Document text
First copy, Dec. 28, 1938
Rewritten, May 15, 1939
Mrs. Carrie Hepler (white)
Wilson's Road, Fairview, N.C.
Rural School teacher, Practical Nurse
WPA teacher
Anne Winn Stevens, writer
MRS. NANNIE CARSON
Original Names
Yrs. Carrie Hepler
Craistown
The Craigs
Fairview, N.C.
Asheville, N.C.
Nesbit School
A Mrs. Craig
A little girl
Lester Craig
Another Mrs. Craig
Sheriff Brown
The Ogleabys
Mrs. Oglesby
Fayde Nesbit
Henderson County, N.C.
Winston-Salem, N.C.
Dr. Lynch
Changed Names
Mrs. Nannie Carson
Hackletown
The Hackles
Oakville
Beaumont
Norton School
Rena Hackle
Mattis Hackle
Larry Hackle
Ella Hackle
Sheriff Davis
The Goldbys
Mrs Goldby
Fred Norton
Harrison County
Raleigh
Dr. Lambert
Original Names gpanifid NW),
Wilson Road Maxwell Road
Mrs, Wilson Mrs. Maxwell
Unknown Mrs. Harris, Mrs. Payne,
Mrs. Brown
MRS. NANNIE CARSON
"Sit right down here by this table," said Nannie Carson,
"and I'll be glad to tell you about my work in Hackletown."
She laid aside her modist, dark green coat, and straightened
her small, booms hat with its pert, green feather. "I have
to take a music lesson in half an hour, but I can tell you
a lot, if I talk fast," Te pulled up our chairs to a long
table in one of the Board of Iclucationgs outer offices.
She took out of her brown leather bag a bunch of kodak,pio-
tures. "These will show you some of the people I work with
and how they live," she explained.
"I reckon my supervisors told you about me," she said con-
fidently. "They like to tell how for a year I walked 15
miles every Monday in order to teach some illiterates, who
live 'way back in one of the coves. There's a whole car
munity living on a ridge. They are very poor, and they've
intermarried until they're all kin to each other. The
main family is the Hackles and the name of their settlement
is Hackletown. The mountains out Hackletown off from the
good farming sections, and the highway and the roads going
into it are so bad the school buses can't come within three
miles of it. The people are real degraded. They don't
live very far from Beaumont, and only about ten miles from
my home, Oakville, but they are just plain wild,
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'All those Hackles are bootleggers. They'll take you for a
spy of the revenue officers. The men stay drunk every week-
end from Friday to Monday.'“
Nannie took from the package on the table in unmounted
kodak picture of a two -roomed log cabin, its wide cracks
chinked with clay. Before it, straggled a family of seven:
a lanky mountaineer, his bedraggled wife, and five anemic
looking children.
"This is the first cabin I vie ted," said Nannie. "The
man's a bootlegger. The woman is now one of my pupils. She
is 30 years old, but she's never learned to read or write.
I had several prints made from this negative so I can give
her one. She has never had her picture made nor her ohil-
dren's before.
"The day I first visited this cabin, I was real nervous.
The woman, Rena Hackle, was out in her yard. When she saw
me coals', she ran in the house and shut the door. When I
knocked, she opened the door just a crack, and stuck her
head out. Her hair was frowsy and her mouth and teeth black-
ened with snuff. She did not ask me in, but I just eased by
her into the room, The air was fowl inside. It nearly
choked me. I was afraid to Way, but I sat down on the edge
of the nearest chair, and just tried beint frien'ly. I
didn't get very far with any of the Hackles that first visit.
But every week I would come back and keep on bein, friently.
Sometimes though, I was }rightly discouraged, and ready to quit.
"I'm a practical nurse as well as a teacher. I spent two
years in Raleigh with my married sister, after I had graduated
from high school, and did a good deal of nursin, there under
a doctor's directions. When I saw how bad Rena's children
needed medical attention, I showed her how to clean their
sores, and treat their burns. By and by, 17 got her to wash
and mend their clothes, and to clean up her house and let
some air in it.
"One of the Children, Nettie, six years old, was real
pretty and smart. She was friently too. When I came, sile
would run out to meet me laughint and Jumping about. But
one day when I came as usual, she didn't take any notice.
