Document text
Approximately 3,600 words
N.,
TITLE:
souril CAROLINA WRITERS' PROJECT
LIFE HISTORY
LIVING BY FAITH
Date of First Writing
Name of Person Interviewed
Fictitious Names
Street Address
Place
Occupation
January 26, 1939
W. A() and Susie Crede
W. A. and Susie Holmes
240 Augusta Street
West Columbia South Carolina
Mill Worker
Name of writer Helen Shuler
Name of Reviser State Office
A radio was playing full tilt and through the closed door came the
strains of the popular song, "The Umbrella Man." To the noise of the radio
was the added confusion of crying, petulant children.
When I had rapped several times, the crying within the room subsided
and a young girl, followed by two small children with dirty tear —stained faces
and dripping noses, opened the door.
"Does Mr. Holmes live here? Is he at home this morning, and may I talk
with him a little while?"
1
a "Let me turn off this radio so you can hear. I'll call my father; he's
in the next bedroom. He is at home today because he isn't so well. No,ma'am,
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he isn't sick enough to be in bed. It's just his asthma."
In a pleasant hospitable manner I was invited to come into the room and
to have a seat near the coal fire. A glance around showed that the room was
used as a living room and bedroom. There in a corner was a dark wooden bed,
neatly made with a light-colored spread. A small table near the door held
a simple vase; the radio and several chairs comprised the rest of the room's
furniture.
While waiting for Mr. Holmes to make his appearance, this rapid speaking
young woman and the two children began in their friendly way to entertain me.
The children brought out their toys they had gotten from Santa Claus, and the
young mother began to tell of her morning's work.
"I've
loud so I
getting at my scrubbing this morning.
been so mean today that I couldn't do
scrub out the whole house every week,
been back in the cook room scrubbing, and I had the radio turned
could work and listen. I love the music and the songs. I was late
But I declare to goodness, the kids have
nothing but tend to them. We usually
but Marie, she's the colored girl who
helps us, is sick, and the weather was so bad all week I didn't get to do it.
"Yes, ma'am, these are my children. I've been married four years. I
got married when I was just fifteen. One day I told Ma I was going over to
Katie's house to spend the day, and that night, when she came for me to go
to prayer meeting, Jim said, 'Well, Mrs. Holmes, I reckon Minnie can't go
tonight. She belongs to me now.' Ma almost had a fit, she was so mad, and
started to make me go home with her."
Mr. Holmes, a small stoop -shouldered man, had quietly entered the room
and taken a seat near the fire. The reason for his choice of seats was soon
evidenced by his continual spitting into the fire. He was neatly and cleanly
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dressed in dark trousers, with a vest to match, and a white shirt. His
thick and glossy brown hair showed recent brushing. The expression in his
mild, dark -brown eyes and soft voice indicated that he had become resigned
to circumstances rather than continue the struggle caused by opposing religious
views.
When I made known to him the purpose of my visit, he disclaimed having
an interesting or eventful life but willingly told in a quiet and unassuming
way of his struggle to provide a few comforts for his family.
"I'm not much good at talking, but I'll be glad to tell you what I know.
If Susie, that's my wife, was here she'd talk to you. She talk i most all the
time. I think she'll be here before long, as she just went out to see the doc-
tor. When she's not at home praying, she's gone to visit the sick or needy.
Just let her hear of any one who's sick, and she stops whatever work she's at
and goes. Even if the dinner is cooking, she just forgets all about it and
leaves it on the stove. And when she gets back, if the food is burned, it's
all right; and, if the fire is out, it's all right, too. I hope she comes home
before you leave. She'll want to see you. She likes to talk to strangers about
her sickness and her church.
"There's not very much I can tell about my father, because, when I was six
years old, my mother left him and brought us children down here to Columbia.
But I can remember he used to tell us how he ran away from his home in tlermany
and worked in the galley on the ship to pay his way, because he didn't have
any money."
Galley? What is the galley of a ship and what kind of work did he do
there?
"The sailors call the kitchen the galley, and my father helped to bake
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the bread. In those days it took several weeks for the ship to come across
the ocean, and he learned enough about baking bread that, when he landed in
Charleston, he got a job in a bakery. Then the war ("Rd.-4Wammeau.A.1014641,44411a)
began and he didn't want to join the army; so whenever he heard the officers
were coming, he hid in an empty flour barrel behind the shop.
"But he soon left Charleston and moved to Newberry to open a small bakery
of his own. He had a good education and could speak three or four languages.
