Occupation: Orchard farmer, shoe shiner

    Location of Interview:  A small warehouse building on Broad street Raleigh, North Carolina

    Date of Interview: November 11, 1934

    Interviewer: Teddy Odgers

I was born in 1910, into a family that was surviving by a single orchard farm.  I lived with my two sisters, my mom, and my dad in a small three room log cabin in western North Carolina in the city of Boone.  Our farm consisted or 1600 trees that were filled with different kinds apples that were grown.  We had three kinds of apples to grow, Red delicious, Golden delicious, and Granny Smith.  We all worked on the farm.  We had to make sure that there were enough apples to sell at market when we rode into town.  We had a wagon with a flatbed on the back that was pulled by two single mules.  On the way to market we passed church.  We stayed there for the morning session, and then went to sell our crop.  The church was the meeting place for our community.  Oh sure we were spread out all over the country side, but you always went to church, every Wednesday night, and every Sunday morning.  God was our savior and we rejoiced him.  We also had meetings to discuss what was to happen to the miner unions in the mountains farther west at church.  This was where we would have all our gatherings and it's where all of the important political decisions were made.  We weren't so much as too involved in politics cause we were out west with our farms, but We had some concern. My maw, and paw worked hard for a living to make the money to support us.  Us kids did have a few pairs of clothes, and we got by quite well.
 

I grew up as a strong country boy and took over the farm, in 1928, at this point in time, the farm was doing better than it had ever done.  I was 18 years old and all about the business.  My mother and father were too old and weak to work, so they lived at home under my support and my sisters owned a diner restaurant in the town of Boone.  They made decent wages there, and it helped support our family. We needed all the help we could get.  My mom and dad grew sick with different illnesses.  The doctor asked for more than we could offer to him, and the medication was available only on the fact that we would supply the doctor with a percentage of our apples until it was equaled to the payment.  My parents grew weaker and weaker.  It came to a point where they could no longer live in the manner that they were in.  They couldn't digest anything, and whatever went down, came back up.  They started having breathing problems, and the last time the doctor came he took me aside to tell me the news that they weren't going to make it.  I'll never forget that day.  It was August 2, 1928.  This was the day that drove the anger inside of  me that had built up from the illnesses that they had out.  They died late that night, and for three whole days I nor ate or drank anything.  My sisters went about the idea that life had to go on, life had to prevail, but I was stuck in the past morning for the loss of my parents.  Why they had to leave me in that manner, I do not know, but I was young and vulnerable to my emotions and I went into a nervous breakdown.  This was the start of the worst to come.

It was 1929 when the depression kicked in.  There had been some warnings that we had heard about at the church, I didn't think that I would have to worry much.  I had all of mine and my sister's money out of the bank.  We kept it at home under a floorboard in my room.  This was still the same house that we had lived in all our lives.  I had a room, and my sisters had a room.  First, I thought of the depression as a good thing.  We had our money and our businesses, an the dust bowl didn't reach us.  We figured we would be all right.  I took up all the apples that I could get my hands on, rotten or not and got on the wagon, which now only had one mule and got to town as fast as I could.  I stood on the street corner by the bank and sold my apples to whoever wanted them.  It was a madhouse down there.  Everyone wants there money, nobody wants to wait.  They're all going to be poor in a few days, with no job and no money.  I felt bad for them, so I sold my apples for five cents each.  It was a pretty high price at the time, for apples, but I was bringing in the money.  For a few days that is. Then Congress had to make the worst decision of their lives.  They started a new deal program that would help everyone and improve everyone's life.  They formed a group called the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).  These were the biggest idiots of all.  They come strolling in here thinking they're all good giving people cheap electric power, but they don't think of the farmers.  Where do you think they got their power from.  They got it from the rivers.  The rivers I used to irrigate my land with.  But it was all gone then.  They formed dams, and stopped up the water.  My poor apples were gone then.  My sisters still had their business, but they too were unhappy with what the TVA was doing to the farm that my father had started.  That was it for me.  I couldn't produce any more apples with those darn TVA people doing what they wanted with the water.  I was then forced to move into town to try to get a factory job.  I took all the money that I had, and all my clothes, and I was off to see what this New deal was all about.  I found a place to stay with 16 other families.  It was a two room apartment.  We split the cost and shared the sleeping space that's all.  We weren't in there at the same time though, because some of the families were at work through the night hours.  Our 14th floor apartment was as good as it got.  I couldn't find a job anywhere.  Everywhere there would be a sign that said "work here" it would go down in a number of seconds.  People would fight to get the position of a job.  My money was starting to fade away slowly day by day, and I decided to purchase a shoe shining kit.  This was to be the job for me.  I shined everyone's shoes that needed them shined.  Most of the time it was the business men and the bankers that I would shine.  They had the most money.  I usually charged whatever they gave me at first but
 

I got to the point of which I started to charge a dime.  I had to make enough money to survive.  I couldn't afford the rent anymore in the two room apartment on the 14th floor, so I built a lean to on the side of Jago's store.  It was a post office that was on Broad street.  I would look out at the mailmen that would travel by and watch them as they had standard jobs, and I was left out.  I would gaze up out of my mini hut and daydream at what it would be like to be a rich businessman.  This only drove me crazy in thinking what ifs.  I wonder how my sisters are doing with their business.  I don't know if they were a success, or if they folded up and are down the street in another lean to, or if they have gone to visit our parents. Either way, then I was more concerned with keeping myself alive and providing all of my needs.  This was first on my list and doing it I had hardships.

