Peggy Davis interview recording, 1994 August 11

Download
- Rights
- Limited Re-Use
  CC BY-NC 4.0
  More Rights Info
- Files (2)
- MP3 Part 1
- MP3 Part 2
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
Document
- btvct10092.pdf
Share

Embed Code
<iframe src='//idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4tb13951?embed=true' height='125px' width='100%' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' scrolling='no' allowfullscreen></iframe>
Permalink

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4tb13951
Skip to Item Info

Loading the media player...

Files for this Item

Transcript

Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.

Tywanna Whorley	—Davis, where were you born?	0:03
Peggy Ann Davis	I was born Leon County, Tallahassee, right here.	0:05
Tywanna Whorley	Oh, really?	0:07
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	0:07
Tywanna Whorley	Oh, wow. When were you born?	0:10
Peggy Ann Davis	The Saturday the 15th. I was born the 15th of August, 1911.	0:19
Tywanna Whorley	1911?	0:20
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	0:23
Tywanna Whorley	Wow. Where did you live here in Tallahassee?	0:28
Peggy Ann Davis	On 607 Raleigh Street.	0:28
Tywanna Whorley	Raleigh Street?	0:30
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh.	0:31
Tywanna Whorley	Do you remember the community that you lived in, the Black community?	0:32
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, I tell you, here's just quite a few people because, you see, where I live, it's a big garage there where people work on cars. Well, they work in the daytime and, at night, they gone. But the lady what I live next door to her is a friend of mine. Well, she's in the hospital. She's supposed to be home today, Sally Carney. Here's some people. I tell you, the people moved there and they move off. Then I have a cousin, Maddie Calloway. She lives near me.	0:36
Peggy Ann Davis	The people move so fast, see. There's a lot of houses there, but the people move so fast till you don't get to know them. They move so fast. But those what I know around there, they are really nice because this lady where in the hospital, she just thinks that I'm her daughter. She can tell me, "Peggy, I want you to cook so-and-so." Well, she been ill for a long time, but she's real nice. I been knowing her about 25 years, before I moved there. I been moved there soon to be five years.	1:10
Tywanna Whorley	Did you get to know any of the kids that moved into the area?	1:58
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, I know her sister's children. I know the man named Billy and the girl, his wife, well, they just got married. The girl named Creta. Let me see who else? Maddie Calloway. She doesn't have any children.	2:07
Tywanna Whorley	What y'all used to do for fun when you were little kids?	2:30
Peggy Ann Davis	When we was little kids, we would play seeking and go hide and play around playing. They'd have parties and we'd go out to the parties, the boys would be blowing the harps and we would be dancing back. We had a big time, no fussing, no fighting or nothing of the kind, everybody. Them what wasn't playing in the rain, they'd pull them. We'd start them to playing in the rain.	2:35
Peggy Ann Davis	We all went to one school nearby, just a one-room school. It was about big as from that post back to the wall. They had just about 100 head of children there and wasn't but one teacher teaching us. But, honey, we know not to go wrong. You see, when the people was letting the children get whoopings at school, they had better children and the children wasn't as terrible as they is now.	3:09
Peggy Ann Davis	Now they'll tell you if they're in the street doing something, [indistinct 00:03:42]. Because I sit there on my porch and listen after them talking that kind of talk back to their parents. I know if it was me, I'd stay in jail. But, see, all my children is grown.	3:38
Tywanna Whorley	What was the name of the school that you went to?	3:55
Peggy Ann Davis	Dock and [indistinct 00:04:02]. I know. Here's right on the Thomasville Road going into Thomasville, and they moved that school down to Lake McBride. Do you know where Lake McBride? You get at Bradfordville, and you turn to your left and drive right into that big school. That's where all my children and part of my mama's children went to school to that same school.	4:01
Tywanna Whorley	How long did you go to school there? I mean did you go on to high school?	4:28
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, I'm going to tell you, all of my sisters left and we all started to Lake McBride School. My mama began to get ill, and I had to be home with her and to help send them other two to Lake McBride. I went to Lake McBride about three years. And then I had to stay home and help Mama, and my other three sisters, well, they went on through college.	4:33
Tywanna Whorley	So what grade did you end with? Eighth grade?	5:00
Peggy Ann Davis	In the eighth grade.	5:02
Tywanna Whorley	Eighth grade.	5:04
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm. The eighth grade when I stopped and jumped up and got married. And then after I got married, all the children, all the larger children to that school, to Gaines and all. Then they married. And then they hired me back there for four years to cook, to that same school.	5:05
Tywanna Whorley	Oh, wow. When you say your mom got sick, when you went home to take care of her, did you work?	5:25
Peggy Ann Davis	Work around the house. You see, it was 14 head of us. my brothers always, when they got up some size, they always would work. When they'd make their money, they'd bring it and give it to my mama, and I just stayed around her to see after her?	5:35
Tywanna Whorley	What did your brothers do for a living? Did they do odd jobs?	5:52
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. They'd work. Different work that they would do for the people because, you see, we lived on the Bakers Plantation. We didn't have no rent to pay. We didn't have to pay a dime to go to the doctor. We didn't have to pay a dime if anything got the matter with our eyes or teeth or anything. They did all of that, and we all come up working under them.	5:56
Tywanna Whorley	On the plantation?	6:28
Peggy Ann Davis	On the plantation.	6:28
Tywanna Whorley	And they would let you live-	6:28
Peggy Ann Davis	They got 40-some thousands of land. I mean they got land, land, land. But all the older heads, they passed away, and that left nothing but the young ones. But they still comes down and hunt every year. They come down and hunt quails, and I run the laundry there for 12 years. They got-	6:28
Tywanna Whorley	The name was Baker?	7:00
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah. EK Baker and George F. Baker.	7:01
Tywanna Whorley	Why was it that your father didn't have to pay for the land and things like that? Did your family [indistinct 00:07:13] let live on the land, too?	7:07
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, we all lived on the plantation. Yeah, we all lived on the plantation. But, you see, my mother and my daddy separated when my sister was seven years old. For that, because you see, she knew all them big older boys —See, there's four boys was older than me, and they was just old enough command jobs and to help my mama to raise us because, long in that time, the people wasn't strict on the men people by making them take care of them children and things.	7:15
Peggy Ann Davis	But we had to work. And then we even run the farm, and we made plenty of stuff on that farm.	7:47
Tywanna Whorley	What did you make?	7:52
Peggy Ann Davis	Butter beans, corn, okra, tomatoes and carrots and all that kind of stuff.	7:55
Tywanna Whorley	Grow cotton, too?	8:02
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah. All us got around Mama and told her, "Mama, this the last year I'm picking cotton." "Why?" "My back hurt." "You don't have no back. You ain't got nothing but a [indistinct 00:08:17]." We laugh about it sometime now. But my mama and my daddy, they never did act like they were separated, but they was. See, my daddy was living down here and my mama was living at home. So then when we got my mama to move down here, they never act like they was separated.	8:04
