Willie Allen (A)
(5:23) Mr. Allen describes growing up on a sharecropper’s farm in Lauderdale County, Alabama during the late 1930s.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive Interview with Willie Allen October 31, 2011 Florence, Alabama Conducted by Rhonda Haygood and Patti Hannah (Also present are: His wi...
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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/279 |
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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 Willie Allen (A) Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Oral histories -- audios and transcripts Sharecroppers |
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(5:23) Mr. Allen describes growing up on a sharecropper’s farm in Lauderdale County, Alabama during the late 1930s.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Willie Allen
October 31, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Rhonda Haygood and Patti Hannah
(Also present are: His wife, Geneva Allen and two of his daughters,
Benita Logsdon and Sherry Allen)
Clip 1
Rhonda Haygood: Today is October 31, 2011. I’m Rhonda Haygood with Patti Hannah and we’re interviewing Mr. Willie Allen at his home in Lauderdale County, Alabama. We sure do appreciate you doing the interview with us and we’d like to start out by asking you first, when and where were you born?
Willie Allen: Right here in Lauderdale County. Not far from where I am now. Down on Middle Road. You know where Middle Road is, don’t you?
RH: Um-hm.
WA: I was right in that area right there. It’s where I was born at.
RH: When were you born?
WA: 1934. March 7.
RH: Who were your parents?
WA: Avery and Ruth Allen. My daddy was a sharecropper, so I grew up in the country until I got grown and most of my life is on the farm and living in them little old bitty tenant houses. First, the one I was born in is just a three room house. Then we moved out of that and into a little bigger three room house. And then that landlord built us a four room house so, four room houses is as big a house as I ever lived in growing up and it was eight of us children. You imagine that and my mom and daddy. And my mother’s mother, my grandmother, she lived with us on till she died. So she lived with us a long time. But can you imagine all them many people in a four room house and one of them rooms was the kitchen?
RH: Yeah?
WA: So, well I mean it’s, ah, as I remember life as, was good. I mean, I enjoyed it, my life growing up, even though things were a lot different than they are now. But like I told people before, you don’t miss what you don’t have, you know. Out there in the country we had a little ol’—just imagine we was in a four room house, no electricity, no plumbing, no telephone, no TV, no radio, no nothing. And a well was out in the back where we had to draw water out of the well with a chain and a bucket. You know we put a pulley on some posts and run the chain through it and that’s where you pulled the water up out of the well in a bucket, you know. Took a bath in a #2 washtub. In the winter you had to put it in the kitchen by the stove where it would be warm enough for you to take a bath, you know, so. But not knowing about plumbing and water in the house and hot water heaters, well, you know, that wasn’t no problem. It, it, you know, we didn’t know about it, so we didn’t miss it and it just wasn’t no problem, you know, growing up. But, ah, you know being a sharecropper you live on somebody else’s land. The landlord, he furnished the land and a little ol’ house for you to live in and my daddy worked the land. The landlord furnished the tools and everything to work it with and we’d make a crop and we’d give the landlord half of the crop. That’s why it’s called a sharecropper, you know. Right here in Lauderdale County is where we, where I grew up and lived like that. You couldn’t, back then you couldn’t get a message, you know, you didn’t have no telephone, no radio, if something happened it may be three or four days along before you’d find it out when somebody happened to come by and tell you about it, you know. So, I remember one day when, we had this little ol’ house where I was born, I, we, I lived, we moved out of there when I was about four years old into the other house, and I heard my daddy say—you know, we had a little back porch with a little shelf where you kept a water bucket and a wash pan and soap where you’d wash your face— and I heard my daddy say, he was out there washing his face in this little pan and said he looked down across the field and he saw a tree fell. Big ol’ tree fell. He told Mama, he told Mama, said, “Lord, that tree fell.” So, I don’t know, up in the day, that same day, I don’t know how the people, my daddy’s people lived at Iron City, Tennessee. Somebody from Iron City come down that day and told him that his daddy passed that morning. When he saw the tree fall was the time that his daddy passed. That was some kind of sign that he saw, but the tree didn’t fall. I mean, you could go down there, there wasn’t no tree fell. But he saw a tree fall, you know.
Patti Hannah: Oh, wow.
RH: Wow.
WA: So somebody got down, they caught a ride from Iron City down to tell him that his daddy had passed that morning, you know, so. But getting messages and stuff like that, we didn’t have no car, everywhere you go you had to walk.
