| Summary: | (4:16) Cleo McDaniel talks about early cars, FDR's visit to the Shoals, voting, and childhood activities. This interview is part of an oral history project funded by a grant from the Alabama Historical Records Board, managed by the Alabama Department of Archives and History staff, using funds provided by the National Historical Preservation and Records Commission.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Cleo McDaniel
May 6, 2009
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Patti Hannah and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 3 of 5
Patti Hannah: Okay, you said you had a car, what was it like when you got your first car?
Cleo McDaniel: It wasn’t mine, it was my Daddy’s. Oh, it was an old touring car, Ford I think. But he never did learn to drive. He tried to drive when he first got a car and he run into a tree and he never did try to drive no more. And some of us, me and, me and Buck, finally learned to drive and some of us had to drive him everywhere he went.
PH: Did you travel much?
CM: Not much.
PH: Describe for me the Depression time.
CM: Well, you know, it was hard times back then but we lived, we lived on the farm and we fared better than the city people did cause we raised a lot, you know, that we needed. Course, we didn’t have, we didn’t have many clothes, but we didn’t go nowhere to need them, I don’t reckon. And material was so cheap I, I could take a dime and buy a yard of material and make Betty a dress.
PH: Do you remember when Mr. Roosevelt came, President Roosevelt came to Florence?
CM: Well, we saw him.
PH: You did?
CM: Yeah.
PH: Tell me about that.
CM: Well I saw him in—we just saw him on Court Street. Betty was just a little girl and Ed held her up, you know, where she could see him. He was in a open car. Just down, driving down the street, Court Street.
PH: Was it a big crowd?
CM: Yeah, the sidewalks was just lined with people.
PH: What accomplishment are you most proud of?
CM: I’m proud that I was able to work as long as I did [laughs].
PH: What did you do?
CM: I used to sit with people. Home nursing’s what they call it now.
PH: Right, how long did you do that?
CM: Well, I started doing it after my husband, my husband died and he died in ’64 I believe and it was about a year after that that I started doing that and I was 76 year old when I quit.
PH: You did work a long time. You did. What’s the one thing you want people to remember about you?
CM: Well, I don’t know. I’m afraid, I’m afraid some of them might not remember something too good [laughs].
PH: Well, what might that be?
CM: Well, I don’t think I, I don’t think I ever mistreated anybody. I can, I can say that.
PH: Well good. Good.
CM: I was always, I was kindly always for the underdog. [laughs]
Rhonda Haygood: Do you remember the first time you voted?
CM: No, I don’t remember. I remember the last time I went. You want me to tell you that?
RH: If you’d like to.
CM: I don’t remember the first time I went to vote, but I remember the last time I voted for Nixon and never have voted since [laughs]. That was awful, but I was just for Nixon, you know, just for Nixon all the way through and then he didn’t do, I don’t know, I just—turned me against him. That’s why I just haven’t voted. If I’d have voted this year I guess I‘d have voted for Obama.
RH: Really?
CM: Um-hm.
RH: Do you remember what sort of games you played as a child? What did y’all do to entertain yourselves?
CM: Oh, I got out and played ball, with the boys. Played cards at night and stuff like that.
PH: So you were a tomboy?
CM: Yeah, I was a tomboy, real tomboy. I can remember Mama—there was a big hill in front of our house to the road, then there was a big hill up there and big ol’ trees growed up there and some graveyard up there too and, ah, I’d, I’d be up there climbing a tree or doing something and Mama would call me plum to the house and I’d get to the house and I’d— “What do you want”? “Well, put some wood in the stove.” [laughs] Put some wood in the stove.
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