She was layin on the bed. 'She's been porely for seviral
days,' said 'Rena, 'but she ain't sick much,' T went to the
side of the bed. Mattis stared at me without recolnizie
me. She was gaspint and shiverin,' and her hands and feet
were purple. Because I had done a lot of nursin,' I saw at
once what ailed her. The child was dyinl of pneumonia. When
I told the family how ill Mitttie was, they were very ninth up-
set. They sent in a hurry for Larry Hackle, her grantfather,
the only one in the family who had a car, and they wrapped
her up, and took her in Larry's car. They had to go across
the mountain to 7,et to a doctor. But it was too late. Sh.
died the nexl day.
"Rena didn't have anythin' decent to bury the *Mid in
so I bought a white, muslin dress with a little scrap of
lace on it, and sent it to her for Mattie. ',ver since then,
she and all her kin have looked to me as their friend."
Rennie pointed to a child in the kodek picture. "That's
Mettle," she said, "this is the only likeness they will ever
have of her."
"In the next cabin, Ella Hackle is expectin' another baby.
Her humband's on WPA, and they already have a house full of
children. The youngest is barely a year old. She didn't
have any baby clothes ready, nor any material to make any;
so I begged some for her from my friends. Ella has a good
voice. So I'm teachint her songs, and she's teaching them
to the other women and the children. She's learnin' to read,
too, and to keep house better.
"The leader of the Heckles is Larry. He's the head of the
famlly. be owns an old fashion water wheel and lathe, and
a chair factory down by the stream. But he doesn't make
chairs any more. Nobody buys them now, and his hands are
stiff with rheumatism so as he couldn't make chairs if they'd
still sell. He is 72 years old. Here's a kodak of his mill.
Picturesque ain't it? Larry suspicioned me at first, but
he's real frien'ly now. On cold days, he goes from one house
to another to see that a fire is ready for me, 'It's about
all I'm good for,' he says. He isn't one to praise people
much. All he says is 'I ain't never herd nobuddy say nothin,
agin' you or agin, yore work.'
Larry's wife is deaf and feeble, and can only sit by the fire
all day and look after little Mary, her idiot grantehild.
There are cracks in the walls and floor of their cabin through
which a eat could crawl. Neither Larry's wife nor dosie, his
daughter-in-law who lives with them, has ever sewed a stiteh,
but Larry boasts of the "purty dresses he vuster sew' with
his own hands before they got crippted with rheumatism. I'm
teachinl Josie to sew, just to make simple garments. I
started her to =kin' an apron. I gave her the material and
out her a pattern. She's very near-sighted, I'm hopint I
can get some one to fit her to spectacles.
"Tho h I was warned against the Hackles, I've never
found them anything but courteous and kind. They've always
treated me with respect.
"One day when I went on my rounds as usual, I passed a
group of men shootin, at a mark.
"'MU' Carson,' they said, 'come and shoot with us.'
One man handed me a double barreled un. I hesitated, I
hadn't shot at a mark in five years. The men thought I was
scared to try. I saw one wink at the others. T felt I had
to try to keep their respect, so I took the lun. I didn't
hit the bull's eye, but I come as near it as any of them did.
"'You can shoot to kill a man, cayn't you Mist Carson?'
said one of the men. 'Yes, I can,' I replied, 'but I'd much
rather help hit'
Since then the men have treated me with even more respect.
"Besides teachint the middle-aged people," continuing
Nannie, I teach a number of young men who dropped out of
school in the seoond sTade. Most of them work on the WPA.
They want to learn to trigger.' as they are lenerally out
workint on a project when T call at their homes, I leave
them assignments in notebooks, sums in addition, or simple
problems in multiplication, or tables to learn. When I go
back next time, I correct the notebooks and leave fresh
assignments for them. I furnish them the notebooks, just
cheap ones that I buy at the five-and-ten cent stores,
"The people in Hackletown plant nothint but corn, so
I'm tryint to et the women interested in makint vegetable
gardens. The ground around their cabins is bare and trampled
clay, or is grown up in weeds. I'm givint all the women
packages of seeds, and I'm plannint to teach them how to can
their surplus if they have any. I asked Sheriff Davis to
save me all the fruit jars he takes up on his raids on 'stills,
'why Mist Carson,' says he, pretendint to be shocked,
ever do you want with em?' But when I told him what I was
plannint to do, he was 4lad to cooperate with me."
