American Folklife Center, Library of Congress Alan Lomax Collection (AFC 2004/004) folder 02.02.04 writings, books Rainbow Sign transcripts, Vera Hall Vera Hall, reel 7, page 1 Her father, her singing, her religion, about Rev. Giles who preached himself to death. ***** V: Well, he used to tell us about... My oldest sister she used to worry about a new pair of shoes and he'd talk to all of us,say, "Lawd a mussy, you're [you'll] justrunnin around here , at least you is , Bessie, about two pairs of shoes, because you getting up kinda old in age. Say and I didn't wear a shoe at all. I didn't have a shoe to put on my feet till after I was eighteen years old. Say, my father didn't buy any [and] shoes. say we didn't get any shoes, Just went barefooted all the winte and all the summer, all the winter and all the summer. Said, that he didn't wear no shoes. When he come to this place here he didn't have on anything but one shirt. So we [one] wo one shirt all summer. He did buy us some overalls in the fall A: That was your grandfather? V: That's right. [A] A: Did you ever meet him? V: I saw him. A: Was he an old old man. V: Oo--, he was real old when I saw him. Cose he could walk from his house down to our house all right, some down there to eat. But he was bout sick when I saw him I guess cause he just come down there and sit around and sleep. He was an o-old man. But he never would live with any of um. Vera Hall, reel 7, page 2. My father used to just beg him to come down there and stay. He wouldn't stay. When he died, he died all by himself, livin up there in the house by himself. He was dead a day before we knew it, before anybody know he was dead .Shu was He wasn't no sicker than usual.But just went to bed and died in the night. And didn't know he was dead all [to]day, like today and tonight and they didn't know tilltomorrow after noon late , way up in the daythey notice they never had seen him come out on the po'ch . He always come out roun twelve o'clock, sit down on thepo'ch. Nobody hadn seen him, hadn heard him, the do hadn be opend. So some little childrens went by there foun out all of that.They come up there and told the white man--he was pretty close to that white man's house, Mister Cobb, said " I believe Unca Jake is sleep, still sleep down yonder." And Mister Cobb was sittin there on the po'ch, him an his two little boys , "What?" Said, "I believe Unca Jake is still sleep down yonder. " Say, Sleep like this time o day?" Say, "Yassuh." Say," Yal go down there and wake Unca Jake up, say" Jake might be sick. He don usu sleep this time a day. Go back down yonder and see bout him. Don't leave him like that." So they went back down there and knocked and knocked and knocked and nobody said nothin so he never sent um back down there to my father's to see what was the matter with him. So papa wasn't there, but[my] mama and my oldest sister went up [was, So they] there to the house, So they called him and knocked and they couldn't get in so(235) Vera Hall, reel 7, page 4... [*Vera a good singer*] and things and he say, "All right , sing me a song. Sing something. Sing anything. Say, I tell you [a], my baby here'll sing." He called me his baby. And so I'd go over and sit down in front of him and say, "All right, what you want me to sing?" Maybe he'd name something nother and I'd just lite off on it. Sya, "I do love to hera her sing. She's got a nice voice. Maybe some day she's gonna sing in church." Mam say, "I bleeve she is. " He says, "Yes , she's got a good gif' for singin, [she] when she learn mo about it, I bleeve she gon be a good songster some day. If anybody teach her. I wish I was able to teach her, but I ain able to learn how to sing good. " [*Bessie*] And my sister , Bessie, she could sing purty well, too, whenever she -- she could sing right nice, if she would do it-- but she was kinda-- mama said she was kind[a] of a rattlin girl-- she just had[a] a wild mind and wild idees -- she just [a] want to go... A: What were some of the favorite songs that your father liked? V: He liked that song about "When I'm Standing Womdering, Lord, Show Me the Way". I can remember singin that for him lots of times. (400) He liked that and it's sumpin else papa used to ask me to sing. What wqs it? It just won't come to me now, but it' something else... A: Did he favor spirituals more than he did reels? V: Yassuh, he didn' [never]never say anything about any reels or anything like that. Shu didn't. A: You told me this afternoon rhat you joined the church when you were about twelve and then you started singin in the Vera Hall, reel 7, page 5. choir. V: Certainly did. A: Did they sing from books? V: They sung outa books. . The old Gospel Pearls, our songbook was the first songbook I can remember they had up there. A: Did that have music in it as well as the world. V: they did. They had a girl there that played the-- we had an organ-- we didn't have a piano-- She played the organ up t[he] there practically all the time and they sing the songs in the book. A: They hymns. Or they mostly like spirituals. V: They--they went kinda like spirituals, I bleeve, cause a hymn you had to word it out and then sing it, but they just go right on to sing it. Just like they turn to a page and see what page they gon sing and they just go right on sing it. They didn't word that out so it must have been a like a spiritual. It's been a long time ago, but that's as much as I can... A: YOU remember any of the names of the songs in that book? V: Let's see...I'll Be Walking Down the Streets of Gold, With My Brother Many Things Behold--- but I done forgot the start in on that... (She begins to sing... I'll be walkin down the streets of gold, With my brother many things behold, O brother, I'll be glad to meet you And to take you by the hand I'll be walking down the streets of gold... That's not the first verse of it. That's way down in it...We sung that and then we sung, Lordy, Lordy---(550) Vera Hall, reel 7, page 6... A: You say you didn't keep um in mind, Vera... V: I didn. Those songs we sung outa of those hymn books in the time I was on the choir, when I first fessed religion, I didn't keep um in remembrance like I did those old timey songs I just heered the people sing-- something that just followed us. But those songs in the book I didn't keep um in my mind and I I cain't hardly think of um, lessen I just get down and study right hard over what we did do in then. But I know we had books. A: There were other old timey songs that everybody just knew, that everybody in church would know how to sing without having the words? V: O they were. Somebody would always break out on something that they just practically heard all they life and sing it. Some of the older people. Just had all younger people on the choir. Some of those older people sit down in church they give the choir a chance to rest and not be singin. They'd sing something, some kinda old song, some of them would. A:/Was that the kind of a song that would make the church get to shouting? V:/Kinda stir em up a little bit. That's right. Those old songs, when they would start singin them, it looks like evrybody in the church get happy-like, get to feelin good. That's just befo they preacher get up to talk and start preachin, they get the church all happy, get ev'body feelin good. And then after that, the preacher get up then and talk maybe a long time. [The old songs made the folks happy.] A: Was there any of the older people in the church that you Vera Hall, reel 7, page 7. specially learned a lot of singin from? (650) V: Well, I -I don't know whether I did or not and which I reckon I did , too. Because the way that I heard those people sing all my life, well, I sung just thataway, just like I heard those old peiple sing. A: Not anybody special? V: Nobody special, because it seem to me that everybody would sing the same song alike. And I sung it just like I heard them sing it. A: Did everybody seem to favor the same songs? Suppose a person would sing a certain song in a meeting would every- body in church like it the same? Or each person have differentfavorites? V: They would sing with that oneperson just likeif I would start a song in the church everybody in the church would join me and hep me sing that song out. Then when I gets through , then maybe another sister or another brother in the church might wanta sing, might be feelin good and he may even want to keep on singin this song I'm singin . If not he may start one of his owns. Then we all join in and hep him, just depend upon how the spirit makes you feel. If one some- body sing a song and it's real good and real lively and real spiritual in church, makes folkshappy and feel good well, some- body gon lite right out to singin it again because they feelin good. A: Well, I always noticed that certain songs seemed to fit a special time in a church services and certain songs fitted a Vera Hall, page 8, reel 7. another feelin the people had or another part of the service. How can you tell which songs to sing when? Do you know what I'm askin? V: Well, I do. You astin. . . A: How do you choose the song. . . V: Well, if they just got in church and ev'body just got fully seated, well, I'll sing, maybe, when we all get sit down, I'll sing a song, just sing a song, something like... ChO: Long as I kin feel the spirit Moving in my heart, I can pray . . Jordan river, chilly and cold, Chill my body, but not my soul [*Order of songs in the service*] Well, everybody's walkin and gittin straight, gittin sit down in church/ Well, maybe sing another verse till evrybody gits quiet and sit down and evything. Then the first thing the officers gon do, they gon git up while evybody's in church and say "Well, we better take up our collection first [and while] and get it outa of the way. Nothin comin up then but just the gospel, won't have nothin to destroy it. So well, the two officers come round then and stand up by the table and say, "Well, some of you sisters or some sing us a good collection song, sumpin with plenty life in it" and all like that. Well, we'll lite off on I Shall Not Be Moved or sumpin like that. A real fast movin song, sumpin for um to walk by. They gon really come to the table and bring those nickles then. Some of them pay quarters. They get that over with and eveything and then they start a prayer meetin, and when they start the prayer meetin, call on some of the brothers to pray, well, you start moanin Vera Hall, reel 7, page 9 Well, that's the beginnin of the spirit in the church then. They somebody get down to pray, then you start just hummin along just heppin um a little bit. He's prayin and we just moanin---(819) O Lawd, have mercy, O Lawd we need you need now, Well, we do that while he prayin. And we'll moan there and he'll pray till the whole church git just happy and then they won't sing nothin then and won't do nothin but just real spiritual songs just like the church is all singin and rockin andpattin those the kind of songs we'll sing, just real spiritual songs, A: What kinda of songs would you pick out now if you were leading the songs? V: What kind would I pick out now? . . We'd just keep on moanin' with that hymn. Even when he gets up, we keep on moanin with that hymn, evn if I git tired, like I did it all through his prayin, somebody would start over yonder. A: But you said that after the prayer was over, then you'd start singin the old lively spiritual songs? V: Well, it would be--- Let's see now we had so many that we'd sing that would make you feel good. "Something On My Mind That Keeps On Worrying Me". A: Would you sing "Low Down Chariot"? V: Well, sometime we sing, but most of the time when we'd sing that we'd been done been to a buryin or something or either fixin to go out to a buryin. One of the members or something like that. A: What about "Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray". .would you sing that Vera Hall reel 7, page 10. at a time like this? V: Well, it doesn't sound so fitty in there. It fits in revival, you see. (SHE SINGS) I couldn hear nobody prayin-- etc. . Had to pray myself--- You see, it's two sings that. One had to sing "had to pray myself" and