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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-0284, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Renee Lee (who is joined by her daughter, Ashley) is a member of the White Stocking community. Lee's trailer was ravaged by flooding. Thompson and Lee spend much of this interview discussing Lee's background and family life—her children, memories from childhood, and reflections on community life. Some of these recollections and descriptions appear as excerpts, but researchers interested in a more thorough coverage of these issues should look to the full text of the interview. At the end of the interview, Lee expresses her frustration with the government's sluggish and bureaucracy-laden relief effort, which seems needlessly complicated, especially in contrast to the Red Cross's efficient, simple relief program. Lee's response to the flooding seems typical of White Stocking residents—fierce loyalty to the area and confidence in the rebuilding effort coupled with despair at the extent of the damage and frustration with official relief programs.
Renee and Ashley Lee reminisce about life in White Stocking, N.C., and express frustration with the government's sluggish and bureaucracy-laden relief effort.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is Charlie Thompson with Rob Amberg on December 19, 1999 in the home
of Renee—. [Recorder is turned of and then back on.]
Okay. I want to start with my bathroom and the master bedroom. As you can see, the tub is full of the water from the flood. It's all dirty looking.
It's about the color of dark iced tea.
Yes. As you can see everything is—
Flooded.
It looks like a tornado went through there. I have one here with my
son's shoe. It's on the windowsill of the bathroom window. [Pause] [Unclear] [Laughter]
And just hung on by the heel onto the—
Windowsill.
Windowsill.
It was under my bed, so it had to float from under my bed into the bathroom. I guess this is where it ended up on the window shield, windowsill. The living—in my living room everything is upside. My floor model television is standing straight up sideways, as you can see there. The furniture's all pushed in the middle of the floor. The walls are all molded. You can see all the mold on the floor and the wall. It looks like to me someone just backed up a dump truck of mud and had a party. And some of the furniture's broken. You can see that mold.
How long did it take you to accumulate all these pieces of furniture and lamps and so forth?
Oh boy. Well I lived there—I've been there twelve and a half, about twelve and a half years I lived in this home, and most of my furniture was paid for. But I worked for it. No one gave it to me. I worked for everything that I lost. Everything that I lost I worked for. No one gave it to me.
Can you go back and describe the community a little. Where you live is called White Stocking—
It's called White Stocking Road. Most of the families that live there are related from the beginning of the road to the end. The beginning is the Robin Barts. Most of those, like the mobile homes you passed as you came down there, and the brick homes—those are all family members. And then as you get further down the road almost to the end of the road is where my family begins. I have an eighty—five year old grandmother. She's been there all her life, was born and lived there. And she has never in her life seen anything like that.
What was her name?
Jesse P. Ballard. I also have a great aunt lives about a half a mile from me, where we were living. She's eighty-six, and she said the same thing my grandmother said. Both of them are living.
We saw her house yesterday. She lives about—
The little white house.
A hundred feet from the river, would you say?
Um-hmm.
From the northeast Cape Fear River.
About a hundred feet.
Okay. Then her house is beside of your—
Uncle's.
Uncle's house.
He's sixty years old.
And then across from your grandmother is—
Is my parents' house. It's about, how many feet would you say?
From the river?
From my mom's to my grandmother's.
Seventy-five, a hundred.
And then I live two houses from my parents.
Your house was a mobile home.
Yes.
And did you buy that mobile home?
No. I was renting from a relative.
From a relative. Okay. So you grew up in that community. And did you go to school here in Wallace?
We moved here my senior year. Moved down September '79.
From?
From Brooklyn, New York.
Your parents had left home to go up there.
Um-hmm. My parents lived up there seventeen years. They had me here. I believe I was about four when they moved to New York, and they lived up there for sixteen and a half years. Then they decided to move back here.
Do you remember why? Have they talked about the—
Well you see, my father wanted to get away from the country for a while. And once they got up there he had a real good job and they decided to stay.
And what was he doing?
He was a barber for about thirty-two years. And she—
In the city.
Taught school for thirteen years, my mother did.
Okay. And you went to school—
I went to Pender High School here in Pender County for just one year, my senior year.
So you went to school in New York for most of your years—
Yes.
And then came here and finished.
Yes.
And graduated.
Um-hmm. I went to school up there from K through eleven. And my senior year I finished here.
