My Aunt Barbara interviewed India White about electricity in Raleigh during the 1920s. Here is the transcript of that interview.
Audio Link
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| India White with Bill |
We had no problem, everybody was anxious for the lights, until we got way out and we found one man that was frightened to death of electricity,or so he thought he was, He just wouldn't sign. We went on and signed up everybody else and then George White, my husband, and Mrs. Ray were the three that were working on it, and Mrs. Nacie Raye went to see him and talk to him and he said "Oh no, he didn't want to get killed with that electricity. Now he had lightening rods and they were safe enough and he didn't need the electricity, and he wasn't going to have it on his land."
Well then my husband went and talked to him awhile, oh that was several weeks later, and then about two weeks later I went and talked to him about it and we went to Carolina Power and Light and told them that we just could not get him to sign. They said, "Don't worry, we'll send somebody." So he sent one fellow out and he talked with him and then later on,he didn't make any progress this first man, so later on another one went and talked to him. He said, "No, I'm not going to sign it."
He said, "Well, I'm going to come see you again." So later on he went back, (man from CP&L) and he met him down in the field- he was plowing. The man from Carolina Power and Light told him "How nice it was to have electricity and how safe it was, that it was much safer than those lightening rods on his house, and how convenient it was." He joked with him and got him in a real good mood and the man said "Well, I'll reckon I'll sign it." So he signed it.
BW: Was this signing easements?
IW: Well yes in a way because we had to get so they could have the lines across anybody's land and that's what we were after, getting the lines, permission to put the power line thru there, and he just didn't want it on his land. He didn't want they lights cause he'd get killed with electricity and he didn't want to die that way.
He finally signed but he never did have it put in his home. He got ill and they had to take him to the hospital and he had to remain there the rest of his life, and so his wife and children got the electricity and the house all wired and it took about, I think it was about eight months for them to run the, put the poles in and run the line. And i was about a year and a half after that before they ever got lights.
BW: This was on Six Forks Road?
IW: All the way out to Six Forks.
BW: How far from town, at that time, was that?
IW: Well it was, I can't tell you, it was about seven and a half miles from the city limits, but they had power on Wake Forest Road so that's where they started with the power line.
BW: Ya'll were considered a rural area.
IW: Yeah so the only way we could get it was asking for a farm to market paved road.
BW: So you had to get the farm to market paved road first?
IW: No, we got the lights before we got the paved road. That's another thing we started on. The same three.
BW: Now, it was you, Mrs. Ray and Granddaddy who went out and got everybody to sign the easements.
IW: Un huh
BW: After the electrification did the quality of life change?
IW: I think the quality of life has probably improved a lot. I think the educational part has considerably. There were so many people back then, when we first got electricity there were a lot of our neighbors who could not read. Of course, whenever they could get a radio that was a lifesaver to them. To use the electricity to hear the news and things on so it helped them a lot. I think electricity was a big help to the quality of life.
BW: If the electricity went off how did you report it and how long would it take for power to be restored?
IW: Well you know, all the while when we first had electricity, we had no problem with the electricity going off and telephones were few and far between, but if something happened we'd wait an hour or two and if it didn't come back on then somebody would go to someone's house that had a telephone and report it. It usually didn't take long, maybe the next day we'd have power.
I can't remember but one time that it went off. It was about the time Hurricane Hazel came along and that was a long time after we got lights, that was in the fifties. The service from the power company was wonderful. There wasn't so many things on the power company to take so much current. We didn't have storms to blow the lines down or anything, so we just were not troubled with it.
[They installed] the lines across their property. Then they sold lamps, refrigerators, and things like that, and of course, they expected us to buy from them.
BW: From CPL?
IW: CP&L.
BW: Did they also do home demonstration shows to show people how to use these appliances?
IW: They hadn't started that at that time but a little later on they did, and they'd come out and had a meter or something to measure the candle power of your lights so, which was a good reading light, a good sewing light and so on, in your home.
BW: Were these bulbs that you had, were they string lights? What kind were they? Did you have floor sockets?
IW: Floor sockets
BW: You never had a problem with CPU, getting the lights?
IW: No, they were just beginning to get out in the rural part of the country and they were glad when they could, because they were making the money for selling the electricity,.
BW: Were there electricians at that time?
IW: Oh yes, but if you owned your property you could do your own wiring.
