Baca Parties and Late Birthdays

by Dustin Gainey

When you were nine or ten years old, did you ever wonder what your grandparents were like when they were your age? Did you ever just want to ask them where they were born, or what their lives were like back then? Well, I finally got that opportunity. I sat down with my grandmother Mary Lee Locklear to ask her a few questions about her life, and what it was like growing up as a poor Native American in the South.

Mary was born in Robeson County, N.C., somewhere close to the Hoke County line on April 15, 1944, but she tells everyone she was born on April 23, 1944. Why does she do this? No one knows—NASCAR wasn’t even around at that time. Her mother’s name was Carry “Pat” Locklear, and her father was Bellton Locklear. Bellton and Pat were both from Robeson County. Mary had two brothers and five sisters, and they were all raised in Robeson County. When she was growing up, her family never had a lot of money because they were sharecroppers, but she said, “Mamma and Daddy might not have had a whole lot of money, but we never missed a single meal.” In her mind that made them a very blessed family. Her favorite meals were pork chop with corn, sausage with baked apples, and biscuits with molasses, but they had these only in the fall or winter because that was when they had hog killings.

The next few questions that I asked Mary were dealing with her education, and what her family did for fun when she was a little girl. Back “in the day” education wasn’t a “must have” like it is today. Mary attended school at Oak Grove Elementary School in Scotland County. Remember that segregation was still in effect at this time; however, Mary would go on to finish only the seventh grade because her family could not afford for her to continue in school. Now I understand why she has always encouraged me to do well in school; it was because to her it was a great privilege just to even go to school. For fun, Mary and her family would go fishin’, and on the Fourth of July they would go down to the river to celebrate our nation’s independence. Then in the fall of the year after the tobacco had been cropped, the whole community would come together and have a “baca party,” which was a party to celebrate the good crop they had that year. In the fall of every year, she said, “Daddy would always take us shoppin’, and let each one of us get one outfit and a pair of shoes.”

Mary’s life really started to change in the ‘60s. Her first job was in 1963 at the House of Raeford turkey plant, and it paid a whopping $1.75 per hour. Then in 1967 at the young age of twenty-three, she married Philip Locklear (whom she is still married to this very day). They have two lovely daughters, Joyce Gainey and Sophia “Nicky” Bryant, and five grandchildren. Mary’s favorite meal to cook is collards fried in hot sausage grease with fried chicken and cornbread. An activity she enjoys is to sit and watch older people. For about ten years she would sit with Miss Emma Neal Morrison, a very well-known lady in Scotland County. When Mary was asked, what are you most proud of accomplishing in your life? She said, “First is seeing my two girls get grown. Next, when I got saved; the last thing is when I meet Phil.”

After doing this paper, I have learned a few things about southern culture and a little more about my family history. One thing I’ll probably never forget her telling me is that she tells everyone that her birthday is a week later than what it really is. I thought most people wanted their birthday to come and go quickly. In addition, I had never heard of a “baca party.” I knew that the lifestyle in the South has changed, but I never had thought that it was so drastic. Also, I would just like to thank Grandma for all the cultural connection she has given me to the South. I have really enjoyed doing this paper, and most of all just spending some one-on-one time with my grandma.

Work Cited

Locklear, Mary L. Personal interview. 4 Sept. 2010.

Note: Dustin Gainey, who lives in Laurinburg, is majoring in accounting at Sandhills Community College.

In the Words of “G-Ma”

by Krystal D. Smith

I always wondered what the South was like when my grandmother was little. Was life on a farm more enjoyable than living in the city? Was family as important as it is today? Or was everything the same but only a little different? I found all that out when I sat down with my grandmother who was given the name Betty Rita, but I call her grandma or “G-Ma.” She was born in a town of Raeford in North Carolina. One of the few women in my family whom I look up to, she has southern tendencies just like every other southerner, but by growing up in the South, she has faced a lot of hardships that have molded her into the person she is today.

She was conceived in New York but born in North Carolina. She explained that her biological mother was a singer at a night club in New York, and one day she decided to move to North Carolina when she became pregnant to be closer to her family. She wasn’t used to the slow pace of the South; unfortunately, there weren’t that many jobs like in New York; she was stressed all the time about money, so she didn’t have time to take care of my grandmother like she wanted to. Later, my “G-Ma” was adopted when she was six years old by a lady down the street. “Back then you didn’t have to sign papers just to adopt children; you just simply gave them to someone else,” she stated. By being given away to Mrs. Frances whom she would soon call Mama, she learned things that she wouldn’t have learned from her real mother. For example, she learned how to catch food, make remedies, and ride horses. She started picking cotton and tobacco at a young age. She showed me the scars on her leg from the cuts she got while in the field. “If I had to choose between living in New York or here, I would choose here. I learned about survival. That’s the difference between then and now. You kids now run; we couldn’t run away when rough times came. We had to sit there and get through it.”

Education was important when my grandmother was young, but it also depended on the circumstance. For example, if students didn’t have enough money to buy books, then they most likely dropped out of school. “I thought I was hurting them by not going to school, but I ended up hurting myself.” Because she didn’t have the education to get a high-paying job, she moved to Long Island, New York, when she was in her early thirties. There she worked as a “housekeeper for a rich white lady for two years,” she said. This was the right time to ask her the difference between the North and South. “New York life was too fast. You had to keep up with everyone; there was way more crime there than here, and everyone wasn’t as friendly as the people back home.” Because she didn’t like the job, she moved back to the South and began working at the Burlington Mill. She worked there for twenty years while being a single mother and juggling the responsibility of raising two children.

