Virginia Sutton interview recording, 1994 August 10
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Kate Ellis | Will you? This is just for the purposes of checking the sound. Will you say your name and when you were born? | 0:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Virginia Sutton. Was born October the 17, 1917. | 0:11 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. 1917. Let me ask you something. Where were you born? | 0:17 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, in Ashton. Ashton, Louisiana. | 0:32 |
Kate Ellis | Ashtown? | 0:37 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Ashton. | 0:38 |
Kate Ellis | Ashton, Louisiana. Is that north of here? | 0:39 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, it's going toward Baldwin. It's not far from here. | 0:44 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, okay. What county is that in? | 0:47 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | It's in St. Mary. | 0:50 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, all right. And we're in St. Mary, aren't we? | 0:50 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 0:50 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. We've been doing a lot of our work in Iberia Parish. | 0:50 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | This is St. Mary. | 0:51 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. So will you tell me just about what you remember about coming up? Well, were you raised in Ashton? Is that where you came? | 0:51 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, just born in Ashton. Was raised right here on Four Corners. | 1:12 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. And you've been here all your life? | 1:16 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, up until the time I got married. | 1:17 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Will you tell me about that time? The period of your life before you were married, what your community was like, what you did, your parents? | 1:20 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Our community was all right. We used to go to Sunday School and go to church and come from church and things. We had to cut grasses for the cow and hogs and play on Sunday evening. We used to have little dances by the old time Graphophones, you know they'd whine. | 1:33 |
Kate Ellis | Those things that you'd want. So you had records that you played? | 2:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, they had records. And we would dance on Sunday evening, and we used to call that the little shook it. We had fun doing that. | 2:06 |
Kate Ellis | What was that called? The little? | 2:17 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Shook it. | 2:18 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, and that's what the dances were called. | 2:23 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. And that was on Sunday. Now, on Monday, well, we had to go to school. We went to school, but I didn't learn too much because when I was in the third grade, stopped and went in the field, went to work in the field. | 2:26 |
Kate Ellis | So from third grade on, you were cutting cane? | 2:52 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. In the field cutting cane. | 2:55 |
Kate Ellis | When you were little, were you able to cut cane? And what was your job when you were little working in the field? | 2:56 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, when I was little, working there. | 3:02 |
Kate Ellis | And once you left school to work in the fields? | 3:04 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, we was cutting cane. | 3:09 |
Kate Ellis | So you were big enough to do that then? | 3:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Cutting cane. And in the summer we would pick cotton, and in the fall we would cut soybeans and thin corn, all that, and get ready for the grinding. | 3:15 |
Kate Ellis | For the grinding? | 3:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | The sugar making, get ready to go in the field and cut the cane. | 3:37 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Would you cut the cane, did that start in about November? | 3:39 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, you start cutting cane in October. | 3:47 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 3:50 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | But now they start much earlier now because they got so much of it now. | 3:52 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, really? | 3:56 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 3:57 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, that's interesting. | 3:58 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, much earlier. | 3:58 |
Kate Ellis | Huh. | 4:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And it wasn't like they have now, you see now they have cane cutter. But in our time, we had to use cane knife. | 4:01 |
Kate Ellis | Wow. | 4:09 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You ever seen a cane knife? | 4:10 |
Kate Ellis | No. | 4:12 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I'll show you one before you leave here. | 4:14 |
Kate Ellis | Really? You got one? | 4:15 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 4:15 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 4:15 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I'll show it to you before you leave here. | 4:18 |
Kate Ellis | Wow, yeah. So I imagine it's a big, long, sharp knife, or no? | 4:19 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, it is about this long. The blade about this long, and the handle is about this long. | 4:27 |
Kate Ellis | Wow. Let me ask you something about that. Did people cut themselves much? I mean, were there many accidents? | 4:32 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. | 4:40 |
Kate Ellis | They really, okay. | 4:42 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, because somebody would show you, teach you how to do it, you see. And after you would learn, well, that was all right. | 4:43 |
Kate Ellis | That was it. | 4:48 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That was it. Yeah. | 4:48 |
Kate Ellis | So in the summer, it was cotton. In the fall, it was vegetables like corn and. | 4:54 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Thinning corn, you see. | 5:01 |
Kate Ellis | What's it called? Oh, tilling? | 5:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Thinning corn. You see, they would plant the corn and on a straight row like that, then a certain time of that year, you had to go and pull some of them corn out so they wouldn't be so thick. | 5:05 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, okay. | 5:16 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You see, corn was planted thick. And you'd had to go there and thin them out. | 5:17 |
Kate Ellis | I see, yeah. | 5:22 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's what they call it, thinning corn. And soybeans, you cut that with a cane knife, just like you do the sugar cane. Yeah. All that was fun. | 5:24 |
Kate Ellis | Was it? | 5:35 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, when you get the swing of any job, it's fun. | 5:37 |
Kate Ellis | Because I picture it as being hard labor. I mean. | 5:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | It's hard labor when you don't know. | 5:51 |
Kate Ellis | I see. | 5:53 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You see? But when you learn and you get to swing, well, you good to go, baby. | 5:54 |
Kate Ellis | So who were you out there with when you would be? | 6:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, when I was out there cutting cane, I had a cousin by the name John Lewis. He used to bring us in the field to cut cane. | 6:02 |
Kate Ellis | So he was an older cousin? | 6:15 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah, he was an older man. Yeah, he'd bring us out there. They had trucks would take us to go to work, where we had to go to work. And you'd go to work early in the morning and you'd come back late in the evening. So when you go to work, you couldn't hardly see your hand. You come back at night, it was dark when you'd come back at night. So we used to use the words, you'd work from can't to can't. | 6:16 |
Kate Ellis | Can't. | 6:48 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | To can't. | 6:48 |
Kate Ellis | Can't see to can't see? | 6:49 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Go to work in the morning, you can't hardly see. You get off at night, you can't hardly see. | 6:56 |
Kate Ellis | Wow. Well, actually, so he had a truck, you said? | 7:02 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, used to bring the people out in the field to cut cane. | 7:07 |
Kate Ellis | So what other people would come out with you? Who would be in the truck with you? | 7:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, boy. Plenty of us would be out there. He had some daughter. Gracie, Viola, and Edward Foledas. Oh, it was so many of us still, it's hard to keep up with all them names. | 7:14 |
Kate Ellis | Really? But they were neighbors of yours? | 7:31 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, they were. | 7:34 |
Kate Ellis | Pretty much? | 7:34 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | We all come up. You see, coming up in the country, you're just like one big family. But everybody had their own houses, but the children would play just like one big family. And the grown folks was the same way. | 7:34 |
Kate Ellis | And so he'd come by and pick up the children? | 7:50 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, pick up to go to work in the morning and bring you back home at night. You had to bring your lunch. You had to bring your lunch with you. | 7:52 |
Kate Ellis | Did your mother pack a lunch for you or who? | 8:01 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I didn't have no mother. My mother died when I was small and my auntie raised us. | 8:03 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 8:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | One of my daddy's sisters, she raised us. | 8:10 |
Kate Ellis | Now, who's us? Who else was with you? | 8:13 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, I had my sisters. My oldest sister is Mary. And the one older than I am is Emily. And I was Virginia. And Rose. But Rose never did cut cane, her. The youngest one, she never did cut cane. | 8:17 |
Kate Ellis | Why? | 8:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Huh? | 8:36 |
Kate Ellis | Why didn't she cut cane? | 8:38 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Because she was the baby. You do take care of the baby. | 8:39 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 8:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Keep them from working hard. | 8:44 |
Kate Ellis | But even when she got older? | 8:47 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | When she got older, well, she didn't know nothing about it. So went to school and growed up, and she went to Texas. | 8:48 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 8:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 8:56 |
Kate Ellis | What's she doing in Texas? | 8:56 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, she got a job up there and worked in Texas. | 8:58 |
Kate Ellis | So she went to school, but you, the older sisters? | 9:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | My oldest sister was Mary. Well, she went to school. Emily, she went. But I went too. But after I got in the third grade, that's why I stopped school in the third grade, you see. And I wanted to go out there and the field and work so I could buy me different things like some of the other children was having. | 9:05 |
Kate Ellis | I see. So you wanted to make yourself some? | 9:26 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right, some money. | 9:28 |
Kate Ellis | A little bit of money. | 9:29 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. | 9:29 |
Kate Ellis | So that you could get what they had. | 9:30 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. | 9:31 |
Kate Ellis | But while you were in the fields, were your older sisters in school? | 9:32 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. They was working too. They had been to school before I did. | 9:36 |
Kate Ellis | Uh-huh. | 9:41 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 9:41 |
Kate Ellis | So what grades did they go to school to? | 9:42 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, I think my oldest sister stopped school in the sixth or seventh. And my sister Emily, I don't know what grade she stopped in, but she didn't learn much, her at all. No, she didn't like too much at all. But you couldn't beat her out of no money though. | 9:44 |
