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Excerpt from

Oral History Interview with Nell Putnam Sigmon, December 13, 1979. Interview H-0143. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

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Finding community and friendship as a widow

Throughout the interview, Sigmon talks about how much she relies on the people living around her, particularly the other widows. She returns to this topic frequently.

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About this Excerpt

Interviewer	Jacquelyn Hall
Interviewee	Nell Putnam Sigmon
Excerpt Length	0:02:50
Start Time	00:28:20
Stop Time	00:31:10
Subjects	Southern Women > GENDER AND GENDER RELATIONS > Social Bonds: Female-Female Southern Women > FAMILY AND DOMESTIC SPHERE > Family and Community Relations Southern Women > FAMILY AND DOMESTIC SPHERE > Kinship Networks
Excerpt People	Sigmon, Steve Sigmon, Clinton

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Nell Putnam Sigmon, December 13, 1979. Interview H-0143. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

JACQUELYN HALL:: After your husband died, how did you make the adjustment then to being on your own? What was that period like?
NELL PUTNAM SIGMON:: If it hadn't been for my widow friends and my neighbors… I've got neighbors … [END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A] [TAPE 1, SIDE B] [START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
JACQUELYN HALL:: They're as close to you as relatives?
NELL PUTNAM SIGMON:: Yes. Call me every day and lives up here. I'm not a bit more afraid to stay here than nothing. But at first I was. This widow lady over here and this widow over there, she has a son with her. But I would go over at night and spend the night with her a lot. And then I decided… My son sort of talked me into selling this place and coming on down and living with him, get me a trailer. They're as nice as a home, . He has all this land and everything. He said, "Mother, if you're not satisfied, why don't you just sell out and get you a trailer or something and come on down and live beside us?" And I said, "Well, Steve, my friends are all uptown, and my neighbors, and the people I go to church with. They've done so much for me, and it's home to me. I think I'll just be better satisfied to stay here and try to work some, too, and get out and go some, too." So I sort of got adjusted, and just one week I absolutely decided that if I was going to keep this place, I had to make up my mind to stay here and make the best of it, although I was scared at night. I'd get up, you know. But yes, I got over it. Because I have some widow friends that are very close. We just sort of buddy together. That's helped me, I reckon.
JACQUELYN HALL:: You'd get up and …
NELL PUTNAM SIGMON:: At night and look out to see if it was anything.
JACQUELYN HALL:: You'd hear noises.
NELL PUTNAM SIGMON:: Yes. And I'd go back to bed, go back to sleep.
JACQUELYN HALL:: Had you ever had any kind of frightening things happen to you?
NELL PUTNAM SIGMON:: No, not after I lost him. Nobody never bothers me or anything. And everybody now knows I live here alone. Of course, the Highway Patrol station's up here, and we have a good friend that works up there. And I told him if I ever needed anybody right quick, he'd be one of the first ones I'd call.