What a huge change from—were you right in the city?
We lived in the city. We always lived in a two-family house. We never stayed in like the project. You know the high story apartments? We never lived there. It was always a two-family house we stayed in.
What did you say when your parents said we want to move back?
Oh, I was not happy. I begged them to let me stay, and they refused. Said, no you're going. My father's oldest sister lived up there, and I asked them if I could stay with her and complete my last year of schooling. And they told me no, that I had to come with them. So I wasn't too happy my senior year down here. But once I graduated I went off to college.
Where was that?
I went to Central for about three years. I quit school. I was tired of school, so I quit. When I came home I really wanted to take a break, and I didn't go back. And my mother said, "Renee, you might as well go ahead and finish up." And the year I stayed out I got pregnant with my daughter and I didn't go back. I got a job at the hospital and that's where I ended up. For about seven years I worked at Pender Hospital in the business office, and then I got pregnant with Rashard. That was Patrick. And he was born Downs and I had to take—I just had to give my job up to be home with him because he was so sick.
And your oldest daughter is fourteen.
She's fourteen.
And Patrick is—
Eight.
And you have a seven year old.
And Rashard is the baby.
So where do you work now?
I work at this plant in [Unclear]
And you raised these three children there in—right near your parents.
Um-hmm.
Were you living with your parents at one point?
Oh, yes. I stayed with my mom until I believe Ashley was five, and then I moved out.
Okay. Have you worked and put your children through school as far as they've gone so far?
Sure have. I'm a very independent person. I wish my mother was here. She
can tell you that. I did it all for my kids. Their father, you know,
he's pretty good with them. We're not married. He does pay child
support, and if there's something they need, you know, he usually comes
across. But I try to do it myself, you know. I don't bother anybody. I'm
pretty much a quiet, self person. I love my children. They come
And your family members, do they help out in some ways?
My mother, my stepfather, they're pretty good. But hardly ever do I bother them. But if I need to, like, go somewhere, just want a break, they are right there for me. But I try to—I try not to bother them. My mother had five kids and she raised all hers, and I feel like these are mine and I can do the same thing.
Were you the youngest?
I'm next to the oldest.
Next to the oldest.
Um-hmm. I have a sister, thirty-eight. I'm thirty-seven. One,
thirty-six, Kathy, [Unclear]
I believe it. And so you're also community minded.
I love children. I'm a member of Sandhill AME Church. Our church was
destroyed in the storm. I work with the youth a lot in the church. And
if you could've came down before the storm hit me you would've said,
"Boy that lady's running a big daycare." You know, living in a
single-wide my yard stayed full of children. Even on the rainy days, you
know, it's raining here today, it was probably two or three inside
during the rainy days. And I didn't have really a whole lot of space.
But the kids, they
What do you want to teach them when they come in? Or what do you say?
Do with them? I speak to them. A lot of times they're wanting to use the
bathroom or something to drink or an Icee. You know, I keep a lot of
snacks for the children. I guess I was the snack house and the [Unclear] [Unclear] [Unclear]
Where your trailer was before, was most of the land right around there owned by your family?
Um-hmm, my grandfather.
Okay. That had been in your family then for—
Yes. For, gosh, for years.
How far back have you heard stories?
My grandmother—from-about the storm?
Just about that land.
Okay. Actually it's my grandmother's land. Okay, the house that was directly in front of me, the little—the old house—that was my grandmother's parent's house; that's where my grandmother was born and reared. And my mom, my mother—which it would have been her great grandmother's house—they all was born and reared in that house across. Their house is probably—it's over a hundred and some years old, that house itself, because my grandmother's eighty—she just turned eighty-five August the eighth. So before we moved here from New York there was only that house, my uncle's house, my grandmother's and my mom's house on that road. Them other homes were not there on that stretch. All of that was wooded land. And then as the years, you know, passed, a great aunt from Ohio moved and put a trailer beside mine. And then the piece I'm on belongs to my first cousin. He lives in D. C. He said he would never reside here. And he let his mother put a mobile home there and rent it out to me, you know. I tried to buy it but he said my grandparents left it for him, and he didn't want to sell it. They left—gave land to two grandchildren: the two oldest, my sister and him. And he didn't want to sell it.
Did you ever hear how they first came? How far back and why they decided on White Stocking? Any stories like that?