He could talk Jew better than a Jew himself. I often think that if I had stayed
with him I would have gone to school.
"No, ma'am, I can't read or write, but I know my name when I see it. There
were three of us children. I was the middle one. When I was six years old,
my mother left my father. I never knew what made her decide to leave. She
cane down here and opened a small candy store on Assembly Street. We had an
awful hard time then. But about that time the Duck Mill started, and I got
a job there. I ran the first cotton through the mill. My first wages was
twenty-five cents a day, and we worked twelve hours a day. Then they promoted
me to draw boy and paid me forty cents a day. If I do brag on myself a little,
I was steady on my job, worked hard and tried to do it right. The superintend-
ent seemed to appreciate this and advanced me rapidly, and soon I was a slubber,
making one dollar a day. By the time I was fifteen years old, I had a section
and was drawing one dollar and fifty cents a day.
"Susie and I got married in 1913, and by that time I was getting twenty-
five dollars a week. When the war came on, I made as much as fifty dollars a
week. But now I am getting only twenty dollars and twenty cents a week and
glad for that. During good times we managed to save a little, and we bought
us a little home out in Shandon for $2,500. We paid $500 cash. That was all
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we had saved. Then we put a mortgage on for the rest. We were paying the
payments of twenty dollars regularly every month until Susie took sick and
the mill shut down to part time.
'Then we just couldn't make the payments; so we sold the place for thirteen
hundred dollars and moved back here to the village. We got five hundred dollars
for our portion, but it didn't stay with us long. There was too many hospital
and doctor bills. And Susie was helpless so long. She couldn't walk a step,
as her feet were all drawn over on their sides. gge had to keep a colored woman
here with her all the time, and that cost me seven dollars and fifty cents a
week.
"We had a pretty hard time to get along, but I managed to keep my job.
And we had enough that neither my wife nor the two girls had to work in the
mill. My boy, he's twenty-six, is working in the mill now and pays us five
dollars a week board. He runs a section and gets twenty dollars a week. The
oldest girl is married and is keeping house on another street. Minnie, the
baby girl, is married too, and she and her husband and two little children
live here; but they take care of their own expenses. The mill keeps up the
houses and our living expenses are not very much. The rent is only one dol-
lar and five cents a week, and our lights usually run one dollar a month. Me
and Susie could get along pretty well on my twenty dollars and twenty cents
a week, but she is sick so much and always having to run to the doctor. Then
she gives away so much. Lots of times she'll go to the grocery store and get
two or three dollars worth of stuff and take it to some one. I've bought enough
furniture to fill several houses bigger than this one. But if any one comes
along wanting something, Susie just sells off a piece. Of if they need the
furniture, she just gives it to them. de haven't much left now, just enough
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to get by with."
"Do you have a garden or keep a cow, Mr. Holmes?"
G'
"No, we have to buy all our vegetables and milk. But it's convenient
to do that, because wagons and trucks come by every day with all kinds of stuff.
The yards with these houses are too small for a garden or for a cow.
"I don't have time for much recreation, and I don't care to do much more
than just to stay home and rest. I never have had a car. Somehow, I never
fancied one. I haven't been to a picture show in thirty years. Hardly ever
go to church. Once in a while I go to the Riverside Baptist, but I don't be-
long to any church. On Sundays I like to sit around the house and rest. When
I was younger, I used to enjoy hunting and fishing. But now my asthma makes
my breath too short. See, I have only three fingers on my right hand. One
time, when I was just a boy, I was fooling with a gun and it went off and shot
the flesh off my thumb and first finger. Then the doctor just cut off the bones
down to my hand. I don't smoke or chew, as the tobacco gets in my teeth and
worries me. But I dip snuff. Been using it about twenty-five years. Susie
gives ms down the country and calls it a sin and filthy, but I can't stop now.*
Mrs. Holmes had not yet returned, and the sun was shinning so warm that
Minnie, the two children, and I moved out on to the porch to enjoy it.
*Minnie, tell me something about your husband. What kind of work does he
do for a living?"
"am works with a construction company; drives a truck. He gets twenty-
five dollars a week. He sure is a good husband. We've been married four
years and he never has hit me. Jim says that before he'd hit me he'd just
leave home. He doesn't believe in hitting a woman. We get along real well,
but it sure takes a lot of money to live. The children are always needing so
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many things."
"Are they well? They look as though they must be."
"Yes, ma'am, they are healthy. Right now both of them have bad colds.
