>> This is James Newberry,
and I'm here with Dorothy Holtman
at the Sturgis Library at
Kennesaw State University on Tuesday, April 26, 2016.
And Miss Holtman, do you agree to this interview?
>> Yes.
>> Thank you. So please state your full name at birth.
>> Dorothy Griffin Holtman is my married name.
>> And when and where were you born?
>> I was born down in Sarasota,
Florida February 22nd, 1927.
>> And what were your parents names?
>> Eldridge Griffin was my Daddy
and Biral Nia Griffin was my mother.
>> Well, tell me a little bit
about them. Tell me about your father.
>> My Daddy's Daddy came to South Georgia and was given
a big plot of land
and all of my aunts
and uncles got a piece of this land to a part of it.
And so that's where they all lived.
And so I grew up there mostly.
But of course, we went down to Florida for
a while just before the depression.
>> And what was your father's personality?
>> Very sweet and humble.
He was not as educated as my mother.
Mother had gone to college
and had taught school several years.
Daddy had to quit school
young so that he could help his Daddy farm
because they had 11 children
and they had to eat and be provided for.
So he had to help his Daddy.
>> And do you know how your parents met?
>> Mother said she saw Daddy
walking down the highway one day,
a road right close to where she
lived and he was whistling and she thought,
oh, what a good-looking boy.
He wanted to go with Aunt Ollie,
which was mother's assistant.
Mother said she was a little bit prettier than I was.
But finally Mother got a date with him.
And from then on, that was it, that couple.
And Daddy one time started to
tuck a blanket around her legs
that were in the buggy dating
and Mother said you getting fresh.
And all he was trying to do was tuck
a blanket around her legs
because it was cold in the buggy.
>> So you said they were originally from Georgia.
That's where they met and married.
But they moved to Florida.
Why did they move to Florida?
>> Well, let me tell you
something about the marriage first.
Mother and Dad did not have
any money to fix up a fine wedding and all.
So they sat in a buggy and went to
the preacher's house and
told him that they wanted to get married.
So that's where they got married.
And then when they had their 50th anniversary,
all of us children got together and got a buggy and
let them sit in and we got
a picture of it 50 years later.
>> And that would have been 1962.
>> Yes.
>> Because they were married in 1912.
>> That's right.
>> So you said you
were born in Florida, they'd moved there.
And what do you think prompted them
or motivated them to move to Florida? Why Florida?
>> My Daddy had built a house.
He was pretty good with lumber and building.
He was right good and he had built [inaudible]
a decent three-bedroom home in
the country there on that land that his Daddy
had at least gotten from the government.
But anyway, we heard that everybody
down in Florida was on a boom,
making a lot of money.
So my Daddy got his good friend to
live in our house and we went down to Florida.
I was born in 1927 while they were down there.
But anyway, the depression came along,
and everybody lost everything.
Florida went down like this,
and my Daddy had bought land and got nothing for it.
He had bought a store and lost that.
All the people that were
boarding with Mother and Daddy in
the boarding house and Mother was
cooking for and making a little bit of money,
all of them lost that job.
So they had to pull up stakes and move back to Georgia.
Well, I was about two years old when this happened,
when this move came.
I had been born there in Florida.
And they said as we were riding out of Sarasota, Florida,
that I said hot dog ongie and that's the first thing
I remember them saying what I
said because I was just two years old at that time.
And so we moved back to Georgia
on the farm and my Daddy started farming
and gradually getting where we had
enough everybody to have plenty to eat and a few clothes.
We had a church right down the hill that we all
went to every Sunday and heard about Jesus.
And then we had a store right down the hill
that was my mother's sister on that store.
And so we would buy things on
credit because my Daddy didn't have much money,
and we bought things on credit and she'd
write it down in a book every time we bought.
And then when we sold
the crops of peanuts and cotton, usually,
that's what Daddy would sell and make
a good bit of money,
we would pay off everything we had bought down there.
But as children, we wanted some candy.
We didn't even have money for candy, or anything.
Mother would give me an egg
and me and my little sister could go down
the hill and buy a little bit of candy with that egg.
>> It looks like it was trading.
>> That's right. Trading an egg
for some candy. [LAUGHTER]
>> So how many siblings did you have?
>> I had one smaller sister,
and then I had two bigger sisters Veron and Vivian,
and then one brother Ruben.
>> And which sibling were you closest to?
>> Gene because she was two years younger than I was.
And she could sing.
She could sing curry out
by the time she was three or four years old.
And I sang soprano and so we were little tiny girls,
maybe six and eight, something like that.
And we would sing an amateur contest and we
won several all they do is clap for you like that.
That was our grand prize.
But anyway, we sang songs
together and harmonized and did right good with that.
>> So tell me about yours and Gene's personalities.
How were you all the same and different?
>> Well, Mother said I always
tried to make Gene behave. She was not bad.
She was the baby of all of us,
and she was not crazy about work.
Well, none of us are really.
But anyway, I was always trying to boss Gene,
and one day I was going to whip her
because she didn't do good my mother said,
listen, that's my job.
So from then on, I didn't whip Gene anymore.
Gene was my baby sister.
And I remember when we were that age,
Shirley Temple was real popular.
And Shirley Temple's birthday was
the 23rd of April and
Gene's birthday was on 22nd of April.
We changed the date of Gene's birthday so
she could have the same birthday as Shirley Temple.
She was a big star when we were children.
>> So tell me about Martha [inaudible].
>> Martha lived next door to her
when we lived down in Florida with us.