I don't know where that name come about, you know. That's a question I never asked. All I know is great great grandma and grandpa, that was their home, you know. They was born and reared down there. That's—
And the Lees have been there ever since, or your family have been there.
The family, um-hmm. I'm going to ask them where that name come about, because—
When you—in three or four months, when hopefully you get your new trailer, will you put it back over there?
See, I'm going to try and put one back there. That's if my aunt decides not to put one back. She did ask me Wednesday if she bought another one would I move in. And I asked her—I responded, "I'd rather you not do that because I'm going to try and buy my own." You know, she owns three mobile homes. Plus, her home was destroyed by the storm. And I feel like now I've saved up some money, and with what they give me I have enough for a down payment on my own. And, you know, here's my opportunity.
So you would like to put it right back on the same spot.
Not necessarily that spot. Maybe the road down from the church. I don't know if you looked down that road.
We did.
It's a mobile home development down there, and they had some lots for sale. I might consider there. Now, my uncle owns a lot of land on that road. But where it's at there is no homes, like up near the cemetery.
Right.
I don't want to go too far up there by myself, you know. I would like to be closer to some of the family members.
Can you tell people who listen to this tape why you like being close to the family?
I'm just a family person, I guess. I just like being around my family.
You know, they're good people. At the [Unclear] [Unclear]
You can't touch the bottom.
No. And they would wade out and say, "Renee, we're standing up." And my uncle said, "Well how far are you?" And he'd say, "Well, this is as far as I can go. If I step back I'm gone," you know. They swim. They tell you how far they can go before it goes down. And they—
It goes down to about fifty feet.
I don't know how far it goes down. But I know they would race. Swim across and back. And then the boats come through. In the summertime the boats just come—pretty boats. And some of them would even stop. If we're down there cooking out, they just pull it—if they're not that big they can pull close to the shore where we are, and they would talk to my uncle. But what my granddaddy really wanted to do, he wanted to have it—dig up the grass and plant new grass, you know, where it'd be pretty and green like on the other side. And, you know, just somewhere for the family or whoever wanted to go, you know. But then he died with cancer, my uncle. It was too much for him to keep up. I don't know if you noticed the little shop building beside my grandmother's house. It's a little white building.
Yes.
We used to call that the shop. What that was was like a recreation
building for grandkids and the children of the community, even if you
wasn't related to us. He had a pool table in there, like two or three
pinball machines. It wasn't free [Unclear] [Children running]. [Unclear]
Kind of nice hearing the cooking going on in the background on the tape, I'm sure.
Oh gosh. [Unclear]
So there was—as far back as you can remember there were people getting together for eating, and there was community—
It's always been a—they always—the community down there, they always
stuck together, you know. You can probably go to bed at night and not
even lock your door. You didn't have to worry about someone coming in or
breaking in because it was like community watch, you know. We looked out
for everyone. If we—if someone pulled in your yard and you're not there
your neighbor would, you know, make sure, you know. They just didn't
ignore it. They would go over and say, "Well, may I help you? They're
not home," you know. That's how it is down there. Everyone looks out for
one
Does pretty much everybody go to the same church at Sandhill?
The family members, we have—like Thomas Hand. You've met with him. He doesn't belong to our church. And Pearline Johnson, she's another family. They don't belong to our church. I believe Loretta Murray—and we have a pastor that lived down there, Reverend Pickett, Bert Pickett.
Right.
Those four families do not belong to our church. But the rest of them—the Persons, the Browns, the Ballards belong to Sandhill AME Church. The Picketts, Connie Pickett, they belong to our church.
Now, in the past with everybody in the church together if there was somebody in trouble—let's say there was a sickness in the family—
In the community?
In the community, like your grandfather had cancer and so on. Did the church respond to help the family?
He built that—he helped that church. Yes, um-hmm. The ones in the community, everyone knew him. He was like—what do you call it—when you're so old and—
Elder?
You remember, say for instance, he remembered you when you were born.
And everyone looked up to him, you know. And they came down and did like
a fundraising for him at the river with gospel singing. And all the
funds went towards his [Laughter]
When people die in the community are they buried at the cemetery up the road from where you live?
