Opal Parkinson

Partial Transcript: I’m Opal Dalton Parkinson, and I’m eighty-nine years old. And my daddy was Eli Jerome Dalton. And he came from Edneyville up here in about 1900. His daddy run a boarding house in Bat Cave. It was called Slick Rock Inn, and it was a big three-story building. People came in the summertime and stayed. They say that my grandfather had three liquor stills before prohibition came, and they kept whiskey around, sitting in water buckets with a gourd in it for people to drink whiskey when they wanted to. My daddy's mother died young with cancer of the breast, and he moved up in Henderson County in Etowah, North Carolina, in about 1903. And we've lived here. This is the old home place. And it's the first brick house built in the Etowah community.

Partial Transcript: Well, we lived along the French Broad River.
Yeah, daddy owned about 250 acres here in the farm. And he raised corn, wheat, rye, and potatoes and things. And he truck farmed. And he always went on Monday to the Greenville market in South Carolina to sell his produce. And he mostly raised beef cattle to sell. And of course fertilizer was pretty expensive back then, but he said if he'd have known back then, he could have been a wealthy man if he'd used more fertilizer.
Well, I guess maybe working for his daddy. And he got tired of that, so he thought he’d get out around then. But he did carry the mail and rode a horse to deliver the mail way back then. And he married Ada Owenby from down there in Bat Cave. And he had eight children. And she died. And my mother was Harriet Allison Dalton. And she had been married to Odell, and he died. And they had two children. So they got acquainted with each other. She lived in South Carolina at that time, but she was raised in Transylvania County. And she came back up here to live. So they had three children together, so that made thirteen of all of us.

Partial Transcript: They called him Monroe, but he was Columbus.
Well, the saying was that there was three boys came from England to the United States, and my grandfather was one of them. And they was just—
They didn’t know—I don’t—back then they didn’t keep—write anything down to keep records of things—the years and dates and all.

Partial Transcript: My grandfather—he ran the boarding house.
They came mostly out of Florida because they had typhoid fever, and they ran a special train all the way to Tuxedo back then—way back—to get people out. And they came and spent the whole summer. It wasn’t for a week or two, but it was all summer. They brought their children to stay here. It was an epidemic and all that.

Partial Transcript: Well, my granddaddy died. I never met him. And then my grandmother did too. But my grandfather married again, and I did meet—well, they called her Granny Bunch. But my daddy’s mother was Ada Owenby. And that was his wife.
I guess I remember growing up with all these kids. And we worked in the field. We'd get up and wait for daylight to come to go to work, and it took all of us to make it—to make it go. And my mother was really a worker.

Partial Transcript: Well, we hoed corn and picked up potatoes when—come potato time—and dropped potatoes when they planted them. But they always used all the hands, and usually he hired a lot of help in the farm too.
As long—as soon as we could carry a hoe, we had to help somebody on the row. It was awful young.

Partial Transcript: Well, my mother made a big garden, and she canned a lot. And that fed us—helped feed us through the winter. And of course they would hole up cabbage and turn them upside down and dig a hole and put them in that, and kept cabbage and turnips, things like that through the winter to help feed the family. But we always had plenty to eat. And we always went to church. And all the children always liked to come home with us from church because there was always a pot full of whatever it was to eat. And we had a big pasture down there, and the cattle kept the grass picked down. We always had a place to play ball, and all the children from school and church and everything always liked the place—and many others too to play with. And all the kids liked to come home with us.

Partial Transcript: Well, farmers way back, and then the brickyard came. And that’s where the Etowah Golf Course is now. And the brick from this house came from the Etowah brick plant over there. And I had a lot of friends in school and
Well, we always played ball, just basketball or baseball or whatever. And we enjoyed playing on the basketball teams at school. And all my brothers and sisters always played on the ball teams, because that’s one thing that we got out and learned when we had time. My daddy said—when he wanted us to work, he said if we was to chase it—running a ball—we’d be after it, but we was too tired to do more work. (laughs)

Partial Transcript: Well, if there was something that needed to be done here, why, they kept us out, and we went to school when we got the work done, like picking up potatoes. And of course back then, to feed the cattle through the winter, they cut tops and pulled the limbs off of the corn and they called that fodder. And anything along—my daddy said anything was better than a snowball to feed the cattle through the winter.

Partial Transcript: Well, he—we’d take hickory nuts and walnuts—anything—apples and potatoes and anything.
He’d go to the market—he went every Monday, especially in the fall and the winter and in the spring. When he went down to Greenville, that’s when he always bought his fertilizer and brought it back and ready to go in the spring.
Well, he had—we had the first car in this community and always had a truck. And that’s the way he went. And I know my brother—he had to put a pillow in the seat to make him high enough so he could drive.