My grandma had two twin brothers born a little after she turned nine. She was happy that she wasn’t the only child anymore. It made her proud that she was a big sister to them. “In my time, family was really important. We all stuck together and we were always there for each other.” For instance, when she got into fights at school, her brothers were always there for her. Even her cousins were there; no one could ever mess with just one person of the family without everyone getting involved. She explained that some didn’t even have to be a part of the family; everyone who lived in their area was like family to them. “Nowadays families and neighbors are against each other. They don’t want to be around each other. It makes me sad to see families break apart over the littlest things.” I really understood what she meant. Now people have to fend for themselves; they can’t really depend on their family to help them when they’re in need.

By asking my grandmother these questions, I have learned a lot about her and my culture. Sometimes people have to take risks in order to make things happen. School is still important. Back then people didn’t struggle as much as they do now; anyone during that time could easily get a job, but now they have to have an education to get a good-paying job. I took into consideration about what my grandmother said about families not being close like they used to, and it breaks my heart to know that it is true. “People need to come together and help each other, and they need to stop being against each other.”

Work Cited

Purcell, Betty Rita. Personal interview. 29 Aug. 2010.


Note: Krystal D. Smith, who lives in Raeford, is pursuing an associate’s degree in nursing at Sandhills Community College.

Back Then

by Melissa Scott

Remembering the past can be bittersweet for some people; that’s what I felt when I interviewed my mother, a Lumbee Indian. She was born in Robeson County, North Carolina, and had nine siblings. The family lived in a two-bedroom “shotgun house” -- if you stood in the front door, you could see through the back door. The way of life was farming and sharecropping; when you were old enough, you moved away.

Living in a two-bedroom house with twelve people today would not be pleasant; however, back in the ‘40s this was normal. There were three beds in the children’s bedroom, and the baby slept in the parents’ room -- usually in a drawer because there wasn’t any cribs. Consequently, growing up with nine brothers and sisters got crowded when it was bedtime, especially when she slept in a bed with a ten-pound quilt laying over her. Getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom was out of the question. She had to hold it until morning or surprise the person lying next to her.

The family raised its own chickens, hogs, and vegetables and didn’t have a cow since they couldn’t afford one; therefore, she didn’t drink milk. Water was pumped from a well. When they killed hogs, they ate everything but the “grunt.” Out of the hog, they made sausage, pudding, and lard; soap was also made from hog's skin. From the corn kernels, corn mill was made to make flour bread and biscuits. The vegetable field grew peas, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and potatoes. In addition, on the farm were tobacco, cotton, and corn, and the boys plowed the fields by mule. The boys were also in charge of sweeping the yards with reeds, the older girls would cook and take care of the baby, and the others would clean. After the work on the family farm was complete, the family would go work on a white man’s land and farm; his name was Mr. Humphrey. The worse part of working on his farm was that it kept Mom from attending school. “His kids went to school, and we didn’t get to go to school -- except when it rained,” Mom said. Surprisingly, on the white man’s farm, they were treated fairly well. They weren’t as bad as some people had been treated. The Humphreys allowed their children to play with Mom and the other siblings, and his wife would cook everyone dinner after work in their field was complete. “We would talk, eat, and play; she was a kind woman,” Mom said with a smile. When she became a teenager, my mom helped work in tobacco on another person’s farm and made $3.00 a day. That would buy shoes, pants, and a top, she recalled.

Mom never felt mistreated because she was taught from a child where to and not to go. The downtown area was the most racist -- more so than out in the rural “country” because most people in the country were poor people: white, Black, and Indian -- it didn’t matter because everyone was poor. An Indian or Black could go into a store and buy drink or ice cream, but they had to go outside to eat it. The Indians and Blacks were treated the same, even though Indians and Blacks didn’t associate with one another. Mom acknowledged, “When you went anywhere in town, you knew what you were supposed to do. You didn’t know any differently. If you were Black or Indian and went to the movies, you went upstairs to watch.” She knew the restaurants she wasn’t supposed to go into. Mom mostly went to an Indian restaurant that served hot dogs and hamburgers.

Mom remembers, “When television came along, people would come from everywhere because we were the first to get one. Every Saturday night we would have a crowd of people watching The Ed Sullivan Show. When Elvis was on TV the first time, we saw him. The men would come over to watch wrestling as well.”

The family stopped farming when Mom was about the age of fifteen because the boys were older and left home. “All that was left were girls, so Daddy got a job building bridges and moved out of the country into town, Ma got a job at a chicken house, and the girls who were old enough moved to Baltimore,” she recollected. “The oldest sister got married just to move away from home. When she had children, she called for Mom to come help take care of the children.”

The first hired job Mom had was in Baltimore. She worked at a clothing store owned by a Jewish family mainly in the warehouse with various clothing goods. At Easter, she made Easter baskets in the warehouse to sell in the retail stores. This brought to my mind all the incredible Easter baskets I received as a child. One of the unforgettable occasions while working in the store was when President Kennedy was shot. She stated, “I remember that as if it were yesterday. The owner closed the store until the day after the president was buried. It was a depressing time for everyone.”

When Mom moved back to North Carolina in the late ‘60s, she worked at the Converse Shoe manufacturing plant for thirty-five years until they closed the factory. She was one of the first to be hired. “I worked on production line sewing shoes,” she replied. It was hard work, but she enjoyed it.

