Document text
Approximately 3,750 words
80 C.
TITLE:
SOUTH CAROLINA WRIT -MS' FRO.r.C7
HISTORY
LAZARUS, YARY and 1.ARTHA
Date of First Nriting December 28, 1938
Name of Person Interviewed Rev. Andrew Hartley(white)
(Baptist Preacher)
Fictitious Name Mr. Drew Yardley
3treet Address 108 Sumter Street
Place Columbia, South Carolina
Occupation Preacher
Name of 4riter Mattie T. Jones
Name of Reviser State Office
"That was Taylor on tne 'phone, Annie," Reverend Drew Yardley
told his sister. "I told him definitely that I could lot -,ake tie car
ri4ht now anyway. We still owe $100 on the fri4itaire. And we 1;ave so
much to charity before Christmas, when there was so -mach deeded, tntt I
can't see my -iLy clear to assume t is adi d tout for new car now. So
thn question is settled an out of the way." And the "Bishop", as this
,rother is callei set'„d himself n,r the ;lowing coal fire.
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"?ell, Drew, folks don't never miss what they ain't had, and we
won't know the difference a hundred years from now. Besides, I bet my
old hat folks wouldner knowed us ridine in a orand new car. An' we
ain't none of us got any new clothes to match up with a new cur; so it's
just as well for us to keen goine in the old one.
'That old green car's preaceed more funerals than any ten automobiles
in L;olumeia put together," Miss Annie coitinued. "It's a shame the way
it's went ahead of all tl)ose fi e hearses. It's looked right disgraceful
going along with the eeet looking and the finest outomoeiles in the city.
And it's hauled more people to the nospital, grown women and little
chiliren. Course, sometimes toy wus too sick to go in it, end we'd have
to ,:et an nmbulance. But you'd always see that old .yeen car come chug -a
log-ing right ehind the fine ambulance. It carried one woman from the
k;olambia Hospital, not long ago, twenty-four miles in the country. Ne
made a bed for her and rut her on the buck seut, and I nursed her head in
my lap all the way. The want able to hi -e an automoeile, yoa know."
"You'll rlPFse excuse me for a few minutes. Leroy wants to see ma on
business," Mr. Yardley 3aid, as he left the room, follow,A by a nicely
dressed young man who had just eon adeiated to the Yardley's nome.
"People call me Martha?" Miss Annie excleimed as conversation was
resumed. "Never knowed noth n"bout 'em calling me that. Don't fit me
atail. I'm too mean for anyt
thit After a pLuse, "I reckon I
junt a. well s4a.rt eling you E'out our fcrks till Drew con s btck. I
aslieve on said that'u wntt yo come for. Our ,;mn,,if,ther and our grand-
mother come from England. You remember that time when so meny immigrants
come over here straight from 11;ngland? Well, they come with 'em. I
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reckon that's :he r3ason we're so mean got so much linolish blood in us.
Folks tell me them Anglish people's the L1earist people in the world. Any-
way, es I was fixing to tell you, my grendpatents come from there and
settled netr Bat -s urg, just one mile in the country. They owned their
farm, Jut I don't know whether the King give it to 'em or not. All I know
is my father inherited it.
"My mother was a liutchmen, I reckon you'd cell her.
She come from
Georgia over here. Just like lots of other people, she was born and partly
mised in Georoia. But after her mother died, she come over here to live
with e couele wnet didn't have no children. They lived al.,oet seven or
eiont miles from my grandfateer's home, and my father fell in love with my
mote r the first time he ever seen her. And i5 wasn't long till they got
married. There was ten of as chilJren, eut they're all gone now but just
us ',hree. Our father died with cancer when he was sixty yeers old; and my
mother wee an invalid for
en years.
She couldn't do a thing, couldn't
even w sh a pocket handkerchief. I tell you we yo,:nguls h d to rough and
tough iL. ,ed plenty of children and nothie' elle. No eroperty and no
means o 1J enytnea4 with. I was just four yeire old when re!, father died
and lJt five little chil Iron.
