Lewis Gibbs (E)
(6:32) Mr. Gibbs talks about his teenage years, the Civil Rights Movement and medical care during his childhood years. 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, usin...
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| Format: | Electronic |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library
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| Online Access: | https://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/oral_hist/id/206 |
| format |
Electronic |
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Oral Histories Collection |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
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Oral histories -- audios and transcripts |
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Oral histories -- audios and transcripts Lewis Gibbs (E) Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Oral histories -- audios and transcripts Teenagers; Civil rights |
| description |
(6:32) Mr. Gibbs talks about his teenage years, the Civil Rights Movement and medical care during his childhood years. 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 Lewis Gibbs
July 29, 2009
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 5 of 5
Rhonda Haygood: As a teenager, did you have any special hangouts, anywhere special that you would go with your buddies?
Lewis Gibbs: Ah, yeah, we had, had parties as a teenager, we’d have parties and boys and girls would play games and walk, get to go walking with each other. It’s a matter of, of selecting you a mate is what it amounts to, but, but we had, had a lot of parties.
RH: Did you go to someone’s house?
LG: Oh, yeah, oh yeah, yeah. They, they would, they would give the party, you know. Some young lady or, I think we, I gave them there at my father’s house. And, yeah, that was the way we’d do. Pick cotton, chop cotton and that was about the only way we had of making a little money was picking cotton and chopping cotton. I didn’t chop much cotton, but I picked a lot of cotton. Before our crop come in, well we’d pick for someone else and make us a little money, and then after ours come in, we’d gather it. My father worked at the cotton gin. He was a, as I stated before, he, they were all mechanical-minded. And in the fall, he would work at the cotton gin, and we had a black friend that had eight or ten kids, and he’d hire him and sometimes he’d gather my father’s crop in one day. His name was William Darby.
RH: So you had good relationships with—
LG: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Ah, there was a fence, the Oates family, they’s a nice black family, and there was a fence between their, their farm and ours, and we had a good relationship. I remember seeing the mother of them and Aunt Het and all of them at our house. Come to visit, you know. Good, good relationships. We, ah, we had our standard of thinking, you know. But, as far as being harmful, it, we didn’t think it was harmful, but as an adult I seen that it wasn’t really fair to the black folks. But it takes years from, from slavery until equal, it takes years. You can’t force it on the public and we’re making progress.
Clint Alley: Well, do you remember anything about the Civil Rights Movement?
LG: Yeah, yeah. I’ve seen it, seen it all.
CA: Well, were there, was there any real problem, ah, in the Shoals during the—
LG: This, this section of Alabama had, there’s never been a real problem as far as between the blacks and the whites. Ah, even, even the slaves were—my grandmother, great-grandmother had six slaves. There was two teenage boys and four women. And that wasn’t a great, it was more or less a burden than it was, course they done, they done work like men, you know. But they had a good relationship.
RH: Well did you and your, did you and your buddies participate in any mischievous activities?
LG: Absolutely, yes ma’am, yes ma’am. All boys I reckon do. We, we used to possum hunt in my, on this three-hundred acres. About half of it was woods. And we’d get our possum dog and go around that place and we, one night we was hunting and we run up on a wagon bed, that’s the box that goes inside of the wagon. And what in the world is a man doing with a wagon bed out here? And we fell over in there with an axe, and we didn’t chop it out, but we chopped some holes in it. And come to find out it was my mother’s brother’s wagon bed.
[laughter]
LG: And he was a, my father he, he spanked me. And my uncle, he was the coarsest-talking fellow; I was scared of him till I was twenty-one years old!
[laughter]
LG: But we’d get in the watermelon patches, that kind of thing, you know. Uh, didn’t nobody care for you getting you a watermelon, but they didn’t want you going in and destroying them, you know.
CA: Um-hm.
RH: Um-hm.
LG: And there’s a black family moved in—now this was mean—moved into our community in a little shack, and we serenaded him until we drove him out!
[laughter]
LG: All the boys, teenage boys, you know. The adults was standing back watching us. But we, we was just like, all boys gets in mischief. I don’t know why they do. They, they’re, uh, venturing out into the world I reckon and just knowing, learning what they can get away with and what they can’t get away with.
RH: What about when you were sick as a child?
LG: When we was sick?
RH: Um-hm. Who, who took care of you?
LG: I was born, and I never seen another doctor until I was examined for the Army.
CA: So you, you were a pretty healthy child, then?
LG: Yeah. And we didn’t have, my mother was a doctor within herself, I mean. And all rural people were. They didn’t have the, one thing there wasn’t enough doctors. And another thing they, they didn’t—my brother used to break his arms. And my daddy had a terrible time paying for those, setting those arms. Didn’t charge but about ten dollars. But, uh, that was, that was a burden on a family. My sister had some kind of fever, but anyhow, we had to have a doctor with her, and we liked to never got it all paid! Wasn’t but ten or twelve dollars, but we just didn’t have it. What we had, we gr—raised our food on the farm, and we, we never suffered as far as hunger was concerned. You had a standard then, if you had to have cornbread for breakfast, you was getting in the, in the poverty stage. One time, I remember one time we had fried hoecakes for breakfast during the Depression. And you know, they were good! Put butter on those things, and salt and molasses. Wouldn’t care if I had some today.
