\C~(fi%\ Interview By Warren Moore Lycte Of i#ta- "Lydie" Coffey October 18, 1983 Now tell me, what do you mean by Court Day? Was court in session, the court? Oh yen. Didn't have it only a week or as long as it took, in the spring and one in the fall, just the two Court Weeks. Would everyone come in and transact their business then? Well, they would try anybody that was indicted; they would try them. They'd have a judge then. You see, no other time would a judge be up there. It was just during court. So then, if you wanted to sell property or something like, you had to wait til that time too, didn't you? Well, they'd go there and they were always horse trading, the men were. Why did they horse trade at that time of the year? Because they'd get together, you know. And then they could do their bill of sale and make everything legal. It just was a good time to all get together. That's right. And they enjoyed getting together and swapping tales, fish tales. Can you remember any of the big fish tales you heard. No. See I had nothing to do with it. I just remember about those, before I was married, coming there to spend the night so they wouldn't have to ride home and come back again.
-2- Would they ever tell you stories when they'd come to visit? Like old ghost stories or folk tales? I don't remember. I don't think they did. I was asking yesterday if she could remember any stories, old folk tales that you heard as a child that we ought to record. I don't think I ever heard any; I don't think we ever had time to indulge in such as that. You didn't tell stories after supper or something like that? No. The children had to do their homework, you know. We probably went to bed as quick as we got the dishes washed. Milk to take to the spring house, supper dishes to do. We didn't have any bought toys then. We go to the woods and get moss off the logs and bring it and make our chair, our couch; and we saved the broken dishes to set on the table. We just made our own. Now my children did some of that after we were grown, I guess. But I remember them bringing in moss and making their playhouse right out there. What did you make dolls with? I remember a doll that Aunt May gave me and I used to do a lot of singing when I was a kid. And you know this Mr. Hartley passed one time and I was singing "Jesus, Lover of My Soul". We had a grapevine at either end of the porch and I had this rag doll that Aunt May, Papa's sister, had made for me. It was several hundred feet from there to the spring, and he got off his horse and came down to the spring to get a drink and heard me singing; I don't know how old I was. I've heard Mama tell that; of course, I don't remember.
-3- Woman: But you don't remember having one? I never had one that I know of. So you would just do pretend games? Well, do you remember any other games you used to play as children, like marbles? What were those straws we had we'd lay them out on the table and then take one Jack straws. You'd let them fall and then you'd take and pick up one without touching the others. pine splinters; we didn't buy any. I remember we made our own out of little That's about all I can remember playing. I wanted to ask Marion, did you ever go coon hunting? Coon hunting. I never went coon hunting, but I remember there were some boys that came here one morning just as day was breaking and said, "We've got something treed out yonder on the mountain and don't know what it is and want to get a saw." I let him have the saw and a man from Florida was here with us. We ate breakfast after he'd taken the saw, and Logan said, "Let's go out there and see what they've got." And we went out there; and it was a big ol' white oak and it was hard to saw. And they didn't have it down; that boy had fooled around so long. I don't know why, but we got there just in time to catch the dogs and hold the dogs for them. The tree fell and no coon came out. And we turned the dogs loose and they just made a dash in there and commenced to bark. The thing was such a big ol' coon and it was such a big ol' hollow tree, he'd got in there and he didn't aim to come out. He just stayed there, and those dogs just commenced to bark. Well, Wade Hanson got up on the log and took an axe and cut a hole in it. He stood there a minute and said, "Hef11 stick his head out directly." And I said, "Wait a minute; let me up there." And I had Charles', the boy that stayed
4»- with us that summer, I had his 22 down there. I got up on the log and directly I heard something rattle in there and looked. It just came and stuck its head out there right in the open. I was just standing up there over him, you know; I just put a bullet right down through his head and killed him suddenly and we dragged him out. They said it was the biggest coon they'd ever seen. How big was it? Oh it'd weighed I4.O pounds, big as a dog. So they carried that thing; they took it on with them home. That boy that came after the saw, he turned out to be one of the county commissioners here. Ed Pritcher was the boy that came after the saw. And he's a coon hunter, huh? Well, Wade Hampton was a regular coon hunter, you know, the man that had the dogs. But he had come with him. Well, men used to do a lot of rabbit hunting and squirrel hunting. Oh I used to kill just great strings of squirrel. You could go out and kill them any time. There was a boy that stayed here with us one fall by the name of Inglebert, my nephew; The woods were closer than they are now. He aid, "What about me taking a gun and going out and killing a mess of squirrels for breakfast." I said, "Go ahead." He just grabbed the gun and ran alone out there in the woods and he'd shoot five times and just pick them up and come on back and we'd skin them and throw them in the pot and cook them and have them for breakfast. They're good to eat, too, aren't they? We did that that whole fall. He shot a box of cartridges out there just shooting squirrels to have to eat for breakfast.
