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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-0811, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
At the time of this interview, in 1999, Nancy Brown Tysor was working at the Farmer's Alliance Store in Siler City, North Carolina. Tysor has spent her entire life in Chatham County, and in this interview she describes some of the changes she has seen from behind the counter. These changes include an aging population and an influx of big-box retailers, both of which are altering the face of Siler City. This interview offers a brief portrait of a community struggling with new challenges as its young people depart.
Lifelong Chatham County, North Carolina, resident Nancy Brown Tysor describes the changes she has witnessed in Siler City.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Alright, it's October nineteenth, 1999, and this is Bruce Baker. I'm a student in Dr. Spencie Love's history 170 class at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. And this is part of the Chatham County project. And I'm in Siler City at the Farmer's Alliance Store, and, uh, I'm talking today to Mrs. Nancy Tysor. That's T-Y-S-O-R, right?
Right.
Mrs. Tysor, if—I don't want to take you away from your business—but if you could start out maybe by just telling a little about yourself and when you were born, where you were born and where you grew up.
Okay. I was born in Siler City, Chatham County, in December, December thirteenth, 1930. I went to high school here, to school here, all my twelve years. I was born in the country. My parents were farmers, and my dad was a carpenter. He built several houses here in town. I come to work here in the Farmer's Alliance a couple years after I graduated from high school. And I worked here. I was married in 1953. And I've had, I worked here at the store.
And I, let's see, I worked here three years, and was married, and my baby came along, first child. And, so I was out of work. I stopped work here. And came back to work in about 1968, and I've been here ever since then. Like I say, I've been a sales clerk and have enjoyed working here. I worked my way up as manager. The manager that was here when I came to work here passed away suddenly. And I had been here long enough that the board of directors thought that I could maybe take the responsibility, so they gave me a chance to try. So I have been manager now several years and have enjoyed it. Of course, as we, as time goes on and businesses have gone out of business in the town. The malls, shopping centers have come up. We're having a little struggle to stay, but, in business, but we're able to make a profit, a small profit, pay our bills, on time, and still have a stockholders' meeting each year. Have lunch for the stockholders. We don't have a cash dividend for them right now, but we give them a percentage off on their purchases for the year, which adds up to a fairly good dividend if they purchase enough through the year, of course. We hope to, we celebrated our hundred and eleventh anniversary back in August. And we have a hundred and ten stockholders. Not all of them live around here. A lot of them live out of state. A lot of the stock, the way we have gotten so many stockholders is because of families heiring the stock, maybe dividing between their family. So the store has been a lot of history behind it. And we just hope to continue to stay in business.
You mentioned that you were born in 1930 out in the country. Whereabout? Was that in Chatham County?
East, out east 64, Chatham County, between here and Pittsboro.
What was the name of the, was there a name for the community that you lived in?
Hickory Mountain. Hickory Mountain Township.
About how big of a place would that be? Like how far would it go each way?
Well, it would cover several miles. I'd say a ten-mile radius, square radius around.
And was that farm out there that you grew up on?
Yes, it was a farm. We grew tobacco. We raised chickens. We had a cow for our own milk, chicken for our own eggs. It wasn't a big farm. It wasn't enough to live on.
What were your parents' names?
My mother was Magdelene Johnson Brown. Dad was Harvey Lee Brown. And they were both Chatham County people, too. Raised up in Chatham County.
And you mentioned that your father was also a carpenter.
Yes, he was a carpenter.
Can you tell me a little about the sort of work he did.
Well, he built houses and chicken houses, or houses to live in. He used to own an apartment house that he built before he passed away.
You mentioned that your family grew tobacco. Where would you market the tobacco?
It was carried to Sanford to the warehouse. It wasn't a big thing, but it was enough to make money on. And then it was leased out. My mother leased it out after I was married and left home and my father passed away. She had to lease it out to someone to get to keep the acreage or whatever you call it.
Oh, yeah, right, the allotment.
Mm-hmm, the allotment.
Now, would that have been in the fifties?
