[TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

ALLEN TULLOS:

The best thing for me is to go ahead and ask Mr. Pharis these questions and if you feel you have any information you can add, to add. Another time I would like to sit and talk to you in the same kind of way we have done with him.

You had four sisters and one brother.

JAMES PHARIS:

Yes, I had. They're all dead.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Could you tell me their names and about how far apart they were born?

NANNIE PHARIS:

About two years difference in the ages. There were six, two boys and four girls.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What was the oldest one's name?

JAMES PHARIS:

Brooksie.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did he have a middle name?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Not that I know of. I don't think they used middle names.

JAMES PHARIS:

The next one was a brother, George. And Sally Pharis. Nanny Pharis. Daisy Pharis. About two years apart.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Is that the way that would work in those days?

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's the way it would work.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You said your father and mother lived on a farm.

JAMES PHARIS:

They moved off of the farm when the kids was old enough to work and moved to town.

ALLEN TULLOS:

The oldest one, his name was George…

JAMES PHARIS:

Brooksie was the oldest. She was a girl.

ALLEN TULLOS:

She went to work first?

JAMES PHARIS:

Yes, I believe. You could go to work when you got big enough to talk. I believe Brooksie and George and Sally and Nanny was old enough to go to work.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How old would they have been?

JAMES PHARIS:

I'd say from fifteen down.

ALLEN TULLOS:

And the youngest one would have been nine?

JAMES PHARIS:

Yeah. Right about how old it was.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember anything at all about that farming experience?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, I was so small I can't remember too much about it. I can remember being on the farm and I can remember moving. My daddy raised tobacco, his central crop was tobacco. When we come to the town he still kept his team. He done hauling around for people and done truck farming after we moved to town. He done that on up until he was able to do anything.

ALLEN TULLOS:

He would have a few acres rented around?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, he just rent the land. That's what he done after he come to town.

ALLEN TULLOS:

The truck farming would be different kinds of vegetables?

JAMES PHARIS:

Yes, vegetables. Corn to feed his team on.

ALLEN TULLOS:

He never did work in the mill, then.

JAMES PHARIS:

No, he never did work in the mill.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did he talk about why they moved from the farm to town?

JAMES PHARIS:

Because the kinds felt that all we had to do when we moved to town was to reach up and pull the money off of the trees. We come down and pull some off of it.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Worked for twenty-five cents a day when we started.

JAMES PHARIS:

And that was eleven hours a day, too. I went to work after I got eight or nine years old, I worked for several years there for twenty-five cents a day, eleven hours a day.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When you all got paid, did you turn the money into your father?

JAMES PHARIS:

Had to, it took it all to live.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How did that work?

JAMES PHARIS:

They'd give each kid a little allowance.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Very little.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Your parents would?

JAMES PHARIS:

They'd give us so much out of what we made.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Who in the family would have been the one that would have kept up with the things that had to do with keeping the money?

JAMES PHARIS:

My mother, she looked after that. Weren't no money to look after much. The whole family wasn't making as much as one would make now.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did people trade things or vegetables or crops or produce?

JAMES PHARIS:

No. People lived on credit then. If you didn't have credit, you didn't live. I remember after I went to work, I'd buy me a pair of shoes or a suit of clothes or anything I bought, I'd buy it and pay a dollar a pay day, every two weeks. Until I got it paid.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would there be a company store?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, they had a company store. But it wasn't like a lot of company stores you read about. We had merchants we traded with.

ALLEN TULLOS:

And they would have general store kind of….

JAMES PHARIS:

They had what you'd call a company store. But it didn't actually belong to the company, the textile company. It belonged to an individual but they called it the company store.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember the names of the store you would have bought your overalls from?

JAMES PHARIS:

Rufus Ray was the name of the man that owned the company store.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Where would that one have been?

JAMES PHARIS:

That was in Spray.

NANNIE PHARIS:

It's Eden now.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When you started to work, what do remember about that, the mill, working, life?

JAMES PHARIS:

I don't remember too much individual things. I was about nine or ten years old when I got that hand hurt right there.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How did that happen?

JAMES PHARIS:

I was riding on an elevator rope in the mill. Me and another boy was getting the quills in the mill. He was on the bottom floor and I was on the top floor. We'd go to the spinning room to empty our quills out. The first one who would get up there would ride the elevator rope. He'd be down on the bottom floor. We'd ride the elevator rope up to the pulley and slide back down. I was riding one day and was looking round over the spinning room and my hand got caught under the wheel. That thing was mashed into jelly, all of it was just smashed all to pieces. They took me out. It happened pretty much after lunch one day. It started up after dinner, they gave forty-five minutes for dinner. They took me down to the company store—the drug store was in the front end of the company store—never even notified my people or nothing. Set me down in the front of that company store. There were only two doctors in town at that time, and both of them was out of town on country calls. I sat there until about four o'clock. Nobody done nothing in the world for me. My people was never notified. Nothing said about it. You tear yourself all to pieces then, nothing

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said about getting anything out of it. The doctor put a board on my hand there, had my fingers straight. One night the board slipped around the back and that thing crooked down. It's been that way ever since. Never even got straight.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Those things happened a good deal?

JAMES PHARIS:

Oh, yes, back in them days. Nothing never said about it then.

NANNIE PHARIS:

He could have sued them nowadays.

JAMES PHARIS:

You couldn't do nothing. Poor people like us, no use in us suing.

NANNIE PHARIS:

They didn't have anything to sue for, actually.

