Emerson Pittman interview recording, 1993 July 01
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Karen Ferguson | Just say your name. | 0:01 |
Emerson Pittman | Emerson Pittman. | 0:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Mr. Pittman, the first thing I would like, if we could talk about is if you could tell me where you grew up and a little bit about the people you grew up with. | 0:06 |
Emerson Pittman | I grew up in Edgecombe. | 0:20 |
Karen Ferguson | In Edgecombe? | 0:20 |
Emerson Pittman | I was born and raised on the Bradley farm till I was 25 years old. | 0:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 0:28 |
Emerson Pittman | I've lived in Edgecombe for all my life, or I lived in Nash County about six months and I went right back into Edgecombe. That's right. I lived around Leggett. I just lived around about four or five different places in Edgecombe, I sure have. In Edgecombe and I was raised up around Whitakers. I bought a house in Battleboro for me and my wife, and she's been passed about 10 months. We bought the house in Battleboro so we moved to Battleboro. We bought it in 1984, see, then we moved to Battleboro [indistinct 00:01:38] in October, and so I'm still there but by the house way down there, that blue house out there by that trailer. | 0:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 1:48 |
Emerson Pittman | That belongs to me and my wife, but she passed. Then, we were going to move up there in it. I guess this is the farmer. I'm a farmer. | 2:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. When you grew up, you said you grew up on the Bradley farm. Who did you grow up with there? | 2:08 |
Emerson Pittman | My mama and my daddy. I got married, I was living on the Bradley farm. I had never moved off. See, I was 20 years old and I stayed on there till I was 28. At least, I moved off but I didn't stay no time before I moved back on there, so I just really had to have been on there. See? Yeah, I was 28 then I moved over about three or four miles out of Leggett on 44 Highway and I stayed over there three years. Then I moved over to [indistinct 00:02:52] Chapel and I stayed there one year because I didn't like my boss man because he was getting drunk, and I wasn't getting drunk and one drunk was enough. | 2:16 |
Emerson Pittman | So then, I moved to Leggett and I stayed down there one year. The man leasing it over said he wanted me to move with him. We had a quarrel, so I just left Leggett and I come back up near Whitaker and I stayed around near Whitaker until '84. | 3:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 3:27 |
Emerson Pittman | '84 I moved to Battleboro. | 3:27 |
Karen Ferguson | What was your family's arrangement with the landowner when you were growing up? Were you sharecropping? | 3:37 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. | 3:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. What does that mean? What did that mean? What did he provide and what did you provide? | 3:45 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, he was the sharecropper. He was the sharecropper and I just worked under my daddy. | 3:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, okay. | 3:54 |
Emerson Pittman | Under my daddy, see. That was until I got married. I got married and I stayed there about six more years. I moved out in the house with him but I was still on the farm. I still worked there. | 4:03 |
Karen Ferguson | What did the man who owned the land and you, what did you provide as the sharecropper, and what did he provide for the farm as the landowner? Did he provide equipment? | 4:20 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. | 4:38 |
Karen Ferguson | What else? | 4:39 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. He [indistinct 00:04:42] with his mules and everything. We didn't have no tractors back then. We just worked the mules. We raised cows, hogs. Well, you see, my daddy raised hogs on half. Cows and sheeps. We had all that on that farm. | 4:40 |
Karen Ferguson | You raised hogs on half, you said? | 5:07 |
Emerson Pittman | Yeah. We raised hogs on half. We raised a lot of hogs. The end of the year, when we'd go to killing hogs, my daddy would kill about 15 so he didn't have to buy no meat. | 5:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 5:26 |
Emerson Pittman | See, the Bradleys had a commissary. They had a commissary and a store. We could get food, you see, or we would have to go to the commissary or to the store. | 5:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Where was the commissary? Was it right on the farm? | 5:45 |
Emerson Pittman | No. It was in one room of the boss man's house. | 5:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, okay. How many sharecroppers lived on his farm? | 5:51 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, the farm I was living on, it would be one more on there at times and we also had a little farm which crossed over from us. They would have a couple on that farm. The farms weren't too large, about 100 acres or more. See? Where we could easily tend it, and so just enjoyed it. Sure did. | 5:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Your family farmed 100 acres by themselves? | 6:42 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, see, sometimes it would be another sharecropper would move on the farm. There was another house on the farm, and another sharecropper would move on there and he would tend some of the land. | 6:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 6:56 |
Emerson Pittman | But me and my brothers, we could plow the whole farm. We could tend it. We could tend it, but we would buy it up with another man and let him tend some of it. | 7:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 7:17 |
Emerson Pittman | And so, when I left there then I sharecropped myself around different places. I was a sharecropper in Leggett. Down in Leggett I was a sharecropper, over on 44. Where I moved, I was a sharecropper. I moved in Nash County for about six months. I went to work construction work. I worked construction work in Rocky Mount in Richmond. I was in [indistinct 00:08:01] Virginia in the west, out there in the west. When I quit working construction work, I didn't sharecrop no more. What work I did, me and my wife, we did it by the day because our children had got large enough then. Some of them had got old enough they could have jobs. | 7:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 8:22 |
Emerson Pittman | We didn't have to sharecrop. My daughters, they was in Washington and they helped. They work for the government. They work for the government in Washington. I didn't never send them to college but when they got there in Washington, they went to college to get a job like they wanted with the government. My oldest daughter, she's [indistinct 00:09:04]. See? My baby girl, she works for the government. I had three daughters. My middle daughter, well, she just got her a job, see, and went to work. | 8:31 |
Emerson Pittman | They call me coming up to Father's Day. She called me that Saturday night. My oldest daughter called me that Saturday night about 9:30. She said, "Daddy," she said, "I'm coming home and spend Father's Day with you. I'll be there about 10:30 tomorrow." And she was there at 10:30. They come down and stayed with me till 4:00. My baby brother was having a Father's Day there. He in Rocky Mount. He was having a Father's Day down there and they had asked me to come over there. I didn't even get over there because I stayed home with my daughters. | 9:28 |
Karen Ferguson | That's nice to be able to do that. | 10:08 |
Emerson Pittman | Yeah. Now, I'm looking for my oldest daughter coming back for the 4th of July. | 10:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 10:21 |
Emerson Pittman | See? | 10:21 |
Karen Ferguson | You said that you worked in construction work for a while in Nash County. Did you like that better than farming? Did you like public work better than farming? | 10:23 |
Emerson Pittman | It wouldn't make a difference. | 10:31 |
Karen Ferguson | It wouldn't? | 10:34 |
Emerson Pittman | No, ma'am. Well now, when I moved to Nash County, I moved in that farm. Me and that man [indistinct 00:10:49] we couldn't get along a little while after I was over there. | 10:37 |
Karen Ferguson | In Nash County? | 10:51 |
Emerson Pittman | In Nash County. That was the first time I had ever worked for him. He was one of the Bradleys, too. He was one of the sons, see, and he was a drinker. | 10:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 11:01 |
