| Summary: This is an interview with Laura
“Grams” (Simple) Carey (names changed at interviewee’s request). Mrs.
Laura “Grams” was born in 1915 and grew up with both of her parents and
eleven siblings. Her father ran coal mines for a living and three
of her brothers served in World War Two. At the age of fifteen she
moved to Tyron, Pennsylvania, which is still her home now. She went
to school ten miles away at Birmingham, an all-girl’s school. Mrs.
Laura worked as a nurse for the elderly for most of her life, even after
she married in 1934 and began having children. She also worked in a
hand grenade factory for a number of years during World War Two. Religion
has played a very important part in Laura “Grams’” life. In this interview Laura Carey discusses her experiences during World War Two and the women’s rights movement. She also talks about work (1)(2), motherhood, gender relations (particularly in marriage) (1), and education. Transcript of interview by Ms. Heather Moore and Ms. Boni Carey of Mrs. Laura “Grams” Tyron, Pennsylvania March 14, 2004 Heather Moore: We’re doing research on women who lived in the twentieth century and putting the interviews up on the web to provide firsthand sources to researchers on women’s history, if we have permission from the women we interview. Like Boni told you I am particularly interested in the grenade testing part of your life. Laura Grams: Well it was during World War II, and of course I was head one over there. We made had hand grenades now we didn’t do the whole thing. (Background noise and thanking of Boni’s family for coming over for lunch that we all had before the interview as they leave) To get back to what we were talking about, we didn’t complete the whole hand grenade. Now the gadget—stem. The stem that was put in there, I never had one that came back that I tested. I never had one. But we have to watch we tell for what we did, if you know what I mean, because it might be World War II and my daughter, Ellen, at that particular time I was carrying her. Ellen would be living she would be 58 years old right. I’m 89. So I have to watch what I say because when I took what I did, I had to sign my name. But what is most important that you would like to know? HM: There’s a couple different areas I might take with my paper and one of them was talking about the differences in family life through the women and the opportunities they have had. I was wondering if you could tell me some about growing up as a woman and the opportunities you have had and seen open up. (Some talk to Boni about papers) LG: Actually, my life is different than the kids are today growing up. I came from a family of 12, a family of 12. I had three brothers in World War Two, two brothers. And if you want to know as far as life, my daddy runs coal mines, that’s what he did. At 15 years old I came over here to Tyron. And I went down to school Birmingham (an all-girl’s school about 10 miles away next to the river). That wouldn’t be any thing for you, I don’t think so. But then I did nursing, for older people. That was for my life. Even after I was married I did still done that type of work. I done forget about it, Boni (daughter of Ellen—thus Grams’ granddaughter) don’t know too much but if Laurie (Boni’s older sister by 14 years) was here she could tell you. And then I went to the war plant. I was over there from the time it almost opened until the day that Ellen was born October the 7th and the day before that things were settled with the war. See what I mean? Outside of that I have to watch what I say. If you were to say to me, ‘do you remember all you done for them hand grenades’ I don’t believe I could. Because it’s one thing after things are over that you almost dismiss it you know from your mind. But we had three floors over there. I imagine there might have been four or five hundred over there at the war plant. It’s not even over there anymore. They tore that down when I-99 went through. HM: Four or five hundred women? LG: Oh no, there were men too. Not too many men; not too many men. HM: It was mostly women? LG: I’d have to say more so the ones that done the firing, plumber, maybe making different chairs. They weren’t a chair, more like bench that a lot of people who run machines could put their feet up on it. In fact my husband when he got laid off he went over and he got a job almost right away because he could do almost anything. Of course, I don’t have my husband anymore now. But it was more women—from over the mountain: El Tuna (southwest), Bellwood (right before El Tuna, southwest), Osceola (over the mountain in the north), Warriors Mark (east between Tyron and State College). All those places was over there. There might have been even more than 500 because there was three floors. HM: So it wasn’t like city women but country women? LG: I would have to say country women. Yes, I’d have to say that. HM: Did they live at the plant or did they live like…? LG: Like I said…. HM: Did they commute in? LG: Well a lot of people come from Lewistown (East). In fact, Mr. Rowhan, I don’t think Boni even remembers him. He was one of the bosses and he was from Huntingdon (Southeast). We had some fine people over there. I think we all loved one another. Boni Carey (helper): Did they have to move over here or did they have to drive back and forth? LG: I’d say they drove. I