Notes:

The following are edited notes of an interview with Avis Annette Lammon Atkinson, July 17th, 1984. Present were her son Edward Atkinson, sister-in-law Donnie Beagles Lammon, Donnie's son Joseph Edward Lammon, and his son Timothy Edward Lammon. The interview was videotaped. The editor, Elmer B. Lammon, had the tape transcribed by a court reporter into text that could be manipulated by a word processor. He then edited the result to eliminate a lot of irrelevant chat. [As an example of the editing, the following statements at the beginning of the tape were reduced to the first edited line. - EBL
EDDIE: This is July 17th, 1984.
EDWARD: Absolutely.
EDDIE: Who's going to be the moderator?
EDWARD: I will, gladly - let me start.
EDDIE: Let Edward start now.
EDWARD: The only reason I want to start is -
ED'RD: Dad, it's not in focus good.
EDDIE: We don't need any help from the cameraman. You just-come here, cameraman. I want you to just come here a minute. Come here! I want the people fifteen years - come here - right here. I want people fifteen years from now to look at this and realize that this is the guy that's giving us all the advice about why this is not done right. Now, you go back over there, and after the show, you can sit down and tell me everything that's wrong.
ED'RD: It's out of focus.
EDDIE: You just sit over there and look through the little window and be quiet.
DONNIE: Don't put your hands on that.
EDDIE: Anyway, why don't you start this thing off? This is Edward Atkinson.
EDWARD: Yeah, Edward Lammon, actually.
EDDIE: Right.
EDWARD: I just thought the best way to start would be Mama to do the old sore finger Lammon trick and show everybody her sore finger.
EDDIE: I'll do that.
EDWARD: I mean, he does.
DONNIE: I better not do that.
EDWARD: That's all I got then.
EDDIE: I always wondered what that was.
EDWARD: A lot of people know.
EDDIE: I don't know what it is. What does that mean?
AVIS: Ask him, he knows. I don't.
EDWARD: Christmas day she was over at her house. She was walking out, and said, look at my sore finger; y'all look at my sore finger.
EDDIE: I guess the logical place for you to start telling-I don't know. I guess just we want to know the history of the Lammon family, as far as you know it. ]
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Edited version begins:
EDDIE: I guess the logical place for you to start ? I guess ? we want to know the history of the Lammon family, as far as you know it.
AVIS: Scotland. Well, that's as far back as I know it would be. Grandpa and Grandma Lammon, and I don't know anything about their lives except when they were old people and had the whole family, and they were all grown and married when I knew them. There were six boys and two girls in the family. My father, who is your grandfather, was the oldest of the family. He was the oldest child and his name was Edward Barnes. Grandma Lammon was a Barnes, and his name was Edward Barnes Lammon. Then, the next one was Uncle Duncan. I don't remember how they all came out, but Uncle Lee and Uncle Marvin and Uncle Archie. Edward, Duncan, Archie, Marvin, Lee, Freddie. Freddie was a boy and Flaudie [and] Aunt Carl were the girls. That's the Lammon family. And all of them had big families and children. And all of them lived at Hartford for many, many, many years, every family did. And when it would storm, they would all come to our house. I don't know why.
EDDIE: Is that where you are living now?
AVIS: Yeah, well, it's not the same house, but the same location.
EDDIE: Same property, though, isn't it?
AVIS: And we had a porch that went out across the front, and they would all come out there-a lot of times. The boys used to say, you know, that they would be cold. And in the wintertime, the only way we had of heating the place was a wood fire. And the men would all stand up in front of the fire, you know, back up to the fire. And Otis used to scoot in between two of them, and then it was too hot up there, and he'd scoot out. He was a little boy, you know. I can remember that. We just had the one fireplace in our house.
EDWARD: Well, when you're talking about-"now", when Uncle Otis was doing that, how old was Uncle Ed?
AVIS: Uncle Ed wasn't even born then. I was born in February, and it was in February, I was nine. Ed was born the next July. Sadie, Irene, Otis, and Avis, Elmer, and Edward. Edward was the baby of the family, and we all spoiled him because he was real, real sweet.
EDDIE: Do you know anything about how my Grandpa Lammon got to be married to my Grandma Lammon? What was the story with that?
AVIS: When we were girls -- I don't know anything about their courtship and why they married each other -- Grandma was a Barnes, and they lived right at Barnes Crossroads. That's above Ozark. That's about eight miles above Ozark -- six or eight miles. We would go back through a pasture place - I've been with the Barnes people. There was an old place there that was torn down. Irene did have some brick that came out of the old chimney where Grandpa Lammon's people came and settled, and his mother and father are buried up there.
[They are buried at Post Oak Methodist Cemetery -EBL]
EDDIE: Were Mama and Daddy originally from around Ozark, around Barnes Crossroads?
AVIS: They moved to Barnes Crossroads, but I don't even know where they came from. I guess they came from, North Carolina somewhere.
EDDIE: How did they get to Hartford?
AVIS: After they got to Ozark, they settled on down to Hartford. And I don't know-I don't know any details of that either, and I don't know how they met. Then, Mama lived in Newton. And my father lived at Barnes Crossroads. So, my father had pneumonia, and his cousin - turned out to be married to Mama's brother, but at that time she was - she was Lizzie Smith. She was Aunt Cally Smith's daughter, and Aunt Cally Smith and Grandpa Lammon were brothers and sisters. So Aunt Lizzie and Mama were real good friends, and she said, "Well, Lizzie, I'm going to see one of my cousins, who is sick with pneumonia." I want you to go with me. I don't know how they went, -but I heard Mama tell it before, - went up to Barnes Crossroads to see Papa. And, when he saw Mama, he said, that's the woman I'm going to marry. He never had seen her before. There's a letter in the back of that Lammon book, you know, that Papa wrote to Mama.