BW: Who did your wiring?
IW: George did but you had to have an inspection. You had to get an inspection to make sure that it was alright.
BW: You had a lot of modern conveniences before a lot of your neighbors did. Were you working then too?
IW: No I was staying at home. I worked part-time while George was at Oteen, NC. I didn't work every day a week: I worked three days regular a week.
BW: Were you living in town then or in the country?
IW: I was living in the country. Over there where Mama and Papa built that last house.
BW: What were the urban schools like in Raleigh in the 1920's.
IW. The school was so small, the high school, and there were so many students that they had to have two sessions a day. In one semester you went in the morning and in the next semester you went in the afternoon. There was no break you went from one class to another except for a thirty minute period at the end of the day.
BW: What time was school?
IW: You went to school at 7:30 and you left at quarter to twelve. The other group would come in at quarter pass twelve that gave the teachers thirty minutes for lunch. You didn't have lunch because they didn't have room to even have the cafeteria open. There were classes even in the cafeteria. It was very small and you didn't have any place to sit. You got your cup of soup,and you only had soup and crackers, you paid a nickel, they called it a bowl of soup, you got your paper spoon, your paper bowl of soup, and stand around
and eat it, if you had time to eat. Some people went to work and thats what they'd do, they'd just get their soup and stand there and eat it and then go on.
BW: Did you just go home
IW: I went home, because I didn't go to work until quarter pass one cause I worked till nine thirty at night.
BW: You had electricity when you lived in town?
IW: Oh yes.
BW: When you went home what were your chores?
IW: Well when I went home at the middle of the day, it was to get something to eat and trot right back up town.
BW: To do what?
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| Photo courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina, 1929 Inauguration of Governor O. Max Gardner |
BW: What prompted you to become involved with getting electricity in the rural area? IW: Well because everyone needed it and there was a period in there that the power company was trying to get electricity in the country. So, as far as I know we were the only ones around Raleigh that had started that, but after we started other rural roads took it up. It was during the time that the first Scott was Governor that they really started building the roads and having electricity out there.
BW: One of the reasons,I understand, that CPL, didn't want to provide electrical service to the rural areas was because they were afraid that the farmers would not be able to pay their bill.
IW: That was one of the questions that CPL, asked us when we went to them to find out what we should do. They wanted to know if they worked in the city, did they have a regular income, would they be able to pay their bill.
BW: Did it bother you that people a few miles away in the city were enjoying modern conveniences when you had moved back to the country and you didn't have any modern conveniences.
IW: No, not really, we had hopes of getting it. My daddy said "You won't have to live long before this road will be paved and you'll have power." And he said "In your lifetime Raleigh will be right here." And Raleigh has been right where we were which was about eight and a half miles from Raleigh, from where the city started whenever I first lived in Raleigh.
BW: Tell me about the first day that the electricity was turned on?
IW: Well, that's kinda hard to say cause I can't hardly remember. It seems like I've had it all the while now. Everything seemed so bright after having just the kerosene lights and the Radio lights and convenient, all you had to do was turn it on, you didn't have to 11 up a lamp. We missed the extra chore that we had had after we got electricity.
BW: What was the first appliance that you bought?
IW: The first thing I did was get me a iron to iron with. The next day we bought a refrigerator and a floor lamp.
BW: Do you remember how much you paid?
IW: I don’t have the slightest idea.
BW: Which appliance was your favorite?
IW: They were all favorites. They were all conveniences so it;s hard to say which one was. The iron, of course, was something I had to use all the time, so was the washing machine. I couldn’t wait to get one of those. When we first got power I guess I would have to say the iron.
BW: Now you sew, before you had electricity what did you use?
IW: A tredle machine
BW: Was a sewing machine one of the first items on the agenda to buy?
IW: No it was good while before I got a sewing machine.
BW: What was a typical day like at your home?