know they drove from over home, I came from Sandy Ridge, I wasn’t born and raised over here (Tyron). A lot came from Saltburg (doesn’t exist anymore), Osceola, Eton (near Bellfont area northeast), Delta (near Hunningdon), Sandy Ridge (north), and I’d have to say Huntingdon, Lewistown, El Tuna, Bellwood, Grazierville (between El Tuna and Tyron). They came from all around because at that time work was really bad but yet a lot that had went to the service still some of the people couldn’t do what they did. You know what I mean? I have to say that I have, oh yeah. And the stores down in Tyron at that time, golly you could go down there and buy just about anything. You go down there today and you wonder what you’re going to buy because so many of them have closed up. They can’t, these malls and stuff have taken over. They’ll say shop Tyron, and I’ll say what are you going to shop for? They have a shoe store and that lady I can’t think of her name, Maryanne, she has a shop there where the old bank building is right there at 10th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. And when they took Ames out, they took another good store out—Family Dollar. They took that out and put it up where my brother is at Colonial. Actually, there ain’t hardly anything really. At the time of WWII, heavens they had anything and everything down there—shoe shops, dress shops, suit shops, anything and everything you name it. But actually Tyron is just getting to be like El Tuna, and over home at Sandy Ridge and down through there. Malls (North) is taking over. Now you take, Penn State, now you know State College, people go over there that live over home. I always call Sandy Ridge, over home because that’s where I was born and raised at. I could write a book. I really could, of my life. I could write a book. HM: Well I’m willing to listen. That’s what I’m here to do. (Mumbling of lots of noise of everyone laughing at me) LG: Well whatever you want me to tell you, I’d gladly tell you. But really and truly, if I had to choose from today and my life growing up, I’d still take my life growing up. Because, today there’s nothing to look forward to. And as you’re growing up you have something to look forward too—you think of meeting somebody, getting married, and having your family and what you’re going to do and so on. You don’t hear that too much anymore. BC: Not really. LG: A lot don’t even bother getting married. In fact just like Matthew (Boni’s cousin) here, him and his girlfriend lived how long Bon. BC: Ummm, about a year. LG: About a year or so. HM: Now that’s something that’s very much Boni and mine’s generation though, that’s not something that you really saw before right? LG: Oh NO. Matthew, what’s the name of the girl he went with before, what was her name? BC: Abby? LG: No not Abby, before that. I can’t think. Well, thank god they didn’t live together. They might as well have, they were always together. He graduated up here at the high school. There’s just so much of it and I just don’t know. BM: Well, you got married pretty young didn’t you? LG: Me, I was married in October and 19 in January. HM: That’s very young. I mean, both my grandparents got married at 19 and my grandmother told me later once my grandfather passed away, she’s passed away and Boni and Dan (Boni’s ex-boyfriend) were the ones there when I actually got the news, that she was so happy that she got to try, and it was the first time she was on her own and she was so happy that she got to do things on her own finally. Do you ever have that feeling? LG: Well I suppose down the line, yeah I supposed I did. I did. HM: But you don’t regret the decision to get married young do you? LG: Oh no. No no no no no. You know, my mother had a slogan, and I had one of the dearest mothers-in-law that anyone would ever want Mother Simple*—god bless her. She say to you ‘You know Laura, you don’t really know a person until you get married and live with them.’ Truer words were never spoken. You’ve heard of people, I could name a lot of people really, that say ‘You know Laura, if your mother said it and Mother Simple said it, then it’s true.’ You know you could go with a man for two years and never really know them but once the day you get married you really start to know them. I’ve had ones that when I was at Birmingham School, some of the girls at the schools that came from the South, all around, New York City, Mexico, and you know it. I forget how many nationalities is down there. And talk, talk, talk but you never heard one of them ever say something about going with someone. When they had their graduation parents were there, sisters and brothers but you didn’t see anybody else. No, I don’t know how many would be down there today. Four of us, my sisters and I, all worked and stayed down there. Lovely, lovely people but I don’t know. Just like my oldest boy, Merle, him and Faith got married early and their life was just like this (crosses her fingers) until they parted. They had two girls and three boys, is what they had. She went her way and the others went and stayed with my son out at Bald Eagle. That’s just the way things go. Why, you take Freddy and Gloria, look at how long they were married when you think of it. They had a trailer out here and the chemical. HM: So when you were growing up there weren’t that many divorces? LG: No, there weren’t any like that. But when they parted she wanted to go her life and didn’t want no family. She said I still love you but I want me own life. And she went over to state college and got into a mess and that was it. BC: Why do you think people get divorced more now then they did back then? LG: Oh yes, Boni. BC: But why do you think so? LG: I don’t know. I can’t answer it. You see a lot of young people don’t want to hear ‘you go to church’ (they respond) ‘oh I don’t go to church. I haven’t got time for that. I sleep in on Sunday morning.’ That’s some of the things I used to hear but one wants to go to church and the other don’t want to go to church. Well if you don’t wanna go then I ain’t going to church and that’s the way things start to go. Now, Gloria, Fred’s Gloria now, she never once went to church and Freddy he went to Grace Baptist. But young people today don’t give a. You take Matthew, he was brought up going to church. But when he started going with, she didn’t go so Matthew didn’t go. Well you aren’t going to tell a 17 year old that you have to go or you won’t be in my house. No, Fred’s not like that because Freddy is a person who believes that one of these days he’ll find out that dad’s right and his mother is right and he’ll start to go. I say to him ‘Matthew why don’t you go to church anymore?’ ‘Well Tanda doesn’t go.’ Yes but she’s responsible for herself and you’re responsible for yourself. I ain’t saying that you can’t go to heaven if you don’t go to church because that’s a building but I try to answer them the best I know how. But all of us has our own lives. If you don’t go to church I ain’t saying you don’t belong to the lord. You can’t answer that, you don’t know that. You read your bible and say your prayers and so what that’s all god almighty wants. But you’d be surprised at the answers I get from Matthew. I never once said anything to Tanda because it’s none of my business what they do. So, I do like her. HM: So you’ve seen the decline in religion throughout the years. Well, people doing religious activities (Boni interrupts) BC: Well back in your day, the social place to go would be church, like if you wanted to meet a nice man, and now that’s changed? LG: Oh you said a mouthful. That’s right. Yes yes yes. I lost two brothers and two sisters in my family. I’m not bragging but we was a wonderful family. We always stuck together. HM: Now, I’ve noticed up here you guys are all close like Boni’s cousins came over and you’re down the street from Boni’s house. Is that, do you think a lot of the social mobility and the women getting involved in the work force is maybe why a lot of things have changed on the family stuff? LG: Oh yeah, so many of the people you talk to would say ‘I used to do that, I used to do that’ (nickname stuff left out). What would you do do do do do. I can’t say I’d do that same thing or I’d do what they want to do. You can’t answer that. They ask you something and you know deep down in your heart that you don’t want to hurt their feelings you you’ll say ‘well whatever the lord led you to do.’ Well there’s nothing you can do and sometimes that don’t answer the question. Oh, I don’t know. BC: Do you think that back when you were growing up, the mom stayed at home and took care of the kids, like you were talking about earlier today (over a lunch discussion arguing about home work being work or not work because it wasn’t paid—McClurken I won thanks to help from your class last semester) do you think the reason there are more divorces and a decline in religion is because women work more then they used to? LG: Yes I do believe that Boni. My bible tells me where a woman is in the home my bible tells me where the daddy, not the father we only have one father (lesson on the father son and Holy Ghost being one in the same), that’s your husband talked about in the bible. Today it seems, hey Boni this goes a way long way back (Boni was shaking her head no). Seldom did you ever see a woman go to work. Now she’s obligated to go help a neighbor when she had small child who came to the hospital but I mean go to the factories and work, go, go, go do these things. I don’t know Boni. But I do know one thing people were more happy and contended when they were in the home. When you get out and get around the people of the world, you get around all kinds of people. Some people are easily led and some aren’t. See what I mean? Then sometimes the husband and wife cast some confusion. I work and I’m going to do what I want to do with my money you can do what you want to do but we have to pay the bills. So she give in and down the road he needs money and he lets her pay all the bills. This is the stuff I hear and it’s all true. Merle, (her husband not her son who has the same name) now I had a wonderful husband Boni knows that, he never once ever asked me for my money. Never and I worked up there at the school for 14 and a half years. Never, never, (he said) I’m the head of the house I’ll pay the bills if you want to get this or that for in the home. And that’s what I did. I didn’t go splurging. I didn’t go out and buy a lot of clothes and stuff like that. I’m not like that. But that’s not the way it is today. I can name quite a few people you’d even know that they refuse to give any of their husbands any of their money. This is what is sad, if the woman is willing to go and work for maybe too for their home and work together. I don’t see one thing wrong with that, really I don’t. Because they both are wanting to get a home and get it fixed up not go get everything elaborate. I mean down to earth people. But some many times I hear ‘You know Laura, I work and all and I get the groceries and he thinks I ought to do this and that and he wants something like hunting, he wants to go fishing, he wants to buy this or that. Well I’m taking my money this time.’ The next thing they start going in the hole. And then their credit is no good. Well that spoils for her as well as for him. So many people and couples are like that. (Story about John a neighbor and his wife.) I hope I’m not talking too much. HM: Oh, no not at all. I had a question, umm, on relationships with other females. The major way you met people and did social things was with churches when you were younger, if I understood right. Could you talk some about the social ties with the women maybe growing up and in the factory and such? LG: Well, our family had to go to church. We loved to go to church. The more older we got the more we did. When I was fifteen I came over. I stayed with my Aunt Gerdie, that was my mother’s sister’s daughter. And they were good Christian people and I just have to thank god in my younger life that I could go to my Aunt Gerdie’s and I was there until I was 18 years old. Whenever I started to go with Merle, I was always involved in Church work—the youth for Christ and all that because it was the life I always prayed that I wanted. I didn’t want to do something to be sorry for. A lot of times in my life and growing up they really didn’t have the things then like they do today like football games, baseball games—they had baseball places over home but nothing elaborate. What we knew was to go to school; like I told Forrest (Boni’s nephew) no it was Matthew, ‘when did you have to go to school Grams’. We had to go to school for nine o’clock we can get out at twelve o’clock back at one o’clock and out at four o’clock. That was the way our school was, we had good teachers. They could be mean but they had room to do it sometimes because sometimes the older ones would try to be smart. That’s growing up I know that. As far as my life is concerned, I have to say I had a good life; I had a wonderful life (explains life as a roller coaster with her hands). I’ll never forget it, when I got married I said you know something in ‘38 I’ll go housekeeping, I was right here in this home. From the time I was married in ‘34 until I had my oldest boy, Bud—god love him, and we built this house over here, I don’t mean this one right here (right out the window) it’s the one ‘long side it, but Boni knows which one I mean. HM: Ok. LG: But my husband’s a carpenter, plumber, you know it he could do it and he worked the paper mill over here. So I went to housekeeping, well then Dad Simple, Merle’s dad, he heard about this farm, you know over where the Sportsmen (apparently some sort of bar as I would find out later on in the visit) are Boni, the one by Bald Eagle. Well I always liked farming. I liked to be where there’s a garden, have trees, and all that. Well me saying that and Merle liking that, Dad Simple he went and bought it. He was an engineer on the railroad. He drove trains of course when they got the other kind that didn’t need no firemen he got a big metal because he had been there 14 years. Dad Simple built this house, well he had men that built it. Well anyway Dad Simple come over and he say ‘honeygirl, you like farming and you like being out in the country’ oh he named all these things and I didn’t know what he was getting at and he said ‘it’s very nice out there and I bought it and you and Merle can do you what to do the place is yours. If you want to I know someone who would love to have your house here.’ My heart went clear down like this (points to stomach). You can talk about something but you don’t know if you’re going to experience it or not. But just as one didn’t I didn’t. I liked my little home here. So Mother Simple—god bless her I couldn’t say enough of that dear soul, she said ‘well dad and I’ll try to come out anytime we can when we can when he has a day off or even on the weekends.’ I wouldn’t have hurt that woman life for the world. If I had to go down to the valley of death I would that’s how much I thought of that soul. Well, we were out there not over two years and then Merle’s brother and we had Bud and we were out there and I tell you I got so homesick so lonely and I often say all I hear is “cow’s balling” or something like that. You just couldn’t see nothing. Dad Simple come out and say honeygirl I hope you like it out here, of course it was in the summertime it made a little bit of a difference. But when it came winter, things got down and Merle and Harry went over to Sandy Ridge brickyard, there’s two brickyards there—Sandy Ridge and Brictot. Well all night long Bud and I was there all by ourselves because they went to work. I hated it then worst yet. So I had next thing to a breakdown and I had to tell Merle then I said ‘well dad I can’t take this’ and he said ‘no, I could see it and my mom said so too.’ So Dr. Greenday said ‘it’s nice to have something like that but if you were there it’d make a big difference.’ So I said, “Oh lord” and I cried out to the lord many times. Dad Simple had an apple tree out here and Dad Simple—god bless him—said he’s going to hand pick them apples and then laid them up. Well Mom Simple said be careful. Well he got on the stepladder and he was a big man and he fell and he broke his hip. HM: Oh no. LG: He said he wanted to see me. He said Laura would you do me a favor, I never let on to him that I hated it out there but I think Merle might have told him, he said would you move back in with mom and help mom. And I was happy as a lark. So at a snap of her finger we sold that and gave dad Simple all the money that he had put it back in the bank. I was a different girl, but I came back in home and had to store all my furniture. So that was one thing I was let down of course but I went to housekeeping after Dad got on his feet. We moved out but things didn’t go right in the home. Dad Simple got sick and next thing you knew Merle said that his mom wanted to see me. And we moved back home. I just had Ellen. (Talks of the shadow and mountains in the path the lord makes.) That dear soul said to me, I hate to ask you I’ll get rid of my stuff I really will if you will come in with me. So I did. So then we bought the house, not out of my money it was Merle’s money. And we paid Mother Simple for the house but see that was most of my life. But you know it’s wonderful to sit back and think Lord I’m glad you used me. You used me sometimes I didn’t like you down through the valley and so on like that. But it makes you stronger. HM: Now did you have a lot of female friends that came and visit you? LG: Oh not out in the country. HM: But here? LG: Oh my yeah. HM: Were they through the church group? LG: Yeah. HM: Did you guys do a lot of social functions? BC: Grams use to hold church here. Didn’t you used to have church here? LG: Yes I had church here for quite awhile, right here in my living room. I did, down at Grace Baptist when our preacher left. Why we couldn’t keep things going down there and actually we built that because we sold it to I couldn’t even tell you the guy’s name he’s from El Tuna. So we met right here and I looked forward to it. And then some of the people couldn’t come when it was winter (it’s at the top of a steep hill). So we moved down to Olive Johnson’s down there on Lincoln Avenue. Then I started going to church on Adam’s Avenue. It’s nice to have friends. If you don’t have friends, I think have an awful life. HM: Now what kind of activities did you guys get together and do? LG: I’d have to say we shared in things in the Bible. Just like we’d say let’s get into the book of Revelations. But before that mostly what we’d do is in the Old Testament. Because when you go through the Old Testament you life almost goes like this from what you came through yourself. So now we’re not living in the past now but yet we still have to go back to the Old Testament to know what will face us. To know what is coming now, know what I mean? (List off people that can relate) When we talk about things going wonderful the bible tells us when you think things just going wonderful, I’ll put it in words you’ll understand one of these days it’s just gonna back up. And one of these days it is. (rotated the tape during which time Grams moved on to explaining bad things…) kill all the cattle because they didn’t have the grain to feed them, so they are looking for work looking for work there’s so much shooting and killing, and so on rape you know it. So much of it. So what do you do? You cry out to the lord all the more because you can almost put your own self just like that train wreck. Look at the people that got killed. Out there last week, there were three trains in Spain and last night I heard 190 people had died and they don’t even know about the rest of them how they’re gonna live or not gonna live. See what I mean? These things have to happen because the bible says so. See what I mean? BC: When you were little, what did you and your friends do when you got together? Like when you were growing up? LG: What do you mean? BC: Did you go shopping or? LG: Shopping, no Boni when I was a kid the only time I went shopping was with my mom when she went down to Osaola to get her groceries. BC: What did you guys do? LG: We had no stores over home. Only grocery stores and the butcher shop, that’s it. HM: Did you guys get together and do things like I guess they would be called home economics things now? Like.... BC: Cooking or sewing. What did you guys do for fun? LG: What did we do for fun? All we knew Boni, wash up the supper dishes, go to the dinning room do our homework, and go to bed. We had jacks, we played a ball—not football just a ball, and during the summer time we had mud hole. And if the boys got there before the girls, the girls had to come back. The girls down there we’d chase the boys away so we could go swimming (laughing). HM: So it really wasn’t boys and girls together doing activities? LG: Oh no, never. I never even had a bathing suit when I was a kid back home. We put on a top, you know like a shirt over, and our underwear. I never had a bathing suit until I came down to Aunt Gerdie’s. BC: What did you guys do for dates? LG: Boni, really and truly we girls would get together and the boys if the boys had a birthday or if there was a baseball game. We’d all meet down where they played baseball, Tyron used