Dezell Mallory (primary interviewee) and Suzie Allen interview recording, 1993 June 29
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| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | No. | 0:02 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. All right, where were you all born? | 0:03 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Right here in Halifax County. | 0:05 |
| Kara Miles | Right here? | 0:10 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Right, we wasn't born right here, but we grew up right around in here. | 0:12 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. What did your parents do? | 0:20 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | My daddy public work at the mill. Mama didn't do nothing. | 0:22 |
| Kara Miles | (laughs) I'm sure she did quite a lot at home. | 0:31 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yes, she did. | 0:33 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | She did a lot. | 0:34 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | She had seven children, so you know she done a lot. Yeah. So, and we farmed. We had our own farm. So, it ain't too much can tell you about that. | 0:37 |
| Kara Miles | Well, you had your own farm. How big was it? How many acres was your farm? | 0:56 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Oh, about 15 acres. We just had a small farm and we rented, daddy rented from different people, you know. | 1:00 |
| Kara Miles | What do you mean? | 1:12 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Rent land from other people and we'd farm it. | 1:14 |
| Kara Miles | Oh, okay. Okay. | 1:15 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Mm-hmm. Raise cotton, peanuts, corn. | 1:15 |
| Kara Miles | The land, he would rent from other people. The stuff that you all, the cotton and peanuts and stuff, would that be yours though? | 1:25 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah. | 1:33 |
| Kara Miles | You just paid that person some money for that. | 1:33 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Just paid the rent. Uh huh, for the rent. Right. | 1:36 |
| Kara Miles | Was that a White man or a Black man that you rented from? Do you know? | 1:40 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | White . | 1:44 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And Black too, because [indistinct 00:01:48]. | 1:44 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah. White and Black. So, and we worked just like we wanted to work because we was working for ourselves. You know what I mean? | 1:48 |
| Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 2:03 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | So we don't know much about slavery times. | 2:05 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | What she means, we don't know nothing about coming up under the White folks because we didn't never have to do it. You know what I mean? Like, some of them sharecropped and got to do like, the boss man said and you know. We didn't have that to go through with, thank God. | 2:11 |
| Kara Miles | Yeah. Were you all friends with people who did? Did you associate with— | 2:31 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, sure. Mm-hmm. Because his family always sharecropped. Yeah. | 2:33 |
| Kara Miles | So your father saved up money from doing public work, so he could buy his own land and stuff. | 2:46 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Right, right. That's right. | 2:51 |
| Kara Miles | What kind of mill did he work in? | 2:54 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | The saw mill, mm-hmm. | 2:56 |
| Kara Miles | And where was that? | 3:00 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | In Roanoke Rapids. | 3:01 |
| Kara Miles | Let's see. You all lived in—Did you all live close? | 3:07 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Right here. | 3:10 |
| Kara Miles | Okay, so he didn't work too far from where you all lived? | 3:13 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | No. | 3:18 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | It was six miles from here to— | 3:18 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | It's six miles from here to Roanoke Rapids and he drove the truck back and forth. | 3:20 |
| Kara Miles | Oh, okay. The mill truck? It belonged to the mill? | 3:26 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah. Mm-hmm. And pick up the different hands that worked at the mill. You know? | 3:28 |
| Kara Miles | Well, so if your father was doing public work, who worked on the farm? | 3:37 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | We did. | 3:44 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | We did. | 3:44 |
| Kara Miles | All the children? | 3:45 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, and before we got large enough he would always hire a boy to do the plow. Until my brother got big enough to plow. And he would help, you know, my daddy would help mornings before he'd go to work. And we just carried on the farm. He'd tell us what to do and we did it. | 3:46 |
| Kara Miles | Did you all like working on the farm? | 4:15 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yes, indeed. I sure did. All but shaking peas. I didn't like to shake peanuts, but picking cotton and the rest of it, I didn't mind. I love picking cotton. | 4:21 |
| Kara Miles | How much cotton could you pick in a day? | 4:34 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Over 200 pounds. | 4:36 |
| Kara Miles | Wow. | 4:36 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Mm-hmm. That's when I was young. Yeah, I could. And she didn't never pick a [indistinct 00:04:48]. | 4:41 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, I picked 100, but I just couldn't. I ain't never going to pick no cotton, but I always wanted to stay at the house. I did house work. | 4:48 |
| Kara Miles | So you didn't like farming too much? | 5:03 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | No. | 5:04 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | See, our mama stayed sick just about all the time. You know, having babies every year. You know how that goes. Mm-hmm. | 5:06 |
| Kara Miles | What was your house like? How big was your house and how many rooms did it have? Things like that. | 5:19 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Well, when they bought the house it didn't have but three rooms, but they added on. As the family grew, the house grew. That's true. As the family grew, the house grew. Because he added on. I think we ended up with how many rooms? Six? | 5:26 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Four bedrooms, kitchen and dining room. | 5:48 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Kitchen. There was six. Well, just [indistinct 00:06:01] seven because the hallway was big as a room. | 5:57 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah. | 6:03 |
| Kara Miles | Do you all remember when you got like, running water and electricity and things like that? | 6:12 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, we got electricity in '44 or '45. | 6:16 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Oh, no. Not til daddy died. | 6:18 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Well that was in '45. | 6:18 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, in '45. Right. | 6:18 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Didn't get electricity until '45. | 6:18 |
| Kara Miles | What was that like? Getting electricity all the sudden? | 6:30 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Oh. It was like going— | 6:32 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Really [indistinct 00:06:39] the greatest thing in the world. Because then we used the ice box. There was a big block of ice in it. And the main thing, Lord, was that iron. | 6:43 |
| Kara Miles | The iron. Ooh. | 6:48 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Could throw those flat irons away. Get electric irons. Yeah. But all that took place in '45, after we got electric. | 7:02 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. How about, do you remember the first car? Do you remember when you had your first car? Or when your father or your— | 7:09 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, daddy bought a '36 Chevrolet. | 7:17 |
| Kara Miles | What was that like? | 7:23 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | That was great. Like riding on the train. | 7:25 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | We go everywhere. We used to go and children went far, we went on the mule or wagon. | 7:35 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | And the horse and buggy. | 7:36 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, right. | 7:36 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | So, and then from then on, we kept getting different things, you know. Until we got to where we are right now. I guess you say that ain't nowhere. | 7:48 |
