Thanks to Durham for permission to reprint his interview with his father!
DC: With the store, how did the Caldwell family get involved in
farming?
WGC: My father wanted something to keep all three of us boys at
home. He bought some land. He first bought four acres up here on
this farm. Kept adding to it. He added to it till he had about 200
acres.
He traded in real estate quite a lot. He had two or three little
farms out in the country. Back in those days, farmers would start a
charge account at the store the first of the year and charge their
merchandise till they sold their tobacco in the fall. Sometimes
they'd want to sell us a wagonload of corn on the store account. He'd
buy it. We always fattened out a bunch of hogs. Back in those days,
if we killed hogs and there was surplus meat they didn't want to put
in the smokehouse, we could take it to the store and sell it. You
can't do it now it has to be government inspected.
DC: Hogs what else did you have on the farm?
WGC: Cattle, sheep. Used to raise sheep the dogs got so bad we
had to quit raising sheep.
DC: What crops were grown?
WGC: Tobacco was the main money crop. We grew sorghum cane, corn,
hay, oats. Sorghum cane we'd cut the heads off, cut the seeds off,
pull the fodder off, and cut the stalks to take to the sorghum mill,
squeeze the juice out of to make sorghum molasses. The sorghum head
seed we'd put in the chicken house for the hens to have in the
wintertime. The fodder we tied up and put in the barn for the
livestock. I raised clover and timothy hay at one time. We used to
raise oats. We raised wheat.
But the tobacco crop was the main money crop then. You had to strip
the leaves off the stalks, tie 'em up according to the length of the
leaves. You graded it in the barn. Maybe you had two or three
grades. You'd have nubs, you'd have 18 inch, 20 inch, 22 inch tobacco
maybe. Back in those days, tobacco buyers would come to your barn and
buy your tobacco. You'd have to deliver it to their warehouse. Later
on, they had what they called a loose-leaf tobacco warehouse. You'd
take your tobacco there, and they sold it at auction. They had a sale
once a week.
DC: You harvested when?
WGC: Start in August. Hang it in the barn to cure.
DC: How long did that take?
WGC: Depends on the weather. So much of raising tobacco depends on
the weather. It has to mature so you can strip it, tie it in hands.
We used to grow wheat on this place. We were thrashing wheat at one
time, and the straw stack caught on fire. We had a bit of excitement
till we got it out.
DC: What did you use for machinery?
WGC: Horse drawn mowing machines and horse drawn equipment is what
we had. We didn't have any tractors. I remember the first tractor
that came to this country. They used it to thrash wheat. I drove it
a little bit. I was 13 or 14 years old, big enough to haul the wheat
up to the thrasher.
They used steam traction engines before they got gasoline tractors.
DC: Were there many of those in this part of the country?
WGC: Quite a few.
DC: Could they do everything that a tractor would do now?
WGC: They were too big to plow and do that sort of thing with. But
they pulled wheat thrashers. When I was a boy, Beasley Brothers would
come rolling into a field, unhook the separator from the steam engine.
They go off out there, turn it around and line up with the separator,
put the belt on and start thrashing wheat.
One man brought three two-horse wagons behind a steam tractor into
Westmoreland one time with hatchet handles to my Uncle Syd had these
wagons hitched behind a steam engine, a traction engine, and had a big
water tank on the last wagon with water for the engine.
DC: Did they grow many strawberries in Westmoreland when you were
growing up?
WGC: No, not till I was practically grown. Portland started
strawberries. It was a main money crop over there. We started
strawberries here. I've grown strawberries.
DC: Were they a successful crop here?
WGC: Yes.
DC: Where did you grow them?
WGC: Old farm we had out the road, about a couple of miles.
DC: Do I remember that your mother was active in strawberry growing?
WGC: Yes. She had some on this place out where Luther Hall used
to live. The Hall family were tenant farmers for us. She had them
plant some strawberries out there.
DC: When I came home from the Army in 1946, they were picking a lot
of blackberries around here and shipping them over to Portland to ship
out to canners. Do they still do that? Did they do that in the old
days, too?
WGC: They don't do it now like they used to. I bought over a
thousand dollars' worth of blackberries one day. Jim Halliburton and
I bought blackberries for Beeler Dye and Henry Gregory. I didn't
realize we bought so many blackberries till we got it all added up.
That was 1948, I guess along about then.
DC: When you were growing up, were people picking blackberries then?
WGC: Oh, yes, they've always picked blackberries. The first green
snake I ever saw, when I took my mother, Charlie Omeara, and the hired
lady down to Grandpa Caldwell's to pick blackberries. We went out in
the pasture to pick blackberries. I see this green snake crawling
back under the blackberry bushes.
DC: They weren't picking blackberries commercially then?
WGC: No.
DC: Hickory nuts what other kind of nut trees are there around
here?
WGC: Walnuts. We used to have a good walnut market. I don't know
if they have any market now or not.
DC: People grow walnuts commercially, or just have a tree in the
yard?
WGC: Trees in the yards.
DC: Hickory nuts, were they ever sold commercially?
