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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-0508, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Johnnie and Kathleen Bratten are longtime Tick Bite, North Carolina, residents whose home was completely destroyed in the flooding that accompanied Hurricane Floyd. At the time of the interview, the Brattens had received virtually no assistance from the government—just a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailer that let off fumes to which Kathleen was allergic. Instead, a group of religious groups and volunteers supplied the couple with money, appliances, and other aid. This outpouring of support and good will has strengthened their religious faith and belief in human kindness. This interview provides a snapshot of volunteer relief efforts and the extent to which church groups and other volunteers helped flood victims.
Johnnie and Kathleen Bratten describe the extent to which church groups and other volunteers helped them after their home was destroyed in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is Charlie Thompson. It's the fifteenth of January 2000. We are in Tick Bite—the community. We are at the home of Johnnie and Kathleen Bratten. Tell us where we're standing.
We're standing just about the center where the the park trailers are gathered. We had the house built in all around it.
Right.
We're standing in the living room about now, the den.
Is that right? At least, that's what was here. What is here right now?
Dirt and debris.
All of your house is now on the side of the road?
Right beside the road over here in a pile.
When was that taken apart? When was your house demolished?
It was—.
Last week.
—Week before last. It took a solid week to tear it all down.
How long did it take you to build it?
My God—.
Several years.
—at least.
We moved here in 1966 with five children and my husband's parents. He bought this property down here, and we bought two mobile homes—.
To start with.
—And set them up ten feet apart. That's what we lived in. We started out by walking on the ground from one to the other. We cut a little catwalk—.
Had a little porch through there.
—A patio, a porch. Finally, he closed it all in with cedar siding and built between it. We had thirty by sixty, over here.
We built a porch for the front and back, closed it in; and so it had, of course, a room all the way across—seventy foot now.
Where had you moved from in 1966?
Well, we lived up on the highway in front of DuPont. Prior to that we had been in Plymouth. We've been married for fifty-two years. But thirty-three of that fifty- two years has been right here. So, we watched it go up piece by piece. This group from the Christian Coalition came and took it down piece by piece.
Where were you both raised?
Johnnie was raised in Washington County. I was raised in another state—in Alabama.
In Alabama. And y'all met where?
We met here kind of in a strange way.
How was that?
My dad married Johnnie's sister and so—.
How about that?
—Then when I was sixteen, I met John.
( )
What did you say?
I was born a grandpa.
So, I guess that was where the song came from.
And were one or both of you employed by DuPont?
I worked construction, hard work.
Okay. In—
And I worked at DuPont, also, putting up steel.
Oh, at DuPont.
That's probably why I was up here. I liked the people and everything around here. So we wound up settling down here.
[Okay. I'm going to have to walk closer.] So, tell me why you like this community. Why did you choose to move here?
I just said it had so many nice people up here. I like them all.
What did you think about the name Tick Bite, when you first heard it?
Well, Tick Bite, really, was back down the road. Over in the edge of the woods, they had a government liquor still long years ago; and that's where the name came from. It's been long before my time when they had a government liquor still back over in the woods—swamp back over here. That's where the name Tick Bite came from and so it stuck here.
What was this called before it was Tick Bite? When you moved here, where did you tell people you were moving too?
Just down on the edge of Contentnea Creek. The creek's about a five-minute walk right back there.
Was the creek one of the reasons you decided to move here?
Well, it might have been a small reason. I like fishing.
What kind of fishing do you do?
Just pole fishing. Just something to get away and relax awhile.
So you built all of this house all by yourself?
No. I had some friends that helped me out at times. No. I couldn't do it all by myself. Too heavy.
And you had how many children did you said when you first—.
Five.
Five. That's what I thought. And, five children were all raised here?
Yes.
Where are they now?
Well, my son, he started out in ironwork with me and TV tower construction. He got killed in '82 in Houston, Texas.
Sorry.
Tower fell. Went over with five men—killed all of them. My four daughters, they married gentlemen from close around, and they're not so far away from here.
Do you have grandchildren?
I have eleven and one great-grandchild.
They're all in the community, pretty much all pretty close around?
Yes.
Did y'all get together here a lot, at your home—your family?
Yes, sir. That's where we all—that's the gathering place.
When you gathered, what kind of things did you do?
We communicated and enjoyed one another's company.
Did you do Thanksgiving here and Christmas?
Yes. That was the biggest part.