Emerson Pittman | And so, I just gave my crop up and I went to work construction work. Yeah. I worked construction work about a couple of years or longer and I moved back in Edgecombe. I moved back out of Nash County back in Edgecombe. Moved back in the house that I used to live in, that I stayed in and farmed. So, I stayed there. After I quit working construction work, I stayed there and drove tractor 20 years for that man. | 11:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 11:34 |
Emerson Pittman | See? I drove tractor 20 years. | 11:51 |
Karen Ferguson | You were working by the day for him, is that what you said? | 11:52 |
Emerson Pittman | Uh-huh, that's right. | 11:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Was that better than sharecropping, working by the day? | 11:58 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, sharecropping, it's all right if you're working with a good man, but if you ain't working with a good man, you ain't getting no money. | 12:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 12:11 |
Emerson Pittman | See? I didn't want to sharecrop. All I wanted to do was make me a good living and have some money in my pocket to spend, and that's what I was doing. | 12:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Could you do that ever in sharecropping? Could you make a good living and have some money in your pocket? | 12:28 |
Emerson Pittman | Well now, I lived with Miss Annie Fountain, and I made good money with her and had money in pocket. I lived working with Mr. Paul Woyne and I done good with him. He lived down [indistinct 00:12:48] way down the other side of Tarboro, and I done good with him. But I worked with some I didn't do too hot with, so I just quit sharecropping. I just quit. | 12:33 |
Karen Ferguson | What made a good man to work for? What was a good landowner? | 13:05 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, you see, a man, whenever you at the end of the year, will come when you get your crop in and sell it. He'd pay you. | 13:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 13:17 |
Emerson Pittman | He'd pay you, see? He don't come up telling you, "You in the hole. You owe me this, you owe me that." See? See, he'd pay you. That's a good sharecropper. A good man to sharecrop with will pay you at the end of the year when the fall comes and you done sold all your crops, then he'll pay you money. The one who won't pay you, he ain't worth it. So, I just quit. I just quit and went, and I ain't done nothing since I was about—I ain't worked nothing since I was about 68 years old. | 13:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 13:53 |
Emerson Pittman | I quit working. I had sugar, went in a coma. My sugar went too high and I went in a coma. When I come out of that coma, I went to the doctor and they told me—they said my sugar was about 400, and so I quit working. I told my wife, I said, "If I had been driving that tractor, quick as that happened—if I had been driving that tractor—", there's a big fish pond down there, see? If I was going towards that fish pond, I would've went right in there. I would've went in there as quick as it happened. | 13:59 |
Emerson Pittman | If I had been going down towards that big ditch, I would've went in there. So, I told my wife, I said, "I ain't driving no more tractor." | 14:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 14:53 |
Emerson Pittman | I said, "Me and you can make it." See? | 14:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 14:55 |
Emerson Pittman | I didn't drive no more tractor. I quit working. | 14:59 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up when you were a boy before you left the Bradley farm, what crops did you grow on that farm? | 15:04 |
Emerson Pittman | We'd grow tobacco, peanuts, cotton, and corn, some of the beans. | 15:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 15:22 |
Emerson Pittman | We grew it all, see? | 15:23 |
Karen Ferguson | How did you decide what you were going to grow during the year when you were young? | 15:28 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, you don't decide what you're going to grow. You didn't know. They'd plant the whole crop. | 15:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 15:43 |
Emerson Pittman | They planted everything. See now, some people don't plant no wheat and no oats and no cane. See now, we used to plant sugar cane. We would make 150 or 200 gallons of molasses in the fall of the year. See? We would plant wheat and carry wheat to the wheat mill and have our own flour ground. We'd have our own flour ground, and carry corn to the corn mill and have the corn meal grinded. My daddy raised hogs on half. We didn't have much to get out in the store. [indistinct 00:16:35] much. We was eating at home. | 15:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 16:16 |
Emerson Pittman | That's right. | 16:16 |
Karen Ferguson | The molasses that you made, did you sell any of it or did you eat it? Did your family eat it? | 16:16 |
Emerson Pittman | We raised molasses on half. Now, the Bradleys would sell theirs. We'd keep us one and eat it, and we had—when we get all the molasses out in the barrel, sometimes to be shook in the bottom of the barrel that deep. See? No, we'd eat ours because if we hadn't eat ours, we would have to be buying the other fellow's. You see? 'Cause back then, I wish the time was not like it was then, see, that people could raise what they want to eat. You see? But they can't do it now. | 17:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 17:33 |
Emerson Pittman | They can't do it. | 17:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Well now, you had a garden. Did you have a garden with vegetables, too? | 17:38 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. My mama had a milk cow, too. | 17:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, did you own those yourself, that livestock, the cows and the— | 17:47 |
Emerson Pittman | Well see, we owned the milk cow. But you take the Bradleys, now they had a lot of cows. See now, we had to break cows to milk, so we could milk them. They would let other people have milk cows. See, we would break them. You had to break them where you didn't have to—you could walk up to them. See how they walk up to it [indistinct 00:18:19] and hit up there on her ham bone up there at the back of the leg, and she would stand right there and let you milk her. | 17:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 18:27 |
Emerson Pittman | See, we had to break them like that. | 18:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. You broke them, and then the Bradleys sold these cows? | 18:32 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. | 18:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, okay. | 18:35 |
Emerson Pittman | They would sell them. | 18:36 |
Karen Ferguson | But you had your own cow? | 18:39 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. | 18:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 18:41 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. | 18:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you own your own mules? | 18:44 |
Emerson Pittman | No. | 18:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 18:47 |
Emerson Pittman | We didn't own our own mules. | 18:47 |
Karen Ferguson | What made a good mule, a good work mule? | 18:51 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, one where you could [indistinct 00:18:58] and drop the line and go on over here to that house, and he would say—that man who is, if you dropped the line and walked by foot from here to the paver and then he looked back and see you done gone out that way, he gone. | 18:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 19:12 |
Emerson Pittman | They were good workers but there was a mule that helped. That was the [indistinct 00:19:19] I worked them and they couldn't drop the line behind. Just like somebody come up talking, I got to stand there and hold the line. If I didn't hold the line, it would be gone. | 19:15 |
Karen Ferguson | You never had ones that would follow you everywhere? | 19:33 |
Emerson Pittman | No, ma'am. | 19:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. How would you take care of the mules? | 19:37 |
Emerson Pittman | We had a lot up there, stables where we would feed them. Well now, we could carry them up there. We could take them out and pull the bridle off them. They would go on up there and go in the lot, go in there where they stayed. They were pretty good mules. Yeah, they were pretty good. | 19:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Did Mr. Bradley ever do any work in the fields? | 20:05 |
