Julia Exum interview recording, 1993 June 28
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Julia Cofield Exum | —while we were there, the store and service station, we sold gas too, and we built a garage, and they fixed cars out there. It's a big garage up there now. And my husband sold cars some, and then fellas out in the garage, worked in the garage, they worked on cars, and they used to go off and back used cars and come back and sell them. My husband and two of my brothers was helping, I think. Together, they'd bring them cars and sell them. I was so glad when they stopped doing that because I was—I don't know. They'd go, I don't know, New York maybe, Washington or somewhere. I've forgotten now, and buy those cars and come back. | 0:01 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I was just afraid somebody would have [indistinct 00:01:02] cars. And that is, they finally stopped. And more or less after then they went in real estate. And so, they bought a lot of houses, so we have a lot of—they went together with buying real estate, so as I said, we have quite a few houses. And they had a partnership. My two brothers, my husband, and there was another fella that went in with them too, was a friend of my brothers. All of them were together in these houses, buying these houses and putting up houses. And until the later years, the partners, this other fella died. He died. Then later, my brother died. Well, at that time, after one of my brothers died, at that time, it had gotten down this partnership so that they had to disperse on the count of it wasn't enough of them. I don't know how it was all together set up. | 1:00 |
Julia Cofield Exum | And so, finally we had to divide up this property and they just had some people to come in and they put so many houses together. And so, tried evening up, so everybody would have a share in that. And I don't know whether flip coins or what they did there, who would get which group of houses. Anyhow, so this other fella, well, he left his to a son and they were having problems with him, so they just dispersed then. So now, it was just left that everybody was on their own. You have so many than the other fella. We stayed on in business, my husband and I, until my husband got sick. He had a—he had a stroke, really. And it got to be too much for me. I couldn't look after him, but my son wasn't old enough to—he was in school, high school, and he wasn't old enough to take over. He could help, but not to take over anything. | 2:26 |
Julia Cofield Exum | And it was about to kill me to look after my husband and look after the store too, even though I had help, but still, there's a certain part you got to do in the way we were set up. And so, I finally had to sell out and I just sold out all my goods in the store and somebody took over, and I just rented it for a while. And so, that's what we did for all the houses and whatever we have. We have another store on the other end of town. I rented that one, but this one up here now, I rented on as a store for a while. And then, later years, one young man I rented to, he had a poolroom there. And now, it's nothing there. The building is there, I don't know whether I'm going to have to tear it down or what I'm going to have to do. But the garage is still in use, but the other store I got on the other end of town, it's doing all right. I rent that. My whole property, I just rent. I rent, whatever. | 4:02 |
Kara Miles | How long ago was this that you had to start renting it when your husband got sick? When was that? | 5:30 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Oh, well, my husband's been dead 15 years, so maybe more than 15 years. And he was out of about 20 years or more. | 5:35 |
Kara Miles | You said that the first store that you all eventually were able to buy, who owned that before? Who were you all working for when you first— | 5:57 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, we weren't working for nobody, we rented it. | 6:06 |
Kara Miles | Okay, you rented the—okay. | 6:09 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Uh-huh. | 6:10 |
Kara Miles | Who did you rent it from? | 6:11 |
Julia Cofield Exum | It belonged the oil company here. It was MAC Oil Company, I believe that's the name of it, but I'm not sure if I'm giving you the right name. And they finally sold it to us and we've all had to run it. And so, we bought that. Well, the other one down across town, we bought that later years. And for a long time, I really didn't, and then my husband, before he died though, he put a fella there that had worked for us up here, but he messed up. He just messed up what the goods he put in there. He was drinking and that kind of thing, just messed up, so we had to start renting it and some new store. So now, we got some of these [indistinct 00:07:17] down there, that's what's in it. And they doing all right, I guess. It's nice business down there. | 6:15 |
Kara Miles | What's it called? | 7:28 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, the man that's in there now, his name is Eli or something. I don't know, we call him Eli. And I think that's all the name he got up there. He got something up there, forgotten now. Before then, it's mostly—now, the fella who run that store so long, it was Curtis Pitman. And people, lot of times, still speak of, "This Curtis Pitman store." He doesn't run it now. | 7:32 |
Kara Miles | What was it called when you all were running it? | 8:05 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't even know. I don't know. We didn't run it very long because the fella, well, was running it, he messed up. And after, it stayed vacant for a while until I can get the man out. And I rented it. The lawyer would help me, I rented to him for a while and he had to put somebody in there, and then they would seem like they were getting all the profit. And then, he rented it to another fella, it was Pills. Pill's Grocery, I remember his name. And he stayed there a while. How many years he stayed there? Two, three or four years. And so, who that went after then? I don't know now, somebody. So now, this fella got down there, now he—oh, I know, it was closed for a while because I had 'til I could get it straightened out, fill it out. | 8:10 |
Kara Miles | Back when you all were renting your store and when you first bought your store, did Whites and Blacks both go to that store? | 9:22 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Mm-hmm. It belonged to—beginning, it was by a White person. And of course, we got it from there. And we had an apartment right there in the back of the store and we lived there. Yeah, apartment there. Two, three—we had three rooms. | 9:37 |
Kara Miles | How did White customers treat you or treat Black customers? Was everything okay there? | 10:02 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Oh yeah, but sometimes you had some problems, just like in the—I know them some, once we had—and after we built our garage, we had two bathrooms out there, restroom. Had one for the fellas in the garage for them to use. And then, we had one on the outside of and that was for the public. See, what we had in beginning when we went there, just the store. See, the service station and the store. Well, had two bathrooms. One for ladies and one for men. Well, since we were going to live there, we were on our private bathroom, so the one we had inside, well, we kept that for ourselves. | 10:08 |
Julia Cofield Exum | And the other one on the outside that you had to go from outside to go to. The ladies used this one and the men used the one that we had built over on the garage over there. And so, we had three. Well, we had more than that, we had four bathrooms in there. But as far as now, you mentioned that at the one time that we don't know, some boys stopped by there at night. I don't know why they did it, but just me. And they used the bathroom and went in there, and I guess they had a piece of iron pipe or something. They took it down in there and broke the stool. | 10:54 |
Julia Cofield Exum | That's right. And something about later years, we had to keep them locked. You could use them, but you'd have to come and get the key in and you could keep up with them a little better. And when the fair used to come here and it was right up the street from us, and we had to stop letting them use it because they had arrangements out there for them, but they would run up there. But they would mess up, mess the places up, so we just kept it locked. When they come in there, we just didn't let them use it because they had some. They had to go back and use the ones that they had out there now, not ours. | 11:49 |
Kara Miles | When the fair was there, did Blacks and Whites go to the fair together? | 12:35 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Yeah, until on the end now. After this integration thing came about and they did all this marching and did all this kind of stuff, and then the Black folks stopped going out there. And they picketed the fair. Yes. | 12:39 |
Kara Miles | Why? Why'd they picket it? | 12:56 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, the way they had treated them here in town and they sprayed water on them when they were downtown. Yes, they did. They were downtown picketing and they turned the hose on them, wet them up and everything. So then, they fixed them when they had the fair there. Black folks didn't go to that fair. Two or three went out there, but the others just didn't go. And then, some of the Whites I imagine didn't go too because they were afraid that something might happen, but nothing happened. But they didn't know it wasn't going to happen because the folks were picketing. | 13:00 |
Julia Cofield Exum | See, what they did, they picketed around there and that kept the others away, so the Blacks didn't go and that kept out some Whites. They didn't bother them, but I guess they figured that something might happen out there and I won't go. And so, of course me, I had enough of the fair anyways, so I didn't worry about it or not. Other people would go on the [indistinct 00:14:02] or somewhere, that's to the fair. I didn't care that much about it anyway. And then, later years when my son, but by that time. Well, he was doing that time, he stopped going out there because he went to [indistinct 00:14:22] with somebody for a while when they small to the fair. | 13:40 |
Kara Miles | Back before integration, before all the picketing and all that, were there ever problems ever conflicts between Whites and Blacks? | 14:28 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Not in particular. I don't know of any because we'd had exhibits out there. They had all those different kind of exhibits and you could win. But there's no real problems. You might have it. I wouldn't say it wasn't at any time somebody, but not really. | 14:40 |
Kara Miles | How about not just at the fair, but just in general? Anywhere, anytime. | 15:00 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, during that time, they stopped going to the stores downtown. They stopped them. A lot of folks would go to buy their groceries down there, going up the Halifax, go somewhere else. | 15:09 |
Kara Miles | Why did they stop buy the groceries in there? | 15:23 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, that was during the time when they had picketed. Our folks had picket downtown and they sprayed the water on them and all that. They had a lot of them up because I know my folks was around getting them out of jail and all that kind stuff. And they wouldn't let them go to this theater downtown. In fact, they had the theater on this side, I don't think they went there at all. I don't believe they did. And they pulled a new one down there, nah, [indistinct 00:15:58] go there. And I think finally they did seem like they let them go upstairs or something. And keep them from going in the theater where they were going, they closed the theater down. And so, nobody went to the theater here. That is the theater [indistinct 00:16:22]. I never go to it noway, so it didn't bother me. | 15:25 |