So your children and grandchildren would all come here and you would exchange gifts?
Yes, sir. That was right.
What about cookouts or fish fries or anything? Did y'all do—?
Well, we had a few cookouts and fish fries and stuff. Most of the time, Kathleen did all the cooking. She's actually good on that.
We had a lot of fish stews done out there in the shop.
How do you—what do you mean by fish stew? Tell me how you'd make—?
You don't know about fish stew?
I think I do, but I want you to tell me.
Well, okay. You use onions, and potatoes, and fish—preferably rock.
Rock bass?
Bass, yes. And about people's proportions and you cover it well in water and season it good with bacon, salt and pepper, and red pepper, and tomato paste. You bring it to a quick boil. And then you turn it down, and let it cook slowly. When it's done—probably an hour, hour and a half—then you break eggs in it. And let the eggs cook about ten minutes, and let it sit a few minutes. And you're ready to eat. It's a feast.
About how many people would you feed with some stew like that?
Well, we always had eight or ten and sometimes twenty—depending on who was coming, that's how much you put in the pot. Cooked in an iron pot.
Outside, over a fire?
Well, actually, we finally graduated to a gas burner. [Laughs].
[laughs]
Are you familiar with foxfire?
Yeah.
There you go. That's what it sounded like.
Sounds good.
It was.
Lot of fun times, good fellowship, friends and family.
Did y'all have any other ways of gathering with friends and neighbors?
Oh yeah. Well, no. That's actually about the way we did or a pig picking— something like that.
This was the gathering place, as you said. Are all these outbuildings yours too?
Yes.
Can you tell us what all of them are used for, like this one back here with the—?
Storage, sure.
The tower on it.
This building was an inside office. My husband and a friend of his took it down, and brought it out here, and built it back just like it was. We used that for storage. This one over here, he built that too. That's some more storage. More things we don't have anymore.
Do you think these buildings—you'll be able to salvage these back here, won't you?
Hopefully.
That storage, that was for all the children and everything. They want to store anything; they bring it out here.
That's the way of kids.
Besides all of our stuff, all of that was wet and gone, too. And inside the house, you worry about the ceiling. You see how much lower it is here.
I do. So it's a little depression here right next to the road. What happened here when the flood came? Where were y'all? Were you here at the house?
We got news that there was supposed to be—a hurricane was coming. We had some friends over in Kinston that we went to visit. I figured the next day it would be out and gone; everything would be all right. So we went over and visited them and spent the night and everything. When we got over there, it just continued to get worse all the time. So the following day, there was water everywhere. We were surrounded more or less. We couldn't get back down here. It was about—I know it was two days or three days until I got back down here. We had forgotten we left that dog down here.
This was a little chihuahua.
And the water, it was out above my waist. A friend of mine, lived over,
there had a boat. He was way out down here where the water ran out
between here and the Number Eleven River down there. So, he was out with
the boat, and he brought me down here to the back door. He drove the
boat all the way down to the back door. I reached down under water to
the doorknob and got that and pushed it open. Of course, everything
When you found that dog, how had the dog survived?
Oh, she had been floating around on the mattress.
And what did she think when you first grabbed her?
She was ( ). She headed for higher ground. She headed for the top of my head and I managed to hold her down with my arm. Got her out of my arm and brought her back into the boat. She was in shock. Carried her on back home. She's been right with me, close to me ever since. Have you noticed that? She's been around pretty close. She's not going to wander too far. It affected her. I'm sure it did because it affected everybody else.
How did it affect you?
Shock.
So when you first came back and saw your place, what does shock feel like? Most of us haven't felt it before.
You're just dumbfounded. That's my best explanation of it.
You can't think of any words?
Right, you can't think. You know everything is gone. You try to cope
with it the best you can. It just doesn't want to leave you, but you
just have to keep turning your mind away from it as much as you can
until you get around where you can think to do anything. But the water
stayed here, it kept rising for at least a solid week after that
Did it ruin everything?
It ruined everything.
Did you have anything with you that was important—had you been able to carry it out?
Well, a few rags that they managed to get out but they were all ruined. And after the water subsided everything was full of mold spores—mold, them mold spores, you know what I mean. It's near rotten.
When did you know that you would have to destroy your house?
After I looked at it.
As soon as you saw it?
As soon as I saw it, I knew it would have to be because everything was soaked. A few days after the water subsided and everything, it was just rotten. The odor and everything, it stank.