-5- There were lots of chestnuts then, and squirrels were plentiful; but there aren't any chestnut trees now. They all died. Are there still a lot of squirrels? I never see one. Our boy, he had a hound dog here; I had buckwheat on that mountain, plum on top up there. And I decided well if he goes to treeing squirrel, I'll just take time off to shoot it for him. So I went out there; I hadn't been out there an hour and I heard him barking right at the edge of the woods and he'd bark a way off in the distance. I wouldn't pay any attention to him at all, but when he'd bark right there in the field, I'd just take up the shotgun and go out there and shoot the squirrel, you know. I killed four, the biggest, prettiest squirrels you ever saw, that day there cutting buckwheat, just right at the edge well, I didn't even get over the fence out of the field. That dog was smart enough; he knew I wouldn't come to him. If he was out any distance, he wouldn't even bark. If he could tree one right at the fence, why he'd tree it and I'd go shoot it. I had a great big dinner box and I took everything out of the bucket and I laid that squirrels in the dinner box. I came back and handed it to her. She said, "You didn't eat anything." I said,!"no, I didn't eat anything today." She opened the box and there layed those four squirrels. How do you cook squirrel? I know you put it in Brunswick Stew, but how else do you fix it. Well, I never did have the Brunswick Stew. The way I cooked it was just clean it good and put it in some water and salt and cook it tender; and then I'd make gravy. Season it with butter and take some milk and thicken it a little. That's the way we always did it, but I haven't had one for so
-6- long, I wouldn't know what squirrel was now; it's been years since we had one. And we never have any fish any more, I mean out of the creek like we used to. Well, now, did you used to fish a lot? Well, every time you'd get a chance to. Cause mountain fishing is supposed to be the best anywhere. Tell me about fishing. I'm not much of a fisherman. Well, you used to fish. I had a nephew that worked for me here one spring; it was Frank Ford. And it was early in the spring and it was getting cold. We were clearing that land right out there, and it got a little cloudy and it went to snowing while we were eating dinner. I said, "Boy, that'll ruin it." He said, "No, that won't have anything to do with the fishing." I said, "Well, we'll just go fishing anyhow then." So we went fishing and we went down the road there to where the bridge is and commenced fishing there. We both threw out hooks in, and he went on down to the next hole and threw his hook in; and I fished a minute there and came on down to him again. He brought the rod in again, and I said, "Oh, wait a minute; you're going ahead all the time. You take one hole. One hole's mine and one's yours." "Good," he says. So we fished on down; we went on plum down to where the creek comes into the Parkway over yonder. I had 26 and he had 25. We were just dividing it up like that, you know. Each 26 and 2$ fishl WhewI Yeh. I had 26 and he had 2!? and it was snow. I was going to say, is this a fish story? Yeh. None of them were more than 6 inches long; they were the best things you ever saw, just to bite into one, you could eat the whole thing.
Was it mountain trout? Mountain trout was what they were. That's pretty big actually for mountain trout. So then you would fish in a stream right out here? Yeh. It runs down through the woods there and goes on down yonder and turns and goes right back down to the Parkway down here on this side. I'm thinking about putting a chapter in about fishing 'cause that's one of the favorite pastimes of so many people up here in the mountains and it's a good topic. Did you enjoy fishing when you used to go? Oh yeh, yeh. Did you ever go fishing and not catch a fish? I don't know that I ever did. Me and my brother, we even seined out some; of course, that was against the law, but we seigned out some one time. Made us a seign out of oat sacks; took a chain and threw it in two oat sacks. You would buy oats then in five-bushel bags, you know. You could take two of those bags and throw you a chain in the bottom of it so it would drag down under the ground. I don't believe we had to use but one bag, just made a short seign cause this creek was narrow. We'd take that and just start down the creek and just dip it up a lot, you know, and catch every one that was in it in one bag. > Did you hunt rabbits too? Oh yeh. That's something else we don't ever have any more. I never see one any more; don't know when I've seen a rabbit.