Kara Miles | Did you ever used to see, were there any signs up like the Colored and White water fountains? | 16:33 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Oh yes. Yeah, we had one down there and we had a Colored over here and White over there. You drink— | 16:39 |
Kara Miles | Had one where? | 16:45 |
Julia Cofield Exum | They had a fountain at one time right downtown. Not too far from where the police station is. And I think they had it over there, but I never bothered [indistinct 00:17:01] myself. I wanted water, I drinked it at home. | 16:45 |
Kara Miles | What'd you say? | 17:15 |
Julia Cofield Exum | If I wanted the water, I drinked it at home. | 17:16 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 17:16 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I never wanted water that bad. I got to have it [indistinct 00:17:16]. | 17:16 |
Kara Miles | Could Black people always vote here? | 17:25 |
Julia Cofield Exum | No. | 17:27 |
Kara Miles | When were Blacks allowed to vote here? When did that happen? | 17:30 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I don't know what year, but I know during the time that I was married. Then I think maybe one somebody—I wouldn't say one, so two been on uniform, but they didn't let you vote and they'd give you a hard time when you went down to register. Oh yeah, they give you a hard time. But when I went sometime they was giving vote, so I didn't go by, I sent my husband [indistinct 00:18:07]. I didn't have no problem, but some folks, sometimes they did. Some of them did. I already picked the folks and they would ask all of them questions, ask them lot of questions. Really couldn't answer. | 17:36 |
Kara Miles | What kind of questions did they ask you when you went to vote? | 18:29 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, they didn't ask me too much, my name. They didn't ask me nothing much. | 18:32 |
Kara Miles | But some people, they did? | 18:39 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I think so, yeah. From my understanding, they did give them a hard time. | 18:43 |
Kara Miles | Why do you think some people they let vote and others they didn't? | 18:48 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I guess they almost hated that had to have a few get on, that's what I suppose. Maybe too, if you didn't have a little bit of understanding, then they had a good excuse to keep you out. And so, they just didn't let a whole lot of them register. And then, they'd move the books and they'd go one place. Because as I said, I didn't have that problem when I went. They'd go down and you supposed to be in the restroom over here and they carry the books somewhere else and wouldn't let the Black folks know where they was placing them at, all that kind of stuff. Yes, it was a hard time. | 18:52 |
Kara Miles | Did your parents vote? | 19:47 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, back in them days, I don't know. I reckon my daddy, I guess, he did. I guess he did, I'm not sure. I don't know about that time. When my daddy was living, now I don't know whether they was voting or not, to tell you the truth. Well, when I was married, my daddy—no, he won't. He was living when I married, but I guess he did. He did, but this was in the later years. Well, my mother died before then, but sounds like she did. I'm sure she did. | 19:52 |
Kara Miles | Do you remember the Ku Klux Klan being around here? | 20:42 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Yes, around in the country and places. And at one time, we had a hospital here, Black doctor, Dr. Duplessis, his son right now is—wait a minute. Wait a minute, no, I'm mixing two doctors now. But Duplessis said was here because I got not too long ago for his daughter. When they left here, they was little. I wouldn't know if I'd seen that. And he was running the hospital down there and they burnt cross up there in front of there. Yes sir, run him away from here. | 20:46 |
Kara Miles | Do you know why they did that? Had he done something? They thought he'd done something? | 21:33 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Now, I really can't answer that. I don't know what happened there. I was young when that went off. I don't know. And I might have heard something, but I don't know. I really don't. But out in the country sometimes, you would have things like that. Around and burning crosses around different places. I never really saw one, but I know when they was burning them around. The Ku Klux Klan used to march. Folks were scared to death. Nobody go in the house. | 21:39 |
Kara Miles | What you say now? | 22:30 |
Julia Cofield Exum | People were afraid at first, but after a while, folks weren't afraid. Later years, wasn't afraid of the Ku Klux Klans and nothing there. But way back, they were. | 22:31 |
Kara Miles | What kind of contact did you have with White people? | 22:50 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, if I went in the store or something like that when I was growing up, I didn't really have that kind of contact now. Well, I didn't have that much. Other than that, as I said, I went into the store or something like that. | 22:54 |
Kara Miles | Did you ever have any problems with any Whites? | 23:18 |
Julia Cofield Exum | No, I didn't, mm-mm. I really never really dealt with any more than, as I said, like that kind of thing. | 23:20 |
Kara Miles | Were there ever times that you felt that Whites tried to disrespect you or mistreat you in any way? | 23:32 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I remember when I was a child, when I came to [indistinct 00:24:04] now, folks wanted to call you a gal. Ooh, I hate that word. I can remember I was with my mother in a store downtown. And went in this [indistinct 00:24:19] store, and I don't know what she's been looking at in there, something. And he said to me, and I'm a child now, "Here, gal, put that over there." Mama said, "Don't do that." That's the only as I remember having because I know she told me that, so that ended that. I hate that word now. A lot of folks—there's a man at my church. Used to be at my church, he's not there now. He was good for, "Gal." So I looked around, I said, "Don't call me anymore." I said, "You ain't talking to me." I don't take, I don't. | 24:00 |
Julia Cofield Exum | And some of them, I guess they don't mean it, but they don't know how. Mm-mm. There's a girl over there, they called her gal. I said, "Listen, honey, what is your name?" I said, "They don't call you by your name." She said, "Well, I don't mind." I said, "Well, I do." And I do. I hate it. No [indistinct 00:25:32] to me, and it's all under my skin. I can't stand it. And sometimes some old person, I may be around there and they use it, I just ignore it because they don't mean anything. And I just don't hear, ignore it. I don't say nothing to them, because they're old. I'm old too, but maybe they're older than I, and so I just pass. But i don't like it—that's the only time I [indistinct 00:26:10], only conversation I've had. | 25:08 |
Kara Miles | Okay. Well, are there any questions I didn't ask that you think are important? Anything that you want to tell me that I didn't get to? | 26:22 |
Julia Cofield Exum | No, I don't know. I don't know if there is. | 26:32 |
Julia Cofield Exum | —North Carolina right here. | 0:01 |
Kara Miles | Is this where you spent all your— | 0:03 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Most of them. | 0:07 |
Kara Miles | Where you grew up? | 0:07 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Yeah, I grew up here. I left here for a short while after I married, but I came back dressed up. So here I am. | 0:09 |
Kara Miles | When you left, where'd you go? | 0:19 |
Julia Cofield Exum | To Washington, DC. I stayed in Washington a short while. | 0:21 |
Kara Miles | What time period was it that you were there? | 0:27 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I married in '38, during that time. | 0:31 |
Kara Miles | How long were you in Washington? | 0:34 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I didn't stay there but just a few years, two or three years. | 0:36 |
Kara Miles | What did your parents do for a living? | 0:42 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, my mother, she just took care of the family. She never worked out any place. But my father, he had all kind of businesses, and he did all kind of things. He had nine children, and that means you have to do a lot of things to take care of nine children. Well, he had a lot of property around, and he would have little —he wasn't a big farmer, but he would do little, I guess you might say, vegetables and that type of thing. | 0:46 |
Julia Cofield Exum | And then he did at one time out in the country, did a little bit of farming. But he has had a fish market. He has a store. We've had a store right in the town. And then later, he bought this place up here, and we had a store in the corner back up the street. We had a undertaking business, too. We still have that because my one brother have nephews, and they run it now, but my daddy started all that. | 1:28 |
Kara Miles | How did your father get the money and all that to do all that? | 2:11 |
Julia Cofield Exum | He just worked, I guess. Well, I do know when, I guess, this is before he married, when people used to, I think they call it emigrating away, he did go to South Carolina where the people went to work in term time, and he went down there with them. He cooked for the group. Well, my daddy saved what he made. He saved it. Well, naturally, he was the cook. He didn't have to buy food because he was the cook. | 2:18 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't know. But I can imagine when they take them down there like that, I guess it's for a year. I'm not sure about the time. But he stayed down there. They paid off by the end of that year. When they were paid off, most of the people really didn't have money to come back home because they just went out and spent theirs. My daddy, the only thing he owed was one cent. It seemed like he had got a postcard from the man, and he bought him a postcard. | 3:01 |
Julia Cofield Exum | So he got all his. Whatever he made, he got it. He drove a wagon back here from South Carolina. He was way down there in Georgia, near Savannah, Georgia, because I've been down there since that time. Well, he came back. I don't know just when, really, my mother and they married or nothing like that. I don't know how that happened. I never heard them say. But I don't know. I just guess he just worked. | 3:38 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, as he went along, he did all these kind of things, and the children grew up. See, all my family were boys. I was the only girl. So they worked, and he saved. He wasn't the kind of person who—oh, no. He saved whatever he made. I don't know anybody to give him anything. I don't know. Well, his father probably owned some land in that area because we lived across on the other end of town. I didn't ever know the grandfather, but I used to hear him talk about him. | 4:15 |
