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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview
K-0228, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Thomas Henderson was born in Brookneal, Virginia, in 1914. His family roots in that area (Henderson's family had a small form that was worked by tenant farmers) date back to the Civil War. Henderson describes growing up in this small agricultural community. In the early 1930s, Henderson attended Lynchburg College and East Carolina Teachers' College, each for one year. After finishing a year of study at East Carolina as one of the first male students in 1932, Henderson left school out of economic necessity and began working for the tobacco industry. Henderson quickly became a tobacco buyer and remained in that position for the duration of his career, eventually becoming one of the most respected tobacco buyers for tobacco companies such as Liggett-Myers, the Greenville Tobacco Company, and Philip Morris. Henderson focuses primarily on his work for the tobacco industry in the 1930s and 1940s, and life in Greenville, North Carolina, which he explains was a "tobacco town" until World War II. In addition, Henderson explains the establishment of gradation policies for the tobacco industry as a New Deal reform measure; the process of buying and selling tobacco at auction; and changes in tobacco farming.
Thomas Henderson was born in Brookneal, Virginia, a small, tobacco farming community. He later became a tobacco buyer in Greenville, North Carolina. Focusing on the tobacco industry in the 1930s and 1940s, Henderson explains the establishment of gradation policies for the tobacco industry as a New Deal reform measure; the process of buying and selling tobacco at auction; and changes in tobacco farming.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Well, first of all this is Charles Thompson from the University of North Carolina and it is October 28th 1999. And it's ten o'clock in the morning. We're here in Greenville, North Carolina on Rosewood Street not too far from the university. And Mr. Tom Henderson is here who's lived in Greenville for a very long time. But we're going to talk about some of his experiences in the tobacco program. But if I could I'd like for you to—. I heard from your daughter, Martha Henderson that you were born in Virginia. I was thinking maybe we could talk about how your life went from the beginning.
Well I thought about I would trace it back it being it started that's
where the English people found [unclear]
Right.
And they found out that the Indians had tobacco and they were smoking it. And I don't know how other ways they were using it, the tobacco. And so they took that tobacco and they sent some to England. And it was dispensed at apothecary shops, which is a drugstore, as medicine. And so then as the population grew the natives—Englishman and farmers started raising tobacco for home consumption over here. And it went from East Tidewater, Virginia up to around Lynchburg and down to Danville. And from Danville it went down to central—eastern North Carolina.
You mean it was [unclear]
And, of course, these people from up there had to teach the people down here about it. It was one man going to plant—. He wanted to plant ten acres of tobacco in Goldsboro.
When was this?
Huh?
When was this you're talking about in Goldsboro?
When?
Yes, sir.
Oh, it was way back yonder. See very few people were raising tobacco in North Carolina.
Okay, well this is back when they first thought about taking it to—
When they first started out. And he wrote to his people in Danville,
said he wanted—he was going to plant ten acres of tobacco and
he thought it would take ten pounds of seed. And so they wrote him back
that ten pounds of seed—. They didn't have that much in stock
or everywhere—. He probably would need a teaspoon full to
plant ten acres. And so, anyway, it spread over eastern North Carolina.
And Pitt County raises more tobacco—Virginia-type tobacco than
any other county in North Carolina or any county anywhere. And Wilson is
the biggest tobacco market in the bright tobacco business. And
Greenville was known as second. But they raised thirty-five thousand
acres of tobacco in Pitt County, probably twenty-five thousand now. I
don't know. And—
Well let me find out a little bit about you before we start getting too much into your tobacco experience. Can you tell me where you were born?
I was born in a little town—Brookneal, Virginia.
Brookneal, Virginia.
Five hundred people.
Is that close to Danville?
It's sixty miles from Danville. It's northeast of Danville. It's between Danville and Richmond.
Okay. It's north. And that was tobacco country, too, wasn't it?
Yes.
And you were born on a tobacco farm?
No. I was not born on a farm. My father, at that time, was a deputy sheriff.
Oh, okay.
And we lived out about three miles, two miles, two and a half miles from where this town was.
And you were—what was the date on which you were born?
August 14th 1914.
Nineteen fourteen. Was that during World War I?
That was the year it began. We got into it in seventeen.
Okay.
And I had one brother-in-law killed in that war. And I remember a lot of
people—particularly when they came back—. See I was
born in fourteen and then by
Right. Can you tell me about some of those things you remember when you were four?