| Kara Miles | No, that's definitely somewhere. Definitely. | 8:05 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, we come a long way though. A lot of them had the wash, the rug boiling tub. Big Black wash pot— | 8:06 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | And boil the clothes in the wash pot. | 8:22 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Boil the clothes. Yeah, and we done come a long way with it. | 8:23 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | We got cooking on the wood stove, heating by the fireplace. You know, wood fireplace. So we did come from somewhere, didn't we? | 8:44 |
| Kara Miles | Certainly did. | 8:44 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | We come a long way. | 8:44 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, but like I said, see, we didn't quite have it hard as some of the people did. And as far as being treated different, well we knowed our place. We know we were Black and we act Black. You know what I mean? We knowed where we stood. Like, now you don't hardly know where you stand because they say this thing and it's altogether different. But then, you knew where you stood. | 9:00 |
| Kara Miles | And where was that? Tell me about- | 9:37 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | In the back of everything. Just that way, in the back of everything. Right, because you go to the movie, you had to go upstairs. You couldn't go in the restaurant and sit down. You had to get your little food through a window. You know. | 9:38 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Couldn't go in the all White bathroom. Not in the White one. Couldn't go in there. | 10:04 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | And you go to the White people's house, you had to always go around to the back door. | 10:11 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Some of them did. Some of them didn't, though. | 10:15 |
| Kara Miles | Some of them didn't? | 10:15 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | No, they didn't go to the back. | 10:15 |
| Kara Miles | Well, what would the White people say to that? If they came to the front door? | 10:26 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Well, my daddy went to a White lady's house one time and we was farming around that lady's house and she had some mule, and her mule got into my daddy's corn. And he went to her house fitting to tell her about her mule being out, and he went to the front door. And she told him next time he come, come to the back. So he told her if she'd keep her mule out of his corn, he didn't have to come there no more. | 10:29 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | So like I said, you know, you knew what to do and how to do. | 11:07 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And you worked, you cooked for White people. And the man get ready to bring you home, he wanted you to sit in the back seat. And he sit in the front. But I didn't never do that because if I cooked his food, I feel like I was good enough to sit up front. And I did not get in the back seat. | 11:16 |
| Kara Miles | And did he say anything to you about that? | 11:37 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | No, no. He didn't. Sure didn't. | 11:43 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | No, not a thing. | 11:43 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Not nothing. | 11:43 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | But I tell you, it was all in how you respect them and they would respect you. You know what I mean? It's all in— | 11:48 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And how you let them do you. | 11:51 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | How you would let them do you. And they knew who to do what to, and what not. | 11:57 |
| Kara Miles | Mm-hmm, well it sounds like your family were people they knew not to— | 12:06 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Right. | 12:08 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | You're right. Well, that's the truth because I'm going to tell you now, I left and went to New York. And I stayed there 30 years and I didn't tell no different in the way I was treated and they were treated. I mean, that's what I said. You know, if you respect a person, they going to respect you. You know what I mean? So to me, it wasn't all that different. | 12:08 |
| Kara Miles | New York wasn't all that different? What wasn't all that different? | 12:42 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | I mean, in the way I was treated, but I'm not going to say there wasn't some Colored people, Black people they say now, that was treated different. You know, but as far as I'm concerned, I wasn't treated no different from they were. The people that I was working for. They always treated me like one of them. | 12:49 |
| Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. Because you demanded that. You— | 13:12 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | I mean, that's the way they understood me and I understood them. You know? I knew what I was supposed to do and I did it. All I was looking for was my pay, you know? | 13:15 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, but you know— | 13:31 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | I didn't never have no trouble with—I know I won't go in there and sit in their living room and keep company with them, you know? So I stayed in my place and I never had none problem with them. I would sit down and eat at the table, and eat with them, but when they had company I know I didn't even want to do that, you know. | 13:34 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | A lot of Black people were treated the way they were on account of their selves, the way they was. | 14:01 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Mm-hmm. | 14:06 |
| Kara Miles | So, because they let themselves— | 14:10 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, right, right. That's right. | 14:12 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Some of them didn't know no better. Yes, sir. No, sir. This, that. Ain't never had. | 14:16 |
| Kara Miles | You did that good. That was funny. | 14:28 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, bowing their heads. Didn't even part time know what the people was saying, but they would be standing up there, "Yes, sir. Yes, sir. No, sir. No. You right." But thank God I didn't have to come up— | 14:36 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | But we was raised up with White people. We were raised with White children all the way around. We played together. It was just, I mean, they never seemed no different. | 14:58 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Until the later years when they started—After Martin Luther King started that segregation, you know, that's when the people start acting a little different. You know. But when we grew up, we didn't know. The White children would come play with us and we would come play with them. Sit down to the table and eat. Some of them even stayed all night. | 15:12 |
| Kara Miles | Really?! | 15:43 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah. So it just wasn't no different to us, you know. | 15:44 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Go up in the woods, [indistinct 00:15:50] together. We were just together. Played playhouse together. | 15:52 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | But as they grew up, you know, they went their way and we went ours. | 15:58 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | They got to begin to feel like they was White . You know, the older people has caused a lot of this stuff 'cause right now these White and Black children playing together. They don't know no different, but see the parents. | 16:03 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | They the ones that put it in them. | 16:16 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | They bring this stuff in them, see? | 16:19 |
| Kara Miles | So, about what age was it that the White children would start acting like they were White and stop playing with y'all? | 16:24 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | After they started getting grown. | 16:29 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, when they started school. Get up in school. You know, I'd say about 12, 13, 14 years old. Then they, some of them and some of them didn't. | 16:32 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Some of them never stopped. | 16:44 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | No. | 16:44 |
| Kara Miles | So you all grew up with White people that you considered friends. | 16:52 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, yeah. | 17:04 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Right, right. We did, mm-hmm. All of them in the neighborhood was just one big family. That's what it was. They— | 17:04 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | They'd borrow from us and we'd borrow from them. You know. | 17:05 |