IW: We didn’t get up too early, it was seven thirty, quarter to eight, and then I would fix breakfast and we had to milk a cow. As soon as breakfast was over I would go and milk the cow and then we had to take her to the pasture, turn her in the pasture and I would go and take her and put her in the pasture. Then I’d come back and of course tend to my dishwashing and put the milk away, and just care of the house. Well about eleven thirty I would start the mid-day meal and we’d eat about on o’clock, cause George(husband) had to go to work at two. He left about quarter pass one to get to work by two because that was the day of high pressure tires and if you had a flat you had to fix it you couldn’t put on a pare. You had to take the tire off and patch the hole and then put it back on the pump it up, by hand. The rest of the afternoon was spent taking care of the laundry, the ironing, and when that was over I could sew, crochet or go see a neighbor. About five thirty the cow had to be taken from the pasture and brought to the house and milked and put in the stable. Then you had your evening and we had the radio.
BW: What was your favorite shows, did you have a favorite?
IW: No, mostly music. We had more music and of course we had Amos and Andy and there was a daytime woman’s soap opera, but I never did get interested in that, because that was my busy time taking care of the house or taking care of the baby or whatever. Since George got off work about eleven o’clock I had time to read or sew, crochet or whatever at night and I could sit right close to this radio lamp in cool weather and this lamp gave off plenty of hear that I was comfortable. Didn’t have to have any fire, we used our laundry heater, you could put coal in there and it would burn real slow and heat the house up just nice. It was very comfortable.
BW: Did you have a lot of people dropping by?
IW: Oh yes, the neighbors would drop by.
BW: When the whole area was electrified did visiting dwindle or did things remain the same?
IW: They remained about the very same. Visiting time was usually late in the afternoon or about dusk to nine o’clock. Most everyone was home by nine o’clock cause they had to get up and go early. Especially if they were farming or had cattle. Your neighbors came from far and near to see you.
BW: I’ve heard a lot of people say that it made their life easier with electricity, how did that affect you?
IW: Well if affected me real well, cause instead of having a gasoline washing machine I could have an electric one and have it in my kitchen, but the dryer’s hadn’t gotten popular then, I don’t know whether we even had them then or not.
BW:Where did you have the gasoline washing machine, where did that sit?
IW: I had to have that on the back porch.
BW: Did you put soap in your washing machine?
IW: Yes. What you’d do was dissolve it in some hot water. You;d take a knife and shave it off so it would be thin cause if you put a hunk in there it wouldn’t dissolve early enough it’d take too long. You’d get it good and hot so it would dissolve and then you poured it in your washing machine and that;s all you needed. You’d have pretty white clothes and they smelled so good.
BW: Before you got that gasoline washing machine how did you wash?
IW: I used a wash tub and a scrubbing board. As long as I can remember that’s what we used till we got the gasoline washing machine.
BW: How long would it take you to wash clothes?
IW: Well it depended on the size of your family. When I was growing up I stayed out of scroll a half a day each week to wash. There was six of us, course whenever there was just George and I it didn’t take too much time.
BW: Was your husband working for the post office then, was he driving into town?
IW:Into town every day. We had a car, we got a car, we were married in 1924 and we got a car, that was in June, and we goat a car in April I believe.
BW: What kind of car did you get?
IW: Model T Roadster. Boy it was slick.
BW: Your son was born when you were living in the country, so he didn’t have electricity either.
IW: No but he didn’t know the difference.
BW: When you got electricity how old was daddy?
IW: He was about, I think he was about nine.
BW: What did he think?
IW: Well he talked about it so long I reckon he didn’t think much about it, we finally got it. That Christmas your Aunt Ann was living with us.
BW: Granddaddy's sister
IW: Un huh, and we went to a, I think it was a PTA Meeting, something at school, and Ann and Bill were at home. Ann had bought Christmas lights to sit in every window on the front, and when we came home it looked like a Christmas tree. She had lights in the three windows in each of the front bedrooms and downstairs in the living room and in the kitchen windows; lights everywhere. It just tickled then to death cause they could do it while we were gone and they could do it just like they wanted to. See we didn’t even know that she had them, she had them in the car. Course she was working in Durham and staying at our house, and it was dark when se came in.
BW: Did it look like a fire?
IW: No not like a fire but it was so light and pretty. It just made Christmas for us I’ll tell you.
BW: When you were a little girl what was it like in school?
IW: It was nice. In the country you didn’t get to see a lot of your friends real often, but going to school you had recess you could play with your friends. I went to school in two teacher schoolhouse, it only had two rooms, and you walked all the way. Of course, it was muddy roads when it rained and you never stayed out when ice and snow was on. You went to school every day.
