farm and you'd take your children with you how long would you be gone two months two months
where would you sleep when you got there
they'd get a house
i was told we would pick that one man for about five years every year and he'd tell us when we
When y'all come back up around Cleveland,
you can tell us when you need to.
Y'all give me an address.
We'll come back and pick you up.
We'll be familiar when y'all get through.
We'll get through.
You invite us.
We'll go up there and pick you up.
We had a stove.
We had a chair, table, couch, different things.
We were talking.
How long would you pick all day?
Well, we'd pick all day, come to house, eat dinner.
When would you get up?
In the morning.
And sometimes sunup, we'd be in, he would pick us up.
Sunup. And when would you quit?
Oh, we'd quit about sundown.
And how much would you get paid for a pound?
Sometimes we'd make five, six dollars a day.
Just like going up on top of this house and look over.
Red River.
I've been everywhere.
Old Corn City.
Old Ams.
Down in San Antonio.
Just an island.
That's where I grew up.
Were there lots of people there?
Women with the children?
Sometimes there would be.
Sometimes there wouldn't be.
Were there lots of people there, women with the children?
Sometimes there would be, and sometimes there wouldn't be.
Lots of times they'd come up and all of a sudden they'd be here.
They'd say, we're so glad y'all come, so they'd help us pick cotton.
Dr. Schoontail would give her a prop, and they'd be glad to see her for three or four weeks.
Did you ever think, were you ever afraid to go on these trips without your husband?
Boys should go.
Boys should. How old were you?
I was about 20. I was about 19, 17, 18.
Did lots of women do that from Lockhart? Go with their children?
Some of them did.
Did a lot of black people go pick cotton back then?
Yeah, go in trucks.
After I was born and married, I went up there with some people to pick cotton.
I didn't have nobody. We were sick.
With just friends?
the boys
I know they went on one year and they made
a thousand dollars a piece
they found
we went
you never do stuff like that
you work
you want to stay in the middle
I feel like you've accomplished a lot of things, you feel pretty happy with your life.
I didn't have money to spend with everyone.
I went to church, I went shopping.
Think you were different from anyone in your generation?
No.
But you had to work for it.
You had to work. You couldn't move around and have a good time.
You had to work. We worked hard.
When did you quit picking cotton?
Oh, I think I was about 70 years old.
60 or 70.
After the kids all got grown married,
they didn't give me any time left to cut any more.
So I'd go out and I'd go out one time
and I'd leave my sack on the shoulder
and I'd pick some more cotton.
Have any of your attitudes changed since you were a little girl, about life or marriage?
What's he doing? He's been around here fifty times today. Yeah, I'm different from what I was when I was a girl.
I think different.
Like how?
Well, I think when we fostered for a family, I really...
What I wanted my kids to be, how I wanted them to live, they minded me.
They turned out pretty much like you thought?
Yeah, they turned out like I thought.
What do you think a woman's place should be?
Do you think she should stay in the home with the children, or do you think she should work?
Well, whatever she wants to do, I think she's going to want to work.
You don't think that they should have to stay at home with the children?
Well, if they can't do no better, I think if they don't have to work, it's all right, but we have to work. I think it's all right to work. I love to work.
We don't have to work now. I can work. I like to have my own money.
Did having your own money make you feel a certain way?
Yeah, it made me feel self-security.
Made you feel self-security?
Mm-hmm.
I had to make it myself.
I like to make my own money.
Oh, my husband's giving me money, anything I want,
but I like the way to make money myself.
And the money you made when you picked cotton was yours?
Yeah.
You got to keep that for yourself.
Yeah.
What would you do with it?
Kids going to school,
they always needed something, clothes,
and I got a box of school clothes.
The boys put the money in the bank, and they didn't want anything, because they didn't need anything.
So my mom, I leave six and six at a time. I go to the bank and get it.
Did you ever buy anything for yourself?
Yeah. All the big toys. I like the toys, the big toys.
Did your father have very many political views?
No, not too many.
What about you?
If I had a few, not too many like I do now.
But other than the woman I am now, no better.
So now you have some views on politics, but when you were younger you didn't?
No, I didn't have much.
How did you get the ones you have now?
Well, with the TV, different things. I know more than I used to know.
