Elcie Eaves interview recording, 1995 July 18
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Alex Byrd | Good afternoon, Ms. Eaves. Thank you for agreeing to talk with us today. I'd like to start by you giving us your whole name, where you were born and when you were born. | 0:01 |
Elcie Eaves | Elcie Eaves. | 0:13 |
Alex Byrd | Where were you born? | 0:16 |
Elcie Eaves | I was born in Crofton, Kentucky. | 0:17 |
Alex Byrd | That's Christian County? | 0:20 |
Elcie Eaves | Christian County. Right. | 0:21 |
Alex Byrd | What was your birthday? | 0:22 |
Elcie Eaves | 8/30/28. | 0:23 |
Alex Byrd | All right. Well, I just want to start with just asking a few questions about your childhood and what it was like when you came up. Can you describe for us Crofton, Kentucky? | 0:27 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, Crofton is a small country town and I don't know the population because I've been away for quite some years. But now, it's a small town and it's a farm town. People have done farming and coal mines was the work they'd done there. | 0:39 |
Alex Byrd | Did you and your family live in town proper or did you stay out on a farm? | 1:09 |
Elcie Eaves | We stayed in close into town. Closer to town. | 1:13 |
Alex Byrd | How many of you all was there? | 1:18 |
Elcie Eaves | Three of us. Three children. | 1:20 |
Alex Byrd | And your mother and father? | 1:25 |
Elcie Eaves | Mother and father. | 1:25 |
Alex Byrd | What were your parents' names? | 1:26 |
Elcie Eaves | My mother was named Pearl Snorton. My father was named Martin. | 1:28 |
Alex Byrd | What was that last name again? | 1:35 |
Elcie Eaves | Martin Snorton. | 1:37 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. S-N-O-R-T-O-N. | 1:38 |
Elcie Eaves | T-O-N. Mm-hmm. | 1:40 |
Alex Byrd | So that's your maiden name? | 1:47 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. | 1:47 |
Alex Byrd | Well, Ms. Eaves, that's the smallest family anyone's told me since I got here. | 1:47 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, we have a small family of us. | 1:52 |
Alex Byrd | But you all couldn't have lived on a farm. | 2:00 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, but we had hogs, we chickens and horses and cows and pigs and chickens. We were on a farm. My father, he raised his raised tobacco and of course garden, things like that. And corn. | 2:01 |
Alex Byrd | Was that you all land or that you all— | 2:26 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes, it's our land. We had about, I guess 16 or 17 acres there. | 2:33 |
Alex Byrd | Do you know how you all came onto that? Were your grandparents from there also or? | 2:37 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, my grandparents were from Crofton. They lived in—Well, they moved there. My father's mother moved from Tennessee. My mother, they lived—They were born and raised there, my mother. | 2:45 |
Alex Byrd | Your mother's parents? | 3:04 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. | 3:05 |
Alex Byrd | Was your father from Tennessee as well? | 3:07 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. | 3:08 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. So he came up from Tennessee and then— | 3:09 |
Elcie Eaves | He came from Tennessee. Yes. | 3:11 |
Alex Byrd | Who lived around you all? | 3:14 |
Elcie Eaves | It was several families, mostly the family that lived there surround or close by. | 3:18 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. So it was kinfolk? | 3:25 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, kin. | 3:27 |
Alex Byrd | Was it your mother's people? | 3:27 |
Elcie Eaves | My mother's peoples. | 3:28 |
Alex Byrd | What was your mother's peoples family name? | 3:30 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, my grandmother was named Beon Weston. | 3:33 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. Weston was the last name? | 3:37 |
Elcie Eaves | Weston was the last name. | 3:39 |
Alex Byrd | That was that a married name? | 3:44 |
Elcie Eaves | That was a married name. | 3:46 |
Alex Byrd | What'd you do coming up as a child? What was life like on the farm close to Crawford? | 3:52 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, we played horseshoe. We played baseball. We played croquet. | 3:58 |
Alex Byrd | Croquet? | 4:08 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, croquet. | 4:08 |
Alex Byrd | Wow. | 4:14 |
Elcie Eaves | We just done Hopscotch, played Hopscotch and things like that. We just made our game. We didn't have things like the children's have today. We had to make our own recreation ourselves. That's what we done. | 4:14 |
Alex Byrd | What was the range between your brothers and sisters? | 4:32 |
Elcie Eaves | My sister, my brother, he and I—You mean age? | 4:36 |
Alex Byrd | Mm-hmm. | 4:39 |
Elcie Eaves | He was two years older than I. | 4:40 |
Alex Byrd | What was his name? | 4:42 |
Elcie Eaves | Reginald. | 4:43 |
Alex Byrd | Reginald. | 4:43 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. | 4:45 |
Alex Byrd | And then who was next? | 4:45 |
Elcie Eaves | And then I'm next. I'm the next one. And then my sister, Bonnell. | 4:49 |
Alex Byrd | Bonnell. B-O-N-N— | 4:53 |
Elcie Eaves | E-L-L. | 4:54 |
Alex Byrd | E-L-L. She was a baby child? | 4:55 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. She's seven years younger than I. | 4:56 |
Alex Byrd | You played mostly with your brothers and sisters— | 5:08 |
Elcie Eaves | And sisters. And then my mother had two sisters, lived around close by. And they had children. We played with them, my cousins and all. | 5:12 |
Alex Byrd | Well, what kind of work or did you do coming up on the farm as a child? What did your parents teach you how to— | 5:26 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, I planted corn. Well, we chopped up the corn too. We used the hole that daddy would plow it and we would chop out the weeds. | 5:34 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. All of you all? | 5:59 |
Elcie Eaves | My baby sister, the youngest girl, she didn't do much of that because my brother and I, he was two years older than I. We got to work. We the one doing the work. Of course, we didn't do too much of it anyway. But anyway, we would help. | 5:59 |
Elcie Eaves | That's when I learned to drive when I was about seven years old. My daddy had an A Model—a T Model car. He would be setting posters and he would have the posters on a little cart. I would do the driving of the car from one post to the next where he could take them all. He would set the posts. | 6:14 |
Alex Byrd | This was at eight? | 6:41 |
Elcie Eaves | This was about seven, eight. I was that young. (laughs) | 6:41 |
Alex Byrd | Wow. Wow. Do you remember when he got the car? | 6:43 |
Elcie Eaves | I don't remember much about when he got it, but I do remember that I had to, because it was one with the—You give the gas, I believe it was on the steering wheel or something like that. It's been so long, such a long time ago. But it's been a long, long time ago and I was about seven or eight years old during that time. That's pretty good. It's been a long time ago. | 6:46 |
Alex Byrd | That's early driving. Were there any difference in the chores that you did and your brother? Did you all come up pretty much sharing chores? | 7:11 |
Elcie Eaves | We came up pretty much sharing chores, because I was sort of a tomboy too. I was out there doing some of the things that he should been doing himself alone. But I was out there too because we were close. My brother and I were close because we were close in age. And so we were pretty close working together. | 7:23 |
Alex Byrd | How would chores have been split maybe in the other houses between boys and girls that they weren't split at you all house so much? | 7:51 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, I think I was always kind of a type of person. I was an outdoor person. Of course I helped inside too, coming up. But I preferred being outside. I'm just not a, and still today, I'd rather be outside working than to be inside working. | 8:02 |
Elcie Eaves | Anyway, that's just about the way it was arranged because—Well, my parents did know. They weren't the kind that really was strict on us doing things because we had it pretty easy because my father, he worked in the mines and then he cropped, he farmed. | 8:25 |
Elcie Eaves | We had it pretty easy, a lot easier than a lot of the kids up there coming along. We didn't have a lot to do, but we did do okay. They didn't—It wasn't a mandatory thing. We didn't just have to do it, but we would do it. So I guess my childhood was pretty easy. | 8:50 |
Elcie Eaves | I would consider pretty easy to compare to what I had saw some of them doing of course. It was only the three of us and some of the families up there had eight and 10 children and it was much harder. I guess I'm blessed than my childhood, as easy as it was. | 9:16 |
Alex Byrd | Not as many mouths to feed? | 9:47 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. Not as many at the cloth. | 9:47 |
Alex Byrd | So did your father work a certain season in the mines and a certain season more at home? | 9:51 |
Elcie Eaves | He sort of worked—Oh, well now mining was his job, but he'd sort of done the farming on the side. | 9:57 |
Alex Byrd | Did he work nearby? | 10:08 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. He worked the farm that we had, I think it's about 15, between 15, 19 acres there. I don't know exactly, but now he would go to work in the mines and I guess it was six or seven miles from Crofton because he worked in Mannington, Kentucky. | 10:09 |
Alex Byrd | That's still in Christian County? Did it seem like the other men, kinfolk around, did they do similar type of work in the mine and work on the farm? | 10:33 |
Elcie Eaves | No. No, not too many done the farming. Now it was some peoples that—Some of the peoples, they worked out with peoples I guess peoples that were farming. They worked out for the other peoples like that. | 10:52 |
Alex Byrd | So they're like laborers on other peoples farms? | 11:10 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. Some of them worked in the mines. And of course that was the only job they had. It was just different. (coughs) | 11:10 |
Elcie Eaves | Cover my hand—(laughs) Think I'm going to cough. | 11:22 |
Elcie Eaves | Anyway, it was pretty good during those times when I came up. It wasn't the roughest and it wasn't the best. We didn't have any indoor plumbing and we had well water. I think those were the hardest things that I would consider comparing. Of course at the time now, but during the time I didn't think it was too much of a problem. But comparing with now, it was a big problem. | 11:31 |
Alex Byrd | It wasn't like anyone else around, you had indoor plumbing. | 12:06 |
Elcie Eaves | That's right. | 12:09 |
Alex Byrd | What did your mother do? | 12:15 |
Elcie Eaves | My mother, she was just a housewife. Well, now she worked out some for the White family. She did domestic work for a couple of families up there in Crofton. She worked for. | 12:17 |
Alex Byrd | So she'd go to town for that. | 12:32 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. | 12:33 |
Alex Byrd | You remember doing that pretty much a certain time period as you were coming up, or most of the time when you were coming up? | 12:34 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, I remember most of when I was around 13, 14. When I was in school, in high school, she worked some too. I don't know exact the how long she worked. I don't remember. But I know mama was at home most of the times. She worked— | 12:43 |
Alex Byrd | So even when she was out doing domestic work in town, you still saw her a yes lot when she would go to work and not come back? | 13:09 |
Elcie Eaves | No. She would only work maybe three or four hours a day. She didn't work—It's not like she would go in at 8:00 and get off at 4:00. She didn't do that. She'd just go work three and four hours a day. | 13:19 |
Alex Byrd | You mentioned school, so I was wondering if we can talk about school a little bit. Where did you go to school? Did it have a certain name? Did your school have a name? | 13:36 |
Elcie Eaves | We went to school there at Crofton Grade School. That's where I finished grade school. And then I went to high school. I went to Hopkinsville Attucks High. | 13:45 |
Alex Byrd | How far is Hopkinsville from Crofton? | 14:01 |