Julia Cofield Exum | He had all this nice orchard, fruit and everything, grapes and peaches and apples and everything. So he had some land. I don't know how they—maybe went back. Maybe they gave the older people land. I don't know. So he stayed on here, and some of the others of his family stayed. Now, I know his sister lived right there joining yards, you might say, to us. But he had other sisters who went away. So I don't how long they were here. | 5:00 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I never knew when they lived here. I just knew [indistinct 00:05:44] since that time. I guess he just worked for it. I don't know. The father might have had some land like that. I know he built a home because when they first—they lived in a house, and they built the house that we later lived in. That house was the first house that I knew about. Of course, later years, he bought other property, and we moved up in another house, which is a two-story house, a larger house. That was our last house for the family. | 5:40 |
Julia Cofield Exum | So I don't know just how he—just working hard, I guess. I don't know. He was good. Now, I know he was good with mathematics and all like that. He might not have been such a good student in other things. You hear some people that the language is so bad, but they were never taught to do that kind of—they were pretty well. So I don't know. They were pretty well up on things like that. So I don't know. He just worked hard and had all these different kind of things going. | 6:25 |
Julia Cofield Exum | He just made what he and saved what he had because I can remember he trapped and done all those kind of things. I know he would go out, and he'd go around early mornings. He'd go to his traps where he had them, and whatever was in the traps, he'd bring that home, possums and all kinds of things. He'd skin them, and he kept those. I know he stretched the hides and sold them. | 7:09 |
Julia Cofield Exum | My mother used to, I remember she would cook these possums and coons and those kind of things. I know she would barbecue them and everything. He would take them on down the street and sold them to somebody. I have no idea who bought them, but he sold it. Just everything, anything. His garden. Now, he raised all these different kinds. He picked the vegetables, and we'd be shelling. I can remember that myself. | 7:41 |
Julia Cofield Exum | We would shell beans and peas and those kind of things because, along then, you would shell them before you sold them. He would go out and sell those things and come back. The next day he'd probably have some more or something else and just go out and sell it. So I don't know. | 8:13 |
Kara Miles | So it sounds like your family was quite well off. | 8:33 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I don't know. He raised and had meat and everything to eat. I never was hungry or anything because we always had chickens or whatever, pork or so much anything. Some folks [indistinct 00:08:56] something. I said, "Well, I've been used to eating all my life." If it wasn't one kind of thing because he always saved and put up this stuff and put it in the store. A lot of it went in our store around there. We used sell potatoes and those kind of things, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, and what have you. | 8:36 |
Julia Cofield Exum | We'd all, as we come up, we would work in the store. I used to work in the store myself some when I wasn't in school. I worked at the funeral home some. But now, I don't have no part of that. | 9:13 |
Kara Miles | Would you work after school or just during the summer or? | 9:33 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, at that time, I didn't work after school. It was just mostly in the summertime. Well, I know my brothers used to go out and do other work for people. I've seen my brother work, George, to pick up extra money, but I didn't ever do that. I always stayed home and helped my mother when I got that age. But I really don't remember when my—all my brothers was at home. See, but by me being actually the youngest one, my older brothers, a couple of them had gone when I mostly remember. | 9:37 |
Julia Cofield Exum | One of my brothers always helped my mother do the cooking and take care of the family until later years when I came along, then I helped her. It wasn't quite so many there at that time. | 10:29 |
Kara Miles | Were there any other families that you knew that were as well off as your family? I mean it sounds like, with all the businesses and things, that your family was doing pretty well. Were there any other families? | 10:46 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, many years there were some people who run cafés and had little businesses around, some others. At times, he had somebody to come in with him with some of the things that he did because when you start a funeral home, it was others with him. Well, with the store, I never knew anybody. I know when he was at a fish market, they sold fish at one time. I think it was somebody with him. | 11:01 |
Julia Cofield Exum | The little farming he did in the country once, I know the man out there that worked with him. He didn't do much farming. He did that on [indistinct 00:11:54]. | 11:40 |
Kara Miles | What was the house like that you lived in? | 12:05 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, we had about a, I would say, about four or five-room house, L-shaped house. You know what I mean? | 12:05 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 12:20 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Of course, at that time, you didn't have running water. We had a well out there. That's when I was very small. We had all this fruit because we had plenty of fruit trees and all that kind of stuff. But in later years when we moved up in another house, a larger house, well, up there, we had a pump—come up a little bit. We had a pump on the porch. Our porch was kind of closed in. All you had to do was go out on the porch and get your water. | 12:22 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But you didn't have no running water. We had to go outside for them other things you had to do. After a long time, of course, we lived there, and we were able to get running water. See, the town just didn't—it wasn't built so you could have it. They thought the town was going to stay like this, and they just took care of the White folks and didn't bring the sewage and all that kind of stuff over in our sections. | 13:09 |
Julia Cofield Exum | So the later years, as I went on, they started putting it around. I guess they found out, too, if we didn't do something about some of—some disease or something start from these kind of things, they were going get part of it, too, because a lot of our ladies worked and took care of their children. Of course, I didn't do that, but a lot of them did. So we carried our condition from our house on over to theirs. So one of those things. | 13:50 |
Kara Miles | Do you remember when it was that you got running water? | 14:31 |
Julia Cofield Exum | No, I don't. | 14:35 |
Kara Miles | Was it after you were an adult or while you were still a— | 14:43 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I believe maybe I was an adult at that time. I believe so.I think so. | 14:52 |
Kara Miles | How about electricity? Were you about the— | 15:03 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, we had electricity. We did have that. The first house we lived, we didn't have it then, but we soon had electricity. | 15:12 |
Kara Miles | When did you move into the second house? How old were you about? | 15:22 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, at that time I don't know whether I was quite a teenager or not. I might have been getting to that age. | 15:26 |
Kara Miles | What was that house like? | 15:38 |
Julia Cofield Exum | We still didn't have so many more rooms but, well, it was a L-shaped house, too, only it was two-story. We had a closed-in porch on the back, and we had a porch on the front, but that was just open. We had about two, three, four, about four bedrooms, living room, kitchen, dining room, and a pantry, all that kind of thing. | 15:42 |
Kara Miles | Were there Black people in the area who had nicer houses than you? | 16:27 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, to tell you the truth, I don't guess so. I think ours was about as nice as was anybody's around, I think, at that time. I think so. | 16:38 |
Kara Miles | Were you friends with people who weren't so well off? | 16:52 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, yes, I was. My mother, she was very nice, very Christian. She was a Christian lady. She tried to help other people what she could back in the neighborhood. | 17:03 |
Kara Miles | What would she do for other people? | 17:23 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, if people were sick or something else, she could do something for them. I know I've gone out many times and carried in the neighborhood food, dinner. She cooked dinner now and an old lady and her daughter maybe live over there. I've carried them food and others at times. Especially around these holiday times when people visiting, she would always send them something. | 17:25 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But there were people in the neighborhood that she would send food to just most anytime. She didn't wait for those kind of days because she felt like they needed it. I know somebody sick or something, she would try to go around and see them, try to do what she could for them or something of that nature. | 17:53 |
Kara Miles | Would you say that were your parents kind of looked up to in the community? | 18:19 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, somewhat. I guess so. I think so. I think so. My father, now, with all this stuff that he raised in all these gardens, he had gardens over here and had another garden. You could go up there. He had cabbage and just everything. You wanted a cabbage. He'd give you a cabbage. He'd give you a salad, whatever. What I couldn't understand how people would go and take his stuff. | 18:24 |
Julia Cofield Exum | They'd go out there and maybe sometime you have a big one out there you was saving, a kind of prize. They'd go out there and get that or get any of his stuff I really never saw any reason for them to take his stuff because fruit or whatever, he was just that kind of person. He tried to talk to them about saving. Yeah, he talked. He talked to anybody and everybody. | 18:56 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I know a girl who moved here from Rich Square. She was working for some White people, of course. She said she never had money that she could—like $100, she never had nothing like that. She didn't know what that was. My daddy had talked to her about—he said, "That's all right. You're not making much. But every week you get your money, pinch off a little and save." | 19:22 |
Julia Cofield Exum | She said she took him at his word, and she put her money in the bank. When she got to $100, gee, ooh, she just felt great. So she went down to the bank and drew it out. I thought she was going to say she spent it, but she didn't. She had to see it and have it in her hand one time. And then she put it back in the bank, and that started it. That was his talk to everybody. | 19:52 |