And I was just a baby
at that time before we moved back to
Georgia and Martha's Mother and Daddy got a divorce.
Well, Martha was about 12 or 13.
She was playing with Veron and sister.
And I was very small then.
And she got coming over to
our house all the time and looking after me,
she was like my mother,
second mother because my mother was
busy cooking for boarders.
That was before the birth
of depression before the depression happened.
And so Martha's Mother and Daddy got a divorce.
The mother didn't have enough money to keep her.
So Martha, we just brought her home
with us when we moved back to Georgia and
she lived with us six years
and was sweet as she could be in
Mother and Daddy did for her
just like they did for the other girls.
>> Why do you think your mom and
Dad were willing to take her in like that?
>> Because she was so sweet and good and they both
loved her and they knew
her mother did not have money to keep her.
So at that time, I guess you didn't have to
give Alimony when you got divorced or what?
I don't know what but I know
that her mother didn't have money to keep her.
So we kept her for six years.
She went to college and everything with my sister.
>> So tell me about the home
your father built in Patmos, Georgia.
>> It was a good-sized home.
We had three big bedrooms
and we had one sleeping porch, they called it.
All of us got the itch one year.
Way back then, you got itch in
schools and lice way back then.
Don't ask me why they don't get them now,
but I guess they're cleaner or something.
But anyway, we had
that sleeping porch out there and when you had the itch,
we'd sleep on that special place out there.
But anyway, we had a good life in Patmos.
It was good. I was kin to a lot of people.
Kin to just about everybody,
and then I could walk a half mile and go to school.
One time we had one of the students right across from
us and I didn't mind the teacher.
The teacher told us not to go behind where Johnny was.
We called it Johnny then it was an outdoor toilet.
And she said, don't go back there and play.
Well, I disobeyed me and
my little friend and we went back there
and played and the teacher was going to whip me.
Well, my home was right across
the street and I ran home to Mother and Daddy.
And Mother said she doesn't need a whipping about that.
No, she does not need a whipping.
My Daddy said she's going to get a whipping.
She disobeyed the teacher.
So Daddy took me in his arms.
I was six years old took me across the street and I
got a good whipping because I had disobeyed the teacher.
Daddy was right. I can surely see now.
>> So tell me about the way you got rid of lice.
>> We had something that you bought at
the drugshop because a lot of people had them.
And also, Mother would put a white paper
and you would hold your head and
she did like that and the lice would hear them plop,
plop right down there.
And so Mother did that.
And then we use whatever that I don't
remember the name of the medication
that we would put on now.
Mother said it's no shame to get
lice and it's no shame
to get itch which we got at school.
But she said it's a shame to keep them.
So we combed and got them and then we put that whatever,
I don't remember the name of the medication,
but we put it on our heads to
keep any more lice from coming in.
>> I see. So can you tell me about
the community of Patmos? What did it look like?
>> It was a very small community.
But we lived up on this high hill
and we never did get money to paint our house.
All these years a nice house up on a high hill,
and Daddy put a rock fence right in front
of it that made it a little bit distinguished looking.
But my Mother and Daddy were good folks,
so everybody respected us because we were good,
and went to church every Sunday right down the hill.
And around me, lived several of my kin folks Daddy's five
or six of his brothers and sisters
lived within I could walk there in three minutes.
And then we all saw each other at church.
And I got baptized right up
a half mile in the creek
that we had there and had all my kinfolks,
friends standing up on the shore singing on Jordan.
That song that you sang
when somebody was being baptized.
>> So do you remember noticing if
there were people with more money
or less money than your family?
>> I don't remember as a child feeling any inferiority.
My mother made me feel good about myself and I
did not feel inferior to
anybody because they had more money than we did.
No, I didn't have that inferiority complex. No.
>> So did you know there was a depression going on?
>> Well, when we left Florida I
knew it was because that's the reason we left there.
Everybody was going broke.
My daddy lost the store,
lost some land he had bought.
Everybody didn't have any money.
So that's when we came back
to Georgia and lived in the house
that my daddy had built years
before and let Mr. Campbell stay in it.
>> Did people talk about the depression?
Did they say the word depression?
>> I don't remember as a little
girl hearing it that much.
I just knew people didn't have any money.
>> That's it?
>> Nobody seemed to have any money right then.
>> So did you have electricity in the house?
>> I remember when we got it we had what we call
a lantern lamp and we used that and it was really good,
a lot better than just a little kerosene lamp.
And we used a lantern lamp and would
take it when somebody wanted to read at night.
I remember when we got electricity.
I don't remember what year it was,
but I remember everybody was so excited about
the electric lights and things
that happened after we got electricity.
>> How were they installed?
>> I can't even remember
because the men folks did all that.
James and I didn't fool around.
I can tell you one fun thing that happened in that house.
RT is a lady that helped
us and she loved us and we loved her.
Well, our house caught on fire
right up around the chimney. It was wooden.
So the next day we were going to have graduation.
My brother Ruben was going to graduate from high school.
We were going up to Arlington,
11 miles away and we were going to go for the graduation.
Well, we had already gotten all of
our clothes out, what we were going to wear.
Well, the house caught on fire.
And I went in there and I got thinking,
I got to get all these clothes out of here so
we'll have something to wear tomorrow to the graduation.
So I went in there and started pulling them out.
Well, our [inaudible] was a black
lady that was helping us.
She saw me and she said,
put them clothes down and get water.
And I just never forget that something about.
She was so right and I was so wrong.
So I put down those clothes and I carried water,
and we put that fire out.
>> I see.
