Irene Cook

Interview with Irene Cook,  
Leicester (Sandy Mush), N.C.
Conducted by Stephen Cain
Friday, July 31, 1998

(Tape 1 Side A)

Cain: This is Irene Cook. We're on at about 2:25 p.m. on Friday, July 31, 1998,1 started to say '68. I'm going to ask you a little about your ancestors and about the importance of family and the old homeplace and a little bit about church and farming and stereotypes and the kinds of economic changes that have happened. And what I'm really building up to is looking at that sense of, as things have changed, what have you lost? What have you gained? What are some of the kinds of things that are still important to you? I'm going to get to that. I wanted to let you know that that was where I was going. And I guess the first thing is, I spend my childhood in Tennessee but I grew up in Michigan, so I'm a Yankee. That's it. John Denver wrote a song, called himself a country boy. Some people are city folk. Are you a mountaineer? You live in the mountains, what would you ..

Cook: Well, yes. I'm just a North Carolina native.

Cain: Okay. But the people who live up here aren't necessarily the same as all those who live down on the Piedmont.

Cook: No! They're a different type of people. The ones you meet in he Piedmont are, they're just a little bit different from the people up here.

Cain: And a little bit different from the people in Asheville, too.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: That's part of what we wanted to talk about. You identify yourself with the mountains and this area?

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: You started to talk earlier about your ancestors and where they came from. You said your husband.

Cook: My husband was from Alabama, down next to Mobile, Alabama.

Cain: But your mother and father. They, tell me a little bit about, you started telling me before.

Cook: Well, my mother passed away in '96, August the 8th of '96, and my mother was unmarried, so.

Cain: I'm sorry, unmarried?

Cook: Yes. And I was the only child.

Cain: And your dad?

Cook: Well, we never had any contact with that, so we might leave out part of the bad news (laugh).

Cain: The pioneers, who were the people who came here back in the 1800s?

Cook: Like my great grandfather was Obe Surrett.

Cain: What was his first name?

Cook: Obe, Obediah was really the name, but he was Obe Surrett was what he went by, and he was married to a Julie Jones, and she lived over on Sugar Creek Road.

Cain: That was sort of one cove over.

Cook: Uh huh. And my grandmother on my mother's side was, her mother was Julie Bradburn Surrett.

Cain: There are a lot of Surretts in this part of the.

Cook: And her father was C.W. Surrett.

Cain: Who named this Hog Eye?

Cook: My great grandfather Bradburn's brother came here from Tennessee and called it Hog Eye.

Cain: And that was before the Civil War, even.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Do you know when the first of your relatives came into Sandy Mush?

Cook: No. That's as far back as I know. Grandma Bradburn was a Boyd, but I don't know anything about the Boyd generation.

Cain: There are a lot of Boyds around too. Boyd's Cove.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Before the Civil War.

Cook: Yes. And she was, Grandma Bradburn married a Worley, and he was killed in the war, and then she married Bradburn later.

Cain: Were there any of those ancestors that were particularly memorable, that stories have been handed down about?

Cook: Well my great grandfather Obe Surrett learned to read when he was about 90 years old.

Cain: Wow!

Cook: And a school teacher by the name of Miss Day came in here and taught night school, and he went to night school and learned to read.

Cain: That would have been about when?

Cook: He died in 1934, so that would have been about 1928.

Cain: Was she a church lady? The school teacher that taught him to read.

Cook: No, she just came and taught, and a lot of the older people went to school, night school.

Cain: Did she come out to the house or did they go out to the school house?

Cook: They met in the church.

Cain: Which church?

Cook: Chestnut Grove, up in that area.

Cain: Baptist?

Cook: Yes.

Cain: What did he read?

Cook: Well, he could read good. He read the Bible through a number of times, they said. He didn't do anything more. He was real old. I can remember him just sitting on the porch and reading.

Cain: That's something to be proud of.

Cook: And my mother has two brothers. One is, will be 98 years old in September, and one will be 94 in August.

Cain: You've got some long-lived folks in your family.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Mostly they came here to farm?

Cook: Well most all the people farmed and worked in timber, logs and all.

Cain: You got a little sawmill down the road. That was your husband's?

Cook: No that's Larry's.

Cain: Oh, okay. But he hasn't used that for a while, though.

