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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Elva Templeton, January 24, 1976. Interview K-0188. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Disciplinary habits of Templeton's parents

Templeton remembers her mother's whipping chair, where Templeton received whippings from a peach tree switch. Her father never whipped her.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Elva Templeton, January 24, 1976. Interview K-0188. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

ANNE KRATZER:
While we're talking about that, can you tell me how your mother brought up children?
ELVA TEMPLETON:
Well, we'd mind and if we didn't we got a switchin'. And I mean it hurt too.
ANNE KRATZER:
Was there a particular type branch?
ELVA TEMPLETON:
She got a little switch from a peach tree or something and they sting, you know. Maybe you don't know. Of course the whipping chair had gone out of style now. The police would tell the momma's what to do, they tell me. I don't know. But anyway, I find them very nice in Sunday school, very cooperative. If they can raise them without whippin' them, more power to them.
ANNE KRATZER:
You told a cute story about your father. Your father never whipped you but he came close to it? Tell us about that.
ELVA TEMPLETON:
Oh yes. I was about to pull some green peaches off the tree. He told me to stop and I just wasn't about to until I saw him get up and he was going to switch me.