Kate Ellis | Really? Well, tell me about that. How much were you paid? | 10:05 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | 70 cents a day. | 10:09 |
Kate Ellis | 70 cents a day. Now, who were you working for? | 10:12 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | We was working for this, John would take us out there to the Cade. | 10:16 |
Kate Ellis | To the what? | 10:23 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | To the Cade. It was a place they call the Cade. That's before you get to Franklin. You go, you travel on 90. But yeah. But now who the boss man was, I don't know. But I know that's where we used to go and cut cane. | 10:23 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. And it was his farm? | 10:41 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, it was his farm. The White man farm. | 10:44 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 10:47 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You see, the Black man was just gathering the people and bring them to work over there for him. | 10:48 |
Kate Ellis | And this Black man was your cousin? | 10:53 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. John Lewis. | 10:55 |
Kate Ellis | John Lewis. Now, so John Lewis was paid by the White man to pick you all up every day. | 10:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Uh-huh. | 10:56 |
Kate Ellis | Did he also give you instructions as what, did he tell you what to do every day? Did he start overseeing your work? | 11:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, he was a little, you would call that a little straw boss. | 11:08 |
Kate Ellis | A straw boss? | 11:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. That's how you call that, a straw boss. | 11:10 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. How'd he get that name, straw boss? | 11:11 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, because it's somebody over you. | 11:19 |
Kate Ellis | I see. But he's the one that's telling you what to do. | 11:21 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. And you see the man who the land and that who the place belong stuff, he tell him. So he just pass it down to us. So that's why we call him the straw boss. | 11:24 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Oh, wow. So you would all work out in the field all day. | 11:40 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 11:42 |
Kate Ellis | Would you get an hour break for lunch? | 11:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah, we'd get break for lunch. Eat our lunch, then after that, we go back again. | 11:45 |
Kate Ellis | When would you get paid? | 11:53 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | We'd get paid every two weeks. | 11:55 |
Kate Ellis | How? Would they pay you in cash? | 11:59 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. That's how they used to pay us, in cash. | 12:02 |
Kate Ellis | Would the boss man pay you? Or would John Lewis give out the money? | 12:06 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, the boss man would fix the money. He'd bring the time into the boss man, you see? And he would fix it, and all he had to do come pay you. He had everybody's name, and just how much they had to get so it wasn't hard to do. | 12:08 |
Kate Ellis | Did you ever learn to read and write? | 12:28 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, I could read a little. I used to, could write a little. I still could write a little, but my hands shake, nervous-like. | 12:31 |
Kate Ellis | I see. Okay, it is part of the arthritis or something? | 12:39 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I guess it is, baby. | 12:44 |
Kate Ellis | Or I don't know. | 12:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I don't either so whatever. Whatever. | 12:48 |
Kate Ellis | It does what it does. | 12:52 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | It does, right. That's right. | 12:53 |
Kate Ellis | I see. Right. So can I ask you more about your family? | 13:01 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 13:02 |
Kate Ellis | You said that now your mother died when you were young. How did she die? | 13:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | She died with a heart attack. | 13:08 |
Kate Ellis | Is that right? | 13:11 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And my daddy, he died with pneumonia. | 13:13 |
Kate Ellis | When did your daddy die? | 13:17 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Hm? | 13:18 |
Kate Ellis | When did your daddy die? | 13:19 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | They died a year apart. | 13:20 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 13:22 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 13:23 |
Kate Ellis | Huh. So he just caught sick and? | 13:28 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | He had pneumonia. | 13:31 |
Kate Ellis | He had pneumonia. | 13:32 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | He had pneumonia. | 13:32 |
Kate Ellis | Did he have any access to medical care? I mean, was there any kind of doctor who could come out of care for him or? | 13:33 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, they had, I don't know if they had doctors in those times. I don't want to sit here and say yeah and don't know what I'm talking about. | 13:43 |
Kate Ellis | So you don't remember any doctors coming around? | 13:54 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, uh-uh. | 13:58 |
Kate Ellis | So if he caught pneumonia, I guess I'm wondering, was there anybody who could help him with his pneumonia or was it? | 14:02 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, some of them, his aunties, they was midwives. You ever heard of that? | 14:09 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, yeah. | 14:15 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Midwives. And they knew, they would boil tea and give you and rub you down, do what they can for you. And sometimes it would help, and sometimes it wouldn't help. | 14:15 |
Kate Ellis | I see. So they had some remedies that they used? | 14:30 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. And my mama, she had a heart attack when she was combing my youngest sister's hair, they told me. | 14:36 |
Kate Ellis | They told you. Were you too young to remember? | 14:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. They said she was sitting in the rocking chair. She was combing Rose's hair, my youngest sister, and she just took with the heart attack and died there. | 14:48 |
Kate Ellis | Wow, that was tough. | 15:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, it was tough. And my auntie raised us, one of my daddy's sister, she raised us four sisters together. | 15:02 |
Kate Ellis | Did she move into your house or did you move to her house? | 15:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, we moved over here. My brother then brought us over here to her house. | 15:12 |
Kate Ellis | Wait, now when you say here, like to that house next door or? | 15:18 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, further down. | 15:21 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 15:22 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Further down. | 15:22 |
Kate Ellis | So they brought you over? | 15:24 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 15:24 |
Kate Ellis | I see. | 15:24 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. And she raised us the help of the good Lord. | 15:28 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah, I guess. When you would work in the fields and you made your money, did you give her some money for the house? | 15:35 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Give her the money and she would buy what we need. | 15:41 |
Kate Ellis | I see. What store would she go to? | 15:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, they had different stores you could go to. They had a grocery store right up there where that car wash at. And they had one up there to the corner, north of Four Corner. They had one up there. I think they were the only two they had out here. But they had stores in Jeanerette. | 15:49 |
Kate Ellis | So did they have transportation to get to Jeanerette? | 16:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. They'd go in wagons sometime and they have to go shopping. Go in them wagons. | 16:16 |
Kate Ellis | So was that a big trip? I mean, when you'd go to Jeanerette in the wagon. | 16:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, yeah. You was going to spend money. And things was cheap too. Things was cheap too. | 16:30 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 16:35 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Things was cheap. You could go to the store. They had a little store down there to that corner. We used to call that Irish Stone corner down there. | 16:36 |
Kate Ellis | What'd you call it? | 16:50 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | We used to call it Irish Stone corner. | 16:50 |
Kate Ellis | Oh. | 16:50 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And in our time coming up, you could have go to the store, you could get nickel sugar, nickel lard, just nickel anything you wanted. | 16:52 |
Kate Ellis | Nickel bread? | 17:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. But nah, go to the store, you can't get. | 17:01 |
Kate Ellis | I get it. Nickel. | 17:06 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Can't get nothing for a nickel. | 17:06 |
Kate Ellis | No. You could buy a penny for a nickel. That was, huh. | 17:06 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed. I'm telling you. | 17:06 |
Kate Ellis | So it was your auntie and your uncle and your sisters in the house? | 17:17 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | My brothers, some of my brothers was there too. Two of my brothers was there because they was young too when mama and papa died. | 17:23 |
Kate Ellis | Had they been living in your home when your mother and father died? | 17:32 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Huh? | 17:36 |
Kate Ellis | Your brothers? How many brothers did you have? | 17:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I had five brothers. | 17:39 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. And so where were they living when your parents? | 17:40 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, some of them was already married. | 17:44 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 17:46 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And two wasn't. Frank and John wasn't married when mom and them died. | 17:48 |
Kate Ellis | I'm curious about what you had said a little bit ago about the dances that you'd go to. And you had that old wind-up record player. Where was the dance held? What were the dances held? | 18:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, we used to have it at our house. | 18:13 |
Kate Ellis | Oh. | 18:14 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. You see in the yard, we'd have the Graphophone under the tree on a table of boxes, what we had and just have us a good time. | 18:15 |
Kate Ellis | And where did the record, who got the record player? I mean, that was kind— | 18:24 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Different one had, you know them, we call them Graphophones. Different one had them old type, old style Graphophones, and that's what. | 18:30 |
Kate Ellis | I'm sorry. | 18:37 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Go ahead. | 18:38 |
Kate Ellis | Different people in the community had this? | 18:38 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, uh-huh. | 18:39 |
Kate Ellis | I remember some people telling me recently who I think around your age that they would get together and they didn't have any kind of musical instruments. And their music was from claps. | 18:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Their hand. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That was good music too. | 18:52 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. But they didn't say anything about a Graphophone. | 18:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, we had a Graphophone. | 18:58 |
Kate Ellis | Wow. | 18:58 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And then we would have the clapping one too. Yeah. | 19:00 |
Kate Ellis | Sounds like fun. | 19:06 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | It was fun, baby. It was fun. | 19:07 |
Kate Ellis | Would boys and girls meet there? I mean. | 19:12 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 19:13 |
Kate Ellis | Is that a place where you might do a little courting or? | 19:13 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, that's what we was having our little shookies for it so we could get together with the boys. | 19:18 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, really? | 19:22 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Get together with the boys. | 19:25 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. I see. | 19:27 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, that was a good time. | 19:28 |