the other sings "I couldn't hear nobody prayin". . And that's in our revival when we sing that song. The pastor would sing that often. Swing Low Chariot, we'd sing that when we fixin to bury one of the members or done buried them and we back at churh we'd sing "Swing Low Sweet Chariot let me Ride" . . A: What about -- Sometime I feel Like a Motherless Child. . When do you sing that One. . . V: I haven't never sung that in church. A: Isn't that a-- V: It's a spiritual, but I haven't never sung it in church and I haven heard anybody sing it in church. They sing it at the schools. I've sun it at school down there two three times. A: What about the John Saw the Number. V: I haven heard um singin that in church because I don't think so many of um know it. They know it, but they don't know how to sing it. They know it because it 'cause they been knowin it all they life. Blind Jesse used to play it and sing it all the time 'fo he died. It's-- A: What were some of the songs that they would sing at that time after the prayer mee in' was uh--- Vera Hall, reel 7, page 11. V: After the prayer meetin was over? Well, they would sing something like this--- O Lawd, shout for joy, O Lawd, shout for joy. Put your foot on the treadler, shout for joy, Put your foot on the treadler, shout for you. O Lord, shot for joy, Gon tread away to heaven... I wonder what's the matter... World on a wonder.. OLord... They sing that more'n apt to right away... Right after that everybody 'd be so happy. Shoutin For Joy that's an old old old old song. A: Yeah it is... (looo) V: But they get up and so many people's singin it, they couldn help from singin it... A: And then after that would come the minister.1. V: It would be his time then, the preacher's time. A: Would he usually end up his sermon with some[ki] kind of a song.. Or sometime.. Sometime you'd break in on him with song, wouldn't you? V; They'd break in on him with those moans, but they'd usually have to set him down. He'd git [hi] so high in his preachin. I haven ever known him to just end his sermon like I haveseen preachers in my life. He'd get so high up there preachin that the deacons would just set him down. A: You never have seen him just come down... V: Just come down to a close... This Reverend Gil[v]es, he (1026) Vera Hall, page3, reel 8. . . But they wouldn't be much noise kep while he was preachin . A: Well, I8ve seen lots of times when a congregation would just burst into song in the middle of a sermon. Look like to me they were giving the preacher a chance to rest a minute . V: They sometime would moan, not a song. . Least not at my church. A: You've seen um do that haven't you. V: (WITH A SIGH OF WEARINESS AT MY PERSISTENCE I SUPPOSE) I was at Brown Chapel one time when Mrs. Tartt carried us up there and I think Mister Lomax was with here that Sunday and I noticed that they broke into that preacher up there and some folks- right in the middleof his song-- Couse I gess the man was happy--because he stood up and come walkin over there singin'. . . One Monday mornin, I found the way, One Monday mornin I found I the way, I got to leave here, God knows I can't stay here, One Monday morning I found the way and everybody joined him. Cose I joined him myself and it was good but the man was high way preachin. He really [a] was . . . A: More words. . . V: Sumpin onther bout. . . One Tuesday mornin I found the way, Etc. . . He said something about his mother and his father. Don't seem like I can get it placed. (MATERIAL OMMITTED) But everybody was so happy and the church was so stirred up. People was hollin and goin on. A: When you were a young girl, I guess you would go to the protracted meetings every year. . V: I did. Vera Hall, reel 8, page 4. . . A: And sorta help with the spirit of the meeting? And bring the other folks to the mourners bench? V: That's right. I used to go. A: Did you go every night or did you go some nights. V: I'd go some nights, cause you see it would go on two weeks and that was just when-- we was workin every day--we didn't go out there every night. A: Did those meetings last late at night. V: Oo! They last till eleven and sometimes till twelve o'clock. They'd begin to get-- Maybe somepin turn up about the time they ought to be breakin up , somebody come thu with religion, come thu shoutin and hollin and go on up there and that just mean another hour or two hours there at the church. Why would it mean another two hours? A: Why would it mean another two hours? V: Because it may be some of um's daughter or some of um's chile and if they look over there and see that's that they child or something like that, well, the parents gon fall out and faint and shout and cry and everybody will and if you dodn't mind, evybody will get back in the stand and go to preachin. The church just gets stirred all up over again. Everybody in there looks like get happy because that soul done got [be] saved. Then they got to wait till everybody done get quieted down again and they gon take this candidate into the church that night befoer they dismiss. Doesn't matter of it's twelve o'clock, they gon take her in. Take her in church and evything. Then we have stay ed there till it was -- o twas nearly bout one o'clock, cause [* Reel 8, page 5. *] just about the time they say, "That's all, we'll stand." And so Evbody stand gettin ready to dismiss, maybe two or three will run offa that bench-- maybe two three those mourners just break aloose and run offa there and begin to talk about religion-- "Thank God. . So Glad. . Got religion. . Just as sho as you born. . Everybody in church then gon go to lookin and runnin over to where they is and when they find out who they is they just go to shoutnin and hollin and goin on. Cause I know how I did myself when mama's cousin got religion. But she got it at twelve o'clock that day. They have a prayer meetin at twelve o'clock every day there, too. And she got religion at twelve. And I was just getin out there and I heard her when she hollered out in there I thought it was her and I run to the door [and] to see and it was her..O Lawd, if we didn't have a time. Um-mm-ump! We she did have a good time. Sho was. The preacher was n't there. He don't be there at tweelve. It 's just some of the mebers and deacons meet there and have a little prayer meetin round twelve o'clock every day. That's to keep the mourners basedd, just to keep them knowin that the meetin is goin on and they don't have no idleness thu the day. Pray just as hard today as you do tonight--the pastor told um to do like that-- because if you let um go all day long, they'll see something cross their mind and they won't pray. Keep a little meetin long at twelve o'clock, let um know that they must pray to get religion. A: Well, that was your daughters? V: No that was my mother's sister's daughter? My first cousin(6160) Vera Hall, reel 8, page 6... A; When you saw her get happy, well, you got happy yourself... V: I sho did. I was so happy, because she had been goin there every year, just moanin, and I don't keer how I talked to her and told her bout how I got my religion, she seemed to be just so hard to believe. She was just sittin up on the bench, just sittin up there. Every year they have revival, there sit her, just sittin up there. I just give her up. [I] She was younger than I was-- "You that hard to believe in the Lord and believe him a savior, you just don't want no religion, you just don't want to live for him. She say, "Yes I do, but I just don't want to got to have, just got to see sumpin." So I say, "Okay, pray on." So I'd given her up, but I know she kep goin to church, kep goin to revival. So when I heard her, I thought it was her voice and when I got to the door, it was her. [and they] They had her comin out of the church and she was just fallin from side to side and hollin "Thank God, thank God!" and Lord have mercy! I just don't know what come of myself for a while. Um-um! I was so happy. A: You just went clear out of yourself for awhile. V: I sho did. Just went somewhere. When I knowed anything, they had us all (GIGGLE) way down the road... I never did get in church I never did get further than the do. Um I sho was glad that girl got religion, that 's the truth, was just too gladx to get her offa that mourner's bench. (Chuckle). So I don't have none of my people a mourner, sinner. All of my people blong to church. E: She was very sincere, wasn't she? She waited till she got it didn't she? Vera Hall, reel 8, page 7 . . . V: She realy did. She didn't care what I said or what nobody said. She wasn't ready and she didn't come. I just believe she didn't come till she knowed she was ready herself. A: There are some people that will pretend, aren't there, Vera. V: Well, a lots of times I have seen people that I thought just got religion because the other one got it, because I have heard um say, I know if she get religion, I'm sho gon get one. So I don believe in that kind of doins . So they've got a lot of them in Shilo Baptist church just like that--- now (700) those girls down at Parker place, there's [*3*] of um , I don't remember their names, but their mama bought them new dresses when they got religion and the other girl , Miss MAriah'S daughter, she didn't have a new dress and she said "Well, all right I bet I'll have one for the baptizin because I'm gon get religion. And so sho nuff, she come up, -- today Saturday, they gon baptize tomorrow-- she got religion today way fo'n time for the sto's to close in town and she got religion and she told some um that her mother could get her dress now cause the stores aren't even closed to be ready for baptizin tomorrow. So I don't believe in that religion. Nobody didn't believe in it. But the pastor, he baptized her. He says, "I can't hep it, says-uh, I can't hep what youall think, I can't hep what the mother think, said, the Bible say' Whosoever come in my name, take um, judge ye not, say, let me judge. I can't judge um. Say, evy tub gotta set on its own bottoms. Say, this chileis got to die for herself. If she think she can live with what she doin--- I'm gonna do what God command Vera Hall, reel 8, page 8 . . . me to do and that's baptize this sister. And so he did, he baptized her, helt his hand over her head and baptized her. Say, I'm gon discharge my duty. Say, I ain't got to live for her, either die for her. She has to do that herself. So that was right. So the mother didn't want her to be baptized, but she was baptized. Nobody didn't believe in her, still don't believe in her. She sets up in church now and just makes fun at people. She was on the choir, they took her off. Cause she don't have no religion. I reckon I ought not to say it because they say don't judge nobody but I don't believe in her religion, sure don't. A: How can you tell , if you don 't know her background . . . Could you tell from the way she'd act in church that she didn't have good religion. If you had a chance to watch her a long time. V: I believe I could. A: How would you tell? V: Well, a person that don't know a thing about Christ and don't know- never felt the spirit, I just don't believe that they could just- if a man be up preachin, maybe, he gon come across something that you felt when you was praying to get religion-- he's gon say something in that way that you gon feel and you gon feel either happy or real bad or real sorry . So if the preacher preachin and god knows you know he's preachin outa the Bible really tellin the truth and everybody seems to be happy and enjoyin it and this person is sittin up there with their head down-- don't matter what you do-- you can preach , just preach yourself to death, sing yourself to death, nothin don't arrouse them, nothing Vera Hall, reel 8, page9 . . . don't disturb them, they just sitting up there like a knot on a log(HERE HER VOICE IS ALMOST VINDICTIVE WITH SARCASM) (800) , just sumpin sittin there in the way, just sittin there. Then times sumpin funny might happen or somebody might fall or get up and make a mistake, they ready to laugh at um or reach over there and touch somebody and say (whisper) "Look at so and so," Well, I don appreciate that. They don't never