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Transcription: {SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
That paid for everything.
[00:30:06]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Was there much land around--

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Huh?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Was there much land around the house?
[00:30:11]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
There was in between our house and their house there was a lot. You could've built another house.
[00:30:19]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Then in between that, he bought the place, another lot, where he had the horses,
[00:30:25]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and the cows, and the pigs, and the chickens. It was awesome.
[00:30:31]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
My father was a hustler, not lazy like these bums today on the street doing nothing.
[00:30:37]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
We worked! We worked very, very hard. He worked hard, and we'd sell, uh--
[00:30:44]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
my mother used to sometimes I'd--
[00:30:49]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
if somebody wanted fried chickens, my father would kill the chicken, or one of us would have to go up and wring that chicken's neck off and kill 'em.
[00:30:58]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And then my mother, we'd pick the chickens and clean em, my mother would fry em.
[00:31:05]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And they'd give her, not much, they didn't pay much, but the peoples having parties; she'd fry their chickens.
[00:31:12]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
She used to fry chickens monthly, they said, and the people would give her, not much, a couple of dollars, cuz nobody- There was no money!
[00:31:21]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
There was no money, but they lived! And there was so much love in the home.
[00:31:27]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
On Sunday morning, we came down for breakfast, there was sometimes breaded pork chops with milk gravy,
[00:31:36]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and hot biscuits or hot cornbread, or spoonbread,
[00:31:39]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
and my father and my mother would put food on the table. My father would make everybody sit down on their knees and say a prayer before we ate.
[00:31:48]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And then, you know, the kids today never had no home like that. [[Laughter]]
[00:31:54]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
No. [[Laughter]]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
They ain't never, they don't know what a prayer is! [[Laughter]] It was a different life altogether than, the children today.
[00:32:04]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I said if they gonna come up in a home like I came up, with so much love, and we didn't have, we had the--
[00:32:12]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Our music was great big phonograph with round records, and great big horn, and that was our music.
[00:32:22]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
The Victrola.

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Yeah, Victrola. And you'd put that on and you'd wind it, then that was your music.
[00:32:27]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
But outside of that, we didn't have uh, and that organ, we had an organ, and we had a piano.
[00:32:33]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
And Belle, my sister Belle, she was the oldest, she played the organ. And we'd sing hymns every Sunday.
[00:32:41]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
When you went to the movies in Emporium,

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Yes.

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
When you went to the movies in Emporium, who did you go with?
[00:32:02]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Huh?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
When you went to the movies in Emporium, who did you go with?
[00:32:48]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
My sister Gladys and me would go to the movies. You're never allowed to go anyplace alone!
[00:32:56]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
We weren't supposed to go alone anyplace.
[00:33:00]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I went to the movies with Gladys, and I'd eat her popcorn to save my nickels, so I'd get extra nickels the next week. [[Laughter]]
[00:33:08]

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Did your parents go to the movies?

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Huh?

{SPEAKER name="Pearl Bowser"}
Did your parents go to the movies?
[00:33:11]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
No. I never remember my mother and father going to the movies. Never! Church? My father went to church, but I never remember--
[00:33:20]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
Oh, I'll tell you one thing, we went to the circus.
[00:33:25]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
My father would take that day off, and hook the horses up to the wagon.
[00:33:32]

And my mother and all of us would get in the back of the wagon with hay and we'd go to the circus, and she'd take a ham, she'd bake a ham,
[00:33:42]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
take a watermelon, so we'd have something to eat, and uh,--
[00:33:48]

{SPEAKER name="Victoria West"}
I don't know what else she took, but I remember the ham and the watermelon, and a case of-- they used to make what they called "Pop." It was like uh--
[00:33:59]

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-29 00:59:59