But Joanna was sick the whole of her first year and was in the hospital nearly
all the time. You see, before she was born I had pus on the kidney, and at
.the hospital they gave me a spinal injection so they could drain off the pus.
It nearly killed me. Then when she was born, she had this kidney trouble from
me."
"Do you think it will be much longer until your mother comes?"
"She should have been back long ago. Probably she had to wait to get in
to see the doctor. Sometimes there is a crowd ahead of her. But you'll know
when she's anywhere near. You'll hear her talking to every one she sees in the
neighborhood."
The children had gone out into the yard and were playing and running around
the house. Now the larger one, the little girl, came to tell us that "Granny"
was coming down the street.
A tiny little woman, weighing no more than seventy-five pounds, came
quickly around the corner of the house. Her big blue eyes, set far back in
her head, flashed with interest as she took in the group at a glance. Her
swarthy skin was stretched tight across her jaw bones and looked thick and
leathery. Her nervous hands, never still for a moment, were so thin and long
as to resemble a bird's claws. She wore a long black coat over a neat dark
print dress, and instead of a hat she wore a brown hair net to keep her thin
locks in place.
"Good morning, Mrs. Holmes. How are you feeling today? It's such a beau-
tiful day, every one should be feeling well."
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"'Well now, I'm not feeling so good. I've been out to see the doctor
this morning."
"Ws. Holmes, I've been told that you have had a most interesting life,
that you are such a good woman and do so many things to help the needy. I
want you to tell ms something about yourself."
Then speaking very rapidly and in a clear thin voice she replied "Now,
for the lands' sakes, whoever told you that surely stretched themselves. But
do come on in the house. I'm tired and I want to rest. I've been over in
town all morning waiting on that doctor. There was such a crowd ahead of ms."
She led the way through the front room into her bedroom. Pushed as close-
ly up into the corner as possible was a cheap iron bed. Over its thin lumpy
mattress was spread a soiled gray cotton blanket. There were no pillows. A
law tool box was placed against the wall between the door to the adjoining room
and the corner fireplace. In the back corner of the room was a battered trunk.
The room was lighted by two windows, at which hung light-colored paper shades.
One of these was in a fairly good condition, but the other had worn off halfway
from the top, and had been pieced out with newspaper. Across one corner of the
room had been stretched a cord clothesline, on which was hanging several of the
baby's diapers. The unpainted pine floor was sandy and dingy. Ashes from the
coal fire had fallen through the grate and covered the hearth.
When Mrs. Holmes seated herself in her rocking chair, the smaller of the
two children crawled into her lap and snuggled against her. "Minnie," she
said,"do give me something to wipe this child's nose with."
"Well, Ma, I just don't know where I'll find anything." And after vainly
searching for the necessary article she concluded with, "Oh, just use his apron.
I'll have to wash today, anyway. Goodness, they take so many clothes. I have
to wash for them every day."
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"I do enjoy doing what little I can for the sick," Mrs. Holmes began,
"and sharing the little I have with those who are needy. You know our Master
says, 'In as much as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done
it unto me.' I go whenever I am able to go. But I am sick so much of the time.
The doctors told me a long time ago there wasn't anything they could do for me.
They could just patch me up. At that time I belonged to the Riverside Baptist
Church, but I wasn't a Christian. I hadn't been saved.
"One night I was awful sick. I was in a dreadful fix. Couldn't hardly
walk. Just hobble along with some one holding onto me. My feet were turned
over on their sides. The doctor came that night and told me I'd die before
morning. There wasn't another thing he could do. Then the preacher, Dr.
Derrick, came to pray for me so I could go to heaven. After they left me, I
thought about some passages I had read in my Bible: 'Is any sick among you?
Let him call the elders of the church; and let them pray for him.' And another,
'And the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up.'
Then I remenbered about the meeting going on over at the Free Will Holiness
Church. I called my husband and told him I was going there to get them to pray
for me."
"You can go if you want to," he told me, "but I am not going to help you
get there. I don't believe in such foolishness."
"Then I called the old Negro woman I had to take care of me. She put a
few clothes on me and picked me up in her arms and carried me over to the church.
When I got there, I asked the preacher to pray for me. During the meeting I real-
ized what a sinner I had been, and I knew that if I did die that night I'd go to
hell. I knew then that I'd never been a Christian and that my faith had been
weak. when we got through praying and I got up off my knees, my feet had been
straightened. I could walk the same as anybody. On that Mbnday night the Lord
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had healed me, and that's the night I was saved. I had been cured by prayer.