Peggy Ann Davis	He'd go see her every other week. He wouldn't go every week. And then both of them died there up there in Miracle Hill. Both of them passed up there in Miracle Hill. If you carried her one cookie in a bag, she'd break it in two and give him a piece of it. So I said, "Well, just don't know what kind of separating that was."	8:40
Tywanna Whorley	Did you like the white people that you lived on the land of?	9:13
Peggy Ann Davis	Did I like them?	9:13
Tywanna Whorley	Yeah, the Bakers.	9:13
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, Lord. I loved them. I loved them. You know how many people? I reckon she had about 200 houses on the plantation, and everybody lived in them houses. They didn't have to pay no rent.	9:15
Tywanna Whorley	Why? Why was that?	9:30
Peggy Ann Davis	On the Horseshoe Plantation. It's out there now. When I come here, I would move down here. I was living on Horseshoe Plantation. Your house needed fixing, they would fix that. See, they said they was some of the richest people that was in the United States of America. They'd go up north, and they'd live up there six months. They'd come down here, and they'd live down here six months. They would hunt the whole while they was down there.	9:31
Peggy Ann Davis	They'd go fishing. They'd hunt quails and things like that. That's where we all was born. Every child my mother got, 14 head, was born right there on that plantation.	9:59
Tywanna Whorley	Maybe I'm just confused because I'm thinking you living on plantation, what are they getting out of it? What are the Bakers —They're not renting it to you. They just let you live on it?	10:12
Peggy Ann Davis	That's all. Yeah, they was really nice. Anytime you wanted to go to the doctor, if you was telling a doctor down here in Tallahassee, you didn't like that doctor, if you wanted to go to Thomasville that's where they sent you, to Thomasville.	10:30
Tywanna Whorley	What do you think made them different from other white people during that time?	10:43
Peggy Ann Davis	I don't know. Well, we have a lot of rich people out there, the plantation. The [indistinct 00:10:53] Plantation, the people is rich there. They joined the Bakers Plantation. The house, they lived there when they would come down, it had 32 rooms in it. And then all of us who worked there, we had our own room. They had the big laundry there, and we had our own room. We washed our clothes. See, we was all working there. If we got sick and wanted to go to the doctor, they sent us where we wanted to go.	10:46
Tywanna Whorley	So y'all worked for them?	11:31
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, we work for them. All of my life, that's where I mostly work. And then after I went to cooking to Lake McBride, worked there a good while until I got tired, and I told them I had just give out.	11:34
Tywanna Whorley	So what kind of jobs did you and your brothers do for the Bakers?	11:48
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, I'd run the laundry. I was the head lady running the laundry, and my brother was the head man of holding their horses when they go out in the field. I had another brother. He run the dog kennel. They had their own dogs, their own horses, their own buggies what they go out, their own trucks, and they had about 20-some cars. If you couldn't get one car to carry your people to the doctor, you got a truck or just what was there to go.	11:52
Peggy Ann Davis	They even had two of them, the boys had airplanes, and the air base was right down below this house where I'm telling you about or we called it the big house. It was two kitchens there. I cooked in the little kitchen, and a friend of mine, she cooked for the Bakers. They had white help. They had about 12 white ladies and men they'd bring down from New York every year to work for them. Hey, how you doing?	12:25
Peggy Ann Davis	And then all of us down here, and so they had people working in the yard, keep the yard clean, rake leaves. They'd rake, the little children like that. When they get out of school, they always would give the children something to do. I think the children enjoyed it.	13:03
Tywanna Whorley	How much did they pay you?	13:24
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, I'm going to tell you, they paid different prices for the type of work you was doing. You'd get from 60 to $75 every two weeks. But the men got way more than the ladies got because just like you'd be the head of something there, you'd get more than I would get. If you the head of the laundry, they paid you more. But we didn't have to pay no rent, and we didn't have to pay no doctor bill and everything. We always run a little farm, me and my husband and children, and everything you made on that farm went to you.	13:26
Tywanna Whorley	So did your father sell the cotton that y'all grew? Did he sell that in town?	14:17
Peggy Ann Davis	Did he sell what?	14:19
Tywanna Whorley	The cotton that y'all grew?	14:19
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, yeah, yeah. They would go and sometime when my daddy was home sometime and the boys, they'd plant. He would have two bales of cotton like that. Long and then, I didn't never know what they was getting for that cotton because old people didn't let their children get in their business like they do now. You was afraid to ask them. If they told you something, you just had to believe it and keep on getting up because they didn't never tell you their business.	14:19
Tywanna Whorley	What did your mom and dad do for the Bakers?	15:02
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, my mama cooked there 22 years, and that's who I've been in the kitchen behind when she was the cook there for 22 years. My daddy never did work for the Bakers because he mostly —Now, I tell you he did a little carpentering on the job. But now, my husband what I married, he was a real carpenter and a painter, but he passed. It been 21 years ago now. But he did all their painting and stuff like that.	15:06
Tywanna Whorley	Did you know your grandparents?	15:45
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah. Well, I had four. My daddy's mother was named Peggy Ann. That's my name.	15:46
Tywanna Whorley	Really?	15:54
Peggy Ann Davis	She named me after her. Granddaddy, he was named Thomas Hall. My mama's daddy, he was named Luke Jones, and her mother was named Charity Jones.	15:54
Tywanna Whorley	What do you remember about them? Did they live on a plantation, too?	16:12
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, Lord. So many people done died and gone away. But there's still some people out there, and they still comes down to hunt. But they live six months down here and six months up north. But they still come. But the things not like it used to be because, you see, so many of the houses, the people moved out of and didn't keep them up and they just rotted and she had them took down.	16:15
Tywanna Whorley	What do you remember about your grandparents?	16:47
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, I know my grandmother, my mama's mother, she was a midwife. Well, my daddy, he mostly farmed a little bit because when we got up big enough to know them, well, my grandmother did a lot of fishing. Now, she loved to go to fishing all the time, and she would take me right behind her going to fishing all the time. Me and my brother, who I was next to, she would take us fishing.	16:51
Peggy Ann Davis	She'd fix us a little pole, and we'd catch the little fish like that and thought that was something we was doing, catching fish. But she would get the big one. She would catch big fish. I reckon she know we couldn't pull the big ones out the water because we would never go in the boats. We'd go be on the bank. But we really enjoyed it. My mama's people, they farmed. Yeah, they farmed.	17:23
