Oral History Interview: Margaret Cromer Oral History Interview: Margaret Cromer[Transcript Note:EC stands for Eugenia Collier; MC stands for Margaret Cromer; UFV stands for Unidentified Female Voice; UMV stands for Unidentified Male Voice].
EC: I suppose we might start Mrs. Cromer with just routine questions. So do you want to tell us where you are from and about your parents and so forth?
MC : I was raised in North Carolina - Jackson County. As far as parents is concerned, I don't know nothin' about them. I don't know a thing about no parents. I was raised by white people. It's true. I didn't have no kin folks. As far back as I can remember, I never got to sleep on a bed and never got fed like people feeds their children today. People feed their children today: they can go to the table and eat. But when I was a child, I had a black tin plate and a black pint cup and whatever I had to eat or drink was in them two vessels. I would set down on the floor. My plate was on the floor. I et like a cat. I growed up washin", ironin', tendin' to the children and doin' the best I knowed how. I didn't have nobody to teach me. Not like the people is taught today. I didn't know nothin' about goin' to church, nor goin' to school - nothin' of that kind. I can't set down today and write my own name. I can sort of print it, but I got so now, I don't do that very much.
EC: Mrs. Cromer, can you tell us how old you are?
MC: The best I can do is I'm ninety-two. I've been trained to work hard in the fields. I didn't get no house trainin' much. The biggest thing I got about house trainin' was I just watched other people. After I got a place where I could see, I watched other people and see what they done and how they done and I tried to do like they did. That's where I got my learnin'.
EC: What was the kind of work that you usually did?
MC: The kind of work that I did, most all my life, was workin' in the fields: in the woods cuttin' cord wood, cuttin' rail timber. That rail timber, it's measured off about ten feet. After you measured, cut it off, you'd have to split it up in rails. Then when I get the rails cut an' split, I'd put 'em on my shoulder and carry 'em and drop 'em jist where every one had to be dropped. Drop 'em just enough fur enough apart, you see, that they could have room to lap and make the joints in the corners.
EC: Were they very heavy?
MC: Yes, They was heavy all right 'cause it was all the time green you see, when you're cuttin' rails. I carried them rails on my shoulder; put 'em down where they belonged. The main thin', when I was a child comin' up, instead of havin' a bed to sleep on, I had to roll up in a quilt to lay down on the floor in front of the fireplace. When it come to eatin' a meal, I had my food fixed in that little ol' tin plate an' set me down on the floor and eat like a little cat. It went on that way till I got to the place where I'd run away. When I'd run away, then the dogs was put on my track and I was brought back. I'm scared of a dog today on account of that same thing that used to happen to me when I was a child. They'd catch me wherever I could find somethin' to climb up on and git out the way. But that didn't hinder the people from gettin' me. They would stop the dogs, take me home, beat me, and put me out for work: go to the field and dig sprouts and dig up roots, cuttin' timber, pilin' brush and all lak that. Later on, I'd have to set the fire. When it got dry enough to burn, I'd burn it. I've done everythin' could be thought of except learnin' the plow. I had made up my mind that I wouldn't plow an' I didn't plow. Outside of that, every bit of the work they could put on me on the outside, they did it. I went an' hunted up cows many a night - leave the field at night time, an' go in the woods, an' hunt the cows up, an' bring 'em home, put 'em up in the loft and milk them.
EC: Did you ever get a chance to sleep?
MC: To sleep? It was a mighty little sleep I got to do. You see, of course, I didn't sleep in no bed. I rolled up in a quilt and laid down in front of the fireplace on the floor. One time I was laying there and the fire popped out on me an' burnt me. I had to get up an' take water an' pour it all over my quilt, what was left of it.
EC: What did the people do?
MC: They put me outdoors then, out in the smoke house. When that night come, I was put out in the smoke house.
UFV: Were you cold in the winter time?
MC: Winter or summer. Didn't make no difference.
UFV: Were you afraid of snakes?
MC: Scared to death of snakes an' they'd be crawlin' all up [on] top [of me].
UFV: What did the rats do to you when you were out there?
MC. Gnawed my toenails off.
UFV: How did you end up living with these white people?
MC: I was cast-off among white people before I can remember.
UFV: How old were you when you started working?
MC: Just as soon as I got big enough to drag anythin' around the table. They put their baby in a basket, had a bed made in that basket, put their baby in it, an' I'd have to drag that basket all day long, every day, around the table. An' I was just big enough, I guess, that the people ought to have been draggin' me somewhere.
EC: What happened if you didn't do your job right, even when you were little?
MC: They'd beat me. I was beat with switches and anythin' they could get their hands on -- even beat over the head with an ol' shoe heel.
UFV: So, they really treated you like an animal.
MC. They definitely beat me just like I was somethin' that they had to beat to kill.
UFV: What about medical treatment? Did you ever get any?
MC: I don't know as I ever took a dose of medicine till I was a great big ol' girl about grown. In fact, I never seen a doctor.
EC: Were there any other black people where you were?
MC: One girl. She was stayin' with the same people that I was with. She run away in the night. Nobody never knowed nothin' about where she went. I don't know what happened to her.
UMV: What gave you the spirit to go on?
