A boy's farm chores
J.D. remembers some of his farm chores. He carried water to his father and older siblings (there were seven) in the field, chopped wood, fed livestock, and eventually worked in the field himself. Lela remembers helping her mother and her aunts with their tasks. Lela and J.D. knew each other even in childhood.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with J. D. Thomas and Lela Rigsby Thomas, November 14, 2000. Interview K-0507. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ROB AMBERG:
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So, part of the reason to have a big family is that it provides you with
some workhands.
- J. D. THOMAS:
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[Laughter] You're exactly
right!
- ROB AMBERG:
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Was that your experience?
- J. D. THOMAS:
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That was the experience, because the older siblings—brothers
and or sisters—would help mother raise the family. Ladies
would do the housework inside, and the boys as they got older would take
charge outside. Well, you go back to Daniel Boone or
David Crockett and see the old Walt Disney
movies—that's exactly what went on.
- ROB AMBERG:
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So you were born in 1930?
- J. D. THOMAS:
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1930.
- ROB AMBERG:
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So, I would expect that you probably had some chores even by the time
you were five or six? You maybe had some things to do. I'm
curious about what that would've been.
- J. D. THOMAS:
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Well, I as a boy would have had the—not being the youngest
boy—I have one brother that's five years younger
than I, but the other brothers were older. My chores would be when they
were in field to carry to them if they needed water, as you have seen
and all like that.
- LELA RIGSBY THOMAS:
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Or food.
- J. D. THOMAS:
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And then I would stay around the house. Maybe I would fix wood up with
an axe when I was old enough for to cook with or to heat with in the
winter time. The other things you could do, you had hogs to feed; you
had chickens to feed and the other animals on the farm. After I got old
enough I could do that rather than go to field and [do] those harder
jobs; [Laughter] those much greater tasks
that the older boys would do.
- ROB AMBERG:
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So you learned to figure out ways to stay out of the field?
- J. D. THOMAS:
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Oh yes! [Laughter] Oh yeah, I sure did.
- ROB AMBERG:
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I can understand that. Was your family farming, Lela?
- LELA RIGSBY THOMAS:
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Well, that's a long story. My mother and her two sisters
raised me and my brother. There wasn't any factories or
anything. They more or less worked in fields and
gardens, and did housework and all that stuff, for other people. They
would set tobacco, they would [unclear]
the tobacco. They would hoe corn, they would schuck corn and whatever.
- ROB AMBERG:
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And your father?
- LELA RIGSBY THOMAS:
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Well, he left me and my brother when I was five. I was five, and he was
two. So we didn't have a father. We didn't
actually have a father.
- ROB AMBERG:
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I'm sorry to hear that. So, you were not really farming on
your own here?
- LELA RIGSBY THOMAS:
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No, everybody—well, we raised a garden.
- ROB AMBERG:
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Oh, sure.
- LELA RIGSBY THOMAS:
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We raised a big garden, but we helped all the neighbors do their
farming. Well, I used to ride the tobacco—back years ago you
had to drop the plants and set them with a stick. I would drop them and
J.D. would set them out.
- ROB AMBERG:
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So you all worked together back then?
- LELA RIGSBY THOMAS:
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Yeah, even back then. Went to school together.
- J. D. THOMAS:
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[Laughter] She's going to tell
on us, Rob!
- ROB AMBERG:
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That's amazing.
- LELA RIGSBY THOMAS:
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We went to school together, we played together, we worked together. He
and me and his sister and brother. Then when he joined the marine corps
he started writing to me. Then when he come home, we'd go
out. And then, here we are. [Laughter]
- ROB AMBERG:
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That's wonderful. So you've literally known each
other all your lives.
- LELA RIGSBY THOMAS:
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All our lives, right.
- J. D. THOMAS:
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Yeah.