"here I ;ot my e!icetioe? 'ell, the 's e 2Wee, I Io‘..r oot tone
hee, y I went to lateaeu.g to ecnoo1 90"10 ni ta 'di Tom Brench
ichool. That a school out in theaeuetro. I'm tellin' olu, we was raised
;rem n ni to mout If I cauldee et a ood elucatio 1, I woeldn't been
'roen 'ere. I woul4e, oeen in ;he foreign fieles.
All :y life, since
I've been eig enough to know anything, I've wanted to )8 a foreigh missionary.
Yes, ma'am, I enore woulier wee: aeross the wi.ter. South Ameriee was where
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wanted to go, but woulder been glad to go anywhere. Course, they
wouldn't let me go with no more education than I've got.
*And then I ain't never been very strong, either. Couldn't never
work in the mill on account of my health. I used to do right smart of
field work, one time in my life. Yes'm, I look well and strong. That's
what everybody tells me, but I ain't strong. It's been my lungs. They
were awful bad. I used to spit up a whole pint of blood at one time, but
I ain't had no hemorrhage now in twenty-six or twenty-seven years. Doctor
X-rayed 'en not long ago, and he says there's very little the matter now.
Just a scar that's all healed over now, you know. Out, of course, that
scar could break right easy, and I .11 always have to be careful.
*Yes's, I have plenty of fresh air, I keep a window up every night,
but don't have no regular sleeping porch. And I can't drink no milk
hrdly and can't eat no cheese and no fish and no canned goods, like
pottage hem. We Just get one quart of milk every day for all of us, it 's
so expensive. We like vegetables for dinner, except my brother won't sit
at the table if there's onions on it. And ain't they good, cut up with
cucumbers, to eat with beans?"
"Well, Annie," said Mr. Yardley, after seeing the young man to the
door, "LeRoy came over to tell me the members of my church have made up
some money and will make a down payment of $128 on a new car. Then I think
I can take care of the other payments out of iy salary of $1,500. I use
my car for other people's needs, and I think the money will come somehow.
The old 1928 model A Ford's plumb worn out. It has more than 100,000
miles on it, and it's not rated for work any more. The new 1939 Plymouth
will cost $786.50. But the car man will give as $100 on the old car, and
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that's as good as giving it to me, for he can't sell it for a thing in the
world. And then they will give me $100 as a gift, LeRoy says, and I knew
one of the firm is a good strong Methodist, too. They said they appreciate
the fact Viet I use my car, without compensation, for everybody who needs
it, regardless of where they live."
"Well, ain't that just too good to be true?" was the comment of the
appreciative sister. "I'm so glad we've got a new car I don't know what
to do or what to say. You know every time we took anybody who was much
sick in the old rattle trap,I was soared plumb to death the old thing
would break down in the middle of the road. When will you bring it home,
Brother?"
"Tomorrow morning. We'll take the trip to the country to get the sick
child in it, I think."
"How will I feel riding in a new car? That's what somebody else done
asked me. And told 'em just like felt in the old green Ford, only /ell
have a trunk behind this one. And I can lay a paper down and pack up more
rations and old clothes and old shoes and everything in that trunk. In the
old car, I had to pile 'em all up on the back seat."
"I reckon," Mr. Yardley added, very humbly, we've bought more shoes
than any dozen people in Columbia put together and paid more insurance prem-
iums and doctor's bills and drug bills and every other sort of bills.. We've
bought more rations, clothes, shoes, and school books. My sakes alive, we've
bought tem. Why, oftentimes I've given the last dollar possessed, but
I've done it for the good of people who were in need and,I think, for the
glory of God. You know His promise to those who give even a cup of cold
water to one of the least of these.' And live done all I've done with
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nothing to depend on but God's promise. With all my failures, and I've
got plenty of flout He has never failed me once.
"Results in their lives? Why, they're so helpless with their suffering
needs, I don't ever think about the rosults to them, but of what it means
to me. I can't think of anything except the joy I get out of doing it.