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| title |
Willie Allen (A) |
| titleStr |
Willie Allen (A) |
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Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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FLCPLoral_hist279 |
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https://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/oral_hist/id/279 |
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http://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getthumbnail/collection/oral_hist/id/279 |
| _version_ |
1782468788932837376 |
| spelling |
Willie Allen (A)Sharecroppers(5:23) Mr. Allen describes growing up on a sharecropper’s farm in Lauderdale County, Alabama during the late 1930s.Florence-Lauderdale Public LibraryFlorence-Lauderdale Public LibraryWillie Allen2011-10-31sound ; textaudio/mp3 ; text/docxEnglishIs part of the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library CollectionContact the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library for permission to use. Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Willie Allen
October 31, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Rhonda Haygood and Patti Hannah
(Also present are: His wife, Geneva Allen and two of his daughters,
Benita Logsdon and Sherry Allen)
Clip 1
Rhonda Haygood: Today is October 31, 2011. I’m Rhonda Haygood with Patti Hannah and we’re interviewing Mr. Willie Allen at his home in Lauderdale County, Alabama. We sure do appreciate you doing the interview with us and we’d like to start out by asking you first, when and where were you born?
Willie Allen: Right here in Lauderdale County. Not far from where I am now. Down on Middle Road. You know where Middle Road is, don’t you?
RH: Um-hm.
WA: I was right in that area right there. It’s where I was born at.
RH: When were you born?
WA: 1934. March 7.
RH: Who were your parents?
WA: Avery and Ruth Allen. My daddy was a sharecropper, so I grew up in the country until I got grown and most of my life is on the farm and living in them little old bitty tenant houses. First, the one I was born in is just a three room house. Then we moved out of that and into a little bigger three room house. And then that landlord built us a four room house so, four room houses is as big a house as I ever lived in growing up and it was eight of us children. You imagine that and my mom and daddy. And my mother’s mother, my grandmother, she lived with us on till she died. So she lived with us a long time. But can you imagine all them many people in a four room house and one of them rooms was the kitchen?
RH: Yeah?
WA: So, well I mean it’s, ah, as I remember life as, was good. I mean, I enjoyed it, my life growing up, even though things were a lot different than they are now. But like I told people before, you don’t miss what you don’t have, you know. Out there in the country we had a little ol’—just imagine we was in a four room house, no electricity, no plumbing, no telephone, no TV, no radio, no nothing. And a well was out in the back where we had to draw water out of the well with a chain and a bucket. You know we put a pulley on some posts and run the chain through it and that’s where you pulled the water up out of the well in a bucket, you know. Took a bath in a #2 washtub. In the winter you had to put it in the kitchen by the stove where it would be warm enough for you to take a bath, you know, so. But not knowing about plumbing and water in the house and hot water heaters, well, you know, that wasn’t no problem. It, it, you know, we didn’t know about it, so we didn’t miss it and it just wasn’t no problem, you know, growing up. But, ah, you know being a sharecropper you live on somebody else’s land. The landlord, he furnished the land and a little ol’ house for you to live in and my daddy worked the land. The landlord furnished the tools and everything to work it with and we’d make a crop and we’d give the landlord half of the crop. That’s why it’s called a sharecropper, you know. Right here in Lauderdale County is where we, where I grew up and lived like that. You couldn’t, back then you couldn’t get a message, you know, you didn’t have no telephone, no radio, if something happened it may be three or four days along before you’d find it out when somebody happened to come by and tell you about it, you know. So, I remember one day when, we had this little ol’ house where I was born, I, we, I lived, we moved out of there when I was about four years old into the other house, and I heard my daddy say—you know, we had a little back porch with a little shelf where you kept a water bucket and a wash pan and soap where you’d wash your face— and I heard my daddy say, he was out there washing his face in this little pan and said he looked down across the field and he saw a tree fell. Big ol’ tree fell. He told Mama, he told Mama, said, “Lord, that tree fell.” So, I don’t know, up in the day, that same day, I don’t know how the people, my daddy’s people lived at Iron City, Tennessee. Somebody from Iron City come down that day and told him that his daddy passed that morning. When he saw the tree fall was the time that his daddy passed. That was some kind of sign that he saw, but the tree didn’t fall. I mean, you could go down there, there wasn’t no tree fell. But he saw a tree fall, you know.
Patti Hannah: Oh, wow.
RH: Wow.
WA: So somebody got down, they caught a ride from Iron City down to tell him that his daddy had passed that morning, you know, so. But getting messages and stuff like that, we didn’t have no car, everywhere you go you had to walk.
http://server15947.contentdm.oclc.org/u?/oral_hist,279 |