Peggy Ann Davis	Right out to the end of their home, they had a big graveyard, and that's where they buried my grandparents, right out before you get to the Thomasville Highway. You cross the Thomasville Highway, the first house from where we lived, and they used to live in that house. But I remember when they lived there. Yeah, I know my grandparents real good.	17:53
Tywanna Whorley	Did they ever talk about what went on in slavery with their parents?	18:22
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, no, because we never did. They was asking the children now about slavery or the old pastor. Well, some of them can remember things about the old slavery, but I just didn't ever know. I know about when he was going in the Army because my mama had a brother went to the Army. I didn't even know when he went, but I remember when he came home because Mama and them was just running all over the floor, just crying and going on.	18:31
Peggy Ann Davis	When he came out of the Army, they used to wear something they called wrap leggings. You don't know nothing about it.	19:05
Tywanna Whorley	I've seen them.	19:12
Peggy Ann Davis	When he came home, he had on the Army clothes. They used to stick way out, them khaki pants they used to wear. He had on a suit of them, and I saw a lot of them. Different people went in service, but I didn't even know when my mama's brother went in service. But I would hear our grandmama say that her son, he was named Lee D. Tucker, say he was in service. He came home, and they did some crying and hugging and going on.	19:14
Peggy Ann Davis	I was standing, looking at them. I didn't know no meanings of why they was crying and going on till I got up and Mama say —I asked my mama a question and she said, "Well, we was glad to see him back in the home again." Said, "Because he been off fighting war." That's all we know.	19:51
Tywanna Whorley	That was the First World War?	20:15
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh. First World war.	20:15
Tywanna Whorley	Oh, wow. So you don't remember any stories that they told you about slavery?	20:21
Peggy Ann Davis	No. That's all I know because I didn't never talk to Grandma Charity and Old Man Luke Jones about slavery. But I bet you my mama could tell you something about slavery because my mama was 107 years and a week and a half old when she passed. My daddy was 104. My mother always did say she was older than him, and both of them passed up there to Miracle Hill. You know where that at?	20:26
Tywanna Whorley	Mm-mm.	20:57
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, that's where they sends most of the old people when —They don't wait till they get too sick before they send them up there. If they wants to go up there, they'll send them. They still sends them up there because I have a lot of people up there now. Young people is up there. But it's a great big place. They gives a big picnic there every May. They give that big picnic, and we all go up and enjoy with them and have singing and speaking and doing. It's real nice. It's real nice.	21:01
Peggy Ann Davis	And then they got a place up there. They said they going to let it out bigger. It got about 20-something rooms, and they said they was going —They right up. It's not far from near me. I can walk right up there where they at. So I had a lot of people passed up there, aunts and things like that. But my mama was the oldest child her mother had. She was the oldest one. And then she had two boys, Robert and Met. They was next to her.	21:38
Peggy Ann Davis	She had about she said 12 head, and they all was grown. I lived long enough as to know all of them.	22:21
Tywanna Whorley	What do you remember about them?	22:32
Peggy Ann Davis	Huh?	22:35
Tywanna Whorley	Any stories they ever tell you? Any of them?	22:35
Peggy Ann Davis	I had one uncle. We used to worry him so bad till he'd hide from us, making him tell old things and things that happened. I reckon that he passed because he been passed a good while. I forgot some of them. But he would often have us, and he'd say, "I'm tired of y'all children. Y'all go on home to your mama." That was my mama's brother. He would go clean our house. He would cook for us. Ooh, that was a number one cook. I'm telling you.	22:39
Peggy Ann Davis	When we knew Uncle Phil was coming, ooh buddy, we would tote that wood up. We was cooking on the wood stove then. We'd tote that wood up and get —I mean he could make from a cake on down and tea cakes. He could do all of that. He was a good cook, and he was a clean man. When I know him, he was living by his self, and my mama said he had two wives. One had passed, and he married again. I think that one quit him, what Mama told me because I loved to ask Mama things and have her laughing about it.	23:16
Peggy Ann Davis	But now, here's a man be out there, too. He don't come out here. I mean, buddy, he can naturally born tell about slavery time, what his parents told him. I'm older than he is. But every 20th of May, we'd have this big picnic out to our church, and he'd get up and speak on it. I speak some on about all of the old people I know.	24:00
Tywanna Whorley	What is the 20th of May?	24:27
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, it be to our church. We all fix baskets and carry out and just sit long tables like this, and everybody who want to come just come and eat and drink. They play different games and win different prizes because my daughter won some of the nicest prizes out there last year, these silver platters and the glasses and all like that.	24:30
Peggy Ann Davis	The white people helps us out a lot because all our drinks, and we just have crates of sodas like that they sends out and all boxes of candy and all that kind of stuff. Then we make fried chicken and fish and make cakes and salad and all that and just put it on the table. Everybody go around and get what they want.	24:58
Tywanna Whorley	What were y'all celebrating on the 20th of May?	25:20
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, when we got up old enough to know how our own parents would celebrate the 20th of May. But they would sell to 20thh of May, but we don't sell. We just give it for the people freely. Of course, I remember I was going to the 20th of May when people had tables out there, and they sold fish and ice cream and sodas and all that kind of stuff like that, what they would sell to the 20th of May. But we doesn't sell it.	25:20
Tywanna Whorley	But the question I have, what did you celebrate on the 20th of May? Why did all y'all get together on that day?	26:01
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, I don't know. I don't know. I'm telling you now I don't know why would they celebrate the 20th of May. But we would. We'd celebrate the 20th of May. When I got up to know, honey, the people would be to that, people from everywhere, Thomasville or Miccosukee. All them places would meet there, and they would be selling stuff there. We'd go out there and enjoy it. I has them laughing now. I say, "When I start to courting, I'd come on here getting a whooping on the 20th of May."	26:06
Peggy Ann Davis	I call it a whooping because the girls would court on the boyfriends. So she'll tell the boyfriend the next day. The next week after the 20th, they'd come. "I'm going to give your company back to your mama." A boy used to ask to come to see the girl. "I'm going to give your company back. You didn't call me." We'd slip around there and we'd do some courting on the 20th of May.	26:43
Peggy Ann Davis	Me and another girl told our parents, said, "Yeah." See, they hadn't turned us out to courting, they said. So me and Luella got together. Luella told her parents, and I told mine. I said, "Well, Mama, I went up to the fence on the 20th of May." I said, "But the 4th of July, I'm going through the fence." Mama said, "What that mean?" "I'm going to turn my own self out to court." And Mama laughed. I thought she might have whooped me.	27:08
