranch and he had taken advantage of that. She fought it in South Carolina courts and lost. She fought it in the Supreme Court and lost. She sold her jewelry. They were poor. She sold her jewelry and she mortgaged her plantation and she lost at every turn. The people in the country . . . I remember one time, everybody sympathized with her. There were men who sold chickens. Do you remember when they sold chickens in wagons? They'd have a wagon body with the chicken wire over it. The chickens would be in there and they'd drive from house to house. You'd go out and pick out your chickens?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

That was before my childhood memories began.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Well, that's the way they did it. They'd have that wagon full of chickens. They couldn't get those children away from the old Tillmans who had them. He deeded them to his mother and father. So this old

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chicken man went there and slipped those children out and put them in the chicken wagon. Supposedly peddling chickens on the way to Edgefield, he had these children and he got them back to the mother. That incensed every woman in the state.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

It incensed them that she had to resort to this to get her children back?

EULALIE SALLEY:

That she had no right to her children and those children did not want to be with their father. He was a drunken creature.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

How did Senator Tillman repond to your challenge?

EULALIE SALLEY:

He said it was the law and the law must be obeyed. What was law was law, and that was right.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did you have correspondence on this question?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I have letters from him.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

You told Congresswoman Rankin about this episode?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Did she know Senator Tillman?

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, she knew him. She knew them all. I said, "There's no use to bother with Tillman but there is a man that I believe we can win That's Senator [William Pegner] Pollock of Cheraw. He was with us. He was a wonderful

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man. He worked diligently for it and he is really largely responsible for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Senator Pollock of Cheraw.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Do you remember his first name? It's in the record.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes, it's in the record. I don't remember it.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Once you told me about him and then about Harriet Powe Lynch of the Equal Suffrage League.

EULALIE SALLEY:

He was a great friend of Harriet Lynch. They were from the same town.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I'll be talking to Harriette Lynch's niece next Tuesday, this up-coming Tuesday. I'll be in Cheraw.

EULALIE SALLEY:

I hope she's kept up. Harriet is dead I think.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes.

EULALIE SALLEY:

She was a wonderful worker. She was president of the Suffrage League when I went into it. I saw an ad from her in the paper that every woman should join the League, right after this Tillman thing. You could join by sending a dollar and signing this slip. I signed the slip and sent the dollar. My husband got perfectly furious with me. Did I tell you the rooster story?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes, that's very amusing.

EULALIE SALLEY:

That was what turned the trick.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Persuasive thing. What did you and Mrs. Rankin talk about at your house?

EULALIE SALLEY:

We talked about the different politicians. and the way they stood. How some of them were such gentlemen and some such boors. Her brother, she told me, was the one who backed her and helped her more than anybody else. She said he never would go into politics but he was a real politician. He managed her campaigns.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

What was his name? [Wellington Rankin]

EULALIE SALLEY:

I don't remember what she said his name was. But she said, ‘My brother was responsible. The second time I ran, he said ‘Now, Jeannette, you must finish’ the job. You must run again this year.’ He was the one who persuaded me to run again."

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Can you tell a little bit about her house in Watkinsville? What was it like?

EULALIE SALLEY:

I wish you could have seen it. She took this great big house and turned it over to some poor women who made the blankets. She found on the place a gin-house. Do you know what a gin-house is?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I guess it's where the cotton was ginned.

EULALIE SALLEY:

It's where the cotton is ginned. It's a board house, a great big room and one or two little rooms.

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It's more of a shack than anything else.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Dirt floor?

EULALIE SALLEY:

No, it didn't have a dirt floor. She fixed it up a little so it would be habitable. She wanted a nice living room to entertain her friends in. You know, after her first term she travelled a great deal and she had an eye for beautiful things. She loved Persian rugs. She was crazy about lovely old . . .

[TAPE 2, SIDE B]

[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]

CONSTANCE MYERS:

. . . her appreciation of beautiful things and you said she liked what else?

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Fine brass. Below the gin the ground sloped off so she had it built up. It wasn't on a level; it was about two steps below the gin house. So instead of building it up she levelled it and covered it with tar paper. On top of the tar paper she had these exquisite Persian rugs.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I wonder how they survived.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Well, the tarpaper protected them and they can survive a lot. They are beautifully made. On the wall would be these brass ornaments. Then she had a litle coal grate in the fire.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Tell me about those brass ornaments. I don't understand what kind they could be that they would decorate the wall.

EULALIE SALLEY:

They were like basins that would hang on the wall like a plaque and large vases, things of that sort that you could use to decorate with. Then she had a few rugs on the wall.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

The small Persian rugs.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

I think those things that hang on the wall are called lavabos, or something like that.

EULALIE SALLEY:

Yes. Then she'd have some bookcases with a wonderful collection of books. She loved to read and her eyes were bad. These two boys she had would read to her.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

Yes. Tell about the two young men.

EULALIE SALLEY:

She took these two young men to educate, to send through the university. They were very brilliant young boys. One was John Kirkley and the other was Vernon Edenfield. I've got some pictures of them. I think Lucy *must have taken them down with her.* Ms. Salley's secretary, Lucy Rodman. They were simply devoted to Jeannette. She had no servants. They did everything for her. When lunch time came, we got up to leave for Aiken, she said, "You're staying to lunch."

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Page 53

It was the strangest lunch I've ever had. They said, "Come on Salley." my granddaughter was with me. "Help us fix lunch." Salley said, "Where's the stove?" "Here it is." And there was a little electric disc, about this big. There was no sink.

CONSTANCE MYERS:

To cook lunch for about seven people!

EULALIE SALLEY:

unknown. Let's see. There was one big spoon and one big fork to mix things with and one bowl. Said she'd never seen anything like