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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview K-0280, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Raymond and Eunice English are an elderly Duplin County couple who weathered Hurricane Floyd. They are joined by their son, Wayne, and their nephew, Charles. Wayne and Charles do most of the talking in this lengthy interview, describing their experiences with the flooding and their frustrations with unregulated pollution from hog houses as well as with inadequate and disorganized relief. Like many flood victims, they are trying to rebuild their homes and lives with very little monetary help from the state and federal governments and are relying on volunteer and religious organizations for help. The English family pays particular attention to the effects of the flood on their community. They believe the aging farming community is in decline and worry that the flood may have grievously damaged its self-sufficiency; yet, by the end of the interview seem quite proud of the pervasive ethic of responsibility and cooperation. Many excerpts include Raymond's discussion of the history of his community and/or his personal history. Researchers looking for local history should read the entire interview for some interesting recollections.
Raymond and Eunice English, along with their son and nephew, worry that Hurricane Floyd may have irreparably crippled the aging Duplin County, North Carolina, farming community.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
—in the Civil War. On the letter he had written to the cousin over here that lived down there in Findley, that he was on guard duty and the war was about over. He was doing all right and hoped everybody back home was. And if nothing else happened he'd soon be back home. Told them not to answer the letter because it wouldn't get to him in time, and just those little chit—chat things that a person would write. But after we found it and got to looking through it, someone made the comment about him on guard duty. In 1865 you didn't have fountain pens. You didn't have ball points or anything like that to write with. And how he must have been writing it with—wasn't it quills?
Quills pen, right, a goose quill, I guess.
He wrote in blue ink. After it was over he had dotted it all over in red ink. Why we don't know.
I wonder if the red ink would have been something like
We have no idea. But it was amazing—as much as, you know, children
ransack trunks way back in those days—why I had never seen it before
until after all my ancestors was dead. And one day I just opened up the
trunk and it seemed like it jumped out at me. I had made some copies to
give the kids in the family. But mine was in a drawer that went to the
river. So I lost that.
Well, for purposes of the tape I'd like to just say we're here in the Northeast community. If I could have people go around and say their names, I think that'll help the one who transcribes to know whose voice is whose. State your full name. And it's on December 8, 1999. I'm Charlie Thompson.
Eunice English.
Raymond English.
Wayne English.
My name is Charles Russell English.
I'm Rob Amberg.
Okay. Thank you. So we were just hearing Mrs. Eunice English describe some of the letters that she had saved from the flood. You had a lot more but you say —
Some —
Probably thirty different pieces here.
Uh-huh.
And who was this person in the Civil War? How is he related to you?
He was my grandmother's nephew or first cousin. I do not know for sure. He was a Lee from over in New Bern area.
Oh in New Bern.
She was from over there. So it was some of her close relatives.
And you grew up in that county over near—.
I grew up in Pender County.
In Pender.
Um-hmm.
Okay. In what community?
Shelter Neck.
Okay. Shelter Neck.
Near Bergar.
Okay. And you and Mr. English are married.
That's right. Soon be fifty years.
Were you always from this community, Mr. English?
Yes, sir.
Where do you live now? How far from this location?
One tenth of a mile.
Okay. Good. And that was Shelter Neck?
Um-hmm. That's where I came from.
Okay.
His mother came from there. My granddaddy came from up here. And his daddy was up here. So they criss-crossed visiting.
Is that how you two met?
Um-hmm.
You want to tell that story, how you met and where it was?
Well, at that time his daddy was sick. His cousin that lived down next door to me came up to see his uncle. So a bunch of us came up with him because it was family connections. So that's how we met, visiting.
That was which year?
Forty-six.
In 1946 when you met.
And married in fifty.
Okay, how is everybody else related here?
That's our son.
I'm the son.
That's our son. This one is his brother's son.
Nephew.
Son and nephew.
Okay, son and nephew. Well with all of these rich knowledges and histories represented, it's hard to get it all on one tape. Often with oral histories, we concentrate on just one person's history. That's usually known as a life history. But what I'm trying to do here is mix in life history with the community and flood history all together. So we'll go backwards and forwards a little bit. I want to include parts of your lives that will enrich this collection about the flood. Because in order to know what was lost and what the community's like, this community that was flooded, I think we have to go back into history some. And so we have those kinds of stories. Your saving of these letters is part of what was lost. So maybe we could talk about that a little bit. How did you get these—.
You talking about how the community basically started?
Yeah. Should we start with that or—.
I could probably give you the overview on—.
Well let's start with that then.
Well, a personal note: I used to be quite active in doing genealogy
things. I ran into a clinker and I just got it laying aside so perhaps
one day when I retire I'll have the opportunity to pick it back up
again. But our personal family genealogy that I can document goes back
to 1790. I am of the fifth generation, Wayne and myself. Uncle Raymond
is of the fourth generation. And, of course, the other generations are
long gone. The first documented record that I have of the English family
in this country is 1790. And that was in Pender County, which is, as the
crow flies, less than fifteen miles from where we sit here. In 1800—to
be brief—1836, our generation came to this property right here. A
gentleman by the name of Stephen English, he had two marriages, raised
two families, of which our generation is from his second marriage. He
had a son and two daughters of which was my grandfather and Uncle
Raymond's father. At the time he came to this part of Duplin County in
1836, of course, there were Teacheys—surname Teacheys. That's one of the
older names of Duplin County. And, of course, there were Hancheys of
which perhaps you have interviewed some today. I think Betsy told me
they were on your schedule. The Carters were a very dominant name in the
community. The Batts and, of course, the Cavenaughs, Southerlands,
Englishes, Bradshaws, and each were given territory then. And it's
amazing that how these parcels of property are still in the families
About a quarter of a mile up the
Okay. That was across the creek. Is that the one beside the church or the one up there around Mr. Carlise's before they moved it to the church?
One side of the church.
Okay.
One side of the church.
Okay.
At first it was two rooms. What we called big room and little room. And
they went as far as eleventh grade, twelfth grade. Well, when it got
kind of thickly populated through here, they built on to it. They built
a room onto it. Later on
Twenty-eight, twenty-nine.
Well, no, it was before then. Let's see I graduated in twenty-eight and twenty-nine and went through—. So that was twenty-eight, twenty-nine—about twenty-five.
Twenty-five. That's when they went to the old Clements School in Wallace. Is that right?
The old Clements School in Wallace. There's where I went, continued until I graduated.
From high school.
Yeah. The first year a bus ever went up and down this road, I drove it. I drove for four years. It was an old dirt road at that time. One of them was a Model-T. It was a push and a pull. The last two years I had a different bus. It was a Dodge. It held about four children. So that's about the early part and the later part of my life.
Did you go to the little school up here at Paisley before then?
Yes.
And how did you get there?
Walked.
How far of a walk was it?
I'd say two tenths of a mile or so.
Isn't that the old Annie Mae Hanchey house?
Yeah.
Okay. That was the school was it not?
That school is beside the Northeast Church, which is right over here
across the creek. The church was established in 1828. At that time it
was part of the old original Freewill Baptist Church. As a matter of
fact, we just celebrated our hundredth anniversary last year. To be
brief and summarize, I feel that our community is a strong community
with very, very deep roots. You could interview anybody in this
community and they would tell you basically the same thing. Not to be
derogatory, but to someone outside that would come in here, may consider
us not from a religious aspect but maybe a cult community in that we've
got our little old idiosyncrasies and we've got our ways, as is true in
any rural community. When I say we, I'm saying that collectively. We
don't like a lot of progress. We like things to be the way they were
thirty, forty years ago. It's a general consensus of most people in the
community. You've probably heard that already. We're not easy to accept
growth by any means. I think most of the people, particularly sixty
years and older, would rather see things stay the way that they are.
Several political issues have been brought about in the community that
have been voted down, for instance, county water systems. We're country
folks, you know. We've got our own water. God's given us water. So
that's the type of community that we are. I also feel that as in any
rural community there are patriots that are more domineering when it
comes to civic organizations, religious organizations. Every community's
got to have a spokesman and we've certainly got ours. We've got our
leaders and those that are good followers in the community.
Before you go on, when you say farming no longer exists, many people might think, well, there are all these turkeys that are—. What do you mean by farming?
Well, when I was looking from tobacco I grew in my era—and I'm
fifty-five—we didn't know what chickens were unless you go out in the
yard and kill one for dinner. That's how things have changed over the
last thirty years. Yes. There is a poultry industry here. There is a hog
industry. But in this particular community we don't have any hogs. Maybe
one or two, as the crow flies,
Around here it is.
So I'm speaking in terms of just this community. I think—this is my
opinion—but, yes, the flood has definitely changed the community. Now
this is my opinion. Because of the devastation, neighbor can't help
neighbor anymore because everyone is so preoccupied in getting their own
affairs back together. Before we had the church to fall back on, we had
neighbors to fall back on. But with the devastation there's nowhere to
turn. And people are too in tuned to trying to get their own affairs
back together. I think the consensus of the community is that those that
can afford to make their repairs are getting aid, while those that
cannot afford to make their own repairs aren't getting as much. So I
think there's a spirit of enviousness or perhaps competition. Some will
restore on a short-term basis, some will restore on a long term basis.