JAMES PHARIS:

No use in suing. Poor people didn't stand a chance. If a rich man wanted…. They had a system back in them days. One company owned all the mills was around there. They had agreements with one another. If they said not to hire you they wouldn't hire you. So, if you done anything—anything the company didn't like— they'd just fire you and tell the rest of them not to hire you. So, there you'd be. People who lived under them circumstances, back in them days, was nothing they could do. So they didn't try to do nothing.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did they have a doctor the mill paid to handle you?

JAMES PHARIS:

They did pay for the doctor to fix up my hand. We never did. Never did say nothing to us about it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would there be one particular doctor who would be on contract?

JAMES PHARIS:

There were only two doctors in town. Either one of them was a company doctor.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Was one of them Dr. Sweeney?

JAMES PHARIS:

Dr. Sweeney and Dr. Ray was the only two doctors available.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would these sorts of accidents happen to one group more than another, or children more than grown-ups? Who would be most likely to have an accident in the mill?

JAMES PHARIS:

So many little children working then, little bitty children. Naturally they had more accidents than the grown-ups would.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did anybody ever complain?

JAMES PHARIS:

Didn't have no complaints back in those days.

ALLEN TULLOS:

There was nobody that came around to check on that?

JAMES PHARIS:

No. You done like they said do or you didn't do back in them days. If a man wanted to stay in town he had to do what they wanted do or he couldn't stay there.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You hear people talking now, they've found about these diseases that you get by breathing some of the dust and things like that.

JAMES PHARIS:

Nothing ever said about that in my day.

NANNIE PHARIS:

There was plenty of dust.

JAMES PHARIS:

There was plenty of tuberculosis back in them days, too.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did they ever think that tuberculosis had to do with the mill?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, never crossed their mind. They just had it, that's all.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What about your other brothers and sisters, did they have any kind of accidents like that?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, not a one of them ever did have an accident. It was my fault. The supervisors in the mill shouldn't have allowed it, and they

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wouldn't allow it nowadays. I done that for six months there, ride that rope for six months before I got hurt. I know nobody never did tell me to stop it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did your brothers and sisters go on working in the mill?

JAMES PHARIS:

They worked on in the mill until all of them married.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Some of them worked after they married. Take them two then to make a living, if you could call it a living.

JAMES PHARIS:

People now, they don't know what it's all about.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Your brothers and sisters, or you, did you go to any kind of school at all?

JAMES PHARIS:

I graduated from third grade with honors. I went to school two years and graduated the third grade. I made two grades in one year. I didn't go to school but two years but made three grades.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What about your brothers and sisters?

JAMES PHARIS:

By a little better, they got a little better education than I did, but not much. They had to work back in them days. I was the littlest, so naturally I got to go to school a little. My daddy used to give me twenty-five cents a week to go to school and not play hooky at all. Then I'd play hooky and get the twenty-five cents too. I remember talking one time about how miserable you'd be to play hooky. Me and another boy, a friend of mine, was going to school one morning and passed a Methodist church. We got even with the Methodist church and one of us said to the other one "Let's play hooky and go up in that bell tower." Until after school started, then we'd come down and go off somewhere. Some women crossed the street seen us go up in there and they come over and take the ladder down. So we were sitting up there in that dark bell tower and had to stay up there from nine o'clock in the morning until two o'clock in the evening before they

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ever come over and put the ladder back. That taught us a lesson.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You all were married in 1911, is that right?

JAMES PHARIS:

1911.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How did you all meet?

NANNIE PHARIS:

In the mill. And at old square dances. [Laughter]

JAMES PHARIS:

That's all the recreation people had back in them days. Different neighbors would have dances at their homes. They'd invite their friends in.

NANNIE PHARIS:

If you wasn't in by nine o'clock you was disgraced. If you wasn't home by nine o'clock you was disgraced for life. If you wore a skirt above your ankles you was disgraced, so you had to wear long dresses.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When would these be, what nights?

JAMES PHARIS:

On Saturday night.

NANNIE PHARIS:

During the holidays.

JAMES PHARIS:

Just like she said about the association. A girl had a date with a boy. The way they dated back in them days—and everybody done practically the same thing because it was a habit with all of them—they'd date Wednesday night, Saturday night and Sunday evening. Sometimes they'd stay until nine-thirty on Saturday night, being the end of the week. You seen a boy visit a girl on Wednesday night. And they stayed at home, too. Nine o'clock, nine thirty was late bedtime. I've heard remarks made of neighbors, "You know that boy stayed up there last night to see that girl until nearly ten o'clock." That was awful, that was just terrible.

ALLEN TULLOS:

So you all met at one of these dances?

JAMES PHARIS:

And church, we'd meet in church.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would they have musicians?

JAMES PHARIS:

Yes, they'd have fiddlers and banjo pickers. Fiddle and banjo was just about all the music that was popular back in them days.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would you all know some of the musicians?

JAMES PHARIS:

Oh, yes. Everybody knowed everybody else in a small town.

NANNIE PHARIS:

And he would be with me, you know. I was safe.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How would that work. Would they stand at the front of the room?

JAMES PHARIS:

They would just get in the room. Houses was built bigger….

NANNIE PHARIS:

Rooms was larger. But they didn't have as many rooms. Maybe three.

JAMES PHARIS:

Everything was company houses. Nobody owned their own home.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you all live in a company house?

JAMES PHARIS:

Oh, yes.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Even though your father didn't work for the company.

JAMES PHARIS:

He said the kids worked for the company. I remember we paid twenty-five cents a room a week for a house. Later years we lived in a four room house. They finally put in electric lights, then we paid five cents a drop for electricity a week.

ALLEN TULLOS:

A drop?

JAMES PHARIS:

What they called a drop was a drop down from the ceiling. They called them drops then.

ALLEN TULLOS:

About when was that?

JAMES PHARIS:

19….