Partial Transcript: Well, we had a Chevrolet truck and—way back. But he never learned to drive. He bought a car, and they said he backed it out and hollered, “Whoa! Whoa!” And he never did try and drive anymore.
No. No, he just was backing it out, and I guess he backed into something. But anyway, they said—the tale was he hollered, “Whoa!” And he never got in it no more. Some of the boys always drove.

Partial Transcript: Oh, well, we had a lot of friends. We went to church. And maybe they had new Bibles around. They always—that’s one thing that people around here did was go to church. And whenever somebody died in the community, everybody went to the funeral. And the old things that you don’t hear about the church is the church bells ringing. If somebody in the community died, they would ring the church bell once for every year old they was. And everybody would—if somebody was sick, everybody knew who it was that had died.

Partial Transcript: The town. Well, my daddy owned the property where Etowah School is now. And of course my sister lives to the right of there. And building the school was really important. Education is a wonderful thing. When I started to school, they didn't want children six years old learning their ABCs or to count even to a hundred, but my mother always saw that we got that much. But the teachers always said they wanted to teach them their way. And it's just amazing to me today, the little children, what they can learn and do. I often think if we'd had that opportunity, what we could have done with our lives.

Partial Transcript: There’s ten—ten. They added two years onto it since I graduated from high school.
Well, they was always nice—I mean, the teacher’s part. And Mr. Jones—R.W. Jones—was the principal. And of course the older kids would talk about how rough he was on some of them. And I was always kind of afraid of him. I know one time I needed to come home from school. I think the dentist was coming through the community, and my mother wanted me to come home and have some dental work done, a tooth pulled or something. And whenever I went to ask him to be dismissed, I cried—I was so scared of him.
I loved math. I loved reading then. My mother—we’d bring library books home, and my mother would stay up all night and read the library book herself. And a lot of times—she was a good reader, and she’d read to us instead of us reading for her.

Partial Transcript: Well, I went to—I've always been a member of the Etowah Baptist Church, and I guess I'm the oldest member of that church right now. And I’ve always enjoyed the church service. I enjoy the fellowship with all my friends, and most of my best friends is the people in the church. And they had a Methodist Church, and they didn’t have too many members, but they kept—Joel Whiteside was the main one that kept the Methodist Church going and open. It was darn near never been used. And then the Presbyterian Church came into this community. And then there’s a lot of smaller churches around now. Pleasant Grove is right over to the left over there. And it’s an old church. It’s been there for years and years.
Well, when I was baptized, Arnold Edwin was the pastor of the church. And of course Brian Henderson is the pastor now, and he’s a wonderful minister. We have three other ministers with the youth and all in the church. It’s a growing—growing church. And he has us hold to the Bible teaching.

Partial Transcript: Well, families back then with a church—that was the main thing. I mean, that’s what—people stuck together. And if somebody in the community was sick, people would go and help the community. My mother would always go and set up with them all night. And Weese—Sally Weese—was our closest neighbor. And she fell and broke her hip. And the doctor wanted to set it, but she said it hurt too bad. And anyway she was crippled and bedfast. And my mother set up with her every third night for three years. And people just helped one another whenever they needed help—if it was food or staying with them or trying to help them. Of course back then, people built their own caskets. They didn't have bought caskets way back when I was a kid. And I just seen a lot of changes in my life—lots of changes. It’s all—most of it’s for good, all but the lower part. It’s falling apart.
Well, they’d maybe take potatoes and flour. And my daddy had wheat, and the thrashers would come and spend the night here, thrashing the wheat out. And they took it to someplace in South Carolina, and they’d store the wheat. And he could go get flour and what he had left in the spring, whatever he didn’t need to replant, why, they would buy it from him. And people like that, that had wheat and flour and stuff and corn—well, we had cornmeal grinders back then. You’d take your corn, and they’d grind it. Anything that you had, why, you just—you’d share it with your neighbors if you knew they needed it. And of course everybody had big families back then. There was a lot to feed.