Some may not ever. My Uncle Raymond is at a young age of ninety plus
living on a fixed income, as most people of retirement age are in this
community. And without relief—. The biggest
Going back, speaking of the early days, the way that we farmers made our
money was with strawberries. Well, as time progressed I remember when
tobacco first come into this neighbor. My father and Mr. Johnny McNettis
over here built a barn, and they put out a little tobacco and they grew
it. And they sold it out here to Wallace
Did you grow strawberries?
Yes. My father grew strawberries. While I was in the war I was working in
the shipyard. I was first drafted into the war and stayed in there at
Camp Landry, Florida. When I left there I come to
In Wilmington? Where in Wilmington?
In Wilmington shipyard. I worked there three years and six months, five
days. And the war broke
And how many children did you raise by farming? That was your main income, I assume?
Two.
Two children? There's Wayne and you have another—.
One is deceased.
Okay. And Mrs. Eunice, were you working off the farm or on the farm as well?
Helping him and busy raising the boys and keeping things going.
Okay. Somebody mentioned earlier that there was a strawberry market in Wallace. How did that work?
It was the strawberry market of the world.
The world.
The radio station here is WLSE, world's largest strawberry exchange.
An old water tank out there—on the old water tank, Strawberry Capital of the World.
I don't know how true that is.
1930, 1940.
For a ten-year period it was the largest strawberry producing county?
No. World's largest strawberry exchange. It would be like the largest
produce market that there was, certainly in the United States. When they
said the world back then, you know, the United States was the world. But
it did carry the title of the world's largest strawberry exchange.
That's where everybody took their strawberries,
This was before California found out about strawberries apparently.
It must have been.
So do you know how far your strawberries went in the country?
New York, Baltimore. They shipped them all over the place. At that time it was by rail. But later on, it got by trucks. Naturally, the rail lost out and they finally quit running.
I haven't seen a railroad track here anymore. Is that gone?
Well it's in Wallace.
There's one goes into Wallace to the wholesale place there.
Mr. English, how many acres of strawberries were you growing?
Well at that time we were two to three, sometimes four acres.
You mean it took a lot of people to raise those.
It took a lot of work. It took a lot of rake and straw, too.
They didn't have tractors back then.
We wouldn't have but a full four acres in but one year. But we would rake the straw over them of an evening, rake it off of a morning. That would keep the bloom from getting killed. So you couldn't do very many that way. But after a while it got to the place that if you took the weather as it come, you could increase your acreage.
That's one reason they called them strawberries, wasn't it? Now when you went to pick them who all participated in that?
Well people in the neighborhood. The last years I had them I went over at Maple Hill and got colored people and put them in an old house that we had back over there. They lived there and I paid them. I don't know if it was five cents a quart.
They used to pay—I picked them for five cents a quart and they would give you a little token, a little tin token every time you would pick a quart. You had to pick them with the little stems on them. They had to be so long. Had to have them stems on it for some reason. I haven't figured out why. They couldn't be too ripe. As a child I remember picking strawberries right out there. They give you a little token. At the end of the day they would count your tokens. I can remember getting a nickel for every quart that you'd pick.
I can go back further. I remember them being a cent and a half.
I can go back further than that being a penny. The first money I ever made in my life I made picking strawberries for Mr. Billy Duff. I asked him if I could pick his strawberries. He said, "You reckon you can do it?" I said, "Yes, sir." I was small back then. "You take the outside row." I said, "Uh-oh, I'm whupped now." But anyway I picked enough strawberries off that row to get me a dime. So I had money. Could go to the store and buy one of these long sticks of candy.
How long would your picking season last when you had a couple or two or three acres of strawberries?
The strawberry season? It would last around three to four weeks.
You paid a penny or as little as a penny and a half or five cents. What were you selling those strawberries for at that point?
Well they were taking them out to Wallace for about three dollars a thirty-two quart crate.
S when you were growing two or three acres you were selling a lot of quarts. Do you remember—?
Made a trip or two a day.
And when you shifted over to tobacco, what sort of a size allotment did you have?
Well about three acres at that time. It was an old log barn. I remember that the logs was drug out of the river swamp down here, a Cypress log. I went out there and I just couldn't crawl up on that log. So they had the tobacco right behind the place there and some over there. When they moved it was to Hickory Pryor.
Hickory Pryor?
Hickory Pryor. Yes, sir.
P-R-Y-O-R?
I guess.
Was that the type of tobacco or was that the name of—.
That was the name of the tobacco.
Name of the tobacco.
Yeah.
Variety mainly that you were planting.
Right. But it didn't make much
And when did you stop growing tobacco?
About ten years, I guess, now.
At least that long.
You grew tobacco for about forty years. And made the majority of your living by tobacco then for that long? Where were you selling your tobacco?
Well, I carried some as far as Georgia. I carried some to South Carolina to Jasmine. And sold in Wallace. Sold in Wilson. Sold in Rocky Mount. Sold in Kinston. Sold wherever I heard that it was a good price. That's where I went and sold my tobacco.
There was no tobacco market in Duplin County.
Not in Duplin.
Not in those early days.
Then later there was one in Wallace?
Yes, it came to Wallace. Langston and Fairger built a tobacco warehouse up on Main Street in Wallace.
Is it still there? Is that warehouse still there?
No. A Wal-Mart's there now.
This was about the fifties, wasn't it Uncle Raymond?
Huh?
That was about in 1950 wasn't it when they built that warehouse in Wallace? Was it earlier than that?
It was earlier than that.
It was earlier.
Uh-huh. It didn't stay there I'd say a period of eight or ten years. The town began to progress. It had to get going.
Well as the town began to progress, what was making the town grow if tobacco had to go?
Well, tobacco was coming in strong.
Oh, tobacco was strong.
Yeah.
But the tobacco warehouse had to go.
They built more.
Okay. In Wallace?
Um-hmm. They had—how many tobacco markets were there up there in the hay day like?
There was Langston and Fairger, Sheffield—.
Bill Hussey.
He had an early warehouse.
So there was about four or five—.
The industry began to change drastically in Duplin County in 1951 when the textile industry came to Duplin County. I spent thirty-five years and twelve days there. Plant closed—.
J. P. Stevens?
Started out at J. P. Stevens. I started there in 1962. In 1986 they sold out to the Cosan Group, which was knit fabrics. They were later bought by Delta Woodside Corporation in 1986 and they closed that facility March the fifteenth 1998.
And when you got out of school when you first started working you went directly into the textile industry?
Directly into textiles as an industrial engineer.
You went to NC State?
No. I went there right out of high school. Graduated from high school May the 22nd 1963 and started there June the 6th 1963. I worked there all of my working life until a year and a half ago when the company shut down. I spent twenty-eight years in research and development. The last five years I was there I was a planning manager. When they closed the doors I had to seek employment.
Where did that plant go? Where did that company go?
It closed.
Closed completely?
As [did] twenty-eight more plants across the southeast.
They didn't go to another country?
No. That's what cost us the company, this off shore products. We couldn't compete with foreign labor and that's why the company shut down.
Then what did you go into after textiles?
Well I had some offers in textiles. But the apparel business due to the
NAFTA act that was passed in this country, we can't compete anymore. I
elected to
Okay.
And I'm office manager of a local heating and air company. Hard road to
handle. Then a year and a half after that, having to adjust to half of a
salary, then the flood comes. I'm
No. I understand.
But, that was the leading industry in Duplin County up until about a year and a half ago.
What is the leading industry today?
Pigs.
Pigs. Do you call that progress? Is this progress for most of the people here?
Personal note. Well I'd have to say from a political aspect, yes, it would be growth. However, growth has a price to pay. That kind of growth, I think, has been detrimental on our environment. I don't want to sound like an ecologist or one of these people that gets out and totes signs. But it's had a devastating affect on our environment, to our rivers, to the pollutants, to a well right out here in my yard that has been chlorinated four times and we still don't have drinking water. It has wasted the water. We never had these problems before so they came from somewhere.
I think that the major problem with the devastation was not really the
water but the actual contaminants that were in the water. Used to be
when they had floods, as I think I've mentioned before, the water would
recede and people could go on
Well obviously the contamination is still here, isn't it?
The contamination is still here. Wells are still contaminated. Our clean water and clean air acts are just being mocked in this community, not only state but federal, clean water and clean air acts. It's just a mockery the way it's being treated. Most of the things that people lost could have been saved if runoff water hadn't come through here. But due to the amount of bacteria and everything, everything was just so contaminated that it had to be got rid of for health reasons. And we still don't know what the future affects of that will be. There's been a lot of illness in the community, a lot of sickness, a lot of sores that won't heal, a lot of upper respiratory problems. According to one doctor I talked to, they don't know really what to plan on six months from now, but they do expect a lot of respiratory problems
In 1962 we had a flood in the community. It doesn't compare to this at
all. It didn't go in Uncle Raymond's house. I think it lacked six or
eight inches for getting in his house in '62, but I'm using that to say
that when the waters receded in 1962 I think people still harvested some
of their tobacco. The soybean crop, they harvested it. The corn crop,
they harvested it. To reiterate what Wayne has said, go look now.