>> House didn't burn up.
>> So how did your family get the news?
>> Just heard it from everybody.
>> Did you have radio yet?
>> We got a newspaper every day,
I don't even remember it,
but at that age I was not into reading the newspaper.
Just from hearing it from everybody
and we did listen to the radio.
We had a radio going.
And I remember the first telephone we had,
I didn't know how to talk on the telephone along time.
In fact, I remember picking it
up and I was talking in the wrong end of it.
But anyway, I learned to pick it up.
That's when the telephone came along,
we all began to use that.
>> So what chores did you have to do around the house?
>> Anything that mother wanted me to do.
Keep your clothes picked up and you
always had to study for school,
and then always your Sunday school lesson.
We had church every Sunday,
and I had a good Sunday school teacher and we studied
that lesson and that was a thing to do,
mother taught, and music.
I took music from
my first cousin that lived right down the hill,
and by the way, she's still living,
she's 109, and she taught me music.
>> What's her name?
>> Lois Cunningham.
Recently she played up at the Grand Opera, Josh Turner.
That's his wife's grandmother.
>> That's right.
>> His wife's grandmother.
>> Did you have to clean up the yard?
>> Well, we had some brooms.
You'd go to the woods and
pick these and then tie them all
together and we had to sweep yards with that.
We didn't have a rake broom at that time.
They evidently hadn't made them or we
didn't have the money to buy them, I don't know what.
But yes, I had my mother sweep the yards.
>> Did you help in the fields at all with the crop?
>> Well, we had four girls and one boy.
She thought girls were supposed to work in
the house and cook but not in the fields.
But once in a while daddy would
get us to pick some cotton.
And you know back then they didn't
have cotton pickers like they have now.
You just pick it with your hands and stick it in.
And mother fixed me a little old bag and I
put it back here and you'd pick cotton and
put then they'd weigh it and you'd get
a few cents for how much cotton you picked.
Yeah. But Ruben mostly did the work in the fields.
>> I see. So tell me about picking blackberries.
>> Something terrible happened there.
Me and my brother always picked.
We had a whole fence row
that had blackberries growing on them, all of them.
And so every year we were the best pickers,
we'd go out there and pick.
Again you'd see a snake,
but we learned to watch for them and run away.
Well, one year we were
picking them and mother was going
to make blackberry wine,
a blackberry nectar, and blackberry
jelly and two other things.
Anyway, she was really good in the kitchen.
So we're picking the blackberries,
and my brother said, I'm tired. I'm going to the house.
I said, listen,
I've got almost that dish pan,
this big full of berries.
I said, I'm going to pick one more quart,
and then I'm coming with you.
So I was out there right by
myself finishing up those beeries.
And I looked around,
an old cow had come up without making a bit of
noise and had eaten every one of my blackberries.
A whole dish pan.
You can imagine how long it took me to pick them.
A whole dish pan full of blackberries.
I wanted to kill that cow.
>> So tell me about curb market.
>> Well, when my sisters got in college.
Now, when Ruben and I went to college,
we went to college over at
Eibach and didn't cost that much.
I worked a little to help with the finance.
But my sisters went to Tift College,
and that was a good Christian school,
and yet it was very respected in everybody's area,
that it was a good college.
So that's where Mother sent Vern and Martha,
the one that lived with us.
And sister went up to America's I think to college.
But anyway, all of us got to go to college for a while.
Now, Gene did not want to go to college.
She wanted to take a bookkeeping, which she did.
And right there in Albany she took a bookkeeping course.
In fact, she wound up having
a bookkeeping business and
did real good with what she knew how to do.
>> So did you participate in curb market?
>> Yes, I helped mother because she would clean chickens
and with shell peas and snap beans and make jelly,
all kind of stuff that city people
really wanted that fresh from the farm things.
So I helped mother a whole lot.
And sometimes they would sell
when they would go and work all morning,
we had these stalls where you put all your things out.
And then the rich ladies
that had a lot more money than we did,
we'd come in and buy
things from us because they knew it was fresh,
they knew it was good.
If they sold $50 worth,
that was like 500 now, it's about that.
$50 was a lot of money back when I was a little girl.
And mother would buy us
clothes and things like that that we needed,
like a coat and just things that she wanted us to have.
>> So curb market took place not in Patmos, but where?
>> In Albany, Georgia.
>> And how far away was that?
>> 50 miles from Baker county where we lived.
>> What kind of car did you drive in?
>> I didn't drive until I get 16 or 17.
I might have been older than that.
>> How did you transport
the vegetables and things to Albany?
>> Daddy had a Dodge car,
and then he had a pickup.
And sometimes if we had enough we'd put in the back
of that pickup and that Dodge car,
and it was a very good car,
and we'd go to Albany.
I think it was every Saturday they went and mother would
make enough money to help
pay for the college for all of us.
>> So what was the name of your church in Patmos?
>> Patmos Freewill Baptist Church and
my great grandmother started that church.
See they just leased this land,
the government gave them the land way back when
my daddy's granddaddy came in and leased all that land.
That's reason so many of our kin folks
live close around because he
got land for all of his children, had 11 children.
And his mother started
the Freewill Baptist church right down
the hill from where we lived and so naturally.
Plus there's a big cemetery,
that's where my mother and daddy are buried.
That's where my sister Gene and her husband are buried.
So it's real [inaudible] we go
down there to a reunion every year.
>> Tell me about that reunion.
>> It comes around the 10th of June
because that's one of my grandparent's birthday,
and so the nearest to 10th of June
and there were 11 of those Griffin children.