So for several months, you continued to live in—was it Kinston?
Well, we spent time over there with her, the one that we mostly stayed with. As soon as family got to where I could get this family trailer down here. It took about three weeks to ever get it to where you could get in and out of it because there was no power. Everything was slow. And another thing to think about is there was so many people besides myself. I guess they got their order in before I did.
How did you get your order in?
Through the Baptist Men's Association in Grifton. As a matter of fact, that's where I got all my help. I had a few promises and rationalizations but the Baptist Men's Association did everything for us.
Tell me about the promises and the misrepresentations first.
Well, besides being a promise, they're still in limbo.
So you applied for a grant from FEMA? Is that what you understood?
Well, we started out at it but the thing didn't pan out that way. It was more than we were going to be able to tow, I reckon. We didn't want to get obligated to something that we couldn't take care of.
Your talking about an SBA loan now?
Yeah. More or less.
They wanted to loan you money.
They wanted to loan us money. Or they were willing to loan us money; I'll put it that way.
Do you mind me asking you your age?
Sixty-nine.
Sixty-nine. So to borrow money at age sixty-nine on a house, that's not what you want to be doing.
That's right because you'll never get it paid for.
Right.
I didn't want to leave her in debt no kind of way and neither one of us—I'm retired on disability, you know. And she's not able to pay it back, not able to work. She's sixty-eight.
So they've told you some things but nothing ever materialized.
Right.
But when you went to the Baptist Men. What did you—you wrote your name down on a list of some kind?
That's exactly right. They took our name on a list and everything. We didn't know what to ask for or how to go about it or anything else. They suggested things and helped us in every way. Really.
When was this that you went to the Baptists?
I don't know the date now. Well, as soon as I found out about them. Some people told me to inquire with them. So I went down, and they jumped right in and helped me in every way. Yes. I thank God for them.
So what are they going to do? They came in here, and helped tear down, and put it out at the road right here.
Exactly right. Yes, sir.
Now what else?
Now I've got to wait for the state to pick up the debris.
Then what are you going to do? What have you decided?
I've not really decided. They've been trying to help us in that way.
The Baptists?
The Baptist Men's Association. They come up with whatever options they can to try to help us. They're still trying to help us. They've helped us out in moral support and every way they can.
What is this trailer here that's in your driveway?
They brought that down for us. They are going to—it's a used trailer. The floor is buckled in that it—because it didn't get down in a high enough place. It didn't get down in the water but the moisture got right on up to the bottom of the floor. It's got that formaldehyde particleboard flooring in it; so it buckled right on up. It swelled and everything. Now, they're going to tear the floor out of it and try to replace it. So whether it comes out all right, I don't know. I'm not sure if they really now but they're willing to try it anyway. They're going to try to help us out with that.
You do have a trailer here provided by FEMA?
Yes, sir.
When did it arrive?
I forget the date on that there. It's been there about two months at least now. But it took about three weeks to get in there.
And you have a special problem with that because your wife is allergic to the fumes that are in the trailer?
That's right. All the new material and stuff there. Don't know whether it's the glue in it or the formaldehyde glue or whatever it is. It'll burn your nose and nostrils when you first go in there, after it's been closed up there over night. So you have to leave the door open. And she has to have the door open the whole time she's out here. So she stays with my daughter over there. And I've been trying to stay down here and take care of what's left here, which is very little.
What do you do when you come here?
When I come here?
Take care of things. How are you—?
Just keep my eye out there. And if there's any questions that anybody comes up with around here that I can help them with.
As far as the work to do, it's pretty much done now until they decide what to do with this trailer and so forth?
Yes, sir.
You said earlier you had a shoulder replacement?
It got so bad; it was pain constantly, twenty-four hours a day. I went to a doctor over in Greenville—Dr. Williams—and he suggested a total replacement after the x- ray and examination. I went on—I tried to put it off for a month after he examined me and everything until I could try to figure out what to do down here. But so far I ain't figured out nothing. But on the 21st of December, he suggested it had to come out so he put me a total joint replacement—total shoulder joint replacement.
Well, it's been now four months, right—September, October, November, December, and now January? Almost exactly four months, it will be on Monday, I guess.
I forget the exact date when the storm—
September 17th.
17th. I knew it was somewhere close, but I didn't know for sure.
What were you going to say?