Cook: No, not since he got hurt, he didn't. Can't use it. But my husband was a cabinet maker,

and he helped him make furniture.

Cain: Larry told me he sometimes does a little bit of work himself but he, did he farm also, or was that really what he?

Cook: He followed cabinet work altogether. He and I hauled furniture all over half of the United States, anyhow the eastern part.

Cain: Was there any particular woods he worked out of?

Cook: He liked walnut and cherry and mahogany.

Cain: Ah, good taste. You still have some of his furniture?

Cook: Yes, this cabinet in the living room in here is one, and the headboard on the big bed in the bedroom and tables and picture frames.

Cain: Those are treasures to hold onto.

Cook: And the picture frames in the living room.

Cain: When he was doing his cabinetry work in town, did he work with somebody else?

Cook: He did for a long time and then went in for hisself, and we've taken furniture to Illinois and Florida and South Carolina.

Cain: How did they learn about him?

Cook: From person to person. He didn't advertise, and we went to Austin, Texas, and Houston, Texas, and Madrid (?), Louisiana, we carried a 19-piece dining room suite. And to Springfield, Illinois, in one year we took two dining room suites. That was about it.

Cain: How did he learn how to do that?

Cook: He picked that up after he came back from service.

Cain: This was World War I, II.

Cook: Two.

Cain: Where did he serve.

Cook: He served in Germany, the European Theater from Normandy beachhead all the way through.

Cain: I just saw that movie "Saving Private Ryan."

Cook: He landed in the third wave on Normandy Beach with the 29th Infantry and followed that all the way through.

Cain: That was, lucky man to survive.

Cook: Yes, they said the survival of a B.A.R. man wasn't long-lived, but he made it all the way through and back. We were married after the war.

Cain: You said he was originally from Alabama?

Cook: Yes.

Cain: How did you meet him.

Cook: Well (laugh), take it off the tape.

Cain: Oh sure, (tape off). So, he had some medical problems from the war and he came to Asheville and you met him in Asheville.

Cook: I met him in Asheville, and we were married. We could live in either place, but we decided to live here.

Cain: You wanted to live here?

Cook: Well, not particularly, I would have went either place, but we needed a place.

Cain: He liked it?

Cook: He loved it. He was always happy we were here.

Cain: What did he love about Sandy Mush?

Cook: Well he took a big interest in it, in anything that was done, and tried to help with anything that had to be done in the community, like the Community Center

Cain: So he really joined the community.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Different areas I want to talk about, and one of them is family and kin, the importance of them. I was reading something the other day. Actually, it was in Cataloochee, and a week from Sunday, they are having their annual reunion of all of the families that got evicted by the National Park Service, go back up there, and I am going to go up there with them. In reading about that, the favorite game was, "who's kin are you?"

Cook: (Laugh) The teacher who taught me in school for several years over here was from out in that area (Note: Mont Hannah).

Cain: Right, his son I'm going to talk to.

Cook: Jim Hannah.

Cain: Yeah, yeah.

Cook: Well, Jim's father taught me every grade in high school and two or three in grammar school. He was a real good school teacher.

Cain: And where was that school located?

Cook: It's on up the road on the right, about from where you turned up down here, about a mile.

(pause for phone call)

Cook: I have some pictures of the school.

Cain: Okay. We can do that later. Right now we'll just kind of talk. Is it important who you are related to, kin? Is that how you kind of figure out where people belong?

Cook: No, not really. Whenever you get to think about it, most everybody is a little kin somewhere that's in this area. Like the Jones and the Kings and the Boyds.

Cain: And the Surretts.

Cook: The Wells and the Surretts, all of it fits in kind of.

Cain: A lot of people elsewhere, there is the nuclear family: there is the husband, there is the wife, there's the kids, and other members of the family kind of get, families aren't as close in a lot of places.

Cook: Not close like they used to be.

Cain: Right. How about up here? Are families still tend to be pretty close here, or has it gotten

Cook: It's gotten away from it some. They're not as close as they used to be. But back years ago when we didn't have all the modern equipment and everything like that, and didn't have cars, people seem like they had more time than they do now, or the spent more time in the community and with the people.

Cain: You live next door to your son. Is that pretty nice?

Cook: Yes. It's nice to have him close by.

Cain: And your other boy (Note: Ben Cook) is not that far away?

Cook: About 20 minutes, over in Canton.