Julia Cofield Exum | He was a Sunday school man. He loved Sunday school, loved children. He taught Sunday school. We lived on this end of town, along early when we went—well, maybe we had a car. Yeah, I guess we did. The church that we were going to, after we grew up, was a church near us. But he didn't belong to that church. That was a Methodist. We would go. He would walk up to church, and we'd go up there to Sunday school. | 20:26 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Whatever the weather was, he went. Well, in those days, you didn't have a janitor as such. I guess maybe they did. But Sunday school, he would get there and make the fire and everything. We had walked up there many Sundays. My brother and I walked one Sunday. When we got there he said, "Well, I know you wanted to come in today." He said, "But now y'all can go home." | 20:57 |
Julia Cofield Exum | We felt a little bad. But anyway, we did it. We always went to Sunday school. He went to Sunday school and church, too. Of course, later on years, my brother would drive. We would drive and go to Sunday school. But my daddy never waited for us because when he was ready, he was ready right now. He didn't believe in being late. No. He would go on. He said, "I'm going on. You devils [indistinct 00:21:59]." That was his word. | 21:25 |
Julia Cofield Exum | He didn't scare us or anything. But he always called children devils. "You devils, come on when you get ready." He walked on to Sunday school. He didn't wait for us. We'd go on. We'd get the car, and we'd ride up there. During his time, maybe time wasn't growing up like this. He had houses around that he rented. And then he did some rentals for some Whites here. He walked around town. He didn't ride nowhere. He did that until the last. He walked. | 22:00 |
Julia Cofield Exum | He just went on whatever. His talk to everybody was, "save," and tell them how you just don't throw away your money and how you save. I guess it came up in us to do that. Everybody called him Stingy. Said, "there's Stingy." They claimed that if he was walking down the street, you'd see him stop and dig in the dirt and said, "He dropped, it'd be a penny." I don't think it was that bad, but that was the thing they would say about him. | 22:40 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But he did. He taught everybody. He talked to them about saving and told them about, "Have your little garden out there and raise your little stuff," when they had something. He believed in that, and he tried to teach everybody else that kind of thing. Save some of what you're doing. In fact, I know that's how he got as far as he did. He just believed in that. | 23:19 |
Kara Miles | What other kind of values did your parents teach you? | 23:53 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, as far as a Christian, they taught us that, to go to church and believe in the Lord. My mother, now, when we went to Sunday school and all, my mother didn't go because it was so many of us. At times, she could get us straight to go and stay home and get the dinner ready and all. She didn't go to Sunday school because she didn't. But she was there for church. All right. | 23:59 |
Julia Cofield Exum | We were taught a Christian life, being honest and all those kind of things. We were only allowed to do certain things on Sunday. You just didn't do them. | 24:40 |
Kara Miles | Like what? | 24:51 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I feel guilty right now. Well, maybe not right now. I was married now, and we were running the store. We started. We ran the store. Later on, well, they opened on Sunday. Well, I didn't like that because I wasn't reared that way. It bothered me. Later on, my husband wanted to get a license to sell beer and wine, and I definitely did not want it. But I mean we did. But I was very much against it because I just didn't feel right because I was just taught different about those kind of things. Wine and beer, mm-mm. | 24:53 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I always felt bad. Just like my father, I got on pants now, and my father dead a long time. I wear them at time, but I don't go to extreme, I guess. But he never, as long as he lived, never wanted me to wear no pants. I always felt like he thought that, well, all them boys he had, there's pants enough. So one time I was in school, when I was in high school, and we had to have a gym suit and everything. Usually, you changed before you went home. | 25:50 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, that particular day, I came home with my gym suit. My mother had bought this and she knew that I had the—I mean she probably knew. But my daddy, he didn't know nothing about all that gym suits and everything. She wasn't particularly hiding it, I don't guess, from him. But he didn't know. Well, he never kept up with them kind of things particularly. Well, he liked to had a fit he saw me coming home. He sure did. | 26:34 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I soon got home and took them off, too. That was the only time I wore it home, too. In fact, we would get dressed anyway. But I don't know why. Maybe it was a day that we had something special or something. I don't remember that part, but mm-mm. | 27:06 |
Kara Miles | What did he say to you? | 27:32 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't know. I don't remember now. Well, I know he said plenty. "You get them pants off now." No, it was so long ago. I can't remember what he said, but it was enough for me not to do it anymore, come home with them. I only used them at school. | 27:34 |
Kara Miles | You said in the second house that you had, you all had electricity. What was that like to get electricity for the first time? | 28:09 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't know. I really don't—I can't hardly say because I was kind of small. I don't know now. I guess it was pretty nice. I imagine I felt pretty, ooh, I was getting up in the world. Yep, I imagine that's the way we felt. | 28:17 |
Kara Miles | Do you remember your grandparents? | 28:39 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Only my two grandmamas. I remember them. But I don't know. I don't remember a grandfather at all. I used to hear my brothers talking about him. His one grandfather lived next door to us, but I don't remember him. | 28:48 |
Kara Miles | What do you remember about your grandmothers? | 29:09 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Ooh, I loved my grandma, especially that one where I showed you the pictures. Well, I would go up in weekends. I'm in school. My mother would let me spend the night with her. I just thought that was great. She had a little house. In fact, she cooked for a White lady, took out care of this White lady, old lady. She was nice. She was nice to us, too. We'd go up there, see my grandmother. Anytime I went there, she was giving you something all the time, this lady. | 29:12 |
Kara Miles | The lady was giving you something all the time? | 29:54 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Uh-huh. Yeah, she would always give us—especially around Christmastime when she'd have fruitcake and all different kind of things, she'd always give me some. My grandmother always, when she cooked, she'd always send us something home because my mother had somebody to go up every day and see about my grandmother, every day. We lived on that end of town, and she lived a little distance over, over in the White section. | 30:00 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Her little house is there now. These White people had built, but they still got that little house back there. I guess they may use it for some kind of storage or something. I don't know what. But I just love my grandmother. I always thought about if my mother died—I didn't think about if my grandmother ever died. I said, "If Mama died, I sure going to stay with Grandmama." She could cook some. Ooh brother, everybody heard that she was— | 30:35 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I thought she cooked good, too. I know one man here in particular, he was crazy about her cornbread. She could cook though. She would cook cornbread with the eggs and everything in it. And then she cooked cake, and she'd always make jello. She wouldn't make this kind like we have. It came out afterward. This quick kind, she didn't make that. She got the old-fashioned jello that you put the lemons in it and everything. That's the only kind she would use. | 31:10 |
Julia Cofield Exum | She'd always mix that jello. You go up there, you can always have her jello. She had a muffin pan and cooked all these muffins, and we always had them. We just loved to go up. I loved to go to my grandmama's. Now, the other grandmother, well, Papa's sister lived with her, and she wasn't as close to us as that particular grandmother. Well, I guess they forgot it now. | 31:46 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But my grandmother had other children other than my mother, and all of them kind of had a little bit against us because they said that Grandmama thought more of us than she did of them. But there were reasons for that, because we were there. Somebody was at my grandmother's house every day. Anything that she needed, we would take care. She could do anything herself, but she never could comb her hair. She couldn't do her hair because she wanted to braid it up or do something like that. She couldn't do that because of not having but one hand. My mother always took care of her. | 32:26 |
Julia Cofield Exum | So the reason for her to just kind of favor us I mean because we were always there and always giving us something. She used to drive a horse and buggy. I would go with her out in the country out to—that would be out to my aunt's house, which is her daughter. We'd go out there. I think at one time she was taking clothes out there. I think they were washing. I think that. I'm not sure about that. But it seemed like we did. | 33:14 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But I know we would go out there, and I would go out there a lot of time with her, driving this horse and buggy. I enjoyed that. I remember my grandmama. I loved my grandmama. | 33:47 |
Kara Miles | Do you have any other memories of her that you want to tell me? | 34:04 |
Julia Cofield Exum | No, not particular. My mother always told her that she could come and live with us. But she said as long as she could—she would just live in her house by herself until she got sick. When she got sick, the doctors had told my mother that it was she didn't have no disease or nothing, but she just was worn out. That was the word they used. | 34:08 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Then she decided that she would come and live with us, and she came and lived with us. But she didn't live so very long. I don't remember how long, but she was sick the time that she was there, and my mother took care. | 34:45 |
Kara Miles | Do you remember your grandmother ever telling you anything about her life, like where she came from or her childhood or anything? | 35:02 |
Julia Cofield Exum | No, I don't remember anything like that. I just know how she lost her arm. She was working where they made syrup or molasses, and you feed that something where it mashes that juice out somewhere. I imagine the thing was rolling or something, and she stuck her arm a little too far or something. It caught her arm, and they cut it off. I think along that day, they didn't care so much about us. | 35:11 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I imagine that she was probably quite young when this happened to her, and the doctors just cut it on off. They probably could have saved it. I don't know. That's what I've heard my mother say. She probably could have saved it. But I don't remember her in particular telling us anything now. I've forgotten it now, after all. I'm kind of getting to be some age, too. I'm older than my mother or father ever got to be. | 35:55 |