I wasn't able, prior to the operation. The people knew it and so they jumped right in all of them and did everything I could have done and helped me in every way. The Baptist Men's Association did. I'd like to put emphasis on that because they did. Yes, sir.
Do you still feel that you're in that same kind of shock that you described when you first saw it, or are you gradually coming out?
It's gradually going away but still the actuality, there is nothing you can do about it so you try to look on ahead. You try to toughen yourself up to it or whatever you want to say about it—I don't know what the proper way of saying it. So you just have to face facts in other words.
Do you have any ways that you use to toughen yourself up?
No, sir. Just time and good friends.
Do you talk with friends about it?
Good moral support, yes, sir. And I attribute that to the Baptist Men's Association because they've done everything they could to give us moral support and everything.
Were you a Baptist before this storm?
Yes, sir.
Did you go to the church up here in Grifton?
I went to the church over in Hookerton—Mount Calvary Baptist Church. I was never in the church up there in Grifton. If I'd ever started there, I'm sure I'd have still been there. It's mighty good people.
So now that we're into a new year and so forth, what are your plans for the coming year? What would you think would be the best thing that could happen to you all? How would you like for this situation to play out? What do you need the help on most, and how do you hope to get it?
Same way I got everything else. Help from the good Lord.
Do you pray and ask—?
Yes, sir.
For particular things?
Yes, sir.
When you pray, what kinds of things might you ask for?
I don't get all the way—there maybe are things that I might ask for—I get things better. Do you understand what I mean?
I do. So you believe that something good is going to come out of this?
Yes, sir. I sure do.
It sounds like you've already had some good contacts particularly with the Baptist Men—.
Absolutely.
And somehow you've been—.
They've inspired me.
Inspired.
In every respect.
I see that there's an American flag over here on the—that you had up. Was that in front of your house, beside your house?
Yes, sir. Out on the front.
Do you feel that this country is handling this kind of disaster in the right way, that our United States is a great place to live if you have a natural disaster?
I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
But it takes the voluntary organizations and the churches—.
Yes, sir. Absolutely. But that's where that all comes from, people like that. That's what this country was founded on when there wasn't anything but a wilderness here. It took those kind of people to start and build what we've got now. Yes, sir. And there are still people here that are that way. Thank God.
So are all the other neighbors up and down the road here pretty much in the same shape that you are?
Yes, sir.
How many of them are there?
I don't know right off hand. I couldn't even think about it. I'd have to get out and count them.
I'd say there's probably fifty houses at least by the time you turn the corner there.
At least that and there's more, further down.
And it ends in a dead-end?
Dead-end, Yes, sir.
Down at the creek, right?
No, it dead-ends down here. The creek runs on back out in here and straight on out to the Neuse River. Yes, sir.
So when the flood came did it come through the creek or did it come up from the river?
My evaluation and determination is it came from both ways but mostly
from the Neuse River. Yes, sir, because creeks are full of logs, and the
river also, and sandbars have been washed down with rain and torrential
rains over the years and have not been
You know, I saw a petition at a store recently that said that they were calling for the government to dredge the rivers. Have you seen those?
Yes, sir. I've seen them.
Have you signed one?
Yes. I've signed one.
Tell me what you understand about that petition.
Well I think it's a good idea.
Describe what it asks to do. What did you sign your name to, in other words?
It was a petition to—it just said to dredge the Neuse River. It didn't mention the creeks but I believe creeks also will do it. But if it's like the majority of things going through those channels there, it'll just wind up in the wastebasket, I'm afraid. But I could be wrong about that too.
Have you ever seen them dredge a river?
I've seen them dredge when I worked long years ago with towboat companies. And I've worked in the Delaware River and worked in Philadelphia Harbor; I've worked New York Harbor, which ( ) Transportation Company. And I've seen dredges all up and down the country. I've seen dredges off of our coast out here, Willie's Towboat Company in Morehead. They do a lot of dredging but not to the great extent like they do up North.
How do they dredge exactly? How does that machine work?
Well, they have the dredges where they dig. And they've got the sand suckers, they call them, where they're dredging up sand and stuff and throwing out silt and throwing it back on the banks and things. Or like they used to build up the coastline, they use those sand dredges and blow sand back up on the—that's been washed out by storms and wind and stuff. I understand they're dredging now and trying to get sand back up on where the storms have torn down—the beach erosion I guess you'd call it.
So you feel if they took the river down another couple of feet down on the bottom it would help a lot?