Some of them are. Anybody can be buried in that cemetery, black or white. It's up to you. If you want to buy a plot there, you can be put there. It's not our cemetery. As a matter of fact, this man on the road sells the plots to the family member. And, you know, anybody can be buried there. It's called the White Stocking Cemetery. It's not the Ballards'; everyone in that cemetery is not a Ballard. We've got people from Bargar, New York. We had two relatives die from New York. They did not have a plot there, but they wanted to be buried home because White Stocking was their home. They're out there, you know. So anybody can really be put there in that cemetery.
Do you have family members who have been buried there?
Yes. I have two aunts. And two of my mother's sisters died with breast
cancer. They're there. Granddaddy, my great great grandparents are in
that cemetery;
She dipped snuff a little bit.
Oh, yeah.
She got tobacco on you?
Um-hmm. And I didn't like that. I would like speak, and I wasn't being
ugly. And my mom's like—my mom's like, "Renee, you hug her." And I'm
like, "Mom, I love Mama Julia but I can't hug her because she's going to
put that stuff all over me." I was a little girl. But you know, we had
to do what our parents tell us. And it would be coming down her mouth
sometimes. And my grandmother—that was my grandmother's mother. And then
she got—she was real sickly, you know. And then she'd say, "Come here,
girl." And I'm like, "She's going to [Unclear] [Unclear]
How long did you stay in the summer when you came down?
The whole summer; we stayed a whole six weeks. My mom would bring—my parents would bring us when school was out because they worked and they didn't want to leave us at home in the house. So they would drive down to bring my sister and I and my brother. And about a week or two before school starts back they would come and take their vacation and spend with their—my mom, her mom, and take us back to New York. We was down here every summer. Every summer.
When you graduated from high school you moved back down here, and you talked about being upset that you came down here your senior year. Did you ever think that, you know, [when] I've graduated from high school I'm going to move back?
I wanted to. But you know what, during that year, my senior year, two of my good friends were killed, just killed, you know, murdered. And they don't know why.
In New York?
In New York. And it's like, every two or three months somebody we knew
from the block we lived, or knew that lived up there, was murdered. And,
I'm like, Lord I thank you for leading my mother out of there, because
my brother was in elementary when we moved here. And even after I
graduated from high school and as he got older—he's never been a
troubled child, you know. He always did what he was told. I was always
afraid of him getting tied up with the wrong people, you know. And even
some of his friends that he went to school with were—they, I guess, got
involved with the wrong people, and they ended up dead. And I said,
"Lord, I thank you because my brother could end up the same way." And it
not necessarily happen in New York but here, too. He never drank. He
never smoked. See, I'm thankful. I'm blessed, you know. [Laughter]
But you always want to try to live in White Stocking as soon as you get back—
There's something about White Stocking. You're not going to believe this, but I've had probably about fifty people or more ask me, do I intend to move back. I respond, "I want to. Yes. I do want to move back." They even ask me, Do you want to move back to the same spot? I respond, "Yes, in a way." You know, as long as I can get—to me that's home. That's my home. This is my home here. Just being around my family, you know. Someone asks me that every week. Do I want to move back to White Stocking?
Are they thinking about the floodwaters and so forth?
Yes. But you know what? That water—they're saying it's a hundred year flood. Now, it may be another hundred years before it happens again. But at my age I won't be around to see it, you know. I want to go back. I really do want to go back. It's just, I don't know, something about it. That's the roots down there, you know. Those are my roots down there, and I love it. The kids love it. And it's not a bad place to live, it's just the flood came in sort of and messed things up. But who says it can't be rebuilt? It can be rebuilt.
I'm going to talk about that flood, and let's talk about the rebuilding. But I was thinking—the story about Cheryl standing up in church and making an announcement about us coming is an interesting story, because she said that you came up and you wanted to tell your story about the flood.
Um-hmm. I did go to her.
What was on your heart at that point?
Someone needs to know what we have been through, you know. A lot of people don't know. You know what? When that storm came the water wasn't really hitting Burgaw. It was here on the creek, 40, back our way. No one really knew how bad the water was, even the county commissioners. They didn't know how bad it was. You know, it's like, all your work for all these years has gone under water, and then the county ignores the situation. What do you do? Who do you go to? They act like, well, it's just a rain flood. But all these people, families, are out of their homes. Don't have vehicles to drive, you know. No one gave them nothing. Anything they lost they worked for. And some of those things can be replaced, but some of them can't. Some people, like you say, are afraid to talk, but I don't see any harm. My situation is different from some of the others. I can tell what happened.