| Kara Miles | Did you all used to go to their houses and play? | 17:11 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, sure. | 17:13 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Sure, sure did. | 17:13 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | But like I said, see, it wasn't that many sharecroppers around here. Yes, there was. | 17:19 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | A whole lot of us. | 17:43 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah. But some of them's White . | 17:43 |
| Kara Miles | Some of the sharecroppers? | 17:44 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, mm-hmm. | 17:46 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | I tell you back then, sometimes them poor White folks ain't no better off than we was. | 17:51 |
| Kara Miles | Yeah? | 17:57 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | That's right. | 17:57 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | They sure wasn't. | 17:57 |
| Kara Miles | The Whites that lived near you all, were they poor Whites? | 18:02 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, poor White folk. I would say poor Whites. | 18:05 |
| Kara Miles | Did they own their land? | 18:12 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah. | 18:15 |
| Kara Miles | But they weren't better off than you were? | 18:18 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | No, they sure weren't. They owned their land, but they didn't tend their land. We tend their land. That's who my daddy rented from, so— | 18:27 |
| Kara Miles | Oh, okay. Would the White— | 18:35 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | And they would get out there and work in the field, just like we would. | 18:43 |
| Kara Miles | That's what I was going to ask. | 18:45 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | And daddy paid them by the day. | 18:48 |
| Kara Miles | Your daddy would pay them? | 18:52 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | My daddy. | 18:52 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. | 18:52 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Right, because see, he was renting the land and they didn't have nothing to do. They would get out there and chop along with us and daddy would pay them. | 19:04 |
| Kara Miles | What were some of the names? Do you remember the White family names of the people that y'all were friends with? | 19:13 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Mertz. | 19:19 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Norma Dean. They're right there now. We were raised up with his father. He's been there all the time. We were raised up with his father and his aunt, his mother. Yep. | 19:19 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, so. | 19:47 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | [indistinct 00:19:48] | 19:47 |
| Speaker 1 | You didn't get into Stepford North. | 19:47 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | [indistinct 00:20:02]. We were raised up with all of them. | 19:47 |
| Kara Miles | So do you have any more of those stories like your daddy not going to the back door? | 20:10 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, well— | 20:13 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, I tell you one. When daddy died, he had some, we had cotton in one place and cotton in another place. And the ones that the White man wanted us to pick his cotton first, when it opened up. And because he demand us to pick his cotton first, that was the last we picked. So we didn't have no more trouble out of him. No, we didn't have no more trouble out of him. | 20:26 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And then my daddy said when he went to work at the mill off that [indistinct 00:21:07], said his boss man, he was real you know, rampant with Black people. Couldn't get along with Black people. So my daddy one day he told him, he say, "I heard that you have fits." He said, "When I want to, you know I have them too." (laughs) | 21:00 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | So, both of them would have a fit together. | 21:56 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | When the White man would have a fit, he would have one too. I [indistinct 00:22:01] too. And he said he didn't never have no problem with that man. Never. See, that's what I was telling you. If you start it right, you have no problems with them because my husband, him and his family, his dad, they always worked and had a sharecrop, but they ain't never have no problems with the White man because he let them know where he stood. He let them know what he was going to take and what he wasn't going to take. | 22:00 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | That's the way you have to do it. You see, you do it like that, you ain't have no trouble or nothing. Sure don't. | 22:56 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | If you do that now, you ain't going to have no trouble. | 23:01 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Nah, you ain't going to have no trouble now. And I tell you what. You don't have to say nothing bad to them. You don't have to talk bad to them, nothing, but the way you carry yourself, you show them that you are looking for just as much respect out of them as you going to give them. That's right. That's the way you have to do it, because I never had no problem. | 23:03 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | I worked for years and years and I didn't have no problem with nobody. I mean, they're like one big family to me. | 23:03 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Mm-hmm, but like we say, it's all in the person. That's the way you start. If you go there bowing and scared, they going to run over you. But if you go there and show them you're just as much as they are, they ain't going to do nothing but treat you right. That's right. | 23:06 |
| Kara Miles | Well, you all obviously got that from your father. Do you know where he got that from? | 23:30 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | I don't know. | 23:32 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | I don't know. | 23:34 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Unless he got it from his father. | 23:35 |
| Kara Miles | Did you all know your grandparents? | 23:40 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | No, we ain't know— | 23:45 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | No, we didn't know too much. | 23:45 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | My family was small. | 23:45 |
| Kara Miles | All right, well any more stories about— | 23:45 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | See, you didn't get too much from us, huh? | 23:45 |
| Kara Miles | What?! | 23:45 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | I'm telling you, when you get to Deatherine, you'll get all of the low down to it. | 24:05 |
| Kara Miles | No, you all have, this is good. Great. | 24:09 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | And the stories and— | 24:09 |
| Kara Miles | This is great. | 24:09 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | —and the what nots. | 24:09 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Deatherine going to tell you the story, though. She didn't come from Africa. | 24:09 |
| Kara Miles | Oh, okay. | 24:09 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And you have to [indistinct 00:24:22]. You tell her she come from Africa. | 24:21 |
| Kara Miles | Where does she say she came from? | 24:31 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | I don't know where. | 24:32 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | She don't know. She just she didn't come from Africa. So she's America. | 24:35 |
| Kara Miles | Oh, okay. | 24:40 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | But Deatherine feel like I do. I think I told one of the boss men up there too when I was working up there. They were talking about sending the Black people back to Africa. I told him he could send me to England good as he could to Africa. Because I was just as much White as I am Black, and that's the way we are. We get mixed up, so I'm saying— | 24:41 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | We don't know where we belong. You know? | 24:53 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | That's right, we ain't got no home. we ain't got no place. And they the cause of it. See, I tell them. They the cause. If they'd have stayed in their place, we'd have been in Africa. | 24:53 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Well, that's the truth. | 24:53 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yes, sir. Because Black people didn't know no better, you know? And then the White folks take advantage of us. They're the ones mixed them up, but you know what? Sometimes I [indistinct 00:25:49] a Black folks now, I say I thank them for the tip. I'm glad they mixed me up. | 24:53 |