I always knew that my mom had an excellent work ethic, and now I know why. Looking back over the past thirty-something years that she has been my mother, I understand her a little more. She has always been a great mother and did everything to make her family happy. I learned a lot from this interview and I think it helped her, too. Memories can make you laugh, cry, or sometimes help you realize how far you have come on the journey in your life.

Work Cited

Locklear Stone, Vivian. Personal interview. 9 Sep. 2010.

Note: Melissa Scott, who lives in Pinehurst, is majoring in nursing at Sandhills Community College.

Do More Than What Others Expect You to Do

by Rebecca Erbschloe

“Times were different back then than they are now,” were the words my grandmother muttered as she drifted off into an old memory that was recalled when I asked her what things were like in the South when she was growing up. “A lot different, but that’s expected, I guess; times change so fast.” My grandmother, Evelyn Ballenger, grew up in the then-small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. I was fascinated to learn of all the determination and hard work that she put forth to change from an extremely sheltered small town southern girl to an educated, successful, well-informed, southern woman.

My grandmother was born in a house on land that my great-grandfather had bought during the Great Depression. This purchase was possible because he had a strong distaste for banks and believed that putting money in them was a bad idea. When the Great Depression hit, he lost nothing because he kept all of his money in an old tin box under his bed. “There were no ‘easy’ ways to make money back then. The only way was with hard work and long hours.” My grandmother explained to me that in her younger days it was very taboo for a woman to hold a job or even to attend higher education because “women were supposed work at home.” However, her mother was beyond her years even then and attended a business college to become a secretary. Hard work was something that was instilled in her from the time that she was born. Starting in the early morning her father, mother, brother, and she would wake and start the chores that were required to maintain the farm where they lived. Starting when she was about five, it was my grandmother’s job to feed the pigs and bring in the cows. She told me that she was taught by her father that to find the cows in the pasture so that she could bring them in she had to “touch the leg of a granddaddy long-leg and the insect would point to the direction where the cows could be found.” I found it quite interesting that this simple, hard-working farm family depended on the instinct of an insect to do some of their work. This is all they knew. This is where they came from and they were proud of it.

School was not required at this time. In fact, “you attended school only if your family could afford to lose a set of hands on the farm.” However, with the encouragement of her mother and much persuasion of her father, my grandmother began going to the only school in Greenwood. She continued in this “one room school, no bigger than a nice bathroom these days,” until she was in the ninth grade. When it was time for the ninth grade, because they lived in such a rural place, she began taking a school bus into town everyday to attend high school. Although this was not something that many girls got the opportunity to do, my great-grandmother always encouraged her to “do more than what people expect you to do.” Wow! Who would have known that a line that my own mother has said to me a thousand times had been passed down through four generations of Southern women? High school was quite a bit of culture shock to my grandmother. She was an extremely shy southern farm girl who had been suddenly tossed into a world where things were a bit different than what she was used to. When she was in high school, she was sent by her teacher to the office to make a phone call to one of the businesses in the area, which seems pretty normal, except that this was the “first time I’d ever seen something like that; I had no idea what to do.” She was shown secretly by a teacher how to use the telephone, and it was like “there was no stopping me after that.” So much so that she graduated as valedictorian of her senior class. This was a class of only twenty. She went on to attend college, get her first job, and earn a degree in English. The year 1960 was a big one for my grandmother. She became an English teacher and also got indoor plumbing for the first time.

My grandmother, like women in many southern families, has been such an inspiration to our family. She has shown us that even a farmer’s daughter from the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina, can do great things despite what society might expect. She has also instilled in us the value of hard work, culture, and the knowledge that makes us proud to be from the South.

Work Cited

Ballenger, Evelyn. Personal interview. 10 Sept. 2010.



Note: Rebecca Erbschloe, who lives in Aberdeen, is majoring in radiography at Sandhills Community College.

Southern Connections

by Charlie Wright

How can someone born in the North have a Southern connection? My dad, David Wright, was born on March 28, 1948 in Southampton, New York. However, his connection to the South and his close ties to the land provided the basis for the Southern culture that he believes influenced his closeness to family, his values of tradition, and even perhaps his self-reliance.

Although one might question how someone from New York could have any bit of Southern culture in him, a strong Southern influence was passed down to him (and ultimately me) from both his parents and grandparents. Both sets of my father’s grandparents (maternal and paternal) hailed from North Carolina. On his maternal side, the family resided in Henderson, North Carolina. My dad’s mom was also born in Henderson. As a young woman she moved to the small town of Eastport, New York, where she worked with her mother in a duck packing plant.

My father’s paternal grandparents came from Greensboro, North Carolina, where they made their living as farmers. His grandparents moved to the rural town of East Quogue, New York where they purchased a farm. My great-grandfather (whom I was named after) worked as a state highway foreman, in addition to farming. My grandfather helped farm with his father, and later my father helped his dad on the farm.

My father grew up on the family farm, about thirty minutes from where he had been born. The farm was used to grow potatoes, cauliflower and lima beans, which were sold to Birds Eye, a flash-freezing vegetable company. Other things that were raised on the farm were milk cows, beef cows, fruits and vegetables. The crops and the livestock from the farm supported his parents and siblings (five), making them almost completely self-sufficient. This strong connection to the land and its agricultural importance was a way of life for my dad. To this day, my father has always been an ”early to bed, early to rise” person. Work had to be done during daylight, so all other schedules revolved around what was happening on the farm.

