• Format
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
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  • Text
• Extent
  • Duration: 15 pages (transcript)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Identifier
  • HL_MPML_Grant_Wilson_2015-06-02_transcript

Wilson 1 Kathy and Charles Wilson Interview Evan Grant- Interviewer EG: Can you describe your life growing up in Wilson Creek? Like your childhood? CW: That’s where I grew up, my parents lived up there. They had sixty five acres, and growing up as a kid was just like most of the other families. You had family obligations. The main thing was wood, because they used every bit of the wood that they used to cook the meals and so forth, especially through the winter months. Then you had to heat too, so you had to double up on it. Most of it was just farming. Of course, we had cattle, and always had them to look after, and fences to mend, that sort of thing. We cut all of our winter wood and so forth. It had to be split. They cut switch hickory and that was good wood, but you couldn’t leave it any length of time. It’d get so hard you couldn’t split it. My dad drove a school bus. He drove the first long-wheelbase school bus that came into Jackson County. He drove it up and down Cullowhee Mountain. He’d go back and forth to Cullowhee. He’d take the kids and drop them off. Then, he would go up to Tuckasegee and work at the sawmill, and then he’d go back and get the bus, and take them back and drop them off. It was run late at night, or evening. There was always plenty to do. Kathy Wilson: In the wintertime didn’t he drain the water out of the radiator? CW: Well yeah, he had to drain… They didn’t have anti-freeze. He’d have to drain the radiator and fill it up out of his branch that run nearby. He’d park and he’d fill it up out of the branch. Macaulay: Would y’all use that saw? KW: Get that saw down and show him. CW: Well, he can see it. My grandmother, it’s my grandmother’s saw, and she cut all her winter wood with that. That was hers. And she raised a family to boot. Her husband died, and left her with a daughter and two grandkids, and she raised them. She always worked and was a kind-hearted Christian woman. Macaulay: How far would she haul the wood when she cut it? CW: My goodness. You ready for this now? Think along with me as you go. If you go up the old way going into Cullowhee, okay? The river kindly makes a little bit of curve, circle, just before you get into Cullowhee, okay? Alright, across the river, on the far side, back through there, she lived back up there. She would walk and come all the way around the side of that mountain, and go and fish, and then as she go home, she carried her wood with a burlap sack. Her husband had died and left her with that family, and she was always what I consider a good Christian person. Always played her cards straight. EG: She walked miles every day? Wilson 2 CW: Oh, it was no end. Either she would go off in the pasture well, and split wood and carry it home in a burlap sack. Her husband had died and left her with that family, she had no [help] and you could see it. But to cut it with something like that, cut every piece of it. She earned it. [Inaudible] CW: I carved that. EG: Can you tell me more about these crafts? These are really interesting. CW: [Inaudible] EG: When did you start doing stuff like this? KW: Years. Goes back over thirty years, because we did them when we lived in Tennessee. CW: This was the harness. That was a bear that was carved, and this was the claws, on the bottom. See them carrying that with, my people carrying the bear, and that was the replica of the gun that they would use. [Inaudible] that old opossum. Those little things in the back, those were wallops. [Inaudible] KW: Charles, in the box over there by the lamp, there’s some of your work in the plastic box with the white lid. [Shuffling] CW: Those were just walnuts with the eyes put in. And this, that was a running briar root. It was the way it was shaped. You just put the legs and the eyes on it. It’s unusual to have found something that would work that well. EG: Have you had your work put in the university anywhere? KW: No CW: These were bits on, went in the horse’s mouth, the reins. You’d drive them. Macaulay: Did that belong to your family, or is that stuff you found, right there? CW: No. Most of it belonged to my family. We had mares. [Inaudible] Macaulay: How many brothers and sisters did you have? CW: [Laughs and clears throat] There was thirteen of us. EG: Wow. And they all helped with everything? CW: We had to have enough to pick blackberries. [Laughter] KW: His dad was married the first time, and he had three children. Then, his wife died, and he remarried Charles’ mother and they had twelve children. One of which died about a year old. All the death certificate said was that it was an intestinal problem. Back then there really was no way Wilson 3 of knowing what it was. There’s one stepsister left that lives down east, that’s eighty-four, I think. And then, the other sisters, there’s five girls and Charles that are left. And they’re scattered from Idaho to Woodruff, South Carolina, to the Charlotte area. There’s a bunch of cousins. CW: There’s four boys and the rest girls. EG: How about this area? Wilson’s in this area? KW: Oh, there still lots of Wilsons out on Wilson Creek, but I’ve made copies of stuff for you. CW: R.O. KW: And R.O., unfortunately you didn’t get to see him. He can be elusive sometimes, and his health I understand is not real well. And I’ve got some information on him for you. It’s a shame that you couldn’t have met with him, because once I asked him what a particular nut was, and right now I don’t know where they’re at, but he’d said they were buckeyes. Or not buckeyes, they were the white walnut trees, which was also the butternut tree. And he said that they logged that to death in the early years, and there was very little of it left. He said there used to be some trees at Western. Now, whether they’re still there or not, I don’t know, but there used to be some on campus at Western. The wood was kind of white to cream colored. It was really nice wood, and very sought of, and he said they just logged it to death, and of course didn’t replant it. I was asking the person I told you about, and he said though all the people that really knew about the old ways of logging, besides R.O., is Gary Hoyle. He works for the state, but he lives on Blanton Branch. He’s still got an old saw mill over there, and you might be able to contact him. He used to log with horses too, and mules and whatnot. He said that he might be a contact for you, if it’s not too late, that’s be willing to sit down, you know, after he got off work, and talk with you about the older logging ways. As far as the Wilsons, there’s just.. Now, where his old home place [farm] is, I can’t tell you. It might still be there, it might not, out in the Wilson area. It’s been years since we been there, and that was when some of his some of his sisters were up and we had permission to go on the property. But it had changed. They had added onto it and changed it. I don’t even know who owns it, or exactly where it is, but there’s still a lot of, from, well. You remember Janis Harris, in [inaudible]? She lives right next to the Wilson cemetery. In fact, you have to go in through their, you either walk up the long way, or you’re allowed to go and park in their driveway. They have a big circular drive, and they don’t mind people coming in there. The cemetery is fenced. Her parents, I learned, are connected to the.. There’s just a bunch up in there that I would love to get together, but some of them are very evasive. As far as telling some of the stuff you did growing up, some of the stuff you all did to make fun for yourself when you weren’t busy with chores and helping in the gardens. Tell him about what you all did for fun. CW: Well, for instance, this is just one little old.. The aluminum off the stove, the stove with the white enamel? There was a long piece that we put in the crack of a bridge we bent the end of it up, and we turned the slick part down, and we rode off the sage grass hill. Them things would fly! [Laughter] Wilson 4 We made wooden wagons. Sourwood trees, we’d cut them and put the wheel on it and so forth. They just varied in size and weight and everything. We had one guy, he made them so big sometimes it’d almost take a horse to pull them. KW: We had a big garden because it took a big garden to… CW: Well, we always had a garden. We had corn, always corn and there was always wood. Winter wood, all of our cook stove wood and all of our winter wood, that all had to be cut and split and everything, so there was always plenty to do. We would go to mill. Take a turn of corn and walk, where we lived, down to Speedwell there, where Wilson Creek, [Inaudible] Creek, Fresh Creek, they pooled there. There was an old country store there, and they had a mill and they would grind the corn. My dad worked in the mill. The Cocks farm, just as you left the university, it started, it was off to the right, back over there. It was a big farm, and they worked that, and just different things. You got the saw mill. He’d go to saw mill and work, go pick up the bus and pick up the kids, take them home. He’d run late in the evening, late, late. Especially if he took them to the top of Cullowhee Mountain, back in there. Macaulay: Where would he turn around? Where would he turn the bus around when he would get to the top and have to come back down. CW: Well, he would go up Cullowhee Mountain, and after you get up there a ways, the road forks and goes to the right, and it would go back in there. The Brysons lived back in there, and they were kin to us. He would turn at their place, then he would go back on the other fork. I don’t know just exactly where he would turn, but I’m sure it was easier to turn that way. He’d pick up the kids down the mountain, take them and drop them off at school. He’d go work the ban mill, go back and pick up the bus and take them back home, and he’d run late. KW: The kids did a lot more work, because they had to do the chores. They just had more responsibility to do. CW: There was always plenty to do. Especially if you split wood, you burnt stove wood and winter heater wood. It always had to be brought home and pulled home. We had a mare, and either a rider or a driver, but I found it was easier to easy to ride her than it was to drive her and try to keep up. Like I said, ours was a large family. Four boys, all the rest were girls. Somebody said, “What was it like growing up in a family like that?” I said, “Well, Dad sat on the porch with the shotgun loaded.” KW: When you go down the mountain, there’s still an old red house, as you go around that last curve? There’s a red house that sits right there, and when they left Cullowhee Mountain they moved there. It’s still there, and it still really hasn’t changed that much, even on the inside. And there was no insulation in that house, unless the people have added it on the inside, but the times that I went there, what you saw was what you got. It was just a boarded wooden house. Macaulay: And that’s down… Wilson 5 KW: Yeah, as you go down and you go around the last bridge, you know there’s a red brick house right there on the curve? And then there’s a red building, a red boarded building with a tin roof and a long grape vine. They lived there for a long, long time. [Laughter] EG: Oh my… and what is this from? CW: It was used to go on a laundry bag hang. I put it on there just as a joke. KW: Show him your pine knots. CW: These are knots off of pine trees. KW: That one got doctored up little bit. EG: I love these. CW: I sold a bunch of those things. KW: There used to be a shop in Maggie Valley. He couldn’t produce those fast enough. They sold them as fast as he could bring them in, basically. We just couldn’t keep up with them. And we still have some, but he just doesn’t do much. Show him your hornets’ nest up there. He used to do a lot of barn board framing and picture framing. Now that’s a real nest. Compared to normally what you see hanging up there in the corner of the room. [Laughter] KW: Somebody brought him that, the nest. A lot of this stuff up here is framed, that he did. And this was something that he showed his creativity with. That’s red corn cobs. Where you sliced them and then putted them on… CW: Did I show you this? EG: Those are the claws from the actual bear? CW: No. I just added that in. No, that’s old. That’s way back when. You can tell the way they were dressed. See how those boots come up to their knee? KW: Doesn’t Chase have a bear-claw necklace, though? He used to do a lot of wood burnings, which he’s kind of gotten away from. We went with the pine knots and the other thing he liked to do. Folk art. EG: I love this folk art stuff. KW: Well, there used to be a man that was up in Glenville, and he got the idea from them, that he was a hermit that lived in Kentucky. The people would make two trips a year and would but everything the man had, and put them in their little art shop. We picked up some ideas, or he did, from him. Wilson 6 CW: This, that went around a steer’s neck, and the harness and the chains hooked to them hooks and went to the back. They had a pad under each of these, had a little old thing that you put a pad. That’s a …[inaudible] Macaulay: Mr. Wilson, where did you go to school? CW: Where did I go to school? I went to Cullowhee until I got up in elementary school, and then my parents moved to that old red house down here on the creek. There across from where the community center was. That old red house, they moved there. And my brother built that green house, and my uncle built the brick house below it. When they moved [inaudible], I was just there a short period of time. Then I left and I went off to the Berry schools in rural Georgia and worked my way through school. KW: And that was when he was in high school. I think he went one year, and then he stayed the next three years at Berry. CW: Berry School. KW: And at that time, Berry had a high school, and it was a boarding school. Another student from… another young man that Charles went to school with, he went there too. He would often catch rides home because when the person that lived nearby, they would bring him home sometimes. But he went there three years rather than, and I’m not really sure how he got started down there, but I know he went there. Then, they did away with the boarding school, but they are an excellent, excellent university. This day and time Berry has a very good reputation, and turned out some excellent students. I know, when was that the other day sitting there [inaudible] Here. Now that’s bear claws. EG: Wow. Who made this? KW: Charles did. EG: Did you hunt the bear and everything? KW: No, Jason got the bears, and some people gave him some bear claws. This is one of them. And I don’t see the Berry thing right now. [Both talking] CW: Just drilled them and put them on there. Those spurs. KW: Tell about going blackberry picking as kids, because your mother would send you all out to pick blackberries because Fisher Creek wasn’t grown up like it is now. He’d send you all, them out with the bucket. EG: All thirteen, or just how many? KW: Well, by that time, the three older ones were probably gone. EG: Okay. Wilson 7 KW: But the younger ones all.. [Interrupting] CW: Across there from the old red house, across the creek there, that one farm back in there, all the pastures they had blackberries. KW: The girls often told the story that in the summer their main meal would be at noon. And for supper, all their mother fixed was cornbread and milk, and that was their supper. CW: Well, old-timers, that’s what they did. That was a natural thing. KW: You know, they had a big breakfast and then of course, when you’re going to school then you got your main meal is supper, but a lot of the girls, after they got away from that, they just refused to eat cornmeal. They looked at it that there was just so much canned, because they canned so many vegetables that they felt that there should have been more than that for suppertime. But they’d often go to the gardens and get tomatoes, and eat the tomatoes from the gardens. CW: Well, it was a setup where the spring drained off the mountain into what we call the dairy. It was a two-story deal, and the bottom part was dug back to the bank and the water was piped into it, and it went into concrete troughs, and you put the milk and everything into those troughs. That’s the way you’d keep it cold. Then all the shelfs inside was canned stuff. They lined the walls and so forth, it being cool like it was it was never any problem. EG: What did she do with the blackberries? CW: Oh goodness. We picked so many blackberries, it was unbelievable. KW: What did she do with them? CW: She canned them and put them in quart jars. KW: Did she ever make jelly? CW: Yeah. All of that. You had to when you had that big a family. KW: The old grape vine is still down there. Now, whether it produces or not, I don’t know, but you know, the vine, to the side of the yard, is still there. Every now and then, tell about your dad taking all of you, when you’d all get out as a family, and when he had the truck and you all would go for a picnic, or go fishing. What a treat it was. CW: Oh, we’d just go to Glenville Lake and fish, and we’d all get on the back [laughing] of a log truck, a big old flatbed log truck. We’d sit on the back and all ride up Cullowhee Mountain, go to Glenville and fish. Go back and clean. We fished the Pine Creek end of the lake, and so forth, back in there. Caught a lot of fish out of there. KW: Tell about going fishing with Granny, where Granny would take you fishing. Wilson 8 CW: Well, my grandmother, she fished, as you went up the old road going into Cullowhee, just as you made the last slow, big long, there before the Rodgers’ Filling Station, and so forth. Across the river, she had a house back in there, and she would walk all the way to the river, and fish. Then when she’d go home, she’d take a burlap sack and carry her wood home. Her husband died and left her with the family. She had no other choice. She was never to ask and beg people to do, she’d do it herself if she could do it. KW: Where do you remember going to church, if you got to go? CW: I would go to Fall Clift or go to Speedwell Baptist or Methodist. KW: Whoever would give them a ride. [Laughter] CW: Yeah, wherever you, that’s where you had a ride. Naturally as you got older and had dependency on them taking you. KW: What was your first car? CW: My first car was a ’57 Chevrolet four door Bel Air hardtop. It was one that, an old guy on Webster… KW: Don’t look at me because I don’t know. CW: Anyway, I took it to Memphis and everything, and everybody tried to buy that car that saw it. KW: He ended up trading it, which was a big mistake. CW: It was four-door, Bel Air, hardtop, and the top was white and the bottom was that skin color. Sun visor and everything, and I made the mistake, of all things I traded it for a ’55 Chevrolet Malibu. KW: It was a terrible car. It was terrible. CW: It wasn’t hard to trade. [Laughter] EG: How old were you when you started driving? CW: Probably, seventeen or eighteen. Then I off and went to school in Georgia. EG: And you drove to school, by yourself? CW: The Berry school was where you worked your way through. It was like Berea, Kentucky. KW: It was strictly a boarding school. EG: Okay, yeah. CW: It was a men’s college, women’s college, and the high school for boys. Wilson 9 KW: And they just did various jobs to work their way through school. It wasn’t something they had to pay to go to school for, they simply worked their way. Whether you worked on the farm, or in the barn, or in the kitchen, or I think, what’d you tell me, you used to cut hair? CW: I did everything. Worked waterworks, hog farm, dairy barn, all that. High school office. EG: So, what kind of changes have you seen in the area from when you were a kid to now? What kind of changes have happened in the mountains over your lifetime? That’s a pretty broad question. CW: The way I grew up and everything, of course, once we moved, we moved off Wilson Creek [Wilted Creek?] and moved down here at that old red house down there on the creek. I left right then and went off to school and so I didn’t get to do, but I learned a lot of things. Of course, growing up we grew up, I did on Wilson Creek we had sixty-five acres. There was always plenty to do. KW: What he’s trying to get you to say is, how do you think things have changed from when you grew to now? CW: Oh, well they just got modern, and techniques is all. It was like the difference of plowing a mule or a horse is compared to a tractor. KW: The families back then didn’t like DSS. They didn’t want anything to do with social services because they thought they felt they were too busy, too noisy. CW: Well, they were independent. People then didn’t ask for what they earned, pretty much their own money in most cases. In most cases. I know there were exceptions to the rule. Macaulay: How’d you end up in Memphis? What brought you to Memphis? CW: Well, what I did, I was in service. I got out of the service in Memphis and then I remained there awhile. KW: That’s where he met me. CW: I was stationed at Millington. I was a medic. Then I ended up in Florida. Worked with the doctors that took care of Shepard and Glenn, and took care of their patients. I got to see them make their flights, and all of that. Macaulay: The astronauts? Wow. CW: In fact, the day that they went, on the last part of it, when they went and come back in and landed and so forth, why, I was out there waiting for them to land. The boats sent a smaller boat out, and something was wrong with it. It sunk and the guy couldn’t swim, and I had to go get him. [Laughter] CW: That interferes with… It was always something. I worked with some good doctors. In Memphis, I worked with the [Shays], eyes, ears, nose, and throat that weren’t so well, and I went Wilson 10 and took care of their patients. Had a little boy that… helped sponsor at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital that no arms and no legs, and that was quite an ordeal. Macaulay: Wow. EG: What branch of military did you serve in? What was your service like? KW: He was in the Navy. CW: I was in the Navy, a hospital corpsman in the Navy. Like I said, I worked with the doctors that took care of Shepard and Glenn. Run a ward there, their medical ward. They had a medical ward. Standard, run-of-the-mill medical ward, and then they did that on the side. They were tied into that on the side. Macaulay: Didn’t you work with a jeweler at one point, in Memphis? KW: He had an opportunity to at one point, but he – There was a jeweler that made and designed jewelry and rings, anything really. They offered him a chance to go and work for them and train him, but for some reason he didn’t do it. They did make, and it’s up right now, they did make the Masonic ring that we have. EG: So, he’s always been interested in like crafts like this and jewelry? KW: He has always been into woodworking. I guess it’s just something that kind of came natural, and his uncles were really considered top-notch builders in the county. I don’t know where he picked up some of his knowledge, but it’s always been there. The artistic field, the artwork, he used to tell me he drew his way through school- EG: I’m the same way. KW: - because he likes to draw. He got into wood burning, and I don’t know whether any of his. We got into walking sticks. Often, he looked for sticks like that, where the vine had grown into the stick. And then this one, this one was a natural the way it was made, but sometimes he would take a stick like that and put a handle on the end of it. And that was kind of a popular thing for him. Like see, there’s one where he put the handle on it? CW: I got to meet Elvis. Macaulay: You met Elvis? CW: Yeah, and got to go in his house and all that bit. They even, they wanted me to get the rocks next to the street in front of his house. The gravel that lay, and they would but the rocks. It was that bad. [Laughter] Macaulay: Yes, sir. EG: So, you met him? CW: Yeah. I got to go in his house and everything. Some friends. Wilson 11 KW: We stayed in Memphis when he got out of the service, and we were there when Elvis died. And we were there during the riots of King, and all of that mess. And I worked, I worked three blocks from that mess in downtown. I was glad that all of a sudden we could – Where I worked, we were two blocks from the main business district, the shopping center, or shopping area of downtown Memphis. When that happened, then we were no longer allowed to walk to go to the stores downtown. We could go to the corner, which would’ve been a half a block, and pick up the city bus, and we could ride uptown, or we could drive, which you didn’t want to do. Because of our safety, if we wanted to do that we rode the bus. It was a quarter or fifty cents. It was cheap. Eventually, after I left, they cut the girls back to thirty minutes lunch hour. I know now there was a house up what to me was just supposed to be a boarding house, but it was probably a house of ill repute, really. But they had a big fig tree in the yard that backed up to our parking lot, and they didn’t care. This other lady and I, we’d take our long-sleeve shirts and on our lunch hour we’d go over and pick figs. Here, you know now, last summer – Tell him how many blackberries was it you picked over here in the Ensley pasture, last summer? Twenty-five gallons. EG: Wow. What did you do with those? KW: We sold a lot of them, made a lot of jelly. I think there’s still some in the freezer. We had one lady that, “Well, when you get some more, let me know.” And she probably bought about twelve to fifteen gallons from me. They learn from past years, if there was going to be any blackberries, Charles would pick them. You couldn’t guarantee going out on the side of the road, you know, you’ve probably seen people out picking them out there, but you never knew. Over here when she’d really [end?] walked past the house you’d come to a fence, a wire fence, and that’s where the Ensley’s own. They own all that big pasture. There’s three houses on it, and on this upper end is where the majority of the blackberry briars are. The old house, when you go down, as you turn out the driveway, there’s the house that’s for sale, and then there’s a trailer, and there’s a driveway that goes over and there’s a house and a barn. That’s been there forever and ever. That was the old [Greet?] place. Fisher Creek was gravel for many, many years, until they started building up in here and eventually paved it. [Pet approaches?] KW: He does not like, here Sam. He does not like – CW: Here Sam. Come over here. KW: - The wind usually gets his attention. CW: You can lay down there. It’s alright. KW: The building across from the old red house used to be the community center, and they would go there. I don’t know a whole lot about that [inaudible] building, I just know that it was the community center, and then Brian bought that property. He lives just below it. I think his son lives there. Now, as far as growing up, I’ve got your pictures. I don’t have some things, but his great-grandfather? Or your grandfather, which was it? Your grandfather was one of the Noble Nine of Western Carolina University. Wilson 12 Macaulay: Was it your great-grandfather, was he the postmaster in Cashiers? KW: No. Macaulay: Who was that? KW: That was actually another Wilson. There was several families of Wilsons. CW: My family was on Wilson Creek, and there were three or four families, different families of Wilsons there. [Inaudible] Macaulay: How are you related to R.O? CW: Cousin. Called him Crow. It was tough growing up then, the way we grew up. We made wooden wagons, get out on the hill and ride them things. He made some it took horses to pull. 52:12-53:13 (talking over each other) KW: If you want to come over here. I don’t think you’re going any place any time soon. [Heavy rain audible, long stretch of two voices] KW: This was the Wilson family where – was involved. Like John Nelson Wilson was a professor out at – William Wilson James – [inaudible]. This was some of the documentation that we found. These are letters. See, there was William Wilson that was one of the Noble Nine. Some of the Wilsons were involved in the Cullowhee Baptist Church, and there was William Wilson. That was Robert Madison, but we have a connection to his family because of his family’s daughter married one of the Wilsons. I still have a spot that I don’t have the answer for, and I know who does it, but this was talking about the establishment of – he was known as Squire Wilson. And the stories behind it, that was the Noble Nine. [Inaudible] KW: Somewhere they have big paintings of all of the Noble Nine, and every now and then you will see them up in the library. I don’t know where they are right now. That would have been his great-grandfather, because this was his grandfather, and that’s his dad. So, it would have been his great-grandfather that was a founder. Sorry, there’s so much of this, and his father had eleven kids, and they’re all gone. Albert was the last one that died. He died in – No, that’s Dad. Anyway, you get into - the old Shirley house is still standing. I do know where it is on Wilson Creek. These people, she left a lot of memorabilia to the archives. [This section of KW speaking is difficult to dissect without seeing what pictures or documents were referenced on top of two separate conversations happening] Macaulay: What work did you do after you got back here from Florida? CW: I looked after a bunch of property and so forth. I kept up and mowed all the places and all that business. Most of the time I’d work through the summer at school in order to pay for the winter schooling. Six hundred and forty-four hours I worked. I did everything from hog farm, Wilson 13 dairy barn, chicken, general shop, woodwork shop. I did a lot of woodwork once they found out I [inaudible]. They had dairy barn, all them cattle. Macaulay: Was there anybody else from around here that went to Berry, or were you by yourself? CW: No. KW: There was one other fellow that went with you down there. He got killed or something after he came back home. You went to school with him, and you all went to school. I’m just sorry, I can’t think of his name now. [More mixed conversation] Macaulay: How long did you live in Florida for? KW: He was really just there in the service. And then they sent him to Memphis to Millington. He really on served – he started out in the Great Lakes, and then they sent him to Sanford, and then they sent him to Millington, where his service stint was over. He got out, we were sweating it. He got out eleven days before the Vietnam War officially started. Because we were sweating him being called up. They wanted him to re-enlist. The eleven days cost him. CW: Had I re-enlisted I would’ve went to Vietnam as a [inaudible] medic. [KW - returning to discussion of documents] KW: This was the last – that was Uncle [inaudible]. Albert was the last Wilson to die, and actually I should be ashamed. I don’t have it in here, but he was the last of the brothers. He’s buried out at the cemetery, right across the street from the high school. There on the corner where you would turn to go down, you know. The Methodist church is there and there’s the cemetery. That’s where his uncle is buried. A bigger part of them is – That Uncle Bill was a home builder, and he was the one that built the two houses down there next to the old red one. He has a daughter that still lives here I Jackson County. I’ve got you some things too, to take with you. This is the section on R.O. as to what I have. I’ve made you copies of that because there are some logging pictures in here. And how he used to go to Mountain Heritage Day, and he was a Mountain Heritage award winner. He was also a moonshiner at one time. That was where he lived, his old home place. I don’t know whether it’s still there or not. At one time you could see it from the road, but he lives in the trailer up above that now. There used to be – remember the little cabin down by the little picnic area? That was the one he built. He received the Mountain Heritage Award one year. I never saw him any other way, but with that curled hair. He was born in ’33. He’d be 82. He was married twice, and has no children left. It’s just him and the cousins that are out there. But I’ve got you – for instance, that isn’t really considered a long wheel-base, but it gives you an idea of what the buses were like back then, and I’ve made you a copy about that. There is a book where I stumbled across it where a woman told about the stories, in this book, and I think I gave it to the archives, and her story that went in the book told about her riding the bus and Charles’ dad picking her up. I probably have that somewhere. I have tried to document so much Wilson 14 of this, but I have kind of gotten behind on my documentation. And this is just William Wilson, Charles’ book. Things just kept getting bigger [inaudible] bigger. So Charles has his own book, and Jason has his own book now. Chase has his own book, where I broke it down to show. The stories he didn’t bring up today, I’ve got it written down, when he would tell me everything. Charles, tell him about the time your dad sat out on the front porch, with your dad sitting out on the front porch at night with his gun filled with salt. Tell him about the story, you know, your dad was having trouble about somebody doing something to your mailbox, or something or other? Tell him that story. CW: They just tore the mailbox down. They threatened to come and burn him out. He got on the case, and he sat on that porch with that shotgun, if they’d have come he’d have killed them. KW: But it was filled with buckshot. I meant rock salt. And your gun’s not here. Jason has it right now. He took it to clean it up. He did have his dad’s old – What kind of gun was it? CW: It’s a Remington, 16 gauge, 32 inch barrel, four choke, with the hammer on the side. KW: And it kicks. I shot it once. He took me squirrel hunting when we lived in West Tennessee, and it was called, we were probably a twenty minute drive for it. It was a natural park and reserve, and we went in there and he had a friend with him. His friend went down the road and we went in one spot, and we sat down by a tree, on the log. He pointed at the squirrel. Well, I missed the squirrel, and he was laughing so hard at me, because when the gun kicked me, it kicked me backwards and I fell over on the backside of the log. He was laughing so hard, it took him forever to calm down to help me get up. Then, we got lost that evening. They were supposed to fire the gun as to where they were at. Well, unbeknownst to us, the other fellow moved the truck, and we were down here and he was down there, and we ran into somebody that was going out. We came across probably a fire road, and he said it was about four or five miles if you keep going that way, or you can just cut through the woods here and you’ll be back out in that field. That was the last time I went hunting with those two. Even Jason I think shot the gun. CW: Dad took that old shotgun [inaudible]. Had this kid that was tearing the mailbox down. He hid back off the side of the road, in the bushes. The kid come up {inaudible] box, raised it up to about right there. He shot him with that load of rice, he dropped that thing and it went up to the box on the post when he dropped it. He ain’t tearing that mailbox down. KW: The kids, there were so many of them and they all rode the bus. The older kids, which in this day and time, if you picked a fight on the bus, no telling what would happen to you. The older kids stood up if the kids were being picked on, they stood up for the younger ones. Especially some of the girls. They knew they didn’t want to deal with certain ones. That they would pay the price later on. They might pay the price for it, and they got by with doing it, they simply love standing up for each other back then, and look after them kids. Whereas this day and time, if you do something on the bus, you’re probably going to get taken back to school and all kinds, but then the kids just stood up for each other, and the families did. It was settled out of school. It wasn’t a big deal. Wilson 15 Macaulay: Well, we got a break in the rain so we’re probably going to head on. We appreciate your time. KW: This is everything that I have copied for you that gives you some ideas of the family and some old pictures and the old house down the road and R.O.’s stuff. That’s an example of the type of logs they dealt with. They would haul them out with the oxen, and I don’t know who that was, but that was an example of how the mountain people lived.

Charles Wilson is interviewed by a Smoky Mountain High School student as a part of Mountain People, Mountain Lives: A Student Led Oral History Project. He talks about his childhood on Wilson Creek in Tuckasegee, NC. He shares his experience in the Navy and working in the medical ward. Wilson also talks about leaving the Navy and living in Memphis at the time of Elvis and Martin Luther King. His wife, Kathy Wilson shows photographs and tells about the history of the Wilson family in this area and their ties to Western Carolina University.

• Creator
  • Wilson, Charles
  • Wilson, Kathy
• Contributor
  • Grant, Evan
• Format
  • Sound recordings
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Sound
  • Text
• Date
  • Date interview: 2015-06-02;
  • Date: 1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s;
  • Date digitized: 2016-07-12
• Extent
  • Duration: 01:11:30 (sound recording)
  • Duration: 15 pages (transcript)
• Subject - Topic
  • Agriculture
  • Arts
  • Autobiography
  • Mountain life
  • United States. Navy -- Medical personnel
  • Veterans
  • Wilson family
  • Wilson, Charles -- Childhood and youth
  • Wilson, Charles -- Interviews
  • Wilson, Kathy -- Interviews
  • Woodwork -- Appalachian Region, Southern
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
  • Shelby County (Tenn.)
  • Floyd County (Ga.)
  • Appalachian Region, Southern
  • North Carolina, Western
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Oral History Collection - Mountain People, Mountain Lives
• Identifier
  • HL_MPML_Grant_Wilson_2015-06-02
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library