Peggy Ann Davis	Luella told her parents the same thing, and she said her parents laughed. But if you talked with them boys, you'd have to hide before they turned you out to courting. I don't know why they would have to let you get so old before they would let you start to taking company.	27:37
Tywanna Whorley	When was the normal age that they turned you out to court?	27:56
Peggy Ann Davis	18.	28:00
Tywanna Whorley	18?	28:00
Peggy Ann Davis	18. Yeah. We done went courting about them many years because when we was little children, we used to say, "Such-and-such a little boy, he's so cute. That my boyfriend."	28:01
Tywanna Whorley	Oh, wow.	28:13
Peggy Ann Davis	But we have much fun, and we have singing and all-	28:18
Speaker 3	What that there number?	28:26
Peggy Ann Davis	What about it?	28:26
Speaker 3	Does she got numbers on it?	28:34
Peggy Ann Davis	She ain't got none of them numbers.	28:35
Tywanna Whorley	That looks like it's an eight, eight low. It looks like an eight.	28:37
Peggy Ann Davis	Loaves of bread, ain't it?	28:44
Tywanna Whorley	Low salt. Yeah, low salt. That's what it look like. Low salt.	28:45
Speaker 3	Low salt [indistinct 00:28:48] in that box. Eight of them.	28:47
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, I had never looked at that because —That woman brought me that stuff. Them children might eat it. I don't know.	28:51
Tywanna Whorley	Did your parents and your uncles or aunts talk about spirits and things like that?	29:01
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, no. They didn't talk about them too much because they said they didn't want to make the children afraid, you see. But they never did talk about ghosts and different things. But now, I had a sister, my sister could see them things. She could see them. There was a boy between me and her, and he's older than she is. She born with a veil over her face, the midwife say. She say she going to see ghosts, and she going to be a nurse. She been nursing for 30-some years in Miami, and she retired last year. Yes, sir.	29:10
Peggy Ann Davis	Her daughter's a nurse, and she's a nurse. But she used to sit right up on the porch. She said, "Sister." She said, "I saw Uncle Phil's car just a while ago." Sometimes she'd be in the yard, and she'd say, "Get back, get back." She said them things would come before her face. But the older she got, she growed out of it. But yeah, she sure did. It just come to me. She sure did used to see them things. My uncle had a car, and he would mostly pass our house all the time.	29:56
Peggy Ann Davis	If he was going somewhere, he'd passed our house, and she'd say, "I saw Uncle Phil passed in that car." Just like this she'd say, and Mama said, "Mm-hmm." So Mama, when she got a chance, she told me. She said, "Yeah, Grandma told me that Jenny was going to see them things." She could be out in the yard playing, and she'd just be telling them to get back, get back, get back. She said, "I saw So-and-so-and so just now." Yes, sir. She could see them, but we didn't never.	30:29
Peggy Ann Davis	We didn't know what ghosts was, and I still don't know. But we ain't had sense enough to be afraid to know what she be saying she see. And then Mama had told me, said, "Yeah, she born with a veil over her face, and she was going to see them things, but she would outgrow them." Her grandmama told her that she was born with a veil over her face. Well, I was going to ask her what was the veil. She said it's just a white cover be over the face when they born, some of them like that, born with them veils over the face.	31:01
Tywanna Whorley	When y'all couldn't make it to the doctor or anything, what type of home remedies did your mom and grandma and them use if you got a cold or [indistinct 00:31:53]-	31:44
Peggy Ann Davis	Some people call it rabbit tobacco. But they was [indistinct 00:31:59]. That's what it grew about that tall, and it got a white blossom. Buddy, right now I don't do without mine because I got a quart and a half in the back of my Frigidaire. When that cold start to coming on me, all I got to do, put me a little bit in a pot and heat it and, buddy, it make your bowels move. And then it's really good for that cold. If it don't knock up that cold, you better go and see a doctor.	31:54
Peggy Ann Davis	Long and then, a lot of people used to go to the doctor and the doctor would tell them right straight what to go home and do. Some of the doctors, that's what they was using. But you can't hardly find that stuff now. You can't hardly find it. But a boy found me some last year, and he brought it to me. A woman came there, and she wanted to buy some of it. It was about that much. I told her no. I said, "I'll give you some." I give her some.	32:28
Peggy Ann Davis	She had that cold so bad, and she went home and made that tea. She was to my house the other day telling me about it. She said, "Peggy, I just don't know what." Do you know what the people called me out there on the plantation? Dr. Davis.	33:03
Tywanna Whorley	Dr. Davis?	33:18
Peggy Ann Davis	Dr. Davis. That's what most of the people called me. We went to Thomasville one Sunday to my husband people house. His wife had went to church, and the daddy and the son was home. He say, "David taking with vomiting this morning everything he eat." I said, "Well, what kind of food you give him?" I said, "Well, that was too heavy." He said, "Well, he just eat regular food." I said, "Does you have some tea?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, get me a cup." He went and got the cup.	33:18
Peggy Ann Davis	I said, "You have some ice potatoes?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Bring me one." He went and got the ice potato. My husband's standing there laughing because he knew what I was going to do. I said, "Well, get me an ice potato." He went and got the ice potato. I washed it and I put it in the pot and I let it boil. When it boil, I strained it out and give it to him. I said, "David." I said, "If you drink this and it don't do you no good, I'm going to take you to the doctor."	34:06
Peggy Ann Davis	He turned it up and he drunk it because he had gagged once or twice since we had been. Turn it up and he drunk it. So he said, "I'm sleepy." I told his dad, I said, "He said he's sleepy." I said, "Put him in the bed." I said, "He's really sleep." I said, "But you put him in the bed and you be sure." I said, "Bring me the tea now." He brought me the tea, and I said, "You got some lemon juice?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Get me lemon juice."	34:40
Peggy Ann Davis	I gave that boy that tea and that lemon juice. That boy ain't vomit no more and went on and got in the bed. Here it been about three weeks ago, a boy called me from —He live here in town, and I live here in town. He said, "My little boy done taking with that vomiting. What did you tell me to do?" I told him, and he went and did it. I say, "But be sure you have him something to eat when he wake up because he going to wake up hungry."	35:11
Peggy Ann Davis	He went and got it and gave it to that boy. That same Sunday, that boy come on to church, a little boy about that tall. He come on to church. My mama, sometime I used to go down there. She was quick to take with that thing, too. A lot of people has it now. But if that ice potato don't stop it and that tea bag, you better go see a doctor.	35:42
Tywanna Whorley	What type of tea?	36:03
Peggy Ann Davis	Any kind. In the little bags that you squeeze out in the little bag. You can feel that in your stomach and go get you —If you don't have none of them little tools or lemon juice to squeeze out, just get you a lemon and cut it and squeeze it and drink it.	36:06
Tywanna Whorley	Can you get ice potatoes in the grocery store?	36:27
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, yeah. You can get them out the grocery store. But just wash it clean where you know all the grit will be out and boil it and drink it. People out there call me just as big and ask me, "Ms. Davis, what did you say was good for so-and-so?" Half crying. I say, "So and so and so." They go to work and do it, and it helps them.	36:29