You'd wrap up and carry your umbrella and some of us had raincoats, but a lot of us didn’t and a lot of us didn’t have umbrella’s. Sometimes you;d have to carry an extra pair of shows if you didn’t have overshoes, course you didn’t have galoshes then. You’d put your book sack across your shoulder, put your books in each end of it, and then you’d carry your little linch bucket, I didn’t carry a bucket I always carried a lunch box. You’d have your lunch box in your other hand and you;d have to wear gloves because you had to have your hands out to hold to those in cold weather. We;d go to school and school took in at eight o’clock and you;d stay till four.
The teacher I had when I was in first grade, second grade and third grade was the same lady, and she was a little women, just as cute as she could be, but just as then as she could be too. Just real tall and skinny. She was right by the pot belly heater in the middle of the schoolroom. The chimney was stovepipe, it went straight up above bout two feet from the ceiling and then it turned and went back and out ten feet this way and went in to a chimney. There was a fireplace in the chimney and we couldn’t have a fire in there of course, somebody might fall in the fire.
BW: Who cut the wood?
IW: The boys in the big folks room, we had a little folks room and big folks room. The was when it went thru the seventh grade.
They brought the first load of wood and put it there, and from then on, the school was in this big woods and the people that owned the woods said "Any of the trees that you want go ahead and cut them." It didn't take a lot of wood. The boys would bring in the wood and the big girl would bring the water. We had to go about a quarter of a mile to somebody's house and bring a bucket of water for all the school children to drink. Everybody had a little cup that folded down, it was metal and folded down, and you carried it in your pocket all the time.
When you wanted a drink of water you'd take the dipper and dip you some water in that (cup) and drink it. This first, second and third grade teacher, same lady, she sat on that stool. We had a recitation bench up close to the heater and when our class, there were three grades in the one room, she taught all three grades, first grade would come up and have their lesson and they'd go back to their seats; second grade would come up; and then the third grade,and then this would repeat over all day.
This teacher loved to dip snuff and there was a little vent in front of the heater for the air to go in and she dip her snuff and spit in that stove. We thought it was amazing cause mama never dipped snuff, but a lot of women did back then. We'd look at her, you know, seeing her and so she told us to parch some flour and she'd show us how we could dip snuff like she did. So we parched flour.
I put it in a little tiny jar to carry it. The teacher had us to go to the woods, all of us that had flour, and get us to get a stick toothbrush, you know, pull it off of, I reckon it was a black gum I don't know what it was, anyhow, some kind of a tree, and we chewed the end of it and got it soft and then we'd dip it in that parched flour, but we didn't spit ours out it tasted good. Wasn't that something for the teacher to teach us? But anyway we'd have OUT classes, she'd have the three classes and about I think it was around close to ten o'clock we'd have recess. I guess it was a thirty minute recess it didn't seem like it was very long, anyhow, we girls would play baseball just like the boys.
We'd play right down near the schoolhouse, the baseball diamond was further out what is Strickland Road now. The same thing at lunch time. Everybody would carry their lunch, and we had a little cloakroom and a stage that went all the way thru the front of the building after pass,after coming in the doors and you had one step to get up on the stage and then you had, you went about four steps and then you went down another step and you were in the cloak room. You hung your cloak up and you had shelves over on one side that you sat your lunch box on and then when it was time to have lunch you went there and then you went back to your desk and sat there and ate.
BW: On cloudy days how did ya'll see?
IW: We didn't know it was cloudy. I mean we weren't use to that much light.
BW: Did you have any type of oil lamp?
IW: Oh yes they had oil lamps, but they didn't ever use them in the daytime. You know they had entertainment once in a while. That's the way they raised money to get extra things for the school. When I was in the third grade, you know, we sang when we were first and second grade whenever they'd have anything, but the teacher would get a play and the larger children would put on a nice play and they'd charge to come in and see that.
The little ones would put on a shorter play. Oscie (Sister) was about a year a half old, two years old T reckon and I was the .grandmother in 'Little Red Riding Hood', and there was a small boy dressed up like the wolf. They pulled the curtains back and there I was the grandmother laying up in the bed so the wolf came in and asked me the questions you know and said "I'm going to eat your up," and I slipped out of the bed over on the backside and crawled behind another curtain and went back into the cloak room and Oscie thought that thing ate me up, and she squalled and she squalled. Papa had to take her out.