| Kara Miles | Oh, no. Oh, no. So you all, you said you have as much White in you as Black. Who's White in your family? | 26:08 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Our grandma. | 26:15 |
| Kara Miles | Your daddy's mother? | 26:17 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah. Right, and so— | 26:21 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And my granddaddy father. | 26:24 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, because he was someone's slave. | 26:41 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | He was a slave. | 26:41 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Whoever- | 26:41 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | That's why we got our name, Hockaday. From the White Hockaday. | 26:41 |
| Kara Miles | So your granddaddy's father? | 26:42 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Mother. | 26:43 |
| Kara Miles | Your granddaddy's mother. | 26:43 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Uh huh. | 26:45 |
| Kara Miles | Was White . | 26:46 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | No. | 26:47 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Was a slave. | 26:47 |
| Kara Miles | Was a slave, okay. Okay. | 26:47 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Was a slave and this, what you call him? Boss, her master? | 26:48 |
| Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 26:54 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | He went with her and he got my granddad and I got [indistinct 00:27:03]. | 26:55 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | But my grand mama, her mama was White . And her daddy too, I think, the way she look. Anyway, that's how we got all mixed up. You know what I mean? | 27:05 |
| Kara Miles | Yeah. | 27:36 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Everybody got mixed up like that, and with the White and Black together. | 27:37 |
| Kara Miles | Uh huh? | 27:37 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, they got mixed up like that. | 27:37 |
| Kara Miles | Well, isn't that kind of unusual though, for a White woman to go with a Black man? | 27:39 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | No, I mean my grandmother was Black. | 27:45 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Excuse me. | 27:47 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. | 27:49 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And her, she was working for this man. | 27:50 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. | 27:51 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | She was his maid. She was their maid. | 27:56 |
| Kara Miles | Okay, I see. | 27:57 |
| Speaker 1 | Excuse me, ladies. | 27:57 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, she was their maid. | 27:57 |
| Kara Miles | All right, now I understand. | 27:57 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And see, she was Black. And master was White . | 27:57 |
| Kara Miles | Okay. I see. | 27:59 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And that's when they got my granddaddy. He said he was 10 years old when slaves were freed. | 28:30 |
| Kara Miles | Hmm, but you didn't know him. You all don't really— | 28:42 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Well, I was real small. I remember a little bit, but not enough of him, you know? To talk about it. I remember he said he was 10 years old when the slaves were freed. | 28:42 |
| Kara Miles | All right, well one more time. Were there any other stories? Any other stories of you and your father letting people know? | 28:50 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, babe. She's got a whole lot of them stories. | 29:03 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yes, sir. | 29:09 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | My daddy sure didn't though, take no mess off no White folks. No, sir. That ain't him. | 29:12 |
| Kara Miles | Well, were there people—Were there Black people who would get in trouble for not knowing their place? For talking back to Whites? Or things like that? | 29:22 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, they'd get a whooping sometimes. | 29:34 |
| Kara Miles | Really? | 29:40 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | But the children would, but mostly they knew their place. They did. I mean, as far as I know. | 29:44 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, But a lot of Black folks though, just went beyond their place. Didn't even come up to their place. | 29:50 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | No, I know it. | 29:55 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | No, sir. Because they were just so Black, you know? And they sound like it. You know— | 30:01 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Had to stay back. They were just scared. We'll put it that way. | 30:05 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, right. | 30:07 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | They were scared. | 30:07 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | You know just like us, if someone had that slavery type instinct. You know? Like a dog when you tie up a long time and you turn them loose, he don't know. He'll lost it just to run right round this store. He say he's still tired. | 30:12 |
| Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 30:21 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | See, that's what they was. They thought they still had to be like that. They thought that, a lot of them thought they'd clean up. Martin Luther King, because I mean, let me tell you though. You know, [indistinct 00:30:45] you didn't take no nothing off the Black folks and off the White folks. But still, as you get on the bus or whatever, you had to get in your place. | 30:37 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Get in the back. | 30:55 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | In the back. | 30:56 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | And I don't think it was too many Blacks riding the buses nowhere, because didn't have no money to ride the buses. | 30:58 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | You ain't go nowhere neither. | 31:11 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Didn't go nowhere neither. You know. Not like they do now. Because I stood in fear one day, wondering would I ever ride a train. Watching the train go by. We stopped shopping and just standing, watch that train. Wondering would we ever ride that train? | 31:20 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | We did. Wherever we went, we had a car. We didn't go nowhere that far. | 31:36 |
| Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 31:46 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Then I had my—I don't how far it was to walk to Halifax. I mean, from Weldon, round in here, up in here, walk to Halifax or ride the train from Weldon. Could've walked to Weldon quicker. | 31:46 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | But you couldn't catch from Weldon could you? | 31:46 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yes, you could. Yeah, because from Weldon [indistinct 00:32:17] but then we had to walk from Halifax, over to— | 31:46 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah. | 31:46 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah. | 31:46 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, we came a long ways, thank God. | 32:28 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | But you know what? Really I think about it, it seem like now that it was bad times and tough times, but we had a good time. We enjoyed it. | 32:36 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | We enjoyed working. | 32:45 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah. | 32:47 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | We would take work as play, you know? We knew we had to work, so we enjoyed doing it. | 32:49 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And we would go with our crowd. We got our crowd, for three day or two days and then next two days we had to work for somebody else, making some money. | 33:00 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | That's what we did. | 33:18 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And we used to work out, me and my husband, we used to work. We'd go out on the third Sunday, without a regular service day and we had to be dressed up on third Sunday. We had to look better than anybody else at the church. | 33:18 |
| Kara Miles | I bet you did. | 33:27 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | So we would go out and work. We didn't want but $5. We didn't need but $5 because you buy your dress for $2, shoes for $2 and hat was a dollar. And girl, I'm a tell you, you'd be dressed up too. | 33:27 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | For $5. | 33:46 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, but $5. That's all. And everything, if there was something, we would try to work enough out so we could get us the option. But we had, like I said, every third Sunday. Yeah, but I tell you, I think about it sometimes, how selfish we were. You know, we didn't know no better because I mean, I wanted to look good. I know you had, this girl used to have one little green dress. She used to wear it every Sunday. It'd be her in that little green dress. See, we would [indistinct 00:34:27] instead of feeling sorry for the girl. But you know how children are. | 33:55 |