There's no green vegetation at all even to trees. We had planted some,
over a thousand pine trees down on mine and my brother's property down
in the Creek Swamp, what we call the Creek Swamp. The trees
Pesticides. Could there have been herbicides in that water?
I'm sure there was.
I think a lot of it is contributed to—and here again, this is a personal opinion—from the chemicals that are used in some of these swine industries, perhaps poultry as well, that have gotten into our wells and into our drinking water, and certainly in the streams. My sport is canoeing. The northeast Cape Fear River runs about—I believe it's ninety miles from its point of origin down to Wilmington.
Where is the point of origin?
Ghossen Swamp is actually where the northeast Cape Fear River would start, which would be up in the Goldsboro area.
Okay.
Going towards Goldsboro.
Can you describe that river? Have you floated it all the way down? I mean, can you just kind of go through in your mind from leaving that swamp all the way to the ocean? Do you know the river that well?
I have only made the trip all the way to the ocean one time in my life.
When we canoe we will go up to a little town called Beulahville, which
is about fifteen,
About how wide?
The widest point there would not be over probably twenty-five, thirty feet.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Anyway, I have canoed the river in low water where you would have to drag
the canoe at times, and I have canoed the river when the water would be
receding, I mean, would be out of the banks. You really couldn't tell
where the run of the water would be or the run of the river would be. It
is a beautiful river. As a matter of fact, I have met canoeists on that
river that would come as far as Pennsylvania just to canoe the northeast
Cape Fear River because of its natural and scenic content. There's
beavers. There's otters. There's deer. I've never seen a bear, but there
is just about any kind of wildlife you want to find on that river. To
say the river is clean, no, it's not. Not compared to what it was
fifteen years ago. You can tell every time that you get close to a hog
house, as we call them, a swine producing facility, because you can
smell the stench from the river. I have actually canoed the river when I
would see suds coming from ditches that would be coming from a hog house
up on the hill. I have tried to attack it on a political level in going
to our county commissioners, making complaints and it didn't seem to do
any good. About a year and a half ago there was funds appropriated to
clean that river. Somewhat over—how many million? Don't quote me, but
well over a million dollars to clean that river, which, in my opinion,
caused more devastation than it was before the
Let's go back to Beulahville area, the Goshen Swamp. Is that right?
Goshen Swamp and go back down through here. A lot of times we've heard
through this flood story in other communities, it's all the development
that's occurred: housing and new roads and so forth. When you look at
the watershed starting up there at the swamp,
I think the change is locally. I think a change in the farming system has hurt the rivers more than anything else. Yes, we do have a new facility right down the road here, River Landing, that big golf resort.
Well the logging industry runs that.
Yeah. The logging—. Everybody has sold—.
Every bit of tree that—.
Yeah. There's very few trees standing there.
I heard one the other night that a tree could absorb, I think, it was well over two hundred gallons of water a day. People that we've talked to that have dealt with floods before has told how much affect development does have. Like I say, in this community you can just keep seeing the logging industry. I heard one report the other day that they have just logged out this part of the country—that you had to go up to where the mountains or the northern part of the state now to find good tracts of land.
It's a great affect to the—.
The outcome of that instant money-making business is never realized. Same
way with when you try to pack two million hogs in one county. You go to
figure up that a hog puts off four times the amount of nitrogen and
maybe forty times the amount of ammonia of human waste. When you've got
two million hogs in a county, you're figuring, well, you've got two or
three New York cities dumping their waste in
A big erosion problem.
You said open and untreated waste. Is that in the hog industry line? Is it that lagoons are a way of treating—?
There's no way to treat the lagoon waste other than—.
Well, it's open air. I mean you've got nitrogen and such components of the waste are absorbed into the air. Then it rains back down. So they can say it lays on the bottom all they want, but, you know, it's absorbed into the air and then it's carried over to the mountains. I'm sure everyone's seen pictures of the trees in the mountains now from the acid rain affect it's having up there. You just can't dump that. All these ponds—. My father's had a pond for years and years and years. The last ten years the pond stays green all summer long because of nitrogen based algae that grows. It just won't go away. There's just so much nitrogen. It used to be a nice place with beautiful water. People would go fishing. I've looked at ponds around the neighborhood and all around the county. Even running water, the mill pond bridge, the famous grist mill—one of the oldest in this area. I looked at it the other day when I went by. It's running water and it's still eaten up with green algae.
The creeks are the same way. The creeks are filled with green algae.
I heard a little kid the other day. His grandfather was showing him the river. The river was real low back in the summer and the bottom of it was a black, murky—some kind of substance with green algae just growing all over it. The grandfather was telling his grandson how he used to swim in that river and that when they got real thirsty they'd take a swallow or two of water. The grandkid couldn't believe it. That's just two generations. He has seen now that it's impossible. Well it's possible, but very unhealthy or unwise for the grandkid to enjoy that. Another generation it'll probably be the same with the fish. I mean, you know, the stories of listeria and everything else. Not too many people eat fish out of the river. That's been going on since time started. People caught their food and ate it, but now it's got to a point around here that—.
Not since Hurricane Fran.
It's too dangerous.
I'm a bream fisherman and it's not unusual at all in bream season to see the fish that you catch have sores on them. I wouldn't eat that.
In the ponds around here?
No, in the river.
Northeast Cape Fear River.
Wayne do you remember swimming on the river as a kid?
Oh yeah. That's where I got my Saturday bath.
So would you go down there with your family or friends? Describe a swimming trip for us.
Well back in the sixties it was just a—. Well being in the country you weren't privileged to the city extra curricula activities, so what we had was basically farm work and swimming. All the kids would gather up and go to the river. You had good, cold, clean river water to swim in. Now it's a whole lot different. It was a big social event, really. Going swimming was a big deal especially for kids who didn't have their driver's license, you know. They could go not too far in any direction and catch a swimming hole. It was a big social gathering place.
Tie a rope to a tree and built a makeshift diving board and that's where
you spent Saturday afternoons and Sundays if your parents weren't too
religious.
When you come to the house you were clean. Mother used to make her own
soap. We'd kill hogs and she'd take all of the skins and the loose parts
of the—I call it the lard part. She'd seize it. She'd make her a pot of
stew and she'd put some of that old grease in the pot and boil it. Then
she'd put lye in there and she'd cook it down and when she'd take it up,
it'd be just a little bit of real dark looking water on the bottom of
the pot. We used to have a little swimming hole down there in this creek
and when you took a piece of that and went in there and jumped in and
all like that, you were clean.
Come out right red, didn't you?
Yeah. It near about make you bald headed.
It was, especially as a kid, one of the more favorite things—part of the
summer. It was the community spirit in going swimming and just having a
good time.
You know, that's part of my earlier comment. We're not susceptible to change around here. Even myself at my age, I wish I could go back to those days when, to borrow a line from Junior Sample, when pot was something that you used for the bathroom. We didn't know what pot was. A pot was a commode as a kid. We didn't know what drugs was. Even when I was in high school if you drunk a beer, you had done something big time. People just didn't do that. We never locked our doors in this community until maybe five years ago because now we don't know who our neighbors are anymore. The things that's happening, that was happening in Wilmington ten or fifteen years ago have caught up with us on the rural mart now. We know what crack is down here in Northeast community now. We know what alcohol will do now. Like I say, ten, twelve years ago, we didn't worry about that kind of stuff. That was something for somebody else. So, yes, there's some of that in me that I would love to see things back the way they were, not only before the flood, but farther back—.
Times were more innocent.
Yeah. We were innocent and perhaps a little more naïve than what we are now. I think that's the consensus of the community as well.
Could we talk about two specific things that I've heard more about from
other people? But I'd like to hear more about them from you. One is the
global transfer.
With global transfer, basically—we knew what that was.
I think it's proved itself.
It's proved itself. It was an excuse to raise taxes and to throw away money on somebody's pet project. Nothing's going to mature. It'll never be anything. It's just like the one out in Texas that he tried to tell me years ago that's sitting out there empty, several million dollar airport.
What did they say it was going to do for the community?
Oh, it was going to make us the Atlanta of the eastern seaboard, you know, bring business and industry and the higher tech industry to replace the textiles that were leaving. Open up eastern North Carolina to be—. I guess they were going to make a Research Triangle area out of it or what they thought—. But what we saw was a tax increase first.
I was somewhat an activist in that, which there have been some
repercussions, so I want to be careful what I say. We asked the same
questions now that we are victims of today. Primarily, what will it do
to the environment? The property was part of the Kenan estate, who were
very influential in this community—Thomas Kenan, UNC, the Kenan family
of Guilford County. Their roots are here in Kenansville. They have a
place right down the road here less than three or four miles, known to
us in the community as Kenan Quarters. There are several hundred acres
Will you go back and
I think it was politically motivated on two parts. And I think the Kenan family was very active in the planning stages of it.
Yeah. There was talk at one time of settling it right down here on this old—which would be about two miles from us.
I heard it called the Kenan Plantation since we've been down here. Is that the same place?