-8- Well, you all were saying yesterday that you don't see the snakes you used to see. I haven't seen a snake in ages. 01' Carl Story that was raised right up the road here came here one winter; he had one of the best rabbit dogs you ever saw and he said, "Let's go "wabbit" hunting." He couldn't talk good. That ol' dog would jump a rabbit, and he's slow, would run it slow enough. A dog that's fast will run a rabbit so fast that it'11 den in a half a minute and you won't get a chance to shoot it; but a dog that'll just poke along, just keep a bawling, bawling, that rabbit will just keep dodging around and directly he'll run it out to where you can shoot it. Well, we killed six or eight rabbits and came to the awfullest possum track that had ever been in this country. There'd never been one like it before and hasn't been one since. It was as big as a dog's track. They set their heels down and make a long track, you know, a possum does. How big were the tracks? The track would be that long and be almost as wide as your finger there. So about half your hand? And that ol' heel will show on a possum every time. When he sits down, that ol' heel will show every time and see his claws'11 scratch out there in the snow. And I said, "Carl, we could get that thing if we had a mattock." I said, "If you're a mind to, you go up to the house." Now that was down the other side of this house that's down the road yonder. And I said, "You go up there and get a mattock and I'll cut a hole in that ttree and maybe make us a fire." It was the biggest tree that I ever saw of a chestnut. It was six or seven feet through at the ground and it was hollow; it was dead. So I commenced
chopping there, and I chopped in and knocked it off; chopped out a window about that big, just chopped another and split it off and I orawled over in there and it was just as dry in there as it could be. There were dry splinters and every kind of fuzz, so I just raked a bunch of that stuff together over on the back side of that and struck a match to it; sat down in there and warmed my feet while he was going after that. He came back and I'd gone and cut a long pole to see which was the ground hog went from that tree. And so we took the pole and ran it in and we dug and we dug and we dug; we'd dig down deeper than that stool was high and we'd call the dog and he'd stick his nose down there and if he could smell it, he'd bark and if he didn't, we didn't dig any more. We dug two or three holes and the dog wouldn't bark. I said, "Give me that mattock; I'm going to punch its brains out here at this place. I haven't dug this right here yet." So I just took the handle and commenced jabbing it down in the ground and the dog started barking. I said, "Boy, I got close to him that time." So we dug on down there and in just a minute we could see the thing's tail. We just reached down and got it. And Carl said, "Lord have mercy; there comes the possum." I pulled it out and we killed the thing and brought it on up here and dressed it; and it was more than twice as big as any possum that I've ever seen. And I took it to Willcox at Boone and he said that was the best hide that has ever come to this shop; that's the best pelt that has ever been. He said, "I'm going to give you $2.50 for that hide." Well, an ordinary possum hide wasn't but $0 cents. Good heavens, that must have been a great big one'. Well, now, since you've told your possum tale, I want to tell her a ground hog tale. Oh, do. What's the difference between a possum and a ground hog?