When I asked my dad what it was like growing up on the farm, he said to me, “It was hard work.” For his whole life, he worked at hard jobs and he has always worked outside. I asked if he remembers his jobs on the farm, and he related a story about the first “job” he remembers. When he was eight years old, he was given the task of driving a truck through the rows of the field while his father and other workers picked and sorted lima beans by hand. He said, “I couldn’t reach the gas pedal or brake, so when I got to the end of a row, I would throw the clutch into neutral and my father would run over and turn the truck around, and I’d do it again.” He told me that he drove the truck all summer long and later during the year, he drove the truck to pick up hay and straw. When he got a little older, his father would let him plow the fields. He told me about how everyone in the family did their part on the farm in one way or another. His brothers and sisters would be helping with the cooking or planting or weeding or feeding. His mother would sometimes drive the truck when my dad was in school and with each season canned the fruits and vegetables that were ripe.

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My dad also said it was “hard” because as he got older, he was interested in doing other things. He really wanted to play baseball, but that was planting season. He wasn’t tall enough to play basketball (winter sport) so he wrestled. His nickname at school was “Farmer.” Not many farms (or farmers) were still being operated by the early 1960s. The year before my dad graduated from high school (1965), his dad decided to rent his farmland to other farmers, and he bought a cesspool cleaning and building business. My dad worked with his father for over thirty years after that. Although my dad said work was hard, there was a closeness from working with family members that has remained to this day. Work was hard, but there was a satisfaction in completing a job and there was food on the table as well.

The last topic that we talked about was family tradition and as soon as he started to answer, I recognized the Southern ties. He told me how every summer, in the month of August, they would have a huge family picnic, similar to a hog roast. The picnic included all members of his extended family and friends who came together to spend time. He told me about some of the foods, including cold watermelon and lots of corn.

My father may have grown up in New York, but he grew up with close ties to the land. Now living in North Carolina, he is always out digging in the dirt. When we first decided to move to North Carolina to live, he said, ”I’m just returning to my roots” – back to slow and easy, big front porches, NASCAR racing and barbeque – all things he’s always liked, but didn’t realize it was because of his “Southern connections.”

Work Cited

Wright, David. Personal interview. 13 Sept. 2010.

Note: Charles E. (Charlie) Wright, who lives in Whispering Pines, is a university transfer student at Sandhills Community College where he is pursuing an associate in arts degree.

A Humble Southerner

by Christina Austin-Campbell

Why are family gatherings so important? They are times to be thankful for having family together. They’re also events for everyone to learn history and culture from the older generation. My dad (James E. Austin, Sr.) was born in Maxton, North Carolina, and raised in a little area of Laurinburg called John Station. He quit school at age thirteen, worked on a farm for many years, and then married at a young age. The changes that took place in my father’s life happened during the time of segregation in the South. Daddy said, “Working on a farm here in the South made me the man I am today, and that’s a blessing.” He will always be a humble man to me.

On Sunday afternoon when my dad got home from church, he and I sat at the dining room table for the interview. Daddy attended Pedal Creek School back in 1939. He said, “All his sisters and brothers had to attend school.” The school was one room, and all the children were in that one room until they reached the sixth grade. Then they were put in another room with a different teacher. Back then schools were segregated. The white children rode the bus to school, and the black children had to walk. It was more important for him to make money than go to school, so he dropped out at age thirteen and started working on the farm with his dad and four brothers. They worked from sunup to sundown, every day -- except Sunday when everybody had to go to church.

It was 1945 when my dad dropped out of school and started working on the farm. He did all kinds of work: picked cotton, tomatoes, and corn; plowed the fields; fed the chickens and hogs; and milked and fed the cows. Everything that needed to be done, he was right there helping his father and brothers. Daddy said, “They had all their food either out the front door or the back door.” The fields had collards, cabbage, corn, sweet potatoes, butter beans, tomatoes, and okra, and there was a peanut field. In the backyard was a smokehouse full of meat. A hog was killed, cut up, and cured out at least four times a year. In addition, once a year a cow was slaughtered. When something was needed, it was outside. The only things his dad had to purchase from town were a block of ice, sugar, and coffee. Since they had no refrigerator, the food was put into an ice chest that had broken pieces of ice to keep the food cold. Dad and his brothers would dig a hole in the ground, lay dry cotton seeds in the hole, and then place the block of ice in the hole. Potatoes were done the same way. A hole had to be dug, dry pine straw was placed in the hole, potatoes next, and then a hill of dirt piled on top of the potatoes to keep them fresh. They stayed fresh almost two years.

During the fall my dad did not have much to do around the house, so he went got a job. He worked for another farmer making fifty cents a day pulling cabbage and collards and picking tomatoes. He had to pick fifty to a bunch. Meanwhile, if the boss caught someone talking, he would send that person home because he would say, “If you talk while you work, how can you get the count right?” This made sense. Back in those days two dollars and fifty cents was big money. He saved his money and bought a 1938 Ford. After working all week, he enjoyed going to the movies on Friday and Saturday nights. The location of the movie theater was the very spot where the LOF glass plant is located. His mother would always tell him to make sure not to spend all his money in one place. He paid fifteen cents to see a movie, six cents for a soda, five cents for a pack of peanuts, and sixteen cents for popcorn.

My mother and father met while working in a cotton field. He said, “That girl can pick some cotton.” Once they dated for a while, he asked her to marry him. On the day of their wedding, he kissed his bride and back to the cotton field they went. He said he married her because she picked cotton so fast. My mother and father got married on August 23, 1953; they have been married for fifty-seven years. In 1961, they moved up north to New Jersey to find work. They lived there for thirty three years and then they both retired; it was back to the South to spend the rest of their life.

