Browsing Items (5 total)


Interview with Robert Proffit  [October 3, 1980]

Robert Proffit talks about Meat Camp's early history from the first settler John Green in 1788. Over the next few decades, people began to trickle in to Western North Carolina. He talks about the first churches in the area: Hopewell Methodist Church and Meat Camp Church. He also describes the civil war, how many members of the community enlisted with the confederate army, but after the war there wasn't much difference in Meat Camp. Proffit explains Meat Camp well with this statement: "there was never anything here to begin with except just natural things."

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Interview with Mrs. & Mr. Allen Townsend   [September 25, 1975]

Mr. and Mrs. Townsend talk about the Depression and how it affected their families. He explains: "It was just everything, you know, seemed different and a shortage of everything." Farmers were the ones who fared the best, because they didn't have to buy in order to support themselves. His family worked on a farm during the Depression, but they didn't own the farm. Most people in Ashe County, because they "lived so far back from everybody else" didn't know much about the political situation, or why the Depression was happening. He remembers that when Roosevelt things changed, and schools started to be built in his area. His father was assigned to a work program and had to walk eight miles a day to get to work.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

James Calvin Greer was born in Triplett, NC in 1908. Vera Greer was born in Caldwell County in 1913.

Mr. and Mrs. Greer both recall very hard childhoods and growing up in the Triplett area. Mr. Greer worked at the local sawmill during the Great Depression. They recall collecting herbs and bark to pay for groceries and clothes.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Elizabeth Hartley was born in Arnold's Branch, North Carolina in 1900 and lived on a farm where her only job was to collect herbs and dig roots. William Hartley is the son of Elizabeth Hartley.

Mr. and Mrs. Hartley both talk about growing up and childhood activities such as picking herbs, but they both agreed their childhoods were mostly hard. Mr. Harley talks about playing instruments like the organ and his interest in music, while Mrs. Hartley discusses her hobby of quilting. They both reminisce about what it was like living through the Great Depression and such as using electricity for the first time in 1953 and seeing their first car in 1922.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Charles” Wesley Bolick was born on August 15, 1897 in the Mulberry Valley community of Caldwell County about ten miles from Blowing Rock, North Carolina. His parents were Emanuel (b. October 24, 1852 - d. August
16, 1926) and Mary Vienna Sherrill Bolick (b. April 1860 – d. August 27, 1934). He had four siblings and was married to Elizabeth “Libby” Gomer Bolick (b. October 7, 1881 – d. January 16, 1983). Charles Bolick died on April 29, 1996 at the age of 98.

During the interview he talks about his parents and siblings, selling whiskey, making apple brandy, living off the land and making everything the family needed. He reflects on the Depression, and attending school. He also discusses making molasses, sleeping on a rope bed, courting, digging for ginseng, and the floods of 1916 and 1940.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,