| Kara Miles | Yeah. | 34:20 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Just like they are now. | 34:20 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Nasty children. | 34:20 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yes, sir. Children now, they don't want nothing if somebody else [indistinct 00:34:49]. Don't let somebody say nothing about it, but God say it. I remember, little boy I raised, my nephew, he had last tennis shoes I bought him. "You won't make me," he wouldn't wear them. He called them fish heads. Said, "I don't want to wear those. Them are fish heads." Well, and from then on, I didn't buy him no more shoes myself and then I get him, let him get what he wanted, you know? | 34:20 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Because they don't need to buy children nothing that they don't want, because they sure ain't going to wear it. Nah, they ain't going to wear it. And you don't want them going nowhere, being embarrassed. But I tell you the truth, the junk they wear now, they ought to be embarrassed themself. | 34:20 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | That's the truth. | 34:20 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | You see some of them losing their britches clean off, and they got suspenders hanging down to the ground. Now, how stupid can that be? | 35:26 |
| Kara Miles | Well, tell me about what you all used to wear. | 35:51 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Oh, we was hippidy doo. | 35:54 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Well, we wore what was in style then. | 36:01 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah. | 36:05 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | White and tan shoes, White and Black shoes. Socks, you know. We called them saddle shoes. And the broomstick skirts and blouses. Pleated skirts and blouses. You know, whatever was in style, we wore. | 36:08 |
| Kara Miles | Where would you all go to buy your clothes? | 36:24 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Weldon. | 36:24 |
| Kara Miles | What stores? | 36:24 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | We went down in Roanoke Rapids. Got Freids, it was a lot of stores in Weldon then. Ravers and Freids and— | 36:24 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Bob and Joe's. | 36:24 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | —Bob and Joe's, Leaders, Kittners. There was a lot of clothes stores. That was mostly what was in Weldon, clothes stores. | 37:03 |
| Kara Miles | And those were White owned stores? | 37:09 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah. Jews and Syrians. | 37:14 |
| Kara Miles | Jews and what? | 37:16 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Syrians. | 37:17 |
| Kara Miles | Oh, okay. Syrians. Could you all try on clothes at those stores? | 37:22 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Mm-hmm. | 37:23 |
| Kara Miles | You could? Yeah, because I know a lot of stores wouldn't let— | 37:27 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, but we could try on. We tried on, yep. | 37:27 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | I mean, some of them hopping and want to try on me. | 37:27 |
| Kara Miles | You reckon what? | 37:27 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | I said some of them would come in there and want to try them on me. It'd be so nasty and sweaty in there. They're trying them on. Ooh, boy. You know what I tell you though? I always say it then and I say it now. There's some Black folks that I won't deal with myself. | 37:27 |
| Kara Miles | Yeah. | 37:27 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | The way they are. | 37:27 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | The way they are and the way they act. I don't mean the way they look. I'm talking about the way they act and way they carry on. Because you know, before used to call Black folks niggers. I say, "You can be a White nigger good as you can be a Black nigger." A nigger ain't nothing but a stupid person. And you can be White , you can be a White nigger, but you can be a Black nigger. See? That's what I always classified a nigger. It's just an unlearned, stupid person and you find just as many of them White ones as you do Black. | 38:31 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | I guess you sound really stupid. | 38:53 |
| Kara Miles | No, y'all just a lot of fun. | 38:53 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, she's a really crazy student you interviewed so far. I told you we didn't have too much to tell, but— | 38:53 |
| Kara Miles | Well you told me wrong. You had plenty to tell. | 38:53 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Be sure to tell Mr. Grant. It was two girls at the center, I don't know if it was last—Week before last? When did you call me? Last week, was it? | 40:02 |
| Kara Miles | Last week, mm-hmm. | 40:03 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | The week before last, there was a White girl and a Black girl. And you know, they were talking about what they were doing and that. And Mr. Grant told us then, "Whenever they come, if they call you and tell you they want to come and interview you," saying, "If they said Mr. Grant told me to call you, you let them come on." | 40:03 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | She go to the center? | 40:35 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Nah, she wasn't there. | 40:44 |
| Kara Miles | No, I wasn't there that day. I've been over there, though. | 40:45 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Oh, you have? | 40:49 |
| Kara Miles | Mm-hmm, yeah. | 40:49 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Yeah, we have a lot of fun down there, the seniors. And Mr. Grant is a lot of fun. | 40:52 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Mr. Grant kind of like we. | 40:58 |
| Kara Miles | What you mean? | 41:07 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | He don't take no— | 41:07 |
| Kara Miles | Oh, okay. | 41:07 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And he come along, set the big bell up. Did a whole lot and then come along. | 41:11 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Mr. Grant is much younger than we are. | 41:25 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Uh huh, but he come along and set the big bell. | 41:27 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Mr. Grant don't take no mess off of them neither. He'll get them straightened out. | 41:38 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | That's right, you know, because I had my boss man one day. You know, he was like my supervisor. I don't know why they think they was better than we. I said, "You all got 10 fingers. I got 10." I said, "Just a little difference in y'all's colors it is than mines and yours." I said, "Difference in your hair. I don't know why y'all think y'all better than we are." He told me he didn't. That's what he told me. He didn't, but see I know they do. They think they're better. They do. But I don't know why because they ain't got nothing we ain't got. Nothing. | 41:44 |
| Kara Miles | Yep. | 42:27 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | You know, used to be a time you'd go out through a Colored section, see the folks' houses with the pillows in the windows and— | 42:28 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | [indistinct 00:42:40] left to the windows and everything. You could pick out where a Colored person stayed, the way the house looked, but now you can't do that. | 42:42 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Newspaper all up on the wall. Wallpaper. But see, now, you know what? They didn't have to do it then because we used to break our window like, when my daddy would buy some glass and put in there. He wasn't sticking no pillow up in there. See, that was just their ignorance. That's what I told these folks. | 42:57 |
| Kara Miles | Well, some people were poorer than y'all. Maybe they had to do that. What do you say? | 43:20 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | They could've put a piece of paste board. Nail a piece of paste board or something. I know they had a box, or get a paste board. | 43:21 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | They surely didn't have to curl a bed pillow up in there. | 43:32 |