Cain: They are close at hand, and the people around here are people you've known all your life.

Cook: Yes.

Cain: We talked a little bit before about the migration, and there was a time before, when families used to be really quite large.

Cook: Well, back like before the 30s, they were large families.

Cain: Right.

Cook: Most everybody had a large family. Now the Woodys that lived next door on this road, they was a large family, and the Presswoods was a large family.

Cain: Is that the same Woodys that lived in Catalooch, do you know?

Cook: No.

Cain: Oh, a different one, okay. But the land couldn't support, I mean if you had a little farm

Cook: Yes.

Cain: And you had 10 kids, and they grew up.

Cook: You couldn't feed 'em.

Cain: Okay.

Cook: And, and one time, I heard it said that my grandmother could have bought this whole valley through here for $1,200, and she had the money, but she had five girls and a boy, and two, a girl and boy, was her children by Worley, her first husband, and then the other girls were by Bradburn, and he got killed with a log. They were logging, and something happened.

Cain: So, with the big families, a lot of people then moved out of Sandy Mush.

Cook: Quite a few of them did, but mostly by that time, the younger people is the ones that begin to move out. When World War II started, most of the younger families begin to move out, but most of the older people stayed in.

Cain: You have now a different kind of migration, people coming out from Asheville, coming from other areas — I would be an example.

Cook: There is people from just about every state in this area now, and we had people come in here, Strat (?) Realty from Pennsylvania, and they bought and sold a lot of property.

Cain: How do you feel about that?

Cook: Well, if you've got it and want to sell it.

Cain: It's a good deal.

Cook: The only thing is, taxes get higher and it makes you want to get shed of some of it.

Cain: But with other people moving in, it changes.

Cook: Well, it seems like the people that move in, they come and associate there for a while until they get settled in and then most of them drift out, so you, they don't participate very much, like, you know, the Community Club or anything.

Cain: There is a Community Club?

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Where does it meet?

Cook: At the Community Building, which is the old school.

Cain: Is that open all the time.

Cook: No. Several people have keys to it, but the meetings are the first Friday night in the month, and we usually have potluck supper.

Cain: The first Friday is coming up.

Cook: It will be a week from today. That'll be the first Friday.

Cain: Do you suppose I could come out?

Cook: Well, yes, we'd be glad to have you.

Cain: I can bring something.

Cook: Well, don't worry about bringing anything. I'll make two dishes (laugh).

Cain: What time does that start?

Cook: 7:30, no, that will be 7 o'clock.

Cain: Okay, that's not for this. Just that I want to come out. I'd like that. I saw the quilt on your bed. It was just gorgeous.

Cook: Thank you.

Cain: Did you make that yourself?

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: My wife has done a little bit of quilting, actually quite a bit. She was a home economics teacher, and coming here, wants to get back into that, so I bought her a big frame.

Cook: A neighbor across over here has mine. It sits up on the floor. I haven't used it, but I'm

going to get it. I had trouble with my hand. I like to do that kind of work by hand. My husband worked in furniture. I helped him a lot, too.

Cain: Did he use power tools partly or do it all by hand.

Cook: Power tools.

Cain: So did you run the saws and the jointers, or did you sand.

Cook: Well a lot of them I did, and we finished a lot of reproductions and things like that.

Cain: Tell me about your old homeplace?

Cook: Well, it was down the road here where this trailer is, and my uncle got that property, and his wife and her sister sold it.

Cain: But that's where you grew up?

Cook: Yes, right here on this road.

Cain: What was the house like?

(phone call interruption)

Cain: So the old homeplace was down the road just a little bit, and you grew up.

Cook: It burned. They burned it down after the people bought the property.

Cain: On purpose?

Cook: Yes. They just put that trailer space in beside of it.

Cain: Was it log or timber or lumber.

Cook: Just frame.

Cain: A frame house, okay. How large was it?

Cook: There was three bedrooms and living room, kitchen, and dining room.

Cain: So it wasn't bad. You lived there for how long?

Cook: Well until I was about, let's see, Larry was 7.1 guess, I was gone for a while and then came back and lived there for a while.

Cain: They sold the property and then burned it down so they could put up.

Cook: A trailer spacing.

Cain: Do you ever miss it?

Cook: Well, not really. Just think of it as just moved on up the road.