"My life's a riddle,even to me. Why I'm not in a gutter somewhere
now I can't explain. I'll lead up to the facts. My father died when I was
ten years old. He had been afflicted for several years with cancer. He
went everywhere. he could hear of somebody who had every helped anybody
else. He'd run to one doctor, then borrow a little more money and run to
some one else, till he run up a debt of $1,000. So, finally, all our
property ‘Atas sold for debt, and we were turned out to live or die. We had
to go somewhere, so we went to sharecrOp with a neighbor. He agreed to furnish
the fertilizer, the mule, and the land, and he got half the crop. Cotton
brought only five cents that year; but I made ten bales. And we had corn,
peas, potatoes, and meat enough to do us. We stayed there three years. Then
we moved severtl times. Finally, overseed for Dr. Crosson, the same man
I had farmed with once before. I was going on to tell you I hadn't been
to school since I was ten years old, but I had learned to read and write
and figure fairly good. I must have some genius in mathematics, for I had
to keep all the books and business straight and attend to a lumber mill, a
corn mill, a cotton gin and a 35 -acre farm. With a salary of 650 a month,
I made more money than I aver made in my life. had a sharecrop besides.
My sisters were Inth able to work then, and that year we cleRred $400.
"The next year, my mother was an invalid all year and desperately ill
much of the time. Sister Annie was ill, too. The doctor came to the house
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135 times during that year. We lived in Leesville, but just before
Christmas we moved to the mill in Betesburg, and in February my mother died.
I got a job in the mill inspecting and grading cloth at 90 cents a day,
and Corns, that's my other sister, got 85 cents for tacking and labeling
it. We stayed there three years, and before we left we were getting $1.25
and $1.00 a dig.
"We heard we could make more in Columbia, so we moved here. had
accumulted some let, but I was honest enough to want to pay it. After we
worked it lranhy for six weeks, Ave all went down with measels. Long woks
draged by, yes months, and did not recover sufficiently to work in the
mill again. So we went back to Leesville to farm with Smith again. Then
to
the next year we went Oackpittesburg to another mill job, because Corrie
could get a job, too.
"I'd always felt like 1(d like to preach, but there were so many hind-
rances sickness in the family, a lack or education, burdened with problemm
that I put it off from time to time. The mill church at Batesburg urged
me to enter the ministry, and I did. I preached at that church two or three
times a month during 1911, and studied every other night with private teachers
for two years. Those teachers offered, with such beautiful spirit, to help
me, and I can never forget them. But because of friction in the mill work
we moved back to Uolumbia, and in 1915, 'Ala invited to preach at the
Broadway Baptist Church. There were twelve people to hear me; twelve
people, I mean, not eleven or thirteen, but an even dozen. At the second
service, the crowd increased to twenty-five or thirty. Then they called me
to be their pastor. There wee ei,;ht members, and they offered me a salary
of only eight dollars a month. This organization was an experiment, and it
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had seemingly failed. Finally, with the help of the mill company and the
state mission board, they raised the salary to $85. After one year, South
Side Baptist Church agreed to pay $50 if Broadway would pay $50, and I
divided my time, giving half to *outh Side as assistant pastor. The church
was then self-sustaining.
"In these twenty-three years that I've been here as pastor, the member*.
ship has grown from 8 to 409. At least 1,000 people have come into the
church, mostly by baptism. can tell you, things have improved a lat in
these years, too. Then few homes had a fitten chair to sit in. Nov these
same people have far better furniture than their preacher. They have suits
of furniture that cost $75 and $100, electric or gas ranges, frigidaires
and everything up-to-date."
"I reckon they have got 1,1etter things," mused Miss Annie. "We ain't
got nothing. Just the sans old things we had then, scept we have got a
frigidaire."
"The morals are 100 per cent better, too," Mr. Yardley continued.