Partial Transcript: Odell Owens and Guy Weese made—Sally Weese’s son that lived down there to the left. And they always—Odell Owens would always come and look at this house because it’s the first one that he had built—helped build. And he always wanted me to take care of it. He said, “Opal”—he said, “I wish you’d put up gardens.” So I put up gardens, and as things come and keep it improved. And even when the tax people come around to appraise your taxes, I tell them it’s the oldest house in the community. And they say, “Well, you sure have took good care of it.” (laughs) So it didn’t make much difference in your taxes.
Well, I was born in a house—a wooden house—up above, two-story house. And then they built this brick house. But we had a house built here before, and it burnt down. So I reckon my daddy thought he’d put a brick house and we wouldn’t have no fire. But I think the fire caught in the chimney some way in the other house, they said, was the reason it burnt. Of course chimneys today that they’re building be a lot better and well over the roof and brick and cement. We had them put up with mud.

Partial Transcript: Well, we had a well, and we'd draw it out with a bucket and carry it. And you'd have to have big buckets to store and to have so you'd have enough overnight and the next day. And then the pumps come. And we always had to pump water for the horses. The horses wouldn’t drink out of the river. The cattle would, but the horses wouldn’t. And the mailbox down here has got that old pump, if you notice it going out. That’s the pump that we pumped water out of the ground with.
Well, us kids. And we always—whoever didn’t have something to do, you had to go get the cattle in for the night and the milk cows. And we learned to milk cows. I said that’s one thing that you never forgot how to milk a cow.

Partial Transcript: Heat? With a fireplace. And then heaters came. And then oil came. And then furnaces came. So it’s just moved on. And it’s hard for people to realize really what a hard time—you know, people did help, but she made it—my mother. And she made quilts. And you’d have to cover up in the wintertime.

Partial Transcript: Yeah, she made most of our clothes—yeah, bought the material and sewed. And I was a sewer too. I learned how to sew, thank goodness.
Well, they had cotton when it was around in Balfour. There was a cotton mill. That’s out from Hendersonville. And that’s the first cotton mill around—where people could get a job that I know of. And then industries started coming in, before the beginning of the war. I guess they knew what was coming over in Europe. And Harry Strauss came to Transylvania County and built the paper mill up there. They made cigarette paper. And that was the first job that I had. And I was just old enough to go to work on public work. And it meant a lot to this community. And anybody that ever worked there, they say that that’s the best thing that ever came our way.

Partial Transcript: Well, we had what they called a granary, and we kept—we'd kill hogs and then sawed it down—hams and stuff and bacon and all that in the wintertime. That salt would keep it through the summer too. We had seasoning of course. They'd kill it, cook the fat out of the hogs and made lard, and that's what you seasoned things with over the years. Kids today don't know what lard and killing a hog or something like that at home really means. But I’ve seen a lot of them killed, beef and hogs. And of course they kept potatoes. They’d dig a hole in the ground and cover them up with straw or leaves or something in there to keep the dirt off of them and then cover them up. And you had cabbage and turnips and potatoes all through the winter.
Yeah, my mother was a big canner. She canned everything that she’d grow to put up for the winter.
Well, beans and corn. Of course not too much corn because sweet corn hadn’t come in back then. And it was mostly Crowder peas and green beans and green peas and maybe carrots and made pickles and sauerkraut and pickled beans and cornbread—and that creamed potatoes taste pretty good in the wintertime.

Partial Transcript: Creamed potatoes. That’s one thing I can always say. I tell people that I never knew what it was to be hungry. There was always something to eat. I say it wasn’t—I didn’t have cake and ice cream and candy. But to say I was really hungry and there wasn’t anything to eat—we always had a pot of something.
My mother made? I guess pound cake. Yeah, she always made pound cakes because we always had chicken and eggs. And she took butter—she churned and take butter and eggs to the boarding houses in Hendersonville every Saturday. And of course we had the first vehicle around, and it had seats on the side. And everybody’d be out wanting to go to town because that was about the only way they had from here going into Hendersonville. But she took her butter and eggs and anything—vegetables—anything she had in the summertime to sell.

Partial Transcript: Oh, well, anything that you needed—that she needed—if she needed one of us to help her like making beans or something, if we didn’t help in the field, we had that part of it. It went around and around, whatever you could do. There was always something to do. We had to get up and wait for daylight to come to get to work. (laughs)

Partial Transcript: Entertainment? Well, usually—the first band that I know of that they charged for was maybe ten cents. There’d be quartets come around and maybe perform at the school or at the church. They didn’t charge of course at the church, but at the school there’d be quartets around that would come in. We’d pay ten cents to go hear them perform and different kinds of entertainment that way. And going to ball games mostly.
My sisters all played the piano and organ. We had an old organ first, and then we got a piano. And my children, one of them took voice lessons, and the other one took piano lessons from Kate Dotson in Hendersonville. We went every Saturday to Hendersonville for them to take music lessons.