WGC: Not that I know of. Old engineer on the passenger train used to want a bucket of
walnuts
once in a while. I took him a bucket of walnuts one time when he got
up off his seat, raised the seat up, and poured the walnuts in this
box under his seat, which was quite a curiosity to me.
DC: Your mother used to use hickory nuts in her famous fruitcake
recipe.
WGC: Yeah.
DC: What else did she use in that fruitcake, do you remember?
WGC: Fruit, candied cherries, citron, stuff like that.
DC: What other recipes did she have that you especially recall?
WGC: Jam cake. A cake made with blackberry jam. Coconut cake was
good. They used to make a lot of tea cakes.
DC: How about fried pies?
WGC: They've always been popular as far as I can remember.
DC: What kind of bread was usually on the table?
WGC: Corn bread and biscuits.
DC: Both at the same time?
WGC: Yeah.
DC: How'd you eat the biscuits?
WGC: Put some butter on them. If you were going to have gravy, just
open the biscuit up and cover it up with gravy. We'd always have
gravy with chicken and sausage and ham. Have it for breakfast.
DC: How about sorghum molasses?
WGC: Yeah. Sorghum molasses is good on biscuits with butter.
DC: What's the difference between corn bread and hoe cake?
WGC: Corn bread's usually baked in the oven. Hoe cake is cooked on
top of the stove.
DC: Have those both at the same meal?
WGC: No, I don t think so.
DC: Either one or the other?
WGC: Yeah.
DC: And beans. How many kinds of beans would be on the table on a
day in the wintertime?
WGC: Maybe one. Cornfield beans, navy beans, pinto beans we had
lots of different kinds of beans.
DC: What else was likely to be on the menu?
WGC: Potatoes. Sometimes ham meat. Hog jaw.
DC: And after hog killing, any additions to the menu?
WGC: We'd have tenderloin. And make sausage. We'd fry sausage and
put 'em in a stone jar and put grease on 'em. We'd eat sausage. I
don't ever remember any of my folks get sick from eating pork.
Tenderloin was delicious.
DC: And how would the chicken be fixed?
WGC: Well, we had different ways. Chicken dressing's made with the
fowl. Frying chickens or broilers are young chickens. Fried
chicken's always been very popular.
DC: What kind of batter did they use?
WGC: My grandmother used to use meal corn meal. Most people use
flour, I think.
DC: Did corn meal come from the store, or did you make your own?
WGC: When I was a boy, we used to go to the crib we used to raise
a lot of corn go to the crib and pick out white corn, make the meal
out of white corn. We had two or three different grist mills that
ground corn into meal. Later on you could buy it at the store, like
you can now.
DC: What other kind of mills were there besides grist mills?
WGC: There was a water mill out here on the creek. They made a
little dam up the creek and ran the water down the mill race, they
called it. Ran off on this big wheel and turned the wheel to grind
corn. Stone ground meal.
DC: How about saw mills?
WGC: L & B Lumber Co. had three at one time, I think.
DC: What kind of saws did they use in the first saw mills you can
remember?
WGC: They had a round circular saw. The first saw mills I remember
seeing had a steam engine. These traction engines had a big wheel to
pull a belt. Then they had a stationary steam engine that wasn't a
traction engine. Used to be one of those out the road.
DC: Dad, I recall you used to have a ram's horn here at the house.
What was that?
WGC: It was a dinner horn. They blew it to bring the men in from
the fields at noontime. Or they used it at any time they wanted to
get in touch with the people working out in the field. They had quite
a few people working on the farm back in those days.
DC: Who did that belong to?
WGC: It belonged to my grandfather. My grandmother gave it to me.
After my father and mother died, I believe my sister took it. I don't
know whatever became of it.
DC: Do you remember that actually being used when you were a boy?
WGC: No, that was before my day.
DC: What about church in Westmoreland when you were growing up?
WGC: We had a Methodist preacher when I was a boy, preached once or
twice a month. Didn't preach every Sunday. Back then members would
take the preacher home with them for dinner. They don't seem to do
that any more.
DC: They take turns doing this, or was this a matter of prestige?
WGC: A matter of prestige, I guess. Then later on, they built a
Methodist parsonage for the preacher to live in. And they got
finances so they were able to have preaching every Sunday.
DC: Were there any other churches in Westmoreland in those days?
WGC: No. The Methodists used to loan their church to any other
denomination that wanted to preach. I've heard a Free Methodist
preacher preach in the Methodist Church, Church of Christ preachers
preach in the Methodist Church, General Baptist preachers preach in
the Methodist Church. Have to give the Methodists credit for being
liberal.
DC: Was the Methodist Church the same building that's used today?
WGC: No. This one was up where the feed mill is. It was replaced
by the new church over on the corner, where it is now. Had a
Christmas party one night, a Christmas tree, one cold winter night. I
think I remember hearing some firecrackers shooting in back of the
church. Anyway, the church burned that night. It was a prettier
church than the one we've got now. It had brick outside. It had a
steeple. Very pretty church. Then they built this one they have now.
DC: What part did the church play in the social life of the town?