Kate Ellis | And that was Sunday nights? | 19:30 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 19:36 |
Kate Ellis | Did you have, I don't know, special clothes you put on? Is that when you'd wear? | 19:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, sugar, we didn't have no special clothes. You didn't have nothing for special. What you did had, you had to make good of it. | 19:36 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 19:44 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | So all you wanted to do, be clean. | 19:48 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 19:57 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed. | 19:57 |
Kate Ellis | What about, was it the same thing for going to church? | 19:58 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. If you ain't had shoes, you had to wash your foot and put them some Vaseline on it, clean them leg and go barefoot. | 20:00 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, I didn't realize that some, so you some might not have shoes. | 20:09 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 20:13 |
Kate Ellis | Because shoes were expensive? | 20:14 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. That was expensive, you see. And people ain't had that much to buy shoes. When they'd buy a shoe, they had to buy a shoe for a gang, you see? So they had to feed us, so your stomach would come first. You couldn't walk barefooted, but your stomach couldn't do it. Yes, indeed. | 20:15 |
Kate Ellis | Wow. Well, who did somebody sew your clothes that you did have? | 20:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, yeah, we had a couple of cousins used to sew. And then sometime my aunt would get them already made. | 20:43 |
Kate Ellis | Oh really? She'd buy some? | 20:51 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, she'd buy them. They used to have them already made. | 20:51 |
Kate Ellis | So as far as the land that you were living on in your auntie's house, so you said that people in your community, they each had a house. Did people have much of their own property? | 20:56 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | A lot of them had much of their own property. But as it went on, some of them lost their property by, didn't have money to do what they want. They just borrowed to have, take care of their family till it just went away from them. | 21:11 |
Kate Ellis | I see. So they couldn't farm the property right? | 21:29 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, they couldn't farm it right enough, you see. | 21:37 |
Kate Ellis | Because they just didn't have enough to farm it with? | 21:41 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | They didn't have enough to farm it with. And those what had to farm, to work their land, well, most of the White folks was working the land farm, you see? And they would give them a share. | 21:44 |
Kate Ellis | The Whites would be working? | 22:04 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. The White would have the tool. You see, the White man would have the tool. So now if you working for him, he would work your land for you, you see. But if you ain't working for him, you don't work your land. You see? | 22:05 |
Kate Ellis | I see. | 22:22 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. That's how that went. | 22:22 |
Kate Ellis | And so some people lost their land? | 22:29 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Lost plenty of their land. | 22:32 |
Kate Ellis | To White people. | 22:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Plenty of their land. | 22:36 |
Kate Ellis | I'm sorry, they? | 22:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Huh? | 22:36 |
Kate Ellis | They what? | 22:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | They lost it to them, you see, by can't make enough money to pay their bill. | 22:38 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 22:44 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | So something had to go. | 22:44 |
Kate Ellis | And that's all they had to go. | 22:46 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. | 22:48 |
Kate Ellis | So was your family able to raise very many of their own crops or anything? I mean, did you have enough land to raise your own vegetables for you to eat or your own animals? | 22:50 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, we had enough land where my auntie raised us at to make garden and things. But not enough for no field or nothing. | 23:04 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, right. You couldn't make any money from it? | 23:15 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, no. | 23:18 |
Kate Ellis | So did you feed the family with it? | 23:19 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yes, you'd make enough in your garden to take care of the family. | 23:21 |
Kate Ellis | And did your auntie make enough in the garden to feed your family? | 23:26 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, yeah. She made enough in the garden. | 23:28 |
Kate Ellis | So y'all didn't? | 23:32 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | We didn't suffer for food. | 23:34 |
Kate Ellis | Okay, that's what my question. | 23:35 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, we didn't suffer for food. No. | 23:36 |
Kate Ellis | You didn't go hungry. | 23:39 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. Uh-uh. No, we didn't go hungry. And the people, the way we came up, you see the people just like I'm living here and you living there, and another one over there. Well, when one have, they give the rest, you see? And when the other one would get, well, they would pass them on to the other. You see, that's how we lived. Lived as a family. | 23:40 |
Kate Ellis | Wow. | 24:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's helping one another. | 24:05 |
Kate Ellis | Mrs. Sutton, am I right to assume they were all Black families in your community that were sharing? | 24:08 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, most of them was Black. Most of them was Black. | 24:14 |
Kate Ellis | Were there a few White families? | 24:17 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah, they had some White ones. And they had some good White ones. Yeah, they had some good. | 24:18 |
Kate Ellis | Good White, what do mean good White ones? | 24:23 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | What I mean by some good White ones, they would give you. If you go over there and ask them, they would give you, you see. But all of them wasn't alike. No, all of them wasn't like that, you see. | 24:25 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. So those White families who give you, I mean, did the White families who lived around you, did they have more? Did they teach them? They already had already more. | 24:41 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, they had more, yeah, they had more. They had more land, more big old houses and everything. | 24:53 |
Kate Ellis | So these were Whites in big houses? | 24:59 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 25:04 |
Kate Ellis | But they weren't the people who? | 25:05 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Some of them would help you more than the other one. Yeah, some of them would help you more than the other one. | 25:10 |
Kate Ellis | Did you have some White families that you would just as soon stay away from? | 25:18 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. I ain't felt like that. | 25:23 |
Kate Ellis | I mean, some were just more giving. | 25:27 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Than others. | 25:28 |
Kate Ellis | Than others. | 25:28 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. | 25:31 |
Kate Ellis | Huh. And I guess their kids would've gone to separate schools. | 25:32 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, it was separate schools. | 25:39 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 25:41 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | They just started that. I don't know when they started that. It was after Martin Luther King. I think that's when they started mixing them up. Yeah, after Martin Luther King, | 25:41 |
Kate Ellis | Was there an actual plantation nearby where people lived on the property of the Whites? | 25:56 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah. Going toward Ashton, they got people was living on the White folks land, them little houses. And where else, I think it was surround Sorrel, that road would go on to Sorrel, it was the same way with some houses. | 26:04 |
Kate Ellis | On the plantation. | 26:33 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Plantation house, uh-huh. | 26:33 |
Kate Ellis | And the people who worked there might be paid with the plantation money. | 26:34 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, the plantation was what was making the money. They the one had the tools to make the money, you see, make the crop and sell it. Well, the crop, they get the money, you see. Yeah. So we had good time and bad time, but God took care of us. We survived. | 26:38 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 27:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed. | 27:02 |
Kate Ellis | I'd love to hear about what the good times were and what the bad times were. I mean, what? | 27:06 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, the way I look at it, the bad time is when you didn't have, when you need and you didn't have. To me, that was the bad time. | 27:14 |
Kate Ellis | And what might you have needed that you didn't have? | 27:34 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, sometimes you'd need different things. You get tired of cooking the same thing all the time. You want to fix something different, you see. So if you ain't had the money to get something different, you had to use what you had, you see. But now, if you had money, it was sitting down here, okay? If I say I feel like eating a hamburger. I might have had chicken for dinner, but now I want something different for supper, you see? | 27:34 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 27:58 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | But if you ain't got no money, you just got to wish for the hamburger. | 28:00 |
Kate Ellis | Right. Use your imagination as you're. | 28:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I'm telling you. | 28:05 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, boy. | 28:16 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes indeed. | 28:16 |
Kate Ellis | There were times when you really had to hold on, be patient I see. | 28:16 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed sugar, patient. Yes, Lord. | 28:16 |
Kate Ellis | How about the good times? What do you remember as being good times? | 28:23 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, the good times is when you could get what you want. Yeah, when you could get what you want. | 28:27 |
Kate Ellis | Were there ever times when you got something that you didn't expect? | 28:37 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, the only time you would get something you didn't expect. That's if somebody would come and give you something and you didn't know you was going to get it. So that's a glad thing there. | 28:41 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. And that would happen sometimes. Somebody might? | 28:52 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah, that would happen. Yeah, that would happen. Yes, indeed because after I got married, I got married when I was 16 years old. And when I got married, I moved to Weeks island. | 28:55 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 29:16 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And I'm a mother of 13 children. And God blessed me, let me raise nine of them. My youngest one died in 1975. My youngest daughter, she died. | 29:19 |
Kate Ellis | How did she die? | 29:38 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Walking pneumonia. I had never heard of that. Oh, walking pneumonia. And that's her daughter up there. That's my granddaughter up there. | 29:40 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, that's a beautiful picture. | 29:59 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. So she in the Navy. | 29:59 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, that's where she is now? | 29:59 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, that's where she's at now. So she graduated. That's what she wanted to do. | 29:59 |
Kate Ellis | So where did you meet your husband? Where did you? | 29:59 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, he's from Four Corners. He was from Four Corners. | 29:59 |