EDDIE: And eventually they got married, and moved to Hartford?
AVIS: They moved to Hartford before they married. Grandpa Lammon moved down to Hartford with his big family of boys and two girls. And then, Bill [William F. Hardwick] moved to Hartford.
AVIS: The Barnes were at Barnes Crossroads. Grandma Lammon was a Barnes, and her people, the Barnes, still lived up there. She had - I was fortunate enough to know her brother, Uncle Jake Barnes. And then, she had another brother, Joe Barnes. I knew him. And there is another one of those boys that I knew. I can't say his name right now.
EDDIE: And then, your mama and daddy kept courting?
AVIS: Uh-huh. And a year after they moved down there, well, got married, and in another year, they had Sadie.
EDDIE: What kind of work did - your daddy's do - Grandma and Grandpa do?
AVIS: Well, he was always mechanical, all the Lammons had mechanical [ability] and cotton gins and variety shops, and Papa was a changeable sort of a thing.
EDDIE: He's like my daddy [James Edward Lammon] now.
AVIS: Yeah. His son took after him. They were alike. They had good things in their hands like the Ford business for the whole county - Geneva County. Every car that was sold in Geneva County, he would have commission on it. He gave that to Lee while he believed he'd do something else.
EDDIE: In other words, if he had stayed in that, we'd probably all be millionaires now?
AVIS: We would all have two dollars instead of one. Oh, then, let's see. Then, one time he had the gasoline ?- what gasoline?
DONNIE: Standard Oil Company.
AVIS: Standard Oil.
EDDIE: He had Standard Oil?
AVIS: Yeah.
EDDIE: Did he give that up?
AVIS: And so, they wanted him to. Mr. Nance wanted him to go to Samson and put in an ice plant. So he said he'd go help Mr. Nance.
EDDIE: So he gave up the Standard Oil business?
AVIS: And we put our furniture on a train and moved over to Samson and lived over there three years. And that was the time I was in the fifth grade that I remember. And Sadie and Irene finished high school over there. "Finished" [meant that] they just went through the tenth grade. Then, we moved back to Hartford, and Irene went back to high school, finished the eleventh grade.
EDWARD: Listen, that ice plant at Samson - don't I remember when I was really even smaller than Ed'rd, maybe a little bit? - We used to go by there and smoke rings blew out. You told me where -
AVIS: Papa used to work-
EDWARD: That thing would blow smoke rings.
EDDIE: I think I remember that.
AVIS: I'm sure you do. It made smoke rings.
EDWARD: That plant ran for a long time.
EDDIE: Yeah, I remember that because-
EDWARD: And he's ?
AVIS: I think the old building is still there.
EDDIE: He's probably the one that put the ring blower in there, wasn't he?
EDWARD: Granddaddy [Edward Barnes Lammon] started that plant up.
AVIS: Yeah. He built the plant. He put it in.
EDDIE: He was a millwright. Daddy told us that. He ran sawmills and everything else.
AVIS: Then, we went-back to Hartford after we lived away that way. Then, he wanted him to put in a gin at Bellwood, so we moved over to Bellwood. He put in a cotton gin over there. A boy from Hartford came over to Bellwood and had something wrong with his automobile, and that was the first automobile I ever saw. And Mama sent me and Elmer to tell Papa to bring something ?Anyway; we went to the cotton gin to tell him ?. And we got up there, and he was working on the boy's car. So, he said, y'all get in the car and you can ride home. So it was just an old-fashioned car, you know. We were sitting way up high on this little backseat.
EDWARD: What year? What year was that?
AVIS: Two [1902]. Let's see. Now, I started to school in Bellwood - lived in Bellwood before we did Samson. I got the story right before, because I started to school in Bellwood. I was five when we moved there. So I must have been six or seven when I rode on the car.
EDDIE: 1910 or 1909. That would be about the year before Daddy was born, then?
AVIS: Yeah. We moved back to Hartford. Mama lost a baby in Bellwood. It was born while we lived in Bellwood and drank poison and died while we lived in Bellwood. She died when she was a year and a half old. Her name was Mary Lou. She was buried over there with Mama and Papa. Then, after we went - soon we moved back to Hartford again.
EDDIE: Y'all all must have got Irene out of school. Did Aunt Irene graduate from high school?
AVIS: Aunt Irene finished in Samson the tenth grade. She and Sadie were in the same class. Then, we went back to Hartford and Sadie married Herbert. This was in 1916. And Irene then went back to school another year. And then she taught school two or three years. And she
married Bill [Hardwick] in 1918. And -
EDWARD: It's worth you saying now - Eddie might not know this - but you taught school some, too, you and Aunt Irene, both, didn't you?
AVIS: Uh-huh.
EDWARD: Back then ? you didn't have to have college degrees, or a certificate, or whatever it was, to qualify to teach.
AVIS: No. We just had high school educations. And we took a teachers county course, taped examinations. And I had a second grade license and Irene did too, and we taught together one year. We taught at High Falls. There was a schoolhouse out in front of the Assembly Church, down on that road. And while we were there, it burned. We punished some great big boys one Friday evening, and that night the schoolhouse burned. Of course, we don't know who did it or why, you know. But we punished the boys, and the schoolhouse burned.