The older he gets, the more he's done in my life.
What about your husband? Did he have very many political views?
Yeah, he had a lot of views.
Did he vote?
vote. You voted too? When women got to vote? You voted?
Voted and paid taxes.
Was there a poll tax when you used to vote?
yeah you paid it now did you what where where would you vote my card there
wasn't a separate place for you to vote over here in the at the county courthouse
Oh, sometimes it did. It was all right for some of them.
Did you vote with the white people?
Yeah, well, the black people did vote.
Did very many black people vote back then?
Not too many, that would be me.
How come?
See that?
See that? You don't think it was poll tax?
Huh?
You don't think the poll tax prohibited it?
Some people thought their votes wouldn't count.
I used to tell them, I said, they'll vote count, just like anybody else's count.
A lot of colored people just think they're throwing away their votes, I said, no, throw away your votes.
You know, I've always been like that.
Paying taxes after you married, the first year after you married, you left paying taxes on your vote.
Did you call yourself a Democrat or a Republican voter?
Well, I was a Democrat.
What did you vote for?
No.
Democrat.
Oh, my kid was a Democrat.
I don't vote now because I'm old, and she's good.
What kind of, I know this is a hard question,
because I know lots of changes have happened,
But what kind of changes have you seen in society you think are the most change?
They're better in what ways well, they treat you nice
Well, how they used to treat
What would they do?
What about any other changes that you see?
Especially, I see, what about change in women? Today they're more working. Today they're not staying in the home as much. What do you think about all that?
Well, women didn't work.
Women didn't work.
They worked on the farm and stuff.
Not much.
They don't work on the farm now.
White women, that's what you're talking about?
There used to be a few white women.
Are you talking about mainly white women?
Huh?
You're talking about mainly white women?
Yeah, white women and white women.
Not much.
But what about black women?
All women.
All work.
Now, do very many black women work in offices in Lockhart?
Well, good man. There ain't so many in office, but we have jobs.
If you got an option. No waiting on you this time.
Think that's good?
Mm-hmm.
What do you...go ahead.
go ahead i believe in people working
what do you think about women's liberation
i think you need to speak up a little bit i think it's all right what you mean working getting jobs
well yeah whatever you everybody has a different idea of what it is and they usually talk about it
i think it's all right it's nice to work i think a woman ought to work if she got if she can if she
ain't got no children you don't have to i sort of do but i think if she ain't got no children
what if she has children and wants to work well she can get a babysitter
I think it's okay for women to have the same kind of job as men have.
Yes, they can do it.
Make the same kind of money?
Yes, they can do it.
Be educated, the same?
Yes, they can do it.
That's right, that's what I believe in.
do it. That's right. That's what I believe in. If you can do it, if you work inside of a man,
well, I believe if he's getting $100 a month, you ought to get it. Ain't no difference.
Through your life, have you found that women can do just about anything a man can do?
Yeah, anything a man can do, a woman can do if she wants.
Did you?
Yeah. Ride horses, plow, drive a car, drive a wagon, haul wood, cut wood, do anything. I could do anything a man could do.
I used to haul water. I used to vacuum. We had a big pair of black mules. I vacuumed them and pulled out four barrels of water every day.
I could do anything to my husband. I didn't do nothing before I married. Not on the farm.
But after I married, I could do anything. I knowed how, but I didn't do it.
Yeah, I think a woman ought to have, she's working, she ought to get paid just like a man.
What about a woman president? What do you think about that?
Well, I think sometimes that'd be better.
Oh.
There's going to be one one of these days.
Where? I don't know where it's going to be, but there's going to be a woman president one of these days.
Man, the men are just losing out with the women.
The women are taking over.
Yeah, let them be, let them go.
I say let them go, let them get the job.
You think it's kind of silly to think the woman has to be the one to stay home with the children, cook and clean,
and the man goes out to work and the woman can't do that.
you think you think that's kind of silly
what do you think I think you're with you 100%
It used to be a time when men didn't give money, but women make it now, they sell.
I heard a man say on the radio, on the television one day, women ain't no more money than men.
Men used to make the money, light it up and drink it out.
A woman ain't going to do it. She's making money. She's going to keep it and support her family with it.