pay no tention to what this gospel man is talkin bout readin out the Bible , preachin the Bible. They don't pay him a bit of attention at all. But antyhing funny or disorderly should happen, they see evy bit of it. Andwill laught about it and will reach way over there and touch somebody and show it to them. I don't even sit by them kind of people's, I tell um, "If that's what you come here for, you can just go or either I'll move. "Say," I come here to try to hear what they saying. . ." So that's the way she do all the time. She ain't no girl. Now she's a grown woman and still she do that. That's the reason I say she ain't got no religion. If she did, she wouldn't ack like that. A: Do all the people feel that way about her? V: Everybody in that church feels that way bout her. They sho does. A: I guess she feels pretty much by herself, don't she? V: She does. She do. Her own mother don't believe she's got religion. Her own mother don't believe it. A Is she married and got a family now and all the rest of it? V: She's married Vera Hall, reel 8, page 10 . . . (855) but she ain't got a family. Just she and her husband. Now he ain't go no religion at all and he don't pretend to have nary un , her husband.He don't even pretend to have one. He don't even belong to the church. But he will come to church sometime, stand outdo's , look in the window, but he won't come in. She ought to be standing out there with him, what good she doos in the church. [*S*]he doesn't do any good. A: Have you seen preachers that were in the same fix that really weren't sincere? V: Well, I ain't say but one preacher that I thought put on. [*O*]ne time. And the reason I thought he put on--- He lived at Livingston, right in the town part, this preacher. His name was Eddie Yates. We call him Sheffield. He aw, he went up to Elks , Alabama, and heard a preacher preach up there, Wills Broughton was the pastor up there, so he pre---each and he had a very heavy voice, so Sheffield heard him preach up there a time or two, So he was a little unliscenced preacher , so they had him just to preach around some time when the real pastor was gone [*down at*] [doesn't] the Second Baptist. He was what you call a jack-leg preacher. And-uh, he went down there and preached exactly like Willis Broughton and said the same words , same action that he did, did the same things that he did. So everybody talked about it, say, "We never thought he was no preacher nohow, but after he got up there and done that, everybody justed knowed he wasn't no preaCHer. Went and saw Wills Broughton how he preached and carried on , went down there and did the same thing. Did the same thing that he saw Wills Broughton do . . . Vera Hall, reel 8, page11 He still down therein Livingston, but he never gets no appointment nowhere. He preaches in the old house down there sometime. A: What's the old house? V: It's just an old house where nobody don't live and you kin go there and have meetin if you want to, somebody that don[*'*]t go to church often, something like Sheffield, the old Jack legged preacher and his wife and maybe her freends and maybe his friends will be there, but nobody else, to listen to him preach. I won't say he's not a preacher, cause sumpin coulda called him, but he doesn't ack like a preacher. He doesn't ack like a prea[c]her at all. A: You mean outside the church buildin? V: That's what I'm talkin bout. Outside the church. A: What does he do? V: He beats his wife and he doesn't treat her right. He goes about, run around,leave her and all like that. And she ask him where he gone , where he been, he's ready to knock her down or fuss after her.He doesn't treat her right at all, doesn't stay home with her one half of the time. And I don't think preachers should live like that. Stays gone. He got a car and he got a bycycle called motor byke and he always got a woman sitting up there with him goin down the road. Just keeps a car full of womens , ridin um, stayin out half of the night. Sometime all night. E: How does he make his money? Vera Hall, reel 8, page 12 . . . V: He works on the railroad. He makes pretty good money. He's been on the railroad, I reckon about twenty five years I believe. He's been working on the railroad long time, He makes good money now. They pay good on the railroad now. So he got him a ni-ice car , Lincoln. And got a motorbike, too. But he can't be no preacher, cause he been livin this kinda life all those years. But he smart. He got him a heap of sense. He's a mechanic. He can fix cars and things like that. And he can get holt of a right smart of money and he just gets out and run around. But I don't think that's right. That'S the reason nobody down there don't believe in him, bein nom preacher . And beat his wife like that and she ain't doin anything but just stayin there where he leave her. Betcha I wouldn't stay there (LIGHT LAUGH) not if he gon come back there and beat me. (MORE LAUGHTER IN WHICH E JOINS) I wouldn't, I wouldn't be there. I always say that I never would quit my husband, which I didn't , but"I ain't gon stay there now and let you come home and beat me. No sir! I might be there one time when you come back , but I won't be there the next time. " But she is. She's a good woman. She stays there. She just looks bad and down hearted all the time. Don't have any nice cl othes to wear to chruch, much money as he makes. I think they ought to do sumpin to him, though, makin all that money and don't buy his wife [any] no better lookin clothes than that! Just throwin it away , I reckon. (INFINITELY WISTFUL) E: Just throws it away. V: Yesmam. Just throws it away. He don't drink, I don't Vera Hall, reel 8, page 13 . . . think. I [ain] haven heard nobody say that he drink. I haven heard nobody say that he gambled. But he just dribble it out some how or other. They ain't got no childrens . . . (Beginning to laugh scornfully-- as she can) Talkin bout a preacher! Lord, I wouldn't go as fur you could throw a ten year old bull to hear him preach.(Chuckle) I sho wouldn't [*Rich*] A: He's about like Rich Amerson. V: That's about how he is-- bout like old Rich . . . Oo, yessuh, Rich will do anything, he'll get right out there in the flo and mock the preacher, Run around and everything. And he can catch onto to anything quicker and better than anyone you ever seen. He sho can. He[w] went to 'sociation one time. I didn't go but a lot of my people went, said, Rich couldn't get in, but he just stand there in the window and watchin the preacher and watchin the folks shoutin and goin on and all the way back home from the church, Rich was just carryin on just[b]like those folks, [co] couldn nobody ride [wit] in the wagon in peace for Rich Amerson (HER VOICE IS HIGHAND SWEET IN LAUGHTER. LIKE [CH] A CHILD. SWEET LIKE THE RIPPLE OF CLEAR WATER) Said he preached, he preached and mocked the folks shoutin and everything, carried on like the folks shoutin . . . A: He doesn't go to chruch. V: Just go there and look and see what the other folk doin. A: Is that because he doesn't believe or because he's got that curious way about him? V: It's just because of his curious way, because I've heard my mother ast him time and agin"Did he believe in church or did Vera Hall, reel 8, page 14 . . . he believe in God. He said, " Yes, I believe in God, What you ask me that for? " Well, I just ask you. . . Sho I believe in God . . .Well, you don't go to church, Rich . . . Well, I just don't care to go. I can believe in God without goin to church. I just don't want to go . . . Mama say, Well, okay, if you don't want to go, you don't have to go . . . That's what I know. That's the reason I ain't goin. . . He wont go, without it's a big 'sociation or a big to-do at the church- a big foot washin--he love to go to the footwashin there. Then Rich'll go, but he won't dress up . He ain't got nothin to dress in, but he won't clean up.(LAUGHING) A: He goes pretty ragged . . . V: He does. He don't care how he go. He really don't. Hair standin' up on his head. (Laughing) A: I think he 's a man that just says to heck with everything. V: (STILL LAUGHING) He is. That's what everybody says . . . Vera Hall, reel 9, page 1. . . . Vera: I been hearin Blind Lemon all my life up until he died. A: You think that Louis Jordan and Blind Lemon are better than Rich? V:I don't know, suh. Well, they-they know more songs---I don't know. All Rich know--he know all old time stuff-- and all how he carried on-- just way back-- and he still got all that up , but he really good at that. He , I won't say they are better than him, because what he know, he really knows it. And really can do it and ack just like he did in olden times. Cose Rich is an old man and he just never have put down what he done from child on up to where he is now. He does the same way and the same thing. He don't care nothin about a style. He don't care who start anything. He's just doos his same old way the time and it's always funny and relively. Everybody just enjoys it. A: Did you learn most of your blues and sinf[g]ul songs from him? V: I did. Because my people, I never was round it much they never did sing blues much, till Rich Amerson got to comin round our house so often. A: About how old were you? V: I was ver very young. We was just little chilrens. I don't know, suh, just exactly how old I was. I know I wan't nothin like ten years old or nothin like that. I was just young. [*Begin*] When I come to realize, I was seein Rich Amerson roun there. A: What did your folks say about him? V: They didn say anything about him because I remember asking my mother about him one time. I though he was Vera Hall, reel 9, page 2. . . kin to us, was some of our people, he stayed there so much. And she said, "No , he's not any of our people. He's just an old man. He likes to come around. ["] And so we just enjoys him all the time: He love to come here so much. He's not a bit of kin to us." A: They didn't make fun of him? V: They did not. I never heard my mother or father, either one, make any fun of him. And they didn't low us to. . . A: Did they approve of somebody that would sing the blues? V: They would lissen to it, if he would be singin, They would would laugh sometime, but they never would say anything[x] about it. A: What did they think when you stareed singin the blues. You must have started when you were a little child. V: I did. I used to mock him, Rich Amerson-- my mama , she would laugh. And my father, [q] I don't remember him saying anything. . Sometime he'd laugh and say, "Youall gonna come up, if you don't mind and the devil gon get you. Says, Old Rich , he 's almost Satan on earth. Then he'd laugh and say, He's all right, he keeps youall compny . So it's all right. But he just study so much devilment. Got all my chillun singin the blues [and]. And my oldest sister say, Naw, I don't sing um [the blues], because I don't know um so good. Vera the [oo] one that [sings] [um because] always mockin Rich cause she sets in his lap all the time and look right in his mouth and when he gone it's just another little Rich here singin. I get so tired of her. . . [*Just like that.*] And I would sing like him, more than any of them. (250) Vera Hall, reel 9, page 3. Cause I liked to hear him sing-- set up on his knee and watch him-- get up in his lap and sit down. Um--... A: They never did think it was bad for you to sing those songs? [*Mother hoped she wouldn't be a real singer-*] V: Well, my mother told me that she hoped that I never would get in the practitionin of bein a real singer, said, "I hope you done be a practionin of singin reels all the time(Interruption by the telphone) A: Since you were such a spiritual singer, how did it happen you didn't get in trouble from singin the reels? [*Deacons try to handle her for singing blues.