And so what they do is go from child to
child and let them sponsor it
that year and they have to go buy the meat and
the rest of us bring food and whatever to go with it.
So we go in there every year.
Your mother has been there
with that and sang a time or two.
The year was our,
we all sang together and told them
about what each family member was doing.
Then we go in and eat
a whole bunch and just visit and have a good time.
>> And how many years has it been going on?
>> I'd say at least 50 or 60;
at least that long.
>> Okay. And tell me some of
the other gatherings that took
place at the church when you were a child.
>> Well, one thing that I remember
special because they don't really do it that much now,
my grandmother was still alive and I had to be little
because my grandmother Griffin
died when I was real young.
But Grandmother Griffin was there and she was real heavy.
And she sat there and she put her towel right around
her waist and somebody
sat in front of her and she washed their feet.
That was one of the rituals there.
That's what Jesus did.
He washed the feet of people.
And back then, they walked
in sandals and their feet were really dirty.
But that was something to remember Jesus and to remind
us to be humble with one or
another and that's what my grandma Griffin did.
>> So when did you start singing regularly?
When did you learn that you had a voice to sing?
>> When I was about two or three years old.
You know how some people can just carry a tune?
Gene could sing out by
the time she was four or five years old.
She didn't need any notes or anything,
she could just sing out with you.
We sang in a lot of amateur contests.
Years ago, they'd go to different schools
and have amateur contest.
You would stand up there and the one
that got the most clapping is the one that won.
Gene and I won several amateur contests
and it's because she could sing so good.
I remember one time we
sang something that was not appropriate at all.
It was Daddy Has Gone; was the title of it.
But we could harmonize real good on that song.
So we sang Daddy Has Gone in
the amateur contest and won first place in that contest
>> Do you remember the words to Daddy Has Gone?
>> No. I can't remember the words,
but it was all about that he had just
passed away and we don't have daddy anymore.
>> Did you have any favorite hymns as a child?
>> Every Sunday now,
I work with internationals trying to teach them
English and I've learned all kind of real choruses.
Bringing that, doing right,
loving Jesus, doing the right thing.
Like Sunday we did wide, wide as the ocean.
High is the heavens above,
deep deep as the deepest sea is my Savior's love.
I though so unworthy,
still am a child of His care.
For His Word teaches me that His love reaches me.
Far His word teaches me that
His love reaches me everywhere.
That's what I taught on Sunday.
See, they're trying to learn the English language and
they're trying to learn about Jesus all at the same time.
And this older couple;
both are my retired teachers.
We've got probably 60 or
70 of them in there and they have gotten
their citizenship from going
to this class because we also teach
them that what is necessary to get past your citizenship.
>> Okay. So let's move on.
Can you tell me, you had a young cousin
who died young. Do you remember that?
>> Hugh O'neill.
>> And tell me about going to see him.
>> Hugh was my first cousin
and he lived maybe a half mile from us.
I never had been to a funeral before.
Well, I was too young
really because I don't know how old I was;
five, six, seven, something like that.
And we went to that funeral and I told my mother.
I said, "I want to touch a dead person.
I never have touched a dead person."
I don't know if she ever let me or what,
but I just remember how curious
I was about death at that age.
After a while you learn.
>> So tell me about Ichawaynochaway Creek.
>> Well, that's where I was baptized.
It was about a half mile, maybe a little bit more.
And that's where Grandma fished and we'd take
my mother's mother up there and she'd dip snuff.
I remember Gene was with us one time;
my baby sister and grandma thought the window was down so
she spit and it got right
on the window and I won't ever forget that.
And we were headed up to that creek for her to
fish because she liked to fish and catch fish.
She wasn't able to do a lot of things,
she could still fish.
>> Tell me about the little girls that were
drowning at Ichawaynochaway Creek.
>> My dad was probably in his 30s or 40s.
Mother, she must have been
carrying Gene then because I remember her saying,
"And here I was pregnant."
Several girls had gone out
into Ichawaynochaway Creek and they
were swimming and I don't know what
happened if they went too deep or what,
but one of them started screaming and saying,
"I'm drowning, I'm drowning."
Well, there were several people on the banks.
They heard them, but they didn't
want to go in there and try to save.
But my dad swam out there and saved that girl's life.
And here was my mother standing up on the bank.
I don't know if she's holding me on one of
the children and with carrying Gene.
She's afraid something had happened to daddy,
but he got that girl out of there and saved her life.
So every time we passed that Creek;
Flint River, we talked about that and think about it.
So you've talked about how your parents
were different in regards to money and things like that.
So can you talk a little bit about that?
My mother had more education than my daddy did.
Daddy didn't have a chance to go.
He was busy at the field working.
He trusted everybody.
He thought everybody was telling the truth.
Mother was the one that said,
"Eldridge, they might not do that.
Be careful, be careful."
But daddy of course was a man so he usually went
ahead and they had a lot of disagreements about that.
I slept in the near bed and I could hear him going at it.
And daddy sometimes would go right
ahead and do what he wanted to
do and then they would take advantage
of my daddy and take our money and all that.
Mother, I don't remember saying I told you so,
but she could have said it because she tried to warn
him not to trust everybody because everybody,
they don't want to do the right thing.
So many people, they'll advantage of it.
After mother and dad got married,
he got a job in Arlington with
this man and this man was a wrong kind of man.
He was making my daddy do all the work
and he was just doing things he want to do;
drinking whiskey and not coming
to work and all that and mother tried to tell him.