Emerson Pittman | What, himself? | 20:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 20:09 |
Emerson Pittman | No, not that I know of. No, he didn't work. | 20:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you know any White people to work in the fields? | 20:15 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. You take that tractor which I drove for 20 years, the man I drove tractor by, he work in the fields now. | 20:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 20:30 |
Emerson Pittman | He work in the fields. He saw me about a month ago and asked me about, "Hey you, can you come back and drive a tractor?" | 20:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, when you started driving the tractor, had there been some changes in farming? When you went back to drive the tractor, were there still a lot of sharecroppers around here? | 20:47 |
Emerson Pittman | Not that many. | 20:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Why weren't there? | 21:01 |
Emerson Pittman | They had quit. So many people had quit and gone to work by the day. | 21:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 21:07 |
Emerson Pittman | See? | 21:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 21:07 |
Emerson Pittman | Some too, some were still sharecropping but it wasn't many. | 21:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 21:17 |
Emerson Pittman | That's like now, it ain't nobody sharecropping, not 'round in here. | 21:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Did having tractors and other machinery, did that have anything to do with it, with the change from sharecropping? | 21:24 |
Emerson Pittman | I think it did with making it so much easier on farming, see? It made it more easy out there towards plowing a mule. See, they just took the mules on away so that everybody had to go for tractors. See? When they went for tractors [indistinct 00:22:04], then people weren't sharecropping, and then again you take so many people were leaving off the farm because now you would take—take here to Rocky Mount. You would leave here, go on to Rocky Mount. All them big jobs, took here to Rocky Mount, side of the road, them jobs weren't there. They weren't there, see. | 21:37 |
Emerson Pittman | You didn't run up on a job but not before you got over there getting in Rocky Mount, and that was the brickyard. See, it's the brickyard. Usually, the jobs just weren't there so the people just had to work on the farms. | 22:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 22:38 |
Emerson Pittman | They had to work on the farm. See but now, we got jobs, them jobs, all them jobs took here in Rocky Mount that our people work on. My granddaughter stay down in Charlesboro. She ain't never worked on a farm. See? | 22:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 23:09 |
Emerson Pittman | She ain't never. When she got out of school, when she finished school, they put her through college. She went to college over here to Raleigh, there down the other side of Rocky Mount now. I had two. I raised two granddaughters. The other one, she in Greensboro. | 23:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 23:28 |
Emerson Pittman | She went to college in Greensboro. Now, she works for the college. | 23:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 23:39 |
Emerson Pittman | She went there six years and now she works to the college. She got her job there. They put her to work. | 23:39 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up on the farm, were there other—who lived close by to you? Were there people living close? | 23:52 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes. Yes, ma'am. There was plenty of people. | 24:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 24:03 |
Emerson Pittman | Plenty of people. I could stand in my yard and call. | 24:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 24:08 |
Emerson Pittman | They would hear me. That's how close they was. Plenty of people sharecropping. | 24:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 24:09 |
Emerson Pittman | But see now, you go through the farm, you go down through in there and looking now, you don't see no houses hardly. | 24:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 24:20 |
Emerson Pittman | But houses, was about four parties over here to [indistinct 00:24:27] that they loaded with people. | 24:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right, right. | 24:31 |
Emerson Pittman | But now, they've been putting up all these jobs where people's getting jobs and they got jobs, build houses, and they [indistinct 00:24:42] into it and burnt down the houses on the farm because I looked at houses I used to stay in when them burnt down. Just burnt them down. | 24:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you friendly with the people who lived close by? | 24:53 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. | 24:57 |
Karen Ferguson | How so? What would you do with them? | 24:58 |
Emerson Pittman | Well now, we were just good friends. We'd get in trouble, run around together. | 25:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:05 |
Emerson Pittman | Run out together and all that. See, we were just good friends. See, you can't live, your next door neighbor an enemy. Every time you turn around, he try to do something to you. | 25:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:11 |
Emerson Pittman | You can't live like that, sure can't. | 25:11 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do for each other? What did neighbors do for each other? | 25:22 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, if they needed help, we'd help them. If we needed help, they'd help us. | 25:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:32 |
Emerson Pittman | See, that's the way we did. That's the way we did. Now, you take where I live now in Battleboro, don't nobody live there but me and my son. He works at [indistinct 00:25:46] today, and tonight, he'll go to work here at the Winn-Dixie tonight, see. So yeah, the people this side of me, well, they got jobs they're working. People behind me, they got jobs they're working, see. The people that's in the front of me, don't nobody live there but that lady Miss Lockley and her son, and he's working. | 25:32 |
Emerson Pittman | If we need some help, if I go over there to the next door and ask them for, "I need a little help. Will you give me a little help?" They'll help me. They'll help me. | 26:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 26:31 |
Emerson Pittman | They'll help me, of course. | 26:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Would sharecropping families help each other in the fields— | 26:38 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. | 26:42 |
Karen Ferguson | —with their own crops? | 26:42 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. | 26:43 |
Karen Ferguson | When would they do that? | 26:45 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, you see, it's like we might be caught up and this crop is clean, and here, this neighbor here needs some help. | 26:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 26:53 |
Emerson Pittman | We'd go help this neighbor. See? We'd help. That's the way they did, from back and forth from one to the other. We'd help them. | 26:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What was your favorite crop of the ones that you raised? | 27:07 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, all about alike. It wasn't one no better than the other one. They was all a lot alike. See? Because when I was raised up from a boy, from about 14 years old on up, I was used to working in all the crops I used to work in. All of it was about the same. | 27:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Which farm job were you best at? | 27:38 |
Emerson Pittman | Well now, I could do it all. | 27:40 |
Karen Ferguson | You could do it all? | 27:45 |
Emerson Pittman | Yeah, I could do it all. | 27:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Was there one thing that you did, plowing or picking or something that you were known as being very good at? | 27:45 |
Emerson Pittman | I ain't bragging. I was just a good worker, and what I was put out there to do, I did it good. See, I was a good worker. See, that's because that man come back about a month ago and asked me about could I come back and drive a tractor for him because what I'd done, I'd done it right and good. I did it good and I did it right, see. See, I don't know no other way because when I go out there to do it, I don't want to have to do it but one time. | 28:01 |