*] V: Well, they first tried to handle me when I first started out singin some blues [x] for Miss Ruby, Miss Tartt and them around there. Some of the officers, the deacons said something about it and so I just told um," Now, listen, I don't tell a story about what I did. I say, I sho did sing some blues. They asked me about these old blues, [tf] and if I knowed um[m] I'd sing um for um. Give um the words and then tell um how the tune went at the time, I say-- but that didn't take effec on Vera Hall, reel 9, page 4... me at all. I was just tryin to do what I was aked to do. And they said, you mean,x you didn't feel like dancin or something like that--- that's what one of them old officers said. I said, no I have been a dancer. I never have danced. I might -- I say I have tried sometime. I be where they have a lot of good musicx and I have to pat my feet and shake my head-- but I don't even know how to dance. And he say, well, I don't know whether we could handle you for that, Vera, say, it's just like a day's work. If you went out to the field to chop this morning and you went out to help um plow [chop, you] a piece and youcould do it, you'd hep um wouldn you? I say, I sho would. I say, now youall know my whole singin is spiritual singin in church, but they asked for those songs and I knew um and I sung um for um. They said that was all right if it didn take effect on me. A: Now if you're off by yourself at work or something, do you sing any of those songs then. V: Those blues-- I wouldn Vera Hall, reel 9, page 5... V[A:] Just sing spirituals-- a hymn or something like that. A: But what about when you go down to the Rockolas, in Tin Cup andplaces like that -- they don't have sp down there do they? V: Nothin but blues come over that Rockola. Put a nickle in [xx] and hear any kind of blues you want . They didn have no spi on there, I think, I haven ever heard none. A: Did church members protest your people goin down there. [*Blues stay in Rockolas - They know we must have a little fun.*] V: Well, they didn. They never say nothin to us. They know we like to go somewhere it's lively and they kickin up sport at . Just work all week and then , Satdy evenin, we be off. We want to go somewhere to have a little fun and lot of us be down there, lot of us church members. We sittin down lookin and listenin. We put nickles in there to hear it over again. Stay down there till practically night and sometime go home and come back down there [at] that night. Stay down late listenin , lookin at the people laughin, dancin goin on an havin fun(438) Vera Hall, page 6, reel 9... My mother always told me that 'ligion never was desire to make your pleasure less.And so that's is my pleasure to hear and I likes it now to go where it is if I kin. For they never did say anything to us about goin down there-- we be to church on Sunday, go to Sunday school Sunday mornin and then stay through service. I never did go down there on Sundays, but I sho would go through the week. A: Do you still go?.. V: When I'm at home... A: In Tuscaloosa? [*A certain crowd gets together for parties-*] V: I don't go [there] so much in Tuscaloosa. I been twice, I mean I been jist sinul...Sometime our crowd git together--- at least the geng that I sociate with-- [the] some ladies and their husbands--/ so we-we--- it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it--if you just let other peoples know what you doin, you can do most anything, I believe-- so I like to take a drink sometime but I just don't take it wid everybody-- I got a certain crowd there that we gets together and their husbands Vera Hall, reel 9, page7... go and get it maybe a day or two before this party's comin off---(500) so we just -- I just close up our house and we just sit in there and smoke and drink and talk and play the Graphanola and some of um gits up and dance and we just have a time there-- we don't let nobody else in-- cose they know not to come and knock cause they know I ain' gon let um in-- so we'll pitch that party and probably get high or sumpin and go to sleep, some of us, lay roun there and we get up and eat and clean up and we'll go to the Rockola then-- stay there till about twelve o'clock, just sittin down lookin and listenin-- we won't do anything around there-- we won't even take a drink-- they can come around with it but we won't take it cause we got plenty, done had our party at home-- A What time would you have that party? V: We'd have it on Saturday nights. Cause we could stay up late as we want to. Nex mornin we won't have to be hurryin up goin to work, Get chance to sleep long time. A: If your deacons or your minsters found out about that, they make it hard for you. (550) Vera Hall, reel 9, page 8... V: Ooo-, they sho would. That's right. Turn us out of church. Handle us about it. But they don't know it. And then lots of those people round there don't know it. They kinda believes it, some of um, [and they] say "Vera make out she don't drink, Vera make out she don't like this and that and the other, but don't you know she do? " Say, "Yeah--!" They talks about me. I know they do. But they don't know it, they just believe it. A: When did you first begin to drink, Vera? VL When I married. A: When did you marry? When did you meet the man that you married? How old were you? V: I was about. I was nearly fifteen, cause I was already [fo't] fo'teen and that same year I was gon be fifteen years old-- when I met him. A: What was his name? V: His name was Nels Riddle. And-uh, I met him up in Tuscaloosy. I was up there with some white people I was workin for. I'd go roun on that Blue Front street, they call, really Vera Hall, reel 9, page 9... colored street and so that's where I'd go where all the colored people was, Just up there by myself then. I wasN8t livin there with them. And so in round there, I met this man, just got to talkin with him in round there and he liked me so I likted him pretty good when I first saw him. A: What did he look like? V: He was a kinda low brown-skin man like---with a few freckles in his face , right cross here-- and -uh so we'd talk and chat down there. They had a place down there then where you could play music and have a little fun, go there and sit down and [play and have] eat sandwiches --- so me an him would sit in there evy afternoon and I'd get off form my work up there, talk-- so I'd go back to Livingston and probably not see him no mo until the next summer -- the lady would go up there evry summer near bout it-- well, she would go up there every summer and [we] we'd stay up there a mont' every time-- she was visitin some of her relations and she would carry me up there with her-- Well, after we went home and this lady we worked for got in Vera Hall, reel 9, page 10... bad health, she didn't get to back and I didn't, so this[m] [man] Nels fellow , he start writin to me. So he wrote me bout a year , I believe it was, and he even wrote to my mother and father and asked for me, but they didn say I could marry in a long time after that-- it wasn no year , but it was a long time befo they consent that I could marry him. So he made one trip down there-- my father wanted to see him--wanted to see what he look like-- so I written him[a] and told him-- I say now there's nothin I can do about we gettin [marr] married lessen you come down here and let papa and mama see you[-- s ]. So he-he came down there[?] A[L]: Was he nervous about it? V: He was. When he got in town, he just didn't hardly have nerves enough to come out to the house[-- ] where we lived-- we lived out in the country. He didn't hardly have nerves enough to come out there. A: I bet you were sorta nervous , too? V: Oo-ee! I knew the very day he was comin and was scared to tell papa and them that he would be in town that day, but (670) Vera Hall, reel 9, page 11... finally I told um that he would... They didn't know him. They had to carry me wid um to town [town] so I would know him when I see him. Oh---(with a little laugh) That was one more time of my life. I was just mise'ble. I was so bad [h whe] when he went back home , I didn't know what to do. A: How old were you then Vera? V: I was fifteen years old, going into sixteen years old-- almost sixteen... A: Did your folks want you to get married, or did they want [yo] you to wait? V: [Mama] Mother, she want me to wait till I get about seventeen, maybe eighteen , she said. But my father, he first didn't want it to happen after it first started out, but after he saw this man and uh talk with him and he seem to be very nice, after he went home, papa says, says [ifzshe] well, says, "If she's old enough and got sense enough to delove this man , if she want him for a husband, how come you don't want him to marry him-- says, he love her, he say he do-- so people have met that way -- have met just Vera Hall, reel 9, page 12... one time and been married on the nex sight. He don't have to court her no four five years, he get an [o]old lady near bout fo she marry. Let her marry now while she young. She's old enough. So mama didn't say any mo about it. And so, you see, she couldn fix me-- one thing was worryin mama-- shewanted to buy me some clothes to get married with but papa didn't have so much money, enough money to buy me no clothes to marry in, nice clothes. She say she hated for me to marry, just marry with the old clothes I had [, just] [one one] and maybe one more new dress. And so then he--- I told him about it after we got so sincerely about it-- [I to] I told [him] my husband about it. [He] I said, my people not able to fix me to get married-- I just told him the truth. He said, "Why that's puffickly all right. We- we won have a weddin. We'll just go on to the cotehouse and marry. All we want to do is to get married. And so I'll[,] divide for you after we marry. So I don't want clothes, I just want you. A: That's was a mighty sweet thing to say. V: It was. So he written my mother a letter and told her about Vera Hall, reel 9 [10], page 13... it, cause she was worryin over it, told her not to worry about [it] that. Said, he wasn't marryin me for [dressin] bein dressed nice nice. Said he [was marryin me] wanted me even if I didn't have on a good dress. (760) He would try to put me on one after he gets me. So that made her feel good. .. I didn't marry do till I was sixteen. [VH]: Marry in Livingston? V: I married in Birmingham. A: You didn't stay home to get married. He want to go to Birmingham and marry so-- he bought me a dress. He ask my mother and em if he buy me a dress could he take me to Birmingham and take her and my father and get married so they said yes... So he bought me a dress in Tuscaloosa and mailed it to me. And-uh told me what day to get on the train in Livingston and he was gonna join me in Tuscaloosa, So he did and he sent money for three of us, [but] sent three tickets. We got on and when [t h] the train got to Tuscaloosa , he got on the train. A: What were you feelin like? V: I don know suh, I had cried an cried an cried an cried. I was just sorry or sumpin another. What an scared, just as scared as I could be! I don't know, my mother (800) Vera Hall, reel [10] 9, page 14... she practically held me in her lap all the way. Papa didn't pay any tention. He sit across the train from us . He said, "Not a bit of sense in that. You know all this over a year ago." So he just kep on lookin out the window, said, "You just foolish, you just actin crazy. Cause you know this was gonna be done a year ago and now just today, just cryin. I'm npt gon worry with you . I'm gon try to see. While I'm is got this trip up here I'm gon see what I can see." So mama she pat me and talk to me, say, "it's nothing to be fraid of,you ain't gon marry before a great big crowd of people. Youall[l] just go on in the cotehouse and let the judge marry you there. There's nobody gonna be there but just me and you and him and your [dday] daddy. A: That's not what you were scared of anyway, was it? V: It certainly want( With a little chuckle) And when he got on the train, I just like to have died. Um-um! A: Weren't you glad to see him. I on know, sir, where I was or no. I was glad to see him I wasn' glad to see him. I wanted to go back home. I just didn't know what to do. And after we married he did let me go back[,] home and stayed down there Vera Hall, reel [10] 9, page 15... nearly [bout] two week (High apologetic giggle) A: Cause you were too young. V: I was. He saw Iwas too. A: That was awful kind of him. There'd be some people that wouldn't understand how it was. V: He was about[,] four