They were at a low ohb when I came here. This territor, was considered a
dumping ground for scalawags and ignoramuses. Awful conditions existed
here. I guess I preached fifty funerals in homes where no preacher would
go. When I'd hear of sorrow, I'd just go to the home and say, 'This
experience is too sacred for you to run off to the cemetery without any
ceremony at all, and I'm glad to do anything for you that I can.' And
then I'd have a service and we'd follow the 'black 'mon' in the old green
car for the burial at the cemetery. know I've conducted at least 500
funerals since I've been here. But education and culture get much more
attention now.
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"I felt so keenly my lack of an education that, the first your was
in Columbia, began a prescribed course at the University of South Carolina
and a theological course at the Presbyterian Seminary. I kept it up for
three years, and no money could buy this experience from me. It's simply
unsalable. And all it cost me was the $40 I paid for my books. It brought
out hidden things that never could have been revealed without SONO education
or opportunity like that. And it gave me a fairly good English education.
I didn't get a diploma, t:ut I did get a credit slip for work I had done.
My language was far from perfect, but know when i 'break', and I just go
right ahead as if I hadn't made any error. This training enables me to
exercise the highest gifts given me by God. I am sometimes asked what the
requirements for a good preacher are, accOrding to my way of thinking, and
I mention these four things: 1. Common sense. 2.1. good case of religion.
3. All education complete. 4. A man must learn how to mingle with people
and how to serve them acceptably. Tact, I sometimes sty, is the ability to
take a deadly sting out of a deadly stinger and not get stung.
"I think my sermons out and then I pray 'em out. Positive preaching
is what people need. I try to tell them what they should do, rather than
what they should not do. Some fellows, for instance, preach every *unday
against picture shows. well, I don't approve of going to shows myself, but
I don t preach against 'em. I reckon there are some good ones, and we
shouldn't turn as helpful a thing as that can be entirely over to the devil.
"What do I do for recreation? I don't have any, unless you call work
play. Never had a vacation in my life. I go to the Southern Baptist
Convention and to the State conventions, and that's all I ever do outside of
my work. I don't reckon I've been on Mein Street twenty-three times after
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dark in the teentrethree years I've been in Columbia. Unless I'm out on my
work, Pm at home. I get up at six o'clock and go to bed at seven -thirty.
Punctuality is a sort of hobby of nine. An obligation is as sacred to we as
life itself. believe in meeting one the moment BO is due, not tomorrow.
'114 stay pretty close 'round home, unless we're called out to work. I
would have liked to have seen President Roosevelt when he was here. was
given a reserved seat and vent up in my car, but it began to rain so hard
I just cane back home. I hesitate to criticise those in authority, but I
think several things about Roosevelt. First, I think his intentions are
good, but I think he has put wrong men at the head of many things. Thou I
think he didn't give the Lard the real consideration he ought to have given
Him. Did things on the Sabbath day he ought not to have done, like Sunday
fishing. A Christian ought not to do such things, though possibly he won't
go to hell because of them. But I'm old-timey enougn to think a man who is
leading a great Nation like the United States ought to stay mighty close to
clod."
"Go with Brother?" Miss Annie asked. "Lord, no. When he goes off, I have
to stay here to 'tend the church. No, ma'am, I don't never preach. But I've
rung the bell and built the fires and took care of the church and yards ever
since we've been here. Tee, honey, I get eight dollars a month for it, but
I never see any of it."
"It's all partnership money," her brother added. *We don't know whose
money it is. What belongs to one belongs to all in this household.
"I'm about to forget to tell you kuout our other sister, Corrie. Bhe is
fifty-eight years old and her health is desperately poor. She had typhoid
dysentery when she was twelve years old, and she's never been well
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since. There's as much difference in hers and Annie's dispositions as there
is in day and night. Corrie takes care of our home and doesn't care much
about making new friends, although she loves her friends devotedly, and
she's very loyal. 3ho'd do anything in the world for either of us. Annie
is more pleasant to deal with and is interested in helping everybody who
needs her. Annie's on the go all the tine to church, to homes where
there's sickness and need, carrying children to clinics, and begging wood
and coal, clothes, and something to eat, for the needy. I know we're the
terriblest beggars of all folks in the world. nobody ever has begged like
we have for other folks."
