Children years ago had to work more
Cooley remembers that when she was growing up, the lives of children were very different. They did not play as much as contemporary children; they had to work.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Martha Cooley, April 25, 1995. Interview Q-0019. 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
- MARTHA COOLEY:
-
yeah, I took care of the house.
- EDDIE McCOY:
-
And uh, little things you could do around there, and he help pitch in?
- MARTHA COOLEY:
-
Papa didn’t have to help pitch in, ‘cause Mari, she was right under me,
you know, ‘cause I’m older than Mari, but we were children then, older
people, let me tell you this before you write it .....Older people back
then taught children how to do something. They didn’t play out in the
street all the, out in the yard, and out in the dirt and stuff all the
time, they had a job, they get them a job, you get up out of your bed,
you make up your bed in the morning. Uh, you get the broom and sweep up
the kitchen. And you was big enough then to wash dishes. You see, they
started us like that, and uh, from then on you see, I caught on, ‘cause
I was around in the kitchen when they were cooking, my aunt was cooking,
[unclear] when momma Hadie died, now
all of them was married then, see papa had two sisters, he had, three
sisters ‘cause Mari’s mother was my daddy’s sister.
