Sharecroppers help each other at harvest time
Cheatham recalls how sharecroppers went from farm to farm at harvest time in Granville County, North Carolina, helping each other cut the wheat crop. When they came to her family's farm to cut the wheat, her mother would prepare a big meal for the cutters.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Annie Bell Williams Cheatham, March 21, 1995. Interview Q-0015. 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
- JAMES EDDIE McCOY:
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Now, if Mr. Kern was nice to y'all, did y'all raise everything, didn't
have to go to town for nothing like meat, hogs. . .
- ANNIE BELL CHEATHAM:
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Yeah, they raised hogs, and my daddy always aged them. . .
- JAMES EDDIE McCOY:
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You had flour and stuff like that?
- ANNIE BELL CHEATHAM:
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Yeah, and he had wheat, and have, and when the folks come around to cut
wheat, my momma always cooked dinner. You know for, wheat cutters, wheat
cutters come today, you gotta fix dinner. So, she stayed then, and fixed
a big dinner, for the wheat cutters, they would get to our house about
dinner time, and they would eat dinner
[unclear]
- JAMES EDDIE McCOY:
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And you'd go from one community to the other?
- ANNIE BELL CHEATHAM:
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Yeah, yeah, everybody had wheat, they would go around, and you would be
know, you had let us know when he at your house. . . .
- JAMES EDDIE McCOY:
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And how many people prepare food. . .
- ANNIE BELL CHEATHAM:
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Yeah, and you know that he would be at your house tomorrow, and you get
ready for him tomorrow to cook dinner and all.