Yes, sir and clean them out. I don't mean get everything out, but just get the majority of stuff out, and maybe throw the sand out of the river back up on the banks. It would hold the banks and let the water dredge on out is what I believe.
Has the water ever come here anywhere close to this before that?
Yes, sir. It did back in early '60s. It got maybe a foot or two out here. Of course, the river was high then, and the creek was high too.
But never in your floor?
No, sir. Not in the house. Course I wasn't living down here right at that time.
It was a few years before you built?
Yes, sir.
Did anybody ever warn you when you bought this place, did they ever say, 'I'd be careful about building there' or anything like that?
No, sir. See we were above the flood plain.
No one ever—right.
Yes. And nobody ever thought it would get to that extent.
My mother passed away when I was six and this was in Alabama. My dad left and came to North Carolina. And I was raised by my grandmother in very poor conditions.
In North Carolina?
No. In Alabama.
Oh, in Alabama. Your dad was completely out of your life at that point.
Right. So I told them I had a lot of love and good upbringing but that was about it. Then most of the people where we were, were better off than we were because they had someone in the family that was able to work, if they could find work. It was kind of bad but it turned out good.
How did your grandmother get money if she wasn't able to work then?
Well, my grandmother was a midwife. And as I said most of the people she served weren't much better off than we were. So they gave her whatever they had.
What were those kinds of things?
Occasionally a little money, maybe potatoes, chickens off the yard, whatever they had, that's what they gave her.
As a little girl did you help her at all. Did you work around the house and that sort of thing?
Oh, yes. She taught me to do a lot of things, cook and quilt. I spent many hours sitting under a quilt with the ladies around the frame quilting.
What part of Alabama was this?
This was on Skyline Mountain outside of Scottsboro in Northern Alabama.
Did she have a farm?
No. She had nothing. We lived in a little shack.
So her husband had died?
Passed away.
She was left with a widow without a lot of income—.
Right.
And she was a midwife. That was a valued skill. There were no hospitals anywhere nearby?
They were about thirteen miles. It was a small hospital. I don't know of anyone from the mountain going to the hospital to have a baby.
It cost money to go to the hospital.
Yeah, and you did have that much transportation neither. If a car or truck went by, you knew who it was, just about, if they were local people.
So how did you come to North Carolina?
Well, I came to visit my dad after he remarried. He had been married, I think, about four or five years when I came to visit him. And that's when I met my husband.
How old were you then?
I was almost sixteen when we got married.
You got married pretty soon after you met.
Six months after we met.
Was he already working out in a—.
No.
Factory at that point.
No. He was doing general carpentry and painting and stuff like that. And then he joined the Ironworkers Union and went to work for them.
What was the name of the union?
Ironworkers.
The Ironworkers Union. Where did you live at that point when you were first married?
We lived in Plymouth until '56, I believe, from 1947 to '56 and then he got a steady job; there was a lot of building at DuPont. That's when we came up here, because until then he'd been going place to place.
What years were those when they were building DuPont?
Well, actually, it was before then, but that's when they were really expanding a lot, I think. So he was able to stay there a long time.
So it was in the '60s when they were expanding a lot?
Late '50s.
Late '50s, okay.
And '60s.
Now DuPont is one of the largest employers anywhere around. Do most of the people who live along this road work for DuPont?
I think so or retired from DuPont, the majority.
Was DuPont a good corporation to work for?
I think so. I'm sure they were, but I don't think that Johnnie worked directly with DuPont. I think it was contracts.
They contracted with the Ironworkers.
Right.
Okay.
Millwrights and whatever they needed.
So when you moved down here very first, the very first years, did you find people to be warm and welcome?
Oh, yes. There was a group, a big group of ironworkers at DuPont. Some lived thirty or forty miles, but a lot of them lived close by. So we had good friends and fellowship for a long time.
Y'all would get together?
Oh yeah. Lots of times. Always at our house.
Always here? And that's when you had your fish fries and like that with the ironworkers too? So how many of them would there be of those?
Depending on who wanted to come. Everybody was welcome. Then in the spring, early spring, the men would catch herrings so we'd have a fish fry and have a good time.
Were those ironworkers from all over the country?
Um hmm.
But that didn't seem to make a difference, you still seemed to have a whole lot of fellowship together?
Oh, yeah. Sure. Lots of good fun and fellowship.
Did you work at all during those years—out of the home, of course?
