| Summary: | (4:22) Mr. Crouch tells about his parents' home on the Tennessee River and an incident at his aunt's boarding house during the early 1900s. 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 Carroll Crouch July 10, 2009 Florence, Alabama Conducted by Juliann Losey and Rhonda Haygood
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Juliann Losey: This is Juliann Losey and Rhonda Haygood and we’re here with Carroll Crouch on July 10, 2009. How are you doing Mr. Crouch?
Carroll Crouch: Fine. Good to meet with you people.
JL: Well, thank you. So we were just going to ask you a little bit. Are your parents originally from Florence?
CC: No, my father was from Franklin County, or what’s now Colbert County, and he lived at Eastport. And Eastport is a place that figured a, a whole lot of activity during the Civil War. And he told me a lot of stories that went on about the people that live at Eastport. Now his father, or which my grandfather, he came from Illinois, right after the war, and he married a, a young lady down there by the name of Walker, Martha Walker. And they, they had a family. And these people lived along the river, on both sides of the river, you know.
And my daddy liked to fish a lot. And he had his own little fishing boats and everything on the creeks down there close to where they lived. He pointed out one time where their house was, and where Mississippi and I guess Tennessee and Alabama come together, you know? Right at the point, that’s where their house was out in the river. Course, after they built Pickwick Dam, the water come up, you know, and covered that area. And they left there in 1906 and come to Florence, moved to Florence, because they had the, the river flooded and washed their crops away. So that was one reason they come to Florence. I guess I could tell this story, I don’t know why not. There was a boarding house down there that his, his aunt run, and it, this was over on the Riverton side. And he said that a lot of people were working down there at that time. Must have been, I don’t remember when it was, but I know it would be before 1915. They’s probably working on these canals, that they was making up and down the river here or cutting stone out of the river just to make a dredge way, you know, for boats. But a group met at this house one evening and had what they called supper back then, you know. And they had, had their supper and everything. And these men all went down to, ah, to someplace there close by and sat around and told tales, you know. You know, just talked or whatever interests come up, but this one particular guy, he wanted to tell about him having a relationship with the girl that assisted in the, the table, you know, back then. And he went through and told a lot of tales about their activities or something like that. And so one of these people, which I don’t remember whether it was one of Daddy’s people or not or what, but they said, “ Now, you’ve told us that story,” said, “ I want you to go back up there and tell, tell Miss Sue,” her name was Sue Walker, Daddy’s aunt. Said, “ I want you to go up there and tell Miss Sue and that girl that same story.” And he didn’t want to go. And he said, “ Yeah,” said, he had a pistol and he said, “ Yeah, you gonna go.” And so he made that man go up there, and the man told him, said, “ It’s all a lie,” you know. But he, they called Miss Sue and the, the girl out. He told the same story, you know. He’s told him he was gonna shoot him if he didn’t. And, but anyway, course, he, he said, “ It’s a lie, it’s just, I’ve just lied,” you know. And so, this, whoever it was with the pistol said, “ Now, you gonna, you gonna leave town tonight.” See, used to when somebody got into any kind of hot water they’d leave, leave. Just, just disappear, you know. They could get on a boat or do what, whatever. But anyway, he said, “ You gonna, you gonna leave town tonight.” And he said, “ If you do,” said, “ I’m gonna come and find you. I’m gonna hunt you up and I’m gonna kill you.” And he said, “ I want you at that breakfast table in the morning.” So it was carried out, you know.
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