Tywanna Whorley	What about people who had chicken pox and measles and colds?	36:55
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, when we always had the chicken pox, my mother put us in the hen house.	36:55
Tywanna Whorley	In the hen house?	37:05
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh. In the chicken yard and close the door a while and let you stay in there a little while and then open the door. And then you squat out and that chicken fly over your head, that chicken pox gone. Yes, sir, that chicken pox gone.	37:06
Tywanna Whorley	Wow.	37:24
Peggy Ann Davis	Yes, sir. It's gone. The measles, well, they always would give us —Go in the barn. Get an ear of corn. Wash the shucks real good. Put them in a pot and boil them and give you a big dose of Epsom salt. You know what Epsom salt is?	37:26
Tywanna Whorley	Mm-hmm.	37:46
Peggy Ann Davis	Give you a big dose of that. And then they explained them bumps go to drying up off you. And then the measles, you catch it before it get in the end or too far on you. You use nothing but this. Let them chicken fly over your head and see what it —But, buddy, you talking about some children hollering and screaming. My children used to put it on, hollering and screaming, scared of the chickens. I said, "They're not going to bother you."	37:47
Peggy Ann Davis	They opened the door and them chickens, you know how they fly out. When the chickens come out of there, that chicken fly in that Epsom salt, sure, you well of it. But you got to get to take that salt is to keep it from getting in your blood, and them bumps dry up just this way. Just use Blue Seal Vaseline. You know what that is. Just keep yourself greased good with that. You see a lot of people scratch it, but don't scratch it.	38:16
Peggy Ann Davis	If you have to scratch it, get you a towel and do it like that over there. Don't you scratch it with your fingers because everywhere you scratch, it spreads on you.	38:45
Tywanna Whorley	Oh, wow. What about for a cold?	38:56
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, I'm going to tell you what I use just for a cold. Now, I use that [indistinct 00:39:07]. And then I got peppermint candy, I mean straight peppermint candy, not the mint because, you see, they'll fool that mint off on you because I had to halfway fuss with a man this going Saturday about-	39:02
Tywanna Whorley	Peppermint?	39:25
Peggy Ann Davis	Okay. I said, "Yes, you got some peppermint candy back there." I said, "I don't want that mint." See, them little round, flat balls, that's the mint. But that peppermint is in little blocks like that. You going to pay for it if you get it because that one little bag cost me 90 cents. I got some home. I believe I got some in my bag now. Let me see. If I don't, I mostly you go to getting that cold, you get that peppermint candy.	39:28
Peggy Ann Davis	I might not have none in here, but I thought sure I had some in here and I was going to show you what it look like. But it's pure peppermint. You just get that peppermint. Some people don't want to do it, but that peppermint candy and get you a half a pint of good whisky.	40:03
Tywanna Whorley	Really?	40:28
Peggy Ann Davis	Put it in there and put a little lemon juice in there and just let it sit up there. Every once in a while, if you go to get you a —You know what a tablespoon is. Get one of them and just pour you out a tablespoon, put it in your mouth and swallow it. See won't the next morning that cold will be gone there about. I sent some people some. I got the peppermint candy because, see, I told you I bought it. My daughter took me until I found it up there in the Winn-Dixie last Saturday.	40:28
Peggy Ann Davis	But they won't give you peppermint candy if they don't have but a little bit. They'll say they don't have none. But that whisky and that lemon juice and that peppermint candy and honey. You know what honey is? Mix all of that together and put that in a bottle and just shake it up and pour you out a spoonful and see what it'll do for you. It's really good. I be sitting up there on the porch sometime and think about the peppermint candy. I'll go in there and get me a piece.	40:59
Peggy Ann Davis	My daughter just left home this morning. She spent the night with my granddaughter. She talking about, "Sister, I got some of your peppermint candy." My children call me Sister. I said, "Yeah, that's all right." Because she was coughing one while last night, but she said she got a piece of peppermint candy. I said, "Well, I'm about to fix your mama some tea for y'all." I call it tea. Honey, more people, more people ask me, "What did you say you do?"	41:32
Peggy Ann Davis	But, you see, I don't tell everybody to put whisky in it because some people just don't want whisky because I don't drink it, but I have to take it when I take with a cold. I just take a spoonful and go on about my business, and it'll do the trick. But that honey is really the trick for you because I went to a doctor once a long time ago and he had me using honey in my coffee.	42:03
Tywanna Whorley	When you were living in Tallahassee, did you ever hear about the KKK and white folks hanging Black folks?	42:34
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, yeah. Yeah. I could hear the people talking about it because my mama told us one time, a man got hung. His name was Ison, I believe she said, and said they hung him and said he killed a white man about a dime. The man owed him a dime or something. But anyway, he killed the man and said they hung him and said when they hung him, said a lot of the people who was working to that place said he said when they got him on that thing, Mama used to tell us how the thing was made.	42:43
Peggy Ann Davis	You pulled it up and let it drop down through something and break your neck. The man say, "You want to speak to anyone?" He said, "Yeah, I want to speak to my mother." So they let his mother went there, and he said, "Well, Mama, when I took them Sunday school books and carried them home, you uphold me in it." And something else Mama said he said he took and said he just reach up and bit his mama ear off. Said, "Now they fixing to hang me," and told her, "I got something to tell you," and said he just bit her on the ear so bad till she had to go to the doctor.	43:30
Tywanna Whorley	Any time were you scared or was Black folks scared about the KKK, white folks coming on?	44:22
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, I don't know. I imagine it was. I imagine it was, but I don't know because I didn't know nothing about it because them old people could tell you things and you'd believe what they say. But sure these children now, I don't believe nothing because they get worse. They get worse instead of getting better. Getting into the devilment, it gets worse.	44:27
Tywanna Whorley	So how was Tallahassee back then in the '30s and '40s?	44:56
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, it wasn't as bad as it is now, nothing like it is now. When the people used to come to town from way out there where I lived in wagons and all.	45:04
Peggy Ann Davis	Rose, bring me some more napkins and some [indistinct 00:45:18] out there. How many you want?	45:15
Speaker 4	This is enough. I'm looking. Somebody got something look like pickles.	45:21
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, no. This pear relish. A lady made it. How many you want, Charlie?	45:25
Charlie	Two.	45:31
Peggy Ann Davis	Hey, how you doing?	45:37
Tywanna Whorley	So they used to ride wagons up to the city. Did y'all used to go shopping in town?	45:50
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah.	45:53
Tywanna Whorley	You did?	45:53
Peggy Ann Davis	Now, what did you say?	45:56
Tywanna Whorley	I said did y'all used to go shopping in town and ride the wagons?	45:57
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah. Yeah. Wagons and surreys and buggies. That's what the people used to come to town in. It was one man out there. He had a carriage, and it had two seats, four horses to it. And then he had a cart.	46:04