Kara Miles | Tell me about holidays at your house. What was your favorite holiday? | 36:47 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, Christmas, I guess. | 36:52 |
Kara Miles | What was Christmas at your house like? | 36:55 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, we cooked all these cakes and pies and just everybody was prepared because my mother would make walnut cake. After I was old enough, I helped with that. But we would crack walnuts, and she would make all these cakes and we'd have them because there was a lot of us. Now and then, people visit you, came to your house. Well, maybe they do that some now, but they don't visit like they did at those time. | 36:58 |
Julia Cofield Exum | The neighbors come over, and you'd give them some cake or pie. I can remember we'd just have cakes and pies around because you'd have maybe sometime a turkey or what have you and ham, that kind of stuff. Well, my daddy always had that hams because he raised hogs. He had pork, and we had that kind of thing. | 37:31 |
Kara Miles | What kind of gifts did you used to get for Christmas? | 38:06 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, now, we didn't get a whole lot of nothing, but we always got some fruit. You'd get fruit, some kind of fruit. Along then, well, I know we had fruit as such. But during that time of year, you wouldn't have it. You would—a little box or a stocking or whatever you got it in. You'd have two, three oranges and three apples. Parents would have other fruit, but they would have something in your little thing, whatever. | 38:09 |
Julia Cofield Exum | That was some good raisins and good whatever. You could taste that candy. You wouldn't eat all of it. You would just eat a little bit along, and it was good. Those fruits were good. It's not good like that now because they didn't get it all the year. See, along then, you didn't get that kind of stuff, raisins and everything. You didn't get it, only around Christmastime, and you had all that. | 38:47 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But as far as gifts, we would get clothes. I always got dolls and that kind of thing. We'd get toys and trains and everything. I remember my twin brother, at Christmastime, he had gotten a little train, and he took it out in the yard to the wood house and took the ax. He wanted to see what was inside it, and he broke it up. We would get little things. My daddy and mama, they didn't go to the extreme with things like that. But we'd always get something. | 39:16 |
Julia Cofield Exum | You'd get some clothes because you'd need some stockings and some little dress and little other things. And then my mother sewed, too. She sewed and made a lot of things. I guess people had to do something like that on them days. They couldn't go to the store then and buy it. So we got a few gifts, but not a whole lot of—we didn't go to the extreme like some people. | 39:58 |
Kara Miles | Did you have family that didn't live around here that might come home for Christmas, would come here? | 40:27 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, along when I was really grown up in those days, no. I had a brother who was in New York after he left home. He went to New York, and he would come sometime during Christmastime, something like it. But we didn't have [indistinct 00:40:53] having a whole lot of folks come and visit. Sometime we would have somebody come, my brothers or something come home or somebody, but we didn't have a whole lot of — | 40:33 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Because I know because this was in Christmastime, but I know when folks used to have the preachers always at the house, not at my house because my daddy wouldn't put up with that kind of stuff. | 41:11 |
Kara Miles | What did your daddy say about that? | 41:25 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I mean he was all right with the church and all, but he didn't want a whole lot of—well, there's a lot of talk sometime about preachers. Later years, I mean I've known preachers stay at our house because even after if my mother was dead, there was nobody home but my daddy and I. The preacher would stay there sometime. I'd give him a hard time. But anyhow, he'd stay till we had a bad dog. I didn't look out for him that much at the dog. | 41:27 |
Kara Miles | You didn't what? | 42:00 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I didn't look out for him that much after the dog got to get him. Papa said, "[indistinct 00:42:05] the dog." I didn't want to be bothered. But when the preacher did stay at our house sometime, my brother and I, we would be—see, on Saturdays to help my mother out, see, being a lot of us, we would do some washing. We'd wash a lot of our clothes, and we'd be on the back porch. | 42:01 |
Julia Cofield Exum | We're washing and the songs and things. We would sing his song. He's sitting out on the front porch, and we'd sing all them songs. I guess he knew what we were doing, especially the kind he would sing, but— | 42:28 |
Kara Miles | Your father didn't like the preacher to come over? | 42:55 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Some folks always had the preacher hanging around. He didn't want none that stuff. | 43:04 |
Kara Miles | Why not? | 43:09 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't know. He just didn't. Sometimes preachers have kind of bad reputations, in some cases. So maybe that was why. I don't know. But I know he didn't. I mean later years, I've known—well, we didn't have no room for the preachers, no way, I mean to come and stay. It used to when they would have revival or things at the church, that you'd have those dinners. My mother always fixed food and went to church like that. But just preachers hanging around, nope, didn't do that. | 43:12 |
Kara Miles | So preachers would come and stay with people sometimes? | 43:50 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I mean the preacher that was going to preach this Sunday, see, he lived in somewhere. Maybe he lived in, I'd say Richmond, but I guess he didn't live that far. But anyhow, down to Warsaw or wherever. Anyway, he would be up here. See, he didn't have a car maybe, and he had to stay somewhere. He stayed around with the folks. Of course, in later years, the preacher could come and drive, and he would still, at times, stay with some of the good brothers and sisters. | 43:54 |
Kara Miles | How often did your church meet? | 44:36 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, along then, once a month. But when I was small, a Methodist church was right near us, and that's where I grew up going to Sunday school and all. In fact, we went to church there regularly. They always called my mother their member because it was convenient. We could walk right out there. It was right close to us, and we could go out there. In fact, see, the church that my mother and father belonged to was a second Sunday church. | 44:38 |
Julia Cofield Exum | This church down there, the Methodist church down near us was a third Sunday church. We went there to that. Down there, we would have all the nice Easter programs, and a lot of children was on that end. We went down there to—always had those programs. One lady in the community, I don't care how big the crowd was and how big any of the children was, she kept them quiet. Yes, sir. When she stood up, she quiet them. | 45:14 |
Julia Cofield Exum | The other lady who had played the organ for the music and she could go through it, whatever she's going to do. She was a teacher, anyway. She could go through whatever she had to do to teach you. You kept quiet because Ms. Lizzie spoke to you. She looked around at you. I reckon, if necessary, she would have taken you outside, but it'd never come to that place that she had to do that because they all kept quiet for her. | 45:49 |
Kara Miles | So what happened on the Sundays that church didn't meet? | 46:29 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, what you did, if you kind of grew up—see, they had a church here for every Sunday. Well, on the first Sunday, you went to the First Baptist Church. Third Sunday, you went out to the Methodist church and, the fourth Sunday, you went up here to St. Paul Church. So you had a church to go to every Sunday. So that's the way we did along then. Just went down to different churches every Sunday even though you had a church that you belonged to, but you went to all these other churches. | 46:34 |
Kara Miles | Did you go to the same Sunday school, regardless? How did Sunday school work? | 47:09 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, we did after we grew up, got assigned. But when we were small, we went right out there to the Methodist Sunday school. After we got larger, then we started going up to our church to Sunday school. They used to have on the fifth Sunday, all the churches would come together and have Sunday school. Maybe they'd have the Methodist church this fifth Sunday, and maybe the next one would be at New Bethel Church or— | 47:16 |
Julia Cofield Exum | —that went on for a while, until the lady here got—I guess some of us, you know how folks got to be selfish, and we didn't want to go to other. Some of them got against that and broke that up. And everybody just stayed to their own church, their own Sunday school. | 0:01 |
Kara Miles | Do you remember when they stopped doing it like that? | 0:25 |
Julia Cofield Exum | No, but I'll tell you, I was good and—let's see, I was probably about grown when they stopped doing that. Well, you know, I feel like I'm not better than you. I think that's what happened to this crowd around here. They felt a little better than the others and they didn't want to go over there with them. Because once—the churches have tried to get—now see, there's three Baptist churches here and there shouldn't be but one. Of course, the town is kind of big now to what it was then. | 0:30 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But I knew everybody that lived in Enfield, I mean, all the Black folks, I don't know any White folks. But now, I don't know nobody now. And, it was just so different then. I don't know. It's quite a difference. | 1:16 |
Kara Miles | Which church did you used to like best? | 1:50 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I don't know. I guess I liked my church best. Well, I liked the Methodist church, when I grew up I liked that a lot. Because, we always had—I know the big children would go at Easter time especially. I can remember Easter, they would go down somewhere and pick lilies and the church would be filled up with Easter lilies. Everything would be so nice. But after a while folks don't do that kind of thing. So now everybody have their own little thing. | 1:54 |
Julia Cofield Exum | At Christmas time they used to have, everybody had a Christmas tree at church. And during the holidays you went from church to church. They would have their Christmas tree, and nobody would have the same kind. You were having yours. We'd go down there and they'd have programs and give out the Christmas gifts off the tree. Then the next church had theirs, you'd go over there and have theirs and all around. | 2:35 |
Julia Cofield Exum | And then we always had at Christmas time, we always had, giving the children something like—I know my daddy used to have candy and stuff he'd always give little children at Christmas time, and that was [indistinct 00:03:28]. | 3:10 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't remember when I was going to the Methodist, I don't remember them ever giving anything during those times, I don't remember. If they did, I don't remember. But you had a good time and enjoyed it. | 3:28 |