That would have probably been in the, let's see, it would
probably be in the seventies. Because
And he was pretty active, working, right up to—?
Well, he was sick for about five years with Parkinson's, and that disabled him from working. He had to get on disability.
Did you have brothers and sisters?
I have one brother who is two years younger than me who has been handicapped all his life. He was born with a handicap, couldn't walk. My mother and brother both are in the rest home here in Siler City now. She's eighty-eight and he's sixty-six.
Did the, who were some of the other farms around when you were growing up?
Well, there was a Lemons family that lived close to us that had a dairy
farm. They milked several cows, and they raised their corn and their
silage. And then there was a Jack Johnson down Hickory Mountain. And he
raised a lot of chickens and had a dairy. And James Johnson who had the
same. Most of them were Johnsons
Where did you go to school?
I went here in Siler City to the high school which is now the Paul Braxton Manor. Have you seen where they fixed the Paul Braxton Manor? Well, it was Siler City High School. Then they named it—after these other schools were built, high schools, Jordan Matthews and the new Chatham Middle, and they had an old school there—they named it Paul Braxton after the principal who had been there for years. So now they have fixed it for an apartment for the elderly. It's beautiful. It's not been torn down. It's still a landmark in Siler City. Which I'm glad.
That must make you feel good to see it.
It does.
So that was high school. Was there an elementary school there closer to Hickory Mountain?
No, I was bussed into Siler City. I was bussed into town. I was about five, six miles out of town. And so the bus picked my up and carried me home. That was the only school I went to.
So did they have all the grades there?
Yes, they had from one to twelve there. But they did have another school,
Henry Siler School, which was one to seven. Then you transferred to high
school. Then at that time the blacks and whites had not gotten together
and mixed, and we had the black school, too. They had their school from
one
Is that the one that's the middle school now?
Mm-hmm, yes, that's right.
When, what do you remember about Siler City as you were a kid, coming in to school and everything? What were some of the main streets—?
It was a very busy place back then. I remember, well,
coming from the school uptown at lunchtime and going to a store, that
was the Womble Brothers, which was in a country store, and getting
cheese and crackers sometimes for my lunch.
It's a world of difference.
Yes, it is.
To ask about the Farmer's Alliance, here, what's your earliest memory of coming to the store? Is there any one particular time you remember or just sort of always being here?
Well, not really. I remember, you know, at the time, back then, they heated with wood stoves or coal, with coal. Had a stove in the middle of the store with, you know, the stove pipe going up and the flue. And at one time, now the ceiling has been lowered. At that time, it was about two foot higher, and they'd have a track on each side and a ladder thing that you'd push down to the end and climb up, get shoes and things off of the top. Kids had fun doing that, you know, pushing that ladder, trying to. I remember that. I remember the, a couple of the elderly people that used to, Mr. Carney Hughes that used to work here. Herbert Andrews.
I sort of wanted to go back and ask you a little about your family. Had they always lived in Chatham County?
Yes, uh-huh.
In the Hickory Mountain area?
Well, my dad was raised here in, well, my dad and mother were both born
here in Siler City. And
So was that before you were born?
No, that was after I was born. We moved down there when I was, I started school after we moved to the country, so I was about four years, about fours old back then, probably. About twentyeight.
What had their parents done in Siler City?
Ah,—
They must have been here about the time the town got started.
Well, my grandfather, my mother's dad, who was Bob Johnson,
helped to organize, well, pooled some money into the store to begin with
to get it organized. And my mother's mother died when she was
just a young girl. So I don't know too much about her family.
But then my dad's father was, well, a blacksmith and a
logger. He used to cut cedar and cut cedar posts or cedar trees. Call it
a logger, I
Well that's interesting. So your grandfather was connected with the store right at the very beginning?
Yes, uh-huh. And the stock that he owned was divided by four of his grandchildren. Not me, but some of his other grandchildren. They still own that part. But I purchased my stock after I come to work here from somebody that wanted to sell it because I was interested in buying it. So I purchased mine and my husband purchased some. So I'm still a stockholder. And when my husband passed away, I put what he had in my son, James Tysor.