NANNIE PHARIS:

1917. It was before the war of 1918.

JAMES PHARIS:

Along about 1915.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Let's go back to you getting together. How long would you say you courted each other?

NANNIE PHARIS:

About a year.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What would that be, every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday….

NANNIE PHARIS:

We sang in the choir together at the Christian church. [interruption]

JAMES PHARIS:

Still up in them days, short hair for a grown woman.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Called them flappers. [Laughter] Give me ten dollars to have my hair cut. When I come home, my son wouldn't even speak to me.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When did he do that?

JAMES PHARIS:

Along about 1915.

NANNIE PHARIS:

No, later than that. You was disgraced if you had short hair.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you ask each other's parents about getting married?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, we took that on ourself.

ALLEN TULLOS:

They didn't try to stop….

JAMES PHARIS:

No, they didn't try to stop us.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What kind of a ceremony did you have. How did that work?

JAMES PHARIS:

The minister married us in the house, in our home.

NANNIE PHARIS:

In my sister's home. I lived in my sister's home. My father and mother lived in the country on a farm.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Then right after that, did you move into a house or did you go live with one of your families?

NANNIE PHARIS:

We lived just part-time with his family and then we

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rented a little cottage right in front of where we worked at the mill. That's where we started housekeeping. Believe it or not, I got some things to start housekeeping with. And I've had them a long time. Going to have me a yard sale one of these days.

JAMES PHARIS:

Talking about prices then and now, I remember there was a fellow living in this little three room house was leaving town. We bought everything he had—a three room house right in front of the mill where we worked—we give him thirty-five dollars for everything he had. A cookstove, bed, dressers. Everything he had he sold to us for thirty-five dollars. Of course I had to shake around right smart before I'd get thirty-five dollars. [interruption]

ALLEN TULLOS:

Going back to your brothers and sisters and their names, were they named after anybody in particular in the family?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No, I don't think so.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What about y'alls children, did you name them after anybody?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No.

JAMES PHARIS:

I thought you named Daisy after….

NANNIE PHARIS:

No, Dr. Tuttle named Daisy after his wife. Wasn't anybody left. Everybody thought she was named for her aunt Daisy. Dr. Tuttle named her for his wife.

ALLEN TULLOS:

That's the doctor that delivered the baby?

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right. All three of them.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Was that OK. with you that he named….

JAMES PHARIS:

Oh, yeah.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How were you and your brothers and sisters delivered? Did you have a doctor come?

NANNIE PHARIS:

By ourselves.

JAMES PHARIS:

I think we had a doctor there for one of our children.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Oh, yes, we did.

JAMES PHARIS:

Of course, he didn't cost nothing much. He charged us—I never will forget it— $8.00 for the first one, $10.00 for the next two, and the next one he said he'd have to have $12.00. When he went up to twelve, I said just scratch me off of your list. You going up every time. There won't be no more.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You said you were a leader of a band in Spray for twenty years and that you all played in two or three different towns right around there Tell me about that.

JAMES PHARIS:

We played for the fairs that come around for just about twenty years.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you play an instrument.

JAMES PHARIS:

Yes, I played a trumpet.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How did you learn to play the trumpet?

JAMES PHARIS:

We had an instructor the company furnished us in later years after World War I was over. They hired a man to come and teach. The whole town wanted to take part in music.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Where did he come from?

JAMES PHARIS:

I never did know exactly where he did come from. He was a northerner, I know.

NANNIE PHARIS:

You did know where he come from. I thought it was New Jersey.

JAMES PHARIS:

I never did know.

ALLEN TULLOS:

He then taught you how to play the trumpet?

JAMES PHARIS:

He was the head man. We had what you'd call the North Spray Band. And I was the leader of that.

ALLEN TULLOS:

And the company paid for that?

JAMES PHARIS:

The company paid him, and they helped us some and would do little favors for us, too. They was mighty nice to us back in them days. They could do a little something for you and you appreciated it so much. He stayed there for probably ten or fifteen years. They had a pretty good band when I left there.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What would you play?

JAMES PHARIS:

Oh, anything. He got us to play. We'd give concerts, lots of concerts. We went out of town and played some paid concerts.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you learn how to read notes?

JAMES PHARIS:

Oh, yes. I learned how to read music.

NANNIE PHARIS:

unknown was a fine teacher. He taught them boys.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How big of a band was it?

JAMES PHARIS:

We had a full band, I think it was thirty-five or forty. Then we had an orchestra in that band of about twelve, fifteen.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How many people were working in the mill at that time?

JAMES PHARIS:

There's more people working per job then than there is now. They didn't work you too hard. You'd have spare time. What they call getting rest. People didn't have to work too hard, but they worked long hours.

[TAPE 1, SIDE B]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]

ALLEN TULLOS:

Going back to the band for a minute, why did they decide to do that?

JAMES PHARIS:

I don't know. They done that to boost the community morale, I guess, the community spirit.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Were people still having these dancing parties at the houses?

JAMES PHARIS:

Parties on up until the later years, yes.

NANNIE PHARIS:

But the orchestra didn't play for no dances.

JAMES PHARIS:

No, the orchestra, band wouldn't play for no dances. At picnics and stuff like that. Lawn parties used to be awful popular.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would any of the people who played for dances in the houses play in the band?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, they was two different kinds of musicians. The people who played for dances played by ear, and we'd play by music.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would there be any other differences between those two kinds of musicians?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, nothing more than one just played by ear and the other played by music.

NANNIE PHARIS:

They didn't have any teachers, the string musicians. Violins and banjos was all it was.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did they play different songs?