Elcie Eaves | About 12 or 13 miles. | 14:04 |
Alex Byrd | So not too too far. Well, what was grade school like? How far was the grade school from where you all lived? | 14:06 |
Elcie Eaves | The grade school I walked across the street was right there. Across the road then and it was right next door to me. | 14:12 |
Alex Byrd | You're only the second person who lived right across the street from the school that I talked to. So I usually ask them. But do you still tell your children you walk miles and miles to school or do you go ahead and tell them you crossed the street? | 14:21 |
Elcie Eaves | No, across the street. Across the street. Now, I'll tell you where the walking came in. I had to walk from home up to Crofton to catch the bus when we were going to high school. Now, that's where the walking came in. | 14:36 |
Alex Byrd | Because everyone's got to have a walking to school story. | 14:48 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. No, we'd done that. We'd go to Crofton uptown, we called it, to catch the bus. And we had to be there to catch the bus, I think about 7:00. Boy, that was early too. | 14:53 |
Alex Byrd | That was early. | 15:08 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. | 15:10 |
Alex Byrd | Well, when you were still walking across the street to school over at Crofton Grade School, can you just describe the school to us? | 15:11 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, it was just—Oh, I almost forgotten. Let me see. I think it was just a one room, big room. What we had. And of course the grades, the different grades were sort of separated and had a little space for the children's. It was just a great big building. As I say, we all were there and I think went from about the first grade up to the eighth grade. We were crammed in there like that. | 15:18 |
Alex Byrd | How many teachers in that building? | 15:58 |
Elcie Eaves | I think it was about two. | 16:01 |
Alex Byrd | About two. | 16:02 |
Elcie Eaves | If I remember right, because it's been a long, long time. And of course I don't talk about it. We don't never talk about it too much. I do forget. | 16:04 |
Alex Byrd | If you're not in conversation— | 16:13 |
Elcie Eaves | If someone with you talk on the conversation, then you can remember more because they'll say, "You remember this and you remember this, that." And you can remember more. But I think as far as I can remember, it was about two teachers. | 16:18 |
Alex Byrd | Did you enjoy school? | 16:38 |
Elcie Eaves | I enjoyed school fair. Fair. I guess going to high school, if I could have gone to school there in my hometown instead of going, catching the bus, going that far, I think I would've enjoyed school better. | 16:41 |
Elcie Eaves | But getting up in the morning, we had to be up so early. Of course you had to go to bed so early at night so you could get up. I think I would've enjoyed it better if we had had the school there in Crofton instead of riding the bus every day. | 17:04 |
Alex Byrd | Was the Hopkinsville school, it was Alex? | 17:26 |
Elcie Eaves | Attucks. | 17:29 |
Alex Byrd | Oh, Attucks. Crispus Attucks, like that? | 17:30 |
Elcie Eaves | A-T-T-U-C-K. | 17:32 |
Alex Byrd | Was that a much bigger school— | 17:37 |
Elcie Eaves | [indistinct 00:17:39] Oh yes. Oh yes, yes, yes. Much, much bigger because it was a high school and it was—It's still there today. | 17:39 |
Alex Byrd | That's still in use? | 17:49 |
Elcie Eaves | No, no, no. They have the family reunion there, I think each year. But it's still there on the first street in Hopkinsville. | 17:51 |
Alex Byrd | I might get to go see it. | 18:01 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, it's a big school. | 18:02 |
Alex Byrd | Well, what kind of things did you do Attuck school? Did folks just go to school there, go to class and come back home or were there other kind of extracurricular things that went on at the school? | 18:06 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, they played basketball. They played basketball and things like that because we would get together and go to games because my parents had some friends there that, adults that they would take us and they be responsible for us. And they used to take us back and forward to the games. The lady and her husband, some of her relative and I would always get to go with them. | 18:16 |
Elcie Eaves | Of course my mother and father, they never attended games like that. They never to go with things like that. | 18:47 |
Alex Byrd | Did they ever get to see the school? Did they ever come up to Attucks? | 18:55 |
Elcie Eaves | I don't think so. I don't remember them ever coming up to Attucks. | 19:01 |
Alex Byrd | How far was Hopkinsville from you again? | 19:08 |
Elcie Eaves | About 12 or 13 miles. | 19:10 |
Alex Byrd | About 12 or 13 mile. So that would've been hard. | 19:12 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 19:13 |
Alex Byrd | That would've been a little journey. | 19:13 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes, it would have. | 19:18 |
Alex Byrd | Well, when you were at Attucks, what kind of things as you got older—Attucks, I'm assuming, was an all-Black school just like— | 19:25 |
Elcie Eaves | [indistinct 00:19:33]. Yes, it was an all-Black. | 19:33 |
Alex Byrd | What kind of things would you do for fun as you got older in terms of recreation? Where would you go when it was Saturday or something and you were 16 or 15? | 19:35 |
Elcie Eaves | When we were 16 and 15, 16, things like that. We'd probably go to friends neighbor house and things like that. We played a lot of balls because we didn't have record players and things like children have today. We didn't have all of that. But we had radios, but we didn't have no stereos and things like that. | 19:50 |
Elcie Eaves | Of course we had to do the walking because we didn't have cars. We didn't have the cars like they have today. Now mom and daddy, we had old cars around there but they didn't let us take them out any place. That was for family. | 20:19 |
Alex Byrd | Unless you're setting fence posts. (both laugh) | 20:39 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, that's true. That's true. (both laugh) Working. (both laugh) | 20:39 |
Elcie Eaves | We just went around neighbors and played. We had a park too there that we used to go down and that's most where we'd go and play horseshoe and play baseballs and things like that. | 20:41 |
Elcie Eaves | But we stayed busy. But we thought it was fun, to us, but we'd stay busy playing, doing things, going from house to house. | 20:59 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. Someone would host you at different time? | 21:13 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 21:16 |
Alex Byrd | Were their places in Crofton or in the county that you were supposed to stay away from? | 21:17 |
Elcie Eaves | Oh yes. They had a little place there where they had liquor and things like that. We weren't allowed there. But sometime we'd sneak by and peep in, peep in when we were kids. Let's see, we were in there. But one thing about Crofton was a small town, and of course everybody, there were family. | 21:21 |
Elcie Eaves | Each family would sort of see after the other. Us children, if something went wrong, well, they would go to our parents and tell them. And of course they would correct us. And then they'd send us to our parents. And of course when we'd go to our parents, which was kind of rough sometimes. | 21:46 |
Elcie Eaves | But it was a good place. It was a small town and everybody knew everybody and everybody got—Most of the people got along. I think it was a nice place to grow up. In course. We didn't have the convenience that peoples have today but still, we survived. | 22:09 |
Alex Byrd | When you talked about the kind of small town flavor and being corrected by your elders, you gave me a small giggle. I was wondering whether—Looking back on it, do you think that we've lost something in terms of how we raised our children? | 22:34 |
Elcie Eaves | We've lost that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. | 22:50 |
Alex Byrd | What do you think the difference was in Crofton? | 22:57 |
Elcie Eaves | You mean the difference then and now? | 23:05 |
Alex Byrd | Mm-hmm. | 23:07 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, I'd say in Crofton now, I'd go up there, it's a small town and the drugs up there now with the young childrens. Of course we didn't know anything about it then. Of course we knew about, whisky, people was drinking whiskey, but we didn't know anything about drugs. | 23:09 |
Elcie Eaves | Today, I would be afraid to say anything to somebody's kid. Even if I saw them doing something wrong, I would be afraid to say anything to them because it's just the difference. But when I came along and the peoples there saw me doing something I shouldn't do, they would tell me and then they would tell my parents. Well, now if you go tell your parents, the parents something now, then the parents get mad at you. So best thing to just stay out of it. And it's so hard to do that because we raised two children and if they see my children out doing something, I would be glad for them to correct them. | 23:30 |
Elcie Eaves | But not like that with everybody anymore. And they ready to carry you to court. They're ready to sue you. So the best thing is keep your mouth closed. So that's what I tried to do. | 24:19 |
Alex Byrd | Do you remember coming up, were there times or things that frightened you in Christian County or times you remember as a child or as a young lady being afraid? | 24:36 |
Elcie Eaves | I can't remember anything that I was really afraid of. I don't remember. Nice things happened there, some things happened, but as far as being afraid, I can't remember anything about being afraid. | 24:58 |
Alex Byrd | Nice things would normally happen— | 25:15 |
Elcie Eaves | [indistinct 00:25:16]. Yes, things would happen. Mm-hmm. | 25:16 |
Alex Byrd | —As opposed to things that affected you all. | 25:18 |
Elcie Eaves | But I can't remember anything that I was just, say, afraid of. | 25:25 |
Alex Byrd | Well, that's got to be a good feeling coming up. | 25:27 |
Elcie Eaves | I can't say that today. | 25:27 |
Alex Byrd | I bet you can't find the person who can. | 25:27 |
Elcie Eaves | No, because when I came up, we had screens and we had windows. We didn't have the fans like we have today and we have our screens, and we'd open our windows and hook our doors and then that was it. | 25:38 |
Elcie Eaves | We thought nothing about it. But now, you're afraid which is windows as locked and your door locked, you're afraid sometimes. We don't know what's going to happen. | 25:55 |
Alex Byrd | That's right. That's so true. Well, do you remember at least coming up as a child and as a young adult, what race relations were like in your small community? | 26:07 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, we sort of knew where we stood with on the race because like I say, it was a small town there and it was really no big problem because we knew how far we could go and we knew where we could go and we knew where we couldn't go. So it wasn't too big of a problem there in our town, little town. But when we used to go to Hopkinsville, I can remember this well, that we used to go sometime we'd go the bus station and if we were going someplace, we'd go catch the bus and go maybe to Ebenville or someplace like that. | 26:24 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, we knew we had to a certain area that where they had Colored peoples and then they had water fountains where they have White and then they would have for color, things like that. | 27:12 |
Elcie Eaves | Things like that, I can remember that more than anything else because at then we just thought that was the way it was to be. It was because we couldn't do anything about it and we just had to go along with how it was. But we didn't have too much, probably now. Sometimes when we were coming from school, some of the White kids sometimes would say slur words and things to us, so we'd go up to town. | 27:27 |
Elcie Eaves | They would say, they'd call us names. But I don't think that—I can't remember ever having that because see, I was the kind that would fight, but I don't remember ever fighting with any of them about it. | 28:05 |
Alex Byrd | They must not pushed you too far then. | 28:24 |