Kate Ellis | Four Corners, okay. Did he work on the fields as well? | 30:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, he used to work in the fields before he went on Weeks Island. | 30:15 |
Kate Ellis | So was he a salt miner? | 30:22 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, he used to work down the mine. | 30:25 |
Kate Ellis | So let me ask you, what do you remember about getting married when you were 16? | 30:27 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | What do I remember about getting married at 16? | 30:33 |
Kate Ellis | What'd you do? | 30:35 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | What do you mean? | 30:35 |
Kate Ellis | I mean, did you have a ceremony? | 30:38 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah, I had a big wedding. | 30:41 |
Kate Ellis | Tell me about it. | 30:42 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah, it was nice. And I got married at the church, St. John Baptist Church. That's why I got married. | 30:44 |
Kate Ellis | That was your church? | 30:52 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Was his too. And at a nice wedding, I was dressed all in white. Made a beautiful bride if I have to say it myself. | 30:55 |
Kate Ellis | I bet you did. | 31:05 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed. | 31:08 |
Kate Ellis | I wish I could see a picture. Huh. | 31:09 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. They wasn't taking pictures in those days. | 31:13 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 31:17 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed. | 31:17 |
Kate Ellis | I mean, weddings, that can be expensive. How were you able to? | 31:20 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | A wedding? The wedding wasn't expensive. | 31:26 |
Kate Ellis | No? | 31:26 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. You know why the wedding wasn't expensive? | 31:26 |
Kate Ellis | Why? | 31:29 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Because I had two aunties what knowed how to make wedding cakes. | 31:30 |
Kate Ellis | Oh. | 31:37 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You see? And everything for the wedding was given, you see. Such a big family and big on my side and on his side too. So they just put together and made one big thing. | 31:38 |
Kate Ellis | And so, did you have a feast? Was it a big feast? | 31:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, yeah. | 31:56 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, boy. | 31:57 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. | 31:58 |
Kate Ellis | Did you have music? | 31:59 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, they had music. Yeah, they had music. We had us a good time. | 32:00 |
Kate Ellis | That sounds like it. | 32:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, we had us a good time. | 32:03 |
Kate Ellis | So then you married and went to Weeks Island together. How did your husband get work on Weeks Island? | 32:12 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | How did he what? | 32:19 |
Kate Ellis | Get a job on Weeks Island? | 32:20 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, he was working on Weeks Island before we married. | 32:24 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 32:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, he was working there before we married. | 32:25 |
Kate Ellis | As a salt miner. Was he your age or much older? | 32:28 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh no, he was older than I am. Let me say I was 16 when I married. He was 33. So he was 16 years older than I was. | 32:32 |
Kate Ellis | Oh boy. He was about, wow. | 32:42 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, he was 16 years old, twice 16. | 32:43 |
Kate Ellis | 32. | 32:48 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 32:51 |
Kate Ellis | So he'd already been working? | 32:52 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 32:54 |
Kate Ellis | So I'd love to hear about your move to Weeks Island. What you thought about it and what it was like there. | 32:57 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, after I got married, see, I hadn't never went to Weeks Island before. And when we got married and I went to Weeks Island at night, sugar, let me tell you, I thought I was in hell. I had never went there, you see. Going there, you go around them little hill like that. And when you don't know where you go. Now if I done went there in the daytime, it would've been, I'd have been able to see better. But at night, I swear I didn't know where I was going. I said, "Lord, have mercy Jesus, I wonder if I'm going to hell." So we got to the house and after we got to the house, I said, "Well, I'm not in hell It's still civilization." | 33:01 |
Kate Ellis | So he had a little house where you all lived? | 33:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, he had a house, a three bedroom house. We used to call them little sharp shooters. | 33:51 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, okay. So it was one of those. | 33:56 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, sharp shooters. Yeah. | 33:57 |
Kate Ellis | What did he do in the mines? | 34:04 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | He used to drill them holes and put them dynamite sticks or dynamite in it. They used to call him a powder man. | 34:08 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, okay. | 34:16 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's how they used to call him, a powder man. | 34:16 |
Kate Ellis | How long did he? | 34:23 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, he worked, let me see. We married in '33. We was married, I think it was 25 years when he died. | 34:25 |
Kate Ellis | How did he died? | 34:38 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | He died 1958. | 34:41 |
Kate Ellis | How? How did he die? | 34:47 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | He had fell and broke his leg and he never did get well from it. | 34:48 |
Kate Ellis | He fell and broke his leg? | 34:53 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Down the mine where he was working, see he was working down the mine. | 34:58 |
Kate Ellis | Well, what happened when he broke his leg? I mean, did the? | 35:05 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, when you get a certain age, you break them bones, it's tough for them bones to get back together. | 35:10 |
Kate Ellis | But did the company offer him any kind of medical care? | 35:21 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, they took care of him. | 35:31 |
Kate Ellis | They took care of him? | 35:31 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah, they took care of him. | 35:31 |
Kate Ellis | So did they get a doctor or did he go to a hospital? | 35:34 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, we had doctors on Weeks Island at that time. Yeah, we had doctors. | 35:36 |
Kate Ellis | So you saw a doctor and they tried to fix the leg. | 35:41 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | He went to the hospital, they saw him to the hospital. He stayed in the hospital a good while. | 35:45 |
Kate Ellis | That must have been rough. | 35:58 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, it was tough, but ain't nothing we could do about God's business. Just got to accept it and keep moving because that's a debt we all have to pay. | 36:01 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. I don't know how many kids you had at that time. | 36:13 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I had nine of them when he passed. See, I had 13 all together, but God blessed me to raise nine of them till 1975 when my youngest one died. | 36:25 |
Kate Ellis | So what did you do once he died and you were on Weeks Island and you had kids? How did you support yourself? | 36:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Social security, baby. | 36:55 |
Kate Ellis | I'm sorry? | 36:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Social security. | 36:55 |
Kate Ellis | I see. So you did get that? | 36:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, yeah. Yeah, did get social security. | 37:05 |
Kate Ellis | Were any of your kids working at that time? | 37:09 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Some of them was married. | 37:10 |
Kate Ellis | Oh. | 37:15 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Let's see, my oldest daughter. Yeah, my oldest daughter. She was the only one married that time and I had the rest of them back at the house. | 37:16 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, so while you were living on Weeks Island and he was working, did you have any kind of paid work? | 37:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Paid work? | 37:38 |
Kate Ellis | I mean, did you have a job of any kind? | 37:40 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-mm, no. | 37:43 |
Kate Ellis | You were raising the kids. | 37:44 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, I was raising the kids. | 37:44 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 37:44 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And after he stayed down with his leg, well, I got a job on Weeks Island at the school, helping out to the school. | 37:48 |
Kate Ellis | Oh. | 38:01 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. And I think I kept that little part-time job till he passed. | 38:01 |
Kate Ellis | Can you tell me about the community at Weeks Island? What it was like? | 38:20 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | It was a nice community. | 38:26 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah? Now am I right that it, was it a segregated community with Black families working in one or living in one area? | 38:28 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 38:38 |
Kate Ellis | And White families living in another? | 38:38 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. It was like that for a long time. But then after that, it began to change. | 38:39 |
Kate Ellis | What? | 38:49 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, the reason why I say it began to change because a lot of the Whites would move. You see they was moving off of Weeks Island. They would build their own houses and things. They was moving off of Weeks Island. Then if you was Black, well, you could've go stay in their house. | 38:50 |
Kate Ellis | I see. So Whites were moving out? | 39:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Out, uh-huh. | 39:14 |
Kate Ellis | And so Blacks moved into their houses, and they were allowed to do that. | 39:14 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, yeah. Yeah, we saw it was a nice place to live. | 39:18 |
Kate Ellis | Really? It was a nice community. | 39:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Just like one big family. | 39:26 |
Kate Ellis | So everybody knew each other. | 39:30 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. | 39:30 |
Kate Ellis | Now, when you say that even though the Whites and the Blacks lived in separate communities, did they mingle? Or when you say everybody knew each other, did everybody in the Black community know each other? | 39:31 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 39:45 |
Kate Ellis | And everybody in the White community knew each other? | 39:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. And now some of the Blacks used to go work for the Whites. | 39:47 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, in their homes? | 39:53 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Used to go to their home and work for them. | 39:54 |
Kate Ellis | I see. | 39:56 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 39:57 |
Kate Ellis | But you never did that? | 39:57 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Who, me? | 39:59 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 40:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, uh-uh, no. Never did get a chance. | 40:00 |
Kate Ellis | No. I guess you were pretty busy. | 40:06 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. With them children. | 40:07 |
Kate Ellis | And then what church did you go to on Weeks Island? | 40:13 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | St. James Baptist Church. | 40:15 |
Kate Ellis | St. James Church. And that was segregated, was that? | 40:19 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, just Black. | 40:20 |
Kate Ellis | It was just Black. | 40:20 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And they had a Catholic Church for the White. Yeah, the White church was segregated because they had Black people was Catholic and they would go to the Catholic Church. But the Baptist church was just Black. Just Black. | 40:32 |