My dad is seventy-eight years young, is in good health, and doesn’t mind helping others. He still works part-time five days a week and goes to church every Sunday. His motto is working, staying busy, and treating people right are what keep him alive. Children should take the time to listen to their parents and grandparents; it would help them to learn about their history and culture. It may help them to understand more of themselves; then they can grow up to be better adults. I am so proud to be the daughter of a man with such humbleness and even prouder to say, “That’s my daddy.”

Work Cited

Austin, James. Personal interview. 12 Sep. 2010.

Note: Christina Austin-Campbell, who lives in Laurinburg, is majoring in social work at Sandhills Community College where she is pursuing an associate in arts degree.

A Grandmother’s Perspective on the South

by Precious Holt

My grandmother Sheryl Chasse (age 62) has been through a lot in her lifetime. Some people may look at my grandmother and consider her “yellow” or very fair skinned. Although that may be the case, she was often subject to racial prejudice and discrimination. Fortunately she didn’t allow that to get to her and was able to develop her own mind and thoughts based on racial tolerance instead of bigotry.

Originally from the ghettos of Buffalo, New York, my grandmother’s birth mother died shortly after giving birth to her, so she became an orphan. Growing up in the ghettos of Buffalo wasn’t easy. Even though it wasn’t in the South, she was still discriminated against. Because she was fair skinned and had long, pretty hair, she didn’t fit in with the blacks, and because she was a little darker than the whites, she didn’t fit in with them either. She explained how blacks knew not to venture out of her home area, Williams Street. Everyone knew their place and never tried to break boundaries or speak out against the racial intolerance.

My grandmother was adopted at the age of nine, and she moved to an upper-class “black” area called Lynwood. Even though her adopted family was able to live in an upper-class neighborhood, they still weren’t good enough to move into a white neighborhood. She noticed that whenever a black family would move in the area, a white family would move into the suburbs. Even there she described how blacks had their own levels of classification, from the “light brights” to the “darkies.” The lighter you were, the more respected you were in the black community.

My grandmother’s adopted family taught her to be happy with where she was and to be happy that she was fair skinned and had long pretty hair. “Know your place” is a quote that she can remember her adopted parents telling her all the time. They taught her to be mistrusting of whites and to “not rock the boat too much.” She also remembers how her family looked down on other blacks depending on their financial status, skin color, or hair texture. They affiliated themselves more with the white community. Surprisingly my grandmother’s sister married a white man and so did my grandmother. They were threatened to be disowned by their own parents because they both fell in love with white men. Her adopted mother believes, “Color is everything; you could have all the money and education in the world, but if your color is too dark, then you’re a dumb nigga.”

When asked if my grandmother had been affected by any of the Jim Crow laws, she said, “Yes.” On a family trip to Florida they stopped to use the restroom and were turned away because of the color of their skin. The sign said, “No Coloreds Here,” and they had to drive several more miles just to use a restroom. When John F. Kennedy became president, the black community saw hope for them; they saw the whole Kennedy family as their savior. My grandmother stated that he was “good” for the blacks because he was helping and passing laws for their civil rights, but the whites in the South thought that he was too liberal and wanted to do “too much” for blacks. The ideas of the politicians were to keep the blacks from gaining any civil rights and that often conflicted with the ideas of Kennedy. In addition, my grandmother remembers U.S. Senator Jessie Helms stating that “all blacks are ignorant.” When Kennedy was assassinated, the black community just fell apart. My grandmother remembers that their hope and inspiration was gone. They felt that they would always be oppressed by the whites.

The South as a whole in present times is very diverse and more accepting, according to my grandmother. She believes that the South has more tolerance than before towards those who may look different than the blonde hair, blue-eyed people. As far as politics, she believes that the states are more individual and worried about their own issues instead of collectively targeting one issue. The South has come a long way from its old ways and has progressed enormously. My grandmother is most thankful for the civil rights leaders and activists who helped to mold the South into the way that it is today.

In conclusion, my grandmother has seen it all. She’s been the subject of racial prejudice and discrimination and was even taught to dislike those who didn’t look like her. Although her parents were very intolerant of those who were different, she was able to break out that cycle and base her judgments on character instead of color.

Work Cited

Chasse, Sheryl. Personal interview. 9 Sept. 2010.

Note: Precious Holt, who lives in Raeford, is a university transfer student at Sandhills Community College where she is pursuing an associate in arts degree as a member of the inaugural class of SandHoke Early College High School. She was also featured in the article “For Students at Risk, Early College Proves a Draw” in The New York Times in February 2010.

Hot Fudge Experience

by Biminii (B.J.) Heard

A wise man once said, “If you don’t know where you came from, you can never understand where you are going.” With this in mind, the interview of one of my grandmother’s younger sisters became even more meaningful. When I asked my great aunt, Emma Gillis (also known as Fudge), about the period of history best described as the Civil Rights Movement, I learned about differences in today’s society as compared to when she grew up: her memories concerning the Civil Rights Movement as well as differences in politics, world views, and family traditions.

Auntie Fudge, when asked if she seen a major difference in today’s society compared to when she was an adolescent, replied, “There is a whole heap of difference in today’s society compared to my younger days. For one we have a black president. We still see racism, but not nearly as much or as bad as when I was a young lady. I recall babysitting for a young white couple’s five-year-old son who actually called her the N-word. In my day whites and blacks didn’t live in the same neighborhoods under any circumstances.”