| Kara Miles | They would put pillows up there? Never heard of that. | 43:36 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And old rags. Yeah, the pillow and old rags and coats and things. They'd hang them, stuck up in there. | 43:37 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | You know, this pillow would fit up in there. One of these stick right up in there. Block the wind and the rain out. Yeah, that was their senses. | 44:02 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | It was. And the city— | 44:02 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | What you say your name is? | 44:02 |
| Kara Miles | Kara. | 44:04 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Kara, don't you favor Shirley? | 44:05 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And the cellar you [indistinct 00:44:08]. And you know, how the floor would be so bad, I done had chicken and peas built, but not even sitting [indistinct 00:44:18] and they picked it. Peas and the chicken up under the house. | 44:12 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | And you'd be just sitting in the house. | 44:21 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Cracks in the floor. | 44:21 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Be cracks in the floor. | 44:21 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | One of the folks had froze to death, ain't he? Because I tell you what, nowadays, I'm walking in these houses and think, "Whoo Jesus. I think they got the house sold, but the heat, it never freeze there." [indistinct 00:44:43] And I tell you one thing, they was the healthiest folks in the world. | 44:36 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Sure was. | 44:45 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | That's the truth. Yeah. | 44:50 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | Went all that different kinds of diseases and everything. | 44:54 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Pine tar, make a little tea for a cough. They give you a pine belt and make some tea. That'd be the best thing in the world for a cough. | 45:02 |
| Kara Miles | What other kind of things like that? What other kind of things did they use as medicines and stuff? | 45:08 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | They used collard leaves to break fever. | 45:12 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Yeah, I don't care how high your fever was. | 45:15 |
| Dezell Hockaday Mallory (?) | You just put some collard leaves to your head. | 45:19 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | And you take a red onion. You'd never do that now, because I done that—Ain't been too long. A year, ain't been so many years back. You got a red onion and grate it, wrap it up in a real thin cloth and put it right around your wrist like that. And any kind of fever you got, I don't care how much it is, come right on down. It sure will. | 45:27 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | I know you don't know what a dirt dauber is. | 45:48 |
| Kara Miles | Huh uh. | 45:48 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | You seen these dirt dauber nests in old buildings. You ain't seen these? The old walls, something like a wall. But it's on the wall, it's a dirt dauber. There'd be a dirt man and you get one of those and if you spring your ankle or your leg. Anywhere you sprain, and get one of those nests and then beat it up and put some lavender and bandage it up. It'll heal it right up. | 46:04 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen (?) | Now, I know that because I have done that. My grandson, boy he was playing football. He sprained his ankle and I mean he couldn't walk on it. And I did that, I got me a dirt dauber, I bring it and bandage it up. Boy, the next day he went on about his business. Sure did and I had a nephew done the same thing. His mother- | 46:27 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | And I put it on, and then he comes, he's on [indistinct 00:00:16]. | 0:04 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | But a lot of them old remedies like that is better than doctors now. | 0:15 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Sure is, right now. | 0:26 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | 'Cause back then you didn't have nothing to go to the doctor with. And if you didn't— | 0:54 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | There weren't no doctors hardly. | 0:55 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | And the doctors if you did go— | 0:55 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | He | 0:55 |
| Kara Miles | Oh no, the doctor didn't know? | 0:55 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | But you know those old people back then, if they hadn't have known all those things to do what would they have done? | 0:56 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Well you know right now. Our young brother can't have baby. They got to go to hospital, and the minute they go in the doctor office and the doctor tell her she pregnant, she can't hardly get out of there she gets so bad. Can even make it out of door. And now when we come home, we shake peel all day long and the baby bawling at night. | 1:01 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | And then the doctor too but the midwife. | 1:29 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Right, that's how the midwife. And you have no doctor in the end don't know anything. And [indistinct 00:01:36] honestly. | 1:34 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | What was I telling about the doctor? | 1:44 |
| Kara Miles | You was telling about women having babies. | 2:05 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Yeah, I didn't care but I wasn't and I was too lazy to have a baby. You got to go in and [indistinct 00:02:22] he would be too lazy. | 2:06 |
| Kara Miles | You all had midwives. | 2:21 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | I had a twin girl. | 2:21 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | And I had a midwife. | 2:21 |
| Speaker 1 | And I had one and I had midwife by a lamplight, didn't even have no electric then. | 2:21 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Mine was born in daytime, do I didn't have that light. | 2:21 |
| Speaker 1 | So by lamplight. | 2:21 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | I think maybe I was crazy, he probably crazy bunch of them. | 2:21 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | [indistinct 00:03:13] | 2:21 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | To have a baby. | 2:21 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | That's what you paid the midwife. | 2:21 |
| Speaker 1 | Midwife, $15. | 2:21 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | And now you can't have a baby under $500. | 2:21 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | A thousand, you don't no 500, you mean a $1000. | 2:21 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Yes sir they gotta go to the hospital. | 3:41 |
| Kara Miles | Now what did you all do for pain, didn't that hurt? | 3:46 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | We toughed it out. | 3:50 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Now you go to the hospital, you know they gone do it, you still got a pain. You still going to have that pain. Under the new thing. A lot of them don't want to let them take it, because they don't want to go through with the pain. Cause I don't care what you do you got to go through with that pain. If you have a natural. I dare you to do these [indistinct 00:04:20]. At that hospital, could hear him hollering' all over the hospital. I was in the operation and the one day I was there and then came down with a girl. She didn't want any. What I'm talking about. | 3:51 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | That girl there her legs going wild, they make it on the stretchers. Her arms and she was hollering at the top, they couldn't even get in the door with her, they had to pry to get the girl in. | 4:22 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | [indistinct 00:05:05] the girl till I cry and she's [indistinct 00:05:09] ever a boy, I could tell that he was crazy, I said they carrying the wrong baby, I would be carrying a son. | 4:22 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | That girl pulled a phone that night and it tickled me so bad that I [indistinct 00:05:35] cause he had to do all that she was doing. I know she didn't. No way she thought doing her legs— | 4:22 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | [indistinct 00:06:20] them together. I mean. And all they can do is get their legs together to get in that door. And nowadays girl, they don't want to have no babies. | 6:20 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | But they didn't have a baby like today and go out tomorrow neither. They stayed in for a while. At least two weeks. But now they have a baby today and you see 'em down the street tomorrow. Look close. And that's the truth. | 6:20 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | I don't know how they do it. | 6:42 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Things have changed. | 6:42 |