EDDIE: Were you married before?
AVIS: No. When we moved to Enterprise then, I was teaching at Slocomb and -
EDDIE: Who was teaching at Slocomb?
AVIS: I was teaching in Slocomb that year.
EDDIE: Was you married?
AVIS: No, no, I didn't marry until 1929, and that was in 1921.
EDDIE: All right.
AVIS: And Papa came over here to run a gin for - I don't know who. Somebody up here [in Enterprise]. So, then, ?when school was out, I came over here, and he didn't want me to go back and teach because, in the meantime, he wasn't well, and I got a job at old Mr. Edwards, - Simpsy Edwards, that worked in the store there with him. It was general merchandise. In Enterprise. He had a store right next to Clark's [Clark Edwards'] daddy, and Simpsy was the nephew of the other man. Then, from that, I went on up to -
EDWARD: Where would the store have been, Mother, with respect to the monument?
DONNIE: About where the Citizen's Bank was when it first come here, wasn't it?
AVIS: If you go up the street from the post office, you would run right into Simpsy Edward's store. You know, it was just the first two stores. One was one Edwards and the next was the other Edwards. And then, I went from there to the Clemmons store?Clemmons was right there. It was the first two stores the other side of the monument.
EDDIE: Vaughn Clemmons was the guy who made the proposal that we make a monument [to the] Boll Weevil, wasn't he?
AVIS: He did that while I was working for him. He just had good ideas about things like that.
EDWARD: That was in 1922 or '3?
AVIS: '2 or '3 or '4, somewhere in the first part of the year.
AVIS: And in the meantime, then, Sadie was living in Evergreen. And from there, she moved to Enterprise. She and Herbert came down here [to Enterprise]. Herbert had a shoe shop. They lived here six or eight or ten years. : They went to Dothan and stayed a year, and then went to Andalusia. And Irene and Bill - he preached - they married and went to? well, they settled out there [Arkansas] and lived there most of the their lives in Arkansas and Oklahoma. : [James] was born in Hartford. But when he was a little boy, they moved out there, and they lived out there. They went to school and business and all out there.
EDWARD: I'll tell you something about [Bill] that you don't know probably, but there's - I've got a copy of it - but there's a picture. One of the people in Arkansas got together and formed the Assembly Church, and Uncle Bill is in that picture.
EDDIE: He was in the founding bunch of it?
EDWARD: That's right, he sure was.
AVIS: Well, that was the home state.
EDWARD: I know that, but I say he was in the -I think Aunt Irene said he was twenty-something years old.
EDDIE: He was one of the founding fathers of that church when he was in Oklahoma or Arkansas?
EDWARD: Arkansas.
EDDIE: Arkansas.
AVIS: But he was - he was from Alabama originally, but he -
EDWARD: I know. But he was out there when he did that, is what I'm saying. He was in on - whatever they did that -
AVIS: Missouri, I think, is where it was, wasn't it, when it happened, in Springfield, you know?
EDWARD: It says under the picture that it was in Arkansas?
AVIS: Arkansas.
EDWARD: But it may have been Missouri, I don't know.
AVIS: I don't know.
EDDIE: Well, now, how old were you - I mean, were you married when your daddy died?
AVIS: No. My Daddy died in 1925
EDDIE: That's about the time you were working with Vaughn Clemmons, then. He was in Enterprise when he died, wasn't it?
AVIS: He died at Enterprise. And I was twenty-three at that time.
EDDIE: Well, can you kind of describe the ? whatever, about the time he died? Did he die over a long period of time, and did you just come home one day and -
AVIS: No. He was sick for quite a while - months, not years - weeks to months. And he went to some springs down in Florida, White Springs. He took mineral baths.
EDDIE: Did he go to the doctor with his problems?
AVIS: Yeah. He went to a doctor and the doctor thought this bath would help him. I really think he had some kind of cancer. Then, they didn't know how to treat cancers, you know.
EDDIE: Kind of describe the events surrounding his death. I mean, did y'all know for a while before he died that he was going to die?
AVIS: Yeah, we knew for a while. We did.
EDDIE: And he did, too, didn't he?
AVIS: Yes, he did, too. And, as he was sick up to death - well, after he took his deathbed, he-Elmer was in the Navy at that time and Mama tried every way to get in touch with him to tell him, and he had been over on the - on the Pacific coast, and she couldn't get in touch with him. So Elmer called - and we always said it was in an answer to prayer. He called from Jacksonville, Florida, and was on a boat that had come in to port there. So, when he called, she ? got in touch with his commanding officers. And he came right on home and got here before Papa died. And Papa called in each child he had, one-by-one, and talked to each one of us and told us that he had accepted Christ as his savior and for us to be good to Mama, and he'd - he'd meet us later. And he talked to every one of us separately.
AVIS: And then, Grandma Lammon was there, and he talked to her, too - his mother. He was the first of his family to pass away. Well, his father was dead, but other than that, he was the first child.
EDDIE: How old was he, Avis, when he died?
AVIS: He wasn't but fifty-three. But all of them lived longer than he did, the whole family. And he was - he didn't last too many days after he talked to all of us. He soon passed away, and we took him back to Hartford.