My husband knows he's drinking, gambling, nothing like that.
But God knows men that make money and throw it away.
A woman ain't going to throw it away. She's going to bring it home to her family.
and you know the women is taking over too men can't help them they're getting their education
they're going to town we might want our baby dead and gone you'll be here maybe
but then you know we're gonna have a warm present
When you were married, was there, like, between the women in the community who lived around you,
like if somebody had a baby or somebody's mother died or something,
would the women in the community get together and go to that person's house and help them out?
Yeah, yeah.
Tell me about that, if you can remember anything.
Well, we used to go up to the island.
You see, we'd all go there and wash and cook and clean up.
How long would you stay?
Stay till we got here.
Weeks?
No.
No? A day?
Home, children here and there.
24-hour morning.
She'd go through her house, let you go, and she'd be back there all night.
How would you, uh, whose care would you leave your household in?
Kids would be big enough to do that.
My father stayed with six of us.
We didn't do none of those big houses.
We'd go in and wash and poop and clean up.
My children would be small, but we'd be big enough to do that.
Would there, um, be, how did it feel?
feel did you have lots of good women friends or were you yeah i had a really good like my sister
didn't feel like you were you didn't have very many hard feelings with them or you weren't
competing sometimes i'd have 10 or 12 children at my hand and then the first thing you know
For all of mine, it'd be at the other woman's house.
That's where we'd be at.
Of course, I'm afraid of that.
How about today? Do those kind of things still go on today?
Well, I don't know. I'm not around nobody.
Some children are all going to school every day.
I'm not around nobody much at school.
That's me right there.
She gets up and I ask her to come over.
I'm over here sometimes, Spanish people are just, I live around Spanish people, that's a good thing to do, even them up on the corner down the road, right off the road, I live there, I guess four or five years, and the children's all little, where I got grown, they were nice, never bothered, nothing happened.
I had chickens, hogs, cows, we had a big peach orchard, garden, everything, blueberries, strawberries,
when you were little and as you were growing up and as you got married and had your own child
was there any thought of how a woman like the charm or the way she's supposed to look or be
or act was different than the way the man was to act or she was supposed to you see what i'm asking
Was there any thought of being feminine or charming?
Yeah, he was charming to me.
Was it talk to you or did you just pick it up?
No, we didn't have good, I had good clothes for my marriage.
And I'm waiting by him.
He didn't make my clothes.
They were nice clothes.
They were cheap.
They were nice.
I don't want to be paid.
I can't go to this place.
I'm living away in this place.
I've done nothing there.
I've been to California a few times, but I've never been to California.
I don't like California. San Francisco. I've been to San Francisco, I've been to Berkeley, I've been to Oakland, I've been to Pasadena, I've been to Stockton, I've been to San Francisco.
And we have both California names in the country.
And I'm proud to get to a fair one time.
I don't know. I don't worry about going anywhere.
I don't like California.
I like them big ol' houses.
People in California, they don't get around like they do here.
You believe in women doing, working like men and getting good jobs like men?
Yeah.
What you gonna do when you get grown up?
If you, um, one time I asked you about what you thought about presidents, thought about
President Carter, but I don't think I got it on tape.
I think I...
No, he's all right.
I don't think I got it on tape.
What do you think about Carter?
I think he's alright. We do all we can.
It's hard now, honey. It's a hard world we live in now.
There were so many people out of the way. There's so many people here.
Lots of people in Texas, honey.
People come from other states here.
It's hard.
What did you think about President Nixon?
Well, I just thought he done wrong.
He's the first one. He won't be the next.
He's gone so far.
What about when the wars, when the world wars were happening, what did you think about that?
Were any of your children soldiers?
Walter, Walter laughed to me. He had raised us and they got a bunch and he was in that bunch and they didn't call his name.
And when he, when the war was over, right after that, he didn't go have a watch.
He had three little girls, his first wife had died, he had a second wife, and he showed
Haley this to her.
But they didn't call her in that time, he missed her.
And he was waking down at the ice house, and the man got him off of his train home.
My baby boy was in the army, but he never done anything, he was a maniac.
What do you think about wars?
Well, I just think people get crazy and go to fight with each other.
Want to take what the other done.
I just think it's wrong.
What do you think of that?