Partial Transcript: Well, the brickyard came in, but Mr. Drysdale didn't pay them. They got what they call scrip. And he had a little grocery store. And if you needed groceries, you got that, and they kept down what you got and what you paid, but he never paid anybody. And they said if you needed a pair of shoes that he would give you ten dollars, and you'd go to Lewis' store in Hendersonville and get a pair of shoes for your kids or something like that, but—as far as paying—but that was a way of making a living.
I had a brother that worked there for a while before—right before Ecusta came, and then after Ecusta came, why, he left and went to Ecusta.
Well, in the community, you’d say so back then. There was about forty to fifty people. It wasn’t too many. They had to dig that red clay out and shape it up. And then they put it in what they call a kiln, and somebody had to work at night and keep those kilns fired with coal to bake the brick. I guess now they use probably electricity, I’m pretty sure, to dry them.

Partial Transcript: Yes, the house. I think there maybe—there might have been a school or something that had brick. But brick was beginning to catch on. And old Mr. Drysdale, he had a brick plant out in Fletcher after the Etowah. He kept that one open a while, but it finally closed too. The Drysdale girl married Frank Todd in Hendersonville—Sheila Drysdale—they’d only—they just had the one daughter.

Partial Transcript: Well, growing up, there was not much to do on Saturday nights and things, if you dated, but we’d go to the movie or something like that.
They had a Carolina and a State Theater. And my husband worked for Coca-Cola- in West Durham. Ellis owned about eight Coca-Cola plants. They bottled it even in Hendersonville, Hickory, and Forest City. Asheville was the home office. And he retired from Coca-Cola.

Partial Transcript: I guess at a ball game—basketball game. I played basketball. I reckon he saw me. He latched on to me. (laughs)
About the basketball? Well, you know, it was about the main thing that we enjoyed in life and had tournaments. And there was about—well, let’s see—there was Mills River and Fletcher, Flat Rock, and Etowah. I guess that’s—that’s about all the high schools back then. But we had a tournament. Now, that was the big thing—the tournament and all. And one year when I played, we did win the tournament—Henderson County Tournament. And then the boys—I mean, today—they took it to heart. I mean, we think ball today—of course they didn’t play as rough back then as they do today, but they took it to heart.

Partial Transcript: Well, we dated for maybe a year or more before we ever married. He served in World War II. And my brother was shot down—Frank Dalton—he was shot down over Saint-Lô, France. And he lost a foot from the knee down. And the other ankle was stiff. He crashed in Saint-Lô, France. And he was a person of the Lord. And they had him in a barn over there he said treating him. But he said the Germans was good to him. And he said this doctor that worked on him spoke English.
But he asked that doctor, he said, “Where’d you learn to speak English.” And he said, “I went to school in Chicago.” But he went on, and he studied agriculture. And he just finished NC State College, and the war started. And he volunteered for the Air Force. And then after that, why, he went back to school and made a doctor. But he was a wonderful brother. And I have a sister still living too, Ada—Ada Rudisail.

Partial Transcript: I’m the baby of all of them. Yeah, I’m the baby. Well, my brother died about two years ago, but my sister’s still living.
he’s at The Bridge in Hendersonville now. But she has a daughter, Phyllis Rudisail Fitzsimons. And they really do look after her and take care of her real good. She has a son, Jackie, that lives in Texas too.

Partial Transcript: Well, when you think about all the murders and everything going on today, and, you know, that was something back then. I know when my mother and daddy, they bought gas—it was Claude Whiteside—he shot his wife. I think they said she was going to leave him. And she was going out the door, and he shot her in the back and killed her. And then he shot hisself. And that’s the most tragic thing that really happened—something like that.
Well, usually, with such a big family, it was something to kind of get everybody to get together. And it’s still. We got a picnic place there, and the kids was always around on the weekend. That was the most joyful time. There was always a grilling and cooking for them. That was weekends. One daughter lives in Arden, Doris Freeman, and Judy Pruitt lives in Shelby, Cleveland County, North Carolina. She’s a retired schoolteacher.

Partial Transcript: The Depression? Well, during the Depression, everybody was losing their property. And I guess Mr. McCrory, he started what just—jump off a big hotel and all up there. And he was buying my daddy’s property, and he paid some money down. And that’s what saved my daddy during the Depression was that he had paid some money down.