Well, we refer to it as Kenan Quarters. The plantation itself was in
Kenansville. But the property that the Kenans owned—we're going back now
to the 1700s—actually run down here in the Northeast community. It was
Lochland. It referred to the Scottish loch lands of that era. I'm going
back now into the middle 1800s. That's how this precinct in here gets
its name, the Lochland precinct. It's our voting place, where we go to
vote. It got the name from the loch land
For the purpose of—.
For the purpose of draining those loch lands that were up in the
The old Kenan house that Richard dated from was just across that ditch.
The old Tom Kenan place, was it not?
Yeah. That was the Kenan's home.
Which was James's brother.
And there is a slave cemetery on that land that we saw?
I've heard some of them call it a slave cemetery. But that cemetery is
still being used today. It may have started out as a slave cemetery. But
there is some—. Lord I don't remember those black people's names. Turn
right there past
Just across that Kenan ditch.
Yeah. Right across the Kenan ditch. What's the name of that cemetery up there? Do you remember?
No.
There's some Kenans buried in there with black Kenans.
Yeah. There's some of the black people that were Kenans.
Right.
And they're in there. Well, all of these now that we know now from
Yeah. There were some inter-racial things going on there with the Kenan family.
Uh-huh, which was common.
Which was common, right, right.
Well back to the transpark. When you say we thought such and such about it. Who was we? Was there a community organization?
The consensus of the community, yes. A community program started out that was called RANT. Was it called RANT?
I know everyone around here was against it because we did not want to
The idea wasn't too bad. But everyone knew from the start, it was all politically motivated. They knew the money was going to be wasted. And just—. North Carolina—this side of North Carolina, especially this area of North Carolina is the last to get anything. I mean the people down here realize that Mecklenberg County, RDU, Research Triangle Park, basically, that's where the money goes. So they started off with it and said you might as well put it around Raleigh, you know, where it can be used. It's not going to work in Kinston. Who goes to Kinston? Who needs Kinston? There's not even interstate access hardly. So it looked like a dead horse to start with. And no one could convince anybody any different. So the—.
They go up to five dollars on our licenses. Is it this year or next year?
They did it last year. It's off now.
Off now?
Yeah.
Well you take every car there was, truck in North Carolina and add five dollars to it, see where it goes.
That was the main
If you write and ask—. If you ask the right politician they will tell you. As a matter of fact, I got a letter to this extent that the reason we're suffering in the swine industry now is because we, of this community, elected not to have the global transport here, if you can imagine that mentality.
Do you think you stopped it?
No. I really don't think this was a great—we were a great consideration anyway. I think, here again, it was a political thing and that the properties were available here. But we don't have the infrastructure to support anything like that. At that time there was no I-40. We didn't have the roads. I don't even know if it was on the planning board then. And our people—and when I say our people it was the greater consensus of this community that formed an organization that—. We want to be heard. We wanted to be heard politically. And we were. We attended some meetings in Raleigh. And, you know, it was forced upon us. I think the term they used, the intimate domain, wherein that our farm community could be condemned—if that's the right word—to make space for runways or whatever was needed for this transglobal park. And you've heard me say earlier how deep our roots run here. And our people were totally against it from the initial planning stages.
And what was your organization called? It was RANT.
I'm sitting here trying to think right now what was the name of it. It'll come to me in a minute. If it does, I'll remind you.
Okay. How about the leaders? Who were those people?
I was one of them. And there were four or five—.
Jennie and Aaron.
Jennie Cavenaugh, Lucille Rangio, myself, Sammy Cavenaugh—.
Sammy as in Sambo.
No. Not this Sambo, this was Sammy up the road. I don't know—. You met—. I don't know if you talked to Sammy last night when you talked to Frank or not.
No.
Sammy is—.
Frank's nephew.
Frank's nephew.
I talked to Andy.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. That's Frank's—.
Well this was Andy's cousin, Sammy. But there were a few that just began to ask some questions.
They would have all been misplaced, transported out.
Global transport.
Uh-huh.
I think it will never materialize here.
It had a rail like this and all those people would have been the first to go. And then when it grew, they had another parameter around it. And we were in the second phase. So we would have been gone.
The first phase came right up here to the creek. And then the second phase would have been us.
And you think four or five or six miles of people being washed away—.
It'd be from here right on into—.
Chinquapin.
Chinquapin.
Then you had the church groups behind it because the noise pollution that it would bring about. You had the poultry farmers here that have established poultry businesses that were afraid of the noise pollution that it would bring about.
Scare the chickens, is that—.
Scare the chickens.
Scare the dickens out of them.
There was the horned owl issue that came about, which the habitat was in those wetlands. And certainly we used everything that we could that was an issue. And personally—. Was it Martin, Governor Martin? This was more or less his last political stand as he left office. And, you know, the record speaks for itself. Where is the transglobal park today compared to where it was ten years ago? It's never got off the ground. Now that's not to stay that it could not have. The same thing could have happened here. It could be. We don't know. But as a community we were against it and we spoke against it.
And did you have—.
CLOUT, the name of the organization was CLOUT, C-L-O-U-T. And what did it
mean? Concerned—. I don't remember what it stood for right now. I tried
to erase that from my mind. But I have received a letter less than a
year ago, or maybe two years ago, when the people would go to wake up to
the pollutants that is being caused by the swine market. Somebody wrote
me a letter—it was not signed—and asked me was I satisfied, knowing that
I was a canoeist, with the shape of the rivers. That had we had
transglobal park we wouldn't have to trade off for the environmental
issues that have hit this community as well as southeastern North
Carolina. And
CLOUT.
The park doesn't have the power that the swine industry does.
And the part that carries right on over to the River Landing issue because the swine industry has made that place. And, yes, to some extent, we're paying the price, which goes back to the environmental issues that we've already talked about.
You're paying a price for the River Landing development?
In a sense because the swine industry is what built it. And with the contaminations that was in the flood as a result, in my opinion here, that a lot of it comes from the swine and the poultry pollutants that were a result of this flood. It was the swine market or the swine industry that built River Landing by the Murphys.
And he was—turkeys, hogs, some cows and said a few horses would float down the river. Naturally, a lot of them would get hung up in places and stay right there. That's what, you see, has ruined our water.
Do you know why Wendell Murphy and his people would have chosen this community as a place for the golf course and the housing? Why—?
I think it's probably just the location.
Property was available.
Property was available and the location, the access to interstate. That, for some reason, this part did have a lot of hog houses either. There's not many places in this county you can go to find this big of area that's not got several hog houses. And you can't ask fifty or seventy-five thousand dollars for a lot if you've got to smell hog manure. So the location, I think.
That's very interesting. So can you describe River Landing? We haven't been in. But maybe you've been through on a canoe or something and you can tell us about it.
I've never been in. I hear it's a beautiful place.
I've been in there. Our company does work in there and I've been in there several times. And, you know, I don't envy those people. I personally would not live that like if I could afford it. Our roots are in the country that is—.
That's in the country but it's not—.
Yeah. It's in the country. But once you get inside it—inside that brick wall—.
It's a gated community.
Yeah. It's quote upper crust, if you will. And, incidentally, there's
people that are living in there that can't afford to live in there. But
it's part of the competition that exists among certain people of, not
necessarily this community, but of Duplin County. I think for the most
part that—. Well I started to say that perhaps it was built for the
leaders of the swine industry because Duplin County is almost the
world's—or was you might say, this country's capital of the pork
producing market, probably still is. And there were a lot of imports
that were brought down here to run the business, which is headquartered
in Rose Hill, as the crow flies, less than five miles from where we sit.
High-tech people, if you will, that were at that time living in
Wilmington. And as River Landing began to develop some of those people
resettled here to be closer to their work, if you will. There are some
fine homes in there. There are some
Some of them in there's flooded just like we are.
As a matter of fact, most of the homes that are in there are flooded just like we are. We are—our company was asked to do a contract on the heating and air to a home that the owner is moving up eleven feet high at a cost of over a hundred thousand dollars to jack that humongous home up off of the ground. Most of the homes in there were flooded first and some second floors. And there is—there's some Better Homes & Gardens homes in there.
But understandably it was kept very—
Oh it was kept very quiet.
And no visitors were allowed in.
Even during Hurricane Fran, the first hurricane that we had here three or four years ago, there was a deputy sheriff at the gate. Nobody come in, particularly the press.
Right. That's one reason—.
And, hey, I can understand that, you know. You don't want that news—.
You don't want people seeing the water on the top of the
And, you know, we as a community—. My father said that a flood came here
in 1900. He didn't remember it. But he heard talk of the flood of 1900.
There was the flood of 1928. There was the flood of 1962, and, of
course, this one. And as a community of which a consensus of the
veterans of this community, "Hey, it's coming.
You're talking about the first flood was in 1908.
Was it 1908?
Nineteen eight.
Okay. But even in that flood of 1908 and '28, it never—it was nothing in proportion to this one, was it Uncle Raymond? Because I remember there was a family cemetery is right out here. I think it never crested that cemetery none of the other times before.
This flood was four feet higher than the one in '62.
