Mary Wiggins, Deep Creek, Swain County, North Carolina
SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE TO LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION
Mary Wiggins was living in Deep Creek, North Carolina when recorded in 1939.
[transcripption copyrigh Michael Montgomery and Paul Reed, 2017]
[W = Mary Wiggins; FW = Fate Wiggins; i = Interviewer Joseph Hall]
[The other speaker (FW) who participates briefly in this conversation is apparently Fate Wiggins, Mary Wiggins' husband]
W: Just keep going the road in place of going home, I went just on up to the top of the mountain till I seed the dark was on me, and then I set down and stayed there all night, next morning I got up and started back down the road, next morning I could find the trail very easy, I come back down and turned off home.
-----
W: Not loud enough?
-----
W: Doesn’t matter to hold that?
-----
W: And when I got to home why, Page was starting to hunt for me on the road, and so I as- got in all right next morning, wasn’t any trouble.
-----
I: Well do you have anything more that you want to tell?
W: Why, I don’t know as if I do.
I: Well, let’s try it out.
-----
[RECORDING HAS BRIEF INTRUSION OF ANOTHER SPEAKER HERE]
W: Then I'll just go on with the same story?
I: Yes.
W: Well, I guess [I] better commence back again, huh? well, I was borned in Jackson County and then moved to Swain County when I was five years old, and we went to, all the schooling we got at them days was in, in a little old log cabin with a split-log bench, just a tree split open and the legs bored in it and a fireplace, and we had just enough of us to go around three benches in the schoolhouse, and we’d sit across the bench, one down the side and one in the front, we just had the old blue-back speller was all the study we had, just study, but we learnt to spell pretty well, but that’s all we knowed was just spelling, and finally we learnt to read and write.
I: xx
W: Well, they was just set around the fireplace, down to each side and across the middle, and they was just enough of us to fill them three benches, and we just had one teacher and well and the school just lasted from two to three months was all the school we had.
I: xx animals there in the park?
W: Well, they was plenty of bear and deer and oh oh coon and all kinds of game when we first moved there then, wasn’t any troubles to get game then.
I: ... you eaten any bear meat?
W: Many a time, law yes, I’ve seed a many a bear and eat the meat of them, coon too.
I: How many bear ... ?
W: Well, I don’t know, can you tell, Fate? I can’t tell that, it was many, too many of them.
FW: Me too