Kara Miles | So each church would have it's Christmas tree. | 3:43 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Mm-hmm. | 3:45 |
Kara Miles | And you said there would be gifts? | 3:47 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Oh yeah. You go there for the program, and maybe I wanted to get my friend a gift. And I'd take it down there and have it all wrapped up all pretty and everything, and they'd put it on the tree. So when they get through with the program they'd call our, "Mary Jane," she'd go up and get hers. "Sally," or whoever and get hers and his and all like that. And they passed them out. And a lot of times the Sunday school would have gifts for all their children. And then if anybody else wanted to carry a gift there to put on the tree to give out, you'd do that. | 3:48 |
Julia Cofield Exum | So they still give all their Sunday school, each church, at Christmas time they don't now. Because I had a class one year, a couple of years I think I bought all the class gifts. I said, "Oh, this is getting to be kind of expensive," because my class was large. I gave them candy, I think, you know those cans. It got to be kind of expensive. | 4:23 |
Kara Miles | Yeah. | 5:02 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't have a class now, I can't give any gifts to them. | 5:03 |
Kara Miles | Tell me about baptisms at your church. | 5:17 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Oh. Well, along when I first knew about baptism they went down to the creek, you know over there. They used to go down there and baptize. Yeah, you'd get all ready. It seemed like, I think they would have them—have on white, I think, seems like they did. That's where they baptized me, down in that creek. They don't do that now. And during that time they had a little house down there. I think people—that house, I guess, was for people who swam or something, I don't really know that part. | 5:21 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But I remember there was a little house. You go down from the bridge, you go on down, because I remember that after they came out of the water after they were baptized then they could change their clothes up there. And there was a house there, and people would go, brother. Then the other churches would go different places like that. I know this church up here, they used to go right down here. The highway has a sandpit or something with water down there. They would go down there and baptize. | 5:59 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I think they baptized my husband down there. Well in later years, now we have it worked out and we do it a little better now. We have us a pool now. And if your church doesn't have a pool, you'll come up maybe and get us to baptize. You have some children, you come up in here with the baptizing and bring your children. So now, all the churches around here have pools, yeah. All these here in town. | 6:35 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I was talking about the Methodist church a few minutes ago. Of course, you know they didn't baptize there. But we don't have Methodists here anymore, no way. See what happened is that, it got to be a family affair. There were just a few families for Methodist, and those families either went away or they died out. And it got down to that there wasn't any, so the church just stood there and rotted down. I think a White man got that place now, sure have. The lot, you know. | 7:13 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But, that's what happened. Now, everybody's got their own pool, some a little better than others. Because ours, we had to put some hot water in it. We needed to get us a heater, they were heating water and running water from the sink for hot water like that. But, I think we needed a heater to put down there. | 7:55 |
Kara Miles | What do you think about using the pools? Do you like the idea of the pool or the creek better for baptizing? | 8:20 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I think the pool is much better. Yeah. Now, some of these places in the country, started off they had a pool outside. They had a place they just fixed outside and they went out there and baptized. I've never been to one where they had it set up, but that's what they were doing. But I think they have gotten from that now, where they—I don't know. It may be some like that, but I don't know about it. But most of them have them inside now. It worked out a little better. So, I don't think nobody's baptized in the outside. | 8:25 |
Julia Cofield Exum | And I'm sure they don't—I don't hear talk of no baptizing in the creek and swamps and things now, with the frogs and all that kind of stuff. | 9:01 |
Kara Miles | Was there a certain age when children were supposed to be baptized? | 9:14 |
Julia Cofield Exum | No. I think any time you felt like you wanted to be baptized, I guess. | 9:19 |
Kara Miles | How old were you? | 9:24 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't know. I'll say 10 or something like that, even 12 or 13 years old I guess. I can imagine, I don't know. These people getting up knowing so much, I don't believe they know everything. My niece told me, "Oh, I ain't getting it on a Wednesday," and all like that. I'm not sure they—I was telling my niece I said, "You know, I don't remember." | 9:28 |
Julia Cofield Exum | And she said, "No. If you follow some of them down, they don't remember. They tell me that you know better, and they're telling you all that stuff." And I think she gets so mad. I don't know. | 9:54 |
Kara Miles | Were baptisms real big events? Did a lot of people come out to them? | 10:08 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Oh yes. Now, they're so common, it's such a common thing that we don't turn out like that. Now, we had a baptism in my church last Saturday. You're baptized any time now, back then you were baptized once a year. You had your revival in August and you were baptized, I guess, in September, I think. | 10:14 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Ooh, I can remember going to church in the country further out. They would come down to the creek and baptize. Ooh, there'd be some kind of folks there. I've seen them all up in trees and everything. I didn't get in no tree, I wouldn't. But they would be, ooh, they'd be down there. And they always had so many, yes. Now, I don't know how many we baptized the other day. We had some of them being baptized over again. I'll tell you, I think one time is enough for me. | 10:44 |
Kara Miles | Being baptized twice? | 11:22 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Uh-huh. We had a young man, he was a grown young man, joined our church not long ago. He had belonged to another church, and for some reason he had changed. He comes to our church and he's a very good worker. And he wanted to be baptized then, and I was over there, I looked, he was being—and they baptized him. Sure, right. I don't know. | 11:23 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But I'll tell you what I do hear my Pastor say, he said a lady told him that her uncle or some relative had died and he wasn't—he had never been baptized, and could he baptize? Then they met and he was dead. She felt that in order to go to Heaven you've got to be baptized. But I don't think the Lord requires that you have to be, I think there's more to it than that. | 11:54 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Baptism, I understand is a part of it, but in case you are not baptized you can be saved. The good Lord looks after you, so you don't have to. But he said that —and he told the lady that if he was dead it didn't make no difference about him not being baptized. Yeah. He would, you know. If his heart was right he would go on to Heaven, baptism wasn't going to put him in Heaven. That don't save you no way, baptizing. I said, "What? A dead person?" | 12:38 |
Kara Miles | Do you remember having homecomings at your church. | 13:23 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Oh yes. Had all those good dinners and ooh all them folks would cook all that food and carry it to church. They would have a good time. But we don't do that quite, we still—at that time you had your tables all outside and you carry in all that food. Wooh! But now, we've got above that. We have the homecoming and we have a dinner, but we have it inside. Almost everybody now in the church has a dining room away from the kitchen and everything. Of course, ours isn't as large as we'd like for it to be. But, we get by. | 13:26 |
Kara Miles | Back then it used to be outside? | 14:16 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Yeah, a lot of times it would, when I was growing up. But not now, we've gotten away from that. Some of the churches might still do that, I don't know. But I think most of them now has added onto the churches. Sometimes it's more added on than it was, and they have all this area. They've got Sunday schools and everything. You don't need that all now. | 14:24 |
Kara Miles | You said that your father had hogs. | 15:06 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Oh yeah. | 15:08 |
Kara Miles | Do you remember hog slaughtering time? | 15:10 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Mm-hmm. | 15:15 |
Kara Miles | Tell me about that. | 15:15 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well when he was into that—I was small and I didn't have to do that kind of work. I never did all that, but I know when they had it. See, when I got—later on in years he stopped raising hogs. If he had them, I guess somebody else came in and helped him with it. But, I never worked in it myself. But I knew what was being done and they had all this meat, put it in the smokehouse, put it up, salted it and whatever, whatever you need to do to it, smoked it or something. | 15:16 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But I never worked in that kind of stuff. Some later years he stopped raising hogs, but my mother always had plenty of chickens. My daddy didn't raise, he stopped raising hogs. | 16:13 |
Kara Miles | Do you remember there being a party then, after the hog slaughtering? People have been telling us about celebrations around hog slaughtering time. | 16:33 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well maybe some of them did, but I don't know of any. | 16:45 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 16:45 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I guess what they did was probably after they cooked some parts of it maybe. I don't know. | 16:49 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 16:58 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't remember. | 16:59 |
Kara Miles | When you were growing up, who were your neighbors? Were there people that lived close to you? | 17:08 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Yeah, because we always lived in town and we had neighbors not too far from us. On the other side, across in front of us. Then after we moved to the other house we had neighbors around the house. So we never was way out where we lived long distance. Of course, my daddy had cotton patches out around there, in all the vacant lots. He raised cotton. | 17:16 |
Kara Miles | Did the neighbors have children? Did you play with, they were people to play with? | 17:54 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. Because, they lived across, in front of us. She had a daughter, she was around my age. We were good friends and we lived on that side of the railroad. And some others lived on this side of the railroad. As girls we'd get together and play and we'd have little — | 18:06 |