EDDIE: Well, now, I remember somebody telling me about the funeral they had for him. Something about - I want to hear it, though. I want to hear it. I don't think the Klan was anything to be ashamed of in that day and time. I think in this day and time, it is.
AVIS: I don't think so.
EDDIE: Well, don't tell that part, then. If you want to leave something out, leave that part out.
AVIS: Well, he did run with the Klu Klux Klan. He liked it - the Klu Klux Klan or whatever you call it. And when he came through town, the klansmen marched on either side of the hearse through the village, through Enterprise. Then, they didn't go onto the church. They didn't play any part after that. They just came on either side of the hearse coming. They went to Hartford to have his funeral, but they didn't go except just through the main part of Enterprise, you know. And he went on - he was in the church at Hartford. I don't even remember who preached his funeral. I don't remember.
EDDIE: This isn't very important, but when somebody died back then, I think they embalmed them in hardware stores more or less. Is that right?
AVIS: Yeah, yeah.
EDDIE: And I think maybe he was embalmed up at J. C. Jones hardware?
AVIS: At Lasseter's.
EDDIE: Where was that at?
AVIS: That was where - what's your men's store now?
EDDIE: Parker?
AVIS: That was at that building.
EDDIE: Right there close to where the cafe was.
AVIS: One of the little places right there. It was upstairs there. That's where they embalmed him. And I was telling Donnie today, after Mama - Mama sewed, and she'd keep paying Mr. Lasseter a little bit along.
EDDIE: I saw the receipts on that somewhere. I don't know where it was. She was paying for his funeral for years and years.
AVIS: Uh-huh. So, then the place that they lived at, down in that little alley, you know, sold. Well, I wrote Mr. Lasseter and told him to let me know how much the difference was, and I'd pay it. And in the meantime, Sadie did the same thing. So he - I've got the letter in a scrapbook at home that Sadie wrote to him, and he wrote back to Sadie and told her that he had had the letter from me, too. So Sadie and I divided that sum, and we paid it off, so Mama wouldn't have to.
EDDIE: Uh-huh. That's after y'all got on out of the house, sort of.
AVIS: Well, ? we got the money, you know, for this place.
EDDIE: Yeah. After he died, did your mama move in with Sadie?
AVIS: Mama stayed by herself a little bit. And me and Edward, your daddy, both stayed in with her. So one day I came in from work. I was working at Blevins, or Edwards, one. So I came in one day, and Mama was taking in coal to make fires. I said, Mama, where is Edward? He was in high school. She said, I don't know; he hasn't come home this evening. So I was so mad with him, you know, and about that time he came in. And I was balling him out. I said, there you lay out playing, and Mama is having to get this coal in, and she's had to sew all day. And while I was balling him out, he didn't say a word. So while I was balling him out, well, Mr. Heath came
and gave me ?(unintelligible).
EDDIE: That's about the time he finished his high school career, then, wasn't it?
AVIS: Yeah, he was-
EDDIE: What were the circumstances surrounding his finishing school?
AVIS: He just wanted to do something else rather than go to school. He wanted to bum around, I reckon. I don't know.
EDDIE: Well, that was about the time the depression was coming along?
AVIS: Yeah.
EDDIE: Didn't he kind of feel like he was a burden on you and his mama, or primarily his mama and Aunt Sadie?
AVIS: He might have. I don't know.
DONNIE: He said he did.
AVIS: He just was young enough he couldn't quite get established. So Edward - and then, I married in '29.
EDDIE: All this time Uncle Elmer's still in the Navy, right?
AVIS: No. Uncle Elmer got out as Papa died. When he came to the funeral, he got out. They dismissed Elmer. He only lacked a few weeks having his time out, so they let him go.
EDDIE: What did he start doing, once he got out of the military?
AVIS: He went to Montgomery and started working. First, drove a streetcar, and then he came back home.
EDDIE: Was Uncle Otis already in Montgomery?
AVIS: Otis had gone to Montgomery. They lived there a long time, back of the capital - he rented there. Then, they bought this little place there where he lives now.
EDDIE: He was doing what, mechanic work?
AVIS: Uh-huh.
EDDIE: Uncle Elmer moved there and worked a while, and then came back down here.
AVIS: Before he went up there, I think, he and Una married secretly. I don't know how long they were married before they announced it and started living together. In the meantime, he came back to Enterprise and started working here and they took up their abode together. They lived in an apartment down on the corner from us, when we lived in that little red house.
EDDIE: Where was my daddy while all this was going on? Out bumming around?
AVIS: No, he was still at home, I think, still going to school and helping out in evening with -- he helped Vester Heath a lot.
EDWARD: About what time - what year was it that Uncle Ed took - I know he told me about riding the rails and all that. About what time did he leave?
AVIS: I don't think he left home until after I married. In 1927, Mary Stone came through here, and she was selling World Books. And I talked with her about could I do that. She said, yes. She was a little old maid, a real good lady and a good salesperson. So I went with her and trained and tried to sell World Book encyclopedias. You know, the Childcraft is the part I tried to sell. But I never did make a success, but I tried it.
EDDIE: Was that when you took up to getting married? -- About the time you were selling encyclopedias?
AVIS: I worked all the way through Texas and Oklahoma, and I came back home.
EDWARD: Tell Eddie about meeting Daddy.