Well, a ground hog's good to eat and... Interruption Oh, you know people eat possum. Well, they might, but I don't want to eat any; they're ugly, nasty looking. Now, was this a ground hog or a possum you found. It wasn't what I was talking about. She's talking about a ground hog now. You shoot them with a shotgun. I'd go ground hog hunting; I've killed ground hogs with a shotgun. But the tale I'm going to tell you--bill was married and he and his wife lived in Wilmington and he worked on a shipyard. That was during World War--He went down there to work on a shipyard because he was turned down to go to service. He had got his eye hurt, you see, and had a bad eye. So they came up to visit one summer or one fall; I don't remember, real late. And they brought a friend and his wife with them and they stayed a week. And Koel(?) was that man's given name, Koel Pope and his wife came with them; and he had never seen a ground hog. So all that time Bill and him were out over the farm looking trying to find a ground hog so Koel could see a ground hog. They never found one while he was here; then they left one day and they hadn't been gone but maybe just a little while. I hated to see them go back to Wilmington, my son and his wife; and I was lonesome and kind of down and out, see. And I just walked off up through the meadow to get away from the house, to the upper tree up there where we had lots of apple trees at that time. And there were some old apples that still hung there; it was awfully late though. And I got up to that other one and I saw this little half-grown ground hog eating an apple in the grass; and I just stood there
and watched it and looked at it, you know, straight in the eye and it looking at me. And I just kept easing up just the least bit, you know, til I got to it. I never took my eyes off it; and I grabbed its tail. That's the dying truth; I caught that ground hog by the tail and I brought it back down here. And they hadn't been gone thirty minutes. And I swear to you this is the truth; you may not believe it, but I caught that ground hog by the tail, brought it down here. Well, Marion had promised Bill now I'd been to Wilmington and seen them a time or two and Marion had never been, but he promised them when they left that in July, or in so many months after that, that he would bring Eula Mae and Geneva and Nan; they'd never been, down to see them and I'd stay here and tend to things and keep things going. So he got a bear, and we had a big maple tree right there in the yard at that time; and he got abarreland put in there and I put my ground hog in it, and we fed it and watered it til it came time for him to take them down there. So he made a box and put it in and hauled it to Wilmington and gave it to Koel Pope. And as a person who'd never seen one, he was so proud of his ground hog, you know. And he kept it and I don't remember how long it was; but later, he and his wife went to visit some of their folks and were gone a day or two. That ground hog gnawed out or got out and somebody Wait a minute. Let me straighten you out right there just a minute. It came winter and the nature of this ground hog, it made it a hole in the ground and it had gone in there. Well, when spring came, this ground hog came out and he was tame, and so now go on I just missed that because, you know, I said I didn't know how long it was and I didn't mmember that. It got out; well, somebody shot it because they didn't know what it was. They shot it and they didn't know what
it was. And they put it up in a window there at the store on the sidewalk and Koel had got back from wherever he and his wife had visited, and he walked along there and saw his dead ground hog laying in the window. And he knew his ground hog by the eye I was trying to catch the thing in the barrel and I kept gouging it and I knocked one of its eyes out. Well, this ground hog happened to be one-eyed and so that shows that it was Koel's pet ground hog. No wonder they could shoot him, you know; he was a pet. Well, it was the only one that had ever been down there, too, you know. Nobody had ever seen one down there. And I caught a ground hog by the tail'. He didn't bite you or anything? No. I'd been running too quick. And I just grabbed him by the tail and ran and got the barrel and put it down in there. And then we fed it and watered it. And that was the first one Koel had ever seen or any of those other folks. The one that shot it, that's why he put it in the window for someone to come along and tell him what it was. And they came back and there was their pet ground hog in the window. And that is an honest tale, if I ever told one, every word of it. I bet that's the only ground hog that's ever been caught by the tail by a woman. See, you all didn't realize what good tales you had, did you? Well, I bet if you'd stay a week that we might could give you a few more. That's the dying truth, Lottie, every word of it. I was lonesome; I just hated to see my son leave and go so far off. And that's been years ago now. Lottie: It was during the Second World War. I
-13- As farmers, did you plant things according to when the moon rose? I don't think so. The only thing Marion talks about the moon is when he wants you to make kraut. It's a good time to make kraut. That's the only time I've ever heard him talk about the moon. When there's a full moon or something? When is it that you want me to make kraut? Full moon? No, it's a new moon, if you're talking about making kraut. See, the sap's coming up; that's the reason your kraut will work. If it's going down, it doesn't work half as good. That's the only time I ever hear him say anything about the moon, so I don't think he plants by the moon. He just plants when the ground gets dry and warm enough. We just got a little too smart this spring and planted our garden too quick. It warmed up and dried up a little one time; then after we planted it, it turned cold and rained right on and on. It rotted in the ground. We had to buy seed and plant again. How do you make kraut? Just take your cabbage and chop it up fine like you want them, and then you salt that in a big pan, salt that just like you want it. that? Just cook it in water? Don't you put pork in it and stuff like Lydie : When you cook it, you do; but when you're making it--i thought you were talking about the cabbage... The whole thing. Yeh. You just chop it up and pack it in the jars and let it work. Then you take it out and fry it and get pork gravy. Lottie: If I remember right, Lydie, Mama (as far as salting it is concerned) she would add the salt; and ordinarilly, when you packed it down, it would start
< -Illbringing that brine over and you wound up always having the cabbage brine, to let it come over your kraut. And she'd take a plate or something and pack it down with something real heavy, you know, to keep the brine up over the cabbage. That was the way she determined how walty, was the brine. Do you know where your families came from originally? What countries? Mama came from Ashe County is all I know. Lottie: Lottie: You mean nationality? Nationality. Oh. No, I don't know. Now, Grandma Edmisten was a Moore. kraut. I was just trying to think. So many people up here fixed sour And pickled beans; made pickled beans the same way we did sour kraut. And there are lots of people from Germany, and then there are Scotch-Irish and English and lots of different people who came to this area to settle. Lottie: But now how come me, Lydie, I remember this ever since I was a child, that Grandma's people were Dutch and the Edmistens are Irish? How come I remember that? Is that so? Lottie : I don't know. Well, I surely heard my daddy talk about it, Grandpa Edmisten, about the Dutch-Irish; and they called me the little Dutchman cause I didn't talk plain. How about Mr. Coffey; do you know where your relatives came from? Where your ancestors came from?