Cain: I'll ask Larry this, but what does he regard as his homeplace? Would that be his homeplace, too?

Cook: He was years old when we moved into this house.

Cain: If you could live anywhere you wanted to, where would that be?

Cook: Anywhere?

Cain: Anywhere.

Cook: I couldn't think of a better place than right here.

Cain: Because of people, because of family, because it's beautiful, what?

Cook: Well I'm just comfortable and don't want for anything.

Cain: A lot of people don't have a place. They just sort of drift from one spot to another and no real sense of home.

Cook: We bought this in 1953 I believe, and Larry was four months old when we moved on this piece of property, and the other boy was four years old, so we didn't have anything except the property, and everything else has been built on it since we moved.

Cain: There are other pieces of property around?

Cook: Well, I've got the piece over where the barn is, coming up the road. I gave that to Larry. Then I have sold him another piece of property.

Cain: I mean you worked along side with your husband.

Cook: Quite a few years, I helped him a lot.

Cain: I'm kind of interested in the role of women. I mean you've got, you read a lot, and the

man is the patriarch and he's the boss, but I don't know whether that's real or that's myth or that kind of varies from family to family.

Cook: Well my husband always said that, if he brought the money home, said I knew what to do with it.

Cain: You knew what to do with it.

Cook: Yes.

Cain: Was he the boss, or were you partners, or?

Cook: We were partners. We discussed everything before we.

Cain: But you worked outside the house too.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: And that was to bring in

Cook: Well I worked on a catering crew for about, over eight years.

Cain: Where was that?

Cook: In Asheville and, well, I had worked everywhere from back at Silva to down at Marion and up in the Lindville area and Athens, Georgia.

Cain: But you always ended up coming back here.

Cook: Asheville was our base, but we'd go out and do wedding receptions or parties or anything like that.

Cain: Do you attend church?

Cook: Yes. Jones Valley Baptist Church.

Cain: Is that independent or is it tied real tight with?

Cook: Well, it's not as much with the Southern Baptist thing as some of them may be.

Cain: They have services on?

Cook: Sunday, Sunday night, and Wednesday night.

Cain: How long are the services.

Cook: Usually lasts about a hour.

Cain: Oh that's not too bad. Part of it is religious. Is part of it social, also?

Cook: Well, not a lot of it.

Cain: I looked at a map of Sandy Mush, and I see like a million chapels and churches, couple dozen anyway. But some are like Payne's Chapel, where they haven't

Cook: They haven't had services there in years.

Cain: Is religion still important in people's lives out here or is that varied from family to family.

Cook: Is what?

Cain: Religion, church.

Cook: Yes. Most of 'em do hold with religious beliefs.

Cain: Again, in my reading. If I said someone was described as a "good liver," is that an expression that you are familiar with.

Cook: Well you hear it from time to time.

Cain: What does that mean? A person is a good liver, what would that tell you about?

Cook: I think the manage well with their lives and with their finances and everything.

Cain: They are not necessarily rich. They just do?

Cook: Live good.

Cain: Somebody that was neighborly, hospitable, social — if company dropped in, they could fix a good table.

Cook: Uh huh. You could have some beans and cornbread real quick. Of course, I guess you're not used to something like that.

Cain: Not cornbread. I grow a pretty good garden, I like to do that, and I actually do a fair

amount of the cooking, but I kind of like meat and potatoes. How would you measure the worth of a person, what do you value about someone that says that's a good person?

Cook: Well their character more than anything else. If they believe in anything and really believe in it or stand up for it.

Cain: More than any sort of wealth or accomplishments.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Neighborliness, was that?

Cook: Yes, and, well, a person that takes pride in the community and tries to build it up.

Cain: In other words, not all for themselves but its for other people as well.

Cook: Everybody else as well.

Cain: I was talking with Don Reeves back in February, and he took part in a barn raising on Doggett's mountain back in 1949 before the Korean, and that was the most recent barn raising he could remember where everybody just sort of came together to help.

Cook: They used to have barn raisings and corn shuckings and                                                                          ,

Cain: Tell me a little bit about those?

Cook: Well they always talk about the corn shuckings, and then the ladies would cook dinner, and maybe five or six of them would quilt. They would put up a quilt.

Cain: Did you do that?

Cook: No. I can't remember doing any of that, but I've heard, you know, my family talk about it, and then, maybe, they'd eat lunch and then a lot of them would stay for supper, and maybe they'd have a square dance at night.