Finally the Preacher, he was just outside the door on the porch, and the teacher went out there and mama went too, but she still cried, so the teacher came back in and got me and said "You go out there and see about your little sister." Let her know that the wolf didn't eat me up. They would charge, I don't know what the price was, but they would charge for it. Then when I got in the big folks room, the way to make money, the girls all had to pack a lunch and we'd have a box party.
We'd have a picnic lunch in that box. Oh you'd fry chicken, chocolate cake and deviled eggs and things like that you know. You'd fix the box up real pretty and then we'd have somebody to auction them off and whenever some boy or man would buy that box then he had to find out who made the box and you had to eat with him. It was a lot of food and they raised money like that.
BW: After a school day when you went home, and I know you had to do your chores cause everybody had chores, when it came time to do your lessons how did ya'll manage that?
IW: We had this nice table that we'd put in front of the fireplace, not too close up to it, and then had a kerosene light on it. we sat around that table and did our work and we didn't notice that we didn't have good light; it was good to us. Just kerosene light and you'd turn the wick up and it would burn a pretty good light. Then whenever you got thru with that and after the papers had been read, we got a paper every day so we weren't so far back, and we even got the 'Kansas City Star' cause that had Aunt Het in it and we liked Aunt Het. She always had some cute things to say.
BW: Was that an advice column?
IW: That's what it was. After that why we usually had a devotional. After we had our bible reading and say a prayer maybe we'd pop popcorn in the fireplace. We had a popcorn popper made out of screen wire and you'd pull the coals from out of the fireplace and held it over and shake it till the corn popped.
BW: This was you, your mama, and daddy and who else?
IW: Wake, Oscie, Grace and I. There were six of us, four children.
BW: You were the oldest girl?
IW: Yes. Some nights we didn't pop popcorn we would parch peanuts when we got thru cooking the biscuits for supper we'd put a pan of peanuts in the oven and parch those until they were nice and brown, not burned,but you know, nice and crisp, and then we would carry those and that would be. And we even had Hickory nuts we'd crack and pick out sometimes at night. We always had something to eat before we went to bed in the wintertime. We have baked potatoes in front of the fire. Papa always tended to those. He'd lay a small potato down in front of the fire, that was sweet potatoes, and turned them over every once in a while, we'd have our sweet potato. We had good times and of course, on the weekends we'd have company most of the time because Mama played the organ, the boys and the girls in the neighborhood would come and we'd all sing and once in a while we played cards at night. It had to be 'Old Maids' cause we couldn't pay anything else.
BW: Your mother stayed at home, what did your daddy do?
IW: My daddy ran a farm and contracted houses and built houses. At one time there wasn't a single house on Six Forks Road from Six Forks to Wake Forest Road that he either hadn't built or built onto or done some kind of work to it. Not one, every single one, but of course, they were very far apart.
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| Edgar and Nettie Moore |
IW: William Edgar Moore
BW: What was your mother's name?
IW: Nettie Virginia Moore
BW: Did he live to see electricity, your daddy, come into the home?
IW: No not into the home, he died before we had electricity.
BW: What a difference that would have made in the farm life.
IW: Oh yes, that's true, and in his work too. You know they have so many electrical saws and all kinds of tools now that he had to work with a handsaw or you know that type thing.
BW: Looking back I know you have to say that it's a lot better today.
IW: Oh sure it's a lot better today.
BW: It's a lot easier on the women, especially on the women.
IW: Well I think it's just as much easier on the men too, because farms are electrified now. I mean you know they have all kinds of electrical equipment they can use, from feed cutters and all those things. You use to turn a crank and cut up your feed or shell your corn. You had to turn your wheel and put your ears of corn up there and the corn would shell out;the cob would come back; you'd have to catch it and throw it over, I've done that too.
BW: That's hard work
IW: No it wasn't, it was fun. In the afternoon when you'd get home from school, since I was about six years old, I got up the eggs and milked the cow and brought in the stove wood, and if the clothes were on the line I had to get those in. You had things to do. And pump water and fill up the reservoir, mama had a reservoir on her stove too.
BW: Did you have a well?
IW: Oh yes we had a deep well. We had one of the first drilled wells there was out therein that section of Wake County.