In 1928 there was a little community over here about ten miles as the
crow flies from here called Hallsville. And on the Presbyterian church
there they put a watermark in 1928 when the floodwaters came. This
present flood, it's ironic, but this present flood was twenty-eight
inches higher than the flood of 1928. Rough calculations, as I said
earlier, it covered approximately a nine to ten mile stretch from about
two miles up the road here all the way to Chinquapin. Right down the
middle of 41 highway the water was knee deep at least and deeper. You
could run a motor boat full blast all the way to Chinquapin right down
the middle of the road. I elected to stay. I didn't leave. To my
knowledge, there's probably less than ten houses that I can count in
that stretch on 41 that did not get water in them. My brother's was one.
Right over here in this brick house it lacked an inch and a half of
going through it. My cousin that lives beside him it lacked about four
inches, and then an aunt that lives
We definitely should talk about the cemetery even though that's—. You just mentioned it in passing. Let's talk about who all's buried there. Let's talk a little bit about that because—.
They said there was one man floating down the river. It got
Human as well as all those animals you mentioned.
Yeah.
I think he was one of the first. And then the
Right.
There was one man out there that's a hundred and seventeen years old.
That was John McNallis according to what's inscribed on his tombstone.
Don't know if he couldn't count or not. That's an old dude there.
What were the years he was born and died, Wayne?
Seventeen ninety-five and then 1895 and then plus seventeen.
He died in 1914. I'm not sure. I would have to go look. I would have to go look. There's probably half as many buried out there without markers as there is with markers that we don't know. I tried to catalogue that cemetery several years ago when my dad was living and with a fairly good mind. And I've got it plotted out even to those that don't have markers who are buried there. And most of them are within a half a mile radius of where we sit right now, family and community.
It would go back how many generations? There's his granddad. So let's count those.
It could go back four generations
Okay. Now will—do any of you plan to be buried in that very cemetery?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Definitely.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
In this part of the country—.
If another flood comes and floats me down the river—.
My parents are buried there, my mom and dad. Of course, my grandmama and my granddaddy and my great grandmama and my granddaddy of which they don't have markers for.
We've got some lots down here at—in Pender. What's the name of that cemetery?
River View.
Huh?
River View.
River View. We've got about, what is it four? Four lots down there. They
come around one time was going to build a great big mausoleum down
there. And so we went in with them. And we were going to buy us one of
the lots
We decided to go in the dirt.
Transfer our—from the mausoleum back to our lots. So they did it. But they have finally built something down there. I don't know what it is.
It's a mausoleum.
Well how does it work being a family cemetery? Does someone take the full responsibility of managing that and has the plots all laid out and you have them numbered? How do you decide who will be buried where?
That one is not. And the consensus have been to this time that because
it's on Uncle Raymond's property—his property surrounds it—. My
granddaddy had it laid out in 1946 when his estate was divided up. And I
think the deed was like two hundred and ten by two hundred and ten
square feet. It was approximately one acre. And was left there for the
English family cemetery. There was—. At the time they just carried you
out there, and dug a hole and stuck you in it. So there is no—there is
no conformity as to who is buried where.
Not at all. We haven't talked so much about your experience about what happened with flood relief. Do you have any vivid memories about—.
I think everyone's got strong opinions about flood relief starting with the federal government right on down through the state on how little relief there's been.
Okay.
And right on down to the county.
Okay.
I want to go ahead and get technical. This is—. The best consensus of
this county is that it's run by a bunch of crooks who could care less
about the people in it. Mainly the people on this end of the county—the
southern part of the county—is probably, what the stepping stone of the
county. We didn't even have a Red Cross-connection with the Red Cross in
this county. There was weeks went by before Red Cross ever got here
because Duplin County was the only county in North Carolina that did not
have a Red Cross chapter in it because our county commissioners just let
it lapse. So Red Cross didn't come in. They had to specially sent in or
ordered in by, I don't know, the state of somebody. So it started there
and went on up through the state.
We weren't eligible for any help due to the fact that our inspector said we did not lose two hundred dollars worth of damage.
But we saw this pile in your yard today. Can you describe that pile out there? What all's in it?
Five or six generations of family heirlooms.
Including—.
From the whole houses of furniture to mementos just passed through, trunks of history as you can see.
Well the history, the war uniforms, the—.
It's just—.
The old pie safes that were passed down from generation, you know, the old antiques.
Tools. All his tools that he had had since he was a boy.
Antique tools.
And a little pile about this big left over that I'd thrown out to one side. And now they have rusted and I doubt if he can ever use any of them.
Well we have—.
So they're all gone.
I had a three bedroom home furnished, the living room furnished, dining
room, kitchen
It said less than two hundred and one dollars. You had to have two hundred and one dollars to be eligible for SBA or family grant. So up until this time we two sat here with a twelve hundred and twenty-seven dollar rental assistance, is what we've had from FEMA. But I had three—.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Three FEMA people—.
Three FEMA people tell you—.
That they were usually in disaster areas two to three weeks, possibly
four. They did their job and they were gone. When they hit North
Carolina they said they had never been treated by a state like the North
Carolina officials had treated them.
Well the FEMA people said they usually run the program. They were
experienced. They knew how to come in. And they said, almost everything
had a ten-day turn around. But for some reason North Carolina, the
officials in North Carolina, wanted the final say so on everything. Why
anyone would what to take on that responsibility being unprepared, being
uneducated, unexperienced on how to deal with it. I just don't
understand why—what the—. Unless there was some kind of pride or ego
thing there that North Carolina wanted the final say so. But if they'd
let FEMA handle it—it was a very big disaster. But the FEMA people felt,
I think, that the state really slowed everything down. It took, myself,
it took right at eight weeks to get an inspection. And actually took a
Congressional order to get a travel trailer to get home, which the FEMA
people told me, being disabled, that that is usually put on a priority.
If they read the list when they're handling it, they see a disabled
Where were you up to that point?
Staying at a house in Wallace about eight or nine miles away that we could neither afford or felt comfortable in. Anyway, people were getting home. It was slow. But I just couldn't understand it. And the FEMA people were saying the whole time, "Look, you're problem's with the state." We had some very nice FEMA people here to help us at our center here, our local center. I had a couple that helped me out especially one guy. He helped me a whole lot.
How?
Working—
Trying.
Well trying to do more than he possibly had to on my case, trying to get me home. He knew the condition of my disability and knew the state of—that I was in was very detrimental to that disability. He had talked—read a letter my doctor had sent him. And of the travel trailer ending up taking, what, over two months, a little over two months.
You've only been in it a week.
And I told him being on disability, you know, you have a very small income when you have to go on it at such a young age, and that we couldn't afford to live there. And, you know, with all the extra expenses, so that the whole FEMA situation—. The problem with FEMA was basically their inspections. The part with the state was, "We want to run the show. We don't know how. But we want to run it. We're going to have the final say so." And the people they hired, all this temporary help, had no experience on how to run it. And basically, they had a bunch of people that didn't care about the people they were dealing with, and basically, too many liars, actual liars. I don't know how many people from the state of North Carolina. "I will get that information and call you back." And you come and you wait by the phone all day. You know, you're so distressed from the flood. You've lost everything and you're stressed out. And here you are waiting all day long for a phone call that never comes. You call back. You're handed off to somebody else. The same thing, "I'll get that information. I'll see what I can do and I'll call you right back." So, you know, it run the whole gamut from federal—. Not so bad as far as the FEMA workers. They were pretty good. The inspectors were—.
They were from where? Where were those ones who were good—.
The two I met were at our local DRC, which is Disaster Relief Center, number eleven in Wallace.
They'd come from somewhere else though, right?
Gail, which was the leader of it, I think she came from—. Oh gosh I can't remember. Up north somewhere, maybe Philadelphia or somewhere. But the guy who helped me the most, John, was from Boston.
Okay.
The one I talked to was from California.
And there's another one out there, Clark, who is a field representative, who has come by and just shook his head so many times at the situation that he has seen in this community. And how slow the state has been to come to the assistance. He's also from California, very nice, very nice people. It kind of goes back to the same thing as getting our help. All of our help has come from outside community sources. The people who have really been nice to us and act like they've understood are people from outside the state, you know, that understand the situation and have really, you know, took extra effort and tried to help certain cases.
The whole disaster has been chaotic in that there has been—number one, no
leader, whether it be on a local level or on a state level. Who—where
does the buck stop? No one can tell you that right now I will assure
you. Everything has been chaotic. Let me give you an example. My relief
worked a little faster than Wayne's did. I did get some help from FEMA.
But it was all, "If you qualify. Do you qualify?" And I spoke to a lady
in Raleigh. I said, "Ma'am, this isn't a muddy issue. This is a shelter
issue." I said, "The just and the unjust are a part of this, you know,
this catastrophe." Give you an example, I inherited my father's house of
which we had some long-term plans of refurbishing and rebuilding. And as
a result of the floodwaters, I had to tear it down. I chose to tear it
down because it would cost too much to repair it. The
Of course we didn't expect that—.