| Kara Miles | So you always stay in bed, try to stay in bed. | 6:51 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | We weren't staying in bed we stayin' in our room. | 6:55 |
| Kara Miles | Just not doing the work and stuff. | 7:00 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Right. And we wouldn't go out nowhere, like going to town, church, and that baby got a [indistinct 00:07:15]. Nowaday you see them in church with the babies, they ain't got dry, they settin up in church with them, the baby break wind. That's the truth. | 7:03 |
| Kara Miles | Ms Allen, you were a nurse? What did you do at the hospital? | 7:37 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | I clean, I work in the operating department, and I cleaned the equipment, that's what I did. | 7:44 |
| Kara Miles | And what did you do Ms Mallory? | 7:54 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | I did domestic. As my girlfriend used to say, what did she say? She had a good name for housework. I can't think of it now, she dead. Sarah you know. She could fix anything. But that's what I did, all the time I was in New York. | 7:54 |
| Kara Miles | And did you do that here too? | 8:29 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | After mom and dad had died, we stopped on and all of us went our separate ways and I did it here too. When I first started doing housework I was making seven dollars a week, that was for seven days too. And we had to do everything. Wash, iron, clean up, cook, everything. But see when I went to New York I only did one thing, that was clean. | 8:33 |
| Kara Miles | How much did you make there? | 9:13 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | When I left there I was making $60 a day. I'd say about same mom. Time had changed. When I first went there though I was making about four or five dollars a week, 'cause I was sleeping in. Then after I stopped sleeping in I stopped, got my own place and I started doing days work. Go a different place every day. | 9:15 |
| Kara Miles | Which did you like better, New York or here? | 9:53 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | I like here the best but for the money part I like New York the best. | 9:59 |
| Kara Miles | What did you like about here as opposed to New York? | 10:09 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Everything, just everything. It ain't as fast. See in New York you run to work and you run back home. You run to get into bed and you run to get up. Everything was rush rush rush. But here it's just a slow pace, everybody's— | 10:14 |
| Speaker 1 | And everybody's running on top of you if you don't get out of the way, in New York. I tell you I couldn't stand. | 10:37 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Here is just different. | 10:50 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | The people are different. | 10:51 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | And one thing, this is where I was born. So I just came back home, took up where I left off at. But I missed New York 'cause everything was so convenient. You want to go anywhere, just walk up to the corner and get on a bus, go anywhere you want. Well I was seeing when I left it, go anywhere you want for 50 cents. And then here if you don't drive, you got to sit and wait for somebody to come and carry you here. And there ain't no stores that are close round here. So I liked New York for the convenience. The church was right there, shopping centers all around. So it was nice. I liked New York but I wouldn't like that today, if I thought I would then I come home. | 10:56 |
| Kara Miles | I want to ask y'all about courting. What age, how old were you when you could start courting? | 12:21 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | 17, 18. | 12:29 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | 17 and 18 when you could really pull— | 12:31 |
| Speaker 1 | Somebody comes see you till 9 o'clock. | 12:36 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | And they better be out of there 9 o'clock, and that wasn't every night, that was probably Sunday night. And summertime they would come on Wednesday night. And if you go to church you had your mom and dad were walking in front and you all behind. And you better go to church and go in their and sit down, there weren't no standing around on the outside talking with your boyfriend. So it was right rough. | 12:39 |
| Speaker 1 | It was nice girl, that's the way it ought to be now. Now the girls go find the boys, the boys don't find the girls. But when we come on, the boys come to your house and you had to sit down in your house. | 13:23 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Sure did. And if you had any music you would play your music. | 13:38 |
| Speaker 1 | That would be low. | 13:44 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | And if they wanted to go down a club, momma didn't know why. | 13:47 |
| Speaker 1 | And I did, [indistinct 00:14:05]. You know what they meant. And you had to [indistinct 00:14:06] with them boys on the day, 'cause they— | 14:05 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Well the boys knew what they meant too. You didn't have to get 'em up. They would say pass me my hat. So then the boys wore hats, caps. | 14:11 |
| Speaker 1 | And get to the door and rest a hand, and take a hat. | 14:19 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | I meant someone that ain't got a ounce of sense. And the way I kept it, you had to get [indistinct 00:14:37] and he looking like he crazy. | 14:26 |
| Speaker 1 | Stuck in the back pocket somewhere. | 14:46 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | I tell my granddaughter right now, I'm so glad I didn't come along in y'all day. But they think they have so much fun. And you got to be so pretty, got to have all them designed fingernails, and all them different hairstyles. | 14:54 |
| Speaker 1 | All them rhinestones. Glitter and stuff in there. | 15:00 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Yeah I tell you 'cause I can sit like that, I can do that, I can sit like that. Let me tell you. My granddaughter [indistinct 00:15:05] I think last summer, didn't they [indistinct 00:15:05], and they couldn't even go to bed, had to settle with their head on the floor of the bed like that, they couldn't even lay on the floor. | 15:05 |
| Speaker 1 | So scared they were going to mess up their hair. | 15:05 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | You know I don't want to be miserable like that. You know I don't want to get to be all like that, no sir. | 15:05 |
| Speaker 1 | Girl I know they grind fingernails. And I don't know how long they've been here but you got very long nails you can't do no work. And they got to count all the designs on them. And you know I can't go like that for nothing. Got to have all your hair still, looking at it one way like you got a crook in your neck, now that's, you know that's [indistinct 00:16:25]. | 15:12 |
| Kara Miles | So could you and your boyfriends go out anywhere? | 16:25 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | [indistinct 00:16:44] the moment they see their son like it. The son can you know in order to bring you. If the sun was shining when you left then it better be shining when you come back. We were doing it at Christmas time too. I read [indistinct 00:17:12] go to the movie do they have a theater now by the river [indistinct 00:17:15] and you know 5 o'clock, in [indistinct 00:17:19] it's dark. And we had to go down and get back for it and we couldn't go there and open up the place 'cause we hadn't wait to open it up anyway. But we didn't go there, we got it without [indistinct 00:17:30] they don't know the real— | 17:18 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | We did go there but they were giving away Christmas baskets to people that come to the movie that night, and we went up them stairs and got them baskets and we went up this side and I think we come back down that side— | 17:38 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | And got the baskets to prove we had been there. | 17:54 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Yeah to prove we had been to the movie. And we got them baskets and went on over the river. But we didn't enjoy because we know we had to be back home before it got dark. And when we came over that river bridge, it was getting dark by the minute. Looked like me. And I let you know, our house was setting up down the field and the family house. When therefore we turned in the path going up to the house we met dad on the truck coming out to go look for us. And that was just a little bit past 5 o'clock 'cause it had just got dark. And we told a lie, said we had snow on the ground weren't it— | 17:59 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Yeah because we had a flat tire. | 18:43 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Told him we had a flat tire. And dad had said Yeah well if y'all— | 18:56 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | He said one word that we told him [indistinct 00:19:03] and he said I'll check it in the morning, when I go to work. To see if we hadda had a flat tire there on the side of the road in the snow you coulda told it. | 19:03 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | And I know that we hadn't had no flat tire. | 19:03 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | I don't reckon he was crazy enough to get out there and see. | 19:07 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | But anyway I told Suza, I said we might as well tell the truth 'cause dad ain't going to see where we had that flat tire. Se we eventually we told him the truth. But we was grounded for a year. We weren't allowed to go nowhere, 'cause every time we would ask momma could we go anywhere. No, you might go over the river. You might go over the river. She sung that song to us for I don't know how long. And we were grown too. | 19:13 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | We was grown? | 20:06 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Age 17 and 18. | 20:06 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Them boy had to run, that night he couldn't even [indistinct 00:20:19] he was just as scared as we were. | 20:06 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | They sure was, they put us out and they took off. And by the time we got in our dad was in there behind us, he had to back the truck back up to here, turn it round. By the time we got in the house, got our lie together. He was in there and them boys were gone. We had it rough for thank God for it. You know. There's no telling what we woulda done. | 20:26 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | We wouldn't have been. | 20:42 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | No 'cause we did anything. | 20:42 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Remember one day we— | 20:42 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | But see what we was doing it weren't like what the children do now. We were just having, just plain fun. But these children now is out to kill you and do this and that. | 20:54 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | There's all crack and stuff. [Indistinct 00:21:27] plain old good times | 21:26 |
| Kara Miles | Well what did you do, what did you do for fun? To have plain old good times? | 21:33 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Our music and dance. | 21:38 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | We would go from one neighbor's house to the other, you know, like we would have a little party at our house and then they would have a little party at their house. Something like. In the evening, but by night we were back home. | 21:42 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Then we went to church | 22:02 |
| Speaker 1 | Went to school. Got into programs at school. | 22:02 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | So that was our life. We survived it. | 22:13 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | It was great. | 22:19 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | It was good. | 22:20 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | A whole lot better than being nowadays. | 22:21 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Surely. But one thing you weren't scared then like you are now. We would go to bed many night with the doors and them wide open. Sleep on the porch in the summertime. It was nice. And everybody would stay at their own house, wouldn't bother nobody. | 22:24 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | And anybody get sick in the neighborhood, my mom and the rest of the neighbors would come to our house, give a drop of my wine, and they would cook, they would clean up the house. And I remember one time you may get sick now and somebody come see you one time, and you don't be aware at that time you don't see 'em no more. And they don't do nothing there, they might go and tell a prayer for you or something but they won't do nothin' for you. My husband were farming and he would get sick and couldn't plow his farm, the rest of the men would come in and carry farm on until he got able. And you didn't have to pay nobody nothing, everybody do it for free. But now if you got a five year old child to do anything, you got to pay him more than you make, $5 a hour. | 22:49 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | More than that. | 23:50 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Got soft. | 23:53 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | If he works, for instance if you got a little boy that come and cut that grass he can cut it in 45 minutes or half hour you got to give him 15 or 20 dollars. | 23:53 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | And they won't do nothing for you now unless you pay 'em. You take your own bit of tiling you tell him to do anything, he wonder how much you going to pay him. What you going to me? How much you going to pay? Sure do. That's right. We didn't ever earned no pay unless he went, they worked for pay. But if they go and do odd jobs, the neighbors here would do anything for you. You didn't have to pay 'em nothing. Sure didn't. But now you got to pay 'em for everything they do. Everything. | 24:12 |
| Speaker 1 | And the bad part about it, they don't have to do it. Still you got to pay 'em. | 24:57 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | And then turn around and do it yourself. | 24:59 |
| Kara Miles | I want to you all a little bit about school, where did you all go to school? | 25:18 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | We had a country school | 25:22 |
| Speaker 1 | Wyland | 25:28 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | You know Wyland Church here? | 25:28 |
| Speaker 1 | No I don't know this area. | 25:29 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Well there was a church, our school right beside it. [indistinct 00:25:46] | 25:45 |
| Speaker 1 | It was seventh grade. Then you would go to Wyland High School. | 25:45 |
| Speaker 1 | And when you left Wyland High School, you were ready for college. But then we were just going to 11th grade or 12th grade. | 25:47 |
| Kara Miles | So you all finished high school? | 26:07 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | No I didn't. Cause A ain't caught up with B in my book yet. | 26:11 |
| Kara Miles | What do you mean? | 26:19 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | Algebra. A ain't caught up with B. You know these problems with A equal this and B equal this. A ain't caught up— And they didn't ever catch up with me either. | 26:43 |
| Speaker 1 | You didn't like [indistinct 00:26:49] | 26:46 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | I was happy about it. | 26:48 |
| Speaker 1 | Got my savings have been math, all the way loving math. | 26:52 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | No so I didn't learn one thing. Now when I was in elementary school, I was a A student in arithmetic. We had arithmetic. But when I got in Wyland school, every time the bus would go over that hump going down into that school yard, I was [indistinct 00:27:18]. I hated that school. | 26:58 |
| Speaker 1 | Cause of algebra or were there other reasons that you hated it? | 27:20 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Yeah and then you see the children at [indistinct 00:27:36] they always thought they was better than the children that come from the country. And I couldn't stand that, but the teachers didn't make no different it was just the children. But I hated that school. I could make— I loved the ride, 'cause the bus would come from Wyland and go all around the house to pick up them children and then go back down 301, go back to the school. As long as I was riding I was all right. | 27:30 |
| Speaker 1 | Well you know I think about it sometimes, we had a good life. | 28:15 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Compared to some of my friends. | 28:30 |
| Kara Miles | And you said you felt you had a better life than now, than what people have now? | 28:39 |
| Suzie Hockaday Allen | Right. I'll tell you that, so I did. | 28:43 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | 'Cause now the children really ain't got no life. | 28:43 |
| Speaker 1 | I went to [indistinct 00:29:05] but why do you think it's like that do you think it's the parents or the children or what is it that makes it like that? | 28:43 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | It's the time. | 28:43 |
| Speaker 1 | 'Cause now the children hardly ever see the parents, they go to school the parents go to work. They come back from school the parents are still at work, nine times out of ten they got to go to a babysitter or daycare. It's just different. You know. | 29:09 |
| Speaker 1 | So you learn here? | 29:49 |
| Dezzell Hockaday Mallory | No I could stay here forever listening to these stories. | 29:53 |
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