[laughter]
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| title |
Lewis Gibbs (E) |
| titleStr |
Lewis Gibbs (E) |
| author |
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
| author_facet |
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
| id |
FLCPLoral_hist206 |
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https://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/oral_hist/id/206 |
| thumbnail |
http://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getthumbnail/collection/oral_hist/id/206 |
| _version_ |
1782468788490338304 |
| spelling |
Lewis Gibbs (E)Teenagers; Civil rights(6:32) Mr. Gibbs talks about his teenage years, the Civil Rights Movement and medical care during his childhood years. 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 LibraryFlorence-Lauderdale Public LibraryLewis Gibbs2009-7-29sound; textaudio/mp3; text/pdfEnglishPart of the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library collection.Contact the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library for permission to use.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Lewis Gibbs
July 29, 2009
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 5 of 5
Rhonda Haygood: As a teenager, did you have any special hangouts, anywhere special that you would go with your buddies?
Lewis Gibbs: Ah, yeah, we had, had parties as a teenager, we’d have parties and boys and girls would play games and walk, get to go walking with each other. It’s a matter of, of selecting you a mate is what it amounts to, but, but we had, had a lot of parties.
RH: Did you go to someone’s house?
LG: Oh, yeah, oh yeah, yeah. They, they would, they would give the party, you know. Some young lady or, I think we, I gave them there at my father’s house. And, yeah, that was the way we’d do. Pick cotton, chop cotton and that was about the only way we had of making a little money was picking cotton and chopping cotton. I didn’t chop much cotton, but I picked a lot of cotton. Before our crop come in, well we’d pick for someone else and make us a little money, and then after ours come in, we’d gather it. My father worked at the cotton gin. He was a, as I stated before, he, they were all mechanical-minded. And in the fall, he would work at the cotton gin, and we had a black friend that had eight or ten kids, and he’d hire him and sometimes he’d gather my father’s crop in one day. His name was William Darby.
RH: So you had good relationships with—
LG: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Ah, there was a fence, the Oates family, they’s a nice black family, and there was a fence between their, their farm and ours, and we had a good relationship. I remember seeing the mother of them and Aunt Het and all of them at our house. Come to visit, you know. Good, good relationships. We, ah, we had our standard of thinking, you know. But, as far as being harmful, it, we didn’t think it was harmful, but as an adult I seen that it wasn’t really fair to the black folks. But it takes years from, from slavery until equal, it takes years. You can’t force it on the public and we’re making progress.
Clint Alley: Well, do you remember anything about the Civil Rights Movement?
LG: Yeah, yeah. I’ve seen it, seen it all.
CA: Well, were there, was there any real problem, ah, in the Shoals during the—
LG: This, this section of Alabama had, there’s never been a real problem as far as between the blacks and the whites. Ah, even, even the slaves were—my grandmother, great-grandmother had six slaves. There was two teenage boys and four women. And that wasn’t a great, it was more or less a burden than it was, course they done, they done work like men, you know. But they had a good relationship.
RH: Well did you and your, did you and your buddies participate in any mischievous activities?
LG: Absolutely, yes ma’am, yes ma’am. All boys I reckon do. We, we used to possum hunt in my, on this three-hundred acres. About half of it was woods. And we’d get our possum dog and go around that place and we, one night we was hunting and we run up on a wagon bed, that’s the box that goes inside of the wagon. And what in the world is a man doing with a wagon bed out here? And we fell over in there with an axe, and we didn’t chop it out, but we chopped some holes in it. And come to find out it was my mother’s brother’s wagon bed.
[laughter]
LG: And he was a, my father he, he spanked me. And my uncle, he was the coarsest-talking fellow; I was scared of him till I was twenty-one years old!
[laughter]
LG: But we’d get in the watermelon patches, that kind of thing, you know. Uh, didn’t nobody care for you getting you a watermelon, but they didn’t want you going in and destroying them, you know.
CA: Um-hm.
RH: Um-hm.
LG: And there’s a black family moved in—now this was mean—moved into our community in a little shack, and we serenaded him until we drove him out!
[laughter]
LG: All the boys, teenage boys, you know. The adults was standing back watching us. But we, we was just like, all boys gets in mischief. I don’t know why they do. They, they’re, uh, venturing out into the world I reckon and just knowing, learning what they can get away with and what they can’t get away with.
RH: What about when you were sick as a child?
LG: When we was sick?
RH: Um-hm. Who, who took care of you?
LG: I was born, and I never seen another doctor until I was examined for the Army.
CA: So you, you were a pretty healthy child, then?
LG: Yeah. And we didn’t have, my mother was a doctor within herself, I mean. And all rural people were. They didn’t have the, one thing there wasn’t enough doctors. And another thing they, they didn’t—my brother used to break his arms. And my daddy had a terrible time paying for those, setting those arms. Didn’t charge but about ten dollars. But, uh, that was, that was a burden on a family. My sister had some kind of fever, but anyhow, we had to have a doctor with her, and we liked to never got it all paid! Wasn’t but ten or twelve dollars, but we just didn’t have it. What we had, we gr—raised our food on the farm, and we, we never suffered as far as hunger was concerned. You had a standard then, if you had to have cornbread for breakfast, you was getting in the, in the poverty stage. One time, I remember one time we had fried hoecakes for breakfast during the Depression. And you know, they were good! Put butter on those things, and salt and molasses. Wouldn’t care if I had some today.
[laughter]
http://server15947.contentdm.oclc.org/u?/oral_hist,206 |