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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Nancy Holt, October 27, 1985. Interview K-0010. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

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.