Peggy Ann Davis	—a monkey don't care what. And had trouble with her every day. And she knows she's not supposed to put her hands on these napkins without gloves.	0:02
Tywanna Whorley	So did y'all used to go shopping in town?	0:14
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, yeah.	0:22
Tywanna Whorley	Where did you used to go?	0:22
Peggy Ann Davis	The Uptown. We used to—or the hub store, and Sam Robinson and those stores up there. Yeah, we'd go Uptown to the stores.	0:22
Tywanna Whorley	What did you used to get? You'd buy clothes and stuff?	0:30
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, clothes and everything they mostly got here now, we used to could buy out of the stores. Of course, it was some old stores Uptown, [indistinct 00:00:44] and all of them stores were right Uptown then.	0:36
Tywanna Whorley	Did you used to go to any of the White stores?	0:44
Peggy Ann Davis	Huh?	0:44
Tywanna Whorley	The White stores downtown?	0:44
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was one or two. It wasn't many, no way, like it is now. No, it wasn't many stores like it is now, but we used to go to the stores and the hub store. It was there.	0:55
Tywanna Whorley	Mm-hmm. What about did you used to go out to Frenchtown?	1:02
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, I'll tell you, I never did like Frenchtown much, because it looks like it would be too many people down there for me. And I never did like Frenchtown too much.	1:14
Tywanna Whorley	What was wrong with Frenchtown?	1:32
Peggy Ann Davis	Huh?	1:35
Tywanna Whorley	Too many people for you?	1:35
Peggy Ann Davis	They had a big picture—You could go to the show down there, and they had a few stores down there, in Frenchtown, but not too overly many. Like after, the town put the building up so well.	1:37
Speaker 3	How are y'all doing?	1:50
Peggy Ann Davis	Hey, there. Hi.	1:52
Tywanna Whorley	Mm-hmm.	1:53
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, yeah. Of course, my husband brother used to run, you know Curt Davis, he used to run a café, and they had stores down there.	1:56
Tywanna Whorley	Mm-hmm. Sell soul food?	2:08
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. [indistinct 00:02:20] Yeah, they had plenty, anything that you would want down there, fish markets and a few stores. But it wasn't built up like it is now.	2:11
Tywanna Whorley	Were the White people nice to you when you went to town?	2:34
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, them what was there, it was Black and White had places then, they was real nice.	2:37
Tywanna Whorley	Was it segregated?	2:42
Peggy Ann Davis	She worked for one of them place a long time down there.	2:45
Tywanna Whorley	Was things in there segregated, like you had places for Black folks and places for White folks?	2:50
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, I couldn't tell you about that part because, you see, I would go down there to my cousin place and I didn't ever see nothing but the colored in there buying, getting dinners and stuff like that.	2:59
Tywanna Whorley	Mm-hmm.	3:10
Peggy Ann Davis	But it was there. That's when we used to go to the show down there in Frenchtown, to a show.	3:13
Tywanna Whorley	How often did you go to the shows, for instance?	3:23
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, we'd go every Saturday—	3:25
Tywanna Whorley	Every Saturday?	3:27
Peggy Ann Davis	Every Saturday evening. There was a boy out there driving, and he would take some of us with his family.	3:28
Tywanna Whorley	Do you remember how much it cost to go to the movies?	3:36
Peggy Ann Davis	Let me see...	3:40
Tywanna Whorley	15 cents?	3:40
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm. I'm fixing to tell you tell you 20 or 15 cents.	3:43
Tywanna Whorley	Really?	3:45
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah.	3:45
Tywanna Whorley	Y'all stay all day?	3:46
Peggy Ann Davis	No, we'd go in the evening, first night, and I don't know whether they ran in the day or no, but we would go in the evening. This boy would get off from his job [indistinct 00:04:05]	3:47
Speaker 4	You talk so much. Let them other ladies talk.	4:10
Speaker 5	Good morning.	4:10
Peggy Ann Davis	Go on. Go on. He just a old devil, don't pay him no mind. Just a old, devilish man. He meddles me every day he come out.	4:11
Tywanna Whorley	Did you live on the plantation for a long time, or did you move into your own place in Tallahassee?	4:19
Peggy Ann Davis	No, I lived where my mother used to live when I moved down here. That'd have been about five years ago I moved down here.	4:29
Tywanna Whorley	Really?	4:34
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	4:34
Tywanna Whorley	So you were on the Bakers' for that long?	4:34
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	4:34
Tywanna Whorley	You said five years?	4:34
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh. I tell you, my mother was the mother of 14 other children, every one of them born on that plantation. Every one of us. And then all mines, my three born on that plantation.	4:42
Tywanna Whorley	Mm-hmm?	4:55
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm. Of course, I married a man worked on the plantation, and so we all lived on the plantation. And it's still the plantation, but there's not as many people out there as there used to, because you see, the houses got old and the people passed. So many of the people passed away.	4:57
Tywanna Whorley	Oh, I wanted to ask you, you said that the Bakers used to spend six months in New York and then come down here for six months—	5:19
Peggy Ann Davis	For six months.	5:28
Tywanna Whorley	Who ran the place while they were gone to New York?	5:29
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, they had boss mens, White boss mens and Black boss mens, down here. They ran the place while they was gone away. And then up north, you used to go up north with them and work, they'd tell you, because they tried to get me to go, and I said, "Oh no. Mm-mm. I'm not going up there and stay them six months." So I didn't go. But my son went, and he said enjoyed it, say they really was nice to him. Well, I know they was really nice people. Yes, they was.	5:32
Peggy Ann Davis	And I reckon they had about 30 fish ponds on the place, and every one of them had plenty of fish in them. If you didn't want to go in the boat, you could set up in your chair on the bank and fish. And that just tickled them to death. They would pass and make pictures of us, and they'd say, "Y'all fish like that all when we'd be gone?" Say, "Yeah." Then she thought it was the prettiest thing, old lady Baker did, and she'd make pictures. Of course, they'd make a picture if you was laying down, and you come to find out they was making your picture. But we got along nicely.	6:04
Tywanna Whorley	Mm-hmm. And every person [indistinct 00:06:48]	6:47
Peggy Ann Davis	And the big laundry was there, and everything here in Tallahassee was in the laundry here, it's out there on the plantation where we moved from.	6:48
Tywanna Whorley	You said because y'all did y'all laundry there too?	6:57
Peggy Ann Davis	Hmm?	6:57
Tywanna Whorley	Did you do your laundry there as well?	7:00
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You washed for your family right there. They had the ironers, they had four different machines for to wash they things in, and three or four. The wait girls did their own washing, you see, who waited on tables, they did they own washing. And we had a room for them to wash theirs in, because couldn't all that washing going on in that one place.	7:02
Peggy Ann Davis	I think she have your—All right. Now, you better let me have some [indistinct 00:07:41] (laughs)	7:33