This, by the way, was in December.
"Before I took up the work in Hackletown the people had
very little respect for religion. Many of them had never
heard of the Bible. When I read a chapter to Renats family,
and tried to offer a short prayer, her fifteen year old
daughter giggled and laughed aloud. But I kept on suggestint
to the women that they ought to send the children to Sunday
school, There are 40 children in Btackletown. After an
evangelist preacher was there last summer, the people decided
to build a church, as the nearest is three miles away.
"The men raised Ms and bought some rough planks, I eon-
tributed $2, myself and I give them $1 a month. The men built
the church themselves. It's a crude shack, with wide cracks
in the walls and floor, and has plank benches with no backs
to them. But somebody furnished a stove and now forty ehil-
dren and some of the women go there every Sunday afternoon.
A few of the men go, too. In the week I teach the women
Bible stories and hymns, so they can teach the children on
Sunday. Sometimes, now, members from the Norton Baptist
church, several miles away, come and help them teach, and
help out with the single.
"The most important thIng in the work I do," declared
Nannie, "seems to me to raise the standard of livint and to
break up the isolation in which the women live. T. encourage
them to visit the Norton school, and see their children at
work, and to go to the school entertainments, and learn how
important it is to keep the children in school. They are
learninf to keep their houses better tn they did. At least
they put them in order on the days they expect me, and they
put on clean clothes for my visits.
"I am trying to teach them, too, to balance their diets.
No, I never had much trouble walking back and forth. llometimes
though, when it was mild in Oakville, I'd be tramplie through
snow when I reached Hackletown. I had to be prepared for any
kind of weather. I always took the trails and short cuts.
If I had gone by the road, I'd have gone miles further. I
didn't get lost but once. That was one afternoon when I was
on my way home. Luckily my neice was with me. We missed
the right trail, somehow. A storm camp up and we were soon
soaked to the skin. We stumbled over fallen trees, got
tangled up in briars, bogged up and fell in muddy fields.
About ten o'clock at night, we came out on the highway. We
still had four miles to go, but we didn't mind that, now that
we recgonized where we were. Yy parents were right worried,
thinking something dreadful had happened to us. It was nearly
midnight when we reached home.
"There are other fan/lies I visit, too, like the Goldsbys
at the foot of Little Nebo. They are clean and self-respecting.
They keep house betteen I do. All they need is a little
friengliness and encouragement. They are higher up the scale
than the Hackles.
"Old gran/ther Goldsby can't read. He's too old to learn,
or to do work of any kind. So I read to him, and tell him
the news, and try to amuse him, so he'll have something
pleasant to study on.
"Maude Goldsby, whose husband works on WPA,has six chil-
dren. He don't ,.et but $33 a month. Their oldest child, 12
years old, has bed heart trouble. The four ohildren who go
to school don't have the proper clothing. I'm collecting
garments for them. Maude's going to have another baby soon.
I'm going to help her et clothes for it, too.
"No, I don't walk the 15 miles any more. I did this once
a week for a year; but it took too much of my time from
teaching Bow I hire Fred Norton, a farmer's son to drive
me. He has a rickety, open touring car. I pay him $2.50 a
trip. He takes me on my rounds every Tuesday. leave my
house at nine o'clock in the morning or earlier. re get home
by dark. We take a picnic lunch along (meat sandwiches, fruit,
and sometimes milk) and stop somewhere along the road to eat
it. some days 1 visit as many as 20 famglies, and give a
lesson in each house.
"On ednesday and Thursday, I do the same kind of work,
only nearer home. I climb up trails to _Aountain cabins
where there aren't any roads, and walk about seven miles each
day.
"On Mondays, I go by bus to Beaumont and attend culture
classes there. We study textiles and how to dress neatly and
suitably on small incomes, Last quarter we studied community
hygiene. These courses, two hours a week, will help me raise
the grade of my teacher's certificate. I take a musie lesson
every Monday to help me play accompaniments and teach community
singing better. And I'm taking a correspondence course in
7ducation with a state teachers' college. That and the
Culture courses will add to my college Credit.
"No, I never went to college, regular, that is, my parents
are poor mountain farmers. They had a big family to support,
seven children. Only four lived to be ;rown, though. One
died of typhoid. So my father never accumulated anything.