AVIS: So, then, I went back to work for Clemmons after I came home. And this, another, lady came from Childcraft. She ? said there is money in it for you. And she was going to Atlanta, so me and Sue Edison both went with her, and we went to Atlanta to some kind of meeting. And from there, Sue and I went together and we went to Charleston. We went to Savannah and then Charleston, then up to Florence. That's when I met John. He was a widower. And the place I boarded, he ate there. He had come to eat at the table at about the same time we did. He was sitting at the table with us, and there were flowers in the middle of the table. And I was over here, and he was over there. He moved the flowers. He said, "These flowers are in my way" and everybody at the table laughed, you know, and they begun teasing me about him then. And sure enough, well, he asked me to go out with him, and I did. And from there, it worked into matrimony.
EDWARD: The reason I asked you about when Uncle Ed went onto riding the rails and stuff during the depression is because he told me about that when he and I used to play golf and work in the shop together.
AVIS: Well, that was 1929. I married. In 1929 and '30, he came by my house.
EDWARD: While you were living in North Carolina?
AVIS: South Carolina.
AVIS: Florence. He came there. And he came when my first child was a baby, and he was born in 1930, John Keith. And so your dad came by, and we were going to Charleston that weekend to see Mary and Ned -- John's daughter and her husband. And Ed says, Avis, I'll be gone when you get back. I said, no, wait, and stay next
week and maybe you can get a job. The depression was really on then. And John worked at - went to work in -
EDWARD: The reason Uncle Ed left was because - he told me a story that related to when I was in California. That was a long time apart, and it doesn't mean anything to anybody really, but since Eddie's getting what he's getting at that - do you remember him saying or when I went to work for the Chinaman there that I had to go to
the grocery store ?Dunn - Frank Dunn. Well, right across the highway, from where I was, was a railroad track, and there was a-they called it a river, but it was a gully. It was dry. And the hoboes used to - then -- this was in '52 or '53. But they would come over to the store in the back, and they would get the old potatoes that were rotten and cut them in two. Well, there was Mr. Mike Morehouse and myself that worked there. We got to where we would put stuff out there for them. And I was telling your dad about this, you know. He had said ? he had worked in the valley picking fruit and all that. And I told him about doing it, and I never -- didn't suspect it at all. And he said, he told me, he said, you'll never know the number of nights that he spent on that trestle. He said, I know exactly where you're talking about. He said there was just nothing was out there-where I'm talking about. That was kind of like from here then. That was country, you know. But I said, well, that's all city now. He said, I'm sure it is, but back then, he said, that was probably a mile out of town, you know. That's where the hoboes stayed.
EDDIE: Where was that in California?
EDWARD: Merced, California.
EDDIE: That was in what valley?
EDWARD: San Joaquin Valley. He went up and down the valley picking. A lot of people did.
EDDIE: Picking sugar beets and looking for any kind of work.
EDWARD: Anything, whatever they had - vegetables and - it didn't make any difference.
AVIS: Oranges.
EDWARD: Yeah, oranges, cabbage, lettuce - whatever was-
AVIS: Available.
EDWARD: Whatever you could get.
AVIS: Yeah, those were hard years. And my husband was well established with the railroad, and life was kind of easy for us.
EDDIE: Well, anyway, you said that you were in South Carolina and Daddy said he would be gone when you got back, and you said, don't go.
AVIS: Uh-huh. But when I came back, he had gone.
EDDIE: Where did he go to?
AVIS: He went to California.
EDDIE: He was hobo-ing then.
AVIS: That's where he had started.
DONNIE: Was that the morning you went to church or something, and when you came back he was gone?
AVIS: No, I had gone to Charleston in the morning, came back that afternoon, and he was gone when we got home. He wouldn't go with us to Charleston. Because, I said, well, stay here, ? But he was gone that night when we came back.
EDDIE: He was very predictable. You knew he was going to be gone?
AVIS: Yeah. I wasn't surprised at all. It always makes you sad when you know somebody is out like that with no destination, you know.
EDWARD: Well, I thought the same thing. In fact, I told your dad when we were talking about that, I said, "Boy, it must have been rough." He said, "I enjoyed it."
EDDIE: He would have.
AVIS: He didn't, though.
EDWARD: Well, I'm sure he didn't. There's no way you could. Nobody had a place to stay or ?
EDDIE: Sleep or anything.
EDWARD: Yeah. I heard him talk about how many -- I can't remember the place he said they would be. But said there was - every train yard would have a policeman, you know, a passenger. He said that when they got to a place, the policeman would come tell you, you know, now, this car, don't get on that car, they got something on there. But the next - he could tell him the number maybe.
EDDIE. You can get on this?
EDWARD: Right. They were helping them. They had to do something, you know, because there was so many people doing it. It was very interesting, and I know it was rough on him and rough on a lot of people.
EDDIE: He told me he was prize fighting out there somewhere.
EDWARD: I wouldn't doubt it. I never heard him say that, but I sure wouldn't doubt it.
EDDIE: I don't think he made a career out of it or anything, but he got in on a couple of prizefights while he was out there.
EDWARD: The thing that he told me about -- the incident I told you about there -- where I worked in California, which was thirty or forty-forty years ago, wouldn't it be? But I don't think -- if I had not ever mentioned that -- that he'd ever said anything about it -- told me his end of it.
EDDIE: Well, I remember that time we drove out to California or one time we went out to Carlsbad Caverns, we went to a place or by a place or two in Texas or New Mexico, somewhere along that route. He just wanted to go out a way and see this old place he used to work at.
EDWARD: Was that the time you guys went to San Francisco?
