Full Text of the Excerpt

ALLEN TULLOS:

Do you remember the Depression years very much? Were they hard on you?

NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:

Oh, yes. I remember we had a hard time. We's living right here in Judson at that time.

FLORENCE GRIFFITH:

Right up there in the house, number ten. We lived there nineteen years.

NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:

Next street up there.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Were both of you working?

NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:

Oh, yeah, we all three—Harry hadn't never got married, my oldest son—and we all three, neither one of us didn't have a job and we couldn't get a job anywhere. And we wasn't the only people, there's others having time like that. But we finally pulled out of it when it got to where we could go to work.

ALLEN TULLOS:

Did the Judson Mill curtail back then, or cut back on the hours or work?

NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:

I don't know what happened that, but I just know there a Depression, and couldn't get a job.

FLORENCE GRIFFITH:

Everybody was laid off.

NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:

Yeah, they couldn't—somehow or another couldn't make it. I don't remember. Anyway, I know we couldn't find anything. We couldn't even find a job no-where, everybody else was laid off around. That was bad time. We got in debt, but nobody didn't refuse us. And when we all went back to work, we soon paid it off. It just come around so good.

ALLEN TULLOS:

How long do you think you were out of work?

NAOMI SIZEMORE TRAMMEL:

Well, we was out of work pretty good while. And there was a man, Frank Howard, we's trading with him, out there at the crossing, getting groceries and things from him, before that happened. And we always paid our debts. And we's getting milk from another man. And so we got in debt with that, and they wouldn't cut us off. So when we went to work, we'd pay our bills. We can pay a little bit, you know, add on to our bills. First thing you know, we come out on top. It wasn't near hard's it seem. But we didn't know what in world we's gon' do.