MC: The good Lord. If it hadn't been for the good Lord, I'd have been gone, gone, gone.
UMV: You prayed.
MC: Yes, I do. I believe that God is real.
EC: What did the white people teach you about religion?
MC: Nothin' except that a nigger didn't have no soul. He's just like a mule. When he dies, you just throw him out on the trash pile, or do anythin' you want to do with him.
UFV: What did the children do when they beat you? What were they saying as they were beating you?
MC: The people asked the children what I was. They'd tell 'em I was a downright nigger. Nowadays, you all folks have got a gravy train an' don't know it to what I had when I was comin' up. None of you wouldn't take not one bit of what I had to take.
EC:[Addessing the class.]One thing I want to remind you of, Mrs. Cromer is ninety-two, ninety-five, something like that. Remember that all this was happening after the Civil War. The slaves had been freed, so legally there were no slaves and yet she remained in a state of bondage until she finally….
MC: Got big enough to run away.
EC: Tell us about that, Mrs. Cromer. (Class laughter).
MC: When I got big enough to run, I'd run away. They'd put the dogs on me an' bring me back. Kept on that way till at last one night, the lady's husband was gone south with a load of apples, cabbages, potatoes an' things like that to sell. She called me to git up before daylight. It was three or four o'clock, as well as I can come at it. I had to git up an' take up her baby an' try to git it to sleep 'cause she hadn't had no sleep. I got up, come down, made up a fire, put the baby in the cradle, and rocked it to sleep. I didn't have no clothes nohow. I didn't have nothin' to carry, only one ol' bonnet. I had it hangin' on the door-knob. I put that bonnet on, an' me an' my bare feet, we walked six miles before daylight.
EC: That was in the winter too, wasn't it?
MC: Yes'm, it was winter time. I was barefooted, -- didn't have not a coat nor nothin'-only some rags that I had on.
UFV: I'm sure you got tired along the way. What were you doing?
MC: Kept movin'.
UFV: You mean all that time?
MC: Yes ma'am. When I walked out of that woman's house, I walked out with the intention of findin' some other place before I stopped. I happened to luck to find me a place. An' that woman, they say, tied her oldest chile to the bed, so he couldn't get loose an' maybe hurt the baby. She put the baby in the cradle an' she went to her father-in-law's, told him to go an bring me back - dead or alive. He got out an' started, even walked the same route that I had walked, but as it happened , the lady that I went to, had me back in the house an' wouldn't let nobody know that I was there, I stayed there the balance of the time that I was with the white people. She was good.
UFV: Mrs. Cromer, when was this? Do you remember what year?
MC: No honey, I don't. It's been a long time. It's been a long, long, time.
UFV: Can you remember having left there? When did you leave North Carolina?
MC: It's been a long time since I left North Carolina. I ain't been in North Carolina no more'n passing through. No, I didn't pass through. (Class laughter).
UMV: The lady that sheltered you, was she also white?
MC: Yes. There wasn't no colored people there son. There wasn't no colored people there, 'cept me.
UMV: But she was different though. Or did she treat you the same way?
MC. She treated me all right. She done pretty good. [Looking at the questioner] I said it was all right the way she treated me. Of course, she could have done a little better than what she did. I just thank the Lord, she did what she did do.
UMV: After all you've been through what are your feelings right now towards white people?
MC: I ain't got a thing 'gainst no livin' human an' no dead one. I try to love an' cherish the best I know how each an' every race an' every color. I know that people has got the same feelin' in a way that I have. I wouldn't want nobody to mistreat me. [Edited section - Mrs. Cromer continues the thought] The very best I can treat anybody , that's what I'm tryin' to do 'cause I had enough of it when I was goin' through. Even after I was married, I took my baby, laid him down in the woods, an' it's a wonder the snake hadn't got on him, -- an' picked berries. I carried them to different people an' swapped my berries for maybe meal or flour. I had it just as hard. You see, when I married the first time, I thought, "Well, I'm goin' to get away from these white folks now. I won't have to be bothered with them. I won't have to wait on them no more." I jumped up an' married with the purpose to git away from the white people. But what did I find? (Class laughter) I just jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. (Class laughter).
UFV: How did you meet your first husband?
MC: He was comin' up with other white people, waitin' on them. He was working for the white people. He come from different countries and that's where I met him.
EC: You were saying that you traded berries for flour or meal. What about money, the first time you handled money, when you were younger?
MC: The first quarter. I was big enough to have knowed better, if I'd been taught anything. But nobody hadn't taught me nothin' about money. The first money quarter that I got a hold to, I swallowed it and bragged that I had money and was gonna keep it. (Class laughter). I didn't have no sense. That was just all I knowed.
UFV: Where is Jackson County near? What city?
MC: There wasn't no city around there, not even a town.
UFV: Where were you born?
MC: I reckon I was born somewhere in that place.
EC: Cashiers Valley. Is that familiar to you?
MC: You see, when I was coming along, no colored people couldn't travel through that country. If they did, they'd kill 'em. Yes sir. They'd kill 'em. The place where I was raised at, no colored men couldn't travel through there.
[End of transcript. Transcript by Joan Andersen].
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