I think it's wrong too.
How did it make you feel to think that one of your sons might be going up there and might get killed? Did you resent that?
Yeah, I didn't want my son to get killed, but if I had a son and he had other people's children that had to go to war and he had to go too,
Well, I feel like I wasn't no better than them.
Mine wasn't no better than them to do it.
That's what I said all the time.
If mine had to go, well, it wasn't no better
than the other person.
If they got killed, why, the other people still
didn't get killed.
So I felt with that just like it was all right.
I did hate it.
I hate to see anybody's child get killed.
I hate to see mine get killed.
But mine wasn't no better than the other family.
He was here in the country, in this state,
If you had to go to war, you just had to go.
Yeah, I felt bad.
If you had your choice, let's say you were president.
Huh?
Let's say you were president of the United States.
Think you'd ever have a war?
I might. I don't know.
Might have to.
Sometimes they have to fight.
If you go to prison, they have to fight.
You think if we had a woman president, you think there'd be more wars, or you think it'd be about the same, or you think they'd have less wars?
I don't know about that. I don't know if she'd want a war or not.
You don't think it'd be different than a man president?
Well, in a way, some ways it would and some ways it wouldn't.
I feel like she might have to have a war, and a whole lot of people didn't want no war, but they had to have it, you see.
See, those people, they didn't fight, didn't send their people over there, they come over here, you see.
We have never had a war in this state, and I hope we never will have.
But if we do, if I told them I have to go, they'd just have to go.
I wouldn't teach them not to go.
When I was between my child and nobody else, I thought, yeah, we're all here in this country.
And I figured that other people shouldn't have to fight. I figured mine wasn't no better than them.
Have you ever been out to a restaurant in Hawthorne?
To eat?
Yeah, I've been out, yeah, been to the cafe, or what do you call it, out there with the drive-in.
Dairy Queen?
Yeah.
So you think things have gotten better through your lifetime or not?
What do you mean better?
Well, for one thing, you said in Lockhart, you said white people were nicer now.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
You think people are richer now than they used to be?
Well, yeah. Some of them are men. Some of them are men.
Yeah, people have changed.
Colored people have changed.
White folks have changed.
They know better how to get along than they tell me.
See, the world has changed, and every year it's changed, a few different things.
People have changed.
When you were a little girl, living in Lockhart before you moved.
I was living in the countryside.
But didn't you live in Lockhart?
Oh, so you don't remember very much about that.
I was just wondering, like, if there was some town that was, like, black people or Mexicans
couldn't cross the track to the white part of the city, I was wondering if that was ever
like that here.
They could go wherever they wanted?
Full time, all over town.
They didn't know where.
Your father, I mean your husband's name was Kirksey?
Mm-hmm, Phil Kirksey.
Was he from around here?
Yeah, he was raised around here.
Were his parents slaves too?
Did he get his name from Kirksey, the people he was working for?
His father, your husband's father.
Who was Kirksey?
Did he get, but you know how you told me how after they got free, slaves got free,
they took the name of the master.
Did that what happened to your husband's father?
Do you know he worked for the Kirksies around Lockhart?
Who?
No, he was, he was former.
But his folks was, his older folks was the Craigslist that had them.
They were from around here, though?
No, they was from down in the low country somewhere.
Oh.
I don't know what you're saying.
Did you and your husband have about the same views about things?
I guess so.
I found that somebody who would come and sit around and talk to me about what we wanted to do and what we wanted to have and how we wanted to raise children.
Did you ever differ with him?
Not much, but things like that. We always agreed.
Always agreed, huh?
If you were going to give somebody, young people today, a philosophy of life, or some
sort of advice, what would it be?
To tend to your business, be honest, work hard, and be true.
And think a heap of yourself.
Regardless of what color he is, think a heap of yourself.
Did you just learn that throughout your life or did anybody ever tell you that?
No, I just learned that not coming up.
Be honest, be truthful, don't lie, don't steal.
Tend to your business, treat everybody right.
That's what I think, that's my philosophy.
You have that, you're getting old.
Regardless of what color, treat them nice.
That's what I taught my kids.
Be nice to everybody.
You may have a snag sometimes, but just look over at the lawn, don't fool with it.
Mr. Ann Austin.