Rebecca Queen, Cherokee
SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE TO LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION
Rebecca Queen, about 90 years old, was living in Cherokee, in Swain County, North Carolina when recorded in 1939. She had three to four years of formal education and was a farm housewife. Her daughter Docia (Queen) Styles can also be found among the speakers in this section.
[transcripption copyrigh Michael Montgomery and Paul Reed, 2017]
Well, I take care of this xx, we’ve been a-living on Indian Creek about, right close to fifty year, I guess.
-----
I don’t know nothing about South Carolina, I never could recollect, just can barely recollect heared about my father moving from there to Transylvania [County], and we lived there till in the time of the Confederate War, of the last year of the Confederates War, and I don’t remember that, but it was, I come to Jackson County and I’ve been in Jackson County ever since, and, and in Swain together, it’s changed a bit till now, and I’m still here yet, now iffen you folks now know's anything about when the Confederate War ended, well you can tell just how long I’ve been in Jackson County and in Swain.
-----
Well, I g-, I don’t know but I guess we’ve been a-living on Indian Creek about fifty year, I never knowed nothing, only just work hard and to live hard all the time, but we tried to live honest.
-----
Well, that was about the best place ever I did live till I lived on Indian Creek, and I lived the rest of it.
-----
Oh we raised cattle and corn and made lots of stuff while we lived up there.
-----
Well, they done just like rest of us did, they worked hard and tried to live, and they’s several families about, about thirty-three families lived up there.
-----
They was about thirty-three families lived there on Indian Creek when we lived up there, and they all worked and tried to make a living by hard work, the way we tried to live, and had a good time.
-----
They never had no fellowship there, they didn’t have frolicking up in there much, sometimes they’d gather up a crowd of them and have a little praise, they never had time to, to have frolics, they just had to work too hard.