Emerson Pittman | See, I don't want to go over there and look back and say, "I've got to go right back over this again." No, not nothing like that. I'd done my work good. I was taught to do good work, see, and taught to not to steal. That's what I taught my children, "Don't steal. Don't wait for somebody else to go out there and work, and come back and you turn your back and they knock—and then, they'll knock somebody in the head and try to get his money. You go out there and work and make your money." And that's what they do. | 28:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there people who stole when you're around? | 29:02 |
Emerson Pittman | Who would steal? | 29:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 29:05 |
Emerson Pittman | Oh, yes. People'll steal now. | 29:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, but back then, were there people who stole like that? | 29:10 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, you take it, it wasn't as open back then as it is now, see, because—now, people would steal out in your garden. You're [indistinct 00:29:38] and all this beautiful stuff like that, they would steal. See, corn. They would steal your rows in there. People would steal back then. People been stealing all the time and they going to continue. It ain't never gonna end, people stealing because it's so many people don't want to work and ain't going to work if they can help it. They ain't got to work. | 29:38 |
Emerson Pittman | Like Rocky Mount. You can go in Rocky Mount and go around some of them places and look at the people standing around. A man can drive up there and say, "Hey. Can I get y'all to help me do this or do that?" "No, I can't go. I can't go. I can't go." Man going to be left standing there. Well, see, when night comes and they get a chance, they going to steal something. See? | 29:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 30:22 |
Emerson Pittman | They going to steal something. So, yeah. | 30:22 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you start working in the fields? How old were you? | 30:38 |
Emerson Pittman | 14. | 30:40 |
Karen Ferguson | 14? | 30:42 |
Emerson Pittman | I'd come from school that evening and my daddy told me, he said, "You can't go back to school tomorrow," because see, my brother, I had a brother called Haywood, he left home. He went on to Baltimore and he died in Baltimore. | 30:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 31:03 |
Emerson Pittman | See? I had to take the pair of mules that he was working. And so, I started crying and I couldn't go to school, not unless it rained. And so, I told Ma one day, I said, "Ma, I ain't going to school no more. That's because I can't go to school, not unless it rains." I said, "Sometimes, it goes two weeks or longer and I don't go to school, and then it rains, I go to school just one day." I said, "I ain't going to school no more." She said, "Well, if that's the way you want it," she said, "okay." See because my— | 31:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Before you were 14, were you able to go to school every day? | 31:34 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. I could go to school pretty good. I had to walk and I had to walk back. Had to walk. If the weather was bad, I couldn't go. Couldn't go if the weather was bad because I had to walk about a mile and we couldn't go if the weather was bad. We couldn't go, not unless there was good weather. We couldn't go to school in bad weather. | 31:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, was that unusual? Were there children who were starting who had to work in the fields before 14 who really never got to go to school? | 32:12 |
Emerson Pittman | Not in my neighborhood. | 32:22 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 32:23 |
Emerson Pittman | Not in my neighborhood. The children always could go to school. | 32:25 |
Karen Ferguson | What school did you go to? | 32:38 |
Emerson Pittman | Bellamy School. | 32:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you like going to school? | 32:44 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, actually, pretty good. I liked it pretty good but, well, I don't know. Some days I would do good and some days I couldn't do nothing. It was pretty good. | 32:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you like the teachers you had? | 33:10 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. The teachers was all right. The teachers stayed with people on the farm anyhow. The teachers didn't have no car. They didn't have no car. They had to get them somewhere to stay. My mama and daddy, teachers stayed with them. When school season come in, they still had two teachers would stay with them. Yeah. They stayed up and down the road, up and down the road anyhow. They didn't care how bad the weather was. We'd see them teachers out there in the road with their umbrella. See, they had to try to get to school. | 33:13 |
Emerson Pittman | They had to try to get there because they was running the school, see. We'd see them out there [indistinct 00:34:12], but see them out there trying to get to school in that bad weather. They had to get there because they was running the school. It took four teachers. | 34:04 |
Karen Ferguson | There were four teachers at the school? | 34:32 |
Emerson Pittman | Sometimes. Most of the times, there was three. | 34:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. You said they sometimes stayed with you, your family? | 34:39 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. | 34:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Why would they stay with your family? | 34:43 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, they didn't have nowhere to stay. They'd come from somewhere else and they had to stay somewhere. They'd go around and ask people could they stay with them. See? In the time of teaching school, and they'd take them in. They would take them in. | 34:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you like that, when they came to stay with you? | 35:02 |
Emerson Pittman | It didn't bother me. They would give them that room over there. Say, "Well, there's your room. You can stay there in that room," and they didn't bother nobody. They would get up and they was loud when they'd go in there and cook on the stove. They was allowed to use the stove and they would go in there and use the stove, and they would hit the road to school. When they'd come back, sometimes they would use the stove and go to their room, and then when they got used to us, they would come out. They would come around and sit with us, see, when they got used to us. Some of them come from about 40 or 50 miles. | 35:03 |
Karen Ferguson | You didn't know who they were? | 35:57 |
Emerson Pittman | No. | 35:58 |
Karen Ferguson | No. They were strangers. | 35:58 |
Emerson Pittman | That's right. That's right. | 35:58 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up, when you had to start going to the—when you had to replace your brother, take his mules and replace him, were you angry about having to do that? | 36:07 |
Emerson Pittman | No. No, I wasn't. I wasn't angry. I wasn't angry. Well, I'd reckon I know there wasn't no need to be angry because I was going to have to do it anyhow. So, I wasn't angry. He died. He died in Baltimore. I went to his funeral. He died in 1970. I went to his funeral in Baltimore. | 36:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Why did he leave to go to Baltimore? | 36:50 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, he had been to Baltimore before. He used to stay in Jasper, Virginia, and so he'd stay out there and he'd come back home. When he'd get ready to go, he would go on again. That last time he left, he didn't never come back home to stay no more. He stayed in Baltimore until he died. | 36:53 |
Karen Ferguson | How old was he when he left for good? | 37:16 |
Emerson Pittman | In his 20s. | 37:20 |
Karen Ferguson | What had he been doing going to Virginia, or going up to Baltimore? What had he been doing there before? | 37:23 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, he stayed in Jasper, then he worked on the farm. | 37:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 37:30 |