Partial Transcript: Yeah, well, a lot of people did lose their property during the Depression, and money was hard to get. And my daddy always had a little bit. And I know at one time he had about four or five people he’d loan money to, maybe a hundred dollars. And they’d pay it—let’s see now. I guess this—this is my grandmother and grandfather on my mother’s side. And she was Aveline Anders Allison, and he was Samuel Allison.
Well, I never—my grandmother did come and live with us—I just barely can remember her—when she was sick. But I never knew my grandfather. I think he died—maybe the year I was born.

Partial Transcript: This is a picture of all the family. That’s my mother. That’s my daddy. And this is me. I’m the baby.
It was taken—taken here someplace, on the property. And I’m the—me and my sister is the only two left—Ada.
This is the boarding house that my grandfather had at Bat Cave, the Slick Rock Inn.
It burnt a few—in later years, even after my daddy came up here. And I know my daddy—my grandfather—I guess he died. But anyway, it burnt down. But it was at Bat Cave.
This was the first school of Etowah. And Mr. Morgan taught there—there in Etowah.
Not any in my family went there to school. It’s just a picture of the old—I guess—it went down. And this is Oak Forest School. It’s where you turn in to go to Riverwind across from the Etowah Cemetery. And that was the second school in Etowah for the children. And I went—well, after the school closed—and of course they had church services there. And I did go to church services there later. And then the Baptist Church opened, and of course you go in the morning. They taught Sunday school classes in the afternoon on Sundays. Let’s see. This is the second school that was built in Etowah. And, let’s see—I don’t have that wrote on the back of it. I remember they tore it down, but it’s been about—maybe ten years or more—they tore it—and then rebuilt. And my sister started to school there in the first grade whenever it opened. And I guess you’ll get a picture of this place, and we won’t need to—
This is the home place. And it was built in—let’s see—I guess I was about four years old, so it’s been about eighty-five years. But the porches is different. But the house part is—you can tell the older brick and different kiln and all.
Oh, this is an old English house. Now, that’s where Riverwind is—the farm down there that they bought. That’s an old English house. It was three stories. My mother—Mr. McCall—the McCalls lived there. You was talking about people going in the community and staying with people who was sick. She went and stayed with him at nights some when he was sick before he died.
I mean, that’s where it was. Now, this is—this is Floyd Logan’s. I was talking to you about Floyd Logan. That’s his house. That’s where he lives.
Yeah. Yeah, that’s where he—if you want to go see him, that’s where he’s at. You turn over here at the Creek Bridge and then go up through there. Yeah, that’s the property that I own, and here’s a picture of the school before they started tearing it down. And we were looking—the Gash boy and I was trying to find this sign, Etowah’s Indian Ring. And this guy—Corn—Jim Corn—he was an artist. And he painted that Indian sign on it. And Connie Allison and Hal Allison, they built the brick. And they tried to save it whenever they was tearing the school down. Of course they had to get insured and all that. I don’t know why they couldn’t save it or leave it. But anyway, they cracked it, and so they just done away with it. But the Gash boy and I’d been looking for it and asking people in the community if they had a picture of that, that had that on it. We didn’t find it.
Yes, that’s where I graduated from. This is the—this is the Grady Allison house. That’s the second house—brick house—built in Etowah. He was the janitor at Etowah School all the years that I went to school there.

Partial Transcript: No. No, I don’t have no pictures of the dairies. I just got—I have a picture of the house where they lived, but I didn’t get any of the dairy. I just didn’t think about it—the dairy being important. The house is down near where I’d been with them. Let’s see. I believe this is—yeah, this is the Lee property. You know I was telling you about Claude killing his wife as one of the things that happened? They owned—they had a dairy too. And I guess most people around, they was getting into the dairy business. And that’s the old Lee property. And that’s where Claude Whiteside killed his wife. I mean, not in that house, but that’s where she was raised. And this is the old Banks house, just across the river, where they had the dairy. This is Charlie and D.C. D.C. Banks and I was born the same day. They delivered us—separated us. We were always good friends. We always knew how old we each was. And of course he’s passed away now. But he was a dear friend. And I know this is—this is a little house that Judd Wilson lived, up on the mountain here, if you turn up from the ridge down here. They had one son. And that was their home. And talking about people being out, they raised gladiolas and flowers. And they would take some of them to town and go with my mother.
What street? It’s just straight up the mountain here, just a mountain road. It’s about a mile up there. Pleasant Grove Church is still over there. This is a picture of Pleasant Grove Church. It’s just right across the river, there at Seven Falls. Seven Falls is all around it. This was Creed and Ruth Banks’ hog farm over on—across the river, where Seven Falls—they bought all the Banks’ property there at Seven Falls.