EDDIE: I'm not for sure. I don't think so. I think it's that time we, in 1957; we just got in the car and as far as we went was probably Carlsbad, New Mexico.
EDWARD: Well, didn't you go to San Francisco?
EDDIE: I did one time, yeah.
EDWARD: I'll bet you that he went by that place I'm telling you about in Merced.
DONNIE: He went by to see this man he used the work with.
EDWARD: Somewhere in that area?
DONNIE: Yeah.
EDDIE: In Merced, in the San Joaquin?
DONNIE: He didn't find him, though.
EDDIE: He didn't say anything.
EDWARD: I mean, he might just have ? went back for his own benefit to look. He never said that, but I bet you he did.
EDDIE: I wouldn't be surprised at all. Anyway, when he got through with his hobo-ing, where did he come back? Did he come back to Enterprise?
AVIS: He came back to Enterprise. He worked with Herbert, too, didn't he? Herbert Johnson ran a shoe shop. He was good. Herbert Johnson said your dad could fix shoes better than anybody that had every worked for him, if he wanted to. Said if he wanted to, he could take a shoe and make it look like it was as good as when it
left the factory. Herbert said if he didn't want to, it wouldn't look that good.
EDWARD: He could do anything he wanted to, period, that he wanted to.
AVIS: Yeah, if he wanted to. You know, later in life, he learned to be such a good golfer and golfed in-things. He golfed.
EDDIE: He was a good mechanic.
AVIS: Yeah, he was good.
EDDIE: Who was he working with when you married, Mama?
DONNIE: He was working over there at the Ford place where -
EDDIE: How did you meet him, in Enterprise, then?
DONNIE: I was working over there with Danny Carmichael. And - they liked him, and he was a good customer. He worked at the Ford place here, when we were married -- no, he didn't. He worked for the funeral home.
EDDIE: You would just see him on weekends or something?
DONNIE: Yeah. And he would come in there and eat. And Dan Carmichael wanted me to - he liked Ed. He said, now, Miss Donnie, you just fix your plate and when he comes in, you sit down with him and eat.
EDDIE: That was Alex's daddy, right?
DONNIE: Right. Well, I wouldn't do that because I was on-the-job.
AVIS: You didn't want to push yourself either with Ed.
DONNIE: No. And then, when we married, it just made Dan Carmichael just fuming mad.
EDDIE: Because you left?
DONNIE: Yeah, yeah.
EDWARD: Was he the one that got y'all together?
DONNIE: Yeah.
EDWARD: Then, he was mad because you left?
DONNIE: Yeah.
EDWARD: Well, he ought not ever have got y'all together then.
DONNIE: That's right.
EDDIE: And when y'all got married, you went on to DeFuniak then?
DONNIE: Yeah, about that same night.
EDDIE: On the night you got married, y'all moved to -
DONNIE: We married about twelve o'clock.
EDWARD: He told me, if I'm not mistaken, he said that a lot of people on Friday night would work till midnight or something, and then the justice of the peace would start marrying people; is that right? Am I right?
DONNIE: I don't know about that, but I had to work till -
EDWARD: I'm telling you what - it was about something y'all got married - something similar. I don't remember exactly what it was.
DONNIE: No, I don't know about that.
EDDIE: You mean to tell me -
EDWARD: Well, what time was it when y'all got married?
DONNIE: About twelve o'clock.
EDWARD: That's what I said.
AVIS: Because of work.
EDDIE: What time that day did you decide to get married? The day before, or that day?
DONNIE: It was on Friday, and we married Saturday night.
EDDIE: Y'all really put a lot of thought into that, didn't you?
DONNIE: Yes, sir. I don't see how we ever stayed together.
EDWARD: Oh, my goodness.
DONNIE: That was such a long courtship. That's the reason I don't say too much about it, it takes too long to tell it.
EDDIE: Don't ever get tied down here for a long conversation getting into that.
DONNIE: No.
EDDIE: Well, he always said that's the best thing that ever happened -- one of the two best things that ever happened to him -- getting married to you.
DONNIE: Yeah.
EDWARD: What was the other one?
EDDIE: Getting to know the Lord.
AVIS: Well, I'll tell you right now, if he hadn't married your mother, he would have been just like my father was. He would have died and left us - left all of y'all with not a penny a head, because your mother is the one that saved it. I mean, she knew how to -
EDDIE: Well, I think they worked well together.
AVIS: After he found her saving, they did.
EDDIE: Well, it wasn't the matter of that.
AVIS: It was too.
EDDIE: Let me say my little piece about that. If it had been just daddy, he couldn't have got anybody to work for him. Nobody would have worked for him. He was moody, and he would run them off if they did something wrong.
EDWARD: Be careful with that.
EDDIE: And also, he was like your daddy was. He liked a little bit of this and he'd liked to get him a little chocolate candy, and tomorrow, he'd be wanting ice cream. And the next day, he'd say either. You know, he was hop-scotching around. But then, again, if it'd just been Mama, if she had to run the show and hadn't had Daddy, then they'd still been in that old restaurant down on the side of the road. The counter - there wouldn't have ? changed from the day that she walked in there.
DONNIE: That's right.
EDDIE: And Daddy was wanting some change, you know, which was good. But then, again, Mama could work with the people. See, she could work with the help.
AVIS: And, too, your mother knew how to keep what she got a-hold of. She knew how to turn it into something that would save it, and your daddy didn't. He thought, well -
EDWARD: I think what Eddie is saying - and I agree with him - that Uncle Ed had some real good ideas.