Elcie Eaves | But I don't remember having in fights. I may have, but I may have forgotten it. But I don't remember—One fight I had in high school, but it was a Black boy because we stood in line when we were going to eat and we were standing in line. I don't know line how long it was, but it was a long line. And every day he would get behind me. | 28:29 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, they got the pushing and pushing and pushing and I told him, I never will forget his name was Eddie Jane. I said, "Eddie Jane, you stop pushing up against me." | 28:56 |
Elcie Eaves | But what I didn't realize, they were pushing him in the back and he was falling on me. This day I just stepped out of line and just pulled him out of line and we just went to war there, which was terrible. We had to go to the principal's office. Because we both went up there and we both cried, but I was still mad. | 29:08 |
Elcie Eaves | But I get along with people. But during that time, sometime you have to take up for yourself, you have to stand up for yourself. But it was funny, when they look back at things like that, they stand out in your mind more than a lot of things that you can't remember. | 29:31 |
Alex Byrd | Well, did you have to have or did you have much contact at all, any kind of—Besides the White children, of course, yelling slurs at you all. Were there any other contact with Whites in the county as you were coming up? | 29:55 |
Elcie Eaves | No, we didn't have too much because now where we lived, it was mostly Black out there where we were living. And of course, the only time that we would come in contact with the White people were when we would go up to town, the little town up there. | 30:17 |
Elcie Eaves | Because in our neighborhood, they were all-Black surrounding neighborhoods, was all-Black there. And when we would go to town or like I said, when we get off the bus and was coming home, sometime we'd run into them and they'd call us names like slurs, things like that. | 30:32 |
Elcie Eaves | Of course now some of them up there, some of the peoples up there, they have fought with them. They would fight with them. But I never did get into them like that. Our little town, I guess one reason because it was such a small town and then all the White peoples there, they knew the Black. Of course, a lot of the Black there was working for the White, like I say, the White, even in the homes or on the farms. | 30:48 |
Elcie Eaves | Everybody knew everybody there. We just didn't have it real bad there as it has been in the larger towns because everybody knew everybody there. And so it wasn't a big deal. | 31:25 |
Alex Byrd | One of the reasons you gave as far as not having any trouble in town itself or any big trouble, is you kind of knew how far you could go and how far you couldn't go. | 31:47 |
Elcie Eaves | That's true. | 31:56 |
Alex Byrd | I'm interested in how a young child or how a young person comes to learn these rules of segregation. | 31:57 |
Elcie Eaves | We learned it from my parents because our parents came through. They had gone through this before us and they taught us how far we could go, where we could go and where we could not go. They had taught this to us because I mean, they came up and they knew how it was. They taught us so that we wouldn't get in no trouble, because no trouble because— | 32:06 |
Elcie Eaves | Some of the peoples, the White peoples, if they felt like that the Black was trying to take over or doing something, then it could have been trouble. Of course our parents had taught us how far we could go. We had a limit. There's places that we could go and there's places that we could not go. | 32:39 |
Alex Byrd | Do you remember even a little bit what the things you couldn't do, what they told you not to do and what they told you not to go? | 33:04 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, now one of the things I know my parents always taught us when we go into the stores, we just go in the store and get where we want and come on out of the stores. | 33:17 |
Elcie Eaves | Not to be hanging around in there. That's what they would say, hanging around in the store. And they would tell us when we would go up to the store, they'd tell us to come on back, to come on back home and not to be up there in town. Things like that they told us. I remember that. | 33:26 |
Elcie Eaves | Of course when we got up big enough that we felt like that we could sort of take care of ourselves because like I said, we didn't have no lot of trouble up there in that little town where I was in. We'd go to town by ourselves and thought nothing about it because we had been trained and taught how to act and what to do and what not to do. We knew what to do. But we didn't have a lot of problems. I didn't have a lot of problems coming up. | 33:47 |
Alex Byrd | They made sure you weren't having any problems. | 34:16 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes, yes. Right. That's right. Because they knew what could happen because they had come along before and they knew some pretty terrible things that had happened. | 34:21 |
Alex Byrd | In around town before you all came or? | 34:33 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. | 34:39 |
Alex Byrd | Did they draw out lessons to you or did they just tell you not to do anything? Or did they tell you why? | 34:39 |
Elcie Eaves | No, they would tell us. They would sort of tell us, "Now, we don't want have no problems and we don't want no trouble. Now you all do this and you do that because we don't want to start no problem." Now, I have remember them saying things like this because they knew more than we did, but maybe just things they didn't want to talk to us about because they may not want to put the fear in us. | 34:44 |
Alex Byrd | Gotcha. They didn't illustrate stories like sometimes we tell children not to do something because the boogyman will get you, or something. But they didn't illustrate it with, "This is what happened." They didn't give you illustrations of terrible things. Not to— | 35:14 |
Elcie Eaves | No. Mm-mm. | 35:22 |
Alex Byrd | They wanted you to be able to at least— | 35:26 |
Elcie Eaves | Survive and keep our sanity because this can be devastating to a person, to know a lot of things that had happened because I had—This was before my time, but it was—I remember my mother talking about a cousin in the family, a cousin of ours that lived up in Muhlenberg County. The man was going with a White woman and I don't know whether you want this or not. | 35:33 |
Alex Byrd | Oh, I'm fine. | 36:05 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. Was going with a White woman and they hung him down at Madisonville. Things like that has happened. Because James, my husband, can tell you more about the things like that than me because he has experienced more than I have doing things like that. Because— | 36:08 |
Alex Byrd | He came up at different places. | 36:27 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. He came up and—He's been with more different peoples than I have. Because with me working, I worked some, but I didn't experience a lot, even when I was working, because I've just always, after I gotten grown, I just always just treat peoples like I want to be treated and I've just never had any problems, no major problems. | 36:28 |
Elcie Eaves | I've had some small problems, but I haven't had any major problems in what I've done. It hadn't been no big deal with me. But now, James has had some pretty rough experiences. | 36:56 |
Alex Byrd | Just moving around and stuff like that. | 37:12 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. See, he was an inspector. And of course there's a lot of people that resented him, the White resented him being an inspector. But he can tell you about that. | 37:14 |
Alex Byrd | But you knew enough to— | 37:23 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, I knew enough to survive. I knew enough. I knew how far I could go and I knew my limit. I'll say it like that. I knew my limit. | 37:28 |
Alex Byrd | Was there ever a time, we all, at least children and sometimes young folks do things. We do things we know we're not supposed to be doing. The second we do it, we're waiting for the sky to fall. And the sky don't fall and then we're, "Oh, we'll never do it again." Were there ever times when you wanted to break a rule? | 37:41 |
Elcie Eaves | Oh, I broke a lot of rules. | 38:02 |
Alex Byrd | You made it okay. | 38:03 |
Elcie Eaves | I made it. I survived. Yeah, I survived and I broke rules. | 38:03 |
Alex Byrd | What would move you to do that? What were some of those? | 38:10 |
Elcie Eaves | I'll tell you one of the rules that my parents, they didn't allow and I loved to dance when I was coming up. They had a little place down there. They didn't like for us to dance. | 38:15 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, anyway, I would go to this place. We got a bunch of us girls, I could be down to some of the friends and we'd sneak over to this place. They called it the Froggy Bottom. | 38:27 |
Alex Byrd | The Froggy Bottom? | 38:37 |
Elcie Eaves | Froggy Bottom. And we'd go over there on Sunday in the afternoon and we'd dance. So anyway, it got back to my parents. (laughs) | 38:42 |
Alex Byrd | Oh no! | 38:52 |
Elcie Eaves | And mama wanted to know, had I been over there. Well, I told her no. And then she pinned me down so close, I just had to tell her, yeah. She asked me was I dancing? (both laugh) | 38:53 |
Elcie Eaves | I told her, yes. And of course I got chewed out about it. | 39:01 |
Elcie Eaves | But anyway, as I got a little older then, they sort of mellowed down to that, got a little more— | 39:12 |
Alex Byrd | Got a little more slack— | 39:14 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, got a little more, little more, a little more. (laughs) | 39:18 |
Elcie Eaves | Then I made my trip more often, because I thought I could get by with it. I've done several things that I've done. And then one of the main things I've done is when I was about, I guess about 15 or 16, I started smoking. | 39:21 |
Elcie Eaves | My cousin, the first cousin, every afternoon I had to go down to her house. Well, her mother had passed and her daddy, he was in and out. So I had to go down to her house. And mama couldn't figure out why I had to go after I ate supper, why I had to go down to Christine's house. And she said, she told me after I got grown, she said she watched, she thought boys was coming in there, but she never would see no boys. And so she wondered what was going on. | 39:44 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, finally she found out I was smoking down there, smoking. That's what we were doing. I really got into a threat, but it didn't stop me. I kept going. And still today, I'm still doing it. I'm not proud of it, but I'm still doing it. | 40:17 |
Alex Byrd | It's Christine or who got you started? | 40:33 |
Elcie Eaves | But it was fun. We used to go to—When we would go to school when I was in high school, they would give us lunch money and we'd save our lunch money, buy us a package, cigarettes coming back through town. I think they were—I can't think of the—I think they were Marlboro, I'd forget. But anyway, we used to buy us a package of cigarettes and see a package of cigarettes, then last us about a week. | 40:39 |
Elcie Eaves | We would save when one or two days, we'd save our lunch. We wouldn't eat lunch, we'd save our money for cigarettes. | 41:08 |
Alex Byrd | Smoke's your lunch. | 41:15 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. Smoking. I have had several things that I've gotten into it. But one of the main things I will never forget and mama, as long as she lived, she talked about it, mama was— | 41:16 |
Elcie Eaves | We had I guess down about, I guess always about—It wasn't too far, but it was a long distance about from here to down, about the end of that field down there. I don't know the distance. But anyway, it was a sort of like a pond down there where they had to pack water from there to bring it home. We washed on, we had a washing machine. We had to a washing machine late years. But we had a wash board and tub that we used. | 41:35 |
Elcie Eaves | But mama had to pack water from down to this pond. She had packed the water. They had got the water there. And she would get out in the yard with a big kilter. She would heat it. | 42:09 |