Well I can tell you that there was—we had a tenant there
before the war started and his name was [unclear]
Pollard Panel?
Pollard Penell.
Penell, okay.
And he was drafted. She stayed there on the farm. And he came back and became a very successful black man.
Right.
Farmer—he had several farms and that just [unclear]
So your daddy owned land but he wasn't a farmer. He didn't directly farm it so he—
He rented it out.
He had tenants living on the place. And there were tenant houses on the farm?
I think only one.
Only one and that's where the Penells lived.
But I remember seeing Pollard Penell the day he came in in uniform. It was long about when I was four years old. And Flossie was out our house, his wife.
And they had children?
They stayed there and had children. And then—
Was this when he was leaving or when he was returning.
When he was—after the war.
Well he came back safely then.
Yes. He got back safely. And he became a very successful farmer. He
owned several farms as time went on. And he was a very intelligent man.
And, of course, I don't know what became of him after that. He went his
way and—. I know while he was there my mother and daddy had a
lot of respect for him. They liked him very much as tenants.
And you were a boy then. You were four years old. What do you—what else do you remember about growing up there?
Oh, I [Laughter]
At six?
We—my brother—half-brother and another boy in the
neighborhood we went over to where [unclear]
Right. It was hanging up in the barn.
It was hanging in the barn. It was being cured.
Well your daddy didn't raise that but Mr. Penell did I guess.
No. This was a different farm. This was a different farm.
Okay.
And we went over in the woods and started chewing it. And I was beginning to get sick. Well I had sense enough—I was six years old. That was 1920. And I went home as fast as I could, went upstairs and got in bed.
Right.
And I slept. Well lunch came and they couldn't find me. Mama found me
and we were all eating lunch. And she said, "Son, why did you
go upstairs and go in the bed—get in bed this time of
day?" And I said, "I chewed some tobacco."
[Laughter]
So you went on—you grew up in Brookneal and lived there through school. Is that right?
Yeah. And I attended Lynchburg College one year.
Oh you did.
I was there the first year they had any students.
And which year was that?
Nineteen and thirty–two.
Okay. First year they had students.
First year they had any men students to amount to anything. There were
about seventy-five boys and nine hundred girls. And I had a beautiful
girl. Somebody said, "How in the world did you get a pretty
girl like that as scrawny and as skinny as you are?" I said,
"Well, I was one of seventy-five and there were nine hundred to
pick from." And I picked this girl. And that's the only reason
I got her is because I had on pants. [Laughter]
In North Carolina, yes, I have.
It's down not too far from—
Lumberton?
Not too far from Lumberton and Mullins, South Carolina.
Right.
It's right on the border. And this man was a big farmer. But anyway—
So most—
We had the first football team over here at East Carolina.
Is that right?
The first basketball team. And you see that—that's a baseball field over there. And the man that built that baseball field was Milton Harrington. He graduated from Duke and he couldn't get a job. So he came down here and played baseball at East Carolina. He became president of Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company. And it's Harrington Field.
Right. Well tell me before we get on to Liggett and Myers and all
that—and I want to. What was it you—can you tell me
about your parents and what they taught you about what you might want to
do with your life. And how they raised you there and why you wanted to
go to East Carolina Teachers' College. I'm curious about that.
Well, you don't know much about it but you've heard about it and read about it. It was in the midst of the Depression.
Right.
And nobody had any money. I had a brother—half-brother living
here. And I graduated from high school and I wanted to study dentistry.
And he said, "Mama, sent him down to [unclear] [unclear]
I have no idea.
Thirty-seven dollars and a half a quarter. And they furnished everything except your pencil and paper. That's how hard times were.
And your parents said, "Definitely go." They—your parents definitely wanted you to go off to college.
Well that's right. And I know when I left here I realized I was not getting what I wanted to get. They were teaching you to be a teacher. So really they were going over what you would teach when you got to, say, high school level. And—
But you decided to go to East Carolina because it was the closest school, it was the most affordable?
Because it was most affordable.
Most affordable.
Because it was amazing how everybody was in the same boat.
Right.
These girls coming off the farm their hair was bleached. They had on Oxford shoes. But in three months you couldn't tell them from the city girls.
I see.
I mean it was just amazing.
You mean their hair was bleached by the working in the sun.