Because there's a limitation—
Mm-hmm. We can only have two hundred dollars. So we're still trying to keep some family into the store.
It sounds like that's been pretty successful over the years, you know, keeping it in families.
Well, and you know, I think that's one of the things that the
younger people now—"My grandfather used to own stock
here." Or "my grandfather used to shop here."
Or "I came in here with my grandad." It's
still a memory. People want to remember it. It's something in
their younger days, I 1 In the background, we can hear a customer come in and talk with
Mrs. Fields, the clerk in the department store half of the
store.
What was, what was World War Two like when that came along?
Well, of course, a lot of rationed during the war. And a lot of our young guys had to go off to war, which made it, I guess, harder for the families because they, you know, the boys would be about eighteen to twenty years old.
You were telling me about the effects World War Two had on the community, with rationing—
Well, a lot of stuff like gas and sugar and even shoes back then was rationed. You had to have a coupon to get some of it. I know my husband was a World War Two veteran. Of course, I didn't know him at the time, but his mother and stepfather kind of relied on him to help them a lot on the farm, rasing chickens and helping with the cows and so forth. So that took him away from them. And he served thirty-six months in service and came back and took up on the farm what they were doing. And a lot of the boys, I think a lot of the families were affected by their boys being taken away.
Do you think that affected farming a good bit?
It did, yes, I think it did. But then when they came back and got into it, I think, you know, it probably got back into the swing of the small farming at that time.
What was your husband's first name?
Hugh. H-U-G-H.
Was he from Siler City also?
Mm-hmm. Yes, he was from Hickory Mountain.
How did you get to know him? Did you know him all the time growing up?
No, I didn't. I just met him through a friend. And, well, he
grew up down close to an aunt of mine. Of course, I'd just
know him through talking, but he just asked his friend to get a date
with me. So I dated him. We dated off and on for five years and then we
got married. Got a wedding anniversary tomorrow if
he'd've been living it would have been forty-six
years, but, of course, he passed away four years ago, will be in
December. He had cancer and kidney failure. He was on dialysis. He was
in the tex—he farmed, but then he was in the textile, too. He
worked at Collins and Aikman here, and he
Collins and Aikman, right? And that's right out on 64, isn't it?
Yeah, they make automobile upholstery and materials. So he was with them for thirty-two years, and I've been here going on thirty-one years. And my son's been with the state twenty-six years. He can retire in four more years. So we have been, stayed on our jobs, we haven't been, you know, from here to there.
Yeah, that's a nice feeling, to know where you're working, where you're going to be working.
Of course, there's problems anywhere you work.
They're not the same ones, but you'll find
problems, so you might as well
Does your son live in Siler City, also?
Yes, he lives not too far from me.
When, as you were, as you were younger, going to school and everything, what were, you mentioned that some of the industries that were here have closed down. What were some of the major industries that were here?
Well, we had a lot of, well we still have a hosiery mill. But we had one, you know, maybe a couple at one time. One closed up. Our furniture plant has not been going so well, you know, and had to lay off a lot of people.
Was that the Boling?
Boling, uh-huh. At one time we had a Seeley's furniture plant, which closed up. We had an A. J. Sierson, which was a ladies sleepwear plant that went out of business. So we've had several that have come and gone.
We still have our
—merchandise, and helping people. Just, you know, met a lot of people and had a lot of friends.
You said you started working right after high school.
Well, I finished in fifty, and I went to work in fifty-one. In fifty I helped my dad some in the carpentery. When he was building houses I'd what you call daub the seams of the sheetrock and paint some. Little jobs like that. Then I heard that a job had come open here at the store. A girl was going to go with her husband who was in the service, so I thought I'd get that job.
How many people worked here then?
There was about six at that time.
Were they, had they, the other people you worked with, had they worked here a long time, some of them, or were some of them new?