Elcie Eaves | But anyway, somehow I pulled out the water. Well, it was two old ladies lived across the street from us. Well, when I done anything, I can't think, I was about five years old, I can't remember it. When I would do anything, I would run to these old ladies across the street from me. | 42:21 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, anyway, when I poured the water out, I knew I was going to get it. Why I done it, I don't know. And then when I pulled it out, I ran to the old peoples across the street, these two old ladies because they didn't want mama to whip me. | 42:44 |
Elcie Eaves | But anyway, mama told me, said, "Now I can't help it. Today," Said, "I'm going to tear your ass up." And she did. She really did. I was home about three years ago. Now, I was about five years old. And this boy lived down the street from us. So he came up and I hadn't seen him. I guess it's been 20 or 25 years. He came up and he said, "Hey Elcie," said, "do you remember when you poured out your mama's water?" I said, "How could I forget it?" I said, "The whipping I got that day." I said, "I'll never forget it." | 42:59 |
Alex Byrd | Everyone knew about that one. | 43:32 |
Elcie Eaves | Everybody on that road knew about it that day. But anyway, I don't know why I done it, but it was so stupid. | 43:36 |
Alex Byrd | First and last time pouring out the water [indistinct 00:43:46]. | 43:41 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes, yes, yes. And she had to carry that water. It was just terrible, terrible, terrible. Just stupid. | 43:46 |
Alex Byrd | Did you always listen, those lessons they taught you about get into the store and get out of the store and don't— | 43:54 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. | 44:03 |
Alex Byrd | But you pretty much kept those. | 44:04 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. And you know what? Those things like that linger stays with you because now you can go in the store, you just feel like maybe somebody's watching you. You have that feeling where somebody— | 44:06 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, I have done been in the store with—Because when I went in the store one day and that's before I started wearing my glasses regular. Well, I had my glasses in my purses. Well, I got in the store, well, I was standing between something, I think it was lingerie. | 44:16 |
Elcie Eaves | I was standing in the store there. But anyway, I opened up my purse to get my glasses and I looked over here. Here was standing a man just standing staring at me like he thought maybe I was trying to get something and put in my purse. That's been several years ago. | 44:35 |
Elcie Eaves | But what I was doing, getting my glasses out of the glass case. And you still have that feeling. They do it. They do it now. They have the cameras and things. Now they can watch you, but you still have that feeling. Just like when I go in the store today, I go in there and get what I want and then I'm ready to be gone. I'm not lingering around. | 44:51 |
Alex Byrd | That lesson is still with you. | 45:17 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, they're still with me. It was instilled. Yeah. It's instilled in me. I just believe in going, getting what you want and getting out. But we have—It's some improving now, but we still got a ways to go. | 45:22 |
Alex Byrd | Yeah. Would you look around now and what is it that you wish had changed that hasn't changed yet? | 45:43 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, I'll tell you, I just wish that we all had the same—We just don't have the chances that the White people—They get the better breaks. We just don't get the good breaks. You may see one out of 10, they get a good break because we don't have the—Even the opportunity now, the kids in school, they don't have the opportunity that the Whites have and they don't have that offer and they don't know about it but they don't have the offer that the White peoples have. | 45:51 |
Alex Byrd | It's still— | 46:32 |
Elcie Eaves | It's still there. And I believe it always be there. It's still a little better, but it's going to always, I believe, be there. | 46:34 |
Alex Byrd | Back in action. | 0:02 |
Elcie Eaves | We got a long ways to go yet before we'll be equal with the White. | 0:05 |
Alex Byrd | When you look back at those times and you see where we've come, can you measure? You see things we've lost and things we've gained? I mean, do you see a trade-off? | 0:11 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, yes I do. | 0:25 |
Alex Byrd | So I mean we can all go to the same school now. | 0:33 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 0:37 |
Alex Byrd | That's right. | 0:37 |
Elcie Eaves | We can go to the same schools, but all of our kids children's don't have the same opportunities that the White has now, which they don't. Now, my son, he's been fortunate, he went to school, and of course he's got a good job, but he was just one of the parchments to do this. But so many go and they come out of school and they don't have nothing. They don't have no job. | 0:38 |
Alex Byrd | And there aren't as many jobs around here as there used to be either. | 1:18 |
Elcie Eaves | No. | 1:19 |
Alex Byrd | And you need—Nowadays, I guess you've got to really go further. | 1:19 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, sure. | 1:19 |
Alex Byrd | The mines, and make a decent living. | 1:19 |
Elcie Eaves | But see, it's no mines now. And that's one of the things that I can understand some about the kids now, down about 13 miles here from Madisonville. Well, that town is just drugs. Well, the kids there, and they'll tell you, "I don't have anything to do." They get out there with the drugs, they selling this drug, they making big money. Well, they going to be there, they're not going to leave it, so they've got to do somewhat some way to survive. And it's sad that it's nothing there. And a place as large as Madisonville, they have no recreation for the Black. Of course they did have Martin Luther King, a building there. Well, the drug, they got to dealing the drugs there and they got fighting. The street, you couldn't go down the street because it was so bad. So it's just sad, but I think if they had something to do, maybe some of this would be stopped. Maybe. | 1:21 |
Alex Byrd | Horseshoes. | 2:44 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, that's right. What we had playing along, go out someplace and put us some tire on the limb and swing and things like that. We've done all of that. But see, now they don't do that. But as large a place as Madisonville, the Blacks should have some type of recreation where they could go and to have to go. If the White peoples wanted a place like that, they would have a place. They got places they can go, but the Black don't have. They got skating rinks over there. Even though you are allowed to go to some of these places, you still don't feel like that you belong there. It's just a different feeling because some of the peoples, they still got a lot of hate with them themselves towards the Black. And it may eventually change, but I just don't see it in my time, a whole lot of change. | 2:46 |
Alex Byrd | Now? | 4:07 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes, yes. But I hope it will because it's so many Black children, they're just wasting their time. They're just wasting their lives. They just don't have nothing to do and they're just out there. And a lot of them has got so much potential that they could put so much good use, but around here it's just nothing to do. So they get hooked up in these drugs and that's it. | 4:07 |
Alex Byrd | Just go further down. | 4:47 |
Elcie Eaves | These drugs. | 4:49 |
Alex Byrd | I'm going to pause it for just a minute. | 4:49 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 4:49 |
Elcie Eaves | [INTERRUPTION 00:04:49] | 4:49 |
Alex Byrd | And you won't get mad? | 4:57 |
Elcie Eaves | No. I won't. I won't. I'm very easy to get along with. | 4:59 |
Alex Byrd | Well, Mrs. Eaves, we're back where we began. I guess I last talked to you, let me see what the date was when we started this interview. No, that's your birthday, July 18th. | 5:04 |
Elcie Eaves | Okay. | 5:17 |
Alex Byrd | Was when I spoke to you. Now it's August 4th and we are trying to finish up. And I believe you hadn't left Crofton when we was talking. When was talking before you was still—Wow, I'm showing up good on the meter. I'm talking too loud. Okay, we were talking about coming up in Crofton and about learning about how your parents taught you about not to spent a lot of time in stores and things like that. | 5:18 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. | 5:46 |
Alex Byrd | And you were telling me about you when you first learned to smoke and about going down to dance at the Froggy Bottom. | 5:47 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. Yeah. | 5:53 |
Alex Byrd | So now I guess you was about—How old were you? | 5:54 |
Elcie Eaves | Oh, I guess I was about 16. 15, 16, in that area, neighborhood. | 5:57 |
Alex Byrd | So we don't have far to get you. | 6:11 |
Elcie Eaves | No, there's been a long way from there now. A long— | 6:11 |
Alex Byrd | If you were 16 then, when did you leave Crofton? Or what'd you do from 16 to— | 6:15 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, I went to school until I was almost 18. | 6:22 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 6:28 |
Elcie Eaves | I finished 11th grade and then I got married. | 6:28 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 6:32 |
Elcie Eaves | In '47. | 6:34 |
Alex Byrd | How old were you? Let me see. You was 20? | 6:36 |
Elcie Eaves | I was 17 when I got married. Well, I was 17 in July. | 6:39 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 6:44 |
Elcie Eaves | I mean 17, and in August I would've been 18. | 6:45 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 6:47 |
Elcie Eaves | So I've been married all my life. | 6:48 |
Alex Byrd | You like that. 17 years. | 6:49 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, it is been a long—(laughs) | 6:54 |
Elcie Eaves | [Indistinct 00:06:54] is awful young though. | 7:00 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 7:01 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. I wouldn't— | 7:01 |
Alex Byrd | I was 21 so that's not far. | 7:01 |
Elcie Eaves | I wouldn't advise it | 7:06 |
Alex Byrd | 20, 21, four years ago. | 7:07 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 7:10 |
Alex Byrd | He was four years younger than me. | 7:10 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 7:11 |
Alex Byrd | And you married Mr. Eaves? | 7:11 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. It's my one and only marriage. | 7:18 |
Alex Byrd | A lot of people can't say that. | 7:23 |
Elcie Eaves | No, we've been together 48 years. The July the 12th, this past July. And that's— | 7:24 |
Alex Byrd | Some folks don't like to talk about their courtship. They won't talk about courtship, but it's an interesting thing for historians and people to see and for young folks to learn about how folks courted back then as opposed to how folks court. Well, folks don't court no more. | 7:34 |
Elcie Eaves | No, no. There's no more courting. No. No, no. | 7:51 |
Alex Byrd | Black people don't do that anymore. | 7:55 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, we didn't have anything to—Well, when we did go to—We did have movies. We'd go to Hopkinsville to the movie. | 7:59 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 8:05 |
Elcie Eaves | And because Eaves did have transportation. | 8:06 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. He had a car? | 8:10 |
Elcie Eaves | And we would go sometimes ball games. | 8:12 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 8:19 |
Elcie Eaves | Things like that at school. School I had gone to. But wasn't too much to do with back there in those times. | 8:19 |
Alex Byrd | So how did boys and girls and young men and young women meet if it wasn't much? | 8:26 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, the way I met James, is a man lived down about three doors from us and he worked in the coal mines during this time, and James had sent word by him that he wanted to meet me. Well, I really wasn't dating then, I was just claiming friend. And because I had to talk to my—Ask my mom and daddy about it. And of course, they approved of him coming as long as he come to the house. So they knew Eaves. Oh, yes. | 8:32 |