The sun—bared headed. And it was—. But as I said I talked to a black man years later. He said, "Mr. Henderson, we had a good time. See we worked hard and we made a dollar a day." But said—
Working in the fields.
There in the fields. And said, "We stopped working at three o'clock on Saturday."
Right.
And said, "When we'd stop working we'd have a dance."
[Laughter] [unclear] [Laughter]
That's a good—. Well, what about—. Had you worked before you went off to college? Did you have to work at home?
Yes. I worked. I worked in a grocery store, anything. My preacher asked me, said recently several years ago. Said, "How did you get in the tobacco business?" I said, "I was looking for a job, any job, anywhere."
Was this after college?
This was after college. See I had to give up the idea of studying dentistry because I couldn't get the money.
Because this was the Depression.
This was the Depression. It took a $1,000—
To go to dentistry school.
To go to dental school. And you know what it costs today? At least twenty-five thousand a year. So—
But this was—. So you—. Before we leave your high school years that you worked at grocery stores and you worked your way through school.
Well, I was—just spending money. See my father was—. Well, he got in the insurance business.
Oh, after he left deputy sheriff.
And he did very well. But I had some money of my own to spend I worked five hours a week—
Okay.
When I was in high school.
And you saved up that money to go off to college with, I imagine.
No. I saved some money. But I bought my clothes. And I helped my daddy. And it was hard. But, as I said, everybody was in the same boat.
Right.
And you can't imagine but—
Were your parents both from farms?
[unclear]
He was.
And he was a Gettyburg in Pickett's division. And he thought he was—he was the third in rank. And they were going up in rank, you know. And he was in the third and the two fell before him and so he was in front.
Right.
He thought he was the only man that looked over the federal [unclear] [unclear]
The North Carolina division was the worst hit.
[unclear]
Virginia, too.
[unclear]
Right.
And mama said he loved to talk about the war. And he despised Abraham
Lincoln. But after he got older he realized that Lincoln wasn't as bad a
man as he
Under Grant.
And under Grant—. Grant was not the caliber of man that this Abraham Lincoln was.
Right. And you remember this grandfather talking about the Civil War?
No, no. No. No.
This was—. These stories are—
My great—my grandfather—my daddy's father was
sixteen or seventeen years old and he guarded bridges. Now my
grandmother's father loved his horses. And he walked down in the pasture
one day. And walked up to this mare and slapped her on the shoulder and
she reared and kicked him in the abdomen. And it killed him. It was a
ruptured—ruptured—. Wasn't anything they could do
about it. He died in about three days. But mama said he loved to talk
about the war. And he was captured just before Appomattox. There was
thirty-nine men in a ditch. And they—the Yankees were coming
and they caught them in this ditch. And they surrendered. And they told
them, said, "The war's going to end shortly. But if you promise
not to take up arms, you can go home." Well they were
thirty-five miles from where he came from. And—but he was
relieved when he surrendered. He was about to leave at Appomattox. And
after that he came home. And lived until he was sixty-four. And he was a
farmer.
Well that's right. We were going to—. You had said that right after—. You went to college here for one year to become a teacher.
Then I went to Lynchburg College.
Then you went to Lynchburg College.
And after that—
That was the teachers' college as well.
No. No. Lynchburg Christian College it was. But it's now Lynchburg College. And it's a small school but a very good one.
Right.
It's on the—. You've heard of Hampton Sydney College. Well it's about the size of Hampton Sydney College.
About nine hundred and some students.
Well, no—
Now it is.
I think there were about three hundred and some.
Three hundred, then, okay.
But it was a good school. And I know I had a friend that we were both
going to study dentistry. And he said his daddy gave his a
$1,000. And he said, "Now
Right.
Well that was Charlottesville, I believe. And he became a dentist. And—
He was your best friend.
He and I we played together. He had a motorcycle. We'd go down
to—he had some relatives down in Campbell County. And we'd go
down there. And I remember we were coming back and we'd got back out to
the [unclear] [unclear]
So your brother was older and he had already started working—
He's three years older than I am.
Okay.
Second husband—my mother married brothers.
Oh.
Her first husband died in '32. And my wife—my daddy was a widower. And he died and she married my daddy. And so it was a case of your children, my children, our children.
Right. Okay. And so you were twenty years or more behind some of the other.
And he was very successful.
You had how many brothers and sisters in all? I mean you say yours—
There were fourteen of us.