Well, let's talk about what happened on the—
The eighteenth. The storm came on the seventeenth.
Right.
Hurricane Floyd came the seventeenth of September. The storm didn't do much damage. Thursday I drove to Burgaw to the store—
After the winds.
Yes, sir. I got in my car and drove to Burgaw, my daughter and I, to the store, and bought two bags of ice. I went through the community, looked around. There was no water.
No trees in the road.
No trees was blocking the highway. I mean I drove straight to Burgaw and
back home. I was in Burgaw probably about an hour and a half. There were
some streets in Burgaw that had water laying in the road. You had to
make, like, detours. But other than that, that was it. Went back home,
parked my car. Sometime late that evening my uncle stopped by and said
the water was rising up near the cemetery. That if you wanted to put
your car on the opposite side he would—to meet him up there and he'd
bring us back home. That particular area, usually when a storm comes or
heavy rain, it's low; the road, the water goes across the road and it,
you know, can get high at some times. And you wouldn't want to drive
your vehicle through that water, because it'd mess it up unless you had
a real high truck. So what my father done, he moved my car and took it
up to the road so in case it did rise we could get out. Go, you know, go
out to the store and come back up. You know, he can use his boat and
come back across to the opposite side. And I believe my mom cooked out;
she cooked on the grill because we didn't have no electricity. And then
later on, a few hours later, my uncle come back and said the water was
still rising. And I don't think my mother had taken her car up, so my
father went and took her car and put it up. But see, he went out, too;
he drove to Burgaw and came back. And he drove her car across the water.
So my mother's car ended up being back home, back in the yard. He didn't
leave it because he said there wasn't anybody up there and he wasn't
walking. So he drove it back to the house. And Friday
When you—all of these people were waiting together for the boat?
No one fought, you know. We tried to let the older, the elderly people go first, black or white, because they lived down there, too. And no one argued about who's going to go. They only let, I think, three or four at the most in each boat. And these police boats had motors. I told my mom, I said, "I can wait." So we waited. My mom took—see, she can swim. We waited with my kids because all they had to do was go up and meet the bus, and you got off this boat and got on a bus. And from the bus they put you on a National Guard jeep. So, you know, it was like three vehicles you had to meet. So we waited, and then the second load we did get on. And it was some cousins of mine that wanted to go, you know, they wanted to go with us. But we were next in line to go. They were young like me. So my mom said, "We're getting on here. I'm ready." I really wish I had time to get some clothing, but at the point, at the time—you didn't have time.
What all did you have?
What was on my back. All I had was what was on my back. I did get my dad
to stop by my trailer on my way out, and I went in my house. There was
so much water he just pulled the boat right up to the top—we just rode
right up on the deck. He just backed it right up in there. I stepped out
of the boat on my deck and then opened my door and went in my house. I
took my license and fifty dollars out of my wallet, closed my door back,
closed by storm door, put a chair in front of my storm door so the wind
wouldn't blow it open and got back in the boat to meet the sheriff's
department. I didn't
But there wasn't water in your home at that point?
No.
Okay.
But it was all—it was like on my third, reaching my fourth step on my deck at my house.
And rising so you could watch it rise.
Oh yeah. I sat on my mom's deck and I watched that water. And I'm like, "This is unbelievable", you know. Had no film, a camera with no film—two cameras with no film, you know. And I—it was something. It really was.
Where'd you go that night?
When we left the National Guard jeep they took us to Burgaw, to the shelter. But after we got there I told my mom I could not stay there because it was a lot of people. People just didn't have any where to go: Mexicans, all kinds. And it was like stuffy, you know. It was warm. It was very warm. It was in the summer. Not in the summer but later September was hot here when that storm came. So what we did, we had him take us over to a friends' house and we spent the night there. About eleven thirty that night my dad called my mother and told her the water was coming up through her kitchen floors.
He was still at home?
He stayed. He didn't come. He didn't come out with us. He wanted to stay
and see. He and my uncle kept saying it's not going to come into the
home. They
So he stayed where overnight?
Over to my uncle's.
And that was—
Across from my mother's house.
And there was water in that house, too.