They came from Haywood County to this county, I know. So they moved north from Haywood County? Yes. Grandpa Coffey used to live on I forget the name of that river; I can't remember things like I used to. He said he'd get up in the morning and the river was big, you know; he had a seign and he'd just go and fasten one end of the seign to a bush on the bank and the other end catch it in his teeth, I reckon is the way he did it. He'd just swim a circle around and come back and then catch fish and fry them for breakfast. He'd do that every morning. That was in Haywood County. So that was in the mountains too. Yeh. Was there ever much mining up around here? What did people do for industry up here besides farming? Back then? Uh huh. Nothing. There was nothing to do but just make a living any way you could; that's the way it was. How about dairy farming. Was there much dairy farming? Everybody had their own cows. Nobody had a dairy that I ever heard of. Everybody had their own churn; they churned their butter, had plenty of cream to season with. Lottie: Well, Ruby Michael casually mentioned last night about the cheese factory. That was the beginning of commercial here. That was the first one that ever was, that and then the kraut factory. Lottie: The cheese factory was when people started commercializing the sale of milk into cheese.
....-16- Did you ever travel much when you were real young? How far did you go when you were real young, as far as travelling? You had horses and you walked everywhere, right? You didn't have cars; cars weren't around then. Did you get very far past Boone? Or was Boone the biggest area you went to? If you were hauling produce, you'd go south. Oh, I've hauled to Statesville. As a boy, with his daddy and bigger brothers, he'd go and learn; he did that all his life until after we were married. The only place you got gone was when you took your stuff up to sell it. You didn't just go to visit. I know one time we were at Statesville and it was Saturday evening and we wanted to get shed of our loads on Saturday, so we didn't stop for supper at all; we just kept going til we got sold out. And it was after dark when we came into the lot where we were camped at. Lydie : They slept in the wagons. And it was just pouring rain; it was just coming down in sheets. It wasn't but just a little step across there to the restaurant, but it was raining so you couldn't get there without getting drowned. I said, "What about just going to bed. We're both give out and we'll just go to bed and get up in the morning and go over there and have them set the table." He said, "Okay." Well we went to bed and got up the next morning hungry as bears. We went and fed our horses and beat it over to the restaurant and went in there. The waitress came and asked us what we wanted. I said, "Bring it all out here. We haven't had any supper; just set the table and we'll eat." "Good." They
-17- just set it out there and we ate about twice as much as we would any other time, you know. I told Howard before we were out there, "I'm going to make them set the table; I don't care what they charge. We've got to have something to eat for breakfast." When we got ready to go, he threw the ticket out there $1.00 apiece for us. I said, "That isn't too bad!" For as much as you ate, you probably came out pretty well. I bet what we ate there would cost you $10.00 apiece today. Did you have covered wagons? Yeh. We had covered wagons. Like covered with canvass, like a small version of a big covered wagon? Oh Jieh. My wagon bed was twelve feet long and the bows were almost as high as from this floor to that ceiling, to where the bows came over. Lottie: Did you never see a covered wagon? to Boone. Come see the wagon train next time it comes up through and goes It came this fall; it did it last fall. But in your day, you actually drove covered wagons? Sure. That's all we had. And you had big ol' heavy quilts, three of four; and they took them along. And while the wagon was loaded with the stuff, when you had to camp out see, it took a long time to drive so you'd sleep under the wagon, lay on one quilt and put the rest over you. And they had a provision box and we always baked bread and put meat and whatever in that box. I forget what all we cooked. And they'd get out there with their frying pan. And there was always a jar of grease; we had plenty of hogs and lard. And they'd get out there and build a little fire in the campground and