Kate Ellis | So when the Black Catholics went to the White church, they sat in a separate area? | 40:47 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Well, if I tell you they was in a separate area, I'll be lying to you. Oh, you see, because I know they used to go there. | 40:52 |
Kate Ellis | Yes. | 40:59 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | But now how they would sit down, I couldn't tell you that. | 41:01 |
Kate Ellis | Because you went to the Baptist church. | 41:04 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. | 41:06 |
Kate Ellis | That makes sense. Right. | 41:07 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed. Yeah. Weeks Island used to be hopping. | 41:08 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 41:16 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And we had a salt mine out there, they had a acid plant. And the gulf is right next to it. Yeah. | 41:16 |
Kate Ellis | What about the church you went to around here? You went to the Baptist church. You went to St. John? | 41:46 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 41:52 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Which is a Black Baptist. | 41:52 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Now, we have a Catholic Church up there to the Four Corners there too but it's mixed. | 42:00 |
Kate Ellis | Now it's mixed? | 42:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, now it's mixed. | 42:03 |
Kate Ellis | What church is that? | 42:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | St. Peter. Black and White both go to it. | 42:09 |
Kate Ellis | And they sit together? | 42:15 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, yeah. Sit anywhere. | 42:21 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. Well, when you were coming up, well, it sounds like you may be interacted mostly with Blacks as opposed to with Whites as well. What I was going to ask is how did you see Whites and Blacks getting along and interacting when you were coming up? | 42:21 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, the Black and the White, but we used to play with White children and things. But yeah, the thing it was, we just never did go to church with them or nothing because they would go to their church, we'd go to ours, you see. That was the only difference. | 42:51 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 43:11 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's the only difference I seen going to different church because it ain't but one God, I don't care how we serve Him, it's one God. Yes, indeed. And the White girls we used to play with, they was good children. | 43:11 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 43:27 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. They were good children. So it was all right with me. | 43:28 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 43:38 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed. | 43:41 |
Kate Ellis | Do you remember much unionizing activity out on Weeks Island? | 43:42 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Any what? | 43:48 |
Kate Ellis | Any workers trying to form unions, like workers' unions together? | 43:51 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I don't know. I think they had a union, I'm not positive, but people out there, they was more cooperative than to get something to come in and make them separate. | 43:58 |
Kate Ellis | What do you mean? | 44:16 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, just like if, let me see. How should I say that? If they're going up on the wages. I'm just putting it like that. If they going on up on the wages. Well, now if you got a job higher than mine, well, I don't look for the pay you get. All I want them to do, give me a few penny to raise mine a little higher. | 44:17 |
Kate Ellis | Because if you get. | 44:47 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You see, just like if you getting $3, well okay, they could give me 2.50. You see? Be satisfied with what you get. Don't believe in fighting for more because the more you get, you don't know what to do with it. You don't know what to do with it because you do a lot of things you ain't got no business doing. | 44:48 |
Kate Ellis | What do you mean? | 45:13 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, a lot of the people, if they paying them a good bit of money, they spend more of it in foolishness then they do wise. | 45:15 |
Kate Ellis | I see. | 45:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You see? So if you get less, you do more, then the one would get a plenty, because you see you going to take care of things what need to be taken care. And the other one going to just look over what need to be taken care of, you see. So that's why I say it's time for good time and bad time too, you see. Now the one with the most money, he having more good time. The one with the less money, they ain't having much good time because they taking care of business you see, in a business way. | 45:25 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. And that's what you did? | 45:57 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. That's the best thing to do, baby. | 46:00 |
Kate Ellis | I mean, once you moved to Weeks Island and your husband was working there, did y'all have what you needed or was there more hard times as far as working? | 46:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | It was hard. It was hard and it was good because when it get hard like that, well, it just make us learn how to tighten up. | 46:14 |
Kate Ellis | Tighten up, what do you mean? | 46:28 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Tighten up, that mean that you don't spend as much as you've been spending. You try to hold on to some of it, you see? | 46:30 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 46:37 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | To me that's what mines is. Hold on to some, you see, you don't just good time all of it. | 46:39 |
Kate Ellis | So you saved some money just in case. | 0:02 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. You have to hold a few. Penny. Yes, indeed. | 0:04 |
Kate Ellis | Did you or did your family belong to any kind of burial societies when you were younger? Or like benevolence? | 0:14 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, my auntie, she was a benevolent. | 0:28 |
Kate Ellis | Did you all ever? | 0:33 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Huh? No. Uh-huh. I never. | 0:35 |
Kate Ellis | You and your husband or anything? | 0:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. | 0:36 |
Kate Ellis | Did you belong to any kind of social clubs or organizations? | 0:39 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. Uh-huh. No, sugar. No. No. No. | 0:45 |
Kate Ellis | So after your husband passed, and then what did you do? Did you stay on the island. | 1:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | My husband died in May. June, July, August. I moved off of Weeks Island in September. See, we had to build our house, but we just hadn't moved in yet. | 1:10 |
Kate Ellis | I'm sorry? | 1:29 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | This house was already built. | 1:30 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, who had built it? Your husband had built it? | 1:32 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, no. He got some men's, carpenters to build it. | 1:35 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. So he'd hired them to build it. | 1:38 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | But he, he, the one fixed the blueprint for them. Yeah, he drew his own blueprint, how he wanted his house fixed. | 1:40 |
Kate Ellis | And then he hired some carpenters to do it? | 1:50 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 1:52 |
Kate Ellis | So y'all must have saved money to be able to have— | 1:52 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | All you had to do in those time, baby, have a good down payment on your lumber. Have a good down payment. | 1:58 |
Kate Ellis | So you'd borrow money from the lumber? I mean, you'd borrow the lumber from the— | 2:06 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. A down payment on your lumber. You see, that don't mean all your lumber you're paying for. You have so much. If it's two or $300 down, just like if you're going to get a car. You got to have so much down for the car, you see? | 2:09 |
Kate Ellis | And then the rest you pay on time? | 2:26 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. And the same year he died, we was going to move here, but before we moved, well, he passed. You see, he passed in May and we move in September, you see? | 2:29 |
Kate Ellis | I see. | 2:46 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And I don't know how it is there now with houses. You go buy houses, it's a insurance you could join. | 2:51 |
Kate Ellis | I'm not sure I understand. You mean an insurance you could join? | 3:02 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, just like if you—Let's see, how I explain this? Just like if you getting the money, you go to the bank, you borrow the money for your down payment on your house. Now okay, that money they loaning you is a insurance go with that money. | 3:06 |
Kate Ellis | You mean life insurance for the house? | 3:28 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. No, for your life. | 3:31 |
Kate Ellis | Life insurance? | 3:31 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. You see now, after he passed the house was paid for with that insurance he had. | 3:34 |
Kate Ellis | I see. And that insurance didn't come from the company, it came from the bank. | 3:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, from the bank. Yeah. Where he got the money. | 3:46 |
Kate Ellis | Because he had life. So that— | 3:48 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You see that's a bill— | 3:51 |
Kate Ellis | Once he had that, paid off the house. | 3:52 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, that's a bill I didn't have to pay. | 3:53 |
Kate Ellis | So you able to pay. | 3:54 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. | 3:55 |
Kate Ellis | [indistinct 00:03:57] without making a monthly payment. | 3:57 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. That's right. | 3:59 |
Kate Ellis | And so how many kids did you have with you at that time? | 4:01 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I had eight of them here with me. Because my oldest daughter was married. | 4:07 |
Kate Ellis | Did all your kids go to school? To high school? | 4:13 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. And my oldest one went to college, but she didn't finish. She stopped. And my youngest one, she went to college and finished. | 4:18 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 4:29 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 4:30 |
Kate Ellis | Wow. | 4:30 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Her mama. | 4:31 |
Kate Ellis | Her mother. Oh, the one that passed? | 4:33 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Uh-huh. | 4:36 |
Kate Ellis | So you moved here and you got social security, and so you were able to raise your kids. | 4:40 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 4:46 |
Kate Ellis | And they went to school. What did you do once you moved here? What did you do with your time? | 4:47 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | What I done with my time? Working the field. | 4:53 |
Kate Ellis | So you went back to working the fields? | 4:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah. Went to work in the field. | 4:55 |
Kate Ellis | Once you moved off? | 4:58 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Huh? | 4:58 |
Kate Ellis | You mean once you moved off Weeks Island, you came back— | 5:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Came back home. | 5:03 |
Kate Ellis | —to working into the field? | 5:04 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Working the field around there. | 5:04 |
Kate Ellis | For same owners— | 5:04 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, different people. | 5:04 |
Kate Ellis | —or different people? | 5:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, different people. | 5:10 |
Kate Ellis | How much were you getting paid at that point then? | 5:13 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, let me see. They was paying about 1.25 a day then. But now they making plenty money now in the field. | 5:16 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 5:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah. | 5:26 |
Kate Ellis | Huh. | 5:26 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | But I sure wouldn't get out there now though. | 5:30 |
Kate Ellis | Why? | 5:31 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That sun too hot. | 5:32 |