Emerson Pittman | See, he worked on the farm. When he stayed in Baltimore, he made candy. He worked in a candy kitchen and made candy because he would bring a lot of candy home when Christmas coming. They made Christmas candy, and he would bring a bucket of candy home to Ma. When we was carrying him to bury him, he worked the long way from where he stayed in Baltimore. He had been carried there, though he worked the long way from where he stayed, but they carried him by where he worked and when they got up in front of the place they stopped. | 37:44 |
Emerson Pittman | All the people that worked in the place were standing out lined up the side of the building, and they stood there a few minutes, and then they pulled out and carried him on, and carried him on down there and put him in a grave where somebody else was already in there. Then, the room was left for him nowhere to be put in there on top of him. They put three to the grave because they didn't have enough room up there like they do down here. They didn't have enough room, so they had to put two or three to the grave. | 38:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Did that bother you? | 39:04 |
Emerson Pittman | No. No, it didn't bother me | 39:05 |
Karen Ferguson | You talked a little bit about Christmas. Was that the biggest time of celebration at home? Was that a good time? | 39:12 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, but we would have to take care of our holidays just like people do now, see. We'd celebrate holidays, see. Sure would. We would celebrate 4th day of July. There just weren't as many holidays as it is now, see, because a lot of holidays, I know when they started, see. They would celebrate. Sure would. In 1949, Thanksgiving, we would always rabbit hunt on Thanksgiving. We went to rabbit hunt on Thanksgiving and we hunted that morning, we'd come back home and tied the dogs. We said we were going to over there in Battleboro, to where we go play chess because we love to play chess, and we had a place we would go play chess. | 39:21 |
Emerson Pittman | We said we were going to play chess, and our daddy told us, he said, "Well, y'all kept me on down the road and put me off and y'all come back and playing chess. Pick me up." We carried him home. We'd come back by there and picked him up when we was coming on back home and he'd [indistinct 00:40:48]. That Friday morning, the man come down there. Raymond Bradley come down there and wanted to divide out the hogs so they could sell them. He would sell his part and buy them out, and my daddy's part, he would leave them there. | 40:32 |
Emerson Pittman | My daddy had a stroke on the brain but we didn't know what it was then and he couldn't hardly stand up. He couldn't hardly stand up, but we sat him down on a muling wagon. He went down there and drove the wagon up there and gathered them hogs up and divided them hogs. He divided them hogs, and then when he divided the hogs, Mr. Raymond Bradley, he knew what ones to get for the cash sales. See, he knew his part there because he wouldn't go down there and bother them hogs. Not there, my daddy went down there. That was on that Friday and my daddy died that Monday morning. Had a stroke on the brain. Yeah, he died that Monday morning, 1949. | 41:12 |
Karen Ferguson | What did your family do then, after he died? | 42:07 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, they kept on. They kept on. Well, my mama didn't work nohow, and my sister was living then and she was there. I had two brothers was living at home, were living there. I wasn't living there. I was living in a house. Well, no. I was living on the same farm. I was about as far from here as that building over here. I [indistinct 00:42:47]. So, he took and he died that Monday. I was at Mr. Whitaker's. He said, "Come on back," and he got up and left to the store. | 42:11 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, he got home and they told us he was dead. At least the doctor had told us, see, because we had a good doctor to us from Enfield. The doctor said, they told us we could put him in the hospital. Said the people that was in the hospital could keep him better longer than he could, but he wasn't going to make it. See, because his brain was clogged with blood. If they had that blood [indistinct 00:43:29]. So, Ma said they don't need to put him in the hospital. She said, "They don't need to put him in there. He ain't going to live but three or four days. Just keep him home." So, we didn't put him in a hospital. | 42:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Was there a Black hospital in Enfield? | 43:38 |
Emerson Pittman | No. Wasn't a hospital in Enfield. | 43:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. The doctor you were talking about, was he Black or White? | 43:51 |
Emerson Pittman | He was White. | 43:57 |
Karen Ferguson | White? | 43:57 |
Emerson Pittman | Uh-huh. | 44:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Had you seen a doctor before? Were you able to see doctors when you were sick when you were growing up? | 44:02 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Well, see, it used to be two doctors in Whitaker, Dr. Ray and Dr. Cutchins. Dr. Ray, he was a number one doctor. He was a good doctor, but he passed. When he passed, then wasn't no one left there but Doc Cutchins. Then, when Doc Cutchins passed, it was on to one they had left there, but now they got some doctor come from Tarboro up there sometimes working the hog field down in Tarboro, see, and they come up Whitaker and they run that clinic there. | 44:06 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up, did you go to church? | 44:51 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. | 44:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Which church did you go to? | 44:54 |
Emerson Pittman | Bellamy Church. Well, it's St. Mark's Church now, but back then they called it Bellamy Church because it was on Bellamy farm. | 44:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 45:01 |
Emerson Pittman | Just like the school. The school was on Bellamy farm but see, they moved the school off of Bellamy farm but they still called it Bellamy School. | 45:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. The Bellamy School and the Bellamy Church, they were actually on the Bellamy farm and the farm was still being—there was still people living on it and working on it? | 45:14 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. | 45:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 45:38 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. I went to the church. Now, it ain't that. They don't call it Bellamy Church. It's St. Mark's Church now, [indistinct 00:45:39] St. Mark's Church now. | 45:38 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of church was it? | 45:39 |
Emerson Pittman | It was a Colored folks church. | 45:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Was it Baptist or— | 45:43 |
Emerson Pittman | Yep, uh-huh. Yeah, I went to the Baptist church. | 45:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Did both your mother and father attend church? | 45:50 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. My daddy was a deacon. | 45:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Deacon, okay. | 45:53 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, the both of them came to church. I got a son, a preacher, and I got a son, a deacon of St. Mark's Church, the same church I'm a member of. See? I got a son. | 46:00 |
Karen Ferguson | And he's a preacher? | 46:11 |
Emerson Pittman | I got a son that's a preacher and I got a son that's a deacon, out of the same church I—and I got a son, the son, the one that lives with me in the house with me, he's an usher. He an usher at the church. | 46:14 |
Karen Ferguson | What role did the church play in your community? Was it an important place? | 46:30 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, yeah. They would have a nice place, have nice place. Sure would. Back when I was a boy, when I grew up they would have programs, the [indistinct 00:46:50] and like that and everything. They had nice programs, and— | 46:36 |
Emerson Pittman | If you had a good time, that's like they do now. | 0:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 0:03 |
Emerson Pittman | I didn't go Sunday. I didn't go Sunday, I wasn't feeling good. Felt like the church was packed full. Yes, ma'am. Felt like it was packed full of people. They have a good time in that church now. Been having a good time too. When I could remember and started going to Sunday school, they had a good time there. Have a good time there now, far as I see. | 0:07 |
