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TITLE:
SOJIE CAROLINA. WRITERS' PROJECT
LIFE HISTORY
LIVING ON THE RICHARDS FARM
Date of First Writing
Name of Person Interviewed
Fictitious Name
Street Address
February 7, 1939
Carrie B.R. Dunlap (white)
Caroline B. Richards
Four miles south of Winnsboro,
S.C., on Winnsboro and
Columbia Highway
Place Rockton, S.C.
Occupation Farmer
Name of Writer Lucile Clarke Ford
Name of Reviser State Office
"Last night I was reading my mother's old Bible. When I re -read
the family record as Mother wrote it, I was reminded of the visits Aunt
Lula made to us and haw she and Mother would talk about old times,"
Caroline Richards began, as she stood before the mirror neatly arranging
her soft gray hair.
Taking a seat beside me, in front of a cheerful, crackling fire, she
continued: "Mother had three sisters and four brothers. Aunt Lula died
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young with consumption. There wasn't any cure for it then. Just as
with my brother James, we called him Jim for short, he was crippled from
the time he was ten. He fell off old Charlie, the horse, which he rode
twice a week to town to get the mail. Myl but he looked pitiful after
that, standing at a window matching us play townball and baseball. We
needed him in the game. It took all the girls and boys to make up a
game. He did worry Ma about something to read. I can hear her now, the
may she mould say, 'Ally you have your Bible and Pilgrim's Progress, that's
plenty for you to read.' We had the News and Herald, Godey's Lady Book,
and the Home and Farm paper, from Louisville, Kentucky. The Farm and Home
paper had a section for men and one for women. The women's section had
cooking receipts, styles, and stories in it. When the magazines mould come,
we got so excited Mk had to divide them out to keep us from getting into
arguments and fighting over them. We got Bloom's Almanac, too. Jim read
everything in that. Knew the signs and all about the weather. Our neigh-
bors lent him books. Ma taught all of us, when it was so we couldn't go
to school."
She walked across the bright rag rug to the window and gazed vacantly
at the jonquils, daffodils, narcissi and violets in the neat front yard,
then resumed: "The roads were so muddy and the weather so cold, it was
hard to get to school. We had school about four months in the year. The
schoolhouse was an old office of Dr. Hill's. There was a long, home-made
table down the middle of the room, and high benches at the sides and at
each end. My feet mould go to sleep. We more home-made stockings. Ma
and Aunt Lula knit the stockings and socks during the summer for all our
crowd. I more heavy leather shoes, with brass caps on the toes. Shoes
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were good "hand-me-downs" when they hadn't worn out. I had to wear
Sister Lizzie's old shoes and clothes.
"That old office of Dr. Hill's had shelves up and dawn the walls.
We used them for our books and dinner buckets. Cold dinners tasted good
then in a tin bucket. We had sausage, spare -rib or backbone, corn bread
or biscuit, baked sweet potatoes, and sometimes fried pies. Na always
dried peaches and apples in summer. It was about three miles from our
house to the schoolhouse. The sun would rise while we were on the way.
It was nearly dark when we got back. But we had a good time playing on
the may home. After we got home, we had to bring in the wood, chips, and
kindling. And we had to bring water up a steep hill from the spring.
"Cyr family has always worked since I can remember. Ma said before
the war she and her sisters had a maid to wait on them. Her brothers had
a manservant, too. I only know what Ma has told us about the war. Pa was
severely wounded. Two of his brothers were killed in the 'seven days a-
round Richmond.' Uncle Abram and Uncle Jerry were fighting side by side.
Uncle Abram was shot down. Uncle Jerry bent over to lift him up, and he
was shot through the back. Pa was sent out foraging for rations to feed
the men in the Confederate Army. He went to all the homes he could get to.
Mrs. Woodruff, old Major Wbodruff's mother, gave and gave, until she was a-
bout out of rations. But she gave a whole peck of dried cowpeas after
everything got so scarce.
"Fa was a wheelwright, and he went to work in his shop, with Old Uncle
Cab Watkins to help him. Uncle Cab was black and greasy looking, but he
and Pa worked right together in the shop. And they turned out nice look-
ing wagons, buggies, plowstocks, and every kind of farm tools. They had to
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use scrap iron and the old worn-out things. Sheep's wool and sometimes
cotton or old trimmings of horse hair were used to stuff cushions for
the upholstering. I have heard Ma say to Pa, 'Why the cushions in that
buggy look good enough for a parlor sofa.'
"Come, I'm going to show you what Bill has just finished for me."
Going through the hall into the neatly arranged sitting room, she showed
me a well polished, octagon -shaped table. It was rich -walnut color, with
four legs roanded and crooved with small circles near the top. She said,
"Bill can do anything. He worked his way through school. Went to the
University of Iowa and got a degree in science and chemistry. They called
him Doctor at school. He got a job with the Alliminum works of America
with a big salary. He sent money home to help Maggie and Jane through col-
lege. He married up there. This is a picture of the girl. She's pretty,
but she didn't live long. We were glad there wasn't any little motherless
children left. The depression came, and Bill was laid off. He couldn't
get work anywhere.