Alex Byrd | And said it was okay? | 9:17 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, they let him come. And yeah, they approved of it then. So he started to come and go. I guess we went together for, oh, I guess over a year before we got married. No. | 9:18 |
Alex Byrd | You keep looking up in the air. | 9:44 |
Elcie Eaves | But anyway, I was 17 during that time when it happened and— | 9:53 |
Alex Byrd | So he was a little bit—I'm trying to see how he's about eight years older. | 9:59 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, he's eight years older than I am— | 10:06 |
Alex Byrd | Well, did y'all stay up around there? | 10:08 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, we stayed back and forth. His parents lived here and my parents lived up Crofton. Like I say, it's only about 14, 15 miles in court. We stayed here some and then we stayed in Crofton some, and then when we got married, Eaves had started to building the house. | 10:11 |
Alex Byrd | This one right here? | 10:29 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. | 10:29 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 10:29 |
Elcie Eaves | And he fixed it. I think we stayed in about maybe two rooms for a long time after he got it near completion, had that complete. But we stayed with his mother and father and then we stayed with my mother and father some. | 10:33 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. So that's kind of how y'all as a young couple you kind of make a living. | 11:03 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 11:03 |
Alex Byrd | You work with your parents. | 11:03 |
Elcie Eaves | Because I didn't work, because during those times, during that time, James, he didn't want me working. He felt like that he was working and that I didn't need to work. And of course, it went on for several years and of course it was boring because we didn't have no children. So anyway, I started to—Well, I worked, I helped a lady here in White Plains, do a little domestic work for maybe one or two days a week. I don't remember. Maybe one or two days. But anyway— | 11:03 |
Alex Byrd | You remember how you got that job? | 11:41 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, I met her. I would see at the post office and then, like I say here in the White Plains, it's just a few people here and you see them at the post office and maybe somebody would know somebody that they do house cleaning. You want someone to help do the house cleaning. And then Eaves'—James's sister, she worked for people here in White Plains and they had asked her about somebody helping, if she knew someone that could help for a day or two and— | 11:43 |
Elcie Eaves | Things like that, that's the way peoples would—You would go and maybe work for these people here, of course. I would see them in the post office and I would know their faces even if I didn't know their name. Of course they knew me because it was just only a few Black families here. And of course, it's easier to learn four or five families, Black families, than when it's a whole group of White families. So they knew us and so that's how I got to start working there. | 12:20 |
Elcie Eaves | And then later on during the year, we adopted my daughter and then— | 13:00 |
Alex Byrd | Been in the fifties? | 13:08 |
Elcie Eaves | It was in the sixties. | 13:11 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 13:11 |
Elcie Eaves | Because she was born in 61 and she was 15 months old when we adopted her, and of course she was company for me. But then later on, I can't think, I guess it's about '65, '64, '65, then I started working at Outwood, down at the Outwood. It was a hospital for retarded children. | 13:13 |
Alex Byrd | It's called Outward? | 13:43 |
Elcie Eaves | Outwood. | 13:44 |
Alex Byrd | Outwood? | 13:47 |
Elcie Eaves | And I worked there for five years. And then James was sent to West Virginia as a mine inspecting school. And of course, I quit there, and then Gwen, now we went with him to West Virginia. And I forget how long we stayed up there, but anyway, when I came back, well, I went back to Outwood and worked a while. But I just got to where I just didn't care for working down there so I quit again. | 13:47 |
Elcie Eaves | And then I can't think of what year it was, but anyway, I knew the lady over at Madisonville, she was a supervisor there and her name was Nora McCain. And I was talking to her and I was telling her that I would like to find me a job, something to do. And at the time it was opening for—She worked in social service and during the time they had an opening for what they call them support aids. And what it was, it was working with families, welfare families. | 14:26 |
Elcie Eaves | And what I would do, I would go into the homes and work on budgeting management and they would have the children and I would try to work out a budget each month for the parents so they would know how to buy. A lot of them that couldn't go to the store and buy. I would even take them to the store and shop with them. And then when they would get their food stamps, well, I would take them shopping, grocery shopping, and some of the families was drawing pretty good money because they had those children and they were sort of retarded children, and they were getting SSI. | 15:13 |
Elcie Eaves | And some of the family was drawing maybe a thousand dollars. It's so much per child and it would mount up, and course the mother and father, they was drawing well for it too, but it mounted up to, some of the family was drawing at least a thousand dollars, or well, a thousand and some, and we would work on trying to save. | 16:05 |
Elcie Eaves | And what I was doing, working with the families, trying to keep the families together, keep them in the home so they didn't have to come out of the home and be placed in foster care. So that was my primary job to do with the families. So I worked on that job for 18 years. | 16:28 |
Alex Byrd | Wow. | 16:47 |
Elcie Eaves | And so I retired in, I guess '89. And— | 16:48 |
Alex Byrd | You ain't been too long retired. | 17:01 |
Alex Byrd | You might not—I will remind you what I told you when we first started, that if I ever asked you anything that you don't want to talk about, you just say, "Alex, shut up." | 17:02 |
Elcie Eaves | Okay. (Byrd laughs) Okay. Well, but you can question me now. | 17:22 |
Alex Byrd | Mr. Eaves talks about the time that before he started working harder on himself when he wasn't too proud of himself. | 17:29 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, yeah. | 17:37 |
Alex Byrd | Before his mother died he talked about some time that you lived away, you made your own living with your sister. | 17:39 |
Elcie Eaves | I was with my cousin down in Texas. | 17:48 |
Alex Byrd | Your cousin? | 17:51 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. | 17:51 |
Alex Byrd | Would that have been in the fifties or the forties? | 17:51 |
Elcie Eaves | No, that was in—Because Gwen was with me. Gwen was two years old. | 17:57 |
Alex Byrd | Okay, so that's still in the sixties. | 18:04 |
Elcie Eaves | That was about '60. '63, '62, '63. Somewhere along in there. | 18:07 |
Alex Byrd | So that's a little later. I thought we had missed the fifties, but I guess you got—I'm trying to see what happened. You got married in '40. | 18:08 |
Elcie Eaves | '47. | 18:13 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. So we didn't miss the fifties. You were here, we just didn't— | 18:18 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, I was here. Yeah. We skipping back. Them the years I like to forget about some of them. | 18:23 |
Alex Byrd | Don't like the sixties too much. | 18:27 |
Elcie Eaves | In the sixties. Some of the sixties. | 18:30 |
Alex Byrd | The sixties— | 18:31 |
Elcie Eaves | No, no. But yeah, we had a lot of problems. Because now I don't talk too much about him, because I mean, well, things that you'd rather not talk about. In the past, we would rather leave it in the past because I don't like to open up old wounds because sometimes it's been some pretty bad wounds there, and so I don't talk about it too much. | 18:36 |
Alex Byrd | But you made it. | 19:04 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, we survived because I'm a strong person and I'm determined that if I set my head to do something, then I'm going to do it. Absolutely. Yes. So I gave him ultimatum, either straighten up or it was gone and we just waste what we had going. So things has been, I'll have to say, oh, for last 25 or 26 years, lots better. Much, much better. | 19:05 |
Alex Byrd | That's longer than I've been alive. | 19:36 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. Well, you see how long I've been in this? You see how long I've been struggling here? But anyway, we had our share of problems, but I survived. And I think it really made me a stronger person because I think, of course I did go back and got my GED and I got my high school diploma, but I think it made me a stronger person, because once you out there, you learn you've got to survive. Well, see, Gwen was, I guess two and three years old when we were in Texas. And of course my cousin, they helped me with Gwen. And say I had never been in a big place like that and I have never a big city in Dallas. | 19:38 |
Alex Byrd | Oh yeah. | 20:36 |
Elcie Eaves | And I had never been out places like that and meeting all those different people. You know what I'm saying? And getting on the bus, going to and from work. And I worked at a hotel there for a long time. Adolphus. Adolphus Hotel there, and I was in Texas when Kennedy was killed. | 20:37 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 20:58 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, I sure was. Was that '64? | 20:59 |
Alex Byrd | I think it was. | 21:02 |
Elcie Eaves | '64? I was there and I was working for this family, and this little girl, she came in from school and she came in crying. I didn't have the TV or the radio or anything on, so I was asking, I said, I forget her name, I said, "Well, what's your problem?" She said, "Our president been shot." And of course, then you could get on the phone and dial and they would give you a little information about what was going on and everything and that's how I knew it. And then when I was working, where I was working, I had to come right back by the library where he was shot and— | 21:04 |
Alex Byrd | Booked? | 21:47 |
Elcie Eaves | I booked. Yeah, sure did. And there was little bridge. It was a bridge there and then the way I was coming from, that way, and then the bus in this way, the library supplies, it was over on the left there, and the bus driver slowed down when we went by so we could see it. I was there when that happened. And it was a terrible scary time too down there in Dallas during that time, because riding a bus to and from work and it was just scary. | 21:48 |
Alex Byrd | It just made you feel less? | 22:29 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, it sure did. Absolutely. | 22:29 |
Alex Byrd | I mean, you talked about finding work in White Plains and how you pretty much see anybody. | 22:33 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, well, see— | 22:38 |
Alex Byrd | Was it different in the city? | 22:38 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes, it was. Because I'll tell you what, when I first went on the job, my cousin, she worked for Neiman Marcus. | 22:41 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 22:58 |
Elcie Eaves | Down in— | 22:58 |
Alex Byrd | Did I tell you I was from Texas? | 22:58 |
Elcie Eaves | Uh-uh. | 22:58 |
Alex Byrd | That's where I grew up. | 22:58 |
Elcie Eaves | Sure enough? | 22:58 |
Alex Byrd | This is familiar. | 22:58 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. She worked for Neiman Marcus's wife and they had a big store, I think there. But anyway, his wife, I never will forget, I didn't work there long, but she was working there. | 22:58 |
Alex Byrd | At the Marcus's? | 23:09 |
Elcie Eaves | The house. | 23:09 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 23:09 |
Elcie Eaves | And I didn't work there long because she was working there. But anyway, I sort of just go and helped her learn some things just for a few weeks. Because I knew how to make a bed, but see, I didn't know how to tuck a bed. People's wanting it tucked, and put—Yeah, possibly the corner and all that. See, I didn't know about that. And so I got there and I learned all that about it. Because I could cook some, but I couldn't cook like a lot of people wanted to cook. And I would just watch her, just more or less learn how to do things. And I didn't stay there long with her. And then after then she knew some more people and then I went to those people and worked for them. And then I got the job at the Adafas Hotel and I worked there for a long time. And then, well, we didn't stay in Texas. We were there I believe about 15 or 16 months. | 23:14 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 24:11 |