The evacuation of this community came from an individual who I'd like to
go on record and acknowledge. His name was Gary Cantrell, who has a
business, an earthmoving business, landscaping business. Had it not been
for that young man putting his equipment in jeopardy I'm not sure this
community would even have been evacuated.
Talking about dump truck.
With his dump truck, with his big dump trucks. I seen him drive across this bridge down here that you could not even see the hand railings on it. Who put not only his equipment in jeopardy but his own life in jeopardy evacuating. The fire department done a good job. But they, too, were chaotic.
Volunteer—.
But in coordination with the local fire department and Gary Cantrell, that's how this community got evacuated, hundreds of people.
How did—do you know the story about how he decided it was time? How did he know and others didn't?
I don't know. Well the fire department came door to door. About two thirty in the morning they came to my house. This was the night after Hurricane Floyd. No one had power, electrical power. And the fire department came to my house honking the horn at two thirty in the morning and said you've got to evacuate. Water is rising. I turned the flashlight on. My wife says, "What are we going to do?" I said, "We're going back to sleep." "What should we do?" I said, "Honey, the water's not going to come over that hayfield out there. It's not going to come over the cemetery. No way." So we went back to sleep. This was on Friday. Friday morning we woke up. And Gary was hauling people out. We were high and dry here.
This is four o'clock in the morning?
No. This was at seven o'clock in the morning. We were high and dry here. But Gary was hauling people out on his dump trucks and parking them out here in front of my dad's house. And they were getting on another truck because we were kind of sandwiched in. Down the road here the water was across the highway. But we were high and dry here on this hill at seven o'clock in the morning. Never thought about anything like that happening. But all during that day Gary kept hauling people out and the water's kept coming, you know, it kept coming. And by eleven o'clock it was over my steps on my back deck. And my older brother wouldn't leave. He said, "I'm not going to leave." So we got our wives out. Everybody evacuated the entire community by two or three o'clock that afternoon.
The last truck went out about one, between one and two.
Okay. Everybody had evacuated except me and my brother and my cousin and
his wife, and my aunt and step-uncle. And we were the only ones left in
here. Probably a crazy thing to do, but I wouldn't leave because my
brother wouldn't leave. And we stayed here the whole time and watched
the water rise. And like I said earlier, it lacked an inch and a half
literally going through his house. It crested on Sunday. The water rose
all day Friday. It rose all day Saturday and Sunday it crested about
three o'clock, I think. And it stayed at a standstill lacking an inch
and a half, as I've said several times, going through his house. It was
already in mine here about eighteen inches. Everything else—. I saw
houseboats, literally houseboats go floating across the hayfield.
Sightseers, jet skies going fifty miles an hour anywhere you want to go.
Just—. It's like we were on an island and everything around us was
water. We sat up on his rooftop over there.
Wayne's house.
Yeah. And during that time all you would—you would not believe the rumors
were that floating around. The sheriff actually come to arrest me
because I wouldn't leave my property. And I asked the question—and the
sheriff deputy was a local boy, good boy. Grew up with him or he grew
up, you know, different generation, but he's a good boy. I never felt so
sorry for anybody in my life. He come up and he said, "Russell, y'all
got to evacuate." I said, "Why? We have a generator. I've got a warm bed
to sleep in. We've got all the food we can possibly eat because we
raided everybody's freezer around here where there was no power. Man, we
were eating steak and shrimp every night."
I never saw a looter.
Several up the road that way, mostly up that way.
I never saw a looter. The rumors were that there were corpses floating
out of the graveyard. I get in my canoe and I paddle out to the
graveyard. I know my cell
You have one of the small trailers?
Yeah. We got a thirty-foot travel trailer hooked up in my yard. I've had
estimates to make my repairs that outweigh what I paid for my—. I live
in a double-wide mobile home. That out exceed—greatly exceed what I paid
for it. And to my wife and I, it's not worth the—what it's going to take
to repair it. And we're having us a home built.
It's going to be right on the same place?
I tore the house down and I'm going to build back there.
It is going to be up any higher?
No.
What do you believe about the next flood? I mean, you were talking about hurricanes. What, seven did you say?
Why should I live in fear? Certainly I'm going to get an insurance policy on it. If it happens again next year, I'll deal with it. I'll probably go up another block higher but not for the flood. Just so I can get under it if I need to. There are people, in my opinion that maybe have overreacted. Got a neighbor over here that's moved his house up six feet. It's a beautiful home. It was my grandmother's old home place that they remodeled, beautiful home. And now it's sitting on poles that you can drive a car under it. I'm not going to live my life in fear like that. If it happens again, I'll deal with it the best that I can. The chances of it happening again—I don't know. It could happen next year or it might be another hundred years.
Five hundred.
Or five hundred. But I don't know. I hope I don't live long enough. And I hope I live to be an old man. But I hope I don't live long enough to see this again.
The way this world is a going now, it won't be here five hundred years.
But if it happens, I'll deal with it then. What choice do we have? And who's to say that the next flood is not going to be greater than this flood. So how high do you go, you know.
How about the rest of you? Where do you live now? What plans do you have for what—.
We started back on ours. And just doing a little at the time.
You saved your house except you have to put in all new sheet rock.
All new sheet rock, all new flooring, all new wiring, all new plumbing. The only thing we've got's the ceiling.
And the brick outer shell.
Uh-huh.
Excuse me for interrupting, but their home would probably have went on the market a hundred and thirty, maybe a hundred and forty, somewhere in that before the flood. Now, twenty? Would you do good to get twenty out of it?
The estimate was twenty.
Twenty. So you're looking at—you're looking at—. This is where my heart goes out to.
Miss Eunice, I'm curious about your and Mr. Raymond's experience on that Thursday night.
Well, I went out about ten o 'clock and it was to the bottom step. Well I
lived in high water all my life. Down in Pender County it was a regular
thing. It'd come up like this on the road and then it might be like this
in some of the areas where you couldn't drive through. But they saved
their crops.
This was all done by flashlight, too.
Yeah. Believe me that is another job. When you can't see, you lay down
your light and directly you're in another room and don't remember where
the light was. And we finally got—. I did as much as he would let me
because he was losing power with the truck. So he finally backed up so I
could get in it.
Is that big dump truck at that point?
No, this was his pickup.
Okay.
It's a regular pickup that we had in the garage.
But the water was coming then into the exhaust. It was rising fast.
Yeah. The truck had started bubbling. That's when I went in and I said, "If we're going, we've got to go now." Because I knew if that truck ever cut off it wouldn't ever crank again.
We were stuck. Yeah. And you did it before you come back and got me. But it was like somebody had a heart attack and you're waiting for the ambulance. You're scrambling to get everything together before it gets there.
I
So we went over there, as he said, to his aunt's house. And I got him to lay down for a little while. And we stayed up and down. And the next morning, I think Russell got Wayne and went back over to our house to turn the main switch off and come back. And I said, "How deep was it?" And he said, "You don't want to know." But he finally told me it was knee deep then. And then it rose about two more feet after that. So we knew everything we had was gone.
So all those things you put on the bed—.
Got wet. The water came up—. The strange part is the water came up but when it went down it stayed in all these little containers. Our drawers that was in the bathroom and in the kitchen cabinets, when they tore them down, you still couldn't pull the drawers out because they still had water level in them. All my pots in the cabinets were still level with water. And the refrigerator, it had turned over in the water. My stove, it was terrible. The sink where the water had finally drained out left all of its little stuff in it. And it was so slick in my house you had to hold on to walk. And the stench was just out of this world. You didn't want to save anything. So when I went in it was two weeks then. When I went in the Marines drove up right behind me. And they were there to help you tear out. And believe me I found what a demolition crew was because they had that house torn down in the amount of an hour or two. Every bit of furniture that we had, everything was out at the road.
You said you tried to take a few things out.
I was going to. I saved what was above the closet level, you know, where the shelves come. We had ours up about five feet, I guess, from the floor. And that stuff remained dry. But some of it was so contaminated feeling and the smell—.
Anything that absorbed moisture because—.
Even after the waters receded the mildew factor started working on them. The water goes about eighteen inches to two feet in my house yet the ceiling is blackened with mildew.
All of our clothes, I thought maybe I could save a few, especially one of
his coats that he liked to wear so well. The next day I went back, it
had mildewed and
Was it you who was telling me the story about carrying things, trying to get them by the Marine?
Uh-huh. That happened over at
That's right. That wasn't your story. It was someone else's story.
They had the guards sit at the doors over there. They let people in for just a little while at the time and then they had to leave. I don't know whether that was before the water went completely out of the area or just when. But I felt so sorry. My heart went out to that woman that was trying to save her pictures.
Even the Marines that we had in here was on a volunteer basis. It was not a state issued thing or a governmental issue thing. They just—Marines wanted to come in this community and help us. And they volunteered of their time off.
Two weeks paid—.
From Camp Lejeune?
From Camp Lejuene.
Two weeks.
They came here and volunteered for that.
They were volunteers. They were not ordered in here. It was their time off that they volunteered to come in here and help us.
Did they come in uniform?
No, none of them. Well some of them may have been. The ones that came to my house were—.
They were in their fatigues at my house.