Daddy, he's not a good man you ought not to work for him,
blah blah, but daddy didn't listen to her.
But it finally dawned
on him mother was telling the truth.
I don't remember him ever saying,
"Bera, you were right."
You know how you don't want to admit you you were wrong.
>> Right. Well, tell me about
your first big trip to Texas.
>> Well, that trip,
that was before I had ever talked on the telephone.
In fact, they were just really coming in a good bit.
And I never had talked on the telephone.
My cousin lived across the street
and he was going out there to see his girlfriend.
He was probably 25;
I don't know how old Morris was.
But he said, "I want to take Dot out."
I was just 13, maybe 14, something like that.
Anyway, that trip really
educated me about a lot of things.
I tried to use that telephone and this lady said,
"You're talking in the wrong end."
So you strip your ignorance
every now and then and
I stripped mine in a lot of places.
>> And what else new did you see on that trip?
>> Well, I just saw a lot of different things.
I think I saw electric lights for the very first time.
Anyway, I came back a little bit more
knowledgeable about the world
and Morris was real good to me.
He'd buy me an ice cream cone.
I was about 13 when this happened.
>> How did you travel to Texas?
>> In his car. See, he was going out there courting
this woman and I guess he didn't want to go by himself.
They lived right across the street from me.
That was Aunt Mary's son;
my daddy's sister's son.
I guess he kind of liked me.
I was out of school;
it was in the summer so that's
the reason I went out there with him.
>> Did you go to any restaurants or anything like that?
>> We would stop and buy something to
eat but I was so ignorant about everything.
Because he was grown; whatever he wanted to do.
He seemed to have enough money
to spare me a Coca-Cola or whatever.
>> So let's move ahead.
In 1941, there was the attack on Pearl Harbor.
And what are your memories of that event?
>> I remember walking down
the street and we had evidently
heard the news or somebody had heard and I said,
I don't even know where Pearl Harbor is,
and I really didn't.
I didn't know exactly where it was.
So the war gradually dawned on me how bad this is.
And I was actually in college over at
ABAC when Roosevelt declared war.
Because I remember standing in the hall in
the dormitory and somebody said
Roosevelt has just declared war on Germany.
And I remember hearing that.
And actually, being involved with it deeply,
I would not accept that my brother went and
served time and told me about he landed on.
Well, anyway,
a lot of people had been killed the very day that he
landed over there to fight.
And he brought back a bunch of silk from Japan for me.
Mother made my wedding dress out of that silk.
He got it real reasonable.
And he brought that and mother said,
we can't have the wedding until Ruben gets back.
He's going to bring you some silk and
mother made it for me, my wedding dress.
>> And that silk came from Japan?
>> That's right. Extra good silk
and didn't cost that much over there.
>> So where did you graduate from high school?
>> Arlington, Georgia,
and I just went to the reunion.
I graduated in 1943.
We had 11 people in our graduating class.
But the principal was real good
and I remember I liked this one boy so well.
But this girl liked him too.
And she wouldn't let him look at me,
and he was scared of that girl.
He wound up marrying her and I think both of them did.
Anyway, they were not at the reunion
because I got over him
because Jermaine Smith got him. [LAUGHTER]
>> I see. So why did you go to ABAC. Explain that again?
>> Well, I think that
school did not cost quite as much as other.
So it was just junior college.
Plus you could be there in an hour from
Albany just right on over to Tifton.
And so Ruben went
there and graduated after two years, and I went there.
And I would work,
I cleaned the offices of
the president of the college and dust and
things like that to help with the tuition
because we never were wealthy,
and so mother did all she could to be saving.
>> How did you travel from your home to Tifton?
>> In a car, mother would carry me over there.
And the first car daddy ever bought was a Dodge.
He liked Dodges.
He thought they were the best cars of all.
>> Well, tell me about the ABAC campus.
What did it look like?
>> It was nice.
Mr. Pete Donaldson was dean, I believe they called it.
He wasn't the president of the college.
He was the dean and me and two other girls sang together,
and he would take us to all the civic clubs trying to
advertise ABAC and get more people to come to ABAC.
And so I enjoyed that.
One of those girls I know is dead and I
don't know if the other one is dead or not,
but I'd like to find out because she could play
the piano and sing too. And we had a ball.
>> Did you sing hymns or did you sing popular songs?
>> Chutney Chuchu.
[LAUGHTER] We didn't sing hymns
usually because it was at civic clubs or something.
Now, I did sing in
the Tifton Baptist Church some
and the choir there. Yeah. I did that.
>> So what did you study in college?
>> Homemake.
>> Tell me about homemake classes?
>> Well, actually,
I didn't have my mind on it enough. I should.
The best thing I learned was how to set
the table and some of
the cooking recipes and
where you're supposed to put the fork
and the spoon and all that kind
of stuff, which I didn't think.
I guess I was thinking about boys too much.
I wasn't greatly interested in.
I wasn't planning to teach anything.
I just wanted to get married when the time came.
>> Did you do theater?
>> Did I what?
>> Did you participate in theater?
>> We had plays,
and I participated in
every play that they had at ABAC. Yes.
>> Always sitting back in the chair.
>> Yeah, grandmum, if you can
just sit back a little bit for volume.
>> I'm sorry.
>> No, you're good. Is that good?
>> So you said you participated in some of the plays?
>> Yes. I can't remember the titles but I
enjoyed acting in plays and things.
>> And who did you date?
>> His name was Logan Lewis and we'd go to
the library and was
supposed to be studying and sit there together,
but we just talk about everything but study.