Elcie Eaves | And so we came home, back home, and we intended to go back. The people that I was working for, they were going to Europe, and I came home, I was coming home for two weeks. | 24:13 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, when I got home, Mr. Eaves, we got back together and he wanted us to stay because we had this daughter, girl. We had never gone through the adoption with her and I had to the get the approval before I even left to take her away. And so they approved for me taking her with me because I told them I had a relative there would help me with him. And because Eaves, he didn't approve of that. | 24:25 |
Elcie Eaves | But anyway, we left because he didn't know really we were going. But while we were down there, he wanted us to come back. And I felt like if we ever got back that we wouldn't be going back. Because I mean, it's hard because I had never been out there. And especially with a child trying to survive with it, it wasn't easy. But anyway, we came back and we got back together and later on we finalized her adoption and everything. | 24:55 |
Elcie Eaves | So yes, we had some rough times after that, but anyway, I survived it. And I went on because I felt like that I'd been into it so long and then seemed like it was just here and there, here and there, until I just said, "Well, I'm going to make the best of it I can because I had her and I didn't want to be running here and running there." And I thought, "Well, I'll just give him enough rope and then when one day maybe come in." So that's kind of what it do. Yeah. | 25:25 |
Alex Byrd | Young people don't worry about it. | 26:02 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. I'll tell you, I went through it, but I mean I am strong. I survived it. And then we got Mike, because I feel like, and I still say that today, because I believe in God. Now, I'll say it like this, and in '72 I lost my mother. Well, my mother and I, we were real close. And so I was having a rough time during that time. And I had never thought about it, because Gwen was 11 years old and I've never given a thought about adopting another child. | 26:03 |
Elcie Eaves | So the lady, my supervisor, she didn't say anything to me at work, but she came up here one day and she asked me, she said, "Elcie said, what do you and James think about adopting another child?" And I told her, I said, well, I said, "Tell you the truth, I feel like we are—I'm in my forties." I said, "I feel like that I'm too old now for a child." And I said, "Gwen, I think about 11." And I said, "I feel like there's too much difference in their age." | 26:50 |
Elcie Eaves | She said, "Well, I'm going to have a child. The child is from a good background. The only problem is, he's a biracial. His mother is White and his dad is Black." And I told her, I said, when I know I said, "Eaves is not here." I said, "But I worked with White children, I worked with Black." I said, "And color don't mean a thing to me." And she said, "Well, you think it over." And I said, "Well, when James come in, I'll talk with him and I'll let you know something." I said to her, "I'll let you know something when I come back to work next two or three days." | 27:24 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, when James came home and I talked to him about it, well, the more I thought about, the more I wanted to do it. And he said, "You are the one that's going to have to do the work with it." He said, "You do what you want to do." | 28:00 |
Elcie Eaves | I got on the phone that night and I told Nora, I said, "Yes, we want the baby." Well, the baby hadn't been born then, but she knew she was going to have that baby because the girl was giving up for adoption. So I told her we want the baby, so we started the process of getting the baby. | 28:13 |
Elcie Eaves | And of course, we got Mike, he was five weeks old and we've had him and proud of him. Proud of him. Proud of him. Well, I'm proud of both of them. Mike has graduated from college and he's got a good job. He's working in sports in Lexington and I'm proud of him. | 28:30 |
Alex Byrd | He does sports reporting for the TV station? | 28:54 |
Elcie Eaves | On Channel 27. I can't think of what it is, WX—I can't think of what it is. | 28:54 |
Alex Byrd | But you watch him when you're up there? | 28:54 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, see, I don't get to see him now. I happen to bring the tapes. | 29:07 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 29:15 |
Elcie Eaves | I got the tapes of him. | 29:15 |
Alex Byrd | We'll watch them after the— | 29:15 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes, he brings the tapes to me, so I get to see him. And we go up there to see him, but we usually go up there when we had an apartment himself. | 29:16 |
Alex Byrd | I just want to make sure I was okay. | 29:31 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 29:32 |
Alex Byrd | Technical, okay. | 29:32 |
Elcie Eaves | When he had an apartment up there, we'd go up there and stay a couple of days with him because he was by himself. But see now, they in such expensive place, three of them has to share it, the apartment. | 29:34 |
Elcie Eaves | And so when we go, we have to get a motel. But if we go, we only stay maybe a night. We went up there, his birthday was the 20th of July, so we went up that Friday. They had a birthday party, so we went up to his birthday party. | 29:46 |
Elcie Eaves | So we're just proud of him. Just as proud of him as can. The rest reason I say, it's not the birthing of a child that make you happy about a child. You love a child regardless of who, what he is, whether you birthed him or not, because he doesn't know anything else but us. And we raised him from five weeks old until 23 years old now, so we're just proud of him. Of course, the girl, we're proud of her too. Because she didn't want to go to college. She went one year at the Bowling Green and she didn't like college. | 30:02 |
Alex Byrd | That's Western? | 30:43 |
Elcie Eaves | Western Kentucky. And so after the year was up, she decided she didn't want to go back. So I told her, I said, well, I said, "Now, we told you." We have always stressed schooling for these children because we never got to go. We didn't have the opportunity, so we always stressed, get your education. And so I told her, I said, "Well, now if you don't, I'm not going to try to make you go to school if you don't want to go." I said, "Maybe a few years then you may decide that you want to go." But she hadn't decided yet, and so I told her, I said, "Well, if you don't go to school, you have to go to work." | 30:43 |
Elcie Eaves | So she went to work over to Roses. Roses store at Madisonville, because they've gone out of business now. She worked there for about 10 years, then she got married and her husband was in service and she went to Germany and stayed, oh, I guess six months, I guess. So she came on back and now she's here with us and he's in Mississippi and she's working for Trover clinic in Madisonville data process. Yeah, and so she's doing all right. | 31:23 |
Alex Byrd | When she was coming up, did she go to—Were her schools integrated by the time she was 18? | 32:06 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. She went to school out here at White Plains. | 32:13 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 32:16 |
Elcie Eaves | We had a little grade, this is where she went to grade school out here at White Plains. | 32:17 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 32:20 |
Elcie Eaves | When she went to high school, she went to South Hopkins down here at Nortonville. | 32:22 |
Alex Byrd | They had worked that out by the time— | 32:28 |
Elcie Eaves | Oh, yes. | 32:30 |
Alex Byrd | Your child was in school. | 32:30 |
Elcie Eaves | Yep. Mike, he went all the way through school, grade school, he was the only Black in his class. Because it's not—Just a few of us here. And course, the two boys that was about his age, they were a grade, and one was a grade ahead of him and I think one a grade behind him, so all of his classmates were White. So he doesn't know anything but White (laughs) because that's just— | 32:33 |
Alex Byrd | Wasn't no Blacks around? | 33:05 |
Elcie Eaves | No, wasn't no Blacks around. | 33:06 |
Alex Byrd | Was it like that? I mean, when y'all first moved here, are there just fewer Black families now? | 33:13 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, it's fewer Black families now. No, it was several families here. Well, it was, I guess eight or 10. They were older peoples. Even when I moved here, the peoples were much older than I was. I mean, they were old. Well, I was young when I first came here, but most of them were old. | 33:18 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 33:42 |
Elcie Eaves | And of course, there weren't too many that had children out here because the children, the older people's children had gone away from here. | 33:43 |
Alex Byrd | Was there such a thing that you would call a Black community in White Plains when you first lived here? | 33:56 |
Elcie Eaves | Even here on this road, it was—Let me see. Two, three—It was about six family, Black family here on this road when we moved here. | 34:03 |
Alex Byrd | Did the Black folks in the town tend to live together? Or were there some—I know you can't call this a neighborhood, yards are too big, but did Blacks tend to—Did their land tend to join each other? | 34:17 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yes. | 34:33 |
Alex Byrd | So it was about six Black families out? | 34:37 |
Elcie Eaves | On this. | 34:39 |
Alex Byrd | At Drake Creek? | 34:40 |
Elcie Eaves | Uh-huh. | 34:41 |
Alex Byrd | And did Blacks live other places? | 34:43 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. Over where? You've been over at Allen, over Nortonville Road, it was some Black over there. | 34:44 |
Elcie Eaves | And then it was about three, four families lived that back alley. See, we didn't have no streets then. No name of the street, so we just had to say, off of this road and off of that road, but it was about four families live back over this. Of course, you go down this way and go back over in there. | 34:50 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. So it's still over back toward the Levins? | 35:15 |
Elcie Eaves | No, it's on [indistinct 00:35:16] side on back this direction. | 35:15 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 35:18 |
Elcie Eaves | If you're going back to towards Greenville, it's a road down here. It's two big stone houses. | 35:18 |
Alex Byrd | I've seen. | 35:26 |
Elcie Eaves | Okay, well, you would go between those houses and go back over in that area. | 35:26 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 35:36 |
Elcie Eaves | And it was about— | 35:36 |
Alex Byrd | When I'm going through there I'm going to see what that's called. | 35:36 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I believe it's Scott's Road now, Scott's Lane. We didn't have no streets during the—We didn't have no name of streets during then really. It hasn't been too long ago that we got the names for our— | 35:36 |
Alex Byrd | For these streets? | 35:48 |
Elcie Eaves | For street. | 35:48 |
Alex Byrd | Did y'all call the areas by certain names though anywhere? I know out by, what's now Kay Springs Road, most of the Black folks around Greenville call that—What do they call it? Rhodes Chapel? | 35:52 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. Okay, yeah. They used to call out here—Let me see. What did they call that here? They used to call out there, out in the sticks. | 36:06 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 36:11 |
Elcie Eaves | That's what they call. And they called down here, down on the big road. I guess a big road, I believe. It was more families over here. | 36:11 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 36:27 |
Elcie Eaves | And they called out there, out in the sticks. That's what they called it. | 36:28 |