It was all he could -afford to send us to the public schools.
I started in teachint when I finished the tenth grade. We
were livin' then on a farm in Harrison County. The suporin-
me
tendent came to me and begged/to take a one -roam county school.
There were about seven grades in it, I was scared to take
it, but he said I could teach all right. There were 45 pupils
in that school. I enjoyed teachie there, though. The chil-
dren liked me, and I was real fond of them. 3very Christmas
I had an entertainment for them and a Christmas tree. I
had to give every child fruit and candy and a Christmas pres-
ent. They expected it. It cost right mueh buy -in' presents
for all of them.
"I taught there two years. The superintendent wanted no
to keep on teachinl there, but I realized I didn't knew
enough to teach properly; so I resigned and went to Raleigh
and lived with my married sister there, and took a business
course for a year.
"Then I found I couldn't get far unless I graduated from
high school, so I came home and finished high school at Oak-
ville. After that, I vent back to my sister's in Raleigh
and did practical nursing for two years under a doctor's
direction. I nursed working people. Sometimes they paid me
as much as $10 a week; sometimes, $5 a week. Often I nursed
for nothing if the people were too poor to pay. I liked
nursing, because I always like to help persons.
*Then I went back to teaching in the public schools.
taught eight years in rural schools. I'd teach all winter
and save my money so I could go to summer school at the
Beaumont Normal and Teachers' College. In that way, I ae-
cumulated about two years' college work. It seems to me Ilve
been going to summer school all my life, but it was really
only about eight summers. I've taught every grade from first
to seventh.
*M-anwhile, I married a carpenter, and lived near Raleigh.
I kept house. After my husband was hurt in a fall from a
house, I went back to teaching. I taught, nursed him and
kept house, too. The last four years of his life he was
perfectly helpless. We had no children.
*After he died, I came home to my parents near Oakville.
They were living alone and needed me. They are old and
feeble. My mother is 74 and suffers from chronic bronchitis
and rheumatism. My father is 78. He has a bad heart,
rheumatism, and high blood pressure. I support myself and
my parents. There were no vacancies in the Oakville schools
when I came back here to live. Besides the requirements for
teachers' certificates had been raised. So I took up work on
the WPA. It's quite a problem to support my parents and
myself an my $66 a month. Besides the $10 a month I pay Fred
Norton to take me to Hackletown every week, I pay my parents'
doctor's bills and for their medicines. They are sick a good
deal. Then there's my bus fare to Beaumont every Monday,
and I supply my pupils with notebooks, and sometimes with
sewin' materials.
"My oldest brother lives near, but he has his own fam'ly
to support. He's manaIer for a big farm belongie to Dr.
Lambert of Beaumont. No, you can't get any story from him.
He's always busy, and he ain't one to talk much, unless
Dr. Lambert said for him to.
"I have Friday and Saturday off from teachin', and of course
Sunday. Now that my parents are feeble I run the farm. We
have only 12 acres. Part of that is in an apple orchard, but
the orchard is all run down. I raise a vegetable arden for
home use, and can the surplus in the evenin's by the light of
a kerosene lamp. I raise hay for the cow, too. I get a man
to do the necessary plowint for $1.50 a day. I do all the
rest of the work. Last year I cut the hay and stored it
myself. I milk the cow, and I raise chickens, and keep a pig.
"Well, I must go. It's about time for my music lesson."
"But it's nearly one o'clock," I said, "and you've had no
lunch Como to lunch with mel"
"I'd love to, but I've just time to get to the studio.
Come to see me at Oakville. I'll be glad to ha -le you go on ay
rounds with me."
Later I aocepted Nanniels invitation. She lives a half
a mile from the highway on Maxwell's Road, which winds through
Dr. Lambert's cornfields. On the road I met a thin, frail
old man, clad in faded blue jeans. His step was quick, how-
ever, and his complexion ru dy. He did not look his 78 years.
I'd have taken him for 65. When I stopped to ask him the way
to Nannies, he pointed to a small weather -bleached cottage,
whose tiny porch was shaded by silver poplars. "I'm Nannies
dad," he said courteously. "She's expectie you. You're
right welcome."
The house to which he pointed is one -stories, four -roomed,
and has never been painted. The poplars, however, and the
gnarled apple trees in the background, give the place a
picturesque appearance. A Scotch Collie standing on the
rotting front steps welcomed me effusively. From the porch,
the wide view of cornfields and encircling blue mountains
was very beautiful.