I asked Fudge about the Civil Rights Movement and her activity involving the movement, and her response was, “I definitely backed them in what they did with the sit-ins, the marches, and the soapbox speeches on the corners and supermarkets. I personally did not march or anything like that because I worked for and with whites. I wanted to save money so I could move away and had no idea how my boss and co-workers would react, but I do regret that I didn’t because my siblings were actively part of the movement.”

My next question was, what was the most memorable moment in civil rights history from your experience? She replied, “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., being on the radio, speaking of racial equity and unification, was the most memorable moment for me. Then one day I heard on the same radio about the good doctor’s assassination; my stomach immediately dropped like a stone in a lake. I was at work around the same people that I felt wouldn’t understand my wanting to march for my people’s equal treatment.”

To the question of whether she can see a major difference in family values and traditions now in comparison to when she was growing up, “Yes, of course I do. Boy, what are you talking about? We had regular family reunions every other year, and y’all haven’t carried that on at all. We had big reunions where every branch of the tree was represented. Even add-ons, like if a member of our family got married, their household came and their in-laws would also attend, and this was so with everyone considered part of this family.”

Do you think that people today are more deeply rooted in traditions versus generations ago? “Nah,” my great aunt said laughing, “When we were coming up, we did everything together. I mean every detail of everyday was a family event. By my father being a minister, it was days and nights that we were the only ones at church preparing for the next service or just receiving the word itself. I even remember growing up and praying before opening Christmas presents. How’s that for traditions that you all don’t do?”

When asked about the differences between foods and the methods in which they were cooked and prepared, her response was, “Yes, there is a big difference between foods today because my father slaughtered our cows, chickens, and pigs. We caught our own fish in our lake on our property. We grew vegetables and fruits without pesticides, no hormones, all natural homegrown. We pickled a lot of our foods to preserve them. Cooking methods were different as well. We used an old cast-iron potbelly stove that my brothers had to chop wood for us to heat it with, no just walking in the kitchen when you’re hungry and whipping something up; we had to prepare ahead of time.”

Doing this assignment has reminded me of something I hadn’t thought of since my grandmother’s passing, the fact that we were from different worlds even though I am her descendent, lion of her lions, offspring of her offspring. I learned things about my great aunt that my thirty years on earth hadn’t taught me. Aunt Emma Gillis was a great candidate for my interview because her experience is priceless. She agreed to this interview only under one condition; it was, “I hope that me answering these questions can help you get a good mark on this paper.”

Work Cited

Gillis, Emma. Personal interview. 12 Sept. 2010.

Note: B.J. Heard lives in Southern Pines, NC, and is majoring in business administration at Sandshills Community College.

My Southern Hero

by Deborah S. Burris

As children, we all had our heroes. Some heroes were real, and some were fictitious heroes we watched Saturday mornings on television. Nonetheless, we cherished our heroes and loved them with all our being. Heroes give a young person someone or something to idolize. For me, that person is my grandmother, Bridget Jenkins; to this day, I still consider her my personal hero. My grandmother lived through World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, desegregation and, of course, probably the most trying—my youth. I never realized she was my hero until I grew up and learned to appreciate everything that she had gone through in order for me to flourish. I admire her for everything that she has endured and I thank her for teaching me to be who I am and not to try to be someone I am not.

My grandmother was born Bridget May Elliott on May 3, 1934. A midwife delivered her; as Granny says, “Hospitals is where you went if you had money.” She was the seventh child of nine born to my great-grandparents Matthew and Josephine Elliott. Although once she married, she and her family lived in the surrounding counties; my grandmother spent the majority of her life right here in Moore County, North Carolina. Growing up in a large family my grandmother learned the true meaning of sharing, she says. “We were by no means rich, but my papa worked at the sawmill, and my mama stayed home with us kids.” My grandmother told me she remembers that when she was small, everyone had a job—no matter how small—from taking care of the chickens to feeding the pigs to tending the garden. “We all had chores to do around the house. We grew our own food. We ate lots of vegetables, [but we] also had pigs and chickens” -- a smile formed on her face as she continued -- “a long time ago we had some ducks and guineas too.”

My granny worked around the house and helped her parents, but that was not her only job. She tells me that she was very young when she first started working, although she doesn’t give a specific age, and her first job was working in a tobacco field. “As far back as I can remember, it was handing ‘bacca at the ‘bacca barn.” My grandmother rarely uses slang during our talks. “I don’t know if there were more of them [whites] or more of us [blacks] working back then.” Grandma goes on to tell me about her education. Although her mother stayed home with the children and it was not common for young black children to get a proper education, my grandmother attended school up to the tenth grade when she met and married her first husband, my grandfather. “Most of our education we received at home from Mama. We learned the Bible first and foremost.” Being from the South, religion is a big part of who my grandmother is. She stated, “Mama read the Bible to us kids every night,” which is probably why my grandmother instilled deep religious beliefs into her children and grandchildren. Granny does not soon let us forget that we live in the Bible Belt.

I wondered what development in the American South had the greatest effect on my grandmother because she is African American. I thought for sure she would say segregation or the Civil Rights Movement; however, to my surprise, she said World War II. “It affected everybody. My oldest brother Fredrick was in the war. I had a brother over. . . .” She sank back in her seat a little and then continued, “Other than that it really didn’t affect me.” Grandma was only about five when WW II began. “Except for having a brother over there. . . I mean the war did affect everybody, but I was worried about him.” My grandmother always speaks so highly of her brother Fredrick, and I have a great respect for him, although I did not know him. I asked her if segregation had a big influence on her life. She answered with an emphatic “No.” I was surprised. Grandma Bridget straightened in her chair and then looked me directly in the eyes. “I don’t remember segregation being such a big deal like some people talk about it being. We lived in a mostly white neighborhood, but it was no big hullabaloo.” Grandma went on to explain that blacks and whites all worked together, the kids played together; at the end of the day, the blacks went to their houses, and the whites went to theirs. Listening to my grandmother, I found myself transported back in time. I could see the younger kids playing and the older ones priming tobacco.

Finally, I asked my grandmother about the most important lesson she had learned in her youth that she passed down to her children. Cocking her head to the side, she looked at me and said, “Education and common courtesy come first. Always be courteous and get your education.” Then she grinned, showing all of her teeth, and finished with, “Also, keep your mouth shut and listen. You’ll learn more that way. Y’all talk to too much; nobody just sits and listens anymore.” Heeding Grandma Bridget’s advice, I kept my mouth shut and listened as she went on to say that education is the most important goal a person can have. Although she went to only the tenth grade in high school, she later got her GED, attended college, became a nurse, and retired nearly fifteen years ago. I remember my granny being especially tough on me when I was in high school, and at the time—like any teenager—I resented it, but now that I have children of my own, I understand exactly why she did and said what she did. “Nobody can take your knowledge away from you. Once it’s in here,” she pointed to her temple, “it’s yours and nobody can ever take that way.”

At age 76, my grandmother is such a wealth of information, and I feel truly blessed that she has allowed me to share in her knowledge and, as a result, I can pass that knowledge on to my children. I can see my Southern heritage in my grandmother’s eyes when I visit, and I hear it in her voice when we talk. She is my connection to the past and the gateway to my future -- a past I have only read about in books, yet she brings it to life for me with her childhood stories. She did not live the exact same history as what we generally learn in school; her life is unique. I never realized when I was younger that the most influential person in my life was not someone most kids would think of as their hero. Growing up in the South my heroes were Bo and Luke Duke, Wonder Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man. Now that I am grown up, I realize that my grandmother has had the most positive influence on my life.

Work Cited

Jenkins, Bridget. Personal interview. 9 Sept. 2010.


Note: Deborah S. (Debbie Burris), who lives in Aberdeen, NC, is a journalism major at Sandhills Community College where she is pursuing an associate in arts degree.

Wisdom in Council

By Jennie Curtis

“The South--where roots, place, family, and tradition are the essence of identity.”
--Social historian Carl N. Degler

Farming has been an intricate part of southern culture over many generations. Take a drive through any small rural town here in the Sandhills and be treated to a wide variety of farm stands loaded with seasonal produce grown in and around this diverse area. A well-known and highly respected member of the farming community here is Mr. John Council, owner of Council Farms in Shannon, N.C. When I shook Mr. Council’s hand for the first time, his strong confident grip transported me into a different time and place. The dark brown skin of his hand was weathered with the many seasons; each line and callus told a story of how this life had shaped him throughout his now more than 70 years. As his hand embraced mine in a gesture of warm welcome and friendship, I was filled with a great interest and appreciation for the life he had chosen and the peace of mind that it awarded him.

Born into a family of sharecroppers in Robeson County, N.C. when segregation was alive and well, he was given his first mule to farm with at the age of five. Stop and think for a few minutes back to what you possibly might have been up to at the age of five…. I think I was learning how to tie my shoes and ride a bike with training wheels. Everyday he was responsible for that animal’s welfare and the equipment that he used to farm the fields with the skill of a grown man. Education consisted of little two-room school house miles down the road that he would attend on the rainy days. He lamented that most often he was so far behind it made learning the basics difficult and that the fields always took first priority. He did eventually learn to read and write but stated, “All of the education I have ever needed was given to me by the land.” Unaware of the hardship he was suffering at the time, he spoke fondly of his childhood memories spent with his family.

When he grew old enough to step out on his own, he moved to Camden, N.J., to see what the world outside of his small county held. He met and married his wife Willie Agnes, and through hard work he was able to purchase nine acres to farm. For the next thirty-five years they farmed their small plot while raising children in a time of great economic change. Mr. Council spoke of having to take many different outside jobs to feed his family from serving as a maintenance man for company such as Sears and J.C. Penny to fixing equipment for other farmers -- truly a man of all work. Every skill that he pulled from was self-taught while working the farm. As times progressed from the days of mule and plow to tractors and gasoline, he had to gain a new set of skills. Although he spoke of having no great love for any of these outside jobs, his joy for farming kept his love for life firmly rooted in the soil that he tended everyday.

In the early 1990s, he returned to North Carolina to aid his ailing father and purchased sixty-eight acres four miles outside of Raeford, N.C., in a tiny hamlet called Shannon. Devoting himself completely to the land, he and his now extended family have spent the last sixteen years building a working farm from the ground up. Priding himself on growing vegetables and raising animals as “only God would have me,” Council Farms is as natural as it gets. Although the farm is not certified organic, every leaf, fruit, egg and slab of bacon is nurtured in a completely organic environment. Following age-old methods passed down through generations, Mr. Council is passing along this hard earned and immeasurable wisdom to his children and grandchildren before he leaves this earth. In a time when carrying on the family business is becoming extinct because so many children show a lack of interest in the history that they were raised in and around, it is a relief to find a family so committed to carrying on the family name and the great expanse of knowledge that will be used and preserved for future generations to come.

Our little piece of Southern culture can be visited at the farmers market in downtown Southern Pines. When I visited Mr. Council on a fresh, bright Saturday morning, I was treated to a view of everything that his family can produce and love he has not only for the beautiful produce, meat and eggs that his farm provides this community but to an insight into the immense joy he feels in watching his grandchildren care for a way of life that he treasures. I and many others seemed drawn to the Council’s farm booth, not because it had the greatest display or the brightest banners with modern equipment, but rather the feeling that behind the modest and well-maintained setup was a type of quality we rarely find in any supermarket, small or otherwise these day. Mr. Council was quick to say that he has no regrets for choosing this way of life; the deep roots that connect him to the land he farms are all he will ever need to be happy. As I shook his hand in a friendly farewell, I felt somehow there can be no greater wisdom to part with than that.

Work Cited

Council, John. Personal interview. 29 May 2010.

Note: Jennie Curtis prepared this paper for HUM 122 as a student in the baking and pastry arts curriculum at Sandhills Community College. She is the pastry chief at Ashten’s Restaurant in Southern Pines, NC.

A Hardworking Woman of the South

by Lindsey Irby

A “blast from the past” was heard when I asked with my grandmother about her struggles in life throughout the years. I always knew she was a hard-working woman, but I never knew what a strong independent Southern person she really is. My grandmother’s name is Frances Irby, but I call her Granny. She resides in Pinebluff, but she was born in Kannapolis. The experiences and accomplishments she has achieved are unfathomable, and I admire her determination to achieve her goals. She shows all characteristics of a person from the South, and she has had very difficult experiences throughout her life.

First, as I asked many questions during the interview, I was absolutely intrigued by the hardships that her mother, three sisters, and one brother had to overcome. She explained, “Because there was very little money for medical treatment, my mother doctored us with folk lore medicines and techniques that she learned from her mother. For example, when one of us had a cold, she treated us with cough syrup she made by boiling wild cherry bark, a bud of mullin stalk, sugar and lemon juice. She treated us with croup or chest congestion by making a solution of kerosene, camphor, and turpentine and applying it to the chest area, and also covering the chest with a piece of outing flannel and kept us in bed or in a warm room.” Her father and mother divorced when she was six years old. While being the oldest was tough, she still had time to bring her vivid imaginations to life. As a child, Granny and her siblings would use bricks as cars and build a track to race them. “We would dig under roots and go over them, and we would remember exactly which brick was ours. We would rip up old cloths and make a playhouse with the pieces. We were all creative, and people nowadays have lost that sense of creativeness,” she said. Her mother, my great grandmother named Annie Morgan, was a single woman who was looked down upon for being divorced. “My mother had to learn to be both mother and father to all of us. She had to assume total responsibility for caring for the farm animals, gardening, and other activities that were considered to be male chores, such as building pig pens and chicken coops which she learned to do on her own.” My granny had to learn to be a responsible, determined woman at a very young age. I could see the remembrance of her past bringing a sense of a bittersweet happiness to her eyes.

Secondly, Granny stopped going to school after the ninth grade. “Education was not pushed or thought about because we were poor, but my mother wanted us to finish high school, even though none of us did. As I worked jobs that made little pay, I decided one day that I was not going to live like that for the rest of my life.” She later got her GED and completed her master’s degree. She has been a registered nurse, a nurse in the emergency room, and a member of a psychiatric unit. Also, she has taught nursing students since 1982. She was the director of nursing, and division chair of health science at Richmond Community College. My granny achieved many more accomplishments, but none of them would have happened if she had not gone to college. Granny is now retired with Social Security and state retirement, and she still teaches clinical once a week. She is completely satisfied with her life. She has no financial problems, and every accomplishment she has earned will never be taken away from her. “Education is the key to having a great life, and nobody can ever take your education away from you. You can have a million dollars and it be gone in a blink of an eye, but you will never ever lose your education.” My granny’s words of wisdom really motivate me to achieve whatever I want to do and stretch my limitations to the maximum while doing so.

Furthermore, I asked her about Southern culture and characteristics of the people in the South. She stated, “People from the South are at a slower pace than people up North. They would push and shove to get on a train up there and not have any manners about it. Southern people stop to talk to you, even though they do not know you. Manners are another thing you will find in the South. Many people are involved in church, and integrity is important to them. Honesty is very important, and I believe us all to be hard workers. Homemade specialties and recipes are passed down from generation to generation, and you can only find that in the South. Also, family is most important to me.” Then I asked what her expectations were for our family’s traits and she replied, “Helping each other, always being reliable, honest, caring, hard working, to have manners, respect, and to have an education.” She has been through a tremendous amount of trials and hardships, but she has surpassed every single one of them. I think that is the best Southern trait ever.

In conclusion, my granny is absolutely amazing. I have learned so much, and I am completely captivated by the struggles that my granny has overcome. She transformed from being a poor, uneducated, Southern farm girl to an independent, educated, strong Southern woman. She shows true Southern culture. I now have stories to pass on to my children in the future about how wonderful their great grandmother was and pass on some of her hard-working Southern skills to them. No matter how impossible a task can seem, my Southern roots have taught me that anything can be conquered with a little hard work.

Work Cited

Irby, Frances. Personal interview. 30 May 2010.


Note: Lindsey Irby, who is pursuing an associate of science degree at Sandhills Community Community and plans to transfer to N.C. State University, wrote this paper for HUM 122.