Alex Byrd | That's what they called out between Scott Lane, or? | 36:30 |
Elcie Eaves | No. Between Scott Lane, they called out there, out in the sticks. | 36:36 |
Alex Byrd | What about out by where the Levins stayed? Did that place have a name? | 36:38 |
Elcie Eaves | Over on Dixie. | 36:39 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 36:39 |
Elcie Eaves | Oh, Dixie Highway used to—I guess the highway used to be over there. They called it Dixie. Over on Dixie. | 36:43 |
Alex Byrd | Seems like they should have kept some of their names. Should've named Scott's Lane, Stick's Lane. | 36:52 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. | 36:53 |
Alex Byrd | They should call this Big Road. | 36:53 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, those two houses there, Scott's lived in them. | 37:00 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 37:04 |
Elcie Eaves | They were brothers and they lived in those houses, those stone houses. | 37:04 |
Alex Byrd | That was a White family? | 37:08 |
Elcie Eaves | Uh-huh. | 37:10 |
Alex Byrd | Further back there? | 37:10 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, back. That's when they called, back in the sticks. | 37:11 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 37:14 |
Elcie Eaves | You go back. | 37:14 |
Alex Byrd | Because it was off the highway. | 37:17 |
Elcie Eaves | Back in the sticks there. | 37:18 |
Alex Byrd | Well, when you first moved here, you would tell me about how when you first started working out and how you would meet people in the post office, whether you wanted to work, was there a way that you'd figure out once somebody wanted to hire you? Was there a way you'd figure out whether you wanted to work with them? | 37:21 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. Yes, it was. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, if I had someone, because I didn't do that much anyway, just maybe one or two families I worked here. And one family, I was working for her, I went to work, we were cleaning her house, they were school teachers, they were Oats. Well, anyway, I know that woman died and I know we were working by the hours and I was there and there was a White girl there. I happened to come in the kitchen and she was messing with the clock. Well, I never thought anything about it. | 37:45 |
Elcie Eaves | And after that I looked at my watch and I thought, "Well, that time is not together." But I thought, "Well, maybe my watch is wrong." Well, she was there setting the clock up. Now, I don't know how much time. I don't remember, it's been so long ago. But I said, I know that woman died thinking because I was there. Because the girl lived next door to her and I know she thought that I was the one to set that clock up, moved it up to get out sooner, and the girl done it. I saw when she done it, but I never did say nothing to her about it. | 38:19 |
Alex Byrd | This was another girl who was working there? | 38:53 |
Elcie Eaves | Working there too. And we were working there. And I know Ms. Oats and them thought. Her son lives over here and I still—I told Eaves about that and I told her, I said, "I know that she thought. Because I had never worked for her before and this girl lived next door to her and the parents and everybody, and I'm sure she thought, well, I know she didn't do that." And I'm sure she said—I took the blame for the clock being moved up. So just little things like that, that happen, I think about it. But I never did too much work around here, because just maybe a few days. I don't know. It just really wasn't too much to do here. And after I started working at Outwood, I stayed there, like I said, five years, and then when I started working over with Madisonville. | 38:55 |
Alex Byrd | You want to take that off? | 39:55 |
Elcie Eaves | I'm trying to—I'm good. I have asthma and I've been out there in this grass and it doesn't help any. But anyway, I liked what I was doing at Madisonville. I loved working with children because I felt like I was doing something. So, but housework, no. Domestic work, no. That's not. So I stayed with the state and retired from them. And so— | 40:07 |
Alex Byrd | What they call that over there were you—So you were working at the hospital for a while? | 40:35 |
Elcie Eaves | Outwood, and I worked in Department for Human Resources. | 40:43 |
Alex Byrd | Department for Human Resources. | 40:44 |
Elcie Eaves | I was working with the state. | 40:47 |
Alex Byrd | And that's where you stayed 18 years? | 40:47 |
Elcie Eaves | When I first started working there, it was called the Child Welfare. | 40:52 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. Had there been Blacks working out there before you got there? | 41:00 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. I think it had been, because my supervisor was Black. | 41:11 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 41:14 |
Elcie Eaves | She was Black. And then when I was working, it was only three secretaries, Black, the social worker. It was about four Blacks working over there. | 41:15 |
Alex Byrd | So it was a good number. | 41:37 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 41:37 |
Alex Byrd | He's a critical man. | 41:37 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 41:37 |
Alex Byrd | Do you remember around here when things started to change, when the restaurants and what have you started to be not segregated as opposed to segregated? | 41:39 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, no, James told me here about—He gets out and he finds out things like this, I don't. Because see, we don't have too much here, but you mean around in Madisonville? | 41:53 |
Alex Byrd | Yeah. Madisonville. | 42:04 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. Well, now— | 42:06 |
Alex Byrd | Stuff like that. | 42:07 |
Elcie Eaves | I really don't remember because— | 42:13 |
Alex Byrd | I'm not asking for a date when it happened, I'm just saying, do you remember when the change took place and what that was like? | 42:13 |
Elcie Eaves | Oh, yeah. Yes. Because let's see, it's been sometimes ago that we've been able to go in the place and sit down and eat and do. Of course, I don't remember. I can't just really remember just about what it was, because like I said, I have never been in a position like James has, where he would go to places, these places, and be denied of things like that. I have really never been in places like that because I have never been exposed like he's been exposed to the community, in place and working with peoples. | 42:25 |
Elcie Eaves | And see, he has gone with peoples, the peoples he worked with, because most of all those were White peoples. And I'm sure he had a lot of things that he has experienced. But see, I have just haven't been—Because see, when I worked at Outwood, well, we ate there at the hospital, that dining area. We ate there and everybody ate together. No, that was in the sixties and there was no discrimination there. But like I say, I know not to get up and go into these places where I think, well, you are not supposed to go in there, because see, I don't like my feeling to be hurt. I never have my feeling to be hurt and I just sort of stayed away from these places. Because now, ever since I've been working at Madisonville, started working at Madisonville, but when I'd go to places to get sandwiches, I don't remember ever being turned down or anything like that. But one time we were coming from, I don't know, we've been down to the lake down at Eddyville. | 43:09 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 44:25 |
Elcie Eaves | And Gwen stopped at a restaurant. We drove up to the restaurant and she had to go to the window to get her place of order where she wanted. Now they wouldn't wait on her then. | 44:26 |
Alex Byrd | How old was she? | 44:38 |
Elcie Eaves | Gwen was about seven. | 44:38 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. | 44:41 |
Elcie Eaves | I guess she's about seven or eight and she went to the window and they never did come to the window to even wait on her. Now, that was during that time, that was in Eddyville. We'll forget that. But now, far as being here, and that was in the seventies, I guess sixties, late sixties or early seventies, because Gwen was born in '61, and she was—I guess Gwen was eight or nine, somewhere like that. But anyway, we just drove, stopped, and we drove up and she wanted sandwiches, a ice cream or something, and so we was sitting here and it was just a pavement there and you could just go across there and place your order. But they never did come and wait on her. | 44:42 |
Elcie Eaves | Now see, that's the kind of stuff that really would get to me. That's why I wouldn't go into these places because I knew the places that they didn't do that. And see, I didn't go into them, because see, I don't like my feeling hurt like that and so I would just stay out of it. And that is one thing I appreciate my parents teaching me, is to go places and get out and do not hang around and just get on out. Because I mean, you don't know. Because see now, the children would've took it. Now see, they would've went in there and they would've took out what they wanted. | 45:31 |
Elcie Eaves | But see, it's definitely if it was like then, but see, we knew different. We knew not to do nothing. We knew—Yes, yes. Because I don't know, like I say, I was never exposed to the things with the public that James has been exposed to, so therefore, I can't say too much about the things that went on because I've never had too many experience like that. Because see, if I went in a place once and they told me nothing, see, I wouldn't be back. | 46:08 |
Alex Byrd | No, you wouldn't come here no more. | 46:44 |
Elcie Eaves | I wouldn't go back anymore. But I've always been able to stop and get me a sandwich since I've been working in Madisonville. Since these late years, what I'm saying, since I started, I'll say within the last 25, 20— | 46:46 |
Alex Byrd | Okay, we're back on now. | 0:02 |
Elcie Eaves | Well see, the thing about it, people will tell you, "Do you know you're not allowed there?" Well, why go when you know you're not allowed? | 0:03 |
Alex Byrd | That's right. | 0:15 |
Elcie Eaves | I'm not the one that's going to buck the system by myself. And so I guess that's what's been with me. I knew I couldn't do this and so why go? That's just the way it has been with me. | 0:15 |
Alex Byrd | Stay out of trouble. | 0:27 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes. Now, I've never been in a place, I guess 'cause I never been [indistinct 00:00:35], but I've never been in a place and they told me that they wouldn't serve me. Now, I've never done that before, 'cause see, I didn't go in many places. There's where that comes in. Because if I was in the public and a job and going in different places and going here and there, different places, well I may would've had that experience, but I've never had that kind of experience. If a person asked me out of the place, I'll tell you, that is pretty rough, isn't it? But it's, peoples has been asked out. But I've just been blessed and fortunate and— | 0:28 |
Alex Byrd | Well, and careful. | 1:16 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes, that's the main thing, careful. That's right. Because— | 1:16 |
Alex Byrd | Wasn't just luck. | 1:20 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, but you see, when you grow up into this environment, we knew it was there in Crofton, just like I told you. I can't encounter any major problems there in Crofton. But we knew where we stood. And just like I told you, we'd go to the store. Sometimes the White would call us names, but we could call them back because—If it's something like that. Sometimes they would throw at us a thing or something like that, but far as any major problems, we didn't have any. And that's what you get in these little small towns, because everybody knows everybody. | 1:21 |
Alex Byrd | Black and White? | 2:02 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, because see there was only maybe about 450, 500 peoples from where I came from. And of course now my dad, he was the kind of person—Now he worked in the coal mines and then he would farm. He was working on the farm and had a nice crop. Mama told me about it. Had a nice crop out there. He was in town and the man he worked for, he heard him call him a nigger. Well, Daddy would never go back no more. Now that's the kind he was, person he was. Said he heard him talking about that nigger he had working for him. Daddy left the field, the corn and the whatever he had out there, the tobacco and everything, he just left it. The man was good to him. | 2:03 |