Now all the relief I get, I get from the Lord. I live by faith.
"When I got back home that night, the old bogey man, that's what I call
him, tempted me. I found my baby awful sick. I told her pa not to send for a
doctor, and I just got down on my knees and prayed. I asked the Lord to cure
her. By morning she was as well as ever. The Lord had answered my prayer
and Cured her.
"Sometime later my married daughter was sick, and the doctor said she
had double pneumonia. He was giving her all kinds of medicine, but she wasn't
getting any better. One night I vent over there, and the doctor had just told
the family that Annie couldn't live out the night. They were going on some-
thing terrible. I quieted them the best I could. Then I went in the closet
and got down on my knees, like the Master said, and I prayed and prayed. When
I came out of the closet, my daughter was much easier and had fallen asleep.
The next morning when the doctor came and found her so much better, he was sur-
prised and wanted to know what I had done. I told him the Lord had cured her.
I had just prayed and asked his help."
"Is your daughter, Minnie, a Christian, and does she have as much faith
as you?" I asked.
"Good gracious me, that child has more faith than I do. I wish mine was
as strong as hers. Minnie used to be a Christian before she started going to
picture shows. But she ain't no Christian now. You remember what the Nester
told the rich young ruler, 'One thing thou lackest.' Minnie will go to moving
picture shows, and I think any one that goes to picture shows can't be a Christian...*
"Why, Mrs. Holmes, don't you enjoy a good picture show?"
"Deliver me from them. They are not of God, and I won't tolerate anything
that is not of God."
Minnie ,who was sitting on the tool box, quietly listening, now spoke
up to take care of her side of the question, "I really enjoy a good picture,
and I go whenever I can. But I hafter sneak away from Ma. I tell her I am
going up town to buy a pattern or something,but,instead,I go to the show.
After I've been in there awhile, I'll see Ma coming down the aisle looking for
me. Then I'll duck my head down to hide. She usually finds me and pulls me
out."
"Yes ma'am, Mrs. Holmes added, "that's the only time I ever go in the
picture place."
Apparently enjoying the recounting of her past and present shments, Mrs.
Holmes continued, "The doctors just patched me up. I was in a dreadful fix.
Dr. Babcock treated me for a long time. He said I had pellagra inside and out-
side. It took everything we could rake and scrape to pay the bills. He made
me drink lots of milk and eat vegetables. But the doctors can't cure all the
time. The Lord has to take a hand in it, and He'll do it when we ask him, but
we must have faith."
it4e/1
"Don't yod think doctors are good and help us, Mrs. Holmes?"
"Sure, doctors are good. The Lord put them here. If they weren't good, t
He wouldn't have put them here.
"About three years ago I was real sick again. My faith must not have been
as strong as it had been, because I let them persuade me to go to the hospital.
The doctors said I had ulcer of the stomach or maybe cancer. I stayed there
three weeks. When I was able to come back home, they told me I had to eat
something or drink milk every two hours. But I couldn't do that. I got so
tired of the milk, and, anyway, I'm not always where I can eat that often. My
stomach worries me something terrible. There's such a hollow feeling and misery
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right here."
To illustrate she placed her hand on her stomach to show the location of
the "hollow feeling and the misery."
"Mrs. Holmes, I find that so many of the women here in the village use
snuff instead of the more modern cigarette, do you use it?"
Emphasizing her denial by pounding her hands on the arms of her chair,
she said, "No, indeed, I do not use that stuff. Before I was saved and -became a
Christian I used it. But the Lord has cleaned me from that filthiness of the
flesh and all other filthiness."
"Your husband tells me that he enjoys snuff and has been using it for
twenty-five years."
"Yes, he does. That is a sin he must answer for when he goes to meet
his God. He hasn't yet been saved and is not a Christian. I can't get him
to go the church nor read his Bible. I don't read nothing but my Bible. There's
nothing good but the Bible.
"You've been asking me all the questions, now I want to ask you one. Tell
me what church you belong to?"
"I'm a member of St. Paulo' Luthern Church, Mrs. Holmes. That's the one
on the corner of Bull and Blanding Streets."
"You are? Yes, I know where it is. I'm so glad, for I just love the Luthe-
rans. They are so good. I know Mr. Smith from St. Paula'. He comes down here
to see me real often, and he prays with me. I tell you he is a good man and I
sure love him.
"If it hadn't been for my faith in the Lord I would not be living today.
'The just shall live by his faith.'"