And we'd go on bus trips to different places.
And I remember one time the first boy I ever kissed and
I kissed Logan a time or two on that bus.
Nobody was looking. We were sitting way back in the back.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Did you enjoy that?
>> Oh, yeah, it was fun to kiss.
It was fun. [LAUGHTER]
>> So all during this time,
you're in college from 1943-1945.
There's a war going on.
>> That's right.
>> And do you have
memories of that beyond knowing that it was going on?
Did you participate in any way?
Were there any local fundraisers?
How did you participate?
>> I'm afraid I didn't have my mind on it much.
A lot of the women would work at different things.
But of course, I was in school and when
I got back after two years of college,
I went home to Albany and got a job in
a tire company and worked there for a while.
And I would hear about a lot of women working in
jobs that they never had before
to help with the war efforts.
>> So did you have to ration food?
>> Yes. Everybody was rationing
and trying to eat sensibly and
save and do things to help the war effort?
Yes. I remember that.
>> But would you get ration books yourself?
>> No. My mother did all that.
>> And when you were in college,
did you go to a dining hall to eat?
>> Yes.
>> So you didn't have to
put up a ration card or anything?
>> No.
>> So what can you tell me
about President Roosevelt's death?
Do you have any memories of that when he died in Georgia?
>> I've been to the very room where they
said he died at Warm Springs.
I'm forgetting what year I went there right now,
but they carried me to this room.
They said he came down there real
often and bathed in Warm Springs,
and it seemed to help him.
I think he had polio.
That's the reason why he was in a wheelchair.
Do you remember exact details
of why he was in the wheelchair? Was it polio?
>> Polio.
>> And back then, they had not
discovered any way to really prevent polio.
I had a cousin that had to be in
an iron long for a while.
Jimmy Nesbitt my first cousin.
But anyway, the president would come
there and bathe and stay awhile.
I saw the very room where they said he
died there at Warm Springs.
>> So did you go to the movies when you were in college?
>> I don't remember ever
going to the movie because one thing,
I knew my folks didn't have a lot of money,
James, and I tried my best not to spend money.
And that would take a little bit of
money to go to those movies.
So I don't remember as college kids
getting to go to the movies.
>> So you said you had one brother and he
served in the Pacific during the war.
What was your feeling about having
a brother going overseas to serve in the war?
>> Well, that's what everybody was doing.
So I just knew it was his place to do that too.
And since the man that I married
later was over there, too.
He was an airplane mechanic,
the one that worked on airplanes.
That's what my future husband did in Albany.
>> So do you remember the end of the war, Victory Day?
>> I think it didn't.
I had my mind on other things, I reckon.
I wasn't married then,
but I had met my future husband and we were dating real.
So I guess I wasn't thinking about a whole bunch.
>> So where did you go after you graduated from college?
>> After I graduated from college,
I went back to Albany and my mother said,
if you want to go on to finish,
well, but she let me know
that it would really be a financial burden.
So I went to work at
a tire company Dobbs
Adams Tire Company in Albany, Georgia.
And I worked there a year.
So then I heard of
a better job at Cudahy Packing Company.
>> But what did you do at Dobbs Adams Tire Company?
>> Kept books and wrote down who bought tires,
and such as that and
stood at the desk trying to
sell tires and different things.
>> So that was an office job?
>> Yes.
>> Were you the only woman working there?
>> No. It was a woman that
had been there for years and years.
She was trying to teach it to me, I'm sure.
[LAUGHTER]
>> So you said you heard about
a better job and where was that better job?
>> Cudahy Packing Company,
which was not better
about a half mile from where I worked already.
But this job paid a lot better.
And at this job, I worked on
the Comte keeping records of all the sales,
and it was something like a typewriter comtet
I don't hear about a much sound.
I don't know if they invented
things at a lot better or what.
But anyway, I was working there when my husband and I
got married and I met him at church.
>> Well, let's talk a little bit more about Cudahy's.
What did the company produce?
>> Meat products, bacon,
and all kind of meat products.
That's and they are out of business now,
but that's what they, all kind of meat products.
And they sold them to different stores and things.
And my job was to keep a record of all
of it, on computer.
>> What did the building look like where you work?
>> Well, not a real fine,
pretty building it was long and they
had different products that
they sold in different parts of the building.
They had the restroom right here in
the offices right here,
and then all the rest of it was where they
kept the products that they solve.
>> And where was it located in Albany?
>> It was, where the main block in Albany is.
You know where the Albany Harald is
just one block down further south.
>> So downtown Albany?
>> Yes.
>> So describe a typical day of work at Cudahy?
>> Well, I had a lady in
the office that had been working there for several years.
And she and I would talk a little bit and then
she'd show me all the papers that I
had to figure up, on the Cudahy.
And so that's what I would
get them and and start working on
that computer and then turn in
the final results of what I'd gotten on the computer.
>> How much money did you make?
>. Not much, honey.
I tell you I don't seem like it was 37,
50 a week, but I could be wrong about that.
I'm just not dead positive.
Because I kept working there for
a little while after I got married because I
remember I was expecting
the first time we got married in 46.
I met him at church,
and we got married in church in 1946.
And in 1948, I was carrying Terry,
my daughter, my first born.
And so I got so sick and I went and lay down in
the bathroom because it didn't have
any place on the floor. I was so sick.
Of course, my husband heard about that and he said,
I aren't going to work anymore.
So I didn't work anymore. I stayed at home then.
And that by my first baby came in 1948, Terry.
>> So you started going to church at where?
>> By memorial.