Cain: But that was really?

Cook: Social and.

Cain: I mean people didn't have money back then.

Cook: No.

Cain: So that was a way of helping each other.

Cook: Uh huh. And a lot more people had, you know, played music and everything, so they had.

Cain: But it's not that way any more. What happened, do you think?

Cook: Well I think television come in and modern ways, and people don't study something like that any more.

Cain: I suppose they're off on paid wages, so they don't have the time.

Cook: Uh huh. But usually they can pick up a band right in the community itself that would work.

Cain: It's not that way any more?

Cook: No. Nobody plays pretty much music any more.

Cain: Do you miss that?

Cook: Well not really that much because I didn't do as much.

Cain: We talked a little bit about ~ oh, I lost where I am. We talked at one point about the economy. I do know what I want to go back to. And that's really kind of a sense of independence and, again, I do a lot of reading, and I don't know whether the reading is always what's real. But it's been written about mountain people that they tend not to like outside authority telling them what to do.

Cook: Well I don't think a lot like the EPA and things like that, and they don't like, they figure that they've been here enough years until they know what they're doing. Like nobody wants 'em to cut a tree or anything, and they don't realize the farms are growing up faster than people cuts the trees, especially in this areas. Years ago, I can remember like these big fields back on these mountains and everything, and now it's all timber.

Cain: Part of that is the economy changing. I mean you can't make much of a living off a field anymore.

Cook: No, well, see, the people quit cutting much timber and quit raising cattle on them. They begin to depend more on the grocery store.

Cain: Talking about growing corn or something like that. You can grow it for your own use, but you can't compete with somebody with a flat field who's got 1,000 acres with big tractors or even 250 acres.

Cook: No, you can't compete.

Cain: You talked about people going off to work pulling logs. That was one way of getting money.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Coal was the other side of the mountain. People didn't go from here to work in the mines did they? Or did some?

Cook: Not very much, not right from this immediate area. Mostly, whenever they'd get em to come in here and build factories, the people went to the factories. About the first I can remember people doing much was working in cotton mills.

Cain: They had a big mill in Asheville.

Cook: Yes, bend on the river. Cotton mill down there. A lot of people through the years have worked down there.

Cain: When did it shut down, do you know?

Cook: It's been down about six years, six or eight year, I guess.

Cain: Somehow I thought it had been a lot longer than that. Do you recall when they brought electricity out here?

Cook: Nineteen and forty-seven on this road in September, 1947.

Cain: That was a pretty big deal then?

Cook: Well, it's nice to see it come in, but there was more over on the road a little earlier than that.

Cain: What kind of difference did that make? Oh you could watch television then.

Cook: People in other areas, in the early 50s, before there was much television.

Cain: I was trying to be funny. I wasn't very funny. Did it change your life?

Cook: Well, not really. We worked. The biggest change in our life, I guess, was children and trying to get them through school, whatever.

Cain: A little bit more and I'll wrap up. There have been a lot of stereotypes about mountaineers, about Appalachians, "Beverly Hillbillies" to "Deliverance." A lot of people out there will use hillbilly almost as a dirty word, as a put down for someone. Have you ever run into any people with attitudes because you come from up here?

Cook: No, I haven't. I have been like to the West Coast and Texas and Louisiana, and then I go down in Alabama and Florida, sometimes twice a year, and then I go up in Melbourne(?) about once a year, different places.

Cain: Do you have friends up there?

Cook: My husband served with an outfit that was originally from up there, and I go up to their reunions — they had their 53rd reunion this year, I think it was. We went for a long time, and I know most of the people, so I go back.

Cain: That's nice.

Cook: And visit with them. But most people that come in here, I think they like the area. Tom's people that come up here — they just think there's no place like it.

Cain: I'm sorry, these are what people?

Cook: Tom's nieces and nephews, they come up, and they really think there is no place like

being up here, and they still come back maybe twice a year and visit.

Cain: So it really is family ties that get maintained.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: You're how old now?

Cook: Sixty-nine.

Cain: And you have seen a lot of changes.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Some for the better, I suppose, some for the worse.

Cook: Like when I started to school, I walked down to the road, and the school buses weren't very dependable, so, when you got down there, you didn't stop and wait on the school bus. You took off toward the schoolhouse as hard as you could walk. And that way, in case the bus was delayed or anything, you made it in.