BW: Did you have an ice box at that time too or did you
IW: Oh yes we had an ice box but for the milk we had, well we had four milk cows practically all the time, and we milk and Papa made, he called it a milk box,. It was a wooden box and he put, bored a hole in one end down at the bottom and made a peg to go in it and we would pump cold water to go in there and then we would put our milk in there. Well, when it was warm weather, about ten o'clock we'd let that water out and pump some more and fill it up again and then at twelve o'clock, after lunch, we'd fill it up, drain it and fill it up again. And over in the afternoon somebody would let that water out and put in some more cold water, before we went to bed the same thing.
BW: What time did you go to bed?
IW: Oh well it must have been around nine o'clock, you know, back then I didn't pay too much attention to the time of day, when we got sleepy we went to bed. Now Oscie always went to sleep as soon as she got thru eating. One night, Papa had built our kitchen and dinning room after I got in school, and he built it onto the original part of the house and made it, it was an "L" house, he just made the "L" longer, and we had to come out of the dinning room onto the back porch and then into the girls bedroom or go down to the end of the porch and go in the hall to the front part of the house. One night, I think we shelled peas that night, it was in summertime and I went in there and started to go to bed and said "Mama where's Ospe?" she said "Where is she?" I said "I bet she's in that dinning room asleep." And she was. We washed the dishes and cleaned up and took the kerosene lamp and went on into the other part of the house with it and left her in there. Mama said "Well you go get her and get her into bed." We had to undress her and oh she was so sleepy. We put her to bed. Everybody was poor but we didn't know we were poor because everybody else was. Everybody walked to school and everybody carried their lunch and everybody did their wash on the washboard. Now sometimes you had a black person come in and do your wash and sometimes a white woman would come around and do it if you know you really needed somebody.
BW: What year was this approximately?
IW: Oh well from, you want to find out how old I am, well it must of been around 1910 to 1915.
BW: When did you get married?
IW: 1924
BW: With you getting married, now there was no electricity then either at your house that you were living in.
IW: Oh yes there was. We were living in Raleigh.
BW: When did you move to Raleigh.
IW: In 1920.
BW: So your family moved into Raleigh. What a change that was from no electricity to having electricity.
IW: Oh that was great, but you see it hurt us a lot worse when we moved back to the country and didn't have it.
BW: What year was that?
IW: Mama and Papa moved in 1925 and we moved the first of 1927.
BW: You were married then.
IW: Yes
BW: For seven years you had been used to having electricity, how did you manage without it?
IW: Well instead of getting just a plain kerosene light we got FAIO LAMP, and that had a big wick and it had light all the way around instead of a little blaze right thru the middle and that made a lot more light. BW: Did you have a Delco Plant IW: No, there was only one Delco Plant from Six Forks to Raleigh and that's down there where Trinity Baptist Church is now.
BW: Did you have •a radio?
IW: Not then, we had a radio when we were in Raleigh and then when we moved to the country we bought a battery operated one.
BW: Why did you move back to the country?
IW: Well, we just like the county. Papa had bought more land out there and so that little tenant house was a real nice little house and so after they moved into the house Papa built, the one Bill lives in down, we moved in to the little house that they had moved out of. Our rent was cheaper, that was one thing. We just felt like we'd like to be in the country.
BW: Tell me about chores, what you did?
IW: Well if Papa wanted to enlarge his cow pasture and had to pull barbed wire I had to go and help him pull barbed wire. I've got the scar on my leg where barbed wire, the end of the wire got loose from me and curled back and cut my leg. The blood just worked right on down and Papa said "Tear a piece off of your petticoat and tie that knee up its bad." He tried to get me to go to the house and I wouldn't do it. I said " I think it'll be alright, it got well. Wake cut his foot with an ax, a three cornered place on top of his foot, and Papa was going to sew it up with a needle and Mama got hold of him and bandaged him, you know, pressed it together.
BW: Made a pressure bandage
IW: Yes and bandaged it up and made him sit about three hours with his foot in a chair and she put pillows in there and said "Now, don't you move your foot."
BW: That brings to mind things like tetanus. There were no shots for tetanus and there were no shots for typhoid fever.
IW: Well now you had smallpox shots, well they scraped your arm and it took about seven years for one to take on me. I was in high school and living in Raleigh when it finally took on me. Just a little bitty place.