AVIS: He did have beautiful ideas.
DONNIE: He did; he did.
EDDIE: They worked good as a team together.
EDWARD: That's what I'm talking about.
EDDIE: Mama and Daddy worked good as a team together.
AVIS: Yeah, I think so, too. She knew one side of the story, and he knew another side.
DONNIE: And I let him do anything he wanted to do. ?
EDDIE: Well, there's something you ain't told me about here - the Fields side of the family.
AVIS: Okay. Now, the Fields-
EDDIE: We took the Lammon side and come pretty far with it. But, now, I want to know something about Grandma - my Grandma's side of it. Tell me a little bit about it, her side of it.
AVIS: The Fields moved to Hartford. They moved four miles out from Hartford, out in the country.
EDWARD: That was after they crossed the Savannah River?
AVIS: Yeah. Edward wants me to tell about one time Uncle Joe went with me to take Jane and her children home, and I wanted him to go over in South Carolina because he always loved children and his people kept in South Carolina.
EDWARD: That was to Augusta, Georgia, you're talking about now?
AVIS: Yeah. They lived in Augusta, Georgia, at that time. So I said, "Uncle Joe" - when Hinton came from the Army that night, he worked at Fort Gordon. He was in the Army at Fort Gordon. I said, "Hinton, I want you to take us ? across the river, so Uncle Joe can tell people he'd been to South Carolina. We are going home tomorrow." So when we crossed the river, Uncle Joe says, now, is this the Save Anna River? We said this is it. Well, just to think my Grandma crossed this river when she was a little girl, right at this same place. And this is her place. I said, how do you know this is the place? Because they said she did. Of course, you don't know how many miles it was of the Savannah River. He told us one time why they named the river Savannah River. He said there was a woman had a little girl named Anna, and she fell off a boat and said she was hollering for all of them to Save Anna, Save Anna, so they named the river Savannah. We had lot of fun that night. Well, on -
EDDIE: Anyway, the first you knew of them, where did they - they were at the Barnes Crossroads?
AVIS: No. They came down to - they lived in Newton, somewhere near Newton, Alabama. So they moved on down there.
EDDIE: You don't know nothing about her mama and daddy much?
AVIS: Yeah. Her mama - her mother was an Atkinson, just like we spell our name ? Ursula Atkinson. And before she married, she was a Griffith. And Ed has a chest that Uncle Elmer Griffith, sister of Grandma Atkinson, my great grandmother, made. Mama said they called it a chest, I reckon is what she said. And said she always knew [when] her mama was expecting - Mama was the oldest girl in that family. Uncle Buddy was the oldest boy. He was older than Mama. And she said she always knew [when] her mama was expecting another baby because she'd find little dresses made and stuck in this chest that Uncle Elmer made for his niece ? [which] was Grandma Fields' chest. And then, when they came down to Hartford, Grandpa Fields-I don't know how he and Grandma met - Grandma Fields. And when he came down there to live - I thought it was real interesting, though, the way his mother and father met. His mother was one of the Matthews girls. And ? Moses Matthews ? had all them. Well, he was one of the forefathers of Dale County, Moses Matthews. And his - his father, was Mister ? -well, I can't say his first name {it was Alexander Bartholomew Fields__EBL} [Alexander Bartholomew Fields was a soldier in the Revolutionary War__ per Jane Atkinson.] But he was a Fields, and he came riding up as a Union soldier, and they fell in love. And it wasn't long till they married.
EDDIE: You don't know where he's from, then, do you?
AVIS: No.
EDWARD: You mean he was a damn Yankee?
AVIS: I don't know.
EDWARD: Well, if he was a Union soldier, he was.
AVIS: May be he wasn't. Maybe he was. I don't know. I'll look that up.
EDDIE: He was a soldier anyway.
AVIS: He was a soldier. Because [???]'s got that good history. She's got a good history of the Fields. We'll have to get it done.
EDDIE: Where has she got a history of the Fields?
AVIS: Well, she was a Fields, you know. I mean, she married a Myers. And Ms. Myers was a Fields, too.
DONNIE: But she's been everywhere to get-
AVIS: Yeah. She's worked hard. She's got a good history.
EDDIE: Maybe we can get some of that from her.
AVIS: She's really good. But, anyway, this - Grandpa Fields moved down to Hartford and bought this land, and he couldn't pay for it. And he bought it from a Mr. Daughtery there at Hartford. So, Mr. Daughtery said, well, I'll tell you, Mr. Fields, I'm not going to take this land from you. And next year, if you'll make - I think I've got this written down somewhere at home - I think it's five bales of cotton, I'll let that pay for the land. So Grandpa made enough cotton to pay for the land, and so he raised his family out there. And after they - let's see, now - what do you want to know about the Fields?
EDDIE: How many of them are there? How many brothers?
AVIS: Eight Fields. There's -
EDDIE: That's your mama's brothers and sisters?
AVIS: Yeah. There's three of the sisters there and seven boys - eight maybe - maybe ten. There's five boys - six, seven, eight, and three girls. And the girls are ten years apart. When mama was ten, Aunt Beatrice's born. And when Aunt Beatrice was ten, Aunt Ethel was born. And Ethel was the baby one, you know, but the boys, then, are-
EDDIE: Who were some of the boys? Uncle Joe?