Yes. Well, the manager had been here, that's Lester Murray,
he'd been here several years. And Mr. Carney Hughes. And Mr.
Herbert Andrews, and Lawrence Moore. And Polly Willett was the one that
was going to quit and go with her husband. And Miss Pauline Brower. But
I had good people
What was different about it from then than now, in terms of how the store
was set up, what kinds of things did you carry back then that you
don't carry now? Probably not much, it looks like!
Well, we had a better source, maybe, of seeds and plants. We did good in
that. Where all these discount stores or shopping centers and all have
come up with plants and seeds now, but we still do
pretty good, but not as good as we did back then. We didn't
have too much competition in that. We had a good line of hardware, which
now is hard to get. And we could get a better line of ladies'
wear than we do now. And, there were just so many companies that we have
bought from that have gone out of business now. It's hard to
replace what we were getting from them. Now, our customers, I think, are
mostly middle-aged or the elderly. And the clothing, it seems like, now,
that you buy, it mostly caters to the younger generation, not the style
us mature ladies and older ladies bought. It's hard to get
that now because as they say, the young people are going to spend their
money for it, and the older people are more conservative. So
it's been a great change in the buying of merchandise and
what you buy.
When, if, so, you worked about three years?
Three years when I first came to work here. Then, my first child, I got
pregnant and my first child
What, what changes did you notice in, from, from fifty-four or so to sixty-eight? What things had changed and what things hadn't?
Well, not a whole lot of difference in that time. It didn't
seem to be that much of a change in that period of
time. Most of the change has been in the last, say, ten years. As the
new shopping centers and the Wal-Marts just closed around. And more
people have got better ways of traveling. People like to go out to eat
or to look. It takes them away from the little town. They go looking for
something larger and bigger or better or something.
When, so, when, for instance, the shopping center up there where the Belk's is, about when did that open up?
It's probably been there about fifteen years now. But I
don't really think that the, our type of customers,
I'll say, is the working type of people, the outdoor working
people, the hard-working people. They're looking for brogans
and denim bib overalls and jackets and coveralls, flannel shirts. They
come to the Farmer's Alliance Store to look for them. We try
to carry a good quality of clothing.
Do you, as there are more and more Hispanic people in town, do many of them shop here?
We have a few. Not too many. But they're nice when they come in. We can't complain about their conduct or anything. They're real nice.
What—
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Okay, this is side two, still October nineteenth, talking with Nancy Tysor at the Farmer's Alliance Store. And I had just asked about, between, in the early fifties what some of the other stores up and down the street were.
Well, we had a Cato's and a Belk's, a B. C.
Moore's, a Rose's Five and Ten. We had
When would you say, did these stores just sort of close one by one, or was there a certain time when you think of them as closing down?
Well, they kind of went out one by one. I'd say as people got, you know, they were elderly people trying to hold on. And if their health got bad, or business did get to where we didn't have that many people coming in. With the supermarkets and all, they just had to close up.
What was the first supermarket in Siler City?
I believe it was called the Red and White. And then there was a Colonial store here, too, at one time.
Where were they located?
They were located on East Raleigh Street.
About when do you think those stores opened?
They probably opened in fifty-five, somewhere along in there.
And I guess as they opened that probably helped—
Helped get some of these smaller ones going out. We had a large drugstore, too, on this street at one time. But they went out of business.
Did they go out of business as—
I don't know where they really went out of business because of the other drugstores, but I think they got in financial trouble because they did a lot of helping people, as you might say, charging and didn't get their pay, so they were forced out.
That happened to my great-grandparents.
So we have Revco, well, CVS here now and Family Pharmacy, which is locally owned, and Chatham Pharmacy, which is locally owned. We've got three small ones here now.
Maybe, I'm curious about sort of how the store, how this store
works, and the stock and all that.