That's where I met my husband.
When we moved to Albany from
Baker County and the reason my folks moved,
my daddy produced milk and he had a lot of cows and all,
and there was a dairy right close that he
could sell all that milk too.
And then too he raised vegetables and he
could sell those in Harvey's supermarket.
So we really moved to Albany to be closer to a market.
And so that's the reason why we actually moved.
And so we all started going
to that same church by memorial.
>> So tell me about meeting DS Holtmann?
>> When I went to that church,
we had what you call training union and that would train
the members to get to knowing
the Bible enough that you could be a teacher.
It was actually that's what it was.
It was training you to be a good Bible teacher.
And so my husband went to that class
too and he evidently he liked me and I liked him.
So we started dating after that.
>> What impressed you about him?
>> He was good.
He was good to me
and he was a good Christian and nice looking,
but that was mine compared to the character.
He had character, and I could tell he did.
>> So can you describe his marriage proposal?
>> Yes. We sat in right in front of our house.
We had our house on O Pretoria Road,
we were sitting right out there.
>. Your parents house.
>> My mother and daddy lived there and we were
sitting there before I went into the house.
And he asked me out there if I would be his wife.
And I said, well,
I'm going to think about it and pray about it
and talk to my mother about it and all that.
Well, she knew he was a good Christian man.
And so that answered her.
What she wanted to know about him was that if he knew
the Lord and he wanted to do what was right and he did.
>> So you said he was a veteran of World War II.
Did he tell you anything about his service in the war?
>> Some, but not a whole bunch.
His mama had warned him not to drink beer.
And I don't think he did.
He didn't talk about it much.
I guess it was unpleasant.
I think he landed on Normandy beach right after
they had a big battle and he saw people dead.
That was most traumatic thing
that ever happened to him in the service.
But the rest of the time,
it seemed that he was not in
a battle situation that much.
So he fixed airplanes.
That's what his actual job was in the service.
>> [OVERLAPPING] repair fixed airplanes.
>> And he was in the air corps?
>> Yes.
>> So what did he do for a living in Albany?
>> He was working,
he came to Albany in the first after the war
because they had a tornado in 1942,
I believe it was, maybe 44.
Anyway, a big tornado and torn up
buildings everywhere that Cudahy back in company.
Everything was torn up because of the tornado.
And so his daddy sent him over
here he was home at that time,
sent him over here to get a good job because to clean
up the jobs everywhere
because the town had to be cleaned up.
And so daddy started working at Smith's Lumber Company.
And he worked real hard and they liked the way he worked?
They liked the kind of man he was.
They knew he was a good man.
If we had a meeting of some sort,
and some of them would be sitting
at tables and drinking,
he said, I'm not sitting at
a table where there's a whiskey bottle.
I'm not sitting there because he had a good name by
that time in Albany and
people knew he was a good Christian man.
And so he worked in
Smith's Lumber Company for several years and finally,
the boss said, "Would you like
to have a company over in East Albany?"
And he said, "Yes."
But of course, he didn't have any money,
but they could loan him the money
to get it started and so that's what he did.
That's why he made a living for
the next few years
until after our children grow and gone to college.
>> So you said during your first pregnancy,
you were still working at Cudahy Packing Company.
>> That's right.
>> And then you had talked
to your husband and you quit working?
>> I didn't feel like working there.
>> Tell me about your first home. Where was it located?
>> Well, we lived on and a little bit the apartment,
we played on Gillespie Avenue in Albany,
we played 2750 a month for that apartment,
and it was cute as it could be real small.
But after we'd been in just a short while one night,
me and my husband woke up and I said,
"Honey, something is biting me."
I was doing like this he said, "Me too."
And we turned on the light and
bed bugs crawling everywhere.
Well, what they had gotten
into the walls of that apartment.
And I'm telling you,
DS took that whole mattress
out and burned it in the field out there.
And then we moved
out of that apartment and went back with mother and
daddy for a few nights and they burned something that the
fumes and all we kill everything because they
were in the walls of that apartment when we got there.
So they found a good place to
get them a good super and a good breakfast and to go.
[LAUGHTER] So, they ate on
DS and until we discovered them.
So we went out and stayed with mother and
daddy a few nights until they had
burned that something that would
destroy all the bugs in the so.
>> How did you decorate that apartment?
Well, I didn't have much, Gene,
but I got a lot of gifts when I got married.
So just and the apartment was so little
until just a few little things
that people had given me at showers.
When Terry was about two,
we got able to build a house.
And so mother and daddy gave us
six acres of land right next to theirs.
And so he was at
[inaudible] that's where he was
making our living and doing well with it.
I've got some people that told me they knew
him and what a good businessman he was and I was,
I knew he would work hard and try hard.
But anyway, we built that house.
It was three bedrooms up on that high hill,
and I thought it was real pretty.
I've got a picture of it in my house right now.
Terry was two years old,
our first child when she walked into that.
And of course, before long, we had Cindy,
our second child, and then Dotty was our
third and we lost our little boy.
We had one little boy.
>> I want you to tell me about that.
Tell me about your stillborn son.
>> I had the RH negative factor
and it was the incompatibility
with RH negative and RH positive.
DS is one or I was the other. I don't know what.
But it was the incompatibility of those two bloods.
And the doctors didn't know what to do with it back then.
And so they discovered while I was
pregnant that that baby was dead.
And so when it was born,
that's what they said it was,
blood incompatibility of me and my husband.
So the World War II,
they discovered some medication that they
could give you to prevent that trouble.