No. I just raised the children. Took care of the sick.
The sick children, or around the neighborhood too?
Well, I nursed my father-in-law with lung cancer. And I nursed my father with lung cancer until he passed away right here in this house. And then I nursed my brother-in-law right here in this house. So I've had a lot of experience taking care of the sick and changing diapers. That's my specialty.
And now are people taking care of you now that you've had some disasters and hardships of your own?
Yes. Yes. I was just telling Rob that to think that these—never thought I would even meet anyone from Pennsylvania. This group came down here and worked like Turks to serve me who has nothing. That's a very humbling experience. Makes you very appreciative.
It's humbling because you can't possibly repay them, can you?
Can't possible repay them. It's just—I see the hand of the Lord through all these things. We can't repay Him for anything. He already has it all.
True. Can you describe other ways that you see the hand of the Lord at work?
Oh, yes. I see it in my neighbors. We're all closer. We were all friendly and got along real well. As far as I know had no enemies but everybody's been drawn closer. And I've seen things happen that I would not have seen had this not have happened, I'm sure.
Can you tell me those things?
Well, just this week, I got a letter from a friend, a note, and she
asked me to accept a fifty dollar check in memory of her sister who was
also a good friend of mine.
That is wonderful. After this, do you think you'll want to help people more yourself?
Oh, yeah. I've always done everything I could for whomever. And that is one of the hard things about this, that now I have nothing to give. That's the joy of life is giving. A blessing to receive but a joy to give.
So you had—the tape wasn't running—tell me the dimensions you were in and what you're going into.
We were in a thirty by seventy and now we're going into a fourteen by eighty. And we're very grateful.
So you're talking about the singlewide mobile home you're going into. Do you have any indication about when that might be ready to move into?
We're hoping within thirty days. We're hoping; we have to find a place to put it now because if we put it down here, it'll have to be at least five feet off the ground.
And does that mean you probably won't build here?
I don't think so.
You're going to have to move somewhere else?
We signed up for the buyout with FEMA, and we're hoping that will come through one year in our lifetime.
And there's no word from them at all on the buyout?
No.
You have no idea how much money that would be or anything?
They said that they were paying one hundred and ten percent of the value before the storm but—.
You haven't seen it.
I haven't seen anything yet.
When did you apply for that from FEMA?
Actually before—I applied by phone in late September while the water was still down here.
Four months later, you still have heard nothing about a buyout. Is it hard to live with your daughter? I know you love her and everything, but is it crowded there for her? Is it a hardship for anybody?
I don't think it's a hardship really, but it's a strain in someone else's environment.
You try to help out.
I help out. I do. They both work so I basically have the house until the weekend—.
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It's just not like having your own little place. You know, when you get close to seventy, you kind of need to be on your own turf.
So when you get older, it's harder to have something like this happen to you than it would've been earlier.
I think so. I think so. A young person can bounce back and rebuild and pay for things. An older person can't. Don't have that much time left. And you're not physically able to do a lot of things either. But we've been blessed in a lot of ways by a lot of people.
Your husband was talking about the Baptist Men. Are there other groups besides them that have helped?
Yeah. I have no idea how many different types of—how many denominations are involved down there. I just know that the Baptist Men are kind of in charge. We had a church over in Kinston, the Peace and Lutheran Church helped us financially. Also, the Church of Christ.
They gave you some money?
Um hmm. Well, the Peace and Lutheran Church gave us some money and the Christian Church gave us some appliances. So we'll have those to go in the trailer when we—because there's no furniture in there.
So you'll have to rebuild the floor. And then you can—when it's set where it's going to be, not here on this lot, I think, somewhere, you're going to put the appliances in it. Use that money for furniture as well.
Yes.
Now I assume that you're receiving some Social Security and retirement plan, right?
Yes. We live on Social Security and my husband gets a small pension. But we've lived on Social Security since '76.
Because of his disability. How is he disabled?
He was disabled on the job.
He was injured.
Yes, very badly.
Did he fall?
A crane fell on—a crane boom fell on him.
Is this some of your family coming now?
No, I believe that's a friend. So anyway don't get hurt on your job
because you can't sue your employer in North Carolina. [laughs]
He was hurt on the job and they paid nothing?
Very little.
And he hasn't worked since the '70s?
Right, '76. So you see we were settled down with no bills except utilities.
And this happened.
And this happened.
END OF INTERVIEW