"He was so lonely up there, he came hone and pitched in to help here
on the farm, fixing fences and repairing everything. He even made a rock
storeroom and smokehouse in the back yard. We had needed that a long time.
I keep canned fruits and vegetables and such as that in it. After ever so
long, he got some work with the C. W. A., as timekeeper. Later they had
him to pay off the workers. That was particular work. He is now in charge
of the Fire Department in town. He married again. Has a real pretty wife
and a baby girl. His mother-in-law lives with them and takes care of the
baby, and his wife works at the post office. They are buying a house in
town. It ought not to take them long to pay for it.
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"You can soon pay for a house in Winnsboro with what you would
put out in rent every month. Dan and I bought this land aftdr we were
married and raising our eight. Dan had good crops of cotton then. We
didn't have to pay out much money. I wore cotton dresses and the
children could get on with little expense, as I passed their clothes
dawn as long as they lasted."
Glancing out of the window, Caroline's eyes sparkled with pride as
she continued, *We all say we would rather live here in our own house
than in a brick house in town that we didn't awn. There are those houses
in the Winnsboro dill village. Most of the families there have nice
furniture and bathrooms and lights. The walls are painted and all that.
The outside overseer plants grass, shrubbery, and trees in the yards.
But that belongs to the mill company. We know this is our very own, such
as it is. Now that Dan and I are getting old, it is a nighty good feeling
to know this is ours. We can always have plenty to eat, too, with our
awn garden, chickens, cows, pigs, and everything. It has been a hard
struggle at times to make the little we could earn here go for the many
things that were needed. But Dan and I say we were happy in those days,
while we were skimping to save. Not that we have much now; but I have
nice enough clothes, more than I used to have. The children are always
giving us something. Maggie and Bessie bought the Ford. We could get on
without that. But they say they like to drive it when they are at home.
And,too, they want us to have one here. If it cane to the question of us
awning a car or our home, we would all take the hone every time. I just
couldn't rest at night without a shelter over my head that belonged to us.
"My pa had plenty of land, but he couldn't tend much after the mar.
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He made a better living as a wheelwright than most people were making
farming. Just think, now we have electric lights and a bathroom like
people in the cities. It doesn't cost much either, here on the highway
near the electric line. We pay a dollar a month for what we use. I want
you to see for yourself haw nice the bathroom is with those pretty fix-
tures."
Caroline flitted out, leaving me at the bathroom door, and was back
in a few minutes with a tray filled with glasses of fruit juice, milk, a
plate of crisp cookies, and some caramel cake. "Since I have to live by
Dr. Buckner's directions," she said, "I eat something this time of day.
When I was a little girl, I recollect haw Ma mould send me down to Pa's
shop to take corn bread and buttermilk to him and Uncle Cab. Pa said he
could work better when he had extra victuals that way.
"I never finished telling you about haw Dan and me got all of our
children through school. Kate, my oldest, didn't go to school until she
was eleven years old. I taught her all I could about reading, writing,
spelling, and arithmetic. Then she went to the little country school
three miles from us. She studied hard and learned all she could there in
about six years, along with reading and studying at home, too. Back then,
when you were old enough and could stand the State Teacher's Examination
and get a certificate, you could get a school and teach. Kate took the
examination and got a country school. That paid her p'40.00 a month, and
the school ran about four months in the year. Then she decided she'd take
a business course at Draughon's. When she got through there, she got a job
in the Associated Charities in Columbia. She worked there about two years.
One day she said to me, 'Na,I don't get much satisfaction out of making
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out the reports, writing letters, and keeping office for the Associated
Charities, I just believe I'll go in training and learn to be a nurse.'
She'd been a good girl helping with expenses here at home. So I thought,
'Now if Kate isn't happy working in that office, and she wants to study
to be a nurse, I'll do all I can to get her through.' It didn't cost us
anything. She went up to Baltimore to St. Joseph's and got through there.
Then she studied some more at Johns Hopkins. They got her to come back
over to St. Joseph's and be superintendent of the operating room.
"Ahen she'd done that for three years, she volunteered to be a
foreign missionary to China. They sent her on as a medical missionary
to a place called Nanking, to learn the Chinese language before she was
sent out to work. After that, she was sent to Sutsien Hospital to work
in a mission hospital. She carried on a Chinese nurses' training school.
And many's the Chinese girl she's trained to 'minister to the needs of
their poor people. She was then sent on to a hospital in Hchin-King in
Ku Province. She is still there.
"Nate writes me that she never is worried nor afraid of the dangers.