Kate Ellis | You mean it was less hot when you were out there? | 5:33 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah, baby. Sure. Yes indeed. That sun so hot you don't want to go outside if you ain't got to go. | 5:37 |
Kate Ellis | That's true. | 5:42 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Sun didn't used to be that hot. | 5:43 |
Kate Ellis | Sun didn't always used to be that warm. | 5:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. I tell you, in August we'd get out there and pick cotton and thing and in August it's hot. | 5:49 |
Kate Ellis | Sure is. | 5:54 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You see? But it wasn't hot. You get out there, you go pick your cotton and if the sun come out kind of hot, you'd get some grasses and put in the top of your head and sit it on your head. You see that that sun got to come through that straw hat and get on them leaves before it could hit your head. | 5:55 |
Kate Ellis | I see. So that's how you protected your head? | 6:14 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, that's right. But like it is now, uh-huh, no, I wouldn't get out there and work now. Then I'm 76 years old. | 6:18 |
Kate Ellis | Well, how long did you work in the field then? Once you went back to work, I guess that would be the last. | 6:33 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, I worked on and off. Just on and off till I made up my mind to— | 6:40 |
Kate Ellis | All day outside? | 6:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | On and off. Work a while and then stop, don't work. Then when that mind lead you go out there and work some more. | 6:44 |
Kate Ellis | So you didn't work the way you did when you were a child? | 6:52 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, no. Uh-huh, girl. | 6:55 |
Kate Ellis | But it was to make extra money? | 6:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Yeah. | 6:57 |
Kate Ellis | So then when did you stop working in the fields altogether? | 7:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, I don't know what year that was. That was up in the sixties. Yeah, that was in the sixties. '60 what? I don't know. | 7:03 |
Kate Ellis | So you didn't go back to work in the fields for that long after your husband passed away? | 7:17 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, no. Uh-huh. No. No. | 7:20 |
Kate Ellis | Well then what happened in your life then? I'm just curious about— | 7:26 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | About what? In my life? | 7:28 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. After that, you moved back here, you had been working in the fields. Did you stay really busy raising your kids? | 7:33 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, helping raise my children and raising some of my grandchildren. I had all them together. Then I left here and went and stayed in Houston a while because that's where biggest portion of my children at in Texas. | 7:44 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, really? | 8:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. I went up there and stayed a while. Then after I got tired, I come on back home. | 8:01 |
Kate Ellis | And you've been here since? | 8:07 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. I've been here ever since. I go make a round every now and then. | 8:09 |
Kate Ellis | To Houston? | 8:13 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Yeah. That's what good about children. You have children you could travel. | 8:15 |
Kate Ellis | Probably you didn't travel that much before you had— | 8:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, no. Uh-huh. No. When I really start traveling, it was when Virginia joined the Marine. | 8:27 |
Kate Ellis | Virginia, your daughter. | 8:38 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | My daughter right there. When she got in the Marine and that's when I started traveling. | 8:39 |
Kate Ellis | So you visited her. Because you had told me you went up to Canada. So you drove to Canada together? | 8:46 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Yeah. And she lived in California a long time. So I visit California. | 8:52 |
Kate Ellis | How'd you like it? | 9:01 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | It's good for visiting but not to stay. | 9:03 |
Kate Ellis | Not to stay? | 9:05 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Now maybe if I was young, I might would've liked the happening. Give me the country. | 9:06 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 9:14 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Give me the country. | 9:16 |
Kate Ellis | Wow. | 9:19 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed. | 9:22 |
Kate Ellis | Let me ask you some questions from this. Well, actually I want to ask you something first. Just as I mentioned, we're talking mostly about the period that you lived in, in the Jim Crow segregation years. | 9:24 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | In the what? | 9:41 |
Kate Ellis | When I say the Jim Crow segregation, do you know what I mean by that? | 9:42 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, what do you mean? | 9:53 |
Kate Ellis | It's the period when there was legal segregation. Where you couldn't drink from the same water fountains. When people went to separate schools. When you couldn't eat in the same restaurant. Whites and Blacks ate in separate restaurants and sat in different places in the movie theaters. And if you were going to take a bus somewhere, Blacks would have to sit in the back of the bus and Whites in the front. You know what I'm talking about? | 9:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 10:28 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 10:28 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, but I ain't never been in that situation. | 10:30 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 10:32 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, I never been in that situation. | 10:33 |
Kate Ellis | Because— | 10:35 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You mean if I go to town and I want to eat and I go to the cafe, well the Black got to go one way, the White go the other way. | 10:38 |
Kate Ellis | Yes. | 10:48 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, I never been in that situation, baby. Never did. | 10:48 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 10:53 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. | 10:54 |
Kate Ellis | Because you didn't go to cafes? | 10:54 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. Uh-huh. No. I don't know, perhaps that was just in me, I didn't believe in going to places where it was one door there and one there for you to get out. It wasn't enough room for me. Because if anything would happen in there and you in there, you see? How you going to get out? | 10:56 |
Kate Ellis | You mean as far as if there's only one door to get in and one to get out? | 11:18 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's what I'm talking about. You see, one door to the front, one door to the back. | 11:21 |
Kate Ellis | Well that's like this house, isn't it? | 11:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, I mean if the place would be like that. One door to the front and one door to the back. Now, you in there, something happened in there, how can you get out? You can't get out because there going to be so many people to that door, so many to the other door. Where you going to end up? You got— | 11:27 |
Kate Ellis | I see. So you didn't want to go into a building— | 11:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Uh-huh, no, sugar. | 11:49 |
Kate Ellis | —that had a lot of people in it at all? | 11:50 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. Uh-huh. No. | 11:52 |
Kate Ellis | What did you do, say when you were traveling with your daughter to Canada, say you wanted to go into a cafe to get a snack? | 11:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, if people was together, then. When I went to Canada a couple years ago, you'd eat anywhere. | 12:03 |
Kate Ellis | Okay, so let me see if I can understand this. During the period when Whites went one place and Blacks went another place in a restaurant, you didn't want to go in there because— | 12:11 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I never did go, baby. | 12:24 |
Kate Ellis | But— | 12:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Not saying I didn't want to go. | 12:26 |
Kate Ellis | Oh. | 12:27 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | We never did go. You see, people would go—Just like when you sit down here and we say, let's go out and eat. | 12:28 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 12:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I didn't believe in that. | 12:37 |
Kate Ellis | But you didn't believe in that, because why? | 12:39 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Because I figured we could fix the food home and eat. | 12:43 |
Kate Ellis | I see. | 12:46 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You see? | 12:47 |
Kate Ellis | So you didn't believe in eating out? | 12:47 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. What the use of going out and you could fix the food home and everybody could eat? | 12:49 |
Kate Ellis | Right. | 12:54 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Just spending money on you and your friend, and you got children, and children got to eat too. So fix food, you stay home and eat and enjoy yourself. You see? So what you talking about, it never did worry me because I never did go out. | 12:54 |
Kate Ellis | But I'm just confused about this thing about the buildings where there'd only be one entrance in and one entrance out. I'm confused about when you would have been in a building like that? | 13:14 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | If I had been in one? | 13:30 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 13:34 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's what you mean? No, I ain't been in none. | 13:34 |
Kate Ellis | Right. | 13:34 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I just don't trust them. One door there and one door in the back. No. Ain't enough. You know why I say that? Ain't enough running room. If something happen, you see people going to block the front door, they going to block the back door. Now you right there in the middle of it, you see? | 13:35 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 13:51 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | So everybody want their life. | 13:52 |
Kate Ellis | I see. So you wouldn't want—What about if you went into a store to buy things? Would that be a kind of place that would make you nervous? | 13:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. A store wouldn't make me nervous. | 14:07 |
Kate Ellis | Why? | 14:07 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I don't know. But a store wouldn't make me nervous. | 14:08 |
Kate Ellis | But a restaurant. | 14:12 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | It's just a place of business. You see? That's what's confused my mind. A place of business. You see? Now I go in any store. | 14:14 |
Kate Ellis | But a place of business that serves food? | 14:26 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | It serves food, whatsoever, or they serving drink. Some people go in the bar and they want a drink and thing. I didn't come up like that. You see? I didn't come up like that. So perhaps that's why I'm like I am. You see? Yeah. I guess that's my reason. | 14:31 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. Did you ever ride buses? Did you ever have to ride in the back of a bus? | 14:48 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, I never had to ride back of a bus. | 14:54 |
Kate Ellis | Well- | 14:57 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | When we used to ride the bus from Weeks Island to come here to Four Corners, you could have sit anywhere on [indistinct 00:15:03] bus. You didn't have to go away in the back. Sit in back. | 14:58 |
Kate Ellis | Huh? Huh? And then I'm wondering about how much you—Was there much talk among your friends or in your community about segregation? About Whites and Blacks being separate? | 15:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. We didn't talk about that. | 15:42 |
Kate Ellis | No? | 15:44 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, we didn't talk about that. | 15:45 |
Kate Ellis | Did it concern you much? | 15:51 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. Uh-huh. Because I guess the reason it didn't concern me, because a rule is a rule. If you have a rule, that's your rule. And if I have a rule, that's mine. You see? So if you know what you ain't supposed to do, why do it? It don't make sense to do what you know you ain't supposed to do it. Why do it? That's the way I feel. | 15:51 |