Well, yes, and I couldn't tell you just exactly the amount of dollars were in, but they had so much money that was pooled together, was my understanding. And the stockholders mostly wanted it to be for the farmers or the working-type people like that, and where they could bring in maybe their wheat or grain or stuff to swap for sugar and coffee and so forth like they used to. And then they had fertilizer. They kept fertilizer back then that people could bring in and swap for that. And going back on the beginning like, dividends were paid out of trade, not cash, out of trade. But then as years went by and they did good, accumulated money, they just started paying, like twenty percent of their stock as a dividend. Or fifty percent. I've known it to go as high as 150 percent one year. They took out some of their bonds and cashed them in and paid off, you some, some extra dividend. It has done good in the years back. So we're kind of getting back to like we were at the beginning now. We're paying dividends by a percentage of the purchases now. And once a year, well, we have a board of directors. We have seven directors. Mr. Ed Clapp is the President. Mrs. Ruth Smith is retired teacher is Vice President. And Sam Brewer, insurance man, is Secretary/Treasurer. Well, I guess you could say I'm Treasurer since I handle the money. And then we have Norman Jordan. And Max Gee, and Thomas Andrews, and Decie Paschal.
Thomas Andrews, what was Max—
Gee. G, double E.
No wonder I didn't hear what was on the end of that.
And Decie Paschal.
How do you spell that?
D-E-C-I-E. Paschal. And her dad was on the board years ago, so she was.
How many of the people who are on the board now, would you say, their parents or grandparents were involved with the store earlier? Pretty much all of them?
All of them had family members involved in it, mm-hmm. So we have a stockholders meeting in August, and we have a lunch. First Methodist Church ladies prepare our lunch. And we all enjoy coming and getting together and doing what we do.
And so the most, would you say that most of the stock has sort of passed down within families?
Yes. It's been passed down.
And it's sort of like you were saying, I guess. Sometimes it goes from one family to another and whatever.
Well, like my grandfather owned so much, and then when he divided it four ways, that made three more stockholders, which has made us grow in stockholders, but the same amount of stock, you might say.
So they would have like a third of a share?
A third of a share, or a fourth, rather.
So, now at the beginning, at the beginning all of the stockholders had to be farmers and had to be members of the Farmers Alliance, your local Farmers Alliance lodge.
Yes. Could not be any lawyers or doctors in the bylaws to have stock. It had to be the farmers and the working people.
And then, I guess they changed that in, I think it was in 1941.
1941, I believe, we had a local lawyer that did some estate work for a family, and he got some stock from that. But, he didn't keep it long. He sold it. To the store. The store bought it back. So we don't have any doctors and lawyers now. We've never had a doctor, but we've had two lawyers, but we don't have any now.
What was, I think in the book that Ms. Smith put together, it said in 1941 they made the change where you no longer had to be a farmer yourself.
Oh, no, after it begin to be heired out, you wasn't really held to being a farmer. You could, if you were a family member, it was okayed by the board. It goes through the board and they okay it, it's fine.
Do you think that was sort catching up with the changes that were already going on?
Probably, yes. It probably was. Because there was not as many farmers, maybe. There was more mills to go to, more, you know, people getting out of college into a career and maybe wanting to keep the stock of their families. So we couldn't really just say no, we can't have you, I guess. We had to change over.
And what about the Farmers Alliance itself as an organization, from what I understand of it from histories I have read, pretty much by maybe the end of the 1890s on the state level or the national level, you know, the organization wasn't getting together and meeting on a state level, but was it still, these local organizations still meeting, or was it just—
The stockholders still meeting, or what?
Well, yeah, I guess the Farmers Alliance organizations that they were in when they decided to make the store, did those little lodges still continue to meet?
I don't know that. Of course, you know, each of the
stockholders are listed under lodges. I guess it's according
to where, what part of the county they lived is what lodge. At
schoolhouses, and so forth.
That's interesting. I think I've sort of, I usually hit a point, especially on a first interview, where I've learned, I've taken so much information in that I almost have to go back and listen over the tape and get it all figured out, and then I'll have tons more questions.
Okay, okay.
But if it would be okay, what I'd like to do is go back—I guess I'll shut this off now
END OF INTERVIEW