She feels like she will be taken care of. There's plenty of fighting a-
round her. Why, she said even the grown men go to pieces in some of the
fighting. Where she is, the Chinese love her so, when the fighting started
there and they told her she just must get out, some Chinese men carried
her in a chair covered with a raincoat. She couldn't take everything she
had, just carried her account books. She had to leave her clothes. The
men ran through the mob of fighting people. Her friends that saw it told
her they expected to see her killed any minute. After they got through,
a big cheer went up, they were so happy that they could save her. She's
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gone on back to the sane place, where she is carrying on her work with
the nurses.
"Our children helped each other through school. Then, when my girls
went to Winthrop, they didn't spend so much money. They wore uniforms,
and tuition was given them. The other three, Maggie, Jane, and Lilly, all
went to Winthrop four years. Lilly took the domestic science. She had a
county as hone demonstration agent. When she had worked there about two
years, she got married. Her husband is a fanner. He's a lot older than
she is. She teaches in the school at Hartsville, where she lives.
"Jane has taught all of twelve years; ten of them at the sane place,
Graham, North Carolina. She vent up to New York and studied in the sum-
mers. She said she lacks just one more sumner to get her M. A. degree.
"Maggie is next to Jane. She taught some, but she didn't like
teaching. So she got some office work in Washington. She took a Civil
Service examination and got the job. While shelves in Washington, she
studied at night in a school called Strayer's. When so many were without
work, they cut her off. She cane home and went to Columbia and finished
her course in business at Draughon's. Now she has a good job in Spartan-
burg with the Department of Agriculture.
"Did I tell you about Joe, my boy that works with the railroad?
He's been in that railroad office about ever since he's been through
school. I reckon fifteen years.
"Jim and Bob just stay here on the farm and help with the work.
They didn't care much about school, and, after they finished in Winnsboro
at Nt. Zion Institute, under Mr. Peyton, they didn't want to go any fur-
ther. That's a lot more education than Dan and me got when we were growing
up.
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"WS had saved up sone money and had it in the Bank of Winnsboro
when it closed up in 1931. MS do get same of that back all along.
Sixty-five percent they have paid back now, and that's a lot better
than nothing.
"WS don't spend much now for doctors and medicine. When the chil-
dren were growing up, their tonsils had to be removed. Some of them had
adenoids, too. But they took them out in clinics, and it didn't cost so
much. Maggie has had the sane arm broke twice, but it knit and got well.
Last summer, Dr. Buckner sent her to the hospital in Columbia to have a
minor operation. She's been much better since that. She doesn't suffer
from that old pain in her side and back like she used to. Some of mine
had whooping cough, but Lilly never did have it. I was afraid when Joe
had the scarlet fever. But we did just what Dr. Buckner told us to, and
none of the rest took it. Tom had the diptheria once, too. The doctor
gave a serum, and he wasn't sick long. Of course, I have to be particular
now, and Dan does, too. But then we are sort of worn-out. MS have to rest
more and be careful how we eat. But I reckon for old people sixty and
seventy-seven years old we are right lucky. We're thankful, too, that our
children are well about all the time, except for colds and the like once
in awhile.
"Mine don't care about running around at night. They take after me
and Dan, liking to read a lot. Then we play checkers here together. The
girls and two of my boys play card games now, but they learned that since
they have been grown. And I see no harm that it's doirg them, when they
don't slight their work to play.
"Dan never liked to go around and get into arguments about politics,
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and our boys are the same. We all vote. My girls vote just as the boys
do. Each one knows why they want to vote for the one they do. We all
voted against the liquor, and I know we'd be a lot better off if we didn't
have it. None of our children drink. But we sell our produce to the fam-
ilies in the mill, and sometimes some of the women tell Dan that they
haven't the money to pay, as their men drink it all up. We have been sell-
ing there long enough to know the people, and some of the best women have
drinking husbands. But they generally pay sooner or later. when Dan sees
that they are in need, he gives to them sometimes. We try to vote for good
citizens in our town and county. Now, if all of the officers were as good
as our probate judge and the clerk of court, we'd have the laws enforced.
Dan and me have tried to teach our children, as they were growing up, to
appreciate good and honest men and women who stood for right.
"We've been glad enough for the Government work these last years. As
I told you, we lost in the Bank of Winnsboro when it closed up, and Bill,
Lilly, and Maggie all was home without work. I've told you about Bill
having a job when they had the C. W. A. and then some of the other work,
too, he got an in the town as a paid fireman. Lilly vent around help-
ing the women that were on the relief rolls to can. And Maggie's job now
with the Department of Agriculture is one of the new jobs in the soil con-
servation work. Maggie said to me the last time she was home: 'ha, we
could get along and have enough to eat and a place to live, but I am better
satisfied to be working and making something. And she enjoys her work.
They are all saving with money, too."
It was getting dark in the room where Caroline and I were sitting,
when I realized I must go home in order for Caroline to have her supper
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at her regular hour, six o'clock. She went with me to the gate, and,
while gathering a bunch of flowers for me, she said, "Be sure to cone
back on Tuesday afternoon at 2:30, when the Presbyterian Auxiliary is
meeting with me. They always want to knaw all about Kate and her work
in China."