Julia Cofield Exum | There was a warehouse across on the other side over there where they were putting, I guess they were putting peanuts. I know there's a factory over there, peanut factory. And I think that's where they kept peanuts. Sometimes we've had little parties out there, just the neighborhood children right there, there were 3, 4, 5, 6 of them like that. And over there, there was like a little park out there. It wasn't really a park, but there was space and we had some trees we'd play out there because it was nice and shady. | 18:22 |
Julia Cofield Exum | We had neighbors around there, all around that area. We could always play with them. Some lived down the hill from us, and some lived across. Always had plenty of children around the neighborhood. If someone up the street there had a fight, ooh hoo. They didn't fight me but my brothers. | 18:56 |
Kara Miles | So they were boys? | 19:10 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Yeah, mm-hmm. Of there were some girls up there, but they didn't do it. But them boys would fight, ooh. My brothers would pass along there, they couldn't hardly go along there unless they had a fight. So I remember one day one of the boys was down on that end, we lived close to the railroad. So, my brother caught him up there on the railroad and beat him. Because, they couldn't pass. See, coming up town you had to come right behind their house. And they always meddled him when they were getting along there. | 19:10 |
Julia Cofield Exum | So naturally, he come up on that end and he missed him. So, my mother was over next door visiting a neighbor, she was gone. So my brother's at the house, and this was after my brother had hit this boy out there on the railroad. His mama came down there, she was going to whip my brother. Well, she knew, she would let them go, she didn't care what they did. You've seen people like that. She was going to whip my brother. | 19:58 |
Julia Cofield Exum | So he was up there on the porch, and he stepped back on the porch. She came on around the back and he was there on the porch. He stepped back there, they had a bat, she didn't play ball. She got the bat and she come up there, he was going to give her a bat. But she didn't come in, she stood out there and cursed and carried on. My mother wasn't home and my father either for that matter. But I know she didn't come up in there to where he was. | 20:38 |
Julia Cofield Exum | But, they were that kind of people. Ooh, she took up anything they did because I know she'd go to the schoolhouse and get the teachers for the least little thing. She'd curse and carry on terrible. | 21:10 |
Kara Miles | What did they do? What did that woman and her family do for a living, do you know? | 21:28 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I really don't know. I don't know what they did. She had a husband, but what they did I really don't know. Mm-hmm. Whole lot of children. | 21:35 |
Kara Miles | So what kind of things did y'all used to play? | 21:55 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, we played hide and seek. The boys played baseball. Of course, they never let me play baseball much because I could never hit the ball myself. The bat was too little. I could play others things, I used to play darts. Well, my brother, I had one brother who was younger than I was. When we were home, you know how he is, he has to play with you. I played with my dolls and that kind of thing. He would play along with me, until he got to be larger. Then at times I would play with the girls, but we played a little bit with me, not at first. Because I don't guess he was always there, but I know when he first started going to school I would teach him how to read. I just enjoyed reading and teaching him how to read and all like that. And he would go through that, not like little can now, they can't really read it but he could read it, by heart. He would own all that now. | 22:01 |
Kara Miles | Where did you go to school. | 23:12 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, they had a school out here, we had to walk of course. That was about a mile from where we lived to going to school. I went to school here for a short while. Maybe I went to—and then they had some kind of problem there, it was so long ago I forgot. They pulled us out of school, out there at the public school, and we had what they called an Independent School. We went to that for a while, until we started going over to Bricks. So I never went to school with [indistinct 00:23:53] while I was here, from then on. | 23:14 |
Kara Miles | Where was the Independent School? | 23:57 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Right up the street in the halls, there's a big ole building there right now, but that's where they had the Independent School. They got together and hired teachers when—I remember the principal was from Warrenton, seemed like to me. It was over in [indistinct 00:24:30], I know they would have all these games and ooh, they'd just have a good time. Boys at times—sack races and all that kind of stuff. I was down in the grades, because I know I was in 3rd or 4th grade or something like that. | 23:59 |
Kara Miles | You said 3rd or 4th grade? | 24:48 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Yeah, uh-huh. | 24:49 |
Kara Miles | That's when you started going there? | 24:56 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I imagine so. It was down in the grades, I know. Because evidently, I think I must have started going over to Bricks about 6th grade. I think that's what it was. | 24:59 |
Kara Miles | Did you used to stay at Bricks? | 25:05 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Mm-mm. | 25:05 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 25:05 |
Julia Cofield Exum | No, they always took us to school. | 25:19 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 25:22 |
Julia Cofield Exum | We rode all the time. See, a lot of the children walked but I never walked. | 25:23 |
Kara Miles | You all had a car? | 25:29 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Mm-hmm. My brothers would take us to school. | 25:31 |
Kara Miles | I want to know more about this Independent School. Who started that, do you know? How long— | 25:37 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well the parents—things was going so bad out here at school, things that they didn't approve of. And they tried to get some changes, they tried to get the folks out of the school that was—and they couldn't do much about that, so rather than continue, they just got together and got some teachers and paid them and that's when that Independent School. Now how long it lasted, I really don't know, I don't remember that. | 25:44 |
Kara Miles | But it started with you all, like with your parents and other people's parents. | 26:19 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Mm-hmm. | 26:23 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 26:25 |
Julia Cofield Exum | That's it. | 26:25 |
Kara Miles | Did it have a name, or it was called Independent School? | 26:26 |
Julia Cofield Exum | That's all, Independent School. No, that was the name that I knew. | 26:31 |
Kara Miles | And how many grades did it have? | 26:36 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I an imagine, they had anywhere from 1st on to 7th grade, I guess. You know, children in that. I'm sure they were paying something. Well, maybe if they didn't pay so much a month or nothing, the parents were paying—you know what I mean? They paid in advance because they were paying the teachers. | 26:39 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 27:07 |
Julia Cofield Exum | So I don't really know, naturally being a child, I wouldn't know how that was done. But that probably was the way it was, everybody's child went there was paying something. I guess they were letting them come to school, I don't think you went to school and paid like you were going over to Bricks. They went to the office there and paid. I think through the parents, they sent their children there that was paying for that. I don't know all together how that was done, but I'm sure it was happening. | 27:08 |
Kara Miles | About how many children went there? Was there a lot of just a few? | 27:45 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, it was right many. Yeah, it was right many children there. I do remember that. | 27:49 |
Kara Miles | Do you know what problems had been at the other school, why the people decided they needed to build another school? | 27:57 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, seems like the Bricks was kind of small but I did hear some things. It seemed like the principal and one of the teachers was having an affair, something of that nature. That's my understanding. It was pretty open, they knew about it, everybody. I think that was it. | 28:04 |
Kara Miles | What was the name of that school? | 28:30 |
Julia Cofield Exum | That was Enfield Grade School. | 28:30 |
Kara Miles | So that school stayed open, but some of you all just left— | 28:30 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Oh yes, oh yes. The school in that county took that school. But with the Independent School and the parents took care of that. | 28:30 |
Kara Miles | Did you like the Independent School? | 28:30 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Yeah, we liked it all right. Well, some days you liked what your parents sent you to. It was all right. | 28:30 |
Kara Miles | Had you liked the other school? | 28:30 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Yeah, we liked it all right, mm-hmm. Yeah, it was all right. | 30:02 |
Kara Miles | Did it make you sad to have to go to another school, or happy? | 30:02 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Not really, I don't it did, I don't think so. I'm not sure how I felt about it. | 30:02 |
Kara Miles | What do you remember about your teachers? | 30:02 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Which ones, the ones out to the other school? | 30:02 |
Kara Miles | Any of them? | 30:02 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, the teachers back then, I knew them and I guess they were pretty good. So, I remember one teacher, she lived there. She had a lot of cows that she had to milk and sold the milk. She would come to school and sit there and go to sleep. And we knew she was sleeping, but we didn't think—she claimed she wasn't asleep, but we knew she was asleep. Yeah, so I don't know how much teaching she did, whether she did so much or not. But I know she was my teacher. | 30:02 |
Kara Miles | Were there any teachers that you liked a lot? | 30:46 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well yeah, some I liked a lot. I had one, Miss—back in them days, I done forgot who the teachers were, to tell you the truth almost. I can remember Miss [INTERRUPTION 00:31:09]— | 30:49 |
Kara Miles | Okay. You were telling me about your teachers. | 31:01 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Oh. I reckon I mostly remember that one that would go to sleep. | 31:01 |
Kara Miles | Well, tell me about going to Bricks, what was life like at Bricks? | 31:01 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well that was all right. I rode to school all the time. I was older then, I can remember more. But, it was okay. | 31:01 |
Kara Miles | It was just okay? | 31:01 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Mm-hmm. | 31:01 |
Kara Miles | What did you—were there things that you liked a lot about Bricks, or things that you didn't like a lot? | 31:01 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I liked most of it. We'd have a time, go to class. They had other things that you enjoyed. They had so many things going on over there at other times, we'd enjoy. | 31:01 |