But see, he had an upstairs.
Okay.
But the water was in his bottom level, up top it was coming. But it did not hurt them, you know. It covered his den, the downstairs level.
Did they stay up all night?
Um-hmm, yes. My grandmother, my eighty-five year old grandmother was there with them. They was up all night, he said, because they was worried about my grandmother. She had never seen that happen before, and she wasn't talking much to them. And it kind of shook my uncle up, you know. So he was just trying to be strong for her, you know, because he didn't want her to get sick down there and no one to get in to get her. But it was very terrifying. I had an uncle that lived down there, Robert Jordarn, Sr.—
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Two boats. He had just bought a motor boat for his birthday, and it was nice. And then he hooked his regular boat to that because he had his daughter, her husband and two grandkids, plus him and his wife, his mother, which is in a wheelchair, and his sister, the one that lives with her to take care of her. They all came out at twelve thirty that night with flashlights through all that water.
That would be [Unclear]
But they didn't know. I don't think she knew.
She [Unclear]
We're talking about Ashley now. That she— [Recorder is turned off and then back on.]
The pictures from the water [Unclear] [Baby crying.]
Did you—were you there in the boat, too, and travel with everybody that night?
: I didn't leave that night, I left that evening.
Oh you did?
Because we had went [Unclear]
Were you with your brothers, too, or just you?
I was with my aunt.
What do you remember about that night? Do you remember the water rising up and being scared? Or did you think it was fun, or how did you feel about it?
I didn't [think] it was going to get that high. [Unclear]
So you and your aunt got in a boat, and where did you go?
We took it from the house all the way up the road where they was taking everybody out of White Stocking. They was taking them to Burgaw.
Did you—did you take anything with you?
The clothes that I had already had.
So you remember what you were thinking when you left? Did you think, "Well we'll be back tomorrow" or, what did you think?
[Unclear]
You did? [Sound of pots and pans clanging.]
When we had left it was like [Unclear] [Unclear]
And so where did y'all go?
We had went to my aunt's cousin's house and stayed with her for a while.
Did you keep going to school?
No. I think I missed one or two days. It was closed for two weeks.
Oh, the whole school is closed because people were staying there. It was a shelter.
It was a fallout shelter. [Unclear]
Yeah. So how was it to stay in the shelter? Did you have other friends there? Oh no, you were staying at the—
House.
The house. Did you have other friends or relatives staying there?
Yeah. Most all of my relatives stayed there. But the rest of them, they had went to the shelter, and then some of them stayed at the shelter. And then they had let some stay at Camp Kirkwood for a few weeks.
That's the Presbyterian camp, isn't it?
Yes, um-hmm.
So, how long was it before you got to go back and see your house?
Two weeks, which, Ashley went—it was about two weeks before she went,
because the first time I went it was about fifteen days, the first time
I went back, and she went after me. She didn't go with me the first
time. So probably about sixteen
And you took them in the car?
We went in the truck, my dad's truck. And he, the truck—you needed a truck to get across the water. But the smell—you couldn't even take the smell.
What did it smell like? A nasty smell?
Old rotten hogs or something.
Like dead animals.
And that was your house—everything, the whole area—
The whole area—you couldn't stand it. And then the environmental health
and the health department, they came. They was at the beginning of our
road. They really didn't want you to go in, you know. You had to show ID
to get into White Stocking. You had to be residents up in there to get
in there. And, you know, it was a hazard to our health. They said you're
risking yourself by going in even though you're just going to see what
damages were done, because we didn't know. They wouldn't go down and
tell you. So a lot of residents took it upon themselves and said, "Well
we're going to go ourselves." Some of them brought their own boats back
and big trucks, and the policeman let us through. But you had to come
out at dark. There was a breaking point where no one could go back up in
there, you know. Everyone had to be out at a certain time. Believe me,
no one stayed down there that long. Just enough time to see your
damages. A lot of them couldn't handle it after the first time and they
didn't go back. They wouldn't let them go back, you know. It was hard.
We had to have shots, TB shots, everyone; they recommended that we have
shots. As a matter of fact, they had
That was Tetanus shots?
The Tetanus shots we had. Even the children took them. They gave it to the kids if you hadn't had one within ten years.
Did you have to have one?