AVIS: Uncle Joe and Uncle Buddy, who was a carpenter. He was the oldest. And then, there is Carlton and Mama, who is O'Keith, and Cornelius, Clamon, and Joe and Ellie - he was real close to the top. I forgot him - and Ethel - and Beatrice and Ethel. But they raised their family out there on the farm.
EDDIE: What little old community did they used to live in?
AVIS: No, it's toward - Tabernacle is the church they attended. Grandpa had always gone to a Baptist church, but his wife and the children all belonged to a Methodist church - Tabernacle. And Grandpa belonged to Hill Baptist Church. I don't know what they did with all those -
EDDIE: I don't know if you want to add to that, but I recall Daddy talking about how badly mismatched his mama and his daddy were. He said just that [they were] two distinctive people.
AVIS: Well, they weren't as much so, I didn't ever think, as Grandpa and Grandma Fields. I never heard - I don't know what he called her. She called him Mr. Fields. I don't know what he called her. I never heard him call her anything. And he went blind when he was an elderly man - went blind when he was out in back of the house picking some corn ? But he called Grandma to come lead him to the house. And he had a - some kind of eye trouble. He never did see any more. That was about seven or eight years before he died, and after I was married. I expect longer than that because, before I married, he used to come -- he and Grandma used to come to Enterprise to visit us. I thought they was so pitiful. She would -- Mama would say, "Ma, bring Pa to the table, and let's eat dinner." And Grandma was a little old squabbly woman, you know, and she would get up and take Grandpa's hand, and they would walk, you know, through this little old bedroom into the dining room. She would show him where to sit, you know. Well, then, after Keith was a little boy, nine months old, Mama went to stay with Grandma and Grandpa, because Grandpa was blind, and Grandma had just about lost her mind. So Mama went back out there. Papa had died and Mama was by herself, so she went to stay with them. And I went out there -- I come to visit them and -- they lived out there in the country in Hartford -- so after I got there and Grandma heard the baby, it got on her mind that she had a baby. And she'd say, your baby is crying, and I hear mine too. Where is my baby? That was my Grandma Fields. And Mama didn't have much patience with her, but I thought it was funny. I'd laugh at her. I'd say, Grandma, your baby is -- Aunt Ethel had died. Aunt Ethel married in 1919, I think, Aunt Ethel - Homer Barnes, and she died. She was pregnant and died when all the women that had that Asian flu - all the pregnant women - so many pregnant women died that year, and she died. It was 1919, I believe '18 or '19. -- And, I said, "Grandma, your baby is out there cutting air." And she said, "Aw, he's no such a thing." Mama said, "Ma, don't say that anymore," said, "you know good and well you ain't got a baby," says, "you know you're too old to have a baby."
Grandma said, "if you don't believe I've got a baby, you ask Dr. Riley for me, he bore them."
EDWARD: How old was Great Grandma, then, when you are talking about?
AVIS: Well, she was - she was hitting eighty in years.
EDWARD: Looking for her baby?
AVIS: Yeah, she had heard my baby crying, and she thought it was her baby. It just got on her mind. Her mind was weak. The Fields and Lammons had a marriage now. Papa married a Fields. Uncle Joe married a Lammon, Aunt Carl and Papa were brothers and sisters. My mama's brother married my daddy's sister. Papa's first cousin married Aunt Ethel Fields, Mama's sister. Uncle-Uncle Carlton, who is Jim and Eddie's daddy, married Lizzie Smith, who is Papa's first cousin.
EDDIE: You said somebody was Jimmy and Eddie's daddy.
AVIS: Jimmy and Eddie Fields. They married -- that was four -- two first cousins and two brothers and sisters that married each other.
EDWARD: If Uncle Joe and Aunt Carl had had any kids, then you and those kids would have been double first cousins?
AVIS: And that's one reason I went back to Uncle Joe was because I didn't -- when I had retired from the motel. My children married and had gotten off or gotten jobs. I went on down to Florida, and I was carrying a newspaper. I made good money. And Uncle ???? kept calling me, said Uncle Joe was in the hospital, said would I come stay with him? I said, "No, I won't come stay with him." And so he called me and said, Avis, somebody has got to help us with Joe. He's just got to have help, and there's just nobody else to do it but you. So I went back to stay with him. And me and him just got along real good. I said, "I'm not going to stay but just long enough for you to get strong again." He had been in the hospital. He was still in the hospital when I got there. But he-after I stayed there a while, we just kind of learned to like each other, and I kept on staying. And I'm still there.
EDDIE: What year was that?
AVIS: That was '59. Aunt Carl died in '57.

Note from Rosemary Rigby:
Great Aunt Avis:
I had great respect and love for Aunt Avis. She was also happy and fun loving and a bit of a character. She could be direct and say just what she was thinking, but in a way that you weren't offended, but knew you better straighten up. I would go with my mother and Ma Johnson every summer to visit Aunt Avis and sometimes Aunt Irene would come over to meet us. I would watch as they would cook and put up preserves, tell stories, and act silly like a bunch of pre-teen girls. She was a strong woman and I didn't know the extent of her strength until I was older and had children of my own. She was widowed early in her marriage and it was no easy task raising children alone. Being with her and her sisters on those calm summer days are some of my fondest memories.

Avis married John William Atkinson on 16 Sep 1929 in Florence, Florence County, South Carolina, United States. John was born on 20 Jul 1880 in Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina, United States; died on 20 Jun 1939 in Florence, Florence County, South Carolina, United States. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]