Good Ol’ Days

By Darlene Brown

Some may say growing up in the Sandhills area of Scotland County was a simple and uncomplicated way of life. Compared to the affairs of the world today, it may seem as such. Although families did not worry about home invasions or gang-like violence, the way of life for those who experienced it was all but simple. Growing up in a family of sharecroppers, country living was definitely not a life of luxury but a complicated life of hard work, necessity and family bonding. A close family friend, who experienced the life of working on a farm during the “good ol’ days,” revealed to me a real-life account of the tedious routines of growing up in the Sandhills of Scotland County.

My interviewee, whom we will call Mrs. H., told of her personal experiences living on a farm. Mrs. H. said she did not go to school because school was not a high priority. She recalls that at the age of nine her typical day was to get up at sunrise and go outside to the water pump; she would wash up with lye soap in cold water. Then she would carry water into the house for her younger siblings to wash their faces. She would next start the wood-burning stove to cook breakfast for her siblings because her parents had already gone to the tobacco fields where they made a living for the family as sharecroppers. Mrs. H. was so small that she had to stand on a soapbox to reach the top of the wood stove. She would prepare a breakfast that consisted of homemade biscuits, fatback meat, and syrup. Unfortunately, the fire would go out in the process of cooking; therefore, she would have to walk barefoot into the woods, chop, gather, and haul wood back home to keep the fire burning.

After getting her siblings washed and fed, it was time for her many chores. Mrs. H. said she had to “shoo” the chickens from under the porch of the house, which was a difficult task because the dilapidated porch, which had holes and cracks, allowed the chickens to see her coming, and they would run farther and farther underneath the porch and house. After that task was completed, she pumped water for the mules, fed the horses, milked the cows, and slopped the pigs. Next was the task of washing clothes; she drew water from the hand pump and collected it in a large tin tub. Lye soap was served for multiple uses of washing the body as well as the laundry. A washboard was used to scrub the clothes clean. After cleaning the clothes, they were drooped across the bushes in the yard to dry and watched carefully by the younger ones to keep the cows and mules from gnawing on the clothes.

Yet, the day’s work had just begun. Now she had to cater to her parents who were out in the tobacco field. She would wait for the iceman to come around and pay 25 cents for a chunk of ice, which she would wrap in a cotton sheet and chip using an ice pick. Then she would gather clean Mason jars, a bucket, and a ladle to carry the water and sandwiches to the field for her parents. She did this daily until her “time and age came around”; Mrs. H. was then taken to the field by her father and taught how to “suckle” tobacco — known today as topping, which is taking the flower tops off the tobacco stalks and clearing growth from around the roots of the plants.

During her childbearing years, Mrs. H. would carry her baby to the field in a crib, put the crib at the foot of her row under a big oak tree, and place a cotton mesh sheet over the crib to protect the baby from flies and mosquitoes. Then she would then go about her duty of “priming tobacco.” Along with working in the field, she also worked as a tobacco stringer and as a market preparer, which consisted of stringing tobacco leaves on sticks and hanging them in tin barn to be cooked.

Regardless of what Mrs. H. has been through or what has been taken from her, she still fines joy in giving someone a piece of her wisdom from her youthful years in the old South. She managed to survive on the food of her farm, which is actually healthier than the processed food we have today. She also made sure that her younger brothers and sisters went to school while she took care of the house when her parents were away in the fields. Mrs. H. also made sure that her parents had food ready after their long day of work. Her family benefited every day from her hard work.

Work Cited

McLaughlin, Hattie. Personal interview. 10 Sep. 2011.

Note: Darlene Brown, who is from Wagram, NC, is a student at Sandhills Community College in the medical office administration program.

Back Then

by Allison Strohacker

I always wondered how different life was when my dad was raised in the South compared to my experience thirty-two years later. I always wanted to know what it was like in the “good ol days.” When I sat down with him for this interview, he told me about school, being raised in the South and what has really changed since the 1960s.

My dad, Allen Buie, was born on April 23rd, 1955 in Vass, NC. My grandparents Johnnie and Irene Buie were both raised in Moore County. He has two brothers, both born and raised here. One lives in Carthage and the other in Michigan. He and his brothers were raised in the same house grandparents live in now. The house my dad was raised in is five minutes from mine. “In the South, many people don’t go too far from home.”

In the 1960s, he attended Vass-Lakeview Elementary School. The teachers were strict and used a paddle. According to him, they were not shy about using it and when a student was sent to the principal he wasn’t afraid either. At school, one teacher taught every subject until you were in the sixth grade. Just like many of the schools at that time Vass was an all-white school. However, when my dad was in the fourth grade three African-American girls were enrolled in his class, and he can still remember their names.

My dad was raised that you respect yor elders. They were older, wiser and always had the best stories. Dad said now elders aren’t considered any of these aspects. He said there isn’t really a respect for anything like there used to be. Sunday used to be a day of respect. Sunday was God and family day. He thinks now people are too busy and fast-paced. He notices that back in the day people moved more slowly. He said it seems like time moved slower, especially in the South; you waited and were patient. There was no instant gratification. “When it happened, it happened.” Nobody knew what it was, but when it happened they knew.

Next, we talked about how time spend during summers has changed. My dad worked in tobacco every summer from age five-eighteen. At first he started working on my great-grandfather’s farm in Cameron. He said that’s what you did in the summer. Nobody sat in front of the TV and played video games. You worked. “If you weren’t working in the fields, you were working on your grandpa’s farm.” Now in the South you don’t see any children working in the fields or farms.

Next, he told me the major differences he has seen between his generation and mine. At first when I asked him so what’s so different about the South, he said, “Everything!” First, the family unit has changed. When he was growing up, there was a mom, dad and children. There were no single moms or teenage moms. Also, family time was valued. Children loved spending time with their family. Now it seems like we can’t get away from them fast enough. Another difference he saw were children these days. When he was young, he spent all his free time outside. No matter what -- children were outside. No one sat inside on beautiful southern days and watched TV. “There were only five channels anyways.”

During this interview, I learned how different it was when my dad was raised in the South compared to my experience just five minutes down the street. I also learned that there are lessons that I was taught that my grandfather taught my dad. I learned that the South has changed drastically. The schools have changed, the way families are built was changed and the way children play has changed. I also learned that there are a lot of Southern customs that still hold true today and will for many more generations.

Work Cited

Buie, Allen. Personal interview. 6 Feb. 2011.

Note: Allison Strohacker, who is from Vass, NC, is majoring in early childhood education at Sandhills Community College.

Times Ain’t What They Used to Be

by Donna Stephens-Johnson

Well, of course it was the election of our first African American President Barack Obama!!” exclaimed Mrs. Dorothy Milam, when asked the most memorable and historic moment of her life time. Born December 3, 1927 in Macon, North Carolina and having recently celebrated her 83rd birthday, Mrs. Milam was happy to talk to me about her southern roots and delighted in the thought of being interviewed for my class assignment. My interviewee had lots to talk about in our conversation which lasted over an hour.

Mrs. Milam is the mother of a very close friend of mine, who I’ve known for over 13 years. She said, “Growing up in the South was hard work, and what I remember most is the field work.” The Great Depression was a very bad time she recalls, and she remembers the destitute families from cotton mill towns carrying their personal belongings in tattered suitcases and boxes coming around begging for food and shelter. “You was always willing to feed folks if you had it to spare,” Mrs. Milam said as a matter of fact. “It was what you did back then.” She was raised learning to plant, harvest, can, preserve, and store food to eat through the winter. The work consumed most of her time when she was a little girl. According to her, folks don’t appreciate the process of preparing food like they used to. Mrs. Milam believes a lot of the illnesses people suffer with today is because of their poor diet and eating habits.

“Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” she replied when asked her favorite subject of the Civil Rights Movement. She remembered the names of the Greensboro Four, the black civil rights activists at North Carolina A&T State University. Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond took seats at the segregated lunch counter of F.W.Woolworth’s in Greensboro, N.C. on February 1, 1960. They were refused service and sat peacefully until the store closed. They returned the next day with more students until finally in July Woolworth’s integrated all of its stores. “These actions helped to get the Civil Rights Bill passed,” Mrs. Milam said proudly.

She worked alongside her mother and grandmother in the fields. As a child most all the foods eaten were grown from gardens, either their own or from someone else’s farm they worked on. In the summer time they would plant butter beans, potatoes, collards, corn, watermelons, tomatoes, okra and peas. “Back then you would throw them [peas] up in the air from one pan to another to blow the trash out. Some of them pickers was so good, they wouldn’t let nary pea hit the ground.” She said you were expected to pull your weight and got a lickin’ when you didn’t. Mrs. Milam’s favorite chore was picking peaches, apples, blackberries and pecans because you could eat as you picked. She chuckled after making this statement. Staples on the dinner table back then were peas, beans, cornbread, biscuits, and molasses. The molasses was made from ground sugar cane, which made the juice for making the molasses. If you had a cow to milk [like they did], you’d strain the milk until it was firm to make buttermilk or churn it up and down with a wooden churn until it became butter. They had no refrigerator, so the milk was put in jars and then taken to the spring to keep cool. Few people had ice boxes back then. Children would be a lot better off if they ate like they did back then, if they were taught how to work together and help one another. The family used to sit around the dinner table and share conversations with one another.

When she wasn’t in the field working, she was going to the mournin’ bank to pray on Sunday while sitting on the mournin’ bench. They would have revivals in the afternoon on into the night, an all-day affair. She got her religion when she turned twelve years old. It was a first Sunday in August down at the creek, when Reverend Samuel Clanton baptized her. Mrs. Milam loves to sing and praise the Lord. She loved attending the revivals because they lasted all day long. She attributes most of the problems with the youth today with not having enough of the Lord in their life and parents not taking the time to discipline them about the importance of hard work.

Traditionally her mother and grandmother did the day work of chopping cotton with a hoe. All day long you would chop for a meal or lunch. The adults were paid 75 cents per day. The "younguns" were paid 50 cents per day. Folks took that money and bought food to plant for the winter. ‘Baca seeds came up in spring. As she got older, her responsibility was to help break the top off each leaf one by one, so it would mature. Harvesting ‘baca was not one of her favorite things to do because she had to work fast and keep up. She said when you didn’t, you got a "lickin'." Any adult could hit you back then for not doing what you was "‘sposed to."

I asked Mrs. Milam what she missed most about those days growing up. Without hesitation she said, “The children are different today. They didn’t steal and kill like they do now days. Back then you could go home leaving the door open and nobody would bother you.” Mrs. Milam paused for a second and then said, “A young person talking disrespectful to elders was never even considered back then. As a child, when you saw an elderly person, you immediately acknowledged that person by speaking first, but not anymore. Today, young people don’t speak to people. It’s sad.” Mrs. Milam was an only child who missed not having any brothers and sisters growing up. She loved her grandmother dearly and misses her to this day. Her favorite foods are butter beans, corn and cornbread. “Nobody could make cornbread like my grandmomma!” she said.

Her final comments were on how she thinks our children are lost to life, hard work and faith in God. Back then you could get around and not worry about being hurt by them (youth), but it’s different today. As a little girl she could walk through the woods and only have to worry about the snakes. On that point I had to agree. Times surely ain’t what they used to be. “Things have changed during my lifetime in ways I never thought possible, though not all of it bad. I never thought I’d live to see the day when we would have an African American president either, Lord knows not in my lifetime.”

Work Cited

Milam, Dorothy. Personal interview. 30 Jan. 2011.


Note: Donna Stephens-Johnson, who lives in Carthage, is majoring in message therapy at Sandhills Community College.

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.

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.