All combined.
All combined.
And you were the—
I was next to the baby.
Next to the baby. Okay.
Next to the baby.
Okay.
Next to the baby.
Thirteenth.
Yeah, thirteenth. And my [unclear] [Laughter]
So you had an older brother whose name was—
Kenneth Henderson.
Kenneth Henderson who had already taken a job—. Now this was back during the Depression as we talked about. And he had already been promoted by the time you were out of college.
Kenneth – [unclear] [unclear] [unclear] [unclear] [unclear] [unclear]
I'm sure he was.
And [unclear]
Right. But this was—when—you—you finished at Lynchburg College, is that—?
No. This was about two years. I had two years.
You had two years of college and you decided to go to Liggett-Myers for what reason?
He got me a job.
He got you a job.
He got me a job keeping books at night.
While you were still in school?
No.
This was after.
I'd given up the school idea.
Do you remember why you gave that up?
Yes. I didn't have no money.
Okay. Well that's a good reason.
Yeah. That's right. There was no way. I told you about the boy that had the thousand dollars.
Right.
He parlayed that with his aunt's help where he could go to school. I didn't have an aunt that I could call on.
I guess you remember him driving off on his motorcycle with plenty of money to go to school. That must have been a disappointment.
No. We kept up with one another. He had to—. See it cost about a thousand dollars to go to med school then. And—
Which was a lot of money in the Depression, we know that.
Yes, sir. You better believe it. And I went up there to a fraternity dance when he was up there. And that's the last time I ever saw him. But—where was I?
Well we were—. I wanted you to start with how your brother got you a job at Liggett-Myers. You had run out of money and were not going on into college. But he had gotten you a job as a bookkeeper at night.
Right. And I worked there for six months. And—
This was in Durham?
In Durham.
Okay.
And they must have—. I've forgotten the man's name now that was head of that office. There was about seventy-five people working there. And he told me—. I asked him, "I hope I can come next season. Look forward to coming back." He said, "No. I told you it's time that I would not need you anymore after this time."
Right.
And so it was very [unclear]
Were you living with your brother at that time?
Yeah. I was living with my brother.
And that's your first time that you came to North Carolina?
Except to school.
Oh that's right. You were—. Oh, okay. You came for one year and then you left and then you came back.
Right.
Okay.
And so I—.
Okay.
And I went there to work in the factory. And they paid me $80 a month.
Doing what were you in the factory?
I was really factory superintendent. And I was twenty-two years old.
My goodness.
I had about a hundred and fifty folks working there.
They're making cigarettes?
No, no. This was [unclear]
Okay.
And we had about three hundred hand stemmers that stemmed tobacco by hand and—
And how did that work—the stemming work?
All right. Well they stemmed this tobacco—they had on aprons and they'd fill the apron up. And they kept the stems and you paid them four cents a pound for the stem. And at the end of the week they weighed the stems. I would weigh the stems and I would pay off on Saturday. We'd pay off with money.
So they're stemming the tobacco by hand?
By hand.
There were these aprons and they're dropping the stems in their aprons.
Yes. I reckon so. I don't remember exactly what they did with the stems.
And you were the supervisor at that point going around to—
Well I had—. Yes. I was everything. I looked after that
stemming room. And I looked after the leaf room. I looked after the
receiving room where the tobacco went through the redrying machine and
was put in [unclear] [unclear]
And did you develop—?
Huh?
You must have gained the trust of all those people through those years. I mean they had to trust you with all their hours and their—
Well the people—. We paid—. We weighed the stem. We paid them four cents a pound—
Right.
For the stems. And—
Did you mark it down in a book or did you—
I put it down. I would weigh stems twice a week.
Okay.
And you won't believe this. We had—we were losing some tobacco by—it was getting damaged. And the man that was president of that company said, "I want you all to stop." We were weighing stems at five o'clock Friday afternoon. And about nine I would start making the payroll.
Okay.
And he said, "I want you to weigh stems at nine o'clock and make the payroll when you get through." But we get through at eleven o'clock. And I—by myself, we'd start on that payroll for three to four hundred people. And it would take me until five.
Five in the morning.
Five in the morning. Well I got—. I was good at it. I didn't
make mistakes. But I did to start off with. But a man told me, said,
"Don't try to do it too fast." And I got so I could do
it [unclear]
You were just twenty-two. You could stay up all night.