Emerson Pittman | If the peoples is right and they're living right, they're going to have a good time. See, someone cannot run a church. See, not like Christian people can. So they still have a good time there. I enjoy it. | 0:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, do you remember your baptism? | 1:11 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes, ma'am. | 1:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you tell me a little bit about that day? | 1:18 |
Emerson Pittman | Well I was baptized up there in Nash County. I was baptized in Nash County. | 1:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 1:36 |
Emerson Pittman | Up there at a place they call Betterman's Mill. See, they ground corn meal up there. And a lot of people came, a lot of people you could come up there and baptize. | 1:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 1:48 |
Emerson Pittman | And that's where I was baptized, up there. There was my wife, she was a great Christian. I ain't—she was a great Christian. And I courting her the second Sunday evening in August, 19th, 1939. She gave me a date, 1939, second Sunday in August. And I ain't never known her to put a cigarette to her mouth. I ain't never known her to put a whiskey bottle, or a wine bottle, or a beer bottle. I ain't never known her. And I courted her two years and I married her in 1941. | 1:49 |
Karen Ferguson | 1941. And where did you meet her? | 2:37 |
Emerson Pittman | Well see they lived near Lakus, where see it's like this, betwixt where I lived and where they lived was a swamp. It's what they call a white oak swamp. And to pass through there. And see, we could walk through there. See, we could walk through there. | 2:37 |
Emerson Pittman | And so I walked through there that Sunday evening. And she come from church. I met her that Sunday evening around night. And she had been at church because she was a member of Red Hill Church then. And I met her, and I got talking with her, and she gave me a date. And so I courted her two years and I married her. And liked to have been married to her 51 years before she passed, it would have been. | 3:07 |
Karen Ferguson | How did you court her? What did you do together? | 3:45 |
Emerson Pittman | We'd just go down to churches. Go around to churches and go to different people's houses, and just enjoyed ourselves. We just enjoyed our life, sure did. Yeah. | 3:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Were her parents, were they strict with her? Could she go out with you alone? | 3:57 |
Emerson Pittman | Oh yeah. Yes ma'am. She could go out alone with me. They weren't too tight on her, but they were kind of also tight on her. But I could go there and pick her up. | 4:03 |
Emerson Pittman | We had a car back then, and my brother, he went to courting her sister. So me and him married the two sisters. And my wife was 74 years old when she passed. Last year in August, it's coming the 6th of this coming August, she's been dead 12 months. And I ain't got over it yet. But I'm better. See that's how come I started coming up here. | 4:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 5:01 |
Emerson Pittman | I was sitting home and mourning, and mourning over her. So I started coming up here, see, to try to get out of some of my worry. So it help, it help. Sure did | 5:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Well, that that's hard after 50 years. | 5:28 |
Emerson Pittman | That's right. That's right. It'll take a lot. I won't never get over it. When you live with a person a long time like that, you won't ever get over it. You won't get over it. It'll come back. It'll come back after time goes. You'll be doing fine, and it won't come back in a way that'll upset you, it'll just come back. Sure will, come back. | 5:28 |
Emerson Pittman | So I sat there yesterday evening, and where I was sitting, I have two of her pictures in there. Sometimes I won't even look at them. And I got her. I ain't got her, they ain't got her out where you can just walk in there and see her, but I got her laying in the coffin. I got two pictures of her laying in the coffin. See. But I got that put up, see, that if anybody tell me they want to see them, I had to go get them. See I ain't got them out in the opening. | 5:57 |
Emerson Pittman | See, like I got her other picture. I ain't got her out there in the opening. | 6:36 |
Karen Ferguson | What did your father teach you about being a good husband, or being a good man? | 6:46 |
Emerson Pittman | Don't be courting on my wife, and don't be drinking and fighting her. Well when I got married, I got married the 18th of November, 1941. And in December, I hit her. And I went on about three days and it wouldn't get off my mind. It just worried me, just stayed on my mind. It just worried me. Say, I hit her for something I did. See, it just worried me. | 6:53 |
Emerson Pittman | She hadn't done nothing. Said, "Jappas, what you had did, what you hit up for her, because she was at you about doing it. Don't do it no more," and all that. See, and I hit her. And about three or four days, every day that stayed on me, just worried me so bad till I just went and I went and told her. | 7:33 |
Emerson Pittman | I said, "Will you forgive me for hitting you?" She said, "Yeah, because you didn't have no business hitting me." I said, "You'll forgive me, I won't never hit you no more as long as I live. As long as we live together, I'm not going to hit you." And I didn't hit her. I stayed with her for 51 years and I didn't never hit her no more. I think she would try me sometimes to see, would I hit her. But I didn't hit her. Uh-huh, I didn't hit her. | 7:57 |
Emerson Pittman | Because it was doing something for me about when I did hit her, and I hit her for something I did. She was asking me, other woman, down there where she was staying, with us got married. And I didn't have no business hitting her. But I hit her. Well I asked her, she forgive me, and I ain't hit her no more. She couldn't do nothing to make me hit her. I wouldn't have hit her. | 8:35 |
Emerson Pittman | If I had to caught her with a man, I wouldn't have hit her. So I promised her I wouldn't hit her, and I wouldn't have hit her. I would stick to my promise and talk to her. But she was a one man woman. There's plenty of women like that, one man. There ain't no two or three men going on at the time. One man, plenty of women like that. | 9:07 |
Emerson Pittman | So I just didn't see no sense in fighting her or hitting her. Or if I couldn't help her, don't bother with her. But I hope, and so if somebody had told me that day that my wife would be dead that next day, I would have said no. She wasn't sick. Me and her, my wife—and cooked. We sat out on the porch and talked. And I went to take the clothes in. I ran out to the clothesline, took the clothes in that evening. And she cooked, we sat out there on the porch and eat, and talked. And we went in the house about six o'clock, because I'd like to look at the six o'clock news. And I looked at the news and the weather. Then I went back out on the porch, me and her, and talked. And when I come back in the house, it was getting dust dark, she got her Bible. | 9:36 |
Emerson Pittman | And she got her Bible, she sat down and read her Bible like she always did when night comes. She read her Bible so I wouldn't bother with her. I would get over there, because I would get on. I didn't come sat down—well because something on TV I would look at it. If there was nothing on TV, I wouldn't look at it. I wouldn't look at it. | 10:42 |
Emerson Pittman | And when she read her Bible, stopped reading her Bible about 9:30. Me and her sat up there and talked to 10:30. And well we had a rule about going to bed. So 10:30, time to go to bed. We went to bed, and she woke up, 1:30. I mean one o'clock, talking to me. Woke up talking. She told me, she said, "Seems like my winds wanting to get short." | 11:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 11:42 |
Emerson Pittman | So she got up and she sat up, she went in the kitchen and sat down. I got up and put on my clothes. I went in there too. And I asked her, I said, "Do you feel bad?" She said, "No." I said, "You want to go to the doctor?" She said, "No." I went up in the medicine cabinet. She said, "You ain't getting nothing out of that medicine cabinet," said, "I ain't going to take nothing." | 11:44 |
Emerson Pittman | So I went back and sat down and we sat there and talked until two o'clock. At two o'clock, she said, "Well, I'll go lay back down." I said, "You feeling all right?" She said, "Yeah." She went and laid back down. At 2:30 she was dead. That's right, 2:30 she was dead. I got up and went in there and called my granddaughter. I said, "Look, Louise Terese," I said, "Come in here." She come in there and look. | 12:09 |