years, nearly five years older than me and -uh but he let me went on back home . We stayed in Birmingham that night -- (faint giggle) stayed with my papa's --some of his people--he wanted to take us over to another place but papa wanted to see his people while he were there-- so he "Just all right. Just any way we wanted to do was all right with my husband. " So he went over there( more apologetic laughter) we went over there and stayed that night and so he say, "You want to go home wit your mother and father today?" I say "I sho do." He say, "Why all right, you can go." And so he bought a ticket straight through from Birmingham to Livingston and bought his ticket to Tuscaloosa, because he had to work. He couldn't go down there. A: What did he do, honey? V: He worked at a filling station there and he had been working there a long long time, so he had to be back on the job. He couldn' go down there and stay around. He ask me Vera Hall, reel [10] 9, page 16... must he come down the weekend and git me? And I told him "No" I want to stay another week. He say, "All right, say, I'M not gon have time to just come down there, come back and just come back and get you. You just tell me when you want to come back home--- cause he already had got us a place to live: he'd done had that about a mont or two (885) and had got new furni[s]ture and evything; his boss man was mighty nice, too; I think he give him three pieces of furnisture; he give him a bed, a set of drawers and a vanity. So he bought a rug and then we we had a nice little stove-- [number] it was small, number seven, wood stove, nice little kitchen and a table and just three chairs and that's all we had, I mean that's all he had (Extremely wistful) in the house. But I stayed at home. Never did move my clothes. I didn't have anything to move. Nothing but my few little clothes. My mother didn't have nothing to divide with me with. She needed everything she had. So he knew -- he just told her not to worry bout one thing in the world -- he just wanted me. A: And you waited how long fore you went back up there? [I stayed] V: Two Vera Hall, reel [10] 9, page 17... weeks. I stayed at home two weeks. A: By then you were anxious to go, I guess. V: Well, I got a letter from him and in that letter he told me, said, he wishes I would cided now to come home, he said. And stay a while and ef you get homesick again, I'll let you go back and stay wit your mother. And so, my mother, told me, Well, that's right. You go up there and stay with your husband. Say, get nuse to him. You never will know him, if you don't stay with him. You will care for him. Get nuse to him. He'll be sweet to you. And you'll just love to stay there." And so I got ready and come on back up there to Tuscaloosa. He met me and so I stayed there about a mont then before I went back to Livingston and he went with me that time. And so we both stayed down there about [h] theree or four days and sho nuff I did got to likin him-- I just come just lovin him-- an uh I got where I wouldn go home in about a year. Stayed up there. (Little shy laughs) A: After a little bit you couldn't leave him. V: I shu couldn't. (Bolder laughs.) He [wa] sho was sweet to Vera Hall, reel [10] 9, page 18... me. A: Did you all live all the time in Tuscaloosa. V: We didn't. We left there and went out to a place you call Cedar Cove Mines. He worked out there [Well, they want] where he could make more money. So-uh, after my oldest child came, he went over to Cedar Cove. He could get a little more money over there. That's where he-uh died at. We lived there a lo-ong time, though, [both of] had both of my chilluns over there. So after I lose him, I went back home. I couldn't stay up in there. A: Did he fall ill. V: No sir, a man killed him, shot him. Shure did. Weren't a thing in the world all him like sickness or nothing. He just got shot. I don't know. They never did tell me how that was, but he went out to work and they said that him and this man had had some words like [this] yesterday evenin', but he didn't tell me anything [a] about that. I noticed that he wasn't so pleasant that night, but I just kep worryin, ast him what was the matter "Are you sick?" He say, [Maw] "Naw I'm not sick." So I just sit around him and say, "What's the matter wid you?" He say, "Not anything." Vera Hall, reel [10] 9, page 19 I say, "Have I done anything?" He say, "Naw. You haven' done anything." I say, "Well, you not satisfy about sumpin nother." He say, "Go way. Don't worry me right now. I'm got to study bout sumpin." I say, "Okay." So I just went on out back in the rooms somewhere and left him. And I wouldn say anything no more to him all night, lessen he say something to me, cause I didn't know what he was studyin about (INTERRUPTED BY RINGING TELEPHONE) A: And you say he didn't say anything about this at all. V: He didn't tell me anything about the words [and] that him and the man had the day befo, the evenin, ruther, they say. They had a few words down there. He didn't tell me a thing about it. So he went out to work the next mornin', went back to the mines and he wasn't gone-- they go on at seven o'clock and go in at seven thirty-- and uh I was just had got through cleanin up my house and gotten up all my clothes and was out in the back yard buildin a fire round the pot to start to start washin and-uh I heard the whistle blow---mine whistle blow down there-- and I said "Ump Lawd I hope it's not an explosion--" just Vera Hall, reel [10] 9, page 20... like that. And say, I reckon it's sumpin the matter. Don't know what it is. And so I just tried to not think that sumpin had happen in the mines. So I just went on busy and after while a man came runnin up there-- he was just flyin down the streets and told me--"Hey yo husband go shot while ago. "say, "I don't know whether he dead or no, but he got shot bad. They gone to the hospital with him. " And Lawd have mercy I don't know what happened to me. I reckon I fell out. It look like to me I went to sleep or something. But when I knowed anything I were in my house and the company doctor was there, sittin by the bed, had holt of my hand, just like that --- When I open my eyes-- look like to me I had been sleep or something. And the first thing I remember saying, I say, "Is my husband dead?" And the doctor just kinda shuck he head, like that, see. And so he said, "Just stay quiet. Don't say anything." But he was already dead then. He's already-- the man killed him intersty down there-- but they didn't tell me that he did. Instead of him going to the hospital, he Vera Hall, reel [10] 9, page 21... was gone to the undertaker (SIGH) So they didn't let me know definitely, but I believed that he was dead, I believed it. And so I said, "Doctor, I just want to ask something." Want nobody in the room but me and the doctor. I say, "I just want to know something. Is he bout to die? Is he nearly dead?" He says, "He's all right." I says, "But can I go out there to see him?" "Naw, you can't go out there now. Be quiet, Vera, you can't go out there now. I got a shot in you now and you got to lay quiet, so it'll take effeck." So I just lay down there and I cried and cried and cried. And so the doctor stayed there with me a lo-ong time and then after while another lady over cross the street, she come over there, told her, "You stay here with her and I'll be back out here this evenin.'" So he went off and I ast her, "Please tell me whether my husband's dead or no." And she say, "Well, I'm not gon tell you no story, Vera," say, "You just as well's as to know it now as to know it tomorrow. He's absolutely dead." And I didn't know anything else then till the next day. Didnknow nothin. I just fainted. Vera Hall, Reel [10] 9, page 22... I just went off in trance or something. A:A terrible thing, etc...V: Lawd, have mercy. I hates to think about it now. She sho did tell me. And I left there. They carried me from there-- they carried me home-- they wanted to carry me to the hospital--but I didn't want to go to the hospital-- I wanted to go home, I wanted to go home-- I was there for just a half a day and they put me back on forty-fo that evenin.... (END OF RECORD AT 1111) Vera Hall, reel 10, page 1... [*Her new man.*] A: Would you say you were in love with him , Vera? V: I sho would. I really loved him. I just don't know nobody that I [could] would love and could love no more[-] than I did him and I still loves him. Sho do! A: Did you fall in love with anybody else after your husband died? V: Well, I used to like a [gl] fellow pretty good. He kep pretty good compny[x] with me. And I still keeps compny with him now sometime. His name is Willie Ward. And he right nice man, looks like. Comes around to see me pretty often when he's at home. But he doesn't live in Tuscaloosa, he lives in a place they calls Greensboro[x], Ala., and he come up every other week end on Saturday. He get up here around twelve o'clock on that bus and he stays until that nine forty_five bus[s] run that night - with me. So we go to church some part the day and we come back and I fix dinner and then we done eatin we just kinda hang around and pass the time away, play music and all like that. I like him pretty well. He thinks I'm gon get married to him some day but I never will , I don't think. (150) Vera Hall, reel 10, page 2... Cause I don't like Greensboro and I know that's where he goin. Now his mother and father both livin and they own a place down there, got a big farm and I'm not goin. I know if I married him that's where I'd have to go down there to live-- I like him pretty well but I ain't gonna marry him on that occasion. A: Why don't you like Greensboro?V: I just don't like it. It's just a farmin place and it looks like you might have a pretty hard time round there for convenience or something. I just don't like down there-- too fur back-- it's a little town, but I doesn't like it... (BREAK IN RECORDING WHEN K. CAME IN...) V: ....some of the songs and then another -- we got two sopranos -- I'm supposed to be a soprano -- and we got two -- and so I lead awhile and then she lead-- we sit right together [and then].. We trainin up another girl to be a soprano cause we are we call ourselves gettin kinda ol, so we tryin to train us up some mo girls-- two mo. A: Do you sing mostly outa books? V: They sing out of books, they sho do... A: What are the songs? V: WE Vera Hall, reel 10, page 3 . . . [*Doctor stopped her from singing out of books.