to play over there. Bellwood use to play over there. Phislburg played there. Osceola use to play there. Eden and Osceola I believe came in together. But really we had no arc lights. What I mean, when our daddy whistled we knew to go home because nine o’clock you were in bed. That was our life. And it was a good life. BC: What about when you and Pap, like when Pap was courting you, when you started seeing Pap what did you guys do when you and Pap got together—like would you go to the movies or...? LG: Well I was never much of a movie person. More so we’d go to someone’s house with at about that time the TV was just starting to come in. BC: That’s right you didn’t have the TV. LG: So therefore we didn’t have a lot. All we had was radio. So sometimes we’d dance or we’d sing or we’d go for a ride. Sometimes, I’ll tell you one thing. BC: But Pap used to hitchhike to come visit you on the weekends. LG: Then he’d have a ford roadster and I’d have to take him home because he’d be plastered. He was tired. Then your grandpap had a sandbank down here towards Fort Matilda. And they didn’t go there to work because of the hot hot sun and they were down in a hole. And I used to go down there in the evening while he was working because I wasn’t the racing down there. And the other ones had their wives. Boni, we didn’t have nothing like you guys, nothing. We didn’t even have a radio at home until I would say I might have been 13 or 14 years old. I’ll never forget the name of it—Water Kent. You don’t even hear of it anymore. HM: Now was there always someone else when you guys got together, like group dating? I mean, it’s not like when Boni and I go out, we go out with one guy and we might go out to dinner but it’s just me and the guy it’s not like a group. Was it more of a group setting? LG: …we would get together on the porch and sing and play jacks; there was nothing else to do. Nothing else to do. Then once in a while go out. I never really cared too much for the movies, now they had movies two of them down there: El Patio and Mitcho. None of us would ever think about going to a movie. We’d sit there and swing and sing and something like that. There’s so many things the kids do today that we didn’t because we weren’t allowed to in plain words. Whenever come ten o’clock you were off the porch. It was suppertime because Uncle Herb had to go to work and Aunt Gerdie she done a lot of baking for people she wanted to help out and I’d help Aunt Gerdie. HM: Now was that another thing that was really common up. I grew up in city and my mom grew the backwaters of Tennessee but moved a bunch and my grandmother talked about it before, is it something that was common if one woman got sick or was in childbearing or just had a child or pretty far along, did you all get together and do the baking and different activities? LG: Oh yeah. Oh yes indeed. BC: Grandma helped out. HM: Even with the housecleaning and such? LG: Wherever I felt I was needed. They would call and I’d hear about this or that and I was there. I just had Bud at the time and Mother Simple was here to take care of him. I was over at (list of neighbors) I worked for people. Not they didn’t pay me. You’d go there and oh we have to give you something, we appreciate that. But you know you’d felt better by not taking it because you were doing them a favor. But you don’t do that with a lot of people. You didn’t dare walk out of some houses without taking money. (Short story of a neighbor that paid her but she asked to not include the story). We grew up that way to help people. You don’t help people to get always paid. Sometimes they didn’t have but they’d take their last cent to pay you. I’d sooner have my life than what some of these are today. There are so many girls and so many fellows that I just don’t understand them. HM: Now would you say a lot of it has come from, well you didn’t have a lot of the media because you said you didn’t like to go to the movie but would you say a lot of it has to do with as women got the right to vote, as women did the equal rights movement and as they become more public figures it took the toll? LG: I don’t know how to answer that honey. It’s something people have to almost speak for themselves because I don’t think I could answer that. Because I would be putting myself ahead of them because if that’s the way they think that they want it I can’t speak for them. You can’t hardly, I could talk to you two here and say this or that but down the road you don’t know the other person would feel. You can’t hardly speak something like that for how they feel. I’ve often heard people say ‘since people doing this and people doing, women outdoing men, women want the vote, and the right to be that, and look to be that.’ I never ever expected a woman to ever want to be the president. You know what I mean? I hear people say so and so would be a better president then this man. I think the world and all of Bush because he belongs to the lord and he’s not afraid to pray and he’s not afraid to ask the lord in front of thousands and thousands of people because he knows who he goes to, to get his answers. Know what I mean? But they went on about Clinton, all I heard was what was on TV when he was in for president. Was it true what he did, can you prove it? No you can’t prove it. Maybe some people can. But you have to watch you say about the other person because you aren’t in that person’s shoes. HM: That’s true. So would you say the women’s movement affected your life a lot? LG: Say that again? HM: The women’s movement: like getting the right to vote and moving outside the home and jobs and stuff. Would you say that affected your life a lot? LG: No. HM: No, like the factory and teaching and did a lot of work at home with growing up with the kids. And that’s something you would have done even if the women’s movement hadn’t happened? LG: Oh sure that’s true. Yup. Sometimes you hear people talk about life being like a bouquet of flowers. Well at first it might have felt like dandelion but as you get older the good lord puts you through something to let you know that he carries you through that but you’s on better ground then you thought you were. See what I mean? That’s right. If we get down through the trials and tribulations we learn a lot. We think we don’t. But when He puts you down through those trials and tribulations and brings you up, you have to thank him because it draws you closer to the lord. I’ll tell you honeygirl, Mother Simple was a bleeder, a hemophiliac, so was Dad Simple. That dead soul that I speak so highly of laid five of her children that bleed to death, laid them out, they didn’t have funeral homes like they do today. Right here where this window is the whole five of them laid. BC: I didn’t know that. LG: Now I don’t know nothing about it but I know through Mother Simple. BC: Were they able to go to the hospitals? LG: They didn’t have hospitals then. HM: She survived through the pregnancies and stuff even without. Is that something you saw a lot of as growing up at the rate of survival? LG: My oldest boy Bud was a bleeder, so was her mother (Boni’s mom) a bleeder. I never saw so much blood in all my life as I did in my younger life. Merle bleed, Bud bleed, Ellen bleed, Mother Simple bleed, Dad Simple bleed, my sister bleed, Peg bleed. I never in my life saw so much. I have taken my boy, he was bleeding so bad and we had a doctor. The doctor said the only thing I can tell you to do is chill him, we had to put him in cold water. That dear little boy at that time was only two or three year old. You go to bed at night and you wonder if they are ok, are they not bleeding. That’s the life that I went through because we didn’t really realize and know what they know today about bleeding. Now this might sound silly to you but it’s the god’s truth some dear person at one time told Dad Simple done all them years down on the railroad as an engineer, he’d get nose bleeds, his blood was too thin. So this one dear man, he says did you ever hear of taking a chunk of bacon and you use the fatty part and make what you can put up your nose and it’ll stop. Dad Simple had his fat meat, when my husband went to work he had his fat meat. Well you do what you have to. You make a plug then Bud would cry so if we tried to do it to him…. He grew out of it. I know it was an answer to prayer. I can’t say I never doubted because that would be a lie. I’ve see so much blood in the Simple’s it was something else…But that dear soul laid five children out in a little casket right here. And Bud, the oldest boy, when Mother Simple passed away she was here and my oldest boy crawled up and got alongside her in the casket. Now that almost kills you. Now the road was pretty rough a long time ago but the good lord has been along. HM: So you think the change of moving funerals to funeral homes has been a better change for family life or just a change? LG: I don’t know the funeral was right here. Mother was right here. The Reverend took care. Dad Carey was right here. I could write a book. But it was a good life. (Lord valleys again) And that was my life and if I had to go through it again maybe I could go through it stronger than I am today because I remember. You expect more when you’re younger. Heck those things happened to us in the ‘20s. (Talk of Bud growing out of bleeding by 16). HM: The biggest determining part of your life would say religion or being a mom? LG: Trusting in the lord. HM: I don’t think I have anymore questions. I just like to sit and listen. BC: Same here that’s why I choose to stay around. HM: But you choose to be a mom? BC: You were really active in your kids’ lives. HM: But stay at home moms now aren’t as active in the kids’ lives usually. Now did you experience any sort of like community not liking the fact that you stayed at home, or not like the women that went to work, or was there different views? LG: The thing of it today is that you can’t hardly speak for anyone. We’re in a different generation. The girls of today, they talk, young ladies, they talk. We choose when we got married that we were going to be with our families. So when we heard of a girl in our church we’d go help them. We were always the person behind the kids growing up. Mom always sent one of us girls out to help. That’s how we were brought up to help. We had a big home in Sandy Ridge. My dad run coal mines and all. It was a good life. But today we didn’t have a lot of clothes or jewelry or anything like that, like today. I had to laugh one day out at Laurie’s I said towels, towels, towels. We had a washstand with a rod that went across it and we had a big bowl and a pitcher. Now you’re gonna say what are you talking about? HM: I’ve