Nannie welcomed me at the door. "Came right in," she
said heartily, "and have a seat by the fire. Fred will be
along directly with his ear. I'll take you to see the
Hackles. You'd better wrap up good. It will be cold in
the open car," she wound a brown, knitted scarf around her
own throat and pulled on heavy gloves, "meet my mother,"
she said, introducing me to Mrs. Maxwell, who bounded up
in shawls and blankets sat by the old ft,shioned coat heater.
"She's just recoverint from flu." Mrs. Laxwell scemed to be
90 instead of 74. Her skin was as brown and wrinkled as a
withered apple, but her hair drawn straight back from her
round seamed face was still a rusty black.
"Here's our lunches," said Nannie bringing in from the
kitchen three well filled paper bags,
"Exams me for not risint," Mrs. Maxwell was saying in a
quivering voice, "I'm mighty stiff and porely from rheumatiz.
I'm proud to meet you."
The house has few comforts, only bare necessities: a
faded rug, kerosene lamps, no Taumbing. The combination
kitchen and dining room was very dark, both from smoke, and
because of it's small window. The only luxury was a piano
in the living room; the only music, that found in hymn books.
The walls were bare except for a few neatly framed photographs
of college scenes, and a huge, skyed, crayon portrait of
Nannie's grandfather.
Fred soon rattled up in his decrepit, touring car. He
was neatly clad in khaki and high boots, his felt hat placed
rakishly on one side. A young, high school graduate, and the
son of a prosperous farmer, he apologized for the condition
of the touring car. "We have a new auto." he said proudly,
"but we like to keep it good for trips to Beaumont."
We were soon rattling over the mountain roads. Nannie
had said, "We'd better all three of us sit on the front seat
we'll keep warmer that way." After we had climbed into the
oar and wrapped ourselves up in lap robes, she chattered on
enthusiastically about her work.
"Hex week," she said. "I'm plannin' a party at my house
for such of the Hackles as can some. I et mighty little
leisure time, even on the days I don't teach. The neighbors
all know I've studied nursial and they're always Gallia' on
me when there's sickness in their fanny. None of them can
afford to pay a nurse, and they'd as soon have me as a doctor.
So I help gem out, though sometimes they do take advantage of
me,
"One of my neighbors, Mrs. Harris, is a paralytic. She's
always calling for me. She lives with her unmarried son.
She gets spells of beim' afraid she's dyinl. There's nobody
to do for her she's bed redden, but i go and cheer her up,
and bathe her and clean up her house. Another neighbor.
Mrs. Payne, has asthma and chronic bronchitis. Last week
she was right sick with flu, she just escaped pneumonia. I
sat up with her for two nights. She always sends for me
when she needs doctorial. Then Mrs. Brown's children all
come down at the same time with measles, and I had to help
her out, so I'm kept right busy. I don't get any rest on
Sunday, either. That's one of my busiest days, what with
going to church, helpial with the music, and teachle a
Sunday school class.
"Sometimes," she said, changing the subject, "the widowers
and old bachelors I meet on my trips, say, 'Mist Carson
ain't you never thot of marryie agin? You'd mek some man
a plumb, good wife.' But I tell 'em, if I ever many agin,
I'll marry only a rich man, one with a good job and one who
can give me a fine car. I've had to support one husband.
I know what it means. I'm not plannint on supportint another.
Of course I only say that to protect myself from their atten-
tions, and to let them know how I stand.
"I enjoy the work I'm doint, because it gives ma 4 chance
to raise the standard of livin' among the women. I get
nearer to the mothers than I would if I was teachint in the
public schools, and can influence them more. They tell me
their troubles and ask my advice, and I sympathize with them
and advise them as best I can. One woman who was try -in' to
keep a clean house, broke down and cried when she told me
haw her drunken husband made fun of her for cleanie the
house, and led his horse right in the front door.
"My one ambition," she said in answer to my query, "is
to save money enough to buy a coupe, so I can go further
back into the coves, and get to cabins where Fred's big, 014
touring car can't take me. But now we're cocain' into Hackle
town. There's Rena Hackle's two -roomed log cabin, the. one
I showed you in the kidak picture."