Emerson Pittman | I went right back and said on top of it, and she suddenly wouldn't let me get in the bed. When I went in there, she went back there and got in the bed. I sat on the side of the bed. Someone wouldn't let me get in the bed. The Lord knew what was happening. He knew what was happening. And so, well I had been worrying, worrying that she was leaving me. But I didn't know what the worrying was. I didn't know what it was, after she was dead. And so I got told Louise Terese come in there. And Louise Terese come in there, walked up there and stood and looked. She said, "Mama ain't breathing." | 12:37 |
Emerson Pittman | I said, "No, Louise Terese, she's dead." She went on down there to my boy's room and called him and told him. And then he jumped up and hollered one time. And he come on up there. So you take that. I told her, I said, "Well get the telephone." I said, "Start calling her sisters." She got two sisters. I said, "Call her sisters." And call them and tell them that she's dead. I said, "First call the rescue squad." She called the rescue squad. And then went to calling around and around, calling, and calling, and calling. | 13:16 |
Emerson Pittman | And do you know, dog head people right there, around me in Battleboro. When that rescue squad come there, the law come around, that risky squad come there, that late in the night and so on, they got up and come down to my house to see what had happened. | 14:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 14:18 |
Emerson Pittman | See I had them there. Peoples, I moved in there around them peoples. I didn't bother them people, they didn't bother us. But they were good neighbors and our good neighbors today. And he come down to see what had happened. And I had lost my wife. But if somebody had told me that Wednesday, my wife are going to be dead that Thursday morning, no that Thursday, that my wife would be dead that Friday morning, I would have said, "No, it ain't true. She ain't going to die." | 14:19 |
Emerson Pittman | She was too good of shape. She wasn't sick. She was just a smart woman, and just getting around, and she wasn't sick. So that'll show you person can die, they don't have to be sick. Now if she had to been sick, and I'm expecting her to die, I would get over it quicker. But see, she was getting around there, healthy, well, and healthy as I and you here. So what? | 14:58 |
Karen Ferguson | But that sounds like a very, very hard time for you. | 15:36 |
Emerson Pittman | Well I'm getting over it. I'm getting over it. But I won't never completely get over it. But I'm getting over it, and all. So her time had just come. I had dreamt that, I thought me and my two brothers, I got three brothers lives, one in Baltimore and the two of us down here. And I thought me and my two brothers down here was sitting down talking. And she come up, your mouth to her, and called me. She called me sick. She said sick? Uh-huh. Said come on. | 15:43 |
Emerson Pittman | And she turned around and went on back. And I went on behind. I didn't never catch up with her. And I told nobody in that road but me and her. And she had one of my granddaughters by the hand. And they were going on walking, and took one of the prettiest whitest rose. She was going up a gray, and guessing she was getting up there to the curl in the road, to the woods. And I would hear now caught up with her. And she went around that curl in the woods and shot up behind her like a door. I ain't see her no more. And two days after she had passed, something feeling into me, and said, that was a warning. That dream you had was a warning that she was leaving you. That she was leaving you. | 16:24 |
Emerson Pittman | So only thing I told you nothing you wanted to hear. | 17:35 |
Karen Ferguson | No you, this has been—I've enjoyed talking to you. | 17:43 |
Emerson Pittman | No, hell with it. I will stay home today, hadn't been coming back up here talking to you. | 17:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. I just wondered if I could, you know what you've got just got a few more minutes left before you have to go for lunch. And I— | 17:57 |
Emerson Pittman | Well yeah, because see, they'll be fix that lunch for—so it'll be around 12 o'clock when we eat. I just got 20 minutes past 11. | 18:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 18:17 |
Emerson Pittman | He's a whole lot of other, he been—because he's been coming anywhere about 20 minutes of 12. | 18:17 |
Karen Ferguson | So would you like to finish up around 12 o'clock? Is that when you finish, or before then? | 18:20 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, about a quarter of 12. | 18:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. All right. I just wanted to ask you a couple more things. | 18:28 |
Emerson Pittman | Okay. | 18:31 |
Karen Ferguson | You said, now when you were sharecropping, throughout your life, did you have much cash money? Or did you buy most things on credit? | 18:31 |
Emerson Pittman | Well you take, back then when I grew up, this packet of cigarettes I got in my pocket, didn't cost but 10 cents or 15. And if I had a dollar in my pocket, I felt good. See, of course. Stuff was so cheap then. Stuff was so cheap. You could go and buy a pound of meat for 3 cents. If you wanted some [indistinct 00:19:20] there was a penny a piece. See, stuff was cheap back then. | 18:43 |
Emerson Pittman | See. But now it's sky high. This was a $2 packet of cigarettes I got now. And I wondered that man who sold it to me, think about when he got it for—see, and now Camels, they were 15 cents a packet. But I wondered that he think about when cigarettes were cheap. Now this here, I got a box of snuff in my pocket. They were, this is a 10 cent box of snuff. And now it's different, costs a $1.29 cents. See, the guy that snapped on it. | 19:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 20:02 |
Emerson Pittman | $1.29 cents. And see, it wasn't but 10 cents back then. So see, if I had a dollar in my pocket, I felt good. See, because stuff was cheap. Now you got a dollar, you can't go out. If anybody say anything, you say, "I ain't got no money." | 20:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 20:13 |
Emerson Pittman | So you ain't got but a dollar, you ain't got no money now. | 20:13 |
Karen Ferguson | But when you bought things at the commissary or at the store, did you buy it on credit? | 20:28 |
Emerson Pittman | Oh you take—I didn't buy no groceries before I got married. My daddy get groceries. See, he would get groceries. And what little he'd get, he would get it on a credit. But at the store, he would pay for it. | 20:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 20:54 |
Emerson Pittman | See, he would pay for it. | 20:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Did the landowner, did you only have credit at the commissary or did you have credit at the store as well? | 20:58 |
Emerson Pittman | Well you could get credit at either place. | 21:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 21:07 |
Emerson Pittman | At either place. Yes, I could get credit at either place. | 21:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have to go to the commissary and to the Bellamy store, or could you go to any store you wanted to? | 21:16 |
Emerson Pittman | Well you could go to any store you wanted to. You could go. But they would wrestle for you to deal with them. | 21:33 |
Karen Ferguson | They would what? | 21:35 |
Emerson Pittman | They wrestle for them for you to go along with them. | 21:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 21:40 |
Emerson Pittman | See, I said deal with them. See, but that means go along with them. They would wrestle for that. Then where they had a store. Then where they didn't have no store, they didn't care where you went. | 21:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. When did you start going to chain stores? Like Rose chain store groceries and that kind of thing? | 21:58 |
Emerson Pittman | I didn't start before I got married. | 22:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. But you did after you got married? | 22:08 |
Emerson Pittman | After I got married and I moved in a house, to ourselves. | 22:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 22:15 |
Emerson Pittman | Then I went to buying groceries then. I went to buying groceries. | 22:17 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you first get a car? | 22:27 |
Emerson Pittman | I ain't never owned that car of my own. I ain't never own that of my own. | 22:30 |
Karen Ferguson | So how did you do your shopping then? | 22:35 |