WGC: They had a young people's organization. New Year's they'd have
a watch party. Everybody was invited to come. They'd sing. Maybe
make talks, New Year's resolutions. At midnight they'd ring the
church bell.
DC: What did they have for schools in Westmoreland when you started
going?
WGC: We had a two teacher school. Old schoolhouse had a downstairs
and an upstairs. Everything up to fourth grade stayed downstairs.
Fifth grade went upstairs up to the eighth grade. We didn't have a
high school for a long time. About 1913 or '14, I think, was the
first high school we had.
DC: What are some of the things you remember about school?
WGC: We went at eight o'clock in the morning. Had 15 minutes
recess in the morning, an hour at noontime, 15 minutes' recess in the
afternoon, and we got out at 4 o'clock. There was no such thing as a
school bus back then. Boys walked from the Macon County line to
Westmoreland.
DC: What were the teachers like? Were they strict?
WGC: The principals were very strict. The teachers they had
better discipline then than they do now. They had 25 or 30, I guess,
sometime in a class. Big classes. Four grades in a room when I first
went.
DC: What kind of games did you play, assuming you had time for games
in between farm work and school work and store work?
WGC: We played baseball. I used to be a left-handed pitcher as a
young fellow. The two catchers would choose up in the morning. We'd
play at recess and at noontime and at recess in the afternoon. They'd
choose up again the next morning. Clarence Atkinson was one of our
catchers. If he had the first take, he'd take me to be his pitcher.
You've seen 'em choose up with a bat.
Baseball was one of our main games. Then we played cat ball. Fox
in the Morning, Goose in the Evening.
DC: What's Fox in the Morning, Goose in the Evening?
WGC: Well, they line up. Sometimes they let the girls and boys both
play. Line up on each end of the field. One would run out. One of
the others would chase 'em. If they caught 'em, they d have to come
over on their side. Sort of silly little game, but it was a lot of
fun.
April Fools Day, there was always a group that ran off from school,
but I didn't go with em. The teacher would take the rest of us, and
we'd have a picnic in the afternoon maybe.
DC: What about Christmas? Christmas seemed to be the time for
fireworks instead of the Fourth of July.
WGC: That's the way they used to do it. They used to didn't sell
fireworks here the Fourth of July, but they do now. We used to have
fireworks the Christmas holiday season. Roman candles. Firecrackers.
Torpedoes.
DC: I remember your father saying many years ago when he was a boy
if they got a few oranges and firecrackers at Christmas, that was
really a big Christmas in those days.
WGC: Well, when I was a boy, we could only buy bananas and oranges
and things like that during the Christmas holidays. Now you can buy
'em year 'round. Cold drinks, the drink trucks didn't come in the
wintertime. They'd come in the summertime: Geri-Cola, Coca-Cola, the
different things like that. In the wintertime, they did't even come.
DC: Was Christmas a big holiday?
WGC: Yes, the old Methodist Church would have a Christmas tree.
Everybody who wanted to put a present under the Christmas tree for a
friend would. We had a Santy Claus. I used to get a big thrill when
they called my name to help deliver the presents from Santy Claus back
to the people in the audience.
One Christmas some drunks started a disturbance in the back. One of
the police officers got up on the back seats and waved his gun around
and told everybody to sit down and keep quiet don't get excited
the officers took the drunks out.
DC: Were there many problems keeping the peace?
WGC: A man sold whisky up at the Kentucky line. I've seen a group
of people come through Westmoreland, maybe three or four of them on
horseback with a quart bottle sticking out of their pocket and a
gallon jug in each end of a grass sack thrown across the horse behind
the saddle. Ride up to a store, call the merchant out, and offer him
a drink, tell him to bring them some tobacco or something, and go on
home.
In those days, they put on extra police in the wintertime,
especially during the holiday season. One winter near our house, a
big policeman started to arrest a man. His brother and some other men
tried to take him away from the policeman. This policeman was a big
man. He shoved them away. I think he tore one of them's coat off.
He handled about three of them there at one time. He was bigger than
they were. He didn't let them take his prisoner.
We had a little calaboose down here. We called it a calaboose and
locked prisoners up. Now they take them to Gallatin in a car. Back
then we didn't have any cars to take them in.
DC: How about moonshining? Was there any moonshining around here
that you know of?
WGC: There was some down here in the hills, but I never knew much
about it. I used to know where there was a house down there with a
cave under it. I heard the man who lived there at one time made
whisky.
DC: In the cave?
WGC: Yeah. He'd let the smoke go out of his flue the regular
house flue.
DC: Were there many guns around Westmoreland?
WGC: Quite a few.
DC: Did your father have a gun at the store?
WGC: At one time, he had a pistol in there.
DC: Did he ever have to use it?
WGC: Not that I know of. He put his own brother out for cussing in
the store at one time.
DC: Uncle Syd?
WGC: Yeah. Uncle Syd was back in the store talking and let out a
big oath. My father went back and tapped him on the shoulder and
said, "Syd, I don t allow any swearing in the store." Uncle Syd
apologized. Dad went back up front and was waiting on trade. A few
minutes later, Uncle Syd came out with another big oath. He just went
back and took him by the arm and led him out put him out of the
store.