And so now everybody has pills to take if
their mate is one blood type and you another blood type.
And see that was what our trouble was.
And that little boy was our only little boy.
The next two children we had were girls.
So we stopped getting them.
>> So where is that little boy buried?
>> He's buried in
the old cemetery there in Albany right on the River Bank.
>> And how did that make you feel to lose him?
>> Well, real sad.
My husband didn't let me even see him.
He said he thought that would
not be good for me to see him.
But he said he looked very
much like Terry, our first baby.
And so I never did even see him,
but they had a regular funeral and several people from
our church went out there to
the funeral for our little baby boy.
>> Well, tell me about your time in the hospital
after your second daughter Cindy was born.
>> Well, she had had the blood incompatibility too,
and they had not discovered medication to cope with it.
But they started giving her
blood transfusions and doing what they could.
And she had to stay there several weeks really.
And daddy said we are going to bring that girl home.
And so they had done all they could do in the hospital.
I guess I just said
about changing your blood type of something,
I don't know exactly what they did, medically speaking.
And so we brought
Terry home and from the time we brought her home,
she got along real good.
And then we had another one and the doctor
advised us we better not have any more children.
But we had one more and daughter got along real good.
She didn't have any problems there when she was born.
>> What was it like to go into
the hospital and have children in those days?
>> Well, you
didn't go until you were having birth pains.
Doctor Holtmann that still comes to visit me was my doctor.
When you begin to have pain,
you knew that baby was coming and you'd
go to the doctor and call
your doctor and say you're here.
And he'd come sit beside you.
[LAUGHTER] I wanted to kick him in the face
because I was hurting so bad and
he was sitting over there reading the newspaper.
Well, he knew it'd take a certain amount of
time for the baby so it didn't worry him.
He had delivered probably several thousand babies.
And that baby still visited with
granddaddy just before he died.
Sure did. And he visited me since.
>> What was the hospital room like?
>> I'm sure Phoebe Putney
is still standing there and I'm sure it
was something of nature like it is except they
keep improving and getting
it bigger and bigger and bigger.
But they looked at you and loved you,
did what was necessary.
>> Did you want to have any more children
after your third daughter came along?
>> Well, I think we thought three was enough.
I don't remember discussing anything anymore.
We'd lost our little boy
and I guess we just decided three was enough.
>> So you said that you
had the home on Old Pretoria Road,
and what did you name that home?
>> We didn't actually name it.
It was just our home.
>> It was named after your three daughters.
Do you remember?
>> Tecido, I think.
[LAUGHTER]
>> So you took the first two letters of each of
your daughter's names to make Tecido Hill?
>> Yeah, that's right.
>> Whose idea was that?
>> I don't know if it was mine or De's.
I don't know, I don't remember exactly.
>> So you were a gardener?
>> Not much of a gardener.
De not much either,
but my daddy was.
Now, DS raised a little bit.
Daddy was raised in fact,
he was out picking peas when he had a stroke
and that stroke is what killed him eventually.
They lived right next door to us.
>> And how long did your mother live?
>> She lived almost 100.
Daddy died when he was 93, I believe it was.
And Mother, of course,
lived next door and she would
have a cousin occasionally come to
spend the night with her and I'd take her to
the doctor and buy grocers and things like that.
Her brain was sharp right up to the very last.
She was a smart,
good, Godly Christian woman.
I've still got a lot of books that she
bought and read and got something written in them,
and I've still got a lot of them,
Nana. I had a good mother.
Mother lived almost 100.
She was up at my house when she died,
and we knew she did not
have long and so she was up at my husband when she died,
and Gail was there and I believe Cindy was there
beside her bed and her feet began to get cold.
And I knew from that the circulation
was not going down in her feet.
And she just closed her eyes and died.
>> So you were married over
67 years when your husband passed away two years ago?
>> That's right.
>> So what did it feel like to lose him?
>> You wouldn't believe how I still miss him.
See he had a stroke seven years before he died.
Well, that impaired him
because he couldn't do as much with his right hand.
So I would help him a lot.
He used to like to work out in
the garage building things
in fact he built some bookcases for
each one of the grandsons and I've got
one sitting right there with
a cross on the end of it that he built,
and he wrote him a letter telling him to
look at that cross and remember Jesus.
But De was a good husband.
He let me do exactly what I wanted to do.
And then I tried not to do
anything that he wouldn't approve of.
>> So where do you live now?
>> I live in an assisted living place.
After De died, the girls decided
I would be safer there because
all three daughters lived out of town.
And they thought there you don't have to
cook and it's a safe place.
So that's where I am at Century Pines in Albany.
>> So how many grandchildren do you have?
>> My goodness. [LAUGHTER] I've got a lot.
My first daughter has got,
I should have written that.
My first daughter's got three grandchildren.
That's right from John, her son.
And then my second daughter has
got nine grandchildren that's
where we're going to Saturday.
And then Dotty she's the one this year,
all of her children, her daughter has got
one baby and each one of her sons has got two sons.
So she's got seven grandchildren.
>> So 18 great-granddaughter.
>> That's right.
>> So what's the most important thing to you in life?
>> To love the Lord and do
what's right and teach my children and
grandchildren to be right with
God because that's where we all going to wind up,
we're going to be in heaven or hell,
and I aim to go to heaven with
Daddy and be up there with Jesus.
>> Well, I think that's enough,
is there anything else you want to add?
>> I love my grandson,
James because he likes history.
And I love somebody that loves history.
My mother loved it too.
>> Well, thank you, Dot Hotman and we will end there.