Speaker 4	Anybody that talk on the television and radio ain't got no business talking to me. [indistinct 00:07:50]	7:40
Peggy Ann Davis	(laughs)	7:56
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, Lord. And when he don't be here, then we be wondering where he at. That's the worst man! He used to could tell you a lot about the plantation because he was one mannish boy—	7:56
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, he wasn't mannish, but we say he was mannish because, see, he had [indistinct 00:08:13] on the plantation, and they was boys, they'd bring him out there, and we would be working for these people, and they had a goat, and they used to put the goat to wagon, the goat get down the hill and wouldn't come back. They'd take the goat out from the wagon, and one would pull the wagon back, and the other one would lead the goat back. And he teases me about it. And he'd tell anybody talking about, "I used to whoop him." I said, no, because I was working for these people at the time, I say I used to push him out of the way, but I didn't used to whoop him. And he'd tell the people I used to whoop him.	8:08
Peggy Ann Davis	But they was really nice boys. There was three of them.	8:56
Tywanna Whorley	Oh, okay.	9:03
Peggy Ann Davis	[indistinct 00:09:04] now he going. Look, they waving [indistinct 00:09:07]	9:03
Speaker 5	Where you been?	9:05
Peggy Ann Davis	Ask him where he been.	9:05
Tywanna Whorley	What? Thank you.	9:05
Peggy Ann Davis	—and she just led with, "My son will be down here after the table sometime today." But they ain't fooling me. I know. No, that ain't fooling—	9:17
Tywanna Whorley	You were born here in Tallahassee, right?	9:18
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh yeah. Yeah.	9:18
Tywanna Whorley	Florida. Okay. Are you a widow now?	9:18
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah—	9:19
Tywanna Whorley	Widow? What was your husband's name?	9:20
Peggy Ann Davis	The last one was Levy Davis, though I've been married twice.	9:43
Tywanna Whorley	Lee Davis?	9:45
Peggy Ann Davis	Levy, L-E-V-Y	9:47
Tywanna Whorley	L-E—	9:48
Peggy Ann Davis	Davis—	9:50
Tywanna Whorley	V-Y, Davis. Okay. Do you remember when he died, when he passed?	9:50
Peggy Ann Davis	1971, I believe it was.	9:58
Tywanna Whorley	Okay—	10:01
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, 1971.	10:01
Tywanna Whorley	Was he born here in Tallahassee?	10:04
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, yeah. Yeah.	10:05
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. What did he do for a living?	10:05
Peggy Ann Davis	My husband? Oh, he was a carpenter, he had carpenter work, and painting.	10:13
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. What was your mom's name?	10:20
Peggy Ann Davis	My mom, Susie Hall.	10:21
Tywanna Whorley	Susie Hall.	10:22
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	10:23
Tywanna Whorley	You remember what her maiden name was?	10:29
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, we all—Jones, her name before she got married.	10:31
Tywanna Whorley	Okay.	10:37
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, Jones.	10:38
Tywanna Whorley	Do you remember when she died?	10:39
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, now I got all that at home, but I can't remember—	10:40
Tywanna Whorley	That's okay, that's okay—	10:40
Peggy Ann Davis	[indistinct 00:10:48] the summer, but I just can't remember—	10:40
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. Was she born in Tallahassee too?	10:50
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, yeah. Yeah.	10:54
Tywanna Whorley	Was she a housewife and farmer?	10:54
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh yeah, yeah—	10:54
Tywanna Whorley	Housewife?	11:01
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, she did house work.	11:05
Tywanna Whorley	Oh, and cooking, right?	11:09
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, cook, she cooked for the Bakers, 30 years.	11:10
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. What was your father's name?	11:13
Peggy Ann Davis	Johnnie Hall.	11:25
Tywanna Whorley	Is that N-N-Y or I-E?	11:25
Peggy Ann Davis	I-E.	11:25
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. Do you remember, was he born in Tallahassee?	11:25
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh.	11:39
Tywanna Whorley	Do you remember when he passed?	11:39
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, he was behind, I know he passed a little before my mama, but...	11:44
Tywanna Whorley	That's okay if you can't remember.	11:47
Peggy Ann Davis	I just can't remember when he passed, but he passed ahead of my mother.	11:53
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. Would you consider him to be a farmer, or cropper?	12:00
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, he was a farmer. I'll just say a farmer because he'd work out sometimes.	12:02
Tywanna Whorley	Okay.	12:08
Tywanna Whorley	All right. You remember the name of your sisters and brothers?	12:08
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah.	12:08
Tywanna Whorley	Okay.	12:08
Peggy Ann Davis	Walter—	12:08
Tywanna Whorley	Walter.	12:08
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	12:08
Tywanna Whorley	Walter Davis—	12:21
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-uh—	12:21
Tywanna Whorley	No, nah, nah.	12:21
Tywanna Whorley	Hall, Walter Hall.	12:21
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah.	12:21
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. Everybody born in Tallahassee, right?	12:30
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, every one of them born here in Tallahassee.	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. All right. Walter. The next—	12:33
Peggy Ann Davis	Leroy Hall.	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	Leroy. Okay.	12:33
Peggy Ann Davis	Johnnie Hall.	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	Named after your dad?	12:33
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	Okay.	12:33
Peggy Ann Davis	Luke Hall.	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	Luke?	12:33
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh. Peggy Ann Davis.	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	Okay.	12:33
Peggy Ann Davis	Jenny Hall.	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	J-E-N-N-Y?	12:33
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh.	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	Okay.	12:33
Peggy Ann Davis	Annie B. Hall.	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	Annie B. What is that, B-E-E?	12:33
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, just put a B in the middle, uh-huh.	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	Annie B. Hall.	12:33
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh.	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	Okay.	12:33
Peggy Ann Davis	Now, you got Annie B. and Jenny?	12:33
Tywanna Whorley	We got Jenny, Annie B., you, Luke, Johnnie, Leroy and Walter.	12:33
Speaker 6	I need some paper towels.	13:35
Peggy Ann Davis	Ask her, she'll tell you.	13:38
Speaker 6	Could you tell me where the paper towels are?	13:39
Peggy Ann Davis	Let me see. The last one you got is Johnnie—	13:46
Tywanna Whorley	The last one—	13:47
Peggy Ann Davis	And you got Annie B.—	13:47
Tywanna Whorley	Annie B. Hall—	13:49
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh, and Carrie Hall.	13:50
Tywanna Whorley	Carrie? How you spell that one?	13:54
Peggy Ann Davis	C-A-R-R-I-E, Carrie.	13:54
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. I-E—	13:54
Peggy Ann Davis	Hall—	13:54
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. That it?	13:59
Peggy Ann Davis	Sydney Hall.	14:00
Tywanna Whorley	S-Y-D-N-E-Y?	14:00