Elcie Eaves | Mama said the man was good to them. Give them things, but Daddy just—He was that type of person. Because he was from Tennessee, and course I guess that was a lot that stuck with him down there probably, that he'd been used to being treated pretty bad. 'Cause he came Kentucky I think when he was a young man, but he just never did go back, Mama said. He left the corn and so he had to get somebody else, some tobacco, whatever he had, he left it in the field. He didn't go back. And Mama said she hated it so bad because it was a big help to them, her, to us. | 2:56 |
Alex Byrd | That's just the kind of man he was. | 3:38 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, that's the kind he was. But I say today, even though I can tell you, you can go in the stores now. It's not all—Now, I have noticed this. I am an observer. Whether I say anything or do anything, you can go into some stores now. Well, you're not waited on as fast as some of the White girls. It's still there. And I feel like it's in the—My generation, it's going to still be there. Now, eventually maybe it may get better, but it's like that in the stores today. Eventually they get around to you sometime, wait on you, but sometime it takes them—They takes their time to get to. I've noticed that, especially in these clothing stores. | 3:42 |
Elcie Eaves | And I know one time I was in a store, and I think I told you this before though, about me. I didn't wear my glasses too regular. I got in the store and I was standing there, get my purse, opened my purse there, about around the—I don't know what I was standing around, dresses or what, but anyway, I was opening my purse to get my glasses out and I looked around and just—It looked like eyes coming from everywhere. I guess they thought I was going to steal things. Yeah, it's just kind of feel uncomfortable about things like that. | 4:38 |
Elcie Eaves | 'Cause I didn't think a thing about it; opening my purse, getting my glasses out of my case. But as if they was watching to see what you're going to do. I have noticed that in some of the stores, and I'll tell you one thing is in some of the finer stores that you go in that we have around here, we have nice, pretty nice little stores over in Madisonville. Some of those peoples they have in there, they a little slow on waiting on the Black. I've noticed that myself now, I've noticed that. | 5:13 |
Alex Byrd | And that's just around here lately? | 5:52 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes, and that's here recently. But eventually they do come to wait on you, but they take their time sometimes. | 5:54 |
Alex Byrd | They don't trip over themselves. | 6:04 |
Elcie Eaves | No, mm-mm. And it doesn't mean that I want them to rush to me, but I have been in the store and to tell you the truth, I have walked out because someone else would come in after I've been in there, then they'd wait on them. Now, I've done that. | 6:05 |
Alex Byrd | Before they do you? | 6:22 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, before they do me, so I have just walked out of the store. It's little things you notice, but like I say, I guess it always will be. | 6:22 |
Alex Byrd | Or it'll be awhile. | 6:38 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, it will. Yeah. | 6:40 |
Alex Byrd | Were there—Oops, you about to say something? | 6:47 |
Elcie Eaves | No. | 6:54 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. When you first came to White Plains, did the Black women in the community ever get together for things? Did you meet folks at places? Was there ever any socializing, just among the Black women? | 6:54 |
Elcie Eaves | No. We didn't do no socializing, no. Only thing we done, we go to church. | 7:10 |
Alex Byrd | Okay. Right over here? | 7:15 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-hmm. Well now, yes, I take that back. Sometime on Saturday we'd have a little ice cream after church or something like that. | 7:17 |
Alex Byrd | Would that be the whole church, not just the women or anything? | 7:28 |
Elcie Eaves | No, that would be the whole church, of course. The men was—But it was no socializing here. | 7:31 |
Alex Byrd | Not that much? | 7:39 |
Elcie Eaves | No, no, I didn't. | 7:45 |
Alex Byrd | Because some folks had bridge clubs or pinochle clubs in some places, where women would get together and just— | 7:45 |
Elcie Eaves | No. | 7:52 |
Alex Byrd | —talk about their days. | 7:53 |
Elcie Eaves | Mm-mm. Not here. | 7:54 |
Alex Byrd | You see them in church and that was it? | 8:00 |
Elcie Eaves | That was it. Yeah. Just see them passing the road here, go over to the house. That was it. Sometimes you stop by and say, "How are you doing?" And visit a while, but no socializing. | 8:00 |
Alex Byrd | All right. Well, I end all these the same way, Miss Eve. | 8:11 |
Elcie Eaves | What's that? | 8:19 |
Alex Byrd | I end them all the same way. | 8:20 |
Elcie Eaves | Okay. | 8:21 |
Alex Byrd | Where I just ask you to imagine someone listening to this long after both of us is gone and just what kind of advice would you leave them, or words of wisdom about how you've made it as far as you have and how they might do the same? | 8:22 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, first thing you have to do is believe in yourself. Have confidence. I would say never give up. And I'd say if you're a young, a young person, to get as much education as you possibly can because it's one of the most important things it is going now. And if you don't have education, well you have to take whatever you can get. Something maybe nobody else wants. You got to do the—I call it the dirty work. And if you got education, you can pick and choose what position that you feel you want to go in. I would say get your education and never give up on yourself. Just have confidence because it's going to be rough. Every day is not going to be sunshine. After 67 years, soon be 67 years, 30th of this month, I'm just blessed and thankful. If I can do it, as they say, anybody else can do it. | 8:42 |
Alex Byrd | If they work. | 10:10 |
Elcie Eaves | That's right. If you work. | 10:11 |
Alex Byrd | It ain't just anybody can do it. | 10:14 |
Elcie Eaves | If you work, you can do it. | 10:17 |
Alex Byrd | Just do the work. | 10:17 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. You just, nothing comes to you easy. You got to work for what you want. You don't have no flowerbeds of easy work (laughs) | 10:19 |
Alex Byrd | Well, I sure appreciate it. This is my last evening. I'm going to go home and I'm getting up at 6:00 in the morning. | 10:28 |
Elcie Eaves | I imagine you'll be—(laughs) | 10:40 |
Alex Byrd | 6:00 in the morning and going to Michigan. | 10:40 |
Elcie Eaves | Oh, really? | 10:41 |
Alex Byrd | Yes, ma'am. | 10:44 |
Elcie Eaves | Oh well, you got a long drive. | 10:44 |
Alex Byrd | About eight hours. | 10:46 |
Elcie Eaves | I drove up there about four years ago. | 10:48 |
Alex Byrd | What part? | 10:52 |
Elcie Eaves | Mount Clemens. It's about, I forget how many miles from Detroit. | 10:53 |
Alex Byrd | I don't know where that is. Mount Clemens? | 10:57 |
Elcie Eaves | Uh-huh, Michigan. | 11:01 |
Alex Byrd | Is it north of Detroit or south? | 11:03 |
Elcie Eaves | Let me see. Which is it? | 11:07 |
Alex Byrd | Here's Detroit, about right here. | 11:08 |
Elcie Eaves | Okay, here's Detroit. Well I guess it's east, it would be. | 11:11 |
Alex Byrd | Okay, east and north? | 11:16 |
Elcie Eaves | Would it be east and— | 11:16 |
Alex Byrd | Well, it depends on [indistinct 00:11:19]— | 11:18 |
Elcie Eaves | Wait, let me see, because Detroit is here and we go—I guess it would be east. | 11:18 |
Alex Byrd | Okay, a little east of Detroit. | 11:26 |
Elcie Eaves | I guess that would be. | 11:28 |
Alex Byrd | I've never been there. | 11:29 |
Elcie Eaves | Mount Clemens. I have some relatives up there. | 11:30 |
Alex Byrd | Did they move there from here? | 11:33 |
Elcie Eaves | From Crofton. | 11:36 |
Alex Byrd | What'd they move up there for? | 11:37 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, they worked up there in the Ford. They worked there in the plant. They got jobs up there. | 11:39 |
Alex Byrd | Did they leave in the '50s or '60s? | 11:45 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. They've been there for years. Yeah, they left then. But I went up to a funeral. One of my first cousin died and I drove up there by myself, all the way there and back by myself, but two peoples were with me. But I done all the driving. | 11:50 |
Alex Byrd | That's a long drive. | 12:11 |
Elcie Eaves | Oh yes. It was a long drive. And my brother, he was—It's been about six years, I guess. My brother, he was following me. We was with each other, driving together and he was—Let me see, I was ahead of him. But anyway, in Cincinnati he pulled up to me and he told me to exit off there at Cincinnati. Well, I didn't need to exit, I needed to go on around. And we got lost there in Cincinnati. But my son here, he drew me a map. And he looked on the map and showed me what highway to take. I went on into Mount Clemens from his direction. Of course you see the signs all along. And when I stopped at Mount Clemens, when I did get there and stop and called my cousin, he told me I was just right at his house. He told me he had the porch light on. He'd be standing on the porch. I drove on around the corner, right there. | 12:12 |
Alex Byrd | You made it from doorstep to doorstep? | 13:08 |
Elcie Eaves | Yes, sure did. But I wouldn't want to do it—I wouldn't do it. Six years makes a difference. My nerves and things now, I don't believe I could do it. | 13:09 |
Alex Byrd | Don't want to do it again? | 13:18 |
Elcie Eaves | No, that's too far. Too far. | 13:19 |
Alex Byrd | Did you ever go—Were there lots of folks in Crofton earlier who left out of Crofton and on to Michigan? | 13:22 |
Elcie Eaves | Oh yeah. Yes, Michigan. One family would go, then they'd bring the other one on. And yeah, it was quite a few family went up to Michigan. | 13:27 |
Alex Byrd | So many folk got relatives up there. | 13:38 |
Elcie Eaves | I have. | 13:41 |
Alex Byrd | About three, four people I talked to have folks who went to Flint and Saginaw and stuff. | 13:41 |
Elcie Eaves | Oh yeah. I have some relatives in Detroit too. My son's girlfriend that he had a son by, he lives in—Well, she lives in Pontiac and he lives in—I can't think of where Sammy lives. Well, it's there somewhere, right there— | 13:48 |
Alex Byrd | It's by Pontiac? | 14:15 |
Elcie Eaves | Uh-huh, yeah. They up there. And I have several cousins there in Michigan. It was my nephew, he lives close to Pontiac up in there somewhere. | 14:16 |
Alex Byrd | Well, plenty of folks. | 14:36 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 14:37 |
Alex Byrd | Plenty folks back left around. | 14:37 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 14:37 |
Alex Byrd | Just left the South and headed for Michigan and stuff, when they were looking for jobs. | 14:40 |
Elcie Eaves | Well, they go up there and work with Ford during that time, and of course that was good jobs. And they went up there and of course they—When I went to Mount Clemens, I told them just about everybody—Mount Clemens is made up of Crofton, the relatives up there. It was so many families up there. | 14:46 |
Alex Byrd | Crofton in Michigan. | 15:04 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. They had had children, peoples my age that had gone up there and then their children stayed up there, and all around is just Crofton up there. I tell them Crofton in Michigan. They just made up a little town and looked like it nobody but Crofton up there. When I went to the funeral, I never seen so many peoples that—For offsprings and everything. | 15:04 |
Alex Byrd | From that little bitty old town. | 15:32 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah, from Crofton. That's right. | 15:32 |
Alex Byrd | I bet you a lot of them are like that. | 15:35 |
Elcie Eaves | Yeah. | 15:37 |
Alex Byrd | [indistinct 00:15:43]. | 15:37 |
Elcie Eaves | Now, where are you going? Saginaw? | 15:42 |
Alex Byrd | Saginaw. Well, actually Midland, which— | 15:45 |
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