Okay. The ones that came and helped me had on blue jeans. They came to
our church. We had roughly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars damage
done to our church. They tore all the floors out, took all the furniture
out, all the pews out, just took—well, everything in it had to go. Took
the carpets off of the floor, took the furniture out of it, all
volunteered from the Marines. As a matter of fact, they were the first
relief that I recall seeing in the community. And they weren't a
mandate. They was volunteers.
How many members do you have?
Active members, probably about a hundred.
Are many of them retired people?
Many of them are retired. And without some help from other churches there's no way our church could rebuild. We're on a fixed income. Most of us, as you've heard me say, is of retirement age. We don't have the facilities to rebuild that church, no way. We've got approximately $40,000 in the building fund. And there's no way—. No insurance, no way we could absorb a $250,000 debt, no way. And without the aid of other people trying to help us we would have to close that church.
One thing that I don't know about is the Freewill Pentecostal Baptist—am I saying it in the right order?
That's right.
Pentecostal Freewill Baptist, is that all the names? Pentecostal Freewill Baptist Church?
Right.
Okay.
Incorporated.
Incorporated. Does it have a headquarters?
It's headquartered in Dunn, North Carolina. It has a—it has a population,
if you will, of about twelve thousand people, primarily in eastern North
Carolina. There's churches in Virginia, a couple of churches in South
Carolina. The Freewill Baptist is an old traditional order of the
Baptist church that has gone back several hundred years. In 1948, I
believe I'm correct, that this organization or our church accepted the
book of Acts—and I don't know how familiar you are with religion and
theology—. But this organization accepted the infillment of the Holy
Spirit, where the original Freewill
And does the church practice Pentecostal healing and speaking in tongues and that sort of thing the way—.
Yes and no because probably fifty percent of the organization are of the original Freewill Baptist. Maybe the other fifty-percent of the church has accepted the Pentecostal experience, if you will. So we're kind of half-and-half. Some do, some don't. Practice, not as it was twenty-five years ago. We used to wash feet. I don't think they even do that anymore, do they? So, I think we're more liberal now. There was a time at the organization you didn't drink strong drink, you didn't use tobacco. Check this, if you will, this is a tobacco belt. Tobacco built the church but yet it was against church doctrine to use tobacco. So things have eased up quite a bit, you know, over the last—.
More educated, that's a better word instead of liberal.
Well one of my reasons for asking more about the denomination is how few people there are in your own denomination to help out with the rebuilding of the church. And particularly—. So are you talking about when you say help from other churches, that we're talking about—.
Outside the denomination.
Outside the denomination.
If it had not been for the Presbyterian, the Methodists and the Baptists—.
We'd be up a creek.
We would—. I don't know what.
Predominantly, predominantly the Baptist men have been very, very instrumental in helping people. I think they had a Methodist group over at Uncle Raymond's, very, very instrumental. Presbyterians have made monetarial contributions and as well as having people out working. We've had Catholics in the community. We've had people outside the faith that I believe in that I would consider heathens that have brought me food, that have brought us clothing. So, yes, there's some good come through this. I think a lot of denominational barriers have been broken. I think a lot of racial barriers have been broken.
How so? There's some black churches that have been here?
I haven't actually seen black churches working in the community. But out at Poston ever since the flood they have served two meals a day up until last week.
Through October was two meals and the month of November they just had one meal.
Just one meal.
Is that a black church?
No. It's a white church. But yet churches from all over this area:
Duplin, Sampson County, have took a night that they have fed the people
here in Northeast community, and among those churches were black
churches. I know they fed twice that I
And then we had some of the blacks in this community that went out there
and eat with us too. Yeah. So we were well
Somewhere around the triangle area.
Some where in that triangle area because his job was an office job, sat
at a desk all day. He gave up his Saturday. He contacted the Methodist
preacher here in Wallace. The Methodist preacher sent him to our house.
We had a
I wouldn't have then, but I will now. That's my first priority.
Ceramic all around and on the floor. And the first—somebody went in there before he got there and the soap dish, they knocked it off the wall.
Yeah, that first group.
Everything on the wall was broken off. We probably could have saved that room. And those there they tore the floor up. All that ceramic was gone.
But he said the first time he slung that sledgehammer, said it said,
bong. He said I reached around and hit again. It said bong. He said I
knew I was in trouble.
I had at my house a group from Burlington, North Carolina, Baptist men and women. I get emotional just thinking about this. But one of the gentlemen was a reporter with the Burlington paper, and a photographer. One of the gentlemen was a professional person that was with the IBM Corporation that was a computer programmer. Another of the gentlemen was—.
I thought that guy was with UNC public television because
Yeah. All of these were professional people that you wouldn't think would
get their hands dirty; or I wouldn't have thought would be willing to
get their hands dirty. There was a mother that had a two-year old child
and a four-year old child that hired a babysitter to come to my house
with those men and slop around in that filth and those contaminated
waters—that ruined everything in the world we had just about—to tear the
floors out and the walls out and pull the insulation out of my house.
Would I have done it? Probably not. Will I do it now? You better believe
it. As a matter of fact, one of the churches in town is trying to start
a Habitat for Humanity. And my name's on the list.
From disaster to disaster. Because they were well educated to what to do. They didn't have to be told where to start, I mean, women and the men, husbands and wives. And the Poston Baptist Church put them up at night. Part of them stayed there and part of them, the rest home doors was opened right down the road from them. And some of them went over there to take baths the next day that slept at the church. They just—everybody just cooperated. It was just like—well it was just unbelievable how the barriers just broke instantly.
If the government agencies had been as organized, as qualified, as the volunteer help, then probably most people would be back at home now.
But the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life—. And it's because you heard me say that we're a proud community. And my parents raised us in that—well my family, and Wayne's the same way—that we were to be self-supportive. I've never in my life asked or had to accept charity. It is a very humbling experience to go to bed in a nice king-sized bed. And our house was modest. But it was home. It was comfortable. We raised our daughter there. To go to bed and some of the better things that you worked hard for. We had a nice car, a Mercedes car, as a matter of fact. It was old, but you know, it provided transportation. But my point is to wake up the next morning and you've got nothing, nothing. Everything you've worked—.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
Things can change. And it's had some adverse affects on me. I found out
that I don't have to have a home with two thousand square feet in it.
That's what we
I wouldn't have taken anything at all for all of those possessions because most of my stuff was hand me downs from my family on down. And I have a great attachment for family possessions. But when I took them to the road or when those men took them to the road and I saw it laying there in that heap, I don't know, but something changed in me. It's no longer—.
It's not important.
It wasn't important. I could just turn my back on it and walk back to the house and it was gone. I couldn't cry. I didn't even cry over it. And most people said they had cried all day. I just couldn't. I felt like God would take care of me. I thought of Job. He lost everything. And who was Job and who am I? We were God's creations. So it just didn't worry me. I said, "Well, you can't get them back better than you had before. I know you're going to provide." The next morning I stood in the Salvation Army line. We got blankets. And at lunchtime we went back, that night we went back. It wasn't all that good but it fed us.
Cold ravioli and stale bread. The place we went to in Wallace—. There was
no electricity in Wallace either. And the house that we happened to stay
in had a non—it was a non-cooking house
The Methodist church out there served on Sunday night in front of the
Piggly Wiggly store. And I don't know how they heated it up unless it
was generators probably. And what other church served out there one
night? I forgot which it was. But, I mean, we picked around. We didn't
miss many meals. We were not that hungry. And the first day or two the
Baptist people had gone in their closets and brought out a table twice
as long as this room, I guess, with clothes, blankets, sheets. So we
were able to start accumulating at the beginning. And then later on in
the week, the distribution center in Wallace had had a truck brought in.
We went there. We got other necessities. And I think I've gotten enough
toothpaste to last a year.
I probably got more clothes than I've ever had in my life.
Our pack house over there where you were this afternoon is half full of boxes of clothes came down from Michigan.
Everything I've got on came from somebody.
I couldn't afford Wranglers before. I had to wear Wal-Mart.
Our first Sunday was so funny back in church. We were out at the Holiday
Inn. And the lady that lives down the road, Betty Stokes, came in. And
she's kindly comical with some of her statements. She said, "Well I
think we all look mighty good in somebody's else's clothes."
It don't matter where you go some—. And I really think I've got an
attitude. I've tried to keep an open mind. But there's always somebody
going to be in worse shape. So I look at it that we're blessed. What did
we get out of it? I got my life. I can start again if I have to. I hate
it for the older people of this community that are living on a fixed
income that's got seventy and eighty thousand dollars worth of damage to
their homes. That was a long time. But they will recover. I will assure
you that they will recover. Some it's just going to take a little longer
than it did before. The things we used to have we found out we can do
without them. Our house needed a good cleaning. We just didn't need it
this way.
He had begged me for twenty years to get the mess out of our house and
that pack house. He said, "Now, I'll tell you, you're going to come home
one day and you're going to see it burned out. I'm going to start at the
back and start burning
My wife was a trinket collector. She loved little trinkets, little
things, you know, that collect dust. And that's the vow she said, "When
we get another house there will be no more trinkets."
I vowed I was not going to junk it up.