actually seen them. LG: When we took our bath my mom carried the water up and dumped the water in and we’d take a bath. Same way with the boys. The boys was on one side and the girls was on the other side of our home. When we were kids growing up we had one towel a week and that’s the truth! A wash rag and towel then we had a towel for our butt. I don’t know about out Kohl has to have one towel here and one towel and one around here. HM and BC: (Laughing) I use two. LG: How can a towel be dirty if you laid it up over the rod and dried, your body was clean? I do like to have two washrags I will say that. Another thing we had a laugh about is underwear. Well maybe three times out of the week not every day did we have to change our underwear, nope because we didn’t have that many. Same with socks we wore socks maybe two days then we’d get a new pair. That’s the way it was. We didn’t have clothes where every day we could change all our clothes. No. We wore aprons. BC: You had to have had work clothes. LG: At home we had aprons. We had cook stoves and a furnace. HM: Cook stoves are the ones you brought the wood in right? LG: Yeah. HM: The biggest thing I remember about the cook stove is that women now had to make multiple parts to the meal no more just potatoes and meat for dinner every night. (Laughing) LG: Yes. We had a furnace too. HM: Now was it the women’s chore to do the fuel? LG: Now my daddy brought up the coal. We had a big coal thing outside. People didn’t steal stuff like they do today. You could put anything out in the yard and it’d be there tomorrow. Now we had big aprons we’d put on when we went to the table, wash dishes or whatever we had to do. Well these days young girls don’t ever think about an apron. Therefore we saved our clothes. And I sure that I got clothes up there that aren’t even dirty, well wash it anyway. We wash things to death these days. Today we live in a different, different world. I would still choose mine. I wouldn’t want to live my life over because it was a good life. Growing up you’d see kids getting this and that and we couldn’t get this or that but it’d make us stronger and appreciate what we did get. BC: Well Grams you have a lot of skills that I have no clue. You know how to cook, how to sew—she still has the old sewing machine, the pedal one. HM: Cool, I don’t think I could coordinate that. All I think I could do is push the petal and the needle goes, the crank thing is too much. LG: (Laughs at Boni and I) HM: Well that’s all stuff that was taught at school or home or what? LG: Oh I learned that from my mother. BC: Wasn’t it essential to day to day? LG: We had a bench, our table, we had a big kitchen. BC: Well you had twelve kids and two parents. LG: Now when my mother went to bake, which was every week. My mother on a Saturday morning is when she’d start her baking. But you’d bake bread twice a week, homemade bread. Greta and Laura and Dora would sit in the back there and the other kids would be standing. Now we didn’t dare reach over we would have been smacked. We would watch our mother make up the dough, do this do that and so on. Now this is what I’m going to do and as you grow up and get older it would get in your mind. All of us girls could bake cakes, bake bread, bake pies, you name it. When she made soup or anything, now this is what we would do. Now I had a wonderful mother, a beautiful mother. Boni never saw my mother. Laurie did. But my daddy played a juice harp. BC: Like a harmonica? LG: No Mother Simple played one we called in a mouth organ. BC: What’s a juice harp? LG: Something like the same thing. My mother would take the tablecloth off the dining table and we’d play jacks or we’d play old maid. That’s what we did. We had a good life. Some girls would go to the movies with their parents. My daddy didn’t even own a car, he had an old wheelbarrow. (Laughing). But that’s very true. HM: What type of technology most changed your life? LG: I could never answer that. BC: All of them. LG: I could never answer that. I had a great life. I had a life that you could appreciate later that you look back and say I got through all that. As you’re growing up you learn to know your mommy and daddy and your friends and enemies. When I was over at the war plant I had 68 girls on the third floor. If I was to say which one I like the best, I couldn’t answer that because I liked them all. HM: Were they mostly married women? LG: I’d have to say some but no. More married women then young girls. They were terrific, they were really nice. They’d really help you out, know what I mean. And I had a lady above me that was my boss and Rowhan was above us. (Story about furnace) The day the war was over, I didn’t have to buy one thing for that girl (Ellen). They had anything and everything for that girl. I didn’t have to buy one thing. Nothing to complain about. Oh yeah that was the good old days. HM: They sound a lot simpler than today. LG: They were. **All cities are little cities mostly thrown together under Tyron on a map. They operate by school districts not counties because they don’t exist. Most of the little towns mentioned ~~Two years ago this April, April 2002, Grams was diagnosed with breast cancer and given two years to live. However her spirituality has pulled her through and she has yet to slow down compared to that time (according to Boni). |