Emerson Pittman | Oh, my brother had a car. | 22:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 22:42 |
Emerson Pittman | So he would take me around. | 22:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 22:42 |
Emerson Pittman | And I got a son, my son who stays with me now. He's got two cars. And my son, he's a preacher, he got a car and a truck. So you take, I got a son drives a cab in [indistinct 00:23:02]. They have two cars. And so, if I want to go anywhere, they'll take me. | 22:43 |
Emerson Pittman | Both of my granddaughters were down here. The one away in Charlesburg, she got a car. And the one away in Greensville, she's got a car. | 23:12 |
Emerson Pittman | Because the one in [indistinct 00:23:36], wake up, they went to the diesel plant right there on the other side of Whitaker. | 23:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, you were talking a little bit before about having the man in Stacy Chapel not being very nice, the boss man there, before. | 23:33 |
Emerson Pittman | Well he was a drinking man. | 23:45 |
Karen Ferguson | He was a drinking. So what happened between you two? | 23:50 |
Emerson Pittman | He wanted me to stop my boys there in school, and put them in the ditch and let them ditch. I told him I didn't have no ditching boys, I had school boys. Because he had some men ditching. And I don't know how come they quit, something he'd done and they quit. And then he wanted me to stop my boys out of school. I couldn't do that. So me and him had an argument. And I just quit looking for him. I give my crop up. | 24:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Was that a hard time after you had to give up your crop? | 24:30 |
Emerson Pittman | No ma'am. | 24:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh. | 24:33 |
Emerson Pittman | Because see, to the lawyer, and Whitaker's Lawyer Ross. And went to him, and he had him to give me so much, pay me so much money. See, for what I had did. And it wasn't hard for me to get a job. It wasn't hard for me to get work to do. I went straight on to Uncle Mount, that next week, to Woody Manufacturer. | 24:37 |
Emerson Pittman | And I had witness on them walls. And I went to Woody Manufacturer. They gave me a job. When I left Woody Manufacturer, I went to Richmond. And they gave me a job. I had the job when I left from down here. All I had to do was go up there and go to work. Yeah. | 25:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your children—now was this Richmond, Virginia you went to? | 25:36 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes ma'am. | 25:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Did you leave your children, your family behind when you did that? | 25:40 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. I would come back home every Friday. | 25:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:47 |
Emerson Pittman | And I would come back home every Friday. | 25:47 |
Karen Ferguson | What did your wife do at this time? Did she work? | 25:51 |
Emerson Pittman | Well she—I had moved in back in the Edgecombe. And when the summer rain come, where the man on the farm needed a little work, needed her to help him a little, she worked for him. She worked for him. And so after her mother died, I didn't go back to Richmond. I stayed home and I went to work for the man. Then I drove a tractor for him 20 years. Yeah, I went to work for him, Mr. Stickler. | 25:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Now you said when you left the man in Stacy Chapel, now you had to pay him for leaving? | 26:38 |
Emerson Pittman | No ma'am. | 26:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. What did you say, you went to go to the lawyer in Whitaker? | 26:47 |
Emerson Pittman | I went to see the lawyer. | 26:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 26:51 |
Emerson Pittman | See, I had some crop, where I couldn't just give up to him. | 26:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 26:56 |
Emerson Pittman | And I went to the lawyer, and the lawyer told him, so you got to pay him. | 27:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh okay. He had to pay you? | 27:09 |
Emerson Pittman | Had to pay me. | 27:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And did he? | 27:09 |
Emerson Pittman | Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am, he paid me. Said the lawyer told me, he said, "You can't take that crop from that man." Said, "You got to pay that man for that crop." And so he paid me. That's right. | 27:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Now when you left, you left some other places too. You said in Leggett you had a disagreement with the overseer there? | 27:27 |
Emerson Pittman | Oh yes ma'am. But see the boss lady, Ms. Annie Fountain, she's dead now, she wanted me to stay on. But see, the overseer that she had there looking out for the farm, he was leaving. And he wanted me to go with him. | 27:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 27:58 |
Emerson Pittman | I didn't want to go with him. | 27:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Why not? | 28:01 |
Emerson Pittman | With him, he didn't pay you, half pay you. He didn't half pay you. I didn't want to go with him. So in the struggle that me and him were having, Ms. Annie hired her somebody else to put in the house I was in. So I had to get out of the house. I had to get out of the house, see, because she thought I was going with Roscoe. But I won't. | 28:05 |
Emerson Pittman | She told me, she had, I didn't know he wasn't going with Roscoe to go. See, Roscoe was telling her that he was carrying me with him. See he shouldn't been doing that. | 28:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 28:45 |
Emerson Pittman | But he told her. And so she got somebody else to go in the house. That case, it was me that had to get out of the house. That's the way it was. | 28:45 |
Karen Ferguson | With this man in Stacy Chapel, you said he was a drinker. Was he ever violent? | 29:00 |
Emerson Pittman | Well, a drinking man. He was would say things I didn't like. Because, see just like I'm here talking to you now, see when I made a bargain to work with him, we made a bargain. I ain't going to cuss you and you don't cuss me. Ain't going to be no cussing. And see, he started to cussing. I left so I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand that cussing. | 29:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 29:21 |
Emerson Pittman | Okay. | 29:21 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things would he say to you? | 29:23 |
Emerson Pittman | Something he didn't have no business, cussing. | 29:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 29:43 |
Emerson Pittman | You know what a cussing word is. | 29:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 29:43 |
Emerson Pittman | See, damn ain't a cussing word. But Goddamn is a cussing word. See, and he started cussing me. And I just got on out with him. All these men stayed there, and hit that man or do nothing to that man, when I couldn't leave him. And I left him, see. I left him. | 29:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you ever know people who were in a similar situation who couldn't just leave it? Who ended up hitting the White people or something like that? | 30:11 |
Emerson Pittman | Well every once in a while. | 30:23 |
Karen Ferguson | And what would happen to them? | 30:27 |
Emerson Pittman | Well they had to leave, had to move off on they farm. Being the White man, get the fussing and fighting, they had to leave off on they farm. But I ain't want to fight no man. You take that man over there, way—some man about a month ago, wanted me to come drive a tractor for him. I drove a tractor for that man 20 years long. | 30:29 |
Emerson Pittman | And he ain't never hearing me call a lie. And I ain't never hear him call a lie. I ain't never hearing him say dam, and he ain't never hearing me say damn. We respected each other. | 30:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 31:04 |
Emerson Pittman | And I got on out there and done his work because he wanted me to do it. See, and I done good work. He bring it, I done good work. See, the way I worked, people liked my work. | 31:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 31:17 |
Emerson Pittman | See, because I was raised to do good work. | 31:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 31:17 |
Emerson Pittman | I done good work. Sure did. | 31:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, well I guess we can finish up now. I just— | 31:27 |
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