Cain: We talked a little bit about some of the changes. Community is really important to you. You talked about that.

Cook: Yes.

Cain: But, is it fair to say that, not just with your really close people, but people don't spend as much time being neighborly as they used to.

Cook: No. No they don't. People don't have the time that they used to.

Cain: Or maybe they just sit watching television rather than choosing to do other things. Is that, I guess, in terms of the changes you've seen over the years, what do you sense has been lost that's of value?

Cook: Well I really can't say, but with so many of the native people moved out and different people moved in, there is not as large a population, and the younger people don't take as much interest in community thing and everything.

Cain: So there has been a kind of loss of community?

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Not completely, but some.

Cook: Communicating with, you don't find too many young people that do too much.

Cain: Have you gained some things too?

Cook: Well I guess so. Like before I was 20 years old, you didn't get any further than Asheville, much, so you go different places and everything, which makes things different.

Cain: One of my questions, and you're already answered it, is what do you hold on to of the old ways and the old values. And what you said, really, is that you still go to the Community Center and try and maintain some of those ties.

Cook: Uh huh. And the Community Center is the old school, so that keep it, the ties together.

Cain: The people who move in, they don't have that same sense of community. Is that changing? Does Larry go down to the Community Center?

Cook: Hardly ever. But he's always there to help.

Cain: And he's got one boy?

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Does he go down to the Community Center?

Cook: No.

Cain: Okay, it's something that's changed.

Cook: But if anything needs to be done, Larry's there to help in the community.

Cain: I guess part of what I'm driving at is there is a sense of Sandy Mush that goes back a lot of years, and is that being lost?

Cook: To a certain extent it is, with new people moving in. They just don't sense it as much as the older people that are here. Of course they have lived in a different area. Every town does

different.

Cain: Oh, I'm skipping around a little. Social Security?

Cook: Well I worked under Social Security for 17 years which went beside the other part I have.

Cain: That helps.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Maybe the government is good for a couple of things.

Cook: Uh huh. (Tape l,SideB)

Cain: Interview with Irene Cook. (Tape off briefly ~ the question had been about the arrival of electricity).

Cook: Changes, like people with wood stoves, then that way they could have their own water system.

Cain: Wells and a freezer.

Cook: Made everything

Cain: Easier.

Cook: More convenient.

Cain: I had asked you a little bit about the role of women, and you worked quiet a bit, both with your husband and for paid jobs. Just looking at your neighbors and their children and the people you know, has the role of women changed much over the years or is it been?

Cook: Well, there for a few years the women didn't work out much, but about the time of World War II, they started to work, and driving cars. Before then, they didn't, many of them, drive a car. In fact I can remember about, I guess my memory goes back, I guess you've been to what they call Waldrup's Store up here.

Cain: No, I haven't.

Cook: It's on up the road to where you turn left to Willow Creek, and.

Cain: Oh, up on Big Sandy Mush.

Cook: Uh huh. And they was a big grocery, big store there, and that's where everybody went. They didn't go to Asheville to buy things. They went to this store, and they kept a little bit of everything.

Cain: That wasn't a chain store, though. That was locally owned?

Cook: Locally owned by the Waldrup family, and they sold gasoline and pumped it with a hand pump.

Cain: When did you learn to drive? How old were you when you learned to drive?

Cook: I learned to drive in '47.

Cain: You were how old then?

Cook: Nineteen.

Cain: That's pretty good.

Cook: Well we, through the years there (phone ring, pause). Whenever, back then, a car was hard to come by. My husband bought an A-model Ford, and we kept it for a while, and we later bought a Dodge. Kept trading, so we were out about six Ford vans, hauling furniture from different places.

Cain: When did Waldrup's store close?

Cook: I don't remember just exactly. It must have been around the '40s or somewhere in the early '40s.

Cain: So then you had to go to Asheville for your food.

Cook: Well by that time, see, the war was on and there was another store down here, and this man had a big truck and he took his truck into Asheville every week and picked up supplies and

everything, and people had a few more chances to go by then, but during the war, a car was hard to come by.

Cain: My parents have told me a little bit about rationing.

Cook: Yes, I know my mother, we had cows, and she churned and made a lot of butter, and people would come from everywhere to get butter.