*] sing about-"I Know the Lord Will Make a Way"- I don't know it all, but they heps me out. See, I haven't been readin in two years. The doctor stopped me from readin. Told me not to read on account of this catarac over my eye , not to look at nothin deathless(definite?) -- nothin really deathless that I'll have to really see what it was so I won't never strain my eyes up--- and he would just ruther for me to not read-- said"Just you don't read at all, says, because you gon try to see what it is and that's gainst you ." An-uh, so she does the readin for me and she does the bigges of the readin for all of um. And then when I start if off sumpin about how the Lord will make a way for us, yes he will, and nuther song-- sumpin bout the Woodden Church on the Hill--It go kinda like this--- It was in my childhood, it was many years ago And the spirit of thee I was filled There was no forms or fashions just thee with spirit filled In that little wooden church upon the hill . . . There was no well dressed people, Just plain folks everywhere, They wore just plain old ruffles and frocks and frills There was no forms nor fashions Just plain old spirit filled In that little wooden church upon the hill . . . I want to learn all that so bad that I don't know what to do.A: That's pretty. V: It is pretty and I like it. (390) Vera Hall, reel 10, page 4. . . But I don 't know it all. It's a lot of verses of it. Haven't learnt it all. A: What are your favorite songs? V: Well, I like I SHALL NOT BE MOVED good . I sing it often. Like a tree standing by the water? That's one of my very, fery favorites. I sing it often in churhc. And that other song that I'm coming to like pretty good-- Nuse Me Lord--I like it pretty good too- Use me , Lord, in they [*s*]ervice, Draw me nearer, every day, I'll be willin', Lord, to run all the way, If I falter whilst I'm trying, Don't be angry, let me stay I'll be willin , Lord, to run all the way . . . I'm learnin to like that pretty good. A: That's a new song? V: I think it is new. I heard it sung last year, year before las[*t*]. We went over to a foot wash church and they sung it. It sho is new because I haven't been hearin it till the last year or two . A: Vera. te;llme, do you think these new songs that come out of books are better than the ones that you were raised up on, the ones that were sung at the revivals?V: No sir. I sho don't . I really doesn't. Those songsthat I been knowin all my life, that we sung around at the revivals and that we sung out in the fields when people was wrokin-- they got mo spiritual [*The old songs are the best*] Vera Hall , reel 10, page 5 . . . to um. They , it seems like, they got mo taste or sumpin to um. A: It looks like then that people would like um the best and wouldn't forget um and after all now the people don't sing um any more much. . . They prefer these gospel songs like the one you were just singin. . .V: They does. Well, I don't know. Look like they wouldn forgit um. Cose I know they haven't forgot um. But its just so much of this new stuff goin on and it looks like evybody is just in the move for it. And so they just figger they'll be late wid sumpin and they just get wid um, too. Cause I know I sings a lot of new songs, at least helps in church, but I just have to do that to get wid um, cause that's what they singin. It may be some of our old members that sing those other songs-- which they do-- some of um be sung at our church nd diffunt churches roun eve Sunday-- some of those old songs and things-- and evybody jine in and have a big time over um-- but you take these younger people , every time they start singing it's a new song, you know, outa book. They got the book there. A: There 's no Vera Hall, page 6, reel 10 reason that people shouldn't have all the new songs they want. They have new books with the songs in um. . . A: I'm just curious and wonderin which you prefer yourself. V: I prefer t[*h*]ose old songs. I gets more kick out of those old songs than I do the new ones. I don't even try to learn the new ones--- just really hard down, try to really learn um. Don't even try to learn um. I haven. If I'm with um I'll hep um sing, hum it, parts of um. Parts I don't know I'll just hum on in the tune, just to hep them out. Cose that's the way I just do most any song if I want to sing it . They somebody signin it, I sho will catch the tune in jest a minute and I can hep um just hummin on in thu the tune. I've did a many of um that way . . . [*She knows a new tune as soon as she hears it*] A: Can you sing a tune the first time you hear it? V: First time I hear the song!I won't know the words, but I'll know the tune. A: Is that so? V: It's so. I really can do that . A: How do you know how to do that? V: Well, when anybody sing , I just notice how they carry it. Just like if they carry it like Cimme that old old time religion . . etc . . Vera Hal l, reel 10, page 7 . . . well, I may not know those words, but I'll sing--- Hum-hum, hm-hm, hm-hm-hm . . etc . . Still I don't know the words they say, but I know the tune they carry it in. And I can do that in the first song I hear. A: Is that because the tunes are more in common than the words? Is that because you recognize the tune and knew it before? V: It would. That's right You catch the soundin of a song befo you catch the words. I can catch the sound of it-- hear it played on the Rockola or hear it played on the radio and I won't know what the pusson sayin, but I know how that sound go. And I just be able to just hum it. And say, "I don't know what those words that man or that woman said, but want that a pretty tune?---" or something like that. And I can just hum it like that. They always tell--"You can catch anything better than anybody I ever saw in my life." I say, "If I was just able to catch the words that way." Isay, "I have to hear the words befo I can say them. But I'm got that tune some. I really can get the tune of any song I hear anybody say. " A: Vera Hall, reel 10, page 8... Well, let me see if you can get this tune. I'll just sing it for you once and see if you can sing it again... (I SING "RED RUBY RISING SUN)X Now can you sing that? Just hum it.... V: Let's see. (SHE HUMS A SIMILAR MELODY) A: Pretty close. Let me see. See if you can do this one. (GOODBYE OLD PAINT) V: SHE REPEATS THE FIRST PHRASE ACCURATELY AND THENWANDERS CONFUSEDLY ON THE CONCLUSION. A: Darn wonderful...(I SING ROCK ROAD) V: (She does better on this one.) A; Try a couple more now... (SINGS THE RISING SUN BLUES) DID YOU EVER HEAR that before? V: Never has. (SHE SINGS A MELODY LINE THAT HARMONIZES WITH THE ONE I SUNG AND HAS SAME METRICAL FORM) A: Let me try just this one more. Now lissen at this one real good. (SINGS EAST VIRGINIA) V; (She stumbles and I help her she has trouble with the seventh skip and that ends that part of the recording---870) V: You know a good ways up in my singin I just feels better. Better. Lots better than I did when I first started. And I Vera Hall, reel 10, page 9... don't believe nobody just feels all right when they first start off singin'. I just don't believeit. They might...The only [*You feel better after you get started singing*] way that you can fe el right when you first start off singin os you got to know that you're by yourself. And it just come to you just like I was in there washin dishes or doin sumpin in the kitchen and maybe everything's goin xx all right. I ain't studyin about nothin else worryin my mind. Evything just all right. Well, a song come to me then and I just feel all right to start with. Just feel all right, just happy to that singin. A: But if somebody else is around... V: If somebody else is around-- I don't know why--does kind of stick a little bit when you first start. But afterwards when you find everything's all right, you just all right. Least that's the way I am... I just forget everybody and just go on and sing. A: And you get to feelin better and better all the time.. V: Better and better all the time. [The mo I sing the better I feel.] A: You feel xx that the first verse of a song is like the first kiss that you just don't--- V: Almost. That's right. It sure is. To me it is. Vera Hall, reel 10, page 10... [*Why some people can sings better than others*] sing for? Vera: Repeats the question in a tone of wonder and scorn? [?] A: What do you think he gave em talents to make music. He didn't give it to everybody... V: Well, no sir. He didn'tA: Have you thought about that?V: I have and I have been axed that. Wonder why that some peoples can sing better than others Got better talents than others. Somebody asked me in town here about two weeks , three weeks, ago now, says-uh-- D-1, how come you can't sing like Vera?" She says, Well, I don know. I just wasnt cut out to sing, I don't reckon. And she [wa] was. Says, how come she can't sew on a machine and I can? Maybe I want cut out to sew...So we had a big laugh there on the street. And so I say, It's just like that old man ask in me [on the] at the church long time ago say, Tell me just this one thing, Vera, why can some folks just near bout sing? And other folks can't [ve] even call chickens hardly.I say, I don't know, sir, why, but I got a reference to what you talkin about. He say, What that. I [ay] say, You see all the stars in the oven, [Sy, Some of um all] Say, yeah. Say some of um are real bright, isn't they? Say, Yeah. Say and some of them Vera hall, reel 10, page 10... A: Do you feel embarrassed just to get up and sing in front of folks? V: Well, it's not-- I don't feel embarrassed to do it,qbecause I know that's what they lookin for and expectin. And I don't feel embarrassed to do it. But I just feel a little bit kinda scared, just a little bit kinda weak [thr] through here. Looks like a little bit of feelins or something or another run in there-- I don't know what I could be scared of . I just feel just a little bit scared when I first start off and if it's all right, I just gets all right. The mo I sing, it's just all[r] right and be over it and all that little scared feelins will go way. I feel just like singin, jast ready to sing. A: Do you feel like a man , do you feel big, or do you feel powerful or feel like you flyin or runnin or what do you feel like? V: Well, I just feels happy. I just feel uplifted I reckon, because I just feel good and uplifted over the singing. Feel like its' just all right. Im just all right. I done got started and I'm just all right now, Just ready to go. A: What do you think the Lord taught people to [*They's just different people*] Vera Hall, reel 10, page 11. , you just can see um. Say, That's right. I say, All those are Gods stars but some of um shine better than others. And he said, I reckon so. I said, That's the way it is with God's race of people. I says, They's just diffunt people. I say, Some of um can jest shine better than others, Some of um can talk better than others. Some of um better lookin even than others. Say, That's just the way it is, but he made all of us. He the causin all of us here, but we all diffunt. I say An that's all I can get out of it and he couldn't tell me no -- he was an old man--He said, I reckon you're right. A: You think that old people are wiser than young people are? V: Well, I always have thought them to have more sense about anything than young people. Oughta could tell um what the meaning of things-- some of um kin. Some of um can't. But old folks nowadays, they can't think about nothin. Some of them can't think of what they nuse to know. They say I nuse to know this, but I don't know it now. I done forgot it. But it looks to me like anything in the world, if [*She made people shout*] Vera Hall, reel 10, page 12... I just get to studyin about it, that I ever have knowed, just really knowed, look like I could think about if if I just get to thinkin... A: Can you remember everything that's ever happened to you? V: I just believe I kin after I got big enough to knowone thing froma another. I don't know back when I was little, but after I got big enough to know things was I just believe I could remember if they ask me something about. I just think that anybody got any sense ought to be able to remember what kind of life they grew up in. Some of the things. A; Have you ever caused people to jump and shout in church when you began to sing. V: I surely have. I sing the solo at the turnout. Sung it three times. Had to. Aw the people just shouted-- When I Shall Cross Over The Dark Rolly Tide-- and the people just shouted just like I was preachin or somethin like that, just really shouted and cried. That's was about five years ago now as near as I can -- WAs that a song that you made up. I didn' make it up. Itwas on a ballad. A man mwas down fromMississippi sellin ballads and he had that song. Vera Hall, reel 10, page 13... Least I never did get the song. Balladses of songs. A One sheet. V: One sheet. A: A book. V: No sir. Just pieces of paper. A whole pack of um Pieces of paper he sold for ten cents. Was he blind? [*Blues - sung over mom's [? ? ?]