We're doing fine. As a community, we're doing fine. Roots are deep, people are stronger than they look like they are. And we'll be back. Give us a year, we'll be back. Come back and see us in a year. You have an open invitation.
You have an optimistic outlook, too.
Even you, Wayne, even you.
I'm mad. I'm mad at this county. I'm mad at this state for allowing this
county to get in the shape it is environmentally. I am so mad that our
elected officials are so much on the take, not monetarily, maybe
monetarily. But on the take of powerful people that run this county.
That they will allow it to get in this shape that caused this much
damage. And I'm also upset at the federal government. Simply because I
had $12,000 worth of insurance on a home that will take probably thirty,
with the porches and everything, will take thirty probably $30,000 to
rebuild like it was. I lost probably fifty thousand in personal items.
Because I had $12,000 in insurance they completely locked me out of any
type of assistance. That's why it took a congressional order to get me a
travel trailer to get home. They told me I did not qualify for FEMA
help. I did not qualify for family grant help. I did not qualify for a
SBA loan because I don't make enough money from my back. So I have
really no way unless it does come through volunteer
Is there a list of recommendations you would have for how they could have done it better?
Well I feel like I was discriminated against number one because of being
insured, which I didn't know at the time—that was a shock to me—that I
was so under insured because simply I can't afford insurance. When
you're living off of a few hundred dollars a month, you know, insurance
is a luxury. I tried to get as much as we could. But because I have a
little bit of insurance I was discriminated against like, hey, well he's
got a couple of thousand dollars, he don't need a place to stay. He
don't need to get home. He don't need to rebuild. And then I also feel
like being disabled I was discriminated against because of where my
disability resided. As a matter of fact, I was told by a FEMA agent that
looked at my record. He said that your disability is above the shoulder
and I feel like you're being discriminated against. The state does not
take those type disabilities as serious disabilities. Even with your
doctor's note, they're not taking you serious. When I told my doctor
that he became very upset. And that's when he got on the phone to the
congressman and demanded some action. This was not a joking matter. So I
was very angry at the state about that, their attitude. And there again,
the federal government, not the FEMA agents, but the federal government
just because I had a few thousand dollars insurance, you know, you don't
need our help. Well I need it just as bad as these
And then, too, men that do not have families are at the bottom of the totem pole with all kinds of help from the Salvation Army right on down. If you're a woman with a child you can get anything there is. There's a family I know now, they've got $800 in food stamps. They weren't even near the water. They had no wind damage. But they're getting food stamps.
If you're a single man with a disability—.
It's just not looked at as needed.
It's not seen as being needed. So I'm still angry. I try to get over it and—.
I'm glad you can say that you are. It's important. I think we're at a stopping point. Is there anything else—?
Have you got any questions that we haven't—.
You have our life story. That's for sure.
You've done it very well with very little prompting on our part. I guess, thank you very much for sharing the story with us. It's a real privilege to hear.
Tell your future people when they get in trouble they'd better be
affiliated with more churches because that's the only place to look to.
The Lord said first to look to him for our needs. And these people that
are looking to the government to take care of them in a time of trouble
like this, they're in a
I don't understand it. I don't know if we're in the wrong country. If we're—I don't want to go that route.
That was part of it, too. Why can our country afford to send aid to foreign countries and let our country's taxpayer suffer the way that we're having to suffer.
They want to loan us money. And we sent it over there by the billions.
Right.
But, I'll loan you here enough money so you can—.
Well they're the ones that will
That's what they want. Ask him what the SBA told him he'd have to do to give him a loan.
That situation has not been explored enough. I received an email from my
Senator John Edwards who was making that point in a statement before the
Senate that he was leading up to the fact about how the government is—.
I mean hundreds of millions of dollars they have given in loans to
foreign countries during—since the flood. And why can't that money be
appropriated here?
They said they had a fund.
I feel in my mind they're probably just sitting on it collecting interest
so they can divide it among themselves. I don't know. I wouldn't make
that accusation as a knowing accusation. But somebody's collecting
interest somewhere. Is that going to be added back to the fund? Why hold
back? People need the money now. So it's an issue to me that is not
You've gotten some checks from the governor's fund is that right?
We've received a couple.
Three checks, is that—?
I received one for three hundred and—.
Thirty-nine dollars. And then another one for—.
Three o eight.
Three o eight.
And one for a hundred and some I think somebody said.
Yeah, a hundred and ninety-eight.
No. I didn't get a hundred and eight.
That was from the social services.
Yeah. All together I've probably received five hundred dollars from county support or state support.
It was donations into North Carolina funds. It wasn't state funds.
It wasn't state funds.
It was from the governor's fund but it was—.
It was donations.
Yeah. Right.
You'd think it came from him. He had to put his name on it.
Well actually it was from our county office.
So that would cut my losses instead of being $71,000 it would be $69,500.
But the IRS has turned around. Instead of being the cruel demon that it is—.
I like the IRS.
They're going to refund the taxes to our loss for the last three years.
From '95. That's how I can afford to build me a small home right now. I file on my taxes from '98 to '95 and got enough refund that I can start again. Well I haven't got the check yet, you know. I haven't put it in the bank yet.
How did you know about that?
An IRS lady came out to the church one night and told us about it. I didn't think it was worthwhile. But for a year I had two incomes from severance pay from the company shut down. Plus I was working again and I paid them a hunk. So I decided I'd try it, you know, and I got my accountant to—. Fortunately, my records at home were flooded but his weren't. And he keeps a copy of my tax returns and filed on it and it really—it helped me. It will help me once I get the check.
He hasn't got it yet.
No. I haven't gotten it.
As Raymond says, don't count on it yet.
Uh-huh. It's a promise.
And don't count on FEMA either.
But I—.
That still leaves Wayne.
See? That still leaves him through the cracks not being able to have an income to file on. So he has no income tax return.
Yeah. Well I think we'll turn off the tape now but that was a good time.
Not to be taken lightly but the parsonage at the church—. I keep relating
back to the church because the church is the vital part of the
community. The church
What denomination?
Baptist.
Okay.
That was my brother's church in Wilmington that took on that project.
Oh okay.
I really believe the best advice come earlier. If anyone is in trouble or
anticipates trouble it's a good idea to be associated, or at least know
people, who are very closely affiliated to a church like the Baptist
organization or the Methodist or the Presbyterian because they have
saved millions of dollars in repairs, do it volunteer because to tear
out a home could be very expensive, also. But their volunteer help
there's no telling how many
As a matter of fact, the Baptist denomination right now, those that
filled out the paperwork, there's families being adopted every day to
see that the families have a Christmas. As a matter of fact, yes, I
filled out the paperwork. And I got a call from the First Baptist Church
in Wilmington last week asking me what I needed for Christmas. And I
didn't know what to say. I said, well, you don't look a gift horse in
the mouth. I'll take whatever you got to offer. A year ago I'd have
said, "Thank you, but I'm fine." He said, "We will set up a charge
account for you at Lowe's or we will send you some money as a
contribution to help you and your family out for Christmas." And I said,
"Well, whatever you decide will be greatly appreciated." And not only
me, but there's various families throughout this community that is being
adopted by a church.
I tried to thank one of our firemen that came down from Raleigh, the
Durham Highway Department. And that was the first week they were down
here because they took a week, each fire department, sent their trucks
and firemen down here. And I made an effort to speak to this one guy
that seemed to be like
Well when you've got four or five generations that have grown up together, you take up for one another. We've got bad eggs all around. But you'd like to change some of their ways—.
We're close enough that we can recognize your faults better than we can
recognize our own. We talk about each other. We try to get right in the
middle of everybody's business when things are going good. But when
there's a crisis, we're together. Somebody dies, we've got a telephone
network system here like you've never seen before that
That's family. We're just like a big family.
We're a cult.
But we all believe in the Lord.
Yeah. I think for the most part we're God fearing. We have Baptists out here. We have Methodists out here. We have Presbyterians. We've got some Catholics in the community. But, you know, that don't matter. Some of us are more religalistic than others, some of us are more charismatic than others.
When you're down we're there.
Yeah. So in a sense the flood, I think, has drawn people closer together than they've ever been before. I won't be as quick to judge as I have before. I've had to say, "Hey, you've got to let things like that pass."
This one woman told me in Wallace one day, she said, "The Lord had a whole lot of ways because he gave everybody a different one." She said, " "I used to think my way was the only way. But I found out the Lord had a lot of them to give them all."
Well, you know, there's been people to help me that probably were atheistic, I don't know. So you got to look at it from the human side as well as the spiritual side. When you're in need, hey, I'm not going to say, "Hey, what denomination are you?" Are you God fearing or whether you don't, I say, "My door's open, man, I need help."
You said you from where?
Chapel Hill.
Chapel Hill. And you were from where, the mountains?
The mountains, um-hmm.
But where.
Madison County up northwest of Asheville. My county borders on Tennessee on the west and the north side.
We used to go up that way quite a bit but—.
Where did you go?
Just on over, just riding.
I like Tennessee up that way.
It's beautiful.
My county seat is Marshall and Mars Hill is up—.
END OF INTERVIEW