BW: When you were thinking about getting electricity, when you had moved back to the country, and this was starting to open up, did you find people were afraid of it, like that one man?
IW: Oh yes. There were a lot of people who were afraid of it, but they didn't have the fear that Mr. Stevens had. Town was so little. When we lived at Six Forks it was nine miles to the edge of town. The edge of town didn't even come on, just to about Franklin Street.
BW: Now Six Forks is the middle of town.
IW: Then it came on out a little bit further to about the curve in Wake Forest Road between old Mary Elizabeth Hospital and Temple Baptist Church. Then later on they moved it down about the railroad and the next move was out to, I can't think of the name of the street, down by the 'Ham & Egger' The Dixon's house on the hill there was a good landmark. Papa got a horse from Mr. Dixon one time for the carriage, for the surrey.
BW: Was that when you were a little girl? IW: Oh I was about ten years old, I was grown I thought. Papa said "Oh she's going to make a fine horse to use to the surrey." On Sunday morning we were going to Sunday School and Church, we were going to Midway which was where George's mother and daddy are buried, the church was in there, the cemetery was out to the side of the church. Papa carried her down there and he tied her and she reared and she like to broke the shafts off the surrey. Somebody come into the church and told him "Your horse is just rearing." So he went out there and he had to take her out of the shafts to tie her, and she snorted and she carried on. When we started home we didn't take long to get there boy that horse took out. That surrey wasn't heavy one bit. The road was dry and rutty, no pavement, just sand, mud and dirt if it was wet, and she just went right on and on. Just sweating, oh she was so hot. Papa took her out and I said "Daddy I don't think you can drive this horse to the surrey whenever you want to go anywhere, she's too fiery. But that horse would not tie and old man Hugh Shaw, Hazel's Uncle, told Papa said "Edgar, put a rope halter on her and tie her to a tree that will give and just let her pull all she wants to, she won't get away." He did and she wore the skin off the back of her ears and under her throat before she ever tamed down, but after that you could tie her. Papa didn't keep her long.
BW: You mentioned going to church, what was that like with no electricity?
IW: Well it was just fine.
BW: I mean did you have, some places had lanterns that gave off light and smoke so the people had
IW: Well in Churches most of them had wall lamps along the wall and then there would be a hanging lamp, they'd have to let it down and fill it up with oil and everything. Maybe two in the center of the church. It was pretty, you could get beautiful hanging lamps, but they were really not suitable for homes. They had to be in a big building. You went and you had Sunday School, of course, most churches didn't have Sunday School classrooms and the men's class was over here in this 'Amen's' corner and the women's class over here and the big boys over here and the big girls here and the little ones here, and the card class was back in the back and it was combination boy and girl.
BW: Did you have more things to do at night socializing after electricity?
IW: Oh no, you didn't socialize at night. About the only thing you ever went out for was entertainment at school. They didn't have any night services at churches or anything because you were traveling horse and buggy and it just wasn't convenient. Usually the Preacher didn't live in the Community anyway he had to come from somewhere else, and maybe he'd have four churches. See he'd go to this church one Sunday and the next Sunday he'd preach at the next one, but he'd preach Saturday and Sunday. He'd preach Saturday afternoon and who ever could go went, and then Sunday it was practically all day, you started maybe ten thirty at the church and have preaching and maybe go home and then come back that afternoon and have Sunday School, or if the Preacher preached at your church in the evening you had Sunday School in the morning and then come back to the church in the afternoon. Some people would just have to carry a lunch and stay because you didn't travel that fast. The preacher always came and stayed at somebody's home overnight.
BW: What a lot of changes have taken place over the years.
IW: In my lifetime.
BW: you've seen a lot of history
IW: I know it. You know in 1908 or 1909, I think that's the years, I had a great uncle that preached at Millbrook Methodist Church and the parsonage was right across the road right where the Farrell house was and after I married that house burned down and so they didn't have a parsonage. But that preacher had five churches, Uncle Jessie Marlow
had to go to five churches, so he had to do two on Saturdays. One Saturday he'd preach at this one and a month later go to that one on Sunday and go to the other one on Saturday. You know, just change them around like that. They called them a circuit, a circuit preacher. I guess it was around 1945 that Millbrook Methodist Church was still on a circuit but there were only two churches on the circuit and the parsonage was over at Knightdale and the other church was at Knightdale.