*] Vera Hall, reel 11, page 1. About Blind Jesse--not taken entirely-- A: What is the main reason people sing? V: When anybody sings the blues, it's just some blues that fits yo' case. Just like if t is man that I go with in Tuscaloosa--I like him pretty well--well, if I goes back home and somebody tells me he's been comin to see somebody else, you know? or somebody tells me he's been making trips up there and was out, maybe, carryin' somebody else aroun'-- I like him, what I'm tryin' to get after-- well, that would hurt him, you know, for him to do that and maybe I'd be feelin8 awful bad, if I'd get at home there today and hear that tonight, tomorrow I'd be awfully blue on the job thinkin' about it, so I would sing kinda hum around and sing a little. That's the onlt thing that would consolate me. Well, now that part of life will make a person sing, will make me sing. And I won't have much appetite, ruther do that little singin' and I8d ruther continue to work than to stop and eat. Seem like I get along better just continually do something all day and it's because I'm kinda worried about what he done. A: Whatwould you sing on an occasionlike that? V: If you in love with a man, it's just bad for him to mistreat you. It-it just hurts. And I know a woman's just cried just like somebody was dead just because her frienddid something like that. And you just sing some kind of blues, sumpin like Trouble in mind, I'm blue, But I won't be blue always Babe, the sun gon shine, babe In my back do some day. Vera Hall, reel 11, page 2. I'm gon lay my head On some lonesome railroad i'on Gon let the 219, , baby Satisfy my mind. Sing something like that, something to (SHE REPEATS SONG)**ON REQUEST FROM ME) A: What other reasons do you have for singing... You don't seem so sad...Or do you have reasons for feeling and even though you look happy. [*Never had no trouble with a man.*] V: I don't have any reason to be sAD except like I told you when my mother was real sick. I never has any trouble with no man or anything like that because if he says that he's really in love with me he always proves it out--always have so far. I don't know what I might get into. I might catch holt to a devil or something. Somebody that's untrue and doesn't mean what they says. I reckon it would hurt me or like em good and they msitreat me it really hurts me, it really does. Cause I'm not gon mis- reat them. I'm not gon do nuthin to make them feel bad if I know it. A: What about if you get treated bad on a job or someone speaks very rudely to you or something like that. [*tries to get along with people on the job*] V: Well, I just always asks why that --Well how come you said soand-so tuh me in sich and sich a way? Did I do something wrong or what? -- And I want em to tell me what have I done and if they tell me, I'd say "Well, I'm awful sorry, I'm just as sorry as I can be, say, I wouldn't a did it for nothing in the world if I'd-a knowed you didn't want it did." I says, and then if it looks like that don't appreciate it like they Vera Hall, reel11, page 3. [*Don't have to be worried with any one job.*] still mad at me, I leave. I don't hve to stay on this job. I can go get another one. So that's the way I does. I always wants to apologize and make a pusson feel good. If I done treated him wrong or done sumpin to him, tell him I didn't mean to and explain to him so if he doesn't grant it, well, that's puffickly all right,I don have to be roun him, go work for somebody else. Too many folks wan tme to work for um to be wo worried in one place. Go somewhere else and be treated nice.. A: What do you think about the main ideas in the spirituals What do they say to you? What's your interpretation of them? V: What do the people down there mean in church....Well, they just always cheers me on and says it is good. And they love to hear me sing. It doesn't matter anythingx I sing they always say it's good. Say I can sing good and they love to hear me. I'm always singing for um. People come down to my house and ask me to sing certain songs. A: What do the words of the songs mean? [*Meaning of I Shall Not Be Moved*] V: Just like if I sing this song about I shall not Be removed---that's one of my favorite songs...That means that I'm a Christian and there's nothing go on in this sinful world that's temptation to me, can't move me, can't change me from being Christian. I am just gonna be it. I stand fast and unmovable. I shall not be removed, just like a tree that's planted by the water, I shall not be removed from where I am That's what that mean. That's one of my biggest favorite songs. Cose any song that we sing have reference to the life that we live. That's what we try to sing-- sich as "He That Believes In Vera Hall, reel 11, page 4. the Father and the Son"---he shall have an everlasting life. Well, the old people made a song out of that---if you do be- live you will have an everlasting life--...Swing Low Sweet Charot A: What is that about, honey? [*Meaning of Swing Low*] V: Swing Low Sweet Charot? And Let me ride ? That mean the Lord is go--- we not going to die-- gon sleep away---when out time come, we just , Jesus just, just gon just fan the breath out and we'll be just lyin on his arms ,just sleepin away in Jesus. And that's easy, death is gon be just like a charot , that's the way death gon carry you, just as easy as a charot. Well, just low down charot and let me ride...Well, that charot means death. It's not gon be ---- It won be really horrible. A: What kind of a thing is a charot exactly? [*A charot is a spirit.*] V: Well, it's -- What is a charot? Well, it's just a spirit. Just a spirit of the Lord. The Lord 's spirit is so soft, an so close to yuh and it's so easy and kind till we calls it a charot. Just swing low sweet charot, low down charot and let me ride... It's just a spirit, like a wave, just like sumpin on the water just movin' long. A: An what about Go Down Moses? Did you ever hear about anybody singing it? V: I've heard some of the Sunday school people down there sing it. Long time ago. I never did catch the words of it good. Mr. Lomax, I sho didn't...Go down Moses and bring my people home, I think...Sumpin like that... A: Do you know the one about J. Fit the Battle of Jericho? Vera Hall, reel 11, page 7. A: Do you know this one "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel? (He sings a bit) V: I don't think I did. If I did, it must have went another way and don't sound like that,... A: Do you know any song about Daniel? V: I was just tryin to think... I don't belive I can get it together...Used to think I heard my mother sing something about Daniel but I can't remember... A: Did ypur father ever talk to you about religion, Vera? V: well, he never did do so much talkin'... A: Did your mama do more talkin... V: She did. She'd always tell us 'bout Jesus, talk to us about him. A: What did she say religion ammounted to, really meant? [*Mama says "Religion is love."*] V: She say religion will make you have love. And it'll make you pure and honest in your heart and you'll have that heart and mind to just live the best you can and love everybody, just as you do yourself and don't never treat a person in a way that you'd not want to be treated, treat them the way you'd wish to be treated all the time. And she'd teach us that religion'll lead you that life if you live it. An-uh... A: Do you think the people that don't live that way feel pretty bad? V: I do because they don't have anything to think about if they V: She say Vera Hall, reel 11, page 8. don't believe in religion, don't believe in God. They just out in the world... A: What do you mean they don't have anything to think about? They can think about the world? [*A sketch of the notion of "conscience."*] V: They can think about the world all right, but they just don't have nothin' strong enough in their heart to think that's wrong to do that. They just don't know whether tha's wrong or no and if they know Christ and have got religion why something within em will tell um that's not right, not do that-- some kinda mind will tell you, just reasonin to ye, I wouldn't do that, that's wrong. I don't believe I'll do that. It don't look right, it doesn't sound right, that's the religion part and if you ain't got that religion in your heart why you just don't care, just go on. Just do whatever you want to do whether it's wrong or right. Just go on and feel like nothin', think no more of it, think you haven't done nothin because you don't know anything about Christ. A: Did you ever have any visions in which you actually saw the Lord or Jesus or did your visions come to you in terms of songs or something. [*the vision*] V; Well, I never have the visionjust to see just the Lord himself. Well, I've heard of people --- the lady down there now, her name is Rosy Travis, she says that she saw a face one mornin'--- says it looks like it was so fur up in the sky till you just could see the face, but anyway you could see enough to tell that it was a face. And said that she just wondered and wondered. Vera Hall, reel 11, page 9... [*the vision*] First looked liek a picture near bout, when she first started scernin it, it look like a pichur frame. But it come just a little bit plainer or something. It was face. She wondered and wondxred and womdered (VERA SOUNDS AWFULLY INSINCERE ALL THROUGH HERE) Lord what in the world can that be that's so far up yonder. And said that she'd wipe her eyes and she'd just do ever way tryin' to see plainer and plainer. And said that something told her that that was Jesus. and she said that the face was a white face and had a little beard hang down under the chin and hair on the head. Said she could see it plain enough to see that. now she's one that says she saw something like that. but I never have saw it. Just something told her that was Jesus... A: Vera why do you suppose there's so much trouble and sorrow and pain and sickness and people going without food and education and the proper kind of chance in the world? Why is all those things treu? V: Well, I tell you my opinions about it. cose there are lots of people --- God give everybody five senses --- I've been taught that all my life-- he gove these senses to learn and know how to do these things---and he say if you make one step yowards me I'll make two---and I reckon those kind of people that suffer for everything, just out of really things that they need, sich as food that they have to have, you kin promise yuh back but you must eat , you got to eat---you kin wear just any kind of blothes but you've go to eat evy day---they just ain't makin they step Vera Hall , reel 11, page 10... towards him at all. They ain't even thinkin bout him. Don't have no idea he could make a way. He ain't gon come down and just hand you some food or either hand you no money , but he will open your eyes enough and make the way plain enough for you to know how to go in there to do soemthing to get you some money and get you some feod , well, that's him makin' the way. You might be walkin along the street--not a dime in the world and nowhere to get nar'un and you 'pendin on him--He say 'pend on me and I'll make the way for you. Lord, I'm just goin. I don't know where I'm goin and don't know what I'm goin' foh. Say, Well, I'm goin on in yo name. Say, Now I ask you heavenly father to make a way for me please Jesus. Well,if you don't mind some rich somebody or somebody who's got something will call you, say, "Hey, you got time to come here a minute." Say, "Yessuh, or yessmam, " just turn around and go on in there. I have been in Bessemer-- this made me think--- and uh my mother was outa town. I couldn't get a letter . I could write a letter but wasn't nobody there. And so that was when this "pression or something was on. Anyhow -food you could get it if you was able to get it. But you just didn't have anything to get it with --no money. And so I could a got some money from home-- I know moma could-a got some-- but she was outa town-- and so I was there in Bessemer Alabama, my first time there and last, I don't think I'll ever go back there again. So I was out of money and I was rooming there with a lady, staying there awhile, That was directly after I lost my husband. Vera Hall, rell 11, page 11. I went up there thinkin' I would get a job pretty soon, but I didn't. I was there about three or fo weeks before I hit a lick and so I just didn't know what in the world to do. I was out of food and I wasn't goin to ask her bout no food cause she was haven just as wuss a time as me--she was workin at the laundry-- and so I just sittin up there on the porch, I says, "Well, Lawd,," Isays, "well-uh, I just ain't got nothin' to eat and ain't got any money to buy anything with , say now I don't know these people roun here and they don know me I say but anyway you said you would make a way, to trust you, and so, Lawd, I'm goining out here to this grocery sto and ask this man will he let me have some groceries till about the last or the first of the week. So I just gits pn up and go right on out there. I went out there and he asked me what I wanted and I didn't hardly have nerves enough to tell him because I didn't have no money.And I says I come out here to see if you will let me have some groceries until the last of this week or maybe the first of next week. Until I can get a letter home and an answer back. So he says "Who is you?" So I told himx my name. So he says, Well I don't know nothin' bout you. Have you ever traded in here? " I says, "Nawauh, Ix haven't. Haven't traded a nickles wuth here. " So he say ,"Well, I just cain do it." And that hurted me so bad that I couldn't get out of the man's way fast enough before he could see the water was fallin out of my eyes.So I got as fur as the do and started down the steps, he said,"Wait Vera Hall, reel 11[4], page 12. a minute, come back here? Where you live. " And I say, "Right around here," and I was cyin' so I couldn't keep my hands up over my face. You say yo name is what? And I just couldn't hardly tell him and so I lent over on the counter and he rech over and patted me and said don't cry just tell me what you want . I told him my name again and told him I wanted some food. He say, Well are you hungry now? Well, I wasn't hungry then. And so he went back there and he got meal and meat and syrup and rice sugar, cofee(SHE BEGINS TO LAUGH) and called his deliver boy...