"I do want to tell you folks about a little boy we helped sometime
ago," Miss Annie said. "His mother was a grass widow with five childrOn
and no way to support them. The baby one was a boy and an invalid. His
legs crossed just like this," and she showed with her arms the position
that made it impossible for the child to walk. *He couldn't walk a step.
Every time he'd try, his legs would fold up under his body and he'd go
pushing himself around, sitting on his folded legs. I carried him to the
Columbia Hospital to specialists, I know, twenty-five or thirty times.
Finally, when he was four years old, I carried him to Dr. Harden. B knew
he could help him. But, honey, he never done him one speck of good. Honest-
ly, I toted that child around for three years, till sometimes xl, almost
see stokes. One day when I was cleaning up the churchyard, out there all by
myself, something said to me,Nhy don't you take that child to Dr. Brent?*
it came to me just like a whiff of anything, for an instant, and then it was
gone like it come. studied and studied *bout that thing, and when Drew
come home, I said to him, 'Drew, suppose we carry Marvin to Dr. Brent, the
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chiropractor." 'Vell,'he says, curry him if you want to, but it am n t
going to do any good.'
"Corrie had eczema so btel her arms were all raw, with big pus bumps on
ie-LI clean to her elboes, and lo was taking her to the chiropractor. He MRS
helping her, but she had seventy-five akustments before she got over it.
Yes, sir, we paid him $79 for them. So one day when we was taking her to
the doctor, I went by and got Mervin. When ho got through with Corns, I
said; 'Doctor Brent, do you ever take any charity work?' 'Yee, sometimes,'
ho says like that. sqell, I've got a little boy out here in the car that
cn' nJk, and I want you to try to help the little fellow if you will.'
Don't you koow he jus
gioe !Am four adjustments, and he was walking good
‘a,3 anyeody. His ma and all of us shore was tickled about it. He's eight
years old and in school oow, and his teadher says he's got a good mind, too.
"This is a flower Mt. Donbar's grandchild in Camden sent me. Granger
Janda no one mighty near every Christmas. I think it is called a manor
'eegonia. I know it .rowed in a greebhouse
I certainly thibk it's heautie
ful. e had a fine Christmas. A turkey? I say a turkey. No, we had
fried chicken and a fruit cake and some crispy breakfast- strip. Drew can't
at muco meal since he had sinus trouble so bad and had to have his teeth
took out. I tried to make a plain cake, too, but forgot to put anything in
it to rise it. It looks like I don't know what. carried half of it to
a woman who didn't have much for Christma,. It tastes better than it looks,
though. I took her little boy to tne hospital and had his tonsils took out,
and she 'preciates it mcoe'n anything. Our neighbor, Miss Sharpe, sent us
over a nice easket of turkey and boiled ham and all sorts of cekos and pies
and tnio•s and I added some fruit and things to it and sent out six nice
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Iniskets to folks 'vhilt nuadGI it." Laughing, she continued, "Corrie days
he any.:)oly gives me anything specially nice, I take and pass it on to
acnlobody 41.30 instead of leaving it for LIU*
"4e had a Christmas tree for the children in Sunday School the right
bofore Christmas. The mill company gives us fifteen cehts for each child.
Thnt givis us $50, aid we 1)ught fruitu ,1:11 candy and nuts Rnd raisins and
:1110.1 a baii; for uvery child. 'Vero there many chIldren there to get the
bagsT lo filled 400, and I -think there are only four left over there now.
The mill compaay does lots of ouch t ingo, 'Aft they are not extreme in. their
"ay, why don't you uhut that door and come on in out of that cold
ilii;ht ir?" A harsh voice called from the next room. "Don't you know night
air ain't goo for anyOody? I can t sleep till you all get quiet."
'Honey, don t you aind my sister," Miss Annie whispered.. She don't
mean a hit u' harm by being li o that. There's something the matter with
her. She ain't right right. You understand."
MCB