Kara Miles | Like what? | 31:01 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well they had big farmer's day, that was folks from everywhere over there. Then all the time they had something going on over there. You could be going to besides going to class. Like, I mean at night and different times, special times, you know. | 32:52 |
Kara Miles | So you would stay over to go to things at night sometimes? | 33:06 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I didn't stay over I just went back to it. | 33:10 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 33:11 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Some of the kids do that, but I never did that, I always came home. Then we went back to the other things, because I'd come home. They'd come for us because we came home, and my parents would go. My mother would always go over there to whatever happened over there. | 33:15 |
Kara Miles | What other kind of things went on over there at night? | 33:35 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, musical kind of things. I don't know, I done forgot them now, it was so long ago. | 33:39 |
Kara Miles | Did you participate in any of those things? | 33:59 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Oh yes, sometimes. Not a whole lot. | 34:02 |
Kara Miles | Like what, what were you in, what did you— | 34:15 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I was kind of lightweight and in the gym I used to, at times I would be one of them making them pyramids and things. I could be up that high. And operettas and things I did and stuff like that. | 34:20 |
Kara Miles | Had the rest of your brothers gone to Bricks? | 34:45 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Yeah. I only had going when I went though. The others were before me, they were older than I was. I had two others that had gone a little before, but I don't think they were there when I was there. They went a little before I did. | 34:52 |
Kara Miles | So you went to Briggs from about the 6th grade until— | 35:06 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I think so, I think it was something like that. To about the 10th I reckon, 11th or something. I was in 10th or 11th, 10th I reckon, 10th. Then I went to a high school. I was with my brother down there, because that's where my twin brother was. I went down there and went to school where he was going to school. | 35:16 |
Kara Miles | Where is this? | 35:35 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Down to Husky. | 35:36 |
Kara Miles | Husky? | 35:36 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Uh-huh, Husky. And that was the town, and the school was in Winton. That was the high school. Waters Training School in Winton. See my brother, he and I had always been to class and so he was down there and I went down there and went to school where he was going to school. | 35:38 |
Kara Miles | Why didn't he go to Bricks? | 36:02 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, at that time he was staying down there. He was working some and he stayed down there. He had gone to Bricks, because he was going to Bricks just like I was. And then he was away one year. Well after he was away that year I don't think I did so well, so I went over there down where he was and went to school. I was used to him in school, and I went to school with him. | 36:02 |
Kara Miles | So that's where you finished high school? | 36:32 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Mm-hmm. | 36:34 |
Kara Miles | What was the difference between that school and Bricks? | 36:36 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, Bricks was a higher class school. I know he don't want to hear me say that. Yeah, it was—loved that school down there. School down there was all right. Those were some kind of children. Now, I started to say that wasn't a boarding school, but it was. Because I can remember now, I used to go up to the girl's room, some of them did stay there. It wasn't a large boarding school, because it wasn't a lot of us. But I don't think nobody stayed there but some girls, I don't think there was no boys lived on that campus. I don't think so. | 36:46 |
Kara Miles | You said that wasn't as high a class of school? | 37:23 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Mm-mm. | 37:26 |
Kara Miles | What do you mean? Like what? | 37:27 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, it wasn't as big a school as Bricks was. No, it was a smaller—it was all right as far as the teachers and that kind of thing. It was all right honestly, but it didn't equal up to Bricks. And see, Bricks had all those folks living over there. And see over there, that school, they didn't have all that. They wasn't—it just was a more or less a school where kids went to, you went there and went to school and went home. There's just a few lived on the campus. I think only very few. But it was a pretty nice school, I enjoyed it down there. Lot of friends. That was my last encounter with the friends from down there. | 37:30 |
Kara Miles | So what did you do after you finished high school? | 38:26 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I came home. I did go to college for a little while. I went to Elizabeth City but I didn't like down there. I was down there for a summer and then I came home when summer was out. And I went back to Bricks for a year. It closed up about that time, I didn't go but one year, because that was the last year that it was in existence. And so from then I've been kind of on my own. | 38:31 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I did—well, I was supposed to teach but I didn't like no teaching. I was taking teacher training, so I think maybe I went to [indistinct 00:39:22]. I didn't like that stuff. I didn't ever want to do that, no way. | 39:08 |
Kara Miles | What did you want to do? | 39:29 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, I guess—I'd been kind of used to doing, working my daddy's place and business you do. I wanted to do something like that, I didn't want to teach. The children—just wild children out there, they were like rabbits and things. I want no part of this. No. So I came back and stayed up here and worked at the funeral salon. I went to New York and I come back with my brother. I stayed with my brother for a while. Came back here and worked around there to the store. My daddy's store and funeral home, until I got married, then I left. | 39:31 |
Kara Miles | You said you didn't like Elizabeth City. | 40:18 |
Julia Cofield Exum | No. | 40:22 |
Kara Miles | What didn't you like about it? | 40:27 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't know, I just didn't. I just didn't want to be there. I don't think there was really nothing wrong with it, but I just didn't want to be there. | 40:29 |
Kara Miles | How long did you stay in New York? | 40:48 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't remember, I was there a year. I might have stayed a year but that was all. | 40:58 |
Kara Miles | Did you work there? | 41:05 |
Julia Cofield Exum | No, mm-mm. | 41:07 |
Kara Miles | You just stayed with your brother? | 41:07 |
Julia Cofield Exum | That's right. | 41:09 |
Kara Miles | Did you like it there? | 41:09 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Yeah, I liked it all right. But, if I had stayed I'd have to have a job. I couldn't have lived like I was living. That's all right for a little while, but you know, I don't know about that. I believe I had some water down here. | 41:11 |
Kara Miles | What part of New York were you in? | 41:11 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I was out on Long Island. | 41:47 |
Kara Miles | What was different about New York, from coming from here? | 41:51 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Ooh. Quite a difference, quite a difference. But I didn't get into that New York life. I didn't get into that too much. I went some, but not really. So then—the brother I was staying with was my oldest brother. Then I had another brother up there, so I—and his family was up there. I visited them some but I didn't live with him. But, I soon came back home. | 41:56 |
Kara Miles | Then you came home and got married. | 42:46 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well yeah, but I was here a while before I married. Because I worked around the funeral home and the store for quite some time. Stayed home with my daddy. | 42:49 |
Kara Miles | How was that? | 43:02 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I was just going to say, because my mother wasn't living then. | 43:04 |
Kara Miles | How'd you meet your husband. | 43:09 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Ooh. I met him when I was about—I wasn't 16 years old, I remember that. My mother went out to see her sister and he lived in Tarboro, and he was out that way in the country visiting some of his cousins. And he came over to this house that we were, to my aunt's house, and that's when I met him. | 43:11 |
Kara Miles | Did y'all start courting back then? | 43:52 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Sure did. | 43:52 |
Kara Miles | So he was waiting for you when you came back. | 43:52 |
Julia Cofield Exum | Well, at that time he had—well, that was a long time before that happened. He had left, he lived in Tarboro, but he left and he was in Washington. Well, I stopped seeing him for a long time. And after a while we started our friendship. I hadn't forgot him at all, but we started our friendship up again. From then on we stayed in touch with each other. | 43:56 |
Kara Miles | When you all were courting, what kinds of things would you do, where would you go? | 44:43 |
Julia Cofield Exum | To tell you truth, we really didn't go no place. He come over to my house and visit me. Sometimes we would ride out a little bit, but not that much because you didn't go nowhere because there wasn't much. Well, later years after I got a little—he started coming over, because at the time when I met him I was—he could have come to see me then no how because I wasn't old enough. He wasn't going to let no boys come to see me. I told him then. | 44:49 |
Julia Cofield Exum | He started writing me and my mama said, "What'd he say?" I read to her something, I didn't read all what he said, no. I was too shy. Not that there was anything in there so much, but you know how you feel courting. And I kept every letter, and I had a drawer full of all of them letters. He would go on. When he'd been home, when he'd be at my house and go home, I'd write him or he would write me, being first. I don't remember which it was. Each time, and I saved every letter. And when I was away, I reckon when I was in the city, I had a cousin staying at that house. They had a good time up there, reading my letters. My sister-in-law told me, that's what they were doing up in my room, reading my letters. So, I think I got rid of them after that. Yes. Read all my good mail. | 45:24 |
Kara Miles | So what did he do, what work did he do? | 46:37 |
Julia Cofield Exum | I don't know what he did. He was in Washington, he was working for some apartment building I believe. He was trying to get a government job, and at that time the war came on so it was pretty rough. He didn't never get one, so finally my cousin was able to get this place down the street there. The man that run the store, and they asked would we like to have that. And he said, well, he would. And so, we came down here and started running the store — | 46:41 |
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