(END OF RECORD) Vera Hall, reel 12, page 1. A: What do they call her? V: Mama Jane. She fix hands for um and fix different roots and things and give um to take home. Give um some kind o old powder to sprinkle round the person's door that's borherin um,you know, go over there way up yonder in the night and sprinkle the steps and put things up under the steps. A: What's that supposed to do... V: They step over it , that's supposed to trick um some way in their feet--foots-- take the use of um-- they limbs-- get um down-- finly they die-- get on out the way. Doctor medi- cine don't do um no good. No use of gettin a medical doctor. Doesn't do any good. She just out there vast rich nearly. A: You never have been to her yourself? V: Never have and I never will. A: You think she's just foolin the people... V: I believe it. I just believe it. A: Well, can't they show a point where she's actually been able to do anything. Can't they prove any cases. V: Well, twas one woman down below me real sick, they brought her up from Greensboro to Tuscaloosa to see this mama Janey This Mama Jane suppose to heal, too. She'll fix another pe son and then cure this one. They bring sick peoples to her to be cured and then go to her to make people sick. Suppose tom work backwards and forwards.This girl , she absolutely was sick, that's the truth; and she want nothin but skin an bones. An so they say that nothing haven't done her no good and so they took her out there to mama Jane out there on this Birminghams highway. (140) Vera Hall, reel 12, page 2... and she had to stay out there a week. Mama June said that she was near agone; that she would try to raise her. So she kep her out there at her house a week and doctored on her. Which the old girl did get bette.r She bathed her up, boiled up a lotta roots up thera and bathed her and greased her around eith different salves and one stuff and nuther, give her a lot of stuff make her vomick a lot, say she vomick up a lot of stuff look like old black hair nets what folks wear over their hair, said they was little snakes, the folks say. I don't know what they was, Didn't see that. But she got better, but she still aint no 'count. She's not able to do anything for herself. She just sumpin sittin up there on the porch. Look like a skelipin yet. She's just got Tb that's all ail her, I believe. A: You don't believe in that sort of stuff? V: I certainly don't. I don't believe in it at all. They won't get na'y dime of mines, talk bout fixin nothins. I don't want it fixed . Let it stay like it is. If I should get hurt or something-- course I'm not gonna bother anybody--and so it don't have any need to bother me -- so if you do and I can't take a stick or knife or something and make you behave I ain't gon' do nothin else to you. Cause I'd heap rather just beat a person nearly to death rather than to hurt him like that. If he hurt me bad enough I8d rather hit him than to poison him or take his life. A: Honey, do the folks down there know the different poisons that they can give you? That aren't known to medical doctors? V: They does do it roun there , so they say. (265) Vera Hall, reel 12, page 3... Know how to go in the woods and get different roots and herbs and things... A: Your mama didn't know those;;; V: Oo---, no sir. A: Is she the one brought you up not to believe in those things or was it your papa? V: Well, both of um taught me not to believe nothin like that. They said, Now a person actually can kill you by gettin some- thing poison in your stomach, inside of you. You eat it or drink it. It likin to kill you, sho nuff. Say, but this mess they got , talk about throwin down sumpin or sprinklin, just go on bout your business or anywhere you start to go. Nothing like that can't hurt you. Said, if they gets you drink anything, devil-eye, anything, they can poisonyou. They got a lot of poison. Rat poison just settin roun the house all the time. They can pout a little devil-eye in some milk or anything and that'll kill you, eat you up inside, kill you...Glass willfine, cook it in your food or anything, that'll cut you up inside you and kill you. It's just what a person get in you, that's what'll kill you. Say, you don't have togo nowhere to hunt poison. You got poison at the house all the time. [*More women in Church*] A: Honey, tell me why do you think it is that when you go to a colored church that you always see mpre women there than you will man? V: Because the mens don't like to go to church as well as the women. A: Why do the women like to go to church? Vera Hall, reel 12, page 4... [*Women more interested in preaching*] V: They're more interested ind churchxand what go on there 'an mens is. Mens don't pay the thing no tention. Just mighty fewx that is interested in the preachin. I don't believe none of um much care nothin bout that singin and shoutin and goin on. I don't believe they do. You don't ever see-- a man don't hardly ever shout-- we had an old man down there named Jimmy Fuller, he used to shout at church bout the only one and the last one, bout the only one I know that did shout --mens--man. A: Well, why do you think it is that women shout more than men anyway? [*Women shout more - easier to touch*] V: They're more easy to touch. I just feel like they're more easy to touch than man . More easy to feel anything than man. That's the way I feel bout it. The mens is kinda hard hearted. It's somethign strange when you see a man cryin. It's something terribly dreadfully done happen when you see a man cryin . It's something-- you better get on a wonder than cause he ain gon cry for foolishness. Hh certainly ain't. When he cry , it somepin dreadful done happen and he haven't seen any way it could a been helped. I don't like to see a man cry either. I sho don't. Cause he just ain't gon cry unless it something terribly. A: Well, why is it, Vera, if the women are the most easily touched it's the men who do all the leading in the church. The men do th preaching and the praying? Why do you think that is. [*Women just weaker*] V: My ideas about it, they're just weaker than a man, something about it. That's all I know. They just weak. They not as strong (445) Vera Hall, reel 12, page 5... as a man. And they haven't got much nerves as he got and can't stand what he can stand. Now you take real good singin or prayin or just anything like will make a woman cry and weep and, then [*real good singing will make a woman cry*] Lord-Lord, just to be done lost somebody out the family, you just can't stand to go to church, just can't it tall, you just have to stay away from church a good long while till you get kinda old to that one that's died in the family befo you go back. Cause it's no peace in just church. Every time they start prayin or mournin , just look like to me that everybody just pitifulin me to ddeath, [*Just pitifulin' me to death -*] just pityin me to death! I los' my father. I los my mother adn I just can't stay there I'll just have to go ."Said, I'd rather be off somewhere it ain't goin on. I just wentto goin back to church--well, I went mostly this year. This year I went more'n I did last year. I just couldn't stand to go. I just lost my mother. She's just been dead a year ago this past March. A: Tell me about that , Vera, about losin your mother... V: Well, she was sick eight years, but she would sitll be up every day you know But she was still in bad health, just lingin' around. So she was with me. I had a pretty hard time when my mama was sick. I only mad seven dollars a week then. And I 's payin seven dollars a month house rent and I had to try to get a doctor whenever I could and buy food and all outa that. I had a pretty hard time right long in there. I cried a many nights all night just about it and get up the next mornin and go to workand I'd work all day , come that evenin, maybe have to go right on to the office or telephone and call a doctor. Maybe she's been suffering, I don't know Vera Hall, reel 12, page 7... there, she's gone. And he come right away. He lose no time at all. And he examined her and ev'rything and said she had another light stroke, said that hit her brain and she was gone. Said, "Vera, I knowed it would do some- thing like that but I just didn't tell you. I knowed she was gettin weaker and weaker ev'y day and I said it was something like a stroke that was liable to hit her and take her like that... I knowed but I just didn't tell you. (636) She just went on off and left us. (In an almost inaudible whisper)... (Brighter) I don't know the loose of a mother but them that lose her. Sho don't. They's really sad feelin's but I don't know. A: Don't you think it's a good idea for a child to break away from its mother too... V: Break away from her? A: Break away and get on its own... V: As early as you kin I think you should. That's right. Get to himself. That be the best thing in the world for any child is not stay round your mother and father too long. That's right. Get where you be yourown boss. Look our for yourself. Have a hard time tryin to get food an clothes. Get tough to it. (Hard little reflective laugh). (700) ---END.... Vera Hall, page 1, reel 13. how long, but she trided not to worry me. She'd hide a lot of her sickness. Sometime I could hear her grovelin ther and I'd git up and say "Mama, how you feelin? What hurts you?" She'd say, "Nothin." She'd look at me and smile and shake her head and say, "Don't worry bout me. I know you doin the best you can. And don't , don't worry bout me." And she'd pay me like that and look at me and just smile. But times hse think I'm gone, I could hear her gruntin again, just be gruntin to heself. She'd say "O Lawd, have mercy." I'd hear that and sometimes I would go and sometimes I wouldn't, say" I won't bother her. She gon say I feel very well so ..." So I just did the best I could for her and myself and also my little children out of those seven dollars a week. Cose some people helped us. They brought us food some days. People were nice tuh me. Come down sometime , bring us a whole dinner. A whole supper or something like that.And mostly evy Sunday over at my church they'd take us up three four dollars and send it over that Monday mornin. We got hep like that. So I believe that's the hardest time I ever had in my life was when my mother was sick. A: That was a terrible, terrible time. V: Sho was. I had a hard time. But she (600) , the Lord took her. He just saw fit and he took her. She had a light stroke and she just went on away just like that. Just sumpin hit , you know, like she had a spell or sumpin. Well, I run right up there to the telephone and told the doctor, "Please to come as quick as she could because she was havin a spell. But when he got Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.