Well it worked [unclear]
Now you grew up on a farm. I was wanting you to tell me about growing up on a farm and how—. You had talked about working at a grocery store. But you worked on a farm then when you were—
Well, some, not much.
Okay.
Not much. But I worked in a grocery store.
But that's after—
We—at that time I was going to Brookdeer High School and I graduated from Brookdeer High School.
Okay.
And we had moved to town. The Depression—. My father—we had a store and a nice home and he went broke during the Depression. And so we moved over to Brookdeer and I went to Brookdeer High School and graduated. But during the summertime and after school, any time the man would let me work, I'd work. And I usually worked until ten o'clock Saturday night.
But y'all probably had a garden and y'all had hogs.
Yes. We had a hogs.
And a milk cow and all.
Had a garden. And we did a lot of small—. See I had a younger
brother. And so my daddy—. We planted corn and we had a good
garden. And we ate well. But my mother would say, said—she
patched our clothes and said, "There's no excuse for dirty
clothes or clothes with holes in them. I can patch the holes and I can
wash the clothes. And [unclear]
Good. So that taught you how to work hard. And when these people made you stay up until five in the morning you had these values of hard work and—
I was determined. Of course I made up my mind I wasn't going to do that anymore. And so—
You worked there for how long?
Three years.
Three years.
They didn't raise my salary in the three years.
They didn't?
We got $80a month. So—
And this was what years—
Nineteen thirty-two. No. What a minute. Lord have mercy I've lost—. I went down there in '36—'37, '38.
Okay. So this was right during the beginning of the tobacco program.
Yes. That's right. And so I came to Greenville and got a job with Mr. Charlie Howard president of Greenville Tobacco Company. And he offered me $125 a month.
That's quite a jump.
Yeah.
From eighty.
Well the man that was—the company that I worked for was
Cunningham and Stables. They decided that they were going to split up.
We had a plant in [unclear] [unclear]
This was in Smithfield?
No. That was in Fuqua Springs.
Fuqua Springs. Right.
So it's really more complicated than that. But I—. That's when I came to Greenville. And the company went broke. And Mr. Garrett hired me.
Well how did Mr. Garrett know about you? Were you—?
Well a man told me, said, "A person [unclear]
This was—. Had you ever been a buyer before that? You were—
No, no—
You were a bookkeeper basically.
Well I was—. I beg your pardon. The last year I was in Fuqua I
followed sales for quite a bit. I had—. Also I had to run the
factory. So I had double—double duty. And they worked the
living daylights out of me. And so anyway, Mr. Garrett wrote me a
letter. It said, "They told me to hire you." If that
if I didn't—. They wanted you because they knew your brothers
and they were good tobacco men. And so they gave me a [unclear]
Right. He did remember after all, didn't he, that he had said that to you.
No. I don't think he remembered.
No?
I think he just changed. I could be—. I think he kind of thought that a buyer that wouldn't take a drink was a sissy or something. And I just changed his mind about that.
Can you tell—
It was a most satisfying thing to me. He had a stroke later—a
number of years later. And one Sunday—one weekend I got home
and my wife said, "Mr. Garrett [unclear] [Laughter]
Okay.
In Lumberton. But he had—he had gotten old. He was not doing a
good job. Well Mr. Garrett had gotten this younger fellow and he was
doing all the work. But Mr. Hodges was very jealous. And he made an
awful—made it awful for this fellow. And he said,
"I'm afraid if I fire—if I retire John it'll kill
him." And I said, "Well, Mr. Garrett, I want to tell
you. That's your problem." And he [unclear] [unclear]
Well there are a couple of things I want you to not leave out of your story that you've mentioned. You said—you mentioned your wife. And we know that you were married and still are, of course. But when did you meet your wife? Was this after—
Out in Smithfield.
While you were working there.
While I was working there. She was a pretty girl. And the first time I
ever saw her she and a friend were riding horses. And I told her she
came by the factory to get a peek at me. [Laughter]
She and her sister riding horses up to the tobacco—
She had on a—
Warehouse.
Bowler hat and a jacket, a black jacket, and jodhpurs. And she really—. Well both of them were dressed just like—
With English saddles.
Yeah. And the way it all came about this friend of mine we'd go up to Raleigh and go to the picture show every now and then. And he had a car and I didn't. And he—one weekend he said, "Let's take some girls." I said, "All right. But I don't know any girls." He said, "Take that little Boyette girl."