JAMES PHARIS:

The music back in them days was just like your country music is today. They never had no teachers, just self learnt, you know.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Just like them hillbillies in what do you call it, the Grand Ole Opry.

JAMES PHARIS:

It's come into its own in later years, ain't it?

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you like one kind of music more than the other kind?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, I used to like band music better than any other kind of music. I didn't particularly care for string music.

NANNIE PHARIS:

I still like that old time picking.

JAMES PHARIS:

I don't care too much about it.

NANNIE PHARIS:

I like to watch the Grand Ole Opry. And they were self taught, too.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You used to like it, though?

JAMES PHARIS:

I used to like band music, I didn't….

ALLEN TULLOS:

But you went to those dances.

JAMES PHARIS:

I'd just go to the dances to be around the girls.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You didn't dance?

JAMES PHARIS:

I never did dance, a very little bit. I never did dance enough to learn.

NANNIE PHARIS:

I can see on TV exactly the way I used to dance. I mean I danced. I weighed ninety-eight pounds, and I could get around.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What kind of dancing would you call it?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Square dance. That started it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did people dance to the band music at all?

JAMES PHARIS:

No. The orchestra music they'd play for dances sometimes. But not very much of it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What about these lawn parties, what were they like?

JAMES PHARIS:

They'd just have lawn parties, have ice cream, refreshments, lights up all around, outdoors you know. Invite a bunch of people in. The band played for several lawn parties, lawn parties of any size.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Who would give them?

JAMES PHARIS:

Churches, mostly.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Aristocrats would give them. B. Frank Mebane and so and so.

JAMES PHARIS:

And churches would give a lot of them, too.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Who would come?

JAMES PHARIS:

Anybody who wanted to get out. That's all you had to do anyway.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would you have to dress any special way?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, you wouldn't have to dress up for that. Later on, long about '20 or '23 started this new dancing: Charleston and the Big Apple and that type of dancing. That just set the world on fire for several years there.

NANNIE PHARIS:

When we moved to Covington, Virginia my daughter and her girl friends was trying to learn it. They wasn't half doing it, and I went in one night and showed them and they like to fainted. They said, "Mama, I had no idea in the world you ever done that."

ALLEN TULLOS:

Where would you have done it originally? Would it be at those lawn parties?

JAMES PHARIS:

Not at lawn parties.

NANNIE PHARIS:

We'd all get together…

JAMES PHARIS:

At regular dance parties.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Let me ask you another question about the band. Did you ever go on the radio?

JAMES PHARIS:

Yes, we played on radio not too many times. We played once in Salem and Greensboro. That was the only two that had stations in this part of the country. We played maybe a couple of times each on both of them.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember the names of the stations?

JAMES PHARIS:

No I don't. Just Greensboro and Winston-Salem. As far as the numbers, I don't remember.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would somebody sponsor you or they would invite you to come on?

JAMES PHARIS:

They'd invite us to come on. We didn't get nothing for it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When would that be, what day of the week?

JAMES PHARIS:

No certain day. Whenever they had an opening they'd

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tell us when to come and we'd go.

Picnics, we'd play for picnics. And land sales.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember any of the tunes, any of the songs you played?

JAMES PHARIS:

We played almost all of Sousa's marches. We played just about all the popular music that was coming out for bands back in those days. We would play overtures. The professor taught us all the fancy… These overtures would be very complicated to play and work on them all winter and come out in the spring. We studied the whole winter and come out. The only thing we wanted out of it was somebody's appreciation. We could play them pieces we worked all winter on so hard and get no applause at all and play a little old simple march or a little old simple piece of some kind that had a swing to it, and boy, they'd just go wild. I talked to the professor about it one time, why should we study trying to learn them complicated music when some we could pick it up and play it on sight anytime that they really liked. And that type of music is like today, that country music, got a swing to it, got a beat. That's what the people liked about it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

And he wanted to teach you all some of these others?

JAMES PHARIS:

He wanted to teach us this classical stuff. None of us cared too much about it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What did he ever say when you asked him about it?

JAMES PHARIS:

He said that was the coming music. The only thing it was is to learn that. People would appreciate it in later years. Back in those days I would venture to say ninety percent of the people was uneducated. Nobody went to high school except the upper class, somebody that didn't associate with the other fellows and we didn't associate with them. In later years the working people got into going to high school. My kids, they all finished grade school. I got one working in the bank now. One of my daughters works

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in a bank down in Rocky Mount. She was educated by special schools after she growed up.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you all have uniforms in this band?

JAMES PHARIS:

Oh yeah, man, we had classy uniforms.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would the company help pay for the uniforms?

JAMES PHARIS:

Yeah, they at least made a great donation towards it. The biggest part they paid for. They furnished the big instruments, the expensive instruments.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What were the instruments you all would have in your band?

JAMES PHARIS:

Well, we'd have a tuba, and a baritone, alto, trombone, cornets, trumpets, drums. We had just about a complete assembly.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did the uniforms have anything written on them?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, they just had braids and all that junk.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you ever use them in a parade?

JAMES PHARIS:

Oh, yes sir. We took a big pride in that.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When would there be parades?

JAMES PHARIS:

Sometimes on the fourth of July, some kind of a special something that the company would want to put on. I remember one time we was parading from Spray to Lynchville, and we got down to a forks of a road. and they made a moving picture. They've got it somewhere now. I'd hate to see it. I was playing trumpet that day. I took the wrong road, and the band went that-a-way and I….

NANNIE PHARIS:

Well, if you hadn't had a nip….

ALLEN TULLOS:

Another thing you mentioned when you talked about Alamance County, you told the story about the reputation in Alamance County for rooster fighting.