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh. And Larry Hall.	14:00
Tywanna Whorley	Wow.	14:00
Peggy Ann Davis	James Hall.	14:13
Tywanna Whorley	Oh. Okay.	14:20
Peggy Ann Davis	And that was about all because two died when they was babies.	14:20
Tywanna Whorley	I see. That's 11 kids—	14:23
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm—	14:23
Tywanna Whorley	wow.	14:23
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, and three died when they was babies.	14:23
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. What's the name of your children?	14:27
Peggy Ann Davis	My church?	14:32
Tywanna Whorley	Your children—	14:32
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, my children. Bessie Amos.	14:37
Tywanna Whorley	Bessie? Is it S-S-I-E?	14:38
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	14:40
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. Bessie, what's her last name?	14:44
Peggy Ann Davis	Amos, A-M-O-S.	14:45
Tywanna Whorley	Okay.	14:46
Peggy Ann Davis	And Pearl McClendon.	14:46
Tywanna Whorley	Pearl McClendon.	14:48
Peggy Ann Davis	James Hall.	14:54
Tywanna Whorley	Three. And James Hall?	14:57
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh.	15:02
Tywanna Whorley	You remember when they were born?	15:03
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, let me see. I got all of that in that book.	15:08
Tywanna Whorley	Okay—	15:11
Peggy Ann Davis	I wished I had knowed this. But I know when they—I got all of them age, and I have to look at it in my Bible.	15:11
Tywanna Whorley	Oh, that's okay—	15:19
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm—	15:19
Tywanna Whorley	They all born in Tallahassee?	15:19
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, all born in Tallahassee?	15:21
Tywanna Whorley	How many grandkids do you have?	15:22
Peggy Ann Davis	Oh, 15—	15:25
Tywanna Whorley	Wow—	15:26
Peggy Ann Davis	Grands, and eight great—grands.	15:27
Tywanna Whorley	Wow. Okay. What was the name of the schools you went to?	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	Mount Zion Dawkin Pond.	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	Mount Zion, how you—D-O-N-K-I-N?	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh.	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	Donkin—Mount Zion Donkin...	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	It's Pond.	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	Dawkin—	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	Pond, that's like you say a pond—	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	Pond—	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh.	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	Dawkin Pond—	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	And Lake McBride.	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	And Lake—Mount...	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	McBride.	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	Mount Mc—Bride.	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	How you spell that? B-R...	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	I-D—I done forgot.	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	Mount McBride—B-R-I—Is it Brighton or Bright?	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	Brown—	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	Oh, Brown?	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	Lake McBride, Bride—	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	Lake McBride—	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	B-R-I-D-E, that'd be how to spell—	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	McBride—	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh.	15:37
Tywanna Whorley	Huh—	15:37
Peggy Ann Davis	Those were the only two schools went to, because the school was a church school, and that's where we all was raised up at to that one school, people, people, people.	15:41
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. You went to eighth grade. Both in Tallahassee, right?	15:41
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, yeah, all of them in Tallahassee.	15:41
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. What was the jobs that you said you did for the Bakers? Head of laundry?	15:41
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, head of the laundry. And then I cooked there 10 years. Cooked for 10.	15:41
Tywanna Whorley	All right. Oh yeah, what's the name of the church that you go to?	15:41
Peggy Ann Davis	Well, Mount Zion.	15:41
Tywanna Whorley	Mount Zion?	15:41
Peggy Ann Davis	Dawkins Pond.	15:41
Tywanna Whorley	That's the name of the church?	15:41
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh.	15:41
Tywanna Whorley	Oh.	15:41
Peggy Ann Davis	Mount Zion Dawkins Pond.	15:43
Tywanna Whorley	D-O-N-K-I-N-S.	15:51
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	16:30
Tywanna Whorley	Donkins—Point?	16:30
Peggy Ann Davis	Pond, Pond.	16:30
Tywanna Whorley	Pond.	16:30
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh.	16:30
Tywanna Whorley	Is that AME?	16:30
Peggy Ann Davis	No, it's just a Baptist—	16:30
Tywanna Whorley	Just Baptist—	16:30
Peggy Ann Davis	Uh-huh.	16:30
Tywanna Whorley	All right.	16:30
Tywanna Whorley	What do you do for hobbies? Like what do you do here? Do you do ceramics here?	17:06
Peggy Ann Davis	Yeah, I help set up the table, and take the flowers off, and clean the tables, and sometimes serve, help them serve in the kitchen.	18:24
Tywanna Whorley	Mm-hmm. Do you do any knitting and things like that?	18:35
Peggy Ann Davis	Huh?	18:36
Tywanna Whorley	Do you do go in and have ceramics and stuff like that?	18:36
Peggy Ann Davis	No, I don't go that. I think I have enough, because we volunteers, we help set up the table. And I did have my pin on, but I don't, I had company this morning, I reckon that's something why I didn't have my pin, but I help serve the food, dip up the food to be served sometimes. And then most of—I help clean the tables up after the people get through eating.	18:41
Tywanna Whorley	Okay. All right. Let me see, this right here?	19:16
Peggy Ann Davis	Hmm—	19:33
Tywanna Whorley	This is about the interview we just had, and this states that it's okay for people to—you don't mind for people to listen to the tape.	19:38
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	19:44
Tywanna Whorley	All right. Just read it and sign right there—if it's okay.	19:44
Peggy Ann Davis	Mm-hmm.	19:44
Tywanna Whorley	Right here—	19:44
Peggy Ann Davis	Right here—	19:44
Tywanna Whorley	Yes, ma'am.	19:44
Peggy Ann Davis	My name?	19:44
Tywanna Whorley	Yes, ma'am.	19:44
Peggy Ann Davis	Okay—	19:44
Tywanna Whorley	They're about to eat now.	19:44
Peggy Ann Davis	Okay.	19:44

Item Info

Title:

Peggy Davis interview recording, 1994 August 11

Date:

August 11, 1994

Creator:

Davis, Peggy Hall

Contributor:

Whorley, Tywanna

Description:

Name: Peggy Hall Davis; Date of birth: 1911-08-15; Place of birth: Tallahassee, FL; Occupation(s): domestic worker; Residence: Tallahassee, FL
Informant ID: 417; Interviewed by: Tywanna Whorley.

Occupation:

Domestic worker

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-1999

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

Interview number: 1084
105fa63e-d480-4da6-b25a-9eff15cbaacc
behindtheveil
btvct10092
ark:/87924/r4tb13951
b642d89e-3200-4675-b9f2-9b88f814dc07

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4tb13951

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

Peggy Davis interview recording, 1994 August 11

Transcript

Item Info

1. Peggy Davis administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

More Info & Options

Peggy Davis interview recording, 1994 August 11

Transcript

Item Info

Related Items

John Hope Franklin Research Center

More Info & Options