Holt's activism to preserve Cane Creek.
Holt describes her involvement with the Cane Creek Conservation Authority. She explains the various fundraising activities the group used. Holt's sacrifice of material desires demonstrates the importance of preserving the Cane Creek community.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Nancy Holt, October 27, 1985. Interview K-0010. 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
- FRANCES E. WEBB:
-
Well, you've talked a little bit about the Reservoir. I was
sort of saving that controversial thing for towards the end. Did you
ever get involved in the Cane Creek Conservation Authority?
- NANCY HOLT:
-
From the first. I was the lady that made all the biscuits, that put all
the ham in it for seven, I guess, seven years. Bruce and I were very,
very actively involved in everything that went on.
[Brian hands Nancy a telephone message.]
Thank you. In fact, over our thirteen or fourteen years of
marriage, prior to this Cane Creek thing - I guess it must have been
fourteen years of marriage - I had fallen in love with
silver. I had acquired a lot of pieces of silver. And when
we had the first Cane Creek fund-raising, I gave every piece of silver I
owned to be auctioned off to raise money. The--everytime there was
something going on, I either provided--depending on who was running the
show, I always provided all ingredients for the bread making, oftentimes
paid for all the kitchen ingredients for any of the craft fairs, always
made the barbeque sauce for the things. So, this was my contribution,
maybe a couple of hundred bucks every, everytime something was going on.
We had our Christmas sales; and I'd handle the bake sales;
and I'd bake things and - it was fun as well as having a
cause. Great sense of community. I guess, intellectually, I knew that
the community could not continue the way it was. I knew that. Because
you're running out of land and the population is increasing.
My gut feeling was I felt threatened; our way of life was threatened.
And, you know, you never go through this introspective period. And you
never wake up every morning saying, "Gee this is a wonderful
place to live and I'm so glad I'm here."
You don't do that at all. It's just an acceptance
of a level of comfort, a sense of self, a sense of community, a sense of
belonging. And all of it--and that's a lot to be threatened.
And the way it was handled, the complete disregard for the people that
lived here. Because we were small in number, the assumption was that we
had no value. And our perception of the way the whole OWASA thing was
handled, is that they had a meeting and decided one day that this would
be a nice place to put a lake. And then they proceeded to do it. Without
regard to the people; without regard to the laws; without regard to the
people of Chapel Hill. Now it's cost
the people of Chapel Hill millions of dollars. And for a temporary
solution to a long-term problem. Chapel Hill should have become a part
of this county-wide or, or counties-- future planning for the use of the
natural resources. They should have looked at the long-term needs of the
area and made some type of sharing arrangement instead of going off on a
tangent. And in, in their tangent they have split people in the
community. They have created a monster that threatens the livelihood of
lots of people for a temporary solution. And there was no validity to
them coming here except that they decided there wasn't enough
folks out here to worry about.