Cain: So that would give her some spending money.

Cook: Yes, and then people, they just couldn't buy it, so they had to manage as best they could.

Cain: What did she do with her butter money?

Cook: Well, bought groceries and whatever.

Cain: So it was really supporting the family then, rather

Cook: Yes.

Cain: Buying a new dress for herself.

Cook: Went into support. And you may have noticed my wood stove here in the kitchen. Back before the late '40s there, no one had anything except a wood stove.

Cain: You still use that:

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: For cooking your regular meals?

Cook: Yes, some. I cook regular meals. My niece was here from Alabama, and they were sleeping in this bedroom up over the kitchen.

Cain: But you've also got a regular

Cook: Electric stove.

Cain: And oven. No microwave?

Cook: Yes. My microwave's

Cain: Oh. I see it, and a freezer. You're all set.

Cook: And they said in the morning, whenever I put coffee on, the smell of biscuits cooking and baking, how good it smells upstairs in the bedroom.

Cain: You make biscuits every morning or just when company's here?

Cook: Well mostly when company's here now. Don't make as many as I used to. We always cooked a lot.

Cain: Yet you're skinny as anything.

Cook: No, I'm not skinny.

Cain: Well, I've seen some people that are, you're not fat, anyway.

Cook: In between.

Cain: Thank you very much. That's it.

(Tape off. She had hot apple cobbler in the oven, asked me if I would like a piece with a scoop of ice cream on top. We resumed taping).

Cook: That I set up in the floor.

Cain: So you built the frame for the quilt or your husband?

Cook: No, they're sold in the stores, and I bought it.

Cain: What's the pattern on the quilt?

Cook: Wedding ring.

Cain: I recognize it. I just didn't remember the name. Why did you pick that?

Cook: Well, Maxine, my daughter-in-law, Larry's wife, liked that, so I said I'll make you one some day. So I made her one, and she said, well I didn't think you'd ever manage to finish it, and so, then after I got her's done, I said I'm going to make me one, but her's is prettier than mine is.

Cain: Did you buy the cloth in the store or save up pieces.

Cook: Well some of it I bought, and a lady that I worked with, her son worked in a printing

factory. He would bring home ends and pieces, and she would call me, and she says, I'm going to come out to see you, and I'm going to bring me some quilting material. So whenever, she did. My van was sitting out here. So before she got ready to go, she said, well, go out and get it. So she just jumped in her car and backed it up to the van. I said, well put it in it. She had a whole trunk of the car full.

Cain: With little pieces of cloth?

Cook: They were big pieces, so I sorted it out and washed it and ironed it, and I have enough material to last a long time.

Cain: So when did you finish your own quilt?

Cook: It's been about four years, and I have a niece in Alabama, two nieces, three nieces and a nephew, and I have done all them one but not this pattern.

Cain: What pattern did you do for them, or different?

Cook: One I did, for the boy I did just a nine patch. For one of the girls I did a star patch, and then the other girl I did the house on the hill, and for the other one I did a king-size but I just did four squares.

Cain: Quilting has had a big revival around the country.

Cook: Quite a bit. And sometime when you have a chance to be out here and go in the Community Center, there is a quilt in the community center that we made back whenever they were thinking of using this community for a nuclear waste dump.

Cain: Oh no!

Cook: You hadn't.

Cain: Didn't know that.

Cook: You didn't know that.

Cain: No.

Cook: They had planned to use it, or it was on the map to be used as a nuclear waste dump.

Cain: People didn't like that?

Cook: No. Everybody objected to it.

Cain: So when did that happen?

Cook: I don't remember exactly the year. It was in the late '80s.

Cain: So a little over 10 years ago. I think I'll go down to the newspaper and check out. I suppose they wrote about it.

Cook: Let me see if I have ... (searching through a box)

Cain: While you're looking: Where were they going to bring the waste from? The nuclear waste?

Cook: I don't know. It just. This is a piece of furniture that's in a doctor's office in Asheville (shows snapshot). Or in his home.

Cain: Very, very beautiful. They held community meetings about this?

Cook: Yes. They had some where the secretary of interior flew in.

Cain: Was the meeting up at the Community Center?

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: How many people were there?

Cook: Well they was from 200 to 300 people. People came from all over.

Cain: Do you have any idea why they picked Sandy Mush?