Ashley had just had one last year, so she didn't take another one. I didn't have to take one. And then my boys, they didn't—they didn't touch it. They just peeped into the trailer. I didn't let them give them a shot either, you know.
So you're driving in the truck, and Ashley was in the truck, Renee's in the truck. Who else is in the truck?
On the back.
Who was on the back? Do you remember? When [Unclear]
Were there other family members riding in with you?
My aunt. She just happened to be there and wanted to go across. She had not seen her home for the first time. That's the one that lives beside my grandmother. And so she—I had her get inside the truck and I got on the back. And—
So y'all are driving in in this truck. What are you saying to each other as you first start to drive down?
Well, the smell. I was complaining about the smell. Then when I saw the dead animals I'm like, oh my God. I don't know if I can handle this.
There was a dead catfish on the side of the road about—
In the cemetery. It was about fifteen or sixteen feet long, a big catfish, you know. Everything that washed up from the ocean, from the river—
Sixteen feet?
She means inches. You said feet.
Oh, inches. I'm sorry. [Laughter] [Laughter]
And that's what you were talking about mostly? When you saw your house—
I was there at the door and broke down.
You started crying?
I did. I didn't expect to see nothing like that, because at the time no one knew how far the water had gone. It had gone down around your house, but like on this picture, you see the water there? Now we went in. But I didn't know the water had reached the home, you know.
These pictures were taken the day you went in.
No. It had gone down a little more than this. Lanie had broke my bedroom
window to—he said everything was floating when they came down two days
after the storm. He said your television, everything, your refrigerator
was turned over. He said everything was floating in the trailer. But it
was much higher than that. Now, when we went down there it was lower. It
was—it wasn't on this main stretch here but it was in the yard still,
because we had to hop up on the deck and then, you know, the door. But
it was—it was something to see. Like all these vehicles here at the
cemetery, they
What you were thinking when you first looked like in your room and you started seeing your stuff, your things, all your possessions? What were you thinking about?
They were all gone.
Did you go look for anything?
Special. What were you in there looking for? You was looking for something the first day we went down there.
Oh, my uniform.
She's a cheerleader for her school, and the first thing she was trying to locate was that cheerleading uniform. And that's—it was like she cared about nothing else. That's the only thing she came out of the room with. It was wet and messed up, too.
Did you save it?
We got it cleaned up and she's able to use it. It belonged to the school; it wasn't hers. But I don't think she cared about nothing else. She was excited about being a cheerleader—
My trophy.
Her trophies, yes.
Did you get those? What do you have trophies of or for?
Pageants, and I took dance for ten years.
Dance and beauty pageants?
Um-hmm.
She took jazz, tap and ballet for ten years. And she had all her trophies from dance. What'd you get one every two or three years—
Three.
Every three years she got a trophy. And in her tenth year she got a trophy, big trophy. She stopped at ten years. And then she was [in] two or three pageants. She got the title in one, she came in first place on one and then third one, didn't place.
What is that first place one for? What is that called?
Jabberwock, AKA Sorority. But most of all Ashley's clothes were destroyed. Anything that was lower than her room—what was in her dressers, a television. The t. v. didn't work. She had a bed full of stuffed animals, big animals, in her room. All of those were destroyed. She had a stuffed animal on the wall, which was the tiger she held a crown from the pageant. She did save that. That stuffed animal was up high in the crown. So we do have that. Her—what is it Ashley, your book?
Scrapbook?
Yeah, her scrapbook, we saved that. In her closet there was a rack on top. Everything up there was saved: her diploma, her cap and gown from kindergarten, you know, sentimental things. A couple of baby pictures, which was up there which I was able to get because everything else was gone.
Oh good. There's your scrapbook.
Yeah. That's something you can look back on.
Can you tell us some of the things you have in your scrapbook?
Baby pictures, [Unclear]
Uh-huh. Did you make this by yourself?
Uh-hmm. My mother helped me. And certificates—
Certificates for reading?
Uh-huh. That was kindergarten, I think.
From kindergarten.
It's an old certificate from—
Oh you were a—
[Unclear]
Well, isn't that sweet. [Laughter]
I was missing a tooth there in kindergarten.
What's the most special thing in that book to you?
I think the baby pictures.
Ashley's eating plate and napkin. Oh, the first birthday cake. And that's the plate that you had?
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