My shoe shining days started when I was only 20 years old and then, I had the most business due to my good English speaking.  This came from my mother's teaching.  She was born into a wealthy family and so she then was allowed to enter the schools.  She lived in the city of Charlotte, and was taught up through High School.  Thus, when she married my father,  I don't know exactly why she did this, she never talked about it to us children.  But as we grew up, we learned all that she could teach us.  She taught us to read, write, add, subtract, and to multiply.  So, I told the people I served that my mother taught me, along with my sisters, and they were amused, but we left it at that.  I carried on as a single shoe shiner for the next 4 years until 1933.  Here is where I got more social and involved in things with other individuals leading the same life that I was leading.  In Roxboro, there was a shoe shining company, but mainly for Negros.  I wasn't accepted there, but the blacks downtown were willing to accept me in whatever they were doing.  Us shoe shiners formed groups along the streets and shared the profits.  We had some wonderful times considering what we were going through.  We sang songs: "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?",  "It's Only a Paper Moon," and "The Gold Digger's Song" (We're in the Money).  These songs were provided by the other groups that had a radio that they stole from a ladies house on 5th street.  We also read whatever we could get our hands on.  It was a way to learn, and a way to get away from the problems that we had.  If you were to look down the street from one end and scan up and down, you would see just how much the new deal didn't help.  Wendell Wilkie, president of the Commonwealth and Southern Company, led the fight against the TVA.  He had many followers, but their were also men that disagreed with him and they liked the idea of having the Tennessee Valley Authority.  There were thousands of lean to's and thousands of people hanging out of windows to see what was below them.  But 1934 was a little bit different.  We sang songs such as "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (this song wasn't as pleasing as the other songs that we sang), "Anything Goes," "Blue Moon," and "I Get a Kick Out of You."  Our access to these songs was provided from the open windows in office buildings that we would stand under waiting for people to come out for us to shine their shoes.  We read stories and books, and whatever literature we could get our hands on such as "Good-bye, Mr. Chips", "While Rome Burns", and "Tender is the Night." This is how some of the younger shoe shiner's would learn English.  We were like a family.  We stuck together through thick and thin, and we helped each other when help was needed.  We actually got to sneak into a movie.  We saw "It Happened One Night."  It was all right.  But these were years to remember.  We faced the "Black Blizzard", many changes in groups that were formed due to the new deal, which provided no help except job openings.  We went through FDR's "Fireside Chat", and we went through the textile workers going on strike.  But there were some things in these era's that would bring out happiness in everyone.  This was the baseball that we had.  Many people witnessed the NY Giants defeat the Washington Senators in the World Series but then again, most people just heard about all of the action that took place.  Heck, 1934 was the year that Donald Duck debuted his cartoon in "Wise Little Hen".  But I now live abandoned in an old warehouse building with no one to talk to.  I consider my life a failure and don't want to live in this warehouse anymore.  I went through the worst times anyone could ever go through.  Some people don't know what it's like not to eat for four days.  Or not to be looked at when people pass you by.  My job as a farmer was taken away from me due to the new deal.  I was kicked to the streets thanks to the new deal, and I was given a horrible life with about 5 million people thanks to North Carolina's New Deal, that because most of North Carolina is based on agricultural farming and that was almost taken away.  I hope you now understand my hardships and realize how the new deal messed me up.

    -  Opposition to TVA. http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva17.htm.  visited May 27, 1999.
 

    -  Timeline.http://newdeal.feri.org/timeline/1934.htm. visited May 27, 1999.
 

    -  New Deal Network. http://newdeal.feri.org/timeline/index.htm. visited May 28, 1999.
 

    -  TVA: Electricity for All. http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva06.htm  visited May 26, 1999.
 

    -  The Displaced People of Norris Basin.http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva26.htm. visited May 27, 1999.
 

    -  The Tennessee Valley Authority: Electricity for All.http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/index.htm. visited May 28,1999.
 

    -  From the New Deal to a New Century. http://www.tva.gov/whatis/history.htm. visited May 28, 1999.
 

-  picture in paragraph one.  http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva26.htm.  Taken May 29, 1999.
 

-  picture of shoe shiner.  http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query. Taken May 29, 1999.