That little what girl?
Boyette. Her name—
Oh, Boyette, okay.
Was Boyette. And so I asked her and she said she'd go. Well his girl and my girl were real good friends.
Okay.
And I married my girl but he didn't marry his. [Laughter]
So what movie was that—that picture y'all went to see? Do you remember?
No. I have no idea.
This was in—
And we went to one more time. And I lived only about a block from where she lived. She lived with her grandmother. Her mother and father were dead. And it was three of them: one boy and two girls. And they lived about a block from where I had my room. And so I had to go by the house when I walked downtown. I didn't have a car. And so anyway, we'd go to church together. I got her going to church and—
And which church is this?
Well she was a Methodist and I was a Baptist.
Um-hmm. But you decided to start going to the Methodist or—
If I went with her. But—. And we went together about a year. And so I asked her to marry me. And she was twenty years old. And she said, "I'm too young." And I said—. She said, "I might marry in two or three years." I said, "In two or three years I might not want you."
Uh-oh. [Laughter]
So after a while we decided to get married. And her aunt—she had an aunt that was a lawyer. And we went in to talk to her. One night I had a date we were sitting out on the porch.
In Smithfield?
In Smithfield.
Her aunt lived there?
Yeah. Her grandmother and aunt lived there. Now the aunt was about forty years old and not married.
It's unusual to have a woman lawyer in your family during those years, wasn't it?
Yeah. But she was a good one. She really has quite a history. Her law partner was her boss. And he realized that she was a smart girl and he talked her into going to law school. And she got admitted to law school. And he took her in as a partner. And he—it's a long story. But, anyway, he turned out—he became president of Nationwide Insurance Company.
That's a huge company.
From a [unclear]
So, anyway, you were sitting on the porch of this aunt.
So we went in. She was in the den. And we told her what we wanted. She
said, "Well, do you make enough living to live on?" I
said, "I think so." She said, "Well, the
sooner the better." [Laughter] [Laughter]
And your wife's name is—?
Doris.
Doris Boyette was her—
Doris Boyette.
And she—she continued to live with her grandmother until you got married?
She lived there until we were married.
And you were married where?
In Smithfield in her church?
In the Methodist church.
In the Methodist church.
And that was what year?
That was in 19—let me see, it must have been in 1939.
Thirty-nine. Okay. So you've just celebrated your sixtieth wedding anniversary.
That's exactly right. We've been married sixty years.
Okay, so—
Sixty-one in January.
That's—
I'm going to digress from what we're doing. I'm going to show you a picture of my wife in '40. You know she has Alzheimer's.
I—your daughter's told me something about that.
She doesn't know my name. But she does know she loves me.
Oh that's wonderful. [Footsteps as Mr. Henderson leaves the room. Recorder is turned off and then back on.]
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Very pretty woman. So what—did she have a career?
She never really did. She worked about ten years off and on.
Right. I thought she looked very professional in that picture.
Well—
Like a schoolteacher perhaps.
She worked over here at the college. They had a student fund activity
fee and it had grown. And [unclear] [unclear] [unclear] [Laughter]
That's good. Okay. I do like to hear some personal—. Th—but there was one other piece that I wanted you to talk about before we get away from it. And that is that you said that your boss mentioned that a man has to drink in order to be a good tobacco buyer. And I'm just wondering about your decision not to drink. That came from your religious—
My mother's influence.
Your religious background and your mother's influence. Okay.
Yeah. Well, my father—my father when I was six years old or
seven—. It really upset my mother when he drank. He didn't get
drunk or anything, but he'd take a drink. You could smell it. And it
really bothered her. And so I think she kind of—she had
a—. Auntie [unclear]
Good.
When I was born they said that I was the ugliest, scrawniest little old baby they ever saw and wouldn't grow. And one Sunday my daddy says, "Carrie, that boy is hungry." Well it was—. Then you couldn't nurse a baby breast feeding. It was terrible.
Right.
And so that was a slam on her and she—
Carrie was her name, right?
Huh?
Your mother's name was Carrie?
Carrie.
Okay. And your father's name was—
Stephen.
Stephen. Okay.
So he said, "Well nobody's going to be here until we give him something to eat." So he told my half-brother, he said, "You hitch up my hor