Kate Ellis | And it wasn't worth questioning the reasons? | 16:14 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. Uh-huh. No. That's the way they wanted it, just let it be. | 16:21 |
Kate Ellis | Really? And that was okay? | 16:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. It was okay with me, baby. Yeah. But you see the young people now is fighting all this segregation business. Most of the young people doing that. The old folks don't believe in that. | 16:25 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 16:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. Uh-huh. | 16:43 |
Kate Ellis | Tell me what me what old folks believe? | 16:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, believe in just letting life go on. You see? Why should I fight you? Why should you fight me? We both are human. So if you don't like what I do or you say, "Well, sudden I don't like the way you doing this." "Well, okay baby, you go your way. I'm going to go mine." You see? Now that's a finished thing. See, it ain't nothing to have no argument about. Uh-huh. No. | 16:45 |
Kate Ellis | Did you ever feel that White people treated Black people badly? Or, I don't know, were there any that did that? | 17:15 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, I never went through that. | 17:24 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 17:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. | 17:25 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 17:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I never went through that, sugar. | 17:25 |
Kate Ellis | Or second class citizens or you're supposed to stay in your place or something? Was that something that I don't know that you heard much of or experience much? | 17:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. I ain't experienced that at all. No. | 17:50 |
Kate Ellis | What are you laughing at? | 18:02 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, I'm laughing at what you're saying, experience— | 18:02 |
Kate Ellis | At my questions? | 18:02 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. | 18:02 |
Kate Ellis | Oh. | 18:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Experience that, you see? We, older people, they ain't going through the changes them young people. That's them young people going through all them changes. You see, the older people, you was just satisfied, baby. Yeah. You was just satisfied that God was blessing you. And most of the segregation business, that's the most of them young people. | 18:05 |
Kate Ellis | So it's the young folks who- | 18:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Who fighting that kind of battle. Just be what you are and be satisfied you in the world of the living. Yes, indeed. Now, they talking about the White and the Black. Okay, you cut yourself, ain't you going to bleed? I cut myself, ain't I'm going to bleed? Blood ain't but blood? The only thing your skin is a little lighter than mine. But you going to bleed just like I'm going to bleed. That's the way I look at it. So, don't make me no different. No, sugar. I want to be friendly with everybody. I don't want to hate nobody and I don't want nobody to hate me. Yes, indeed. | 18:38 |
Kate Ellis | I guess the reason I ask is I've heard of some Whites who might have been hateful sometimes. | 19:37 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, they could have them, but I ain't never tangled with them. | 19:46 |
Kate Ellis | I see. | 19:51 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I ain't never met up with them. So therefore, I can't say they bad, I can't say they ain't bad. If you ain't never got into nothing with them, what could you say? | 19:53 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 20:04 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You can't say that's a bad person because I don't know nothing. You see? That's life, and life going to go on, baby. Yes, indeed. So just be happy for whichever God made us. I guess you say I talk too much. | 20:05 |
Kate Ellis | No. Not at all. | 20:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed. Well, I hope I made your job kind of comfortable. | 20:36 |
Kate Ellis | Absolutely. It's a pleasure. Absolutely. | 20:39 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed. | 20:41 |
Kate Ellis | Let me ask you some questions from these forms. Is that okay? | 20:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 20:45 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. I'll pause this. I wanted to ask you, do you remember much about the Sugar Cane Festival? | 20:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Sugar Cane Festival? | 20:59 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. Once a year I'd heard that there was— | 21:00 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 21:03 |
Kate Ellis | —like a parade? | 21:03 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, I know. Very. | 21:05 |
Kate Ellis | Did you ever see that? | 21:08 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, I used to go to it when we was living on Weeks Island. We used to go and we used to go every year. Up until one year, my daughter Carolyn got misplaced when we was walking. | 21:11 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, really? | 21:26 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Uh-huh. | 21:27 |
Kate Ellis | She got [indistinct 00:21:29]? | 21:28 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Uh-huh. And I haven't been back since. | 21:29 |
Kate Ellis | Because of that? | 21:30 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. | 21:32 |
Kate Ellis | You didn't want to lose her? | 21:35 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, no, sugar. I didn't want to lose none of my children. I said, "Best thing I do stay home." | 21:36 |
Kate Ellis | Really? So what do you remember? Was the fair fun? Was it a big event? | 21:39 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah, it was a big event. | 21:47 |
Kate Ellis | What do you remember about it? | 21:47 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, I remember the cars used to be in the parade and they have some of the trucks and things with sugar cane standing up on the side. And it was pretty, the floats would be real nice too. They would have nice floats. | 21:47 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 22:05 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 22:05 |
Kate Ellis | So it was a real sight to see? | 22:05 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. It's something good to see. I don't know if they still have it. I think so, I ain't sure. But I know it used to be what's happening. | 22:07 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, really? That was— | 22:17 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. It used to was used to be what's happening. | 22:18 |
Kate Ellis | That was the thing, huh? | 22:19 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Used to be a good time. Every day of the year in September, around the 27th of September. | 22:20 |
Kate Ellis | So that was right before the season for cutting the cane. I guess that would be when the cane was highest, huh? | 22:29 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh yeah. | 22:38 |
Kate Ellis | I see. | 22:39 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Yes, indeed. Yeah. That used to be a good time, sugar, for that Sugar Cane Parade, Festival. Yeah. | 22:39 |
Kate Ellis | What was your husband's name? | 22:52 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Benjamin Sutton. | 22:54 |
Kate Ellis | Benjamin? | 22:56 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. Senior. | 22:56 |
Kate Ellis | And he passed in 1958? | 23:06 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 23:07 |
Kate Ellis | And you said he was 16 years older than you? | 23:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 23:12 |
Kate Ellis | And where was he from. | 23:16 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Here. | 23:19 |
Kate Ellis | Four Corners. | 23:19 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Four Corners. | 23:19 |
Kate Ellis | And he was a salt miner? | 23:31 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes. | 23:33 |
Kate Ellis | What was your mother's name? | 23:37 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | My mother's name, Florence Jackson. | 23:40 |
Kate Ellis | Flaunce? | 23:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Florence. | 23:43 |
Kate Ellis | Florence? Oh, okay. So funny how we pronounce things differently. | 23:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Hey, when it come to the same thing. | 23:50 |
Kate Ellis | It starts— | 23:51 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's right. | 23:51 |
Kate Ellis | Just give it a couple tries. | 23:54 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's true. | 23:54 |
Kate Ellis | Florence Jackson. Do you know her maiden name? | 23:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | She was a Beasley. | 24:02 |
Kate Ellis | A Beasley. Okay. Now do you remember about what year it was that she passed? | 24:04 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Sugar, let me see. They told me I was about three years old when she passed, so. | 24:15 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. And you were born in 1917? So about 1920. | 24:21 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Could be. | 24:30 |
Kate Ellis | Do you know how old she was when she passed? | 24:31 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. | 24:37 |
Kate Ellis | Or when she was born? | 24:37 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, sugar. | 24:37 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Do you know where she was born? | 24:39 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | She born in Four Corners. | 24:43 |
Kate Ellis | Somewhere around here? | 24:46 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I think it was here. | 24:47 |
Kate Ellis | I could say St. Mary's Parish. | 24:48 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That would be good. | 24:53 |
Kate Ellis | So if it wasn't quite Four Corners. | 24:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | They know it's in St. Mary. | 24:58 |
Kate Ellis | They would probably know. Okay. What was her occupation? Was she a homemaker? | 24:59 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 25:14 |
Kate Ellis | Did she also work in the fields before you were born? | 25:15 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I don't believe. | 25:17 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. So I'll say housewife. | 25:18 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 25:20 |
Kate Ellis | Is that— | 25:20 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 25:21 |
Kate Ellis | And what was your father's name? | 25:23 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Frank Jackson. | 25:25 |
Kate Ellis | And he passed a year later? | 25:29 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 25:29 |
Kate Ellis | And you don't know how old he was, do you? | 25:30 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, sugar. | 25:35 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. And was he from this area too? St. Mary Parish. | 25:38 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 25:41 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. And what was his occupation? | 25:50 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Working in the field. | 25:58 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 25:59 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's all they had in those days. People working in the field. | 25:59 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. You told me the names of your sisters. I'm going to repeat them back to you. | 26:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Okay? | 26:13 |
Kate Ellis | But I'm going to write them here. | 26:14 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Okay. | 26:15 |
Kate Ellis | There was Mary, Emily, you— | 26:16 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And Rose. | 26:22 |
Kate Ellis | —and Rose. Do you know their married names? | 26:26 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, Mary is a McFarland and Emily's a Smith, and Rose, she never did get married. | 26:33 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. So she stayed Rose Sutton? | 26:46 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Jackson. | 26:50 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, Jackson. Right. Thank you. I'm glad you said that. You know, it's really funny, that's the kind of thing when I'm doing these forums, I often find myself forgetting those kinds of things. The maiden names and the married names. | 26:51 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That happen. | 27:01 |
