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  • Duration: 24 pages (transcript)
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  • HL_MSS98-03_Crittenden_Love_1986-09-11_transcript

Love 1 WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA TOMORROW BLACK ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Interviewee: Delsie Pettit Love (L) Interviewer: Lorraine Crittenden (I) County: Haywood Date: September 11, 1986 Duration: 55:53 Delsie Pettit Love: We had hogs and cows that run out in the woods. So, we were going to feed them and somebody bring us some dinners. We had the sulfur springs close to it. I'd have to go down sulfur springs and bring her water. Then after she eat her dinner, she'd let me and Mac both, he was younger than I and he was the baby, get in the bed with her. We'd go to bed with her. We'd go to bed with her every afternoon. Every day we went to bed with her. When she died and they come with this casket. Showing how ignorant my brother and I was at three years old or four years old… Abraham, he died. I've got his picture right there. He's been dead now two years, we thought coffee pot. They said coffin and we thought coffee pot. We had made up our mind when they come with the coffee pot we was going to holler, scream and cry. But when they come, they come with some great big horses, biggest horses I've ever seen except those advertising. Lorraine Crittenden: Clydesdales? L: Yes. Great big horses and wagon. They had this casket, it was black. It was on the wagon. See, we way out in the country, in Andrews, way up in Moody Cove. Well, when it come up there my aunt and all the kin people around, you know, was there. So, Aunt Jane, she looked after me a lot because I had brothers, but I didn't have but one sister. She took very best she could. She wasn't old enough to take care of me like I should be taken care of. But she'd take care of me the best she could. My father preached. After my mother died, he'd take me to preaching. I want to tell you when they come in there and opened that coffin, that I ain't never seen lace that pretty since, before or since that was inside the thing. So, I was going to get in there with her. So, Aunt Jane said, "You can't get in there." I said, "Yes I can." I said, "I go to bed with her everyday." She said, "No you can't." I said, "Yes I can. I'm gonna get in there with her too." Boy she took me out there. The hardest whipping my aunt ever give me. She wore me out because I was going to get in there. I meant it. I: You hadn't encountered death before then? L: Never seen or hear tell of anybody being dead. I: So, what did you think your mother was asleep or what? L: Well, no. They said she was dead and I knew she was dead but I was going with her. I thought if I could just get in there with her, then if she went anywhere I could go with her. If they buried her, they could bury me or you know. I must’ve been between four or five years old. Because little Mac was just a year old. He wasn't quite two years old because he was still wearing dresses. Love 2 For his funeral, I never will forget for my mother's funeral, he got his first little boy suit. They bought, you know, already made or somebody made it. I think somebody made it because then you couldn't go to the store and buy things. You had to make the things yourself. Anyway, Mac didn't live but two weeks after my mother died. I: What happened? L: I don't know. My grandmother said my mother's prayer was she didn't mind dying but she just hated to leave her baby. Said she prayed to the Lord to let her take her baby with her. When we went to the grave yard and buried her, when we came home nobody would eat nothing. We had a whole lot of food in the house. You know how people bring you food. Nobody would eat a thing. Little Mac wouldn't eat a bit. He just cried all the time said, "Poor mama is dead." He had, you know, nice fat legs. I mean he was a healthy-looking child. He just said, "Poor mama's dead." Couldn't get him to eat nothing so you had to go two miles to get a doctor. So my father went in town and got a doctor. There's just two doctors down there in Andrews, Dr. Webb and Dr. Wilson. They were northern doctors. So, see it had cost a whole lot for them to come way up there to see my brother. He went and got them. They examined Mac every kind of way. His name was McKinley. We just said Mac. He said, "I can't find a thing wrong with him only that he's heart broken about his mother." He never did eat. Couldn't get him to eat. You know people don't know anything about feeding you through your veins and things like that. People didn't know anything about that. Even automobiles weren't built in that time. Wouldn't be able to know anything about it. Horse and buggy. I: So, he died from starvation. L: He died from just wouldn't eat. Just died. Just right now I can almost hear that groan. He just groaned. Something or another like that you know, just groaned when he died. so, she, the Lord must’ve heard her prayer to let her take her baby on with her. That's all long ago. I: You were talking about your brothers Mrs. Love. Would you name your brothers and sisters? L: What's that? I: Would you name your brothers and sisters please? L: Yeah. My oldest brother was named Charles. I: Charles? L: Yes. Charles Pettit. I: P-E-T-T-I-T? L: or -E-T. Which some spell it -I-T and some spell it -A-T and some spell it P-E-T-T-Y. We've always said -E-T or -I-T. Love 3 I: All right. L: My other brother was named George. I: George? L: Yeah. Charles and George. I: Pettit? L: Yeah. Then Fanny was one girl, my sister. I: Fanny? L: Fanny. I: Would you spell that please? L: Well, just whatever way you want to spell Fanny, just Fanny. (Laughter) I: O.K. So, there were only four children? L: Then I had William, my brother Abraham, then I come in next and then McKinley, Mac, was the baby. That's the whole family now. I: So, there were seven children in your family? L: Yeah. I: Were you ever in the armed forces Mrs. Love? L: No, no ma'am. I: You've already begun telling us some of the information about your family. Has your family always lived in North Carolina? Go back as far as you can remember. L: Yeah. I always lived in North Carolina. Now, in my old days here since, I've been here with my daughter. My oldest daughter married a man in Miami, Florida. I was sick a long time and couldn't… I was helpless. I got down with arthritis in my legs. I couldn't move neither leg. I had the arthritis so bad. I think most of its from exposure because they had real bad houses. You know, bad windows and everything else. I think I went through the cold. Get too cold you know with my children trying to get them off to school and trying to ... I just tried to even stay in the kitchen. My kitchen was worse condition to my feet, it'd just be so cold every time I come to that place. We never did have a fireplace. We just had a little old iron stove. I: Do you remember your grandmother's name on your mother's side? Love 4 L: Her name is Kate. I: What was her last name? L: Kate Mooney. I: Kate Moaney? L: Kate Mooney. I: Where was she from? L: I don't know. I was too young to know that. I don't know where Aunt Kate was from and I don't know where grandpa was from, Nelson. I: His name was Nelson Mooney? L: Yeah. He owned 380 acre ground up there in that mountains in Andrews. I: Three hundred and eighty acres? L: Yes sir. I: That's quite a bit of land. Do you know how he got that land? L: I should've been a rich woman. He died. My grandpa died without making a will. My grandmother didn't like, she didn't like my daddy. He was from Tennessee. I: So, your father was from Tennessee? What's your father's name? L: His name is James Pettit. He turned out to be a preacher. Because I know people would tell me when I was a small girl that he'd go off and leave my sister and the boys to do the work, the corn and gardening. There was a fellow, he was right funny. He knew him. He used to say, "Jesus is off. Heaven is gone. Sammy go help the boys hoe out the corn because I'm gone." Said he'd be gone to preach. But after my mother died, my father carried me with him to preach until I was eleven years old. Until he married again. Everywhere he went to preach, he went from Andrews to Murphy clear back to I forget this place out here, Shallow. Different places. I: Out south Asheville? L: He'd preach Bryson city, Andrew and Murphy and Blue Ridge, Georgia. My father. I: This was your father? L: Yeah, my own father. Love 5 I: Your grandfather owned 380 acres. What did he do with the land? L: Well, let me tell you. See, he died. Grandfather died and didn't make a will. I'll never forget the day they had two white men or three white men the best that I can remember come and she made out a will. She made the will all to Adam. There was Jewel, Adam, and Lucinda. She, Lucinda, was my mother. She made out the will to Adam, just to Adam. She didn't give Jewel or Lucinda not a thing. All of it was his. He didn't do a thing only stay drunk. I: What happened to the land? L: He wouldn't do with it. Grandpa had a apple orchid, a peach orchard and a cherry orchard. No. When my daddy lived on the place he took care of the peach orchard. I never will forget how he use to give away peaches. You can get a whole bushel of peaches for a quarter. I: A bushel? L: Yeah. I: Now, you can hardly buy one for a quarter. L: He took care of that peach orchard. She done that in June. He got mad and he went down to Andrews and bought him a home. He married a woman named Alma Burgess. He married a Burgess. So, he just didn't bother with it. Uncle Adam started selling you know the apples and things because grandpa had a silo and everything on these places. When they went to make syrup they'd have the horses and cattle to come down you know and they mixture. The horsed run around making the syrup. I remember the horses going around when they make syrup and have a big kit or something and they cook it. He commence to selling just little things off. Uncle would send fruit in town and sell it you know. He just drank and pick him a woman and go off somewhere in Murphy, somewhere and live for two or three weeks. He just kept on until they sold down to the wood. See he had acid wood. Tan wood on the place. When my mother died, and after grandpa died, the white people where we live, they let after the place that of my grandfather was buried on his own land. Now him and my mother and little McKinley was buried there. I: In Andrews? L: Yeah, in Andrews. Well, then George and Charlie died they were buried up there in Valley Town. I: Where is that? L: You know where Valley Town in Andrews is? I: No ma'am. Love 6 L: Well, they were buried in Valley Town. Them other three was buried on uncle's place. You know he had lots of friends. They, you know, let the bury plot they fixed out for the family to stay there you know for the whole family would go there. I: Did your grandfather, you said he had apples and peaches. L: He had everything. I: What did he do with all of the land? Did he sell the wood? L: No. He just sold as he growed things. He even raised turkeys and guineas and chickens and things like that. I: Did he sell these things? L: Sell things. I: Oh, I see. L: They take wagon loads. He had horses and wagons. He had horses and cows. He didn't have a horse. He had horses. He had cows. He had chickens. He had turkeys. He had everything. I: What did he do with the acid wood? L: Well, they take it into town and sell it. He would. I: Do you know what they made from that wood? L: No. Lord no. See I wasn't nothing but down here. I just know they kept on until Uncle Adam had my grandmother in a rented house in town before she died. I: So, he lost all he had? L: He had run through the 380 acres of ground. I: Well, what about your grandparents on your father's side? L: Well, I didn't know much about them because they was from Tennessee. I: Do you remember their names? L: I don't know nothing about my father's people. Because they are from Andrew. My father said he was a slave. I: Your father? Love 7 L: Yeah. Said he was a slave. Said he was eight years old when they were free. He lived with the Pettits. That's where he got his name. He said there are two Pettit boys and the parents. He lived with them. When he was eight years old, he had to go out in the field and hoe corn. He had to keep up with the other men. But said they never did beat him. Said now the slaves that was in the other part from them would be beaten if they didn't do right. They sold his mother out, you know, they sold colored people like selling a dog or horse, sold his mother out from him. I: What was her name again? L: His mother? I: Yes ma'am. L: I don't know what her name was. I: Okay. L: I don't know her name. After he was married and we lived in Andrews for several years, he found two of his sisters. I: Do you remember their names? L: No. Well, he said Sally and Fannie. I never did see them. He said one time in Andrews it was raining and pouring down raining. Said he never would turn nobody away that come by. Said there's a man come knocked at the door and he was real wet. He said my mother was sick. Said he said, "Please Mr., everywhere I stop, nobody won't let me come in. It's pouring down raining. I'm sick. I ain't doing no hanging crime. I ain't done nothing real bad but the law was after me." What he was doing, I don't know. But he said, "I'm dodging the law." He said, "If you would just let me come in and sit by your fire til morning," said, "I'll never forget you." So, my daddy took him in and dried his clothes. I think he give him some of the boys' clothes anyway. He dried his clothes and gave him food, enough food for the traveling and he went on. So, my daddy said then, they had to walk. You'd walk from Andrews to Murphy to preach. He was walking along with them where the colored people walk. They'd be a crowd of men on the road, you know, working and they'd be barking at you and hollering at you, saying run and shoot and make you run and all that. So, he come to a crowd and they, "Oh, here he come. We'll get him. We'll make him run." Said when they said that, he started running. One fellow said, "Oh no y'all. Stop, stop, stop. Don't you do that. I know this man. I'd know him wherever he is. This man saved my life when nobody else would." He took him and said, "Now, I told my wife about you many, many times. Said you took me in and gave me food and dried my clothes when nobody else would. I'd never forget you." I told my wife about you so much and told him where he lived. He said, "I want you to go over to my house and tell my wife who you are. I've told her so much and she will know. I want you to stay there until I come. When I get off, I'll come." So, my daddy said when they got off then they just had horses and buggies. They didn't have cars. Said when he come home, he got his horse and buggy an took him til he found his two sisters. I never would forget what he said. Now, my daddy was a preacher. Way back then, preachers always wanted you to have chicken for them. Love 8 I: Right. L: He said one of his sisters had dinner and wouldn't cook no chicken for him. He got mad and left her and went to the other because she wouldn't have no chicken and a preacher wants to have chicken. I'll never forget when I was a child, company would come down to our house and my mother would always have chicken, baked potatoes. We'd stand and watch her cook. Look like they'd be eating the last piece. Because they wouldn't let children eat with old folks, you know. They feed all the old folks and the children, let them stand back and eat whatever was left. I: Did the old folks get the best part of the chicken? L: Oh, yeah. I've stood and watched a many of times to see if they were going to eat the last piece. I: Let’s pause. L: That's what he done. They had a house on the place. He took over the peach orchard. After grandfather died, and Aunt Kate, my grandma willed it all to Adam. Then he left, see there and went and got him a place to stay and Uncle Jewel went and got him a place to stay. Didn't live on the property anymore. Adam just ran through it all. I: He ran through it all? Then what did your father do? L: Preached. I: So, he preached? L: He preached. I: How was he paid for preaching? L: Why I don't know. They'd give nickels and dimes. I remember when he took me to Georgia with him. The church wasn't big enough to hold everybody. They'd preach out in the woods, out in the grove. People call themselves. Sometime of the year they'd call themselves pounding the preacher. I: Right. L: They'd bring the flour and everything, bring them to your house and pound the preacher. I don't know but they pound him several times while I was a child. He'd take me with him preaching. After he married my step-mother, I hated her because I didn't want to stay home. I wanted to go on with him. I didn't want to stay with her. I: What was your step-mother's name? Love 9 L: Sally. I: Sally? What was she before? L: Sally. I don't know what she was. She come from Durham, North Carolina. I: From Durham? L: Durham, North Carolina. I don't know what her name was. I: Did your father own his own home? L: No, he just… let's see. He married this woman named Sally Powell. Sally Powell. I: Sally Powell? L: Yes, best I can remember, her name is Sally Powell. He had a home. Old man Powell died and he married her and had their home together. I: I see. Well, did the boys have to work since your father was going around the countryside preaching? L: Mostly all, when my daddy married the second time all of them left home except for Abbie, this one right here, Abraham, just died two years ago. Except Abbie, we all, the children left home, even my sister. I: Where did they go? L: Different places. I: Were they grown? L: They went away until they all died. I: They never came back to Andrews? L: No. Never come back to live. Brother Will come back after we lived and Brother Will come and lived out there in Sylva. I: Did you step-mother, Sally, work outside of the home? L: No, she just took in washing and ironing. I: Would people bring it to her or did ... ? L: She'd have to go get it lots of time to Sylva, to Dillsboro. Love 10 I: How would she get, now wait a minute, now when did you get from Andrews to Sylva? L: Walk. Walk, run. My brother had a horse and sometime we'd ride there. I: When did you move from Andrews? First you said you were in Andrews. L: I don't know. I know when we come to Dillsboro, I was eleven years old, almost twelve. I: Your mother had died before then? L: Yeah, way before, because he'd been taking me to Blue Ridge and everywhere else with him. I: How many children were there in your family at that time? L: I don't know. I don't know. I: You don't remember how many brothers and sisters you had? L: Yeah, I remember how many I had, but I don't know how many is living at that time when he married the second time. I: Oh, I see. so, he… L: I know Charlie died because I hear him say that Charles was a seven months baby and said he was a minister. He went out and prayed that the Lord let him see his son live until he was twenty-one years old. The year that Charlie was twenty-one years old, he died. I: Now was this child by his second wife? L: His first wife. He didn't have no children by his second wife. All his children were by his first wife. I: So did she raise you all? L: Well, I stayed with her until I was seventeen, almost eighteen, when I come to Waynesville here to live with Aunt Elsie. I: You had moved from Andrews to Dillsboro before then? L: Yeah, because I was eleven years old. I: Well, could your mother and father read? Love 11 L: My father could. I don't know about my mother. I don't think my step-mother could read. She used to. She was an alcoholic. She'd get on drunks. My daddy was a preacher and he didn't like it. I: Right. L: He got mad with her and brought me down to Elsie's to stay down there. He went on to Tryon to preach. I: So your father, he had to be able to read in order to preach? L: Yeah. He preached you know because he could read. I: Well… L: She couldn't read. She'd get on the spell a drinking and be crying, say she had a child in the world didn't know where she was. I: How much education did you gave the opportunity to get? L: I just went to the ninth grade. I: Where was this now? L: At Riverview. Riverview schoolhouse, you remember? I: Is that Webster? L: It's between Webster and Dillsboro. You don't remember when they had the Riverview schoolhouse? I: No ma'am. L: No you wouldn't remember it. That's where my age got mixed up. I: How's that? L: Mr. Austin was the teacher, our teacher. He wanted me to be his girlfriend. He told my father. My father was over the I don't know what they call them over the building. Anyway, he'd always be at our house. I never did understand it because I had work to do. My brother, Abbie, had left home and went to the tannery and worked. He stayed over to Sylva. I: He worked in a tannery? L: Worked in a tannery. Love 12 I: That was your brother Abraham? L: Abraham and Willie both; they worked over in Sylva. They weren't there and I had to do boys' work and girls' work too. My step-mother wouldn't let me do the house work. I'd have to milk the cow and feed the hogs and carry the wood. Just do everything outside that the boys did. I: She did the inside work? L: Yeah. She was mean to me. She used to say, "Put down them old books and do so and so." I: So, she didn't want you to learn? L: No, she didn't want me to have no books. I: But you were able to go through the ninth grade? L: Yeah, I'd always get my lessons now. I never did get a whipping in school because lots of them then teachers would whip you if you didn't know anything. I always had my lesson. We had to have lamps and oil. Lamps that you wash the chimney, to have oil. She wouldn't let me have oil to study my lesson. I'd have to go up on the mountain and get pine wood. He made another room after she just had two rooms, the kitchen and her room, then, he build another room out there for me to stay in. He put a fire place in it. I'd go up on the mountain and get this real pine wood and have a good fire, you know. I'd get down in front of that and get my lesson. I always had my lesson. I never did get a whipping in the school. So many of them would get beatings. I'd pass notes in school as fast as anybody else. I never got caught but one time. A friend of mine caught me. The same Austin told me. I: You said the Professor Austin? L: Austin. I: You said there was something about your age? Were you still living over at Riverview? L: Yeah, I guess so. I: How did you get from there to the school in Sylva? L: Well, I don't know. I guess I went by horse-buggy. I don't know how I went. I never did go to Sylva to the other school. I: Oh, you didn't go. L: The only school I went to was in Riverview. We had a teacher from Charlotte. Her name was Moore. She was teaching. She married Sherman Davis. Sherman Davis' wife. She got sick and I had to teach school for three months in her place. I'll never forget that because I was oldest one Love 13 and you know, I knew more in books than they did. I teach from the first to the sixth grade. That's the highest she had to teach. I: Right. L: I had to teach three months in her place. I'll never forget that. I had a certificate too, because there was six of us girls that went to Old Webster to get our examination to get our church's certificates. I: What do you mean church's certificate? L: A teacher certificate. I: So, you could get a teacher's certificate by going? L: Yeah, by going to Old Webster Standard Examination. They sent a man there from Charlotte. He was supposed to be our professor and he failed. But the rest of us all of us made second grade certificate. That's why I could teach when she was out. After that Professor Davis come and took over school. Austin had done left that school. He was a big lawyer in Asheville at that time. I: But he was teaching at Riverview in the beginning? L: Yeah. I: After you finished the ninth grade what did you do, Mrs. Love? L: I told you, my father brought me here to Waynesville. I: What did you do in Waynesville? L: I worked for the Smathers, different places. I worked for Mrs. Woolsey and went to New York City with them in 1913. I saw the first airplane that went up in Coney Islands. I: Really? L: I was nursing for Mrs. Woolsey, Mrs. Reed. She lived on the seventh floor on Broadway in New York City. I: So, you saw the first plane? L: I stayed in New York City for three months with them. I went to work for them and everybody said that nobody could please old Mrs. Woolsey. She had a girl. Her name was Bessie Hall, that she took away from here with her and carried her up there. So, while I went to New York, we stayed there and I'll never forget. I ate dinner at the Waldorf Hotel because I was a nurse. See, I nursed Jimmy, the little boy, Jimmy and Mint. See that pillow right there. Jimmy and his wife made them pillows for me on my birthday last year. Love 14 I: They're beautiful. So, you stayed with this family for three months? L: Yeah. I went with them and I'll never forget. See, they had a chauffeur. Mrs. Woolsey was on the seventh floor but she called for her chauffeur to come. Sometimes she'd make him stand down there for hours and hours never go anywhere. But usually always went through the park and go out and eat dinner. Sometimes she's go out and stop at the church and go and pray for a minute and like that. Anyway, she decided that we'd eat at the Waldorf Hotel. Well, at the Waldorf Hotel they feed all the chauffeurs and maids and everybody first. When she found out they were doing that she didn't like it and she left. She was used to the Negroes being last. So, they fed us all, the nurses and chauffeurs and everything first. Then they'd feed the guests at the Waldorf Hotel. So, she got mad and left there and we all went to New Jersey. That was the first time I ever rode a boat. I went by boat where I could see. Then you could see out on the river. They catch great big bushels of fish for fifty cents and like that, just great big bushels of fish. You could see it. Anyway, when we got to New Jersey, I still had to tend to the children. They had to go out. I: How many children did they have? L: They just had two, Mint and Jimmy. Jimmy was my baby because I was taking care of him and I had to wear a watch. Did you see me any watch on? I can't go now without a watch on. They were, you know, wealthy people and they were very strict. I had to wear her watch. I didn't have a watch but I had to wear her watch. I had to feed that baby by every three hours and change him every so many hours. I had so many hours to do everything. So, after I quit and left I needed a watch. I couldn't stand going without a watch. I: What made you quit them? L: Well, I got tired of the way they done because my husband's sister cooked for them. Uncle Henry Thompson was a yard man. J.C. was a chauffeur for Mrs. Woolsey. What made me mad, they give Jimmy money to play with. So, silver dollar. Those dollars is hard to get. So, they give Jimmy a dollar and he lost it. So she accused Bookman of stealing it and he said he didn't. I: Was he someone who worked there? L: Yes. Sometimes he'd be in and out. I told her. I said, "Now listen, next time you give Jimmy and lose it," I said, "I want it," because I just made three dollars a week. Three dollars a week is what I nursed for. Jimmy wouldn't go to sleep without me. She was giving me a dollar a minute to come back on Sunday evening to put him to bed. I: So, Sunday was your day off? L: Yeah, one of my days off. I: How many days did you have off? Love 15 L: Just Sunday evenin'. When I'd be off on Sundays she have me to come and pay me an extra dollar to put Jimmy to sleep because he wouldn't go to sleep for her. All I had to do was give him a bath and give him my eyes. Tell him, "Now you'd better go to sleep," and he'd go to sleep. Many a time I went through that. Jimmy's my baby and he looks older than I do now. I: So, you said you got angry because she accused? L: Oh, I told her if they give him another dollar then I quit. And I did. They give him a dollar and he lost it, and I quit. I: Why? L: Because I, you know if anything lost they going blame it on the nigger. See, that's white people worked up there for them too, but they going to lay it on me or my sister-in-law, my husband, anybody, any colored person. Laid it on Bookman now. She lost her watch too. I: Did your husband work for them? L: Yes, he worked for the Woolsey's. See, old Mrs. Woolsey, she had these two daughters, Ella and Jimmy. Ella married old man Reed and Thomasine, she married Howell and see they had the three houses. Three houses is up there on that hill right now. I: Now what's this? L: Woolsey Height. I: Woolsey Height? L: Yeah. I: Oh, so your husband worked for the Woolseys? L: Uh huh. I: The Woolseys and the Wilsons went to New York? L: Yeah. See, they all go to New York and they'd all be back. I: So, they would go up there and live for a month? L: Yeah, in the winter or whenever they wanted to. She had a house there. Too, old man Woolsey was there when Jim was born, my oldest boy. He'd done everything in the world to make me give him Jim. He wanted Jim. He said, "I can send him to Alabama and give him an education that you can't." I said, "I know that." He said, "But see, I had sign him over in their name." He wouldn't have been Jim Love, he would've been Jim Woolsey. I said, "I can't do that." So he begged me and begged me and carried on. I said, "Mr. Woolsey, just don't ask me no Love 16 more." Lucy's mother used to work for Mrs. Woolsey and I'd go over there and take the clothes and come back. Every time I'd go he'd beg me about letting him have Jim. I said, "I can't do it Mr. Woolsey." He said, "I know. I can understand." See that tray right there? He made that tray and give to me. I: He did? L: Old man Woolsey. They thought a lot of me. I: How long did you work for these people? L: Oh, I don't know. I just worked for them ‘til I got tired. I: Was it years or ... ? L: Yes, I worked for them several years but there wasn't no such thing as social security or anything like that then. I: So, you were paid three dollars a month? L: Three dollars a week, honey. I: Oh, excuse me, three dollars a week. Did you live in the home with them? L: Yeah, I had a room. I: Where was your husband? L: I wasn't married then. I: You weren't married then? L: I wasn't married then. I married after I left there. I: So, you stayed with them about three months? Is that right? L: I don't know how long it was. More than a year, I think cause we lived three months in New York. I: After you quit them what did you do? L: I went to cooking for Mrs. Sherrill at the boarding house on Main Street. I cooked for Mrs. Sherrill for seven years. I: Here in Waynesville? Love 17 L: Mhmm. I: So, after you left them you came back home? L: Yeah. They asked me how come you come back home? I would have stayed in New York. I wish I had of. My father had fell and broke his ribs. My step-mother sent me a telegram wanting me to come home just at once. So, I come home and I never did go back. Girlfriends, a boyfriend left. I had a boyfriend who wanted to marry me. I'll never forget him. They went to night school. I: Who went to night school? L: This boy and girl went night school in New York. I: Friends of yours? L: Yes. They were friends of Bessie. See, she made them friends to me. When she'd get off they'd be off at night, going out, playing cards, you know. I: What did you do in New York on your free time? You said you go out. L: I know how to play cards. I could play five-up, seven-up, and whiz, but I couldn't drink. I never could drink. You'd go to some of them houses and in New York the first thing they bring you, you know, is liquor. I: What do you remember, the most exciting thing that you did in New York? L: Well, I don't remember what the most excited thing, the most excited thing was the day that they carried us out and we went down Coney Island. They said it was the first plane that went up in Coney Island. I: Oh, you were there when history was made. L: We stayed all day out there. I'll never forget how Mrs. Woolsey cussed coming on back. Had to cross a bridge, I forget the name of that bridge. Well, come across the bridge Mrs. Woolsey there was a little old jew boys that'd be in the road you know, playing. She was cussing about that. Want they get these children out of the road. Want they keep these damn little children. She meant to cuss. Want they get these damn little boys out of the road. She'd say. I: So, you came back to Waynesville? What did you do, stay at home and nurse your father or what? L: No, I didn't nurse my father. I: You went to work? Love 18 L: I went to work for this boarding house. I got me a cook job. I stayed with Aunt Bessie before I went to New York. I worked for the Smathers mother. You know George Smathers was a big shot in Miami. I worked for them over on Smathers street. I: Were you the maid or the cook or everything? L: I guess, I was the cook and George Moore was a handyman. I was a maid. I waited on the tables and things. I: At this hotel? L: After I left them, I got this job working for Mrs. Sherrill. I went as a cook. I didn't know how to boil water. My step-mother wouldn't let me cook. She bought me a Whitehouse Cookbook. Anything you made with that cookbook was good. I learned how to cook out of a book. I: This was at a hotel? You didn't know how to cook when you got started? L: No. She helped me to learn. I had to cook, milk the cow, and clean up. I had to clean up the two story house. She kept boarders up there. Of course she, in the summertime, she'd get a cook to do the cooking. I'd be the maid but I had to do the cooking before that. She had a little cottage living up there. She had me in the room in that little cottage, so, I'd be near, you know, when I had to cook. I used to have to get up and milk a cow, make a fire in the kitchen and dining room and living room and go milk the cow and have breakfast ready at eight o'clock. I: What time did your day start? L: I slept there on the place. I had to get up in time to do all that to get a lot of the men that she had for boarders had to go to work. I had to have their breakfast ready at eight o'clock. After I learned how to cook she put it all on me. She put it on me, I'm telling you. I: Was it hard work? L: Oh yes! Nothing easy about cooking when you had to cook everything. I: About how many people were you cooking for? L: Oh different amount. I don’t remember how many she had, she’d have too many for one person to cook for. But you know just to cook, you need more help than one. I: So you lived in a cottage near the hotel. L: It wasn’t a hotel, it was just a boarding house. I: Near a boarding house. Love 19 L: The cottage was just back of it. Mrs. Sherrill had a son that stayed down there with Ruth. What was his name? Ruth Siler. Ruth would come down and wake me up in time if I was overslept. He'd wake me up in time. Sometimes I'd have to rush on. Sometimes I wouldn't get the cow milked to after breakfast. She liked me to stay on with her because most people, she had, women she had didn't know how to milk. See I was raised in the country and I know how milk a cow. I: So, you had to do for your parents the home place? L: Oh, yes. I: Did you ever learn how to plow? L: Yes. I knew how to plow. I worked in the corn field all day long in the hot sun many a times, hoeing corn. I: What did your father do with all this corn? L: Well, they'd put it in a crib and saved it for the winter. We had an old horse I'll never forget. I don't know where Uncle give my daddy that horse or what. I was too little to work in the field. But they had a crib and they save this corn in a crib and then they'd have corn shuckins like that during the winter. We had an old horse named Sal. The boys ride that horse and also I could ride around. They'd put the corn in a sack and put it across the horse and put me on the horse and the horse had to go way down the valley town, or down to the highway because you was up there in the mountains. It was a little bit to the mill where they run it. This horse knew where to go and where to come. All they did was put me on that top and I'd ride old Sal or whatever her name and the man had grind my corn. My daddy raised corn and wheat. Because I never forget sometime there would be flour and sometime there would be corn. I would be sitting up on old Sal because she so nice and gentle. I'll never forget I sat up on old Sal. There's a branch we had to cross. I don't know where Sal got scared or something or what. I sat up there just a singing and Sal jumped the branch and I fell right backwards. Sal run on the other side and waited on me. Show you how little I was, I couldn't get up on her by myself. I had to lead her way down the road a long way to find a bank high enough that I could. I: Get up on her? L: I was wet all over when I got home. I'll never forget that. But Sal was a good old horse. I: After you were a cook, did you get another job or what? Did you marry in that time? L: I married sometime. After I cooked for Mrs. Sherill that's when I got married. I: Did you stay here in Waynesville? Love 20 L: Uh huh. I: What was your husband's name? L: J.C. Love. I : J. C. Love? L: Yeah. I: Did the letters J. C. stand for something? L: No, he was just named initials. His initials was his name. J.C. Love. His mother said she named him for J.C. Price, you know J.C. Price founded the Greensboro school. She just named him J.C. J.C. Love was his name. That's all the name he had. I: So, he was named after a man in Greensboro who founded a black school there? L: Yeah. I: Do you remember the name of the school? L: No. Just a Greensboro school. I don't know what school it was. That's what she said. I: Was your husband from here? L: Yeah, he was born and raised right here in Waynesville. I: What did he do for a living? L: He plastered. My husband plastered. I: Where did he learn that? L: Uh? I: How did he learn to do that? L: His father was a plaster and he learned him how to plaster. I: What was his father's name again? L: His father was named Henry, Henry Love. I: Henry Love? Love 21 L: They call him Henry Cap Love I: Why? L: The people that he belonged to I think was named Henry. Anyway they were separated, they called him Henry Cap but now his grandfather lighted the lights on the street. Now, then, you see they didn't have no electric then. They had lights up on a post. They'd have to light the lamps at night you know and clean the chimney. That's what his father done, his grandfather. I: Your husband's grandfather? L: I never seen that but that's what they said he done. I: Do you remember him? L: No, cause when I come here we had electricity. I: Do you remember what his grandfather's name was? L: We called him Pap. His name was James Casey. I: James Casey? L: We called him Pap. I: So, that was his job to light the lights? L: Right. I: In the town? L: That's his job. I: Well, did his father own his home and land? L: Yeah, he owned a home down there on Main Street down there. I: Main Street in Waynesville? L: Christine lives over there on that property now. I: Who is that? L: It's owner. Boundaries free to come. I: So, your husband's father was a plasterer? Love 22 L: Yeah. I: How did he learn to do that? Do you remember? L: I don't know how he learned. He taught J.C. how. He took J.C. after school and taught him how to plaster. J.C. was a plasterer when I met him. I: Is that how he made his living for the family? L: I suppose so. Yeah, that's the was he made his living all the rest of our lives. I: Did you and your husband own your own home? L: Well, we bought this. We bought this home right here, this house. I: How old is it? L: Two rooms. I suppose to be nine months old in here but I couldn't tell you about that mix up about my birth because old Henry Austin mixed that up. But, I think we were born about the same year, 1894. I: Now, you started to tell me that story about his messing your birthday up. How did he do that? L: Well, that's too much to talk about. I: Oh, I'd love to hear it. L: Don't want to think about it. I: Did you and your husband? I: So, when you and your husband built, it was two rooms? L: Two rooms. I: How many children did you have? L: Eight. I: You had eight children? L: Yeah, but he added some more to it. He had some more built to it. I: So, he added onto the house? Love 23 L: Yeah. I: How many boys and girls did you have? L: I had four boys and four girls. I: Four boys and four girls? L: I had a little girl named Fannie after my father's sister who died of a ruptured appendix when she was ten years old. She would have been forty, nearly fifty years old. I: The doctors didn't know what was wrong with her? L: She had a ruptured appendix and the doctors didn't know what to do then. They just put a tube in her side and she died. I: So, as you children were growing up, did you work outside the home? L: Yeah, I went out when some of them was old enough to take care, the one that was old enough to take care of the other, I'd work out. I worked for the Stringfields for years. I: What did you use to do there? L: Cook. I: I bet you're a good cook. L: I was. I was supposed to be the best cook in Waynesville besides Odessa. I: What was your favorite dessert? L: Oh, I could make anything. You'd have to make rolls and cake and everything from the bottom then. You didn't have no recipes and books to go by. You had to know how to make them. I: Had to put a pinch of this and a pinch of that. L: Yes, Lord yes. You had to know how to do it that's all and I knew how to do it. I: As you were raising your children, were they able to go to school? L: Oh, yes. My children, I sent all of them to Sylva. Ed was my handicap child. He was sick with pneumonia. He had pneumonia three years, three winters on a straight. He had the fourth one the year Mr. Bonnie Raye died. That's Ray's store we traded. He had pneumonia that year. He was seventeen years old then. He had bad eyes. There's something wrong with his eyes. He had bad eyes. I used to have to take him to Asheville every week that God sent, I'd have to take him to Love 24 Asheville to a specialist. The doctor said, he never did get much education. I think Ed, they graduated him but he wasn't supposed to graduate because the doctor wouldn't let him study. I: Because of his eyesight? L: His eyesight. He tell me, says now, "We can take him to Baltimore if you had the money and operate on him, then I couldn't guarantee his sight because he had that other. If he had gotten to school and every week God sent somebody would break his glasses. If he didn't break them, some child in school would break them. He said now which would you rather have a blind child or a child that can see and read a little bit. He said just let him read whatever he wants and he had a good memory about remember things but he could remember the sayings and remember things. But as far as his education, he had the least education of any of my children. Now the girls, I sent them to college. I: Oh, did you? L: Yeah, I sent them. I: Where? L: Irene and Nancy to Lincoln Academy. I: Where is that? L: In eastern part of the state. I: Lincoln Academy. L: Yeah. Marylene, she graduated at… I: Allen? L: No. Yeah, she went to Allen School. I: Did she go to Allen? L: Yes, but she left Allen. She went to Morristown. She graduated in Morristown, Tennessee. I: How long did you have to go to school to be a teacher then? L: I don't know. I'm through with you now. I don't know. I got to see what Mrs. Calloway doing in here. I'm through with you. I ain't going to tell you nothing else.

Delsie Pettit Love is interviewed by Lorraine Crittenden on September 11, 1986 as a part of the Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project. Love was born in 1893 in Andrews. She recalls her mother’s funeral when she was four years old, life on the farm, and travelling with her father who was a preacher. She talks about her father’s experience as an enslaved person in Tennessee. Love moved to Waynesville as a teenager and worked for prominent families such as the Woolsey family as nanny to James Reed, as a cook for Mrs. George D. Sherrill at her boarding house, and as a cook for Mrs. Smathers. She shares stories of going to New York City with the Woolseys in 1913.

• Creator
  • Love, Delsie Pettit, 1893-1993
• Contributor
  • Crittenden, Lorraine
• Format
  • Sound recordings
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Sound
  • Text
• Date
  • Date interview: 1986-09-11
  • Date: 1890s; 1900s (Decade); 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s; 1980s;
  • Date digitized: 2019-11-01
• Extent
  • Duration: 00:55:53 (sound recording)
  • Duration: 24 pages (transcript)
• Subject - Topic
  • African American families
  • African Americans
  • African Americans -- Social life and customs
  • Autobiography
  • Enslaved persons
  • Farm life
  • Love, Delsie Pettit, 1893-1993 -- Interviews
  • North Carolina, Western -- Race relations -- History -- 20th century
  • Slavery -- North Carolina, Western
• Location
  • Andrews (N.C.)
  • Cherokee County (N.C.)
  • Waynesville (N.C.)
  • Haywood County (N.C.)
  • North Carolina, Western
  • Tennessee
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project
• Identifier
  • HL_MSS98-03_Crittenden_Love_1986-09-11
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library