Cook: No. I don't know why they.

Cain: How did Sandy Mush get its name, do you know that?

Cook: Well, through the years I've always heard that down here next to Reeves' store, the Indians came through there and were camping and they got water to cook their mush, which is corn meal, with, and they got sand in it. So one of them said, well this is Sandy Mush.

Cain: Of course they were speaking English, not Cherokee. Do you do any gardening?

Cook: Uh huh. My garden's out back.

Cain: What all do you grow?

Cook: Corn and beans and potatoes and squash and cucumbers, just about everything you grow in a garden.

Cain: Tomatoes?

Cook: Tomatoes, yes. I don't see those (clippings), but President Bush was in office, so it's been about 10 years.

Cain: So that was one thing that brought the community together.

Cook: Uh huh. It sure did.

Cain: Can you think of any other milestones in the history of Sandy Mush? That's a pretty big event.

Cook: That's about the only one I can think of right there.

Cain: Is there a president of the Community Center or someone that is?

Cook: Bill Duckett, William W. Duckett.

Cain: Didn't he have a heart bypass?

Cook: Uh huh. Yeah, he.

Cain: How's he doing?

Cook: He's doing just great.

Cain: I think maybe he's someone I ought to talk to.

Cook: Yes. It goes back in his family a long time.

Cain: I don't know whether this is true or not, but when I was out here in February doing a story on the barns. He's got that barn with a new roof that's like a pyramid that comes up on the sides and the end.

Cook: The one on the right as you come up.

Cain: Yes, big barn. I was looking at that. There was one other little building with a roof like that and no other roof like that anywhere in Sandy Mush that I saw. I wanted to ask him, but that was just when he was in the hospital, and one of his neighbors said they thought lightning had hit his barn and burned off his old room and put up that one up in its place.

Cook: I don't remember. But the Waldrups owned that before.

Cain: Are the Waldrups still around or.

Cook: No, there's none of them here now. There was Mr. and Mrs. Waldrup, and they had two daughters, I believe, and a son. I don't know if there's any more in the family but one of the daughters run the store, and she taught school there for a while. I remember years ago, when these roads were kind of narrow and everything, she drove a Humpmobile, a big old two-seated car, and when she'd go around a turn, she'd get on the horn and blow the horn all the way around the turn.

Cain: I think Bill Duckett is somebody I want to talk to. Is he in the phone book?

Cook: Yes, 3-5-9-2.

Cain: Ha! Not bad.

Cook: 6-8-3, 3-5-9-2.

Cain: Is he farming now or is he sort of?

Cook Yes. And he has two sons. One son is with the Department of Agriculture, and the otherson helps him in the substitute milk area. But in the Sandy Mush School over here, it seems like the first year they said they was 113 that graduated from that school from '35.

Cain: 1935 to

Cook: '51.

Cain: You started to say there is a quilt in the Community Center. Was that quilt done because

of the nuclear?

Cook: Yes.

Cain: Done as a protest?

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: And you helped with that?

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: Who's idea was it?

Cook: I don't know. We just came up with the idea, and everybody done something, you know, about the community.

Cain: Oh, so it kind of a memorial.

Cook: Uh huh.

Cain: I'll go take a picture of it, if I may.

Cook: Yes. I've got my keys to the Community Center.

Cain: Okay. Well I may come in Friday to do that. I'll call Bill Duckett. The one other thing. You talked about Annie Freeman.

Cook: Annie Freeman was my mother's sister. She'll be 82 years old, 83 years old this year.

Cain: And George Surrett.

Cook: George Surrett. And he'll be He's the one that will be 98.

Cain: He's going to be 98.

(pause in tape)

Cook: 98 in September. And there was a man that was a slave, and he and his sister sold, told them they sold for $1,000 apiece. And he said it had been around 90 years since he'd seen him. But there was not many black families, there's not any living in here much.

Cain: I looked at the 1990 Census, and there's no blacks in Sandy Mush at all.

Cook: All of 'em moved out. They like to be closer to ...

Cain: Well there weren't a lot of slaves out here anywhere, were there?

Cook: No. These were way back, years ago, and the lady that owned property over here adjoining me. She was a (name inaudible). She left here and went to Haywood County, and so, her grandson owns the property next to.

Cain: I would love to talk with Annie and George ... I'll turn this off, now.

(end)

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