Kate Ellis | Rose Jackson. Okay. And then your brother's names? | 27:10 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Let me start. Walter Jackson, Willie Jackson, Peter Jackson. | 27:13 |
Kate Ellis | Peto? | 27:27 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Peter Jackson, Frank Jackson Junior, and John Jackson. | 27:28 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Now, let's see. What order were you in? You had a younger sister? | 27:47 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Rose was the youngest. | 27:53 |
Kate Ellis | Rose was the youngest? Were you the second youngest? | 27:54 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, I was the third. | 27:57 |
Kate Ellis | Third youngest of everybody? | 27:59 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, let me see, sweet. Mary, Emily and I was third. | 28:00 |
Kate Ellis | Third youngest? | 28:06 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 28:06 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. And they were all from St. Mary's Parish? | 28:21 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 28:24 |
Kate Ellis | And then the names of your children. | 28:34 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mary Lee. What you want, their marriage name? Or just Sutton? | 28:37 |
Kate Ellis | For the women, you could do their married name. | 28:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Okay. | 28:45 |
Kate Ellis | It's Mary— | 28:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mary Lee. | 28:46 |
Kate Ellis | Mary. Oh, that's her last name is Lee. | 28:51 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, Mary Lee Thomas. She married. | 28:52 |
Kate Ellis | Thomas. | 28:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 28:56 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 28:56 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And Anna Mae Parker. And Carolyn, she's a Sutton. She ain't never married. | 28:58 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 29:11 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And Virginia, she's a Sutton. And Linda Marie. | 29:13 |
Kate Ellis | Linda Marie? | 29:22 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | She's a Gambler. | 29:25 |
Kate Ellis | A Gambler? | 29:26 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's the last name. Gambler. | 29:28 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, for a Baptist, that's really unfortunate. Anyway. Linda Marie Gambler. | 29:41 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | You have Maria? | 29:46 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, I thought it was Linda Marie— | 29:49 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Gambler. | 29:51 |
Kate Ellis | —Gambler. | 29:51 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's the last one. | 29:53 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. But I thought you had nine children? | 29:54 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Nine, yeah. With Linda and them boys. Huh? | 29:57 |
Kate Ellis | Well, who are the boys? | 30:01 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Benjamin, did I give you Benjamin? | 30:02 |
Kate Ellis | You didn't give me any boys. | 30:05 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, well okay, sugar. That's right. You say you was going to get the girls. | 30:06 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Benjamin. | 30:12 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And Johnny, Frank and Freddy. | 30:13 |
Kate Ellis | And then the youngest one was Virginia? | 30:30 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, Linda is my youngest. | 30:34 |
Kate Ellis | Linda. | 30:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Was the youngest child. | 30:36 |
Kate Ellis | And she passed in 19? | 30:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | '75. | 30:36 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Were they all born on Weeks Island? | 30:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 30:46 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 30:47 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Every one of them. | 30:48 |
Kate Ellis | Weeks Island, St. Mary Parish. Okay. Would you mind telling me their ages? How old they are. Only if it's easy for you to remember. If it's not, then do not worry about it. | 30:58 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, let me see. Mary Lee born in '34. | 31:13 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, okay. If you remember the years they were born, that'd be great. | 31:16 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well that's what I say? | 31:19 |
Kate Ellis | You said 1934. | 31:21 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, that's Mary Lee. | 31:22 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 31:22 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And Benjamin, he in '39 and Johnny's in '40 and I think Anna Mae is—No, Frank is '41, and Anna Mae is '43. Freddy is '44, and Carolyn is '47 and VJ is '49, and Linda is '51. | 31:25 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, great. It's funny, I asked how old they were because sometimes people don't remember the year the kids are born. They just remember the ages. So it's crazy. How many grandchildren do you have? | 31:57 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh boy. I got a gang of them. | 32:06 |
Kate Ellis | So a bunch? | 32:08 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh boy. I have about 40 some odd grand and two, three great-grand. | 32:10 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. So you've lived basically two places. In Four Corners and on Weeks Island. Weeks Island was in Iberia Parish, right? | 32:34 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 32:41 |
Kate Ellis | And you were born in 1917, and when you were 16 you moved to Weeks Island? | 32:53 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 32:59 |
Kate Ellis | So that would be—And then Weeks Island from 1933 to 1958. And then Four Corners. Okay. Do you remember the name of the school that you attended for the few years that you went? | 33:05 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | It was the Catholic school up there, St. Peter Catholic Church. | 33:33 |
Kate Ellis | So it was at the St. Peter's Catholic? | 33:38 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, that's the only school I ever went to. | 33:40 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. And then as far as your work history, the work that you've done, the jobs that you've had. The work that you do with the Southern Mutual Health Association, do you get paid for that? | 33:54 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. No. | 34:10 |
Kate Ellis | Is that because it's volunteer work? | 34:11 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 34:12 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 34:12 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 34:12 |
Kate Ellis | So as far as the last paid work that you had, was that for the farm work that you did? | 34:14 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | The last what? | 34:20 |
Kate Ellis | The last job that you had that you got paid for, when you got paid? | 34:21 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | The last job? Oh, you mean I made some money and got paid for? | 34:27 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 34:30 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That's when I was waking in the field. | 34:31 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. I'm basically going to say you've been a farm laborer. | 34:37 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Whatever. | 34:44 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. For different farmers. | 34:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, that's right. That's true. | 34:47 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Have you ever received any awards or held any offices? | 34:59 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. The only office I ever—Since we've been working with this Four Corner Southern Health Housing, that's the only thing. | 35:09 |
Kate Ellis | And what's that? What was the office thing? | 35:21 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, they just give us that name as officers. Being the chair person. | 35:25 |
Kate Ellis | Okay, so you're the co-chair— | 35:34 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Co-chair. | 35:36 |
Kate Ellis | —of the—Is it co-chair of Southern Mutual Health Association? | 35:37 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. | 35:39 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. And that's now? | 35:49 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 35:49 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Since a couple years ago. | 35:55 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, five years. | 35:56 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, okay. So about 1989? | 35:58 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. Look on the back of that picture, so you'll be sure. | 36:01 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. | 36:04 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Say, got it on the back of that? | 36:23 |
Kate Ellis | 1989. | 36:23 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Uh-huh. | 36:23 |
Kate Ellis | The Founders [indistinct 00:36:24]. All right. I just have a couple more questions. So just so you know, we're almost through. And then you are Baptist? | 36:23 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 36:29 |
Kate Ellis | The name of your church now? | 36:30 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | St. John the Baptist Church. | 36:30 |
Kate Ellis | St. John. And then you've been also part of St. James? On Weeks Island. | 36:31 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. From Weeks Island, that's right. | 36:42 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Are there any other organizations that you have belonged to? | 36:45 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 36:51 |
Kate Ellis | No? Okay. | 36:51 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. | 36:51 |
Kate Ellis | And then, this is the final question. Do you have any hobbies or activities or interests that you haven't mentioned to me? Anything you like to do that you haven't talked about? | 36:54 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Well, the thing that I really like to do is walk. | 37:05 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 37:09 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah. I like to walk, but since my leg hurt, I can't walk like I want, but God going to help me. I'm going to get out there and walk again. | 37:09 |
Kate Ellis | Yeah. | 37:20 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | And I like to work out in the yard. | 37:20 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 37:20 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I don't like to work in the house. | 37:20 |
Kate Ellis | Like gardening? | 37:21 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No. | 37:22 |
Kate Ellis | Yard work? | 37:23 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, yard work. | 37:24 |
Kate Ellis | Okay. Okay. | 37:25 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | I used to push a lot more until last year I stopped. | 37:32 |
Kate Ellis | Because of your arthritis? | 37:36 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | No, no. Just the mind say stop. | 37:37 |
Kate Ellis | Oh, really? | 37:41 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. | 37:41 |
Kate Ellis | Just said that's enough? | 37:42 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yeah, that's what they say. So I just left it alone. | 37:43 |
Kate Ellis | Wow. | 37:43 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | That was a good exercise though. I'd like it. | 37:46 |
Kate Ellis | Sure. Absolutely. | 37:48 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Yes, indeed. | 37:48 |
Kate Ellis | Do you have any favorite saying or quote? Any favorite phrase? | 37:52 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Any favorite what? | 37:56 |
Kate Ellis | Any favorite thing that you say? Any favorite, I don't know. If you don't, that's fine. | 37:58 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Oh, I don't know what to say is favorite. Well, my favorite word that I love to say, I love you. | 38:06 |
Kate Ellis | Really? | 38:18 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Mm-hmm. I love to say that. | 38:18 |
Kate Ellis | That's nice. That's nice. Okay. That's it. I'm finished. Thank you very much. | 38:27 |
Virginia Jackson Sutton | Okay. | 38:31 |
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