- -18- cook a pan of apples or a pan of potatoes or a pan of whatever they had or wanted to go with whatever they had in their provision box. And after we got the wagon empty, we'd sleep in the wagon. Before that, we had to sleep under the wagon. That was the only transportation you had. Yeh. What year was this? We were married in 1917, but he'd done that all his life. I guess you wagoned on til you got a truck. When did you get a truck? Oh, I don't remember. It was an A-Model Ford was the first I had. What year do you think that was? 1920, 192$, 1930. Lottie: 192U-25, something like that* I'd say it'd be along there somewhere. Oh it was before that. You got a truck before that and quit using, hauling with your horses? Lottie: It had to be in the early '20s. Yeh. I bet that was fun taking those wagon trains down. Yeh. I went with him a couple of times and slept under the wagon and then in the wagon after it was emptied. You know, we'd have to camp out coming back; it was gravel road then, no hardtop; it was just muddy roads that the horses had to null. Well, the cars couldn't, have ridden around up here at that point anyway. That's fascinating; that's a wonderful tale.
-19- Well, Marion, you said when it was so muddy between here and Green Hill that you'd take one team away from the wagon and hitch it to the other team to pull it up to the top. And then take both teams back down and get that wagon. That was the only way you could get to Green Park Hotel was to go out the road here; and the road was new and in the wintertime when it thawed through, it just went down to the the brakes would drag, as far as that goes, knee deep, the mud was. And we'd hit the grade of the hill out there. Well, we didn't have to pull one wagon off the road cause couldn't anybody pass anyway. We'd just unhook one team and hook it in front of the other team and drag that one to the top. Come right back; bring them both back and get the other wagon and get it up. Did that $0 times. It was the only way to get up there. To pull a two-horse load, you had to hitch four horses to it to get it up there. Gosh. That must have been rough going to get your things to market and back. Had to do it all the time too, didn't you? Sure did. That's remarkable. Did you have to work on the roads when you were growing up? Oh yeh. I was overseer of the road here for six or eight years after we moved up here. You had to work at least ten days a year free labor on the road. And you didn't pay taxes; you Just had to work on the road. Had to work on the road, yeh. Well, that' s the way the roads were kept up then. You didn't pay any taxes to keep the road up; it had to be done by free labor. When there'd come these big snows, when the snow would drift deep, you know, the overseer would have to go and warm their hands out
. 20- and take shovels and go and throw the snow out of the road. That was the only way we had to get it out, just throw it out with a shovel. Yeh. You'd have to get a big shovel and throw it out. I would think it would be hard to clear that. Did you ever pack it down with sleds and stuff like that? Pack it down? Oh we'd pack some. It was always frozen. What were you saying, Lottie? Lottie: Well, yes; he was telling about the road work. I was telling you about my oldest brother going into the Air Corps. Well, the day that he left, Lydie, going to Shulls Mills to the Air Corps was when Dave and Nora Ray's little Cecil and Mary were buried with diptheria. And they would take care of the road then; and they had to take the children to the cemetary, up there to Ray Cemetary, on a sled. It was a hard time. No wonder you all are so hale and hardy; you've been hard workers all your life. What did you do when you were young to have fun? The thing I can remember would be a weekend coming up and having a boyfriend. Did boy friends come and stay at your family' s house? Or did they just walk over and take you to a party or sit on the porch or what? Yeh, we went to candy pullings and a few little parties. Yeh, they'd just come over Sunday evening and sit through the evening. And you've known him all your life, haven't you? ". just knew about him. Well, yeh, but I'd never been with him til on toward the last--
-21- Well, these mountains are special, aren't they? Yeh, but I'd love to see some flat land. I've always wanted to go to Florida. I don't remember being young enough and hearing about Florida but what I wanted to go to Florida, but I've never been and I don't reckon I ever will. I've been out West to San Francisco. And I've been to Wilmington; that's the farthest down that way I've ever been.. '