JAMES PHARIS:

Alamance County used to be known for rooster fighting. I wasn't living there then. I'll tell you the truth, I always hated

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Alamance County. How come we ever settled down here, I'll never know.

NANNIE PHARIS:

The company sent you here.

JAMES PHARIS:

Yeah, they sent me here, but why didn't I leave when I got through?

I remember very distinctly. I had a car and I brought a bunch of fellows one Sunday. We was talking about Alamance County when we was coming down this very road here. At that time there was a high bank out between here and the road, but there was a pretty level lot back in behind. I told them, I says "I wouldn't want to never live in Alamance County, but if I ever did live here I'd want me a home right there, right here where I got this house." And that was twenty years before I ever got it. I built the house.

NANNIE PHARIS:

We spent two years in South America.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you ever go to any of these rooster fights?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, one. I don't think I ever went to but one.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What was it like?

JAMES PHARIS:

Very exciting, it's too brutal.

NANNIE PHARIS:

We used to tell them up home it was a regular little Chicago. It was bad at the time.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would they have the rooster fight here in town?

JAMES PHARIS:

No, sir. Somewhere out in the country. The biggest portion of them. That's where I got on to them. For so many people in Alamance County used to be the chicken fighting place was in Henry County, which is the otherside of Rockingham county. People from Burlington and Alamance County would come through Spray going to the chicken fights up in what they called Aiken Summit, up around Axton, Virginia. That's where the biggest part of the fighting was done, but the fighters was all from down in here.

[TAPE 2, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]

ALLEN TULLOS:

We can go back and start with your grandparents and see what

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Page 20

you could remember and work our way forward from them. First of all, you were born in Henry County, Virginia.

NANNIE PHARIS:

That was near Martinsville, Virginia.

ALLEN TULLOS:

And you were born in 1892, May the ninth.

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember the names of your grandparents?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Jackson Wilson and grandmother Rhody Wilson, that was my mother's parents. I don't remember much about my father's parents.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What would have been their names?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Meeks. He was Meeks. Honestly I don't know them. Was my father's name.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What kind of work did your grandparents do?

NANNIE PHARIS:

My grandfather, Jackson Wilson, was a bootlegger.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Up in Virginia?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, he made his own, though, down on a creek bank.

JAMES PHARIS:

He wasn't a bootlegger, that was a moonshiner.

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right, that's what you'd call it. And he made good money. He was kind of cruel, but my grandmother Rhody had the sweetest disposition. That is my mother's father. And my father married twice. He married my mother's sister, Jenny. She died. They was twins, Jenny and Julie. Then he married her twin, Julie, that was my mother. There was thirteen children.

ALLEN TULLOS:

We could stop a minute at your grandfather, the moonshiner, and talk about him. Do you remember anything much?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I don't remember too much about it. My grandmother didn't approve of it at all. So he stayed away from home most of the time. He had a kind of tent down on this stream of water where he had a still.

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Page 21

He made his own brandy and he'd have fruit. He'd make brandy of all flavors. He made good money in that day and time. A dollar went a long way.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did he do anything else?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Not that I know of. A little farming occasionally.

ALLEN TULLOS:

He did this for several years?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Oh, yes, long as I can remember.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Who would be his customers?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Well, just the farmers surrounding him.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How would he sell?

NANNIE PHARIS:

They wasn't any law. He could sell it any way he wanted to. Everybody wanted it just went and got it. I don't know what the price was or nothing. But he'd make brandy, peach brandy, apple brandy. People were just crazy about it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did he make any whisky?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Oh, yes. White Lightning they called it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Out of corn?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, that's right.

ALLEN TULLOS:

And your grandmother, she didn't approve of it?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did they ever argue about this?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No. My grandmother was an even tempered person. She didn't like it at all but she didn't argue about it. She just let him have his way.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you ever hear any stories about where your family might have come from way on further back?

NANNIE PHARIS:

They was born and raised in this country up about in Virginia. I believe it was around Ridgeway, Virginia. My grandfather owned a big farm. A lot of land. I still have some ancestors up in there. The Wilsons. Most of them was bootleggers.

JAMES PHARIS:

Back in them days, where you was born, generally that's where you died. You didn't move around much in them days.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When did he stop moonshining?

NANNIE PHARIS:

When he died. [Laughter] He died with a heart attack.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When did he die?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I couldn't tell you, good grief, I can remember it very well. I guess I was ten or eleven years old.

He had an awful disposition. My grandmother was such a sweet and even tempered person. We'll always remember her.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember the funeral, or when your grandfather died?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No, not anything about that at all.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How many children did they have? You can say their names, if you want to.

NANNIE PHARIS:

David, Hubert… I can't remember the others. They was all kind of roustabouts.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Your father's name was then Hughes Meeks. And he married Jenny Wilson. Then what happened to her.

NANNIE PHARIS:

She died in childbirth. And then in about a year he married my mother. They were twins, you know, Jenny and Julie.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Jenny lived about a year after they were married.

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How would you reckon that folks would get to meet each other, see each other if they were young, that age, and courting?

NANNIE PHARIS:

[Laughter] I don't know, they'd just meet. Mostly at dances and different places.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How long was it after your father and mother married that they had their first child?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I think it was about a couple of years?

ALLEN TULLOS:

And who would that have been, who was the first one?

NANNIE PHARIS:

The first child, Jeff Meeks. The second Elizabeth. About two years apart. Thirteen children.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You say three of them died….

NANNIE PHARIS:

In infancy.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What are the stories about those three?

NANNIE PHARIS:

One of them lived just over three days. Another one was kind of retarded, it lived about three years. And the oldest one died with dysentery, I think. I remember the two smallest ones, but I don't remember the one that died with the dysentery.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How were you in this group of ten, thirteen children? Where did you come?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I was just about the middle one. I only have two brothers that are living. One in Reedsburg, Wisconsin and one in That's all the three left out of the ten.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did your mother have a doctor present?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Very seldom. Not unless it was very serious. It was about five miles, maybe a longer distance than that, to get a doctor. It would be too late, you know. She had a midwife with most of us.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Was it the same midwife everytime?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, I do. Aunt Ivy Hosten. These two colored people. Aunt Ivy was the midwife, she lived close by.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Could you tell me any more about her? When would somebody get her to come?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Well, in the family, my father mostly would go out.

ALLEN TULLOS:

And she would come to the house….

NANNIE PHARIS:

And stay maybe three or four days. There was a lot of that in those days. The doctor was a good distance away and it would be impossible to get him before the baby.

ALLEN TULLOS:

And this woman delivered a lot of babies?

NANNIE PHARIS:

She did, surrounding where we lived.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You say her sister was a midwife, too?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, there was two of them. I forget her name, though.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would you pay them anything?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Not anything, unless you'd give them some vegetables, fresh meat or something like that. Probably they did pay them with some money. I don't remember that much about it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Is that how you were delivered too?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I guess so. Yes, most of us were.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember being present when any of that was going on?

NANNIE PHARIS:

They'd take us away from home. Them old colored women come and get us and take us to their house.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How long would you stay at their house?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Until everything was over with. Then they'd take us back. Then they'd spend three or four days with us.

ALLEN TULLOS:

But you knew what was going on then?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I don't think so. We didn't learn much about that in those days.

JAMES PHARIS:

They just left till the stork comes. The stork brought them.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, that's the truth.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would they say something like that when they took you away?

NANNIE PHARIS:

They'd take us to their homes and tell us to stay there until they come back for us. Then they'd come and get us and take us after everything was over with. And they'd remain with us probably a week or maybe more, until my mother got on her feet again. Think about giving birth to thirteen children. A pretty rugged life.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did she start back into work pretty soon after that?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, she'd commence doing her housework and maybe working in the garden near the house. My mother was awful smart, I thought.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What kind of other things would she do? Did she sew a lot?

NANNIE PHARIS:

She did a lot of sewing and making comforters. They called them quilts those days. She stayed busy most of the time. She was always awful clean, kept the house so clean. I don't see how she done it, but she did.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What was your father working at?

NANNIE PHARIS:

He farmed. He raised vegetables, sowing tobacco and different things. Peas and beans, the carrots through the winter. Have a lot of pork, kill pigs, calves, and fix up for the winter. We had a pretty good life, considering.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did he have a cash crop?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Sometimes he was just a tenant farmer. Several years

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Page 26

before he died they bought him a farm.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember moving from one farm to another?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, I do. We didn't have very much to carry.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You had a lot of helpers to carry.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes we did. Good neighbors then, more true than they are nowadays. The neighbors stood by you.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember moving more than one time?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I think I remember moving twice. I know I remember moving from the country to, they call it Eden now, it was Leaksville - Spray then. My father didn't like it at all. And he went back to the country.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Why?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Well, he went back home and he farmed again until he died.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you know why he didn't like the town?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Well he just didn't like the noise and he just didn't like the city, if you could call it a city.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did he get him another job?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No, he didn't work. Us children worked. I went to work when I was nine years old.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Where did you go to work?

NANNIE PHARIS:

At the old Spray Cotton Mill. Twenty-five cents a day. Twenty-five cents then went almost as far as a dollar nowadays.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Were you the first of the children to go to work?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No, I had some older sisters who worked.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Where did they go to work, where did they start?

NANNIE PHARIS:

They started just about where I did.

ALLEN TULLOS:

At the cotton mill?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, then we went to work, they called it the Rhode Island Mill. They built that then. We all worked there. That's where me and him worked when we married.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When you were nine years old and beginning to work, how did you start?

NANNIE PHARIS:

The spinning room, I spun the yarn that made cloth in the shuttles.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did someone teach you how to do that?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Oh, yes. I remember her very well. Her name was Hattie McBride. I remember her teaching me. She always spoke well, she'd tell me I was smart, easy to learn. When payday come we was so happy. Get three dollars every two weeks.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Which day would payday come on?

NANNIE PHARIS:

On a Saturday.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would you finish in the middle of the day on Saturday?

NANNIE PHARIS:

A lot of times we'd work until four o'clock. Work twelve hours during the week, that's right. Or was it ten. Twelve hours. I think it was ten hours on Saturday.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you get paid as soon as you went into the mill, or did you have to stay there and learn how to do your job before they began paying you?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I don't think they paid us anything to learn. But after we learnt, we got a job, a machine of our own.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How long would it take somebody to learn?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Not very long. It didn't me, at least.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How long would that be?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I reckon in about three weeks I'd be able to get on my own on a machine by myself.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Were there lots of other children working at this mill?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, plenty of them. They was glad to get them. They would come to our home, because there was so many of us. They needed help, hands in the mill. That's how we started. They got our father to move into town and we all went to work. I think I run the first spinning machine in the Rhode Island Mill was ever started up. Work on one side and go on to another.

ALLEN TULLOS:

The mill was built in 1905?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I run the first spinning machine there that was ever started up. They made blankets there and we'd spin the yarn that made the blankets. Each one that started up, I got to about six machines, and that's as far as I went.

ALLEN TULLOS:

So all of your family went to work in….

NANNIE PHARIS:

We did, every one of us. We thought we was rich.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Your father was growing vegetables?

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right, he was. Raising pork and things like that.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did he sell any of that to anyone else?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Oh yes, you could go on the street and sell such as that in those days. But you can't do it now.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You mean he would put some things in a wagon and….

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right. A box, or anything, and sell it on the street.

JAMES PHARIS:

You bought your fresh meat off a wagon.

NANNIE PHARIS:

You did, and it was good, too. But they've passed a law

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Page 29

that it had to be inspected.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What sorts of things would your father sell?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Well, he'd sell all kind of vegetables and fryers and eggs and butter and milk and everything. It was good, too. It isn't like it is nowadays.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would he have one particular day he'd do that?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No, not no certain days. Maybe Wednesday and Friday, something like that. So the folks would have the stuff for the weekend.

The neighbors would join one another and help each other, butcher the pigs. They'd help each other, it wouldn't cost either one of them anything. So they'd pack it up on the wagons and help them. If the neighbors needed the same thing done, they'd do the same thing with them.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Where would he take it to sell?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Bring it on in town, in the street. They called it Spray then, they call it Eden now.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Who would be the people who would buy from him?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Everybody, be glad to get it. Sometimes they'd gauge it so much for each weekend, and they wouldn't have any trouble selling it. Then we'd have plenty at home.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Lots of people in the town didn't grow their own?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No, they in the town. It wasn't allowed. Big pens, nothing like that wasn't allowed.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Was he selling these things to people working in the mill?

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right. They were glad to get it. All of their meats then were corn fed. They raised their own feed. A whole lot better than it tastes nowadays.

ALLEN TULLOS:

And by living out of town a bit he could have a farm?

NANNIE PHARIS:

We had a farm. That was the last that we owned.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When you were working in the mill, you said he moved into town for a little bit and then went back out.

NANNIE PHARIS:

He went back but we didn't. It was close enough. Me and my mother used to walk to work, five miles each day, believe it or not. We made it fine, didn't have to pay no board or nothing. I was living with my sister when I married. Because they lived on the farm and I didn't want to live there.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You didn't want to live on the farm?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Too far to walk. And I was courting them days, you know. Well, we've had a good life me and him. Raised three lovely children, I think.

ALLEN TULLOS:

So you all would be living in town and your father would be out.

NANNIE PHARIS:

My sister and myself, we'd maybe go weekends to visit them.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What kind of a house did your sister have?

NANNIE PHARIS:

She had a little four room cottage on the street.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Was it built by the mill?

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right, it was. I think the rent was about twenty five cents a room a week. A dollar a week rent, I imagine.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When you are talking about walking the five miles, that's when you all still lived out of town?

NANNIE PHARIS:

When my mother and father lived out of town, yes.

ALLEN TULLOS:

But when you moved into work in the mill, how many other children were out on the farm?

NANNIE PHARIS:

None, we was all married at that time. Except me, I married while I was living with my sister.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When you all got your paycheck, did you turn it over to your parents?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Oh, yes. We just felt we was rich. First money we ever earned.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did they give you an allowance?

NANNIE PHARIS:

We got everything we ever needed.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would they give you a certain amount each week?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Maybe fifty cents. We didn't get paid but every two weeks. Six dollars, maybe we'd get a dollar of it. I forget when they went up on the wages. I can't remember all that stuff.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What would you do when you got your dollar? How would you spend it?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I'd spend it just as quick as I could get to the store. I was thrilled to have that.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What kind of things would you buy?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Just little — like candy, chewing gum, something like that. We enjoyed everything, because we hadn't been used to much.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you go on to other jobs in the mill?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No, I stayed in the spinning room all the time I worked.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How long did you work?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Was it 1930 when they closed the Rhode Island Mill? Then I worked some when we lived in Reidsville—I rode back and forth—1935. I would ride from Reidsville to Eden and worked. I rode with a girl. That was the last work I done.

ALLEN TULLOS:

You started working in 1901 or 1902 when you were nine years old, and then worked until about 1930.

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right, 1930 in one place.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What do you remember about the working conditions in that mill?

NANNIE PHARIS:

They was pretty good, the overseers and supervisors. Real good, kind to you.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you get tired working those hours?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Sometimes. I didn't weigh but eighty-nine pounds, you see., and I could get about. I don't think I ever got very tired.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would there be ways you would rest during the day?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, if you caught up and didn't have nothing to do you could sit down a few minutes and watch your work.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What would you do when you had a few minutes to sit down? Would you talk to somebody else?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, we'd talk to one another. Maybe one in the next alley to me. They wasn't very strict. They looked after us, I think, real well.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would you have a chance to eat?

NANNIE PHARIS:

We got an hour for lunch.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Where would you go for lunch?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Go home, because we lived close enough to go to the house. Was a pink bean sandwich be all we'd have. That's the truth, I ain't lying. Sometimes something better.

ALLEN TULLOS:

A pink bean sandwich? How would you make that?

NANNIE PHARIS:

They'd be made when we got there. One of them would be there to have it ready. We'd eat together.

JAMES PHARIS:

Tell him how many different ways you learned to cook fat back meat.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Wasn't no fat back meat then, those days. You mean batter it, fat back meat. That would make good gravy, milk gravy.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When are you talking about?

NANNIE PHARIS:

That was after we was married.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Let's go back to the pink bean sandwich.

NANNIE PHARIS:

The pink beans was real good. A whole lot better than the pintos. They took the place, you know. Maybe we'd have an apple to eat, a fruit.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did people grow pink beans around?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, they did.

ALLEN TULLOS:

They don't seem to grow pintos.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Not around here, no.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did your father grow these pink beans?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Sometimes, occasionally. Not very many, but he did enough to do us. He growed black-eyed peas, white beans. My mother would make churns of kraut to last us through the winter. They had ways then.

ALLEN TULLOS:

To make a pink bean sandwich, how would you do that?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Mash them and put it between bread, biscuit. Didn't have light bread unless you bought it whole and sliced it yourself. Very seldom ever saw any, what they called light bread them days. We used to bake it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

So you'd make these on biscuits?

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right, make it on biscuits. When I was growing up my father would take his wheat and corn to a gristmill and have it ground. That was good bread. Had a good taste.

JAMES PHARIS:

Most everybody in them days canned enough stuff and put away enough stuff that they raised in the summer to take care of them through the winter.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Wasn't any canning much done in them days. We'd dry apples and things like that. Enough to do us. Make kraut.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Your mother and father dried apples.

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right. Peaches.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What were some other things they were growing in their garden?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Well, they grow about everything. Cabbage. Lots of potatoes, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes. Lots of tomatoes, squash, string beans, watermelons, canteloupes, most everything you could mention, they had it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How much land were they using?

NANNIE PHARIS:

I forget how many acres they had. Enough to keep them busy.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would they grow tobacco on some of it?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, some of it. They'd have a certain allotment for tobacco.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember any of the names of watermelons, any of them?

NANNIE PHARIS:

In the canteloupe line, had some cue melons was awful good. Long. They was delicious. I forget the other names.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Any particular kind of tomatoes you remember the names of?

NANNIE PHARIS:

June Pinks.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What kind of apples would you have?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Vine apples, and greenskins.

[TAPE 2, SIDE B]

[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]

ALLEN TULLOS:

So apples and then cherry trees.

NANNIE PHARIS:

There was three different kinds of cherry trees. They called one of them a "blackheart" cherry. It was dark. And then they had one called a "sugar cherry." That was kind of pale pink. And then the sour amarella. unknown. That's what I have in the backyard now. We had all those. Plums.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did your father set out these cherry trees?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes. The neighbors would exchange these little trees with one another. That's how he got them. He didn't buy them.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you do different things with the different cherries?

NANNIE PHARIS:

We'd make preserves, about all.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would one kind of cherry make a better preserve?

NANNIE PHARIS:

The sour amarella made the best preserves and pies, too. I got plenty of them in the back yard now. The pale reds, they were better to eat. And the blackhearts, they didn't have much flavor. They went out of existence. I haven't seen one in years and years. But you can buy sweet cherries in the market now. But I like the sour amarellas.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Who did the cooking around your house?

NANNIE PHARIS:

My mother, and the girls that was old enough to help.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would your father ever do any cooking, or dishwashing?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Oh no. I never did know of it, if he did. I don't think so.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did your mother ever work out in the garden?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, she had a garden special near the house where she could work and tend it.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did she grow different things?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, vegetables of all kinds. Sweet peas. Squash and things like that.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would her garden have different things in it than his?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Well, she wanted it near home where she could work it. So my daddy could raise corn and potatoes on the other.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did she grow any herbs?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Sage, yes she grew some sage is all I remember.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What would she use it for?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Put it in sausages and different things.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did she ever make any home remedies for when you were sick?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Used to have rat's bane tea. She'd go out to the woods, get that and make teas and give it to us for certain ailments. But I forgot what they were.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember any other things like that?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No, I don't. But there was some. I wish I could remember.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember you or any of your other brothers and sisters being sick when you were a child?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, had those contagious diseases like measles, whooping cough, things like that. A pretty rough time of it when we had the whooping cough, so many of us. The people who lived nearby helped a lot. Kind of well-to-do people.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Was there anything they could give you?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Just make all kind of cough syrups, things like that. Make it out of sugar, homemade molasses. That's another thing we raised, too, sorghum.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did your father make the molasses?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, he used to make molasses. They'd all get the machine together and make this syrup.

ALLEN TULLOS:

The neighbors?

NANNIE PHARIS:

That's right. A certain person would own the machine that made it. They'd help each other, you know. I wish I had some of it right now.

ALLEN TULLOS:

The person who owned the machine, would they give him some of it?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Well, they paid him so much for his rounds. It just happened once a year, you know.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What time of day, when you were living with your mother and father, would you get up in the morning?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Pretty early. Long before daylight. About daylight time they'd work and they'd work sometimes until dark. To get the crop so it would be OK.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would you all have breakfast together?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, we all had breakfast together. Imagine, twelve at a table.

ALLEN TULLOS:

What did you have?

NANNIE PHARIS:

We had sausages and eggs and most anything we wanted.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Biscuits.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Because we raised it. Yes.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Grits?

NANNIE PHARIS:

No, we didn't have no grits. They hadn't come in style then.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did you ever have potatoes for breakfast?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, we used to have fried potatoes. They didn't call them french fries then. They just fried the potatoes.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would they cut them real thin?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Pretty thin, not too thin. Not like they are nowadays. Everything tasted awful good.

ALLEN TULLOS:

And you raised the meat that went into your own sausage.

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, that's right.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Who would make the sausage?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Now that's a good question. One of the farmers would have a sausage mill. And they'd probably go there, to another farmer to make the sausage. And they'd work together, you know, each one. I wish I had some of that.

ALLEN TULLOS:

When you sat down at the table, did you have a particular way that you sat every time?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, we had a certain seat we had everytime. We'd pass one another the things on the table, each dish.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Where did your mother and father sit?

NANNIE PHARIS:

One at the foot and one at the head of the table?

ALLEN TULLOS:

Who sat where? Which one sat at the head of the table?

NANNIE PHARIS:

My daddy.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Would you all wait until they sat down to start?

NANNIE PHARIS:

Yes, we'd wait. And we'd all go to eating and passing the dishes.

ALLEN TULLOS: