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Interview with Mary Choice

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Interview with Mary Choice

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Interview with Mary Choice

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  • Choice 1 WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA TOMORROW BLACK ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Interviewee: Mary Choice Interviewer: Edward Clark Smith County: Buncombe Date: March 21, 1987 Duration 50:18 Edward Clark Smith: Momma Choice how did you first… how did your family first come to North Carolina? Mary Choice: Well, we came here in, uh, 1927, my husband and myself. We had two daughters. I: What was your husband's name? MC: Prince Choice. I: Prince Choice? MC: Uh-huh. I: You came in 1927 from South Carolina? MC: Uh-huh. I: Do you have any idea how your family got its name of Sullivan? MC: No, I don't have any history of that. I: Why did you come to Asheville or come to Buncombe County? MC: Well, uh, we was on the farm and you know farms commenced getting [inaudible] and what you call, uh, what you call them old bugs that eat up what's the name of them bugs I: Locusts? MC: No, that eats pods of the corn up. I: Boll weevils? MC: Yeah, boll weevils. Boll weevils. Boll weevils. We had one crop we didn't have, you know, all other times they had, you know, were all right but this particular year the boll weevils just really went around and eat up might near everybody's crops, and my husband told me he said Choice 2 "I'm gonna leave the farm." He said ''I'm gonna have to do better than this." So he asked me “Would I like to come to Asheville?” and I said, “I don't know I ain't never been there.” So, we came here in February 1927, and I've been here ever since. I: What was Asheville like when you first got here? MC: Well, it was different, you know, from what I had been used to because I had been on a farm. I didn't like it when I first came here but I got it didn't take neither one of us no time before we got us a job and I've like it fine ever since. What kind of work did your husband get when he first got here? He worked for Reed and Abee Construction Company about a year and then he went to Oteen. Worked at Oteen till he died. I: What kind of work did you get? MC: Just, uh, day work. House work is all. I: When you think back to your mom and dad, could either of them read and write? MC: Uh-huh. My daddy was a good scholar. My mother didn't know too well, you know, she didn't know too much but she could write some and read some. I: Well, while you were in South Carolina, did you go to school? MC: Uh-huh. Went to the country school. I: What was it like? MC: It was all right, you know, just all country people and, uh, we didn't have, uh, big to-do's and things like they do at the schools here now. But we had pretty good school teachers and my daddy was a good scholar he could help us with our learning, you know. Of course, I never went any further than the seventh grade. I went to the seventh grade. I got married. I: How old were you when you got married? MC: I was eighteen. I: You got married young, didn't you? MC: Uh-huh [laugh] yessir. I: What was growing up like for you? What did you all do as children to entertain yourselves? MC: Well, we entertained through the [inaudible] you know. Go to school. Have a little [plays] at school. Go to picnics and things, you know, entertained ourselves like that. Choice 3 I: How old were you when you came to Asheville? MC: Let's see, I was twenty-seven, I believe. No, I wasn't, I was twenty-four. I: You were twenty-four? MC: Uh-huh. I: What were conditions like when you were growing up down in South Carolina for black people, what how did I: How did they live? MC: Uh-huh They lived. They had farms. They worked in cotton and corn Raised horses and pigs and cattle, you know. We made a pretty good living. Made a good living till the boll weevils eat us up. [Laughs] They made a song after the boll weevil. You never been on the farm, have you? I: No ma’am. I don't know much about a farm. MC: Uh-huh. I know when we first came here a lot of people had never seen no cotton. They had seen corn. They hadn't seen no cotton. They wanted to know when we'd go home for us to bring 'em a piece of cotton back so that a stalk of cotton back so they could see what it was like. It was tough all right. It was hot in the summer time you hoeing cotton and picking cotton but we made it till the boll weevils got a hold of us. I: So, when you got to Asheville you were through farming then, weren't you? MC: Yessir. I: Were you happy to be off the farm? MC: Yes I was, in a way. 'Cause, uh, one thing I didn't like, you know, when you were working for 'em, white people, you had to work on Sundays and I didn't like to work on Sundays 'cause we always, Friday was our last day of the week to work. But, I went to work. After I got used to it, I liked it. I was a maid in a boarding house. I: Down there? MC: No, here. I: What boarding house? Choice 4 MC: it was Scott's Boarding House, you know, it was on a over there, uh, what was the name of that street, uh. I: So, the first job you had was at Scott's Boarding House? MC: Uh-huh. I: When you got to Asheville and got that job, what were conditions like in Asheville? How did people get along, black and white? MC: What was it like? I: Well, they got along good. It was just fine with white folks and black. Where I worked at, this one old lady, she was a widow and she had a cook, two maids, and a butler and we got along just like we had always knowed each other and she was nice. I: All the help was black people, wasn't it? MC: Uh-huh, she didn't have no white. I: But, what were things like for black people in terms of… MC: Uh-huh. When the banks went busted. The banks went broke, I forget what year it was now. I: '29? MC: Something like that, but I forget that, but anyway the banks went broke. We had a little money in the bank and my husband said "I'll never put no more money in the bank 'cause all our little money got [laughs] and I remember that Reverend [Hastons] That was our pastor at church, he had some money in the bank and Dr. Jones, he had some money in the bank. Reverend [Haston’s] son told Dr. Jones say "you better take your money out of the bank." He say "I heard 'em talking that the bank was gonna go busted." All the money was gonna be took out. So, my husband wouldn't take his out and Dr. Jones was running the, uh, what you call 'em, the drug store. I can't think of that right off but anyway that's the drug store right above Mt. Zion Church. I: Uh-huh. The YMI? MC: Yeah and he lost all his money and he said he wished he had paid attention to that and, uh… People had it pretty tough for a while. Choice 5 I: What were social conditions like? What did you do at your age then when you were twenty-seven, twenty-eight years old? What did you do to entertain yourself? How did black people in Asheville entertain themselves? MC: Oh, the black people in Asheville they had dances and big jigs. They'd go to dances. They had clubs, you know, and they'd have dances and things. I: Do you remember any special clubs that they had that you might have been a member of? MC: No, I wasn't no member. My husband was a member of a club at Oteen called the "Royal Entertainers" and, of course, there was other clubs. I never was a, you know, I never took to a party and clubs in general. Oh, after my children got grown, 'cause I stayed home with my children, took care of my children. I: So the biggest entertainment for you then, what was it? The church? MC: Church, church. I: Were the churches any different then than they are now? MC: Well, in some ways they were. They didn't, you know, people didn't make as much money as they're making now. They couldn't put the money in the church like they make now. The preacher, well the preachers didn't ask for money like these preachers do now. Of course our pastor, he never did ask, you know, peoples for a certain amount in the church. If he needed, if he needed money he would just say "Brothers and sisters we need such and such amount of money" and they would, you know, people’s job wasn't good but they would come up with whatever he wanted if for. But now, this preacher where we got now, he wants to assess your, assess you on what to give in the church. He wants to give, uh, now he's got an organ in our church that's been needed repaired, it's been repaired. He wants us to pay fifty and a hundred dollars on that and I didn't want 'em to pay. They got a debt, got to have a parking lot 'cause the police has got to the place where they use to park at That's their parking lot and, of course, they had to have a, uh, a lot for the people to park in and they wanted to ask now for the people to pay so much for that. But, I always pay what I can. I don't let nobody assess me what to pay because I says the Lord knows what we make and I give what I can and then I can't give and I don't really worry. But, some people they used to, one time they had a they had he had women's and men's day here and he wanted the women to pay fifty dollars and the men to pay a hundred dollars for that particular day. But, now they don't do that, they just do what they can and that they can't do, but, you know, they's some people want to be big. They go borrow money to do things to pacify somebody else but I can't do that. I: Do you remember any customs in the old churches that they used to have that they don't do now in church? Choice 6 MC: Well, not right now. But, see I wasn't in the church here for just a, I don't know a lot of people that do know but I don't know the customers but you know preachers didn't assess people back then like this preacher we got, he come here with a big mind. When he came here, he didn't have nothing but an old car. They had to buy a parsonage when he come they had to buy a parsonage for him to live in and he wanted 'em to get a cook and a maid for 'em. He had a wife and two boys and, of course, they told him they couldn't afford him no cooks 'cause the other preachers that we had, when he came to Asheville he had his cook. He had a wife and three boys. You might remember Reverend Hasten. I don't know, you was young. I: The name sounds familiar but I don't MC: No, you was young, I know. I: In your lifetime, Mother Choice, do you remember any historic events that affected either you or your family, like wars or floods or something like that, that happened? MC: I remember when we was in the country they was a flood and we was in school that day when that flood came. I: About what year was that? MC: Honey, I can't remember exactly the year but I know there was a flood and we had to walk from school, we was in school that day, and it just come a storm like it and poured rain and we had to walk a foot log to get across and they was a lady lived not far from the school and she wanted me and my brothers to stay at her house till the next day 'cause she was scared we couldn't get across the creek and she told him, she said "Now you go on home" and says "I'll keep her here" so I guess he got about as far from her house as from here across the street and I started to cry and I didn't want to go, didn't want to stay, I wanted to go home with him so she called him and he come back and got me and we went we got down to the creek. The water wasn't up over the little foot log, little narrow thing about like that, he caught me by the hand and we went across it. If we hadn't a went home that night we wouldn't a got home in a week. All the bridges got washed away, lot of the stores and… I: Do you remember what river it was that flooded? MC: Yeah, uh [laugh] I remember but I can't think of it now. I can't. I: When you first got to Asheville, what were race relations like? MC: You mean between the white and the blacks? I: Uh-huh. Choice 7 MC: Well, they was they thought that they didn't know they was better than we was, they thought. But, they got along all right. I never had no trouble with any of them. I: When you first came to Asheville, who, what were, who were were there leaders like, like leaders in the black communities? MC: Uh-huh. I: Who were some of those people? MC: Well, Miss Maggie Jones, Dr. Jones, and Miss Reynolds and her family. They were leaders. You know Miss Reynolds? I: Uh-huh. MC: And, uh, your mother was one of 'em. Your mother was a leader. She was young, but she lived in the churches and, uh, uh, [Cassie Evans] her mother. Cassie's always been a leader 'cause she was a teacher. She finished school. She was a school teacher and, uh, Miss Ruth Cannon and her family. They was well-to-do people then. I: What was some of the things that they did that you thought were outstanding? MC: Well, I can't say nothing in particular that I thought they did. They taught school. They were school teachers, you know. Of course, they danced and went to parties and things like the rest of the people did but they, you know, took great interest in the church. I: How many children did you have, Momma Choice? MC: Two. I: What were their names? MC: Our oldest little girl was named Evalina and my baby's name was Willaree. I: What holidays, do you recall as a child any holidays that black people celebrated that white people didn't celebrate? MC: Well, uh, I don't know whether they celebrate the same yeah, they all celebrate the same holidays. Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter. We had Easter programs but we didn't go to the same things, you know, but they celebrate the white and the colored people would always celebrate only but the Jews, the Jews didn't celebrate anything that uh colored people did. I: What was Christmas like for you as a child? Choice 8 MC: It was pretty nice. In the country we just had little apples and oranges and candy for Christmas but after we moved here and we got, you know, good jobs we had clothes and things we’d buy. Give each other nice presents and things like that but in the country we had some goods and had a little bald headed doll [laugh]. I: Bald headed doll? MC: Yeah, a little china doll a doll, you know, that didn't have no hair on their head [laugh] and, uh, the boys would have get a little we'd have firecrackers. We'd had a good time with firecrackers but we didn't we couldn't play with 'em when the grown people wasn't around. They didn't allow us to play with 'em unless they were around because they were afraid they'd shoot each other or something but, you know, children shoot more than one with a firecracker just for the fun of it and they had got the little bicycle and they'd have little fire guns. We had a pretty nice time. I: Do you remember any when you were in South Carolina do you remember hearing, ever, any stories about your relatives? MC: Uh-huh. No I never heard any stories about them. I: Well, what was the name of the club that you and my momma and daddy and all those people were members of? MC: It was, uh, uh I: Was it the MM&I? MC: Yeah, that's what it was. I: What did that stand for? MC: Maids and Matrons. Maids and Matrons Club, that what it was. That was, uh, you know, the Maids were the married women and matrons were the young women. I: No, the Maids were the young women and the Matrons were the married women. MC: Uh-huh. I: Well, what was the I for? MC: I don't know. I never did find out what it stood for. I: I remember you all corning to our house and going to other people's houses too. What did that club do in Asheville? Choice 9 MC: Well, they raised money. They'd take, you know, do for the sick, visit the sick, and, uh, just do things for people that really needed something done for 'em. That's what we did. We didn't have no social life, you know dances and stuff like that but we'd have, uh, picnics and we'd have suppers and invite older people. If they couldn't come, we fix 'em something to eat and take to 'em. I: And they still meet, don't they? MC: No, they that club went out it went out after your mother died and I was glad that she wasn't there because she took and played a big part in it. All of us, because when, uh, after she died most of 'em, you know, didn't want well a lot of people they wanted to be in things but they didn't want to do nothing, you know, didn't want to help out. Didn't want to spend no money or no time. And, uh, your mother and myself, and Miss Allene Mitts, and Miss Pauline Robinson, we was the ones that mostly carried the club along. Your mother was the secretary. We had some nice times and we'd invite people to our we'd have socials, you know, and just go from one house to the other and have a dinner or something. And yeah, Miss [Shear] Miss Lillian Shear, she belonged to it. I know one time we, uh, she had all of us to her house one Sunday morning for breakfast and we went to her house and had breakfast and then went to Nazareth for service. We had a real good time. I: Do you think things have gotten better for black people in western North Carolina since you first came? MC: I think it's better. People socializes, you know, more together, course you know I didn't know too many people and they didn't know me. They didn't have much to do but now, you know, everybody try to get together and have a nice time. I: What do you think made it better? MC: Well, the peoples I think, you know, they got better 'cause when we first come in people didn't hardly have much to do with you. Called us country folks [laugh] and they found out the country people could have the same things that they could have and just got to where we all love each other. Yeah 'cause I know my children used to go to Sunday School at Mt Zion. Of course, I didn't go to Sunday School 'cause I worked on Sundays and, uh, your mother and daddy used to come over to our house when they was going together. The Reverend Grant and Miss Grant, they all courted, come back and forth to my house. Now your mother and your daddy, after they got married, 'cause we really knowed your mother before she go married 'cause she would come to Sunday School, taught Sunday School at Mt. Zion and, uh, oh she just loved my children and they loved her too and me too, I love her till yet, wherever she is I love her 'cause she was a lovely person and she was smart. Your mother was a smart woman, did you know that? I: Yes ma’am. Choice 10 MC: She was a smart woman. I: Wait a minute, she said what [laugh]? MC: She said that, you know, she said [inaudible] I: Who, my momma? MC: Uh-huh. She asked me when Mr. Grant come here and he came here, she introduced his wife as uh I: Ossie MC: Ossie. She introduced Ossie to the Reverend Grant and Reverend Grant got to going with Ossie and Reverend Grant and Ossie married [laugh]. She'd laugh and tell she said "I was helping her out with him" and she said "I didn't have no idey I was going to marry him" she said but she didn't have no idey that Ossie and him was gonna get married [laugh]. She said she didn't know what that was gonna be. When she knowed anything, Ossie and him was ready to get married [laugh]. And my daughter stood with 'em when they got married [laugh]. We laughed. I: What were weddings like? Were weddings different then than they are now? MC: No, they didn't have weddings then like they have now. I: What kind of weddings did they have back then? MC: Well, most of the children run off and marry [laugh]. Say they want to get married and they parents didn't want 'em to marry who 'cause me and my husband, we just my daddy didn't want me to marry and it was during Christmas time and we went I told 'em we was going for a walk, want to visit a friend of mine and we went on and got married. My daddy liked to had a fit [laugh]. I: I imagine so. But when they had weddings in churches, were they any different than the weddings they have now? MC: Well, in some way 'cause, you know, some people just had more money to [put away]. They have money now to have big weddings but they still don't last no longer. I: That’s right. MC: Because we didn't have no wedding and me and my husband was married fifty-four years but he died. Choice 11 I: Can you remember the date you and he got married? MC: Uh-huh, on the twenty-seventh of December. I: The twenty-seventh of December? MC: Uh-huh. I: Where were you? MC: We was in South Carolina then. I: In Laurens? MC: Uh-huh, Laurens. I: Y’all got married in Laurens? MC: In Laurens County. We didn't have no church wedding we had, uh, the what you call the man married us? I: Justice of the Peace? MC: Yeah. It's lasted just as long as some of them that it's lasted just as long as some of them that had church weddings. I: Fifty years is a long time. MC: Uh-huh. What you want and have nice homes and pretty things in they homes and all like that. They've had homes but they wasn't like they is now. What they had now they got televisions and pianos and organs and everything in they home. But they wanted to have things like that some of 'em for their children, but they couldn't because they didn't have the money but some of 'em had 'em anyway and like if your parents had an organ or radio or something or another the children could go and learn how to play on that. I: Just go from house to house and use everybody's stuff? MC: Uh-huh, uh-huh, everybody's stuff, uh-huh. I: They don't get along like that now. MC: No, no, they don't it's "don't bother my things." [Laugh] Choice 12 I: Where did you first live when you came to Asheville? MC: Let's see, lived on what's the name of that street wherever? What's the name of that street? I: Bowman? MC: No. I: Hayes, Graham? MC: No. [pause] I: You know children are different now. MC: Oh, yes. I: What do you think makes the difference in children then and children now? MC: Well, I'll tell you, they have more for one thing. Children and parents have more and they allow them to do more things now than they did when I was coming on and when you was coming on [laugh]. I: That's right MC: When you was coming on, they things these children do now you "dasn't" to do 'em. Yeah, honey. I: Were your parents strict? MC: Strict? Oh yeah, they was strict. They was real strict on us. We didn't go out no where at night We didn't go anywhere at night or anytime "unless'n" they was with us till we got, you know, big enough to take care of ourself. I: Well you know Momma Choice, I remember when my momma and Miss Sam and those would, now I was twelve or thirteen years old and we couldn't go trick or treating, they'd walk with us. MC: I know it [laugh]. I: And you couldn't get too far in front of them. In front of 'em, Choice 13 MC: No, no. You didn't. You got in the front and you didn't get behind either. You better not get behind. ''What are you lagging back there" and she laughs. I: That's right. MC: We used to go to church. Momma and them used to take us to church at night. We'd walk to church. They put us in the front of 'em and when they'd get up to go put the collection in, we'd better be getting out of the church. 'Cause you know when they went to put their money in the basket, we'd better be getting out 'cause they gonna put us right in the front of 'em and sometime you know like my mother and father would go to church and your mother and father didn't go or something or another, why they'd take all of us. All the kids and if we went with somebody, we'd better not get behind and if they children that went with momma and them, they better not get behind. I: Why aren't things like that now? MC: Hmm? I: Why aren't things like that now? MC: People are just different. Only people aren't raising their children like we was raised and like you was raised. They raised us. You better do what they said to. They was good to us. I: It wasn't no child abuse either. They would abuse your head in a minute [laugh]. And I'm grateful for that. MC: Well, yeah. If we would do something or another we better not momma better not do something or another we didn't have no business to do. We kinda did it, we got a whupping and now if somebody tells somebody something on they children, oh so and so, they just lie. Lie on my children. They jealous. That's what they think of lying. They think that people is jealous of 'em. They jealous of what they have and don't no body bother other people's children like they did, but they hope raise 'em. Momma hope raise other children. They come to our house play and when it commenced looking like it was gettin' night momma say "Y’all better run on home now". They'd go home and if we went somewhere, we'd better beat that sun down [laugh]. We'd better get home before the sun went down. But, we had a good time. We could go play with children but you better mind whoever you went to, whoever's house you went to you better do like they raised their children 'cause everybody practically when I come along, raised their children alike. But, now. We wouldn't when we got out of school we wouldn't dare to go in nobody else's house, we just go straight home. Now children they going to school over here, they come over here if they want to and stay as long as they want to and come in times they come in "You got anything I'm hungry you got anything I can eat?" [Laugh] They want to eat Momma didn't allow us to go to nobody's house and ask for nothing to eat and I did the same thing with my children. We'd go to my husband's mother, my husband that I married, he had a step-mother and we would go the their house and I'd tell the children I say "Now when you go Choice 14 to Grandma's and Granddaddy's house, don't ask for nothing" and if we'd be eating, his wife was a sweet old lady, she wanted to know if the children wanted a second piece of chicken or something or another. I says no and she say "Now listen, these children are my grandchildren. They can have more chicken if they want it" [laugh] and I said "Well, I'm trying to teach 'em not to ask other things, you know, when they come. Just take what's put on the plate." But now, children come in asking for something or another to eat. But you wasn't allowed to do it. I know Mary didn't 'low y’all to do it [laugh] 'cause she was a sweet person, a good mother but she wanted y’all to do and live right. Not to be and I thought she was the cutest thing 'cause she wore them high heel shoes and them white gloves [laugh] with all that. I: Oh yeah. Even at home, gettin' up in the morning MC: Put on them shoes and go to work in 'em. I: That's right. That's right. MC: I say Mary how you… she say I can't work in low heels. She'd put on them clothes and that beautiful head of hair. I: Momma Choice, what would it take for people to get back black people to get back to raising their children? MC: What would it take? I: Uh-huh. MC: Children would kill 'em they to go try [laugh]. Those children go to killin' 'em, that's what it would take. Yeah, children not interested [inaudible] I: Is the church doing enough? MC: Well, the church ain't doin' 'em no good either. They didn't go to church. Sometime they won't go in the church. If they didn't go, instead of Sunday School they play outside. Go up to the YMI get 'em candy and drinks and take the money and spend it up there [laugh]. No, honey they wouldn't like it 'cause and then, if the children come to church and didn't come in, some of the parents could tell 'em "Why you go on into Sunday School." "I don't want to go in there" and that was it 'cause they wasn't gonna tell their parents they didn't go in there, but, now the children has a better chance about singing in the church 'cause they have organ and piano and things like that 'cause, I guess when y’all coming along, yeah they had organs in the church. I: The big churches did. MC: Uh-huh and the little children, they didn't get to take a part but now the little children, all the little children, gets on the choir and sings so nice. Of course the children had they could sing Choice 15 on the choir but they had to sing with some of the older people that would be on there with 'em but now [inaudible] got the children just singing just as good. She just taught 'em to sing by theyself. I: Those are the ones that are still in the church. MC: Uh-huh. Some of 'em ain't in there. If they parents ain't there, they don't come in there, and some of 'em if they parents is there, they don't. Now these little girls is fourteen, fifteen years old you'd be surprised, these little girls has got babies. They's one little girl, she used to be so nice in church, sing on the choir. I think she must be about seventeen years old and she got three children and she's got her apartment and live home at her apartment with her sister, her and her children. I: That young? MC: Uh-huh, yeah. I: It's a lot different than it used to be. MC: Yes, lord, a whole lot different 'cause used to be when a girl made a mistake like that, they turn 'em out of the church. I: But they sure don't do that now. MC: No, no, they don't do that now. Now if a girl make a mistake, they want to know who the father was, where's the father. The fathers got to help take care of 'em now. Some of 'em I: They didn't then? MC: No. I: If she made a mistake, she was just on her own? MC: On her own, that's right. Some of 'em wouldn't 'cause some of the parents was so strict that they wouldn't allow the boy to come back to see her no more and they wouldn't 'low 'em to have nothing to do with that child, but they take it and raise it. But now, the boys is going to have to help 'cause they carry 'em to court now. I: You think that's good or bad? MC: What. Yeah I think if they mistake and get a baby by a boy, I think he ought to help take care of it. Wouldn't you? I: Yeah I do too, regardless, but years ago they didn't. Choice 16 MC: No, they didn't make 'em do nothing and some of 'em back then wanted to make 'em marry her and they wouldn't do that but now they don't try to make 'em marry but they'll take 'em to court if they don't help take care of the babies. Of course, some of 'em they don't bother about it 'cause some parents is so careless, they don't seem to care how they children do and how they get along 'cause the boys and girls now, seventeen or eighteen years old, they live together not even married. I: That's right and we never heard of nothing like that when we were growing up. MC: What you talking about. You'd have got your ears beaten [laugh]. They wouldn't beat that back part, they'd beat that [laugh] they'd beat you all over. I: When you first came to Asheville, how did you all come? MC: How did we come to Asheville? I: Uh-huh. MC: We come on the train. I: On the railroad? MC: Uh-huh. I: Did you come in a Jim Crow? MC: No. Well, we didn't you didn't sit together. You know it was a long time after we come here before the white people wanted you to sit on the on the on the bus. They wanted you to get in the back when you ridin' the bus but now you can sit anywhere you want to. They'll sit with you. And you can go in the bank and I got to go sometime to the bank and the doors in the bank is heavy and if I'm goin' in and can't hardly if they's a white man standing there, a white women, they'll open the door, hold the door open for you and they'll talk to you. People is different from what they used to be, honey. The white people sometime better and nicer to the colored people than the colored is to each other 'cause I've had I've been goin' in the bank and a man come out the bank and he left the door nearly and knocked me down, wouldn't look back. White man'll hold it open or either sometimes the white women be standing there, they'll hold 'em open. They're different in that way. I: So you think it's gotten better over the years? MC: Yeah, it's got better. Choice 17 I: What do you think is going to make it better? Even better. What would you like to see happen for the future? MC: I really don't know what I'd like to see 'cause it's so much better now than it was, I don't know whether it can get much better. Because they are nice, they are really nice to you here. I don't know how it is in other places, but it certainly has changed here. Of course I remember when they first started to integrate and some of 'em you know, of course some of the poor class of white people don't want colored people to be close to them now, but the white men is livin' with I mean the colored men is livin' with the white women. The white man and the nigger woman used to be the only two that was free but now they's a nigger man, they got these white women livin' with 'em. They got children just walkin' up and down the street with 'em. When we come along, they'd a been done kilt. Killed them nigger men if they caught 'em with the white women. You know how that but they was the old white men would go with the colored women that's the reason they was so many half white negroes. I know one morning I was goin' to work and they was talkin' about integratin' then and this old woman, she was I know she was a old, poor white woman, she said to me, she said ''What do you think about the niggers and the white people associatin'?" I said "What do you mean?" I said "the old white man I notice he see'd to that in his day" and I says "it's a" I said "they's the one had the day and a day" and I said "Now, anybody can go there and talk to anybody they want to." Boy she looked at me all the way to where she had to get off that bus, she looked at me. Rolled her eyes at me [laugh] and I said I said "Now she say another word, I'm gonna tell her something on this bus" I said "I'll fix her." But, she never said nothing else to me [laugh]. I: I guess not. [both laugh]. MC: I guess she didn't want me to let let let nobody know that I knowed that the white man [laugh] went with the colored woman and the colored, the white children, I mean the half-white children always thought they were better than we were. Yeah, they thought they was better 'cause I know Miss Ona [Arlin], she said her husband died here and he was light and she was light skinned and she was [inaudible] father was likin' her and I said "Well, Miss Ona you got you a fella." I said ''That's nice." "But I don't like dark men", she says. I looked at her and I said "What you talkin' about woman [laugh]." "What you goin' with him fer if you don't like him" [laugh] 'cause he had a nice home and took her out in his car and everything but she didn't like dark men. I looked at… I: Well, that was the thing though at one time though, wasn't it? MC: Yeah. Yeah. I: How did that come about? That was how that came about that people MC: What? Choice 18 I: The people who were about half-way thought they were better than people who were black. MC: Yeah. They thought Yeah they thought they were better and down home, the white men had homes they had houses on they place where they kept the black women in and they wife had, they had a wife that I: I wonder what their wives thought? MC: I don't know. I wonder. I have often wondered how they took it, but they did. They's workin' over there to work in the house. Had them little white youngin's but you know I never did I… I like everybody, but I never had much white niggers to do with 'cause they thought they was better than we was. See always thought they were better than black children. They'd want to play with us they'd want to play with you at school, but they got difference on that and I didn't go together. They's a old white they's a colored man lived down here on the corner, right across from the fire station. I: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. MC: On the comer of Depot and… I: And South French Broad. That's right by my house. MC: And South French Broad, uh-huh. He got a white woman, his house is right across the street from the fire station and he's got it fenced in and his wife and him live there and they got the cutest little child. Pretty little brown thing. You see him with the baby. Sometimes she's got the baby and he walkin' along there with her. I love my color. I like the yellow people but they think they are better than we are. They still think they are better. I: You think so? MC: Yes, I do. Yeah, they think they are better than we are. I: Why? MC: I don't know. I just don't understand it but they do. They think they got a light skinned husband, he got a light skinned wife, they don't have too much to do with I: Momma Choice, what kind of food did you all eat when you were growing up? Did you eat anything different from what you eat now? MC: Uh-huh. We eat about the same things that we eat I: Were there any special recipes? Choice 19 MC: Yeah, they had you know, people in the country, course they was good cooks. They'd have all kind of good recipes and Christmas time, honey, they put on the dog [laugh]. You could go to people's house now you don't hear children don't go to nobody's house on Christmas no more. When we lived in the country at home, we'd get up Christmas mornin' we'd go to everybody's house "Merry Christmas" "Merry Christmas" You better not go to nobody's house hollering Merry Christmas now [laugh]. I don't hear no children. They don't bother about comin' to your house. If you go there they'd have all everybody cooked a whole lot of cakes and pies, cookies and one thing and another. Anywhere we went, we'd get some or another but children don't do it now. 'Cause one thing about it, people don't cook like they used to. Did you know that? Half of our women can't cook [laugh]. MC: I know. I: They don't know how [both laugh]. Everything now comes out of cans. MC: Out of cans. Oh that's the truth. That's the whole truth. 'Cause I know one Sunday Reverend White was talkin', he was preachin' and he was talkin' about how they used to, you know, parents used to cook. He said now most everything you get you go to somebody's house now most everything you get is out of a can or a box one [laugh]. I: But people back then cooked everything, didn't they? MC: Yeah, they cooked. Yeah they had hot biscuits in the morning for breakfast. In the morning they'd have hot biscuits, they'd be having grits and fried bacon and hot biscuits but they had children eat hot bread but now you know most of the bread they eat is light bread. They don't hardly get no biscuits.
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Oral Histories of Western North Carolina

These interviews document the communities and culture of